INTRODUCTION: Welcome to the project known as “Writing My Brain”. In this project we had to choose a date to write down our thoughts, take pictures that reflect our written thoughts and have ourselves reflect back on the “day of thoughts”. This project was a great way to recreate yourself and learn how to manipulate or own brain, almost like hacking our brains. Throughout the project I learned a lot about myself. Without further interruption, I’d like to present to you my version of the project. I hope you like it.

THINKING IN WRITING:

Day of Thoughts:
Date Friday the 19th of September
*Morning/Breakfast*
Why can I go to sleep at 3 am and wake up at 6 am without feeling tired or sleepy?
Why is milk white and not any other colour??
MMMMM PANCAKES SOUND SO GOOD RIGHT NOW!

*Outside/Before Noon*
UGH it’s so cold out.
I wonder how other people perceive me.
I wonder how I would perceive myself if I saw myself from another POV.
How would we react if our sense of normal was completely different then what it is now???
What exactly is normal??

*While listening to music*
Why does my sister think listening to MGK is bad?
I wonder if listening to “Lil’ Wayne’s” music actually makes you get a lower score on the SATs

*Some time during lunch/Afternoon*
I hate seafood and beef, why does mom keep cooking it after I told her I DESPISE IT?!?!
I’m turning 18, why do I feel like I’m 14?
MY BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP! -GULPS RATHER LOUDLY-
I should really learn how to cook, and drive

*While surfing on the web* (approximately 3 hours straight)
I wonder what his secret tumblr url is
I want tickets to Reality Dance Tour
Am I the only one who is too lazy to move and get the remote control when it’s literally 8 inches away?
Okay mom I get it, clean this, clean that, take the trash out, stop listening to music so loudly blah blah blahh
Why do people find the “what’s 9 plus 10″ vine so funny? I don’t get it”
All this internet surfing makes me tired

*watching TV*
Why are all South Asian soap operas the same?!
Wow I never noticed how beautiful Deepika Paudokone (might have spelt her last name wrong, she is a South Asian Model/Actress)
What if they actually find ways for humans to survive on the moon, would earths population decrease??
My head hurts
UGHHHHH STOP FIGHTING! Who cares which pizzeria you go to, it’s all the same GEEZ

*Before bed on my phone*
Oh -insert curse word here- I forgot to do my old HW!!!
What’s 9 plus 10? 21 ahahahhaahah Not funny
OMGHSGXBSHSHDHSJSJ HE RETWEETED ME
Screenshotting and sending to all contact list
WOAH it’s 3:32 am already?! I should go to sleep
4:21 am OKAY I SHOULD REALLY GO TO BED
4:37 am UGHHHH WHY IS IT SO HOT?
4:39 am I can’t believe I’m texting myself my thoughts
5:22 am sjfdshjfgdhsfefhujfhdsjsd

THINKING VISUALLY: 

Cluster of Words – This picture contains a pile of homework that I have to do. This image shows that my mind really a literal cluster of words and mathematical equations. It also shows that I am a current student who is using education as a drive into the occupational world.

An Open Door to the Past – This is a picture of many of my old baby pictures, my first baby sweater and my cap from my high school graduation. It is supposed to portray that although I’ve taken a leap into the future, I still carry beautiful memories with me to enrich my experiences and life events.

Intersection of an Open Mind – This picture is of one of the stairways that lead to the main train station of Jackson Heights/Roosevelt Avenue. This picture shows that our minds are like train stations, we retrieve and send out information just like trains enter and leave the station. The information we retrieve in our brains are like the passengers who ride the train from one location to another.

THINKING RHETORICALLY AND REFLECTIVELY: 

My name is Afsana Asha. I am your average 18 year old living in New York City. Everyday is a new venture for me. I learn new things each day and try to use each of the lessons learned in my everyday life experiences. Just like every 18 year old, my mind is filled with many unanswered questions that I still deem to answer. It is said that our thoughts are a small frame to our brains. Our thoughts reflect our personality, mood, and adaptation to our surroundings and that is the main core to this project, to understand and be one with our inner selves.

In speech class we had to do an experiment where we relied completely on our auditory senses and block out all other senses. We had to choose a rowdy location, close our eyes, sit there and write down everything our ears had crossed paths with. This project was to help us understand how we are as listeners and to help us differentiate the meanings between hearing and listening. While testing out how my auditory senses worked, I found out that my thoughts tend to be scattered and dark. It’s as if I have a gray cloud hovering over my head. To further test my hypothesis, I decided to do a day of thoughts and write down everything I was thinking throughout the day. And luckily for me, that is exactly what my English project required.

