Category: My Journey Final Reflection (Page 2 of 2)

Tingting Chen

ENG1121(E-115)

My Journey (Final Reflection)

     This is my second semester in City-tech. My friends advised me to register at ENG 1121 later, because this class would much be harder for me as a second language speaker. I thought it over and decided to challenge myself. At the beginning of this semester, I was nervous about each class I took. I had to ask my professor how to complete the assignments after class. I was lucky to have a kind professor who always helped and encouraged me through all of my difficulties. I appreciated how my professor checked and modified many details on my essay. Every student can express his or her thoughts freely. Her creative classes opened my mind and gave me confidence that I never had before.

Tesha Donald

ENG 1121 E106

Professor: Schmerler

Tesha’s Journey

Dear Professor,

Tesha Donald Journey Tesha Donald JourneyWhat can I say my journey has been quite eventful and filled with a lot of ups and downs? It can feel like the downs are really down deep almost as if I am drowning. I keep trying to reach the surface and just as I am I am pulled in deeper. My journey begins about 20 years ago when I first started school I had graduated school early and I took one year off to try to plan what I exactly wanted to do. I am the last of five girl children and when you’re the last as my mother quite often refers to it “her wash belly” funds are depleted. It does not seem like your so luck when all your life your elder sisters say you are so lucky because you are spoiled.

I went to school for a year and then met the guy I just knew in my heart of hearts we would ride out to the very end. We ended having our first child or so we thought. One child quickly turned into triplets, one birth, definitely quite the shock. Everyone keeps telling you it’s a blessing. Or people will say you are so lucky. These people little do they know I never felt that way all I could say is why me what did I do to deserve and who said that I could handle this. The roughest pregnancy of my life and then as they say three miracles are born. So there goes that plan, school is now on hold, a twenty year hold.

After twenty long years and my daughter finally all grown up and ready to venture on their journey through school. I wanted to ensure them what my grandmother had instilled in me from since I was small growing up, till when I was rearing them up “the battle is not for the swift but for those whom endure”. She would always state this over and over and say your patience is a force to be reckoned with from small till now. This is what I took with me as I ventured to prove to my girls that nothing is impossible or too late. I never wanted the world all I have ever wanted was never to struggle too hard, to be happy, give love in abundance and receive love back.

I restarted my journey right back to where it all began and I must say I told my husband a hundred times I give up it’s like there are too many stumbling blocks in my path. From my reinstatement back into New York City Technical College till now has been more difficult than me raising triplets. I had issues up the wazoo. They did not have my test results and wanted me to take remedial, every time I went to register for classes they would say I needed pre-requisites which I had taken. They said I was not a citizen, they also said I need immunizations, my high school diploma. I have lost countless days of work, time, and sleepless nights. I have had classes cancelled last minute and had to request emergency change of schedule at my job. Very often I say to myself everything is worth it if at the end I have my Associate’s degree. It may appear as though it is taking forever but I am in no rush.

So here we are, I have arrived to my final lap here at NYC Technical College and it’s my final semester. They cancel two I my classes I end up having to speak to the dean to get course substitutions at the very last minute. How can you cancel classes the day before class starts? I guess this is the norm. This is just something I will never and can never get used to. I only need three classes but my love and passion for writing to express everything that is bottled up is what gives me relief. I decided to take English 2. I wanted to know just where I stand, can I write well and how can I make it better?

My journey leads me right specifically to English 2, definitely not your average English class but nonetheless rewarding experience. It started off great but somewhere along the line I would say March and April to be exact my life took such a down-hill spiral. My day year to date has been in the hospital for 8 months he is currently recovering from blood clots which traveled to his lungs and his heart. He suffered heart failure and a collapsed lung. He has had spinal surgery and now may never walk again. People have said at the very least he is to be here, or they will say he is so strong after waking up from his coma the same day my dog of ten years dies. Just when I though my heart could take no more, here you have it. She is what they call a teacup Yorkshire terrier with a heart of a big dog. She was filled with spunk and personality and more so love. She has touched and warmed the hearts of many. As I write this I am breaking down because I whole heartedly miss everything about her. From her waking up to the time we go to sleep.

My heart bleeds because I do not think anyone knows how much she means to me. Everything I see reminds me of her, but if it means I had to lose her to gain back my dad I will take it. My last epidemic in my journey is that I recently found I was pregnant a week later from losing my dog. Now my battle is between getting up, what seems like nausea all day and fighting with my dad to do his therapy. During all this ordeal my grades have suffered I have tried to apply myself accordingly and bounce back, but I feel still so broken. I only pray I make it through. This is not an excuse, or a pity party but it is my life and I own it all the pleasures and the pains, the failures and the wins.

