Reflecting on My Writing

Looking back at the journaling that I have done over the course of the semester, I have seen much improvement. In the beginning when I first started using the journal exercise, the writing seemed sort of awkward and unsure. I did not really understand how I was supposed to be writing, and I had a bit of trouble doing it. As the semester progressed, however, my writing started to become more comfortable, and I had an easier time free writing. It became less of a chore and more of a release for me, and I think that progression shows through my writing. As the semester went on, I think that my journal writing developed more of a flow, and was more fluid. I do not know if this helped my writing in general, because I still have a hard time writing for other classes. When writing, it is still difficult for me to focus on one train of thought and get words down on the paper. Hopefully, I will be able to write with a more conscious stream of thought in the future.

Something that I noticed about my journal is that I have a ton more questions than I have answers. I am constantly questioning why things are the way that they are, and do not settle on any one answer. I guess that says something about my curiosity. This might explain why I am interested in the sciences. There is a lot of room for exploration in the sciences, and you often have to search for a while to find a good answer.

I also noticed that my views of what is right and wrong are often black and white. This is probably the logical part of my mind coming into play. As shown by my personality test, my ENTP personality type greatly values logic, and in my writing that is often very evident.

One point of my journal where my writing just fell apart was when we were asked to write about our goals and plans for the future. I completely froze up. Although that prompt was at the end of my journal, my writing seems forced and awkward. I did not like this prompt because thinking about the future stresses me out. It reminds me that I still do not know what I want to do with my life, and makes me focus on the pressure to make a decision. I have noticed throughout my journal that whenever the subject of the future, planning, or making goals comes up I either freeze up or avoid the question as well as I can.

Although journaling throughout the semester was somewhat useful in taking control of my thoughts and helping my writing, I probably will not continue to do this in the future. It was not too painful to do, but I did not enjoy it enough to continue to do it at my own free will.

Tenuousness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySoOkE92KlY

I love this song. This song is what I named my blog after. Andrew Bird's feelings about the world reflect my own. Basically in this song, he says how ridiculous life is, and how everyone is focused on trivial things. He explains the history of humanity, and how it has progressed into nothingness. Society today is so obsessed with technology, that it is hard to separate that from reality. He is a beautiful musician, as well as an intellectual. We are all just floating around on this Earth, without purpose.

What I've Learned (and other cliches)

            Coming to college, I was very confused about myself and the world around me. My feelings can probably be summed up by telling the story of the first time my roommates and I tried to go to a college party. Although I had been a frequent visitor of Philadelphia prior to move-in, I had certainly not visited North Philly before, and I did not have my bearings in the city yet. I was lost in the city, just like a hummingbird that was also lost in a big city. My new friends and I were confused about our location and the location of the supposed party, so we just continued to walk west. Eventually, we ran into a group of Temple Police, who simply looked at us and said, “Turn around, freshmen! You’re going the wrong way.” We were so clueless that the police, as well as every college student sitting on their stoop, could tell we were first semester freshmen. We had no idea what we were doing in regards of getting to parties, or life. We still have no idea what we are doing with our lives, but we have become pretty good at finding parties.

            In all reality, I have learned a lot about myself since coming to college. Something that I learned about myself when my professors started assigning homework and papers is that I have terrible work ethic. Try as I might, I always end up watching videos on YouTube, playing hide and seek with my roommates, or killing video game zombies with the neighbors when I should be doing work. Then, at midnight the night before I have an assignment due, I have a panic attack realizing the amount of work that I have to do. In high school, my work ethic was not great, but the miniscule amounts of work that I had I was usually able to do during homeroom and between classes. Writing papers is the worst for me, because I did not have to do it much in high school, so I procrastinate writing because I am not very good at it. Having a college workload has made me come to realization that I need to improve my time management skills. An activity that we did in class that really helped with that is making schedules. Writing everything out made me realize how much time I actually have in a day, and how much of it should be spent on doing schoolwork. Although I was not a fan of planning out every second of my day, seeing a list of everything that I had to do really helped me to get it done. I slowly started to improve my time management techniques, and eventually became the master of time management and work ethic that I am today. (That’s not true. I’m neither. But I do get all of my work done on time now, and even finished a research paper 3 days in advance last week, which is a huge feat for me.) I also found that managing my time well allows me to have more fun, as I have more time and am not stressed about all the work that I have not done.