Before we begin tearing apart my thoughts, let’s start with some scientific information about the brain to help us understand why we think the way we do. The human brain weighs approximately 3 pounds. It has 100 billion nerve cells that are connected to many different cells. Our brain encodes things as memories, which is physically stored in the wiring and chemical make up of the brain. As we evolve as humans, so do our brains. It changes overtime based upon languages, cultures, geography, experiences and our thoughts. So the decisions we made at age 12 will seem quite odd by the time we reach our 20’s or 30’s and this will go on as we grow older.

Now that we have learned a few things about the human brain, we can move on and dig deeper into our thoughts, which begins with “The Day of Thoughts”. My day of thoughts began pretty basic since I was focusing on the present rather than the future, which was eating breakfast, but it gradually moved on with whatever was happening. During my day of thoughts, I wrote, “Why can I go to sleep at 3 am and wake up at 6 am without feeling tired or sleepy?” (AAsha928 par. 5), this shows that my thoughts were directed at my present and not my future or past. I also thought about breakfast and why milk is white, I still have no clue by the way, which was pretty accurate and an “at the moment” kind of thought since I just woke up and was feeling hungry.

As the day progressed so did my thoughts. For example when I went outside, I began to have deep trails of thoughts. I pondered upon the thought of how I am perceived. Being a bully victim of many years, the way I view myself personally has been worn down but I wanted to view myself from another point of view. “I wonder how I would perceive myself if I saw myself from another POV” (AAsha928 par. 10) is a clear projection of what I was exactly thinking. Viewing my written thoughts I would definitely say that my thoughts are tailored towards the present rather than the past or the future.

To better reflect my thoughts, I decided to use pictures. These pictures were used to captivate a fraction of what I was thinking, after all a picture does say a thousand words. The first picture I took was to show my past, in this everything that was a part of my childhood up until I was a college student, (Asha, “An”) since I was consistently thinking about the fact I was turning 18 in a couple of days prior to the day of thoughts. Although the photo captured a fragment of my past, it also showed that I was thinking about my future and that no matter how far into the future I am, I will always carry my most cherished memories with me.

Another picture I took that I believe justifies my trail of thoughts is “A Cluster of Words” (Asha, “Cluster”). The picture shows that as an 18 year old college student I have loads of student work. It also shows that I have to use what I have learned previously and put it into my own perspective, paraphrase, via mathematical problem solving skills, essay writing and studying. This is a perfect example of using my past experiences to help clarify my “present” and a bit of my “future”. Although the things I learn now and have learned in the past seem to be a blur at the moment, I believe that as I grow older, each lesson learned will be cherished greatly.

After rereading my thoughts and going through the several pictures I’ve taken that reflect my thoughts I can say that my thoughts aren’t as gray as I thought they would be. Majority of my thoughts are based upon the present or things that relate to the present. Which makes a lot of sense because I’ve also reread a lot of my old journal entries and realized that everything I’ve written was based upon my emotions at the time. Although as a teenager my mood changes very often, I always try to think positively. I always keep my mind straight and try to avert my anger or sadness. I believe this shows that as humans we have the ability to manage our own thoughts. We can shift our moods and mind set using tricks such as listening to music, doing something we like such as a hobby, or use our passion as a strength. I hope that knowing these things will help me better prepare for my future endeavors and career.

As I am coming to an end with this project, I can definitely say that my hypothesis about my thoughts being scattered was proven incorrectly. Although at times I did have thoughts that had nothing to do with what was happening at the moment, majority of my thoughts were focused on the present. I hope this newly learned information can help me sculpt a better and clearer future. I also believe that since my thoughts are shaped around the present, being someone in the marketing/business, film, or fashion industry would be a pretty reasonable career for me. Which is great for me since I plan on acquiring an accounting degree and hope to pursue a career in the film industry in the future. I would like to conclude this essay stating that although my thoughts are focused primarily on the present, I still keep my main goal in life close to my heart and use it as a tool to be happy. I believe everyone has an opportunity to live their dreams, so your thoughts shouldn’t only be focused on the present but also geared towards the future.

 

 

WORKS CITED

 AAsha928 [Afsana Asha]. “Project 1: Thinking in Writing.” OpenLab. ENG101 D377 English Composition 1, Fall 2014, 23 September 2014.

Asha, Afsana, “An Open Door to the Past.” Flickr. 26 September 2014. Web. 12 October 2014.

Asha, Afsana. “Cluster of Words.” Flickr. 20 September 2014. Web. 14 October 2014.

Asha, Afsana, “Intersection Of An Open Mind.” Flickr. 24 September 2014. Web. 14 October 2014.