That brings me to unit one, can we say explosive? This unit gets down deep and is insightful. It places it barriers and releases them kind of leaving you to write and think outside of the norm. I learned from others, hearing their stories, what drives them and what ails them. The most powerful unit I believe as it is the cornerstone for building the entire piece of work. I have included some of my strongest writing as I put my heart and soul in my writing. Revision is not my strongest suit but I have made some corrections along the way.

Unit two left me toward the end feeling like everything I thought I knew is far from the truth. What is genre? It is everything that surrounds me in my day to day life and then released in the way I speak, write, body language, and body language of others, things that others do and speak. It is in what we read and watch on social media, television perhaps even sitting in the train. Towards the end I got lost, for I could not understand writing in all these genres what exactly does it mean? Is this some kind of life experience to be delivered? I tried to push through and then my tragedies start to pile up in abundance. I did my best as I could but my focus towards the end begins to slip as I begin losing crucial time. It is not easy work full time, student full time, mom and wife full time. Children going through all sorts of discourse all the while I have a son lashing out. My bodies of work her I feel start of strong and fair out average. I included pieces like my response to Shi$%y First drafts because it spoke of my writing and confidence which begins to dwindle as this semester progresses. I worked on recipes and spoken word poems as my skill related to patience. This is where I begin to falter as I lose time and understanding along with it.

Here comes Unit three with a bang like now I am really lost I know how to do research but research my skill or the last genre. This was hilarious on top of all the mishaps and craziness here I am trying to figure this Unit out. I still do not have it quite all together but this is where I have to apply myself , make an attempt and leave it in the most high’s hands. Unit Three took me way longer than expected and I cannot imagine that I still do not have it correct. However I decided to combine as I did not want to lose my insight and all the research I did on both topics. So I guess I combined them and I am not sure how it will play out but hopefully it will end well.

Finally Unit four the tricky unit as I like to call it was turning wordplay into some form of media communication. Far more difficult to implement once you have an overall idea. For me it required creativity and fun. I had my idea but did not play out into fruition as I would have liked.

Overall the journey to here and now has had its points where I honestly thought I would have made it. I have gained a lot but required more attention and should have had better understanding of the units in order to fully capitalize on them fully. Perhaps the time lost from class and the fact due to my rigorous schedule prohibits me from gaining the best experience I could have had possibly.

Amani Shihadeh
ENG 1121 – D439
My Journey – Final Reflection

Dear Professor Schmerler,

This semester probably was one of my most difficult, with both being in school and work full-time it was hard to keep up at times. School has always been very important to me and no matter how hard it gets I always end up toughening it out because I care about my performance and grades. This English class had to be the most interesting English class I’ve taken, I definitely did not expect sitting around in circles sharing our creative writings, thoughts and ideas. At first I was not comfortable with it because, I’m more a sitting through lectures type of student. But being in this class has helped me in many ways, I can’t speak for the rest of the class but I definitely feel more confident in my writings and expressing my ideas because you taught us there is no such thing as a “wrong” piece of writing/idea and to just write anything that comes to our minds. I was able to dig deep and explore the many ideas I always had but was never able to express them through writing because I didn’t know how.

I’m not the best person to write essays, but in this class we were allowed to pretty much write whatever we wanted however we wanted and without the stricter guidelines that allowed us to write sounding like ourselves. Writing constraints was my favorite and least favorite, because just the idea of writing without certain letters seemed impossible but it definitely wasn’t, and hearing the many writings from my classmates just wowed me to believe that the more we dig deeper allowing our creativity to shine, anything is possible.

Submitted by: Wael Nagy

Course: ENG 1121/ E106

Date:  5/15/2019

Professor: Schmerler

My journey

Dear Professor,

My journey starts 5 months after I came to The United States. It began so hard for me as I am not English native speaker also my first time attending college in America, it was a big challenge for me. Term after term I start to use to it. The best class that I have ever toke in college is ENG 1121, which is not usual; usually, my English class is my worst class. When I came to class I feel excited and start to prepare for the class one day before which is also not usual. I learned too much in this class, I learned how to write without doubt form making mistakes, I learned how to organize my ideas before start writing. I felt a big difference before and after taking the class. Some of the material that the class covered an I felt it helped me a lot is the constraint assignment, yes the constraint assignment, some may see it not important as I see it, for me it very benefited for me it shows me that nothing impossible either the writing or any other aspects in life, it may look hard but not impossible. For example, when I start to write about a topic I feel that so hard to gather information about that topic but once I start to write it become easy.

Actually, I learned a lot from the English class but the thing that I felt it helped me inside and outside the class that topic (constraint). Really I want to thank my professor for the effort that she did with us.

Sincerely: Wael Nagy, 5/15/19

My Journey (fix)