Course Reflection Essay: Stepping Out of My Comfort Zone

Starting college right after graduating high school this past June was not an easy thing to do considering I was not yet ready to continue my education. With this semester now coming to an end, I am happy that I stuck with school and didn’t take a year off. Mr. Paul Gasparo was quite the character this semester. I do not mean that in an ugly way at all. I’m just saying he always kept us on our toes and expected a lot, even if you didn’t say so. I did find this class a little unorganized but I found my way through in the end. Future students you can expect to think outside the box and come out of your comfort zone. I thought it was refreshing at the beginning of the semester when we had group discussions and they ended up being more like debates. I learned a lot about what was going on from the articles that you had us read. I wouldn’t be reading about news articles if I was just in my everyday life. Now, I find myself caring more about what is going on around me. The course is full of a lot of new writings that I felt like I was not prepared for. I felt like the Rhetorical Analysis and the Annotated Bibliography was kind of sprung up on us and I felt like we should have spent more class time learning about these essays. My struggles of English 111 were just the writing in general. I have always excelled at writing but, I have to say it was hard for me to get into these writings. It was seriously like clipping a rhino’s toenail, and that is not easy. But, I learned ways to getting into writing like by drawing maps and sometimes walking away from your writing for a while. I enjoyed the peer critique sessions that we had to go over our Research Papers and Rhetorical Analysis. I found it funny though how on the Research Paper my peer’s had little critique on my paper. I learned that peer’s are sometimes afraid to make comments on your papers. The teacher should probably collect the Peer Critique forms next semester, just to be sure students are actually critiquing. Peer critiquing and revising is really the most important thing in the writing process. I think that the teacher should have sat down with us on our rough drafts of our research papers. I felt like so many of us were so new at researching and a little feedback would have been nice. All in all, I really did step out of my comfort zone this semester. I researched Surrogacy, a topic I knew nothing about, but ended up writing one of my favorite research papers I have ever written. I learned to really push myself in English because that is when the best writing comes out. I enjoyed the Rhetorical Analysis because I actually learned that my mother is one of the reasons that I am the person I am today. This assignment opened up my eyes to the fact that I got through all the bad times I’ve had to face and that I’m just going to keep on going. This course helped me in so many ways. You are probably wondering why you will ever need this course. I learned that this course is crucial and the basic building blocks for the rest of your education. This class helped me to write a research paper in History and helped me to better communicate with other people. This course and teacher was a success. I’m happy with the results, and even with this corky man I learned a lot.

Final Dignostic Essay Draft: Laughed Until We Cried

December 2, 2009

The little grains of sand piled up and sunk in the back of my Coach flip-flops as I stepped out of Aj’s red Ford truck onto the Nags Head ground. This wasn’t my ideal vacation by any means. For me a frozen margarita and a white sandy beach was what I was expecting. But, I settled for a sandy beach with murky brown and green water. One thing was for sure I was happy for it to finally be June with the hot summer sun glistening on my back and my six best friends by my side. This was going to be the best vacation I would ever go on for the simple fact that I was with the people I wanted to truly be with.

The first day of the trip we all ended up on the beach. Aj, David, and Branden were all catching waves on their boogie boards and then tackling each other for the football on the shore. Lauren, Megan, Aly and I looked at each other and knew exactly what we were going to do for the rest of the day. I sprayed bronzing tanner on my body and lied down on my Marilyn Monroe pinup towel next to the girls. Seagulls were passing overhead and we wondered why they were flocking and making an awful screeching noise. All of a sudden we hear Megan say “What was that!” We reply “What was what?” We then lifted our heads up and looked around. I glare over at Megan bursting out with laughter. Aly and Lauren soon followed and started to crack up too. “A bird pooped in your hair” says Aly. “Shit, What?” Megan replies. “What the F do I do?” she then follows. Lauren couldn’t get her words to come out; we were all laughing so hard we were almost in tears. I say “Act casual Megan and walk down to the water and wash it out.” Seconds later a group of hot Italian guys from out of the country walk over and say “We are so sorry about your friend, how embarrassing for everyone on the beach to see that.” We continue laughing for the next half hour as Megan finally walks out of the ocean saying “I had to stay down there a while because it was so slimy and wouldn’t come out,” “ I really hope no one saw that besides you guys.” “Do you think anyone saw?” Our stomachs then hurting from how hard we were laughing, I had to run down to the ocean because I almost peed in my bathing suit right there on the towels. Aly reassured her that no one could have seen any of that because it happened so fast. We couldn’t tell Megan people saw that, she would not be able to walk onto that beach again if she knew. Birds walked by as Megan sat back on her towel. Lauren says “There goes your friends Megan!” Megan couldn’t help but laugh. Every part of a new conversation we would add in something about a bird just to get a smirk out of Megan.

The next evening we all drove out to the dunes. There were huge piles of sand that people could sand-board on, fly kites or just hike up. We paced ourselves for a long hike up the dune, the sand felt chilly and silky smooth at the same time under our bare toes. Our feet sunk in like quicksand as we reached the top of the dune. There were about six families on the dune, the sun was just about to set and we all sat down in amazement as we looked out on to the horizon. The sunset was better than any sunset I had ever seen in Virginia Beach, with hot pink, lemon yellow, purple, and indigo streaking across the sky. In that moment I knew I was in the right place. Hours later, we laid down three blankets, one right next to the other, corner to corner. The sky was clear and the stars were so bright because there weren’t any street lights like back at home. We put our heads all in the middle of the blanket so we could feel each other’s heads next to each other. After five years together here we were in this moment, after all the bullshit and all the drama we remained friends and laughed about it together now. We played truth or dare like we did when we were younger. The moons light shined right on the ocean making a huge path into the unknown. Aj unbuttoned and took off his Levi jeans and I followed right after feeling my pink sparkly tie-up bikini hit the sand. David, Branden, Megan, Aly and Lauren all followed along taking off every inch of their clothing. Dresses were flying, heels were clunking into the sand, belts were rattling and undies were coming off. We ran streaking down the beach in the pitch black dark with no one else in sight. Jumping into the water, it felt refreshing and almost unexpected, the boys splashed us and we were laughing and enjoying the time. We walked back out of the water with our white butts in the moonlight to the beach where our clothing was awaiting. David and Aj started a fire and we all curled up together as the summer breeze drifted though the air and blew the wisps of our beach waves. David played the guitar and we fell into deep thinking and started singing a familiar song that snuck up on us. Laughed until We Cried came on and so many memories came rushing back to us. Everyone looked at each other and we laughed as we saw that we were all crying like the last day we heard this song.

Looking back, this vacation by far was my favorite. I do not think that the important things are that you stay in luxury or go out of the country on vacation. It is the people that you are with that make it special and relaxing. I found that even an hour or two away you can get the same affect when you are with the people you enjoy being with. My favorite vacation brought the people I loved back and I even think I found myself in the midst of this vacation.