            Which brings me to my next point: handling stress. For those of you who do not know, college is a relatively stressful adventure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place, but I’ve felt more stressed in this past semester than I probably have in my entire life until this point. Not only are there crazy workloads, but there’s also the stress of adjusting to new a place and new people, and the pressure to decide what you’re doing with the rest of your life. Talk about stressful. When we talked about stress in class, I honestly could not think of anything specific that I do to relieve stress. I knew I was stressed, but I did not know what to do to make it better. It must have come to me later in the day when I was singing along to the radio. Music is what relieves my stress. I had not thought it was a big deal when I decided to take a semester off from doing anything musical, but I hadn’t realized how much it actually affects me until I stopped to think about it. Singing is a hobby that I enjoy very much, but I hadn’t realized it was more than a hobby. Singing is something that makes me feel good about myself. Especially when singing in a group, it is satisfying and rewarding when you work at a song for a while and it turns out really good in the end. Also, singing releases endorphins, which naturally make you happier. I hadn’t realized it, but singing is the thing that I use to relieve my stress. I tried to find other activities that could take it’s place when I’m not able to sing, such as painting my nails like my partner, Maria, does, but nothing I do is quite as effective. Next semester, I am definitely going to try to find some sort of musical group or club to join, but for now I’ll have to live with midnight jam sessions with my friends, which I guess isn’t so bad. My point is, I have learned that it is important, even necessary, to have some sort of activity that helps you when you’re stressed.

            Something that I have had fun learning about this semester is all of the different cultures at Temple. My small rural down did not have a very diverse population, so when I came to Temple, it was the most exposure to diversity that I had ever had. My roommate is Indian, and I think that her culture is fascinating. Also, I absolutely love Indian food, which her mom constantly brings to our dorm. The food that her family eats is much spicier than I’m used to, but I’m working on de-sensitizing my taste buds so I can enjoy it more. I have met many friends of other cultures, many of whom have parents who are first generation immigrants, which is pretty awesome. I was excited to be exposed to all of these different cultures before I came here, and I am glad that have been. But aside from the delicious ethnic food, it’s not much different than being with my friends from back home, so props to mom and dad for not making me racist I guess. Actually, the first time I realized how diverse my environment really is, was after Thanksgiving break when the holiday season began. Back home, everyone in town would be preparing for Christmas, no question. But I realized that only about two thirds of the people in my hallway celebrate Christmas. There are many other cultural and religious holidays that the others celebrate during the holiday season, which I think are fascinating.

            An important thing that I learned this semester is how to live with other people. I have a younger brother that I have lived with my entire life, but living with a brother is a lot different than living with three random roommates. I have learned that in order to get along with another person that you share a space with, you sometimes have to bite your tongue, which is not always an easy thing for me to do. If you let every little insignificant thing bother you, then you probably will not be able to live peacefully with another person. Also, I have learned the proper, respectful way to interact with roommates. For example, if your roommate is taking too long in the shower and you need to get into the bathroom, an inappropriate way to deal with the situation would be to yell:

“Swetha! If you don’t get out of the bathroom in the next five seconds I’m going to throw all of your clothes out the window!”

A more appropriate way to handle the situation might be to calmly say:

“Hey, I need to get into the bathroom so I’d appreciate if you would hurry up.”

I’m confident that these newfound social skills will help me make great strides in life.

            Being in college, in a new setting with new people has definitely allowed me to learn a great deal about myself and about life in general. Being away from home and everything that you’re comfortable with really gives you a better perspective on life, and a chance to view things more objectively. I appreciate now more than ever all of the opportunities I have been given in life, especially the opportunity to go away to college. I think that after one semester of college, I know a lot more about myself, but am still as confused as ever, and I guess that’s okay. Although I wish there was always a figure here to tell me “Turn around, freshmen! You’re going the wrong way.”, part of the fun is figuring it out for myself.

Labels

I think I've already touched on the subject of labels in another blog post, but I'd like to revisit the topic.

I was walking with a  few friends of mine earlier today, and I made a comment about an issue we had been discussing. Upon hearing my response he looked and me, getting excited, and started yelling 'Fake feminist! You're a fake feminist!'
First of all, let me say that I do identify as a feminist, and it confuses me when other females don't. I respect myself and believe in equal rights, it's as simple as that.
Second, the fact that I choose to wear the label 'feminist' does not mean that I don't form my own opinions on matters. Just because I choose to be part of a bigger group, doesn't mean that I'm not an individual.
This is why I find labels to be so frustrating, and why I'm so reluctant to accept labels that are placed on me. Labels, while sometimes necessary, are extremely limiting and affect others' perception of another person. When individuals are labeled, it's easier for other people to make assumptions, which are often incorrect. They'll think, 'Oh, she's this, so there's no way she could do that, or like that.' Labels fail to take into account that people are unique, and and have their own prerogatives on matters. This is an issue that I constantly struggle with. I fear labels because they are so limiting, and I don't want to feel like I can't do something because I'm part of a certain group of people.

What I'm Thankful For

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I thought I'd take time to recognize things in my life that I'm thankful for. Something happened very recently that made me realize how important it is to appreciate positive aspects of life and not take them for granted, so I wanted make sure that I'm not taking anything in my life for granted.

• I'm thankful for my good health, and for the health of my family and friends
• I'm thankful that I'm surrounded by such wonderful family and friends, both at Temple and at home
• I'm thankful that I have two places (at school and my parents' house) that I love enough to call home
• I'm thankful that I am able and can afford to get a college education (this is probably what I'm most likely to take for granted- it's easy to forget how many people there are that aren't able to go to school)
• I'm thankful that I live in a country where we are able to vote for a leader
• I'm thankful that I am always well fed (no matter how much my friends and I complain about TU's dining services)

Goals

Setting goals made me very anxious. I've been relatively stressed, and when I'm stressed, it becomes overwhelming to see the big picture, although breaking up the goals into steps did help me a bit. Two goals that I was able to come up with are:

Get involved with music on campus:

• look up different music groups
• attend events/concerts
• contact people from groups that I'm interested in
• audition/join a group

Win the Dodgeball Tournament

• train with my team every day
• team bonding 
• surprise trust falls

These might not be the most important goals, but with all of the work I've been getting in class lately, I wasn't feeling overly ambitious. I guess an important thing to keep in mind when setting goals is to think reasonably. Setting unreachable goals or goals that you don;t have control over will most likely lead to disappointment instead of feeling accomplished, so the key is to set reasonable goals with achievable steps.

ENTP

ENTP. Apparently those four letters define my personality.
It's funny, usually labels scare me. I don't like the idea of being confined and having to fit into one stereotype. But when I learned about each personality type on the Myers-Briggs personality test, it was actually comforting to have ideas that I have about myself reinforced.
I think that the personality type I was given is accurate. When I read through the packet, I related to almost everything on it. In fact, some of it was frightening it was so accurate. For example, it said something about ENTPs being able to easily generate new ideas and see new possibilities, but unwilling to follow through on the ideas, as making a plan seems like a chore. I see this very much in myself, unfortunately.
Also, it said that under stress, the ENTP loses the ability to generate possibilities, and instead focuses on unimportant details. This is how I feel when reacting to stress, although I did not realize until consciously thinking about it.
One thing that I was surprised about was the extrovert component of my personality. I would have thought that I would be an introvert, but after reading about the extrovert, I thought it made sense. I wouldn't say that I'm a people person, but I do enjoy debates.

Stress

The activity that causes me the most stress is writing papers. It is very difficult for me to focus on one topic and gather my thoughts, especially if I'm not interested in what I'm writing about. This was stressful in high school, and now that I'm in college, it's an even bigger stress, because the teachers expect a higher quality of work. I don't know how to make this stress go away. I thought that majoring in math would be a good solution, but apparently I'm still expected to be able to speak English.

When I am stressed, I am easily upset and tend to cry about stupid things. I don't think that I take the stress out on anyone but myself, which probably makes it worse. Something that usually helps me relieve my stress is singing. In high school, I sang often in choir, musicals, and other events. Singing helps me relieve stress because it's something I can feel good about doing. Also, I've read that singing releases endorphines, which makes you happier. I haven't been singing in college though, and I think not having an outlet is taking a toll.

Another thing that I do when I'm stressed is take a break from work to drink tea and listen to soothing music. My partner Maria and I did that today while she painted my nails, which is her way of relieving stress. Just doing these things and not focusing on anything else for an hour or so was a very relaxing experience, not necessarily because of the activities we were doing, but because we were forcing ourselves to not think about anything outside of the moment.

Lost In Philadelphia

Well, I totally forgot what the blog prompt was, so instead I'm going to tell you all the story of how I messed up with public transportation last Tuesday and spent an hour and a half on the subway.

It all started with my Honors Law class. "Go volunteer!" she says. "It will be fun!" she says. So, on Tuesday afternoon, I leave class and head toward the subway to go downtown and help immigrants with their English (side note: I am barely capable of speaking English myself. I don't know how I got into honors, but my trying to teach immigrants English will probably confuse them more). I'm supposed to be at the Nationality Services Center on Arch Street by 5:30. Here's a timeline:

4:50 I get out of class. Two other students that I'm volunteering with say they've forgotten volunteer forms. I have too, so I graciously volunteer to go to the Honors Lounge and print everyone's forms out while they go drop their things in their dorm rooms. I'll meet them in fifteen minutes at Cecil B Moore station. I go to Tuttleman, print out the papers, and head back out.

5:05 I'm strutting my way toward the subway when I realize a crucial object that I'm missing: cash for tokens. Sighing, I turn around and go to 7-11 on Liacourus Walk, anticipating a quick token trip. Now I'm not sure if anyone reading this has been to 7-11 on a weekday afternoon at 5:00; before this trip, I had not. But upon entering, I realize that this will not be a quick trip. Apparently, 5:00 is a popular time at 7-11, because the lines are literally out the door. I look at my watch and get in line.

5:15 After standing in line for ten minutes (and moving three inches), I realize that I've actually had a ten dollar bill in my pocket this whole time.

5:17 I'm running out of 7-11 when I catch someone familiar out of the corner of my eye. It finally clicks in my mind that it's someone I did theater with in high school. I didn't know she went here, and I'm so shocked that I can't even avoid eye contact and keep running. We have a quick exchange, but I realize once again that I'm late. I run off toward the subway.

5:26 I'm in the subway station, and my friend Brooke. She says she's here too, but I don't see her. Confused, I look around, and in the process let an incoming train leave without getting on it. Great.

5:34 I still can't find Brooke, but I get on the next train that comes. I'm already four minutes late to volunteer. Grateful to rest, I sit down in a seat and let my mind take a break.

5:42 I've been on the train for almost ten minutes, yet I'm still not at City Hall. Does this seem right? Suddenly I realize that I've not recognized any of the stops on this train. Then it clicks: I'm on the northbound, not the southbound. Snapping back into reality, I stand up and get off at the next stop. I have to go out into the street to get to the southbound train, and I step out into a sketchy neighborhood that I'm unfamiliar with. Is it just me, or are people giving me funny looks? My heart races, and I clutch tightly to my bag. This sounds rather ignorant of me. Am I racial profiling? I cross the street and go to the other side of the station. I just missed the train. At this point I'm fifteen minutes late.

5:50 The next train comes and I get on. I'm going in the right direction. The problem is, I'm going rather slowly because kids keep messing with the doors on the train. Really? Is it necessary to make each stop four minutes long?

6:00 Brooke calls me. She says it takes ten minutes to walk to the NSC from City Hall. Great. As we pull up to one of the stops, I see a train coming up in the express lane. I'm finally catching a break! I run off of my train and on the the express. I'll be at City Hall in no time.

6:05 This isn't the express train. This is the Broad-Ridge Spur.

6:07 I get off the train, in Chinatown. I didn't know that any trains went to Chinatown. Looking back, that was good information to find out, but at the time I didn't fully appreciate it. I get on the northbound to go back to the Broad Street Line.

6:12 Once again I'm headed in the right direction.

6:20 I get off at City Hall. All I have to do now is get to the NSC. The trouble is, they've blocked off every street exit that I can find. City Hall confuses me enough to begin with, and this is definitely not helping me. Finally, I find a way out. I look at my watch. It's 6:30; volunteering hour is over. Defeated, I turn around and get on the northbound train.

The moral of the story is don't try to use public transportation when you're overtired. Or if you're incapable of using logic to navigate your way around the city.

I hope that everyone reading this enjoyed my story, and doesn't give me a zero for straying from the prompt.

Stereotypes

In class the other day, we were split up into groups according to what we were wearing. People with casual shoes went to one group, sneakers to another, and dress shoes which I was wearing, went to the last group. Once in the groups, we were asked to judge the other groups based on what they were wearing. It is interesting to see how people reacted once they were given permission to freely judge anyone on appearances. Some people were all over, excited to be able to rip the other groups apart. The chance to judge someone on a shallow level seemed like a fun game to most. Others were more reserved, afraid to say anything bad about the other groups. These people tended to stick with more generalized, neutral comments about the other group. Overall, it was a somewhat enjoyable experience for everyone to do the judging.
When it came time to receive our judgments from the other groups however, it was shocking to hear how harsh some of them were. My group in particular received comments such as "pretentious" and "low self-esteem." It was all in a joking manner, of course, but it was kind of a reality check to receive the judgment instead of judging someone else. It was funny, but crazy to think that people could infer (mostly incorrectly) so much about someone's personality just based on what they are wearing. In class, it was mostly a joke, but it happens in real life all the time.
This reminded me of my friends' attitude toward kids who attend Penn. I know this is not true for everyone who goes there, but many kids at Penn seem to have a pretentious attitude. My friends and I are guilty of judging people who dress like they go to Penn (why does everyone there dress the same?) by the same standards. Any time we see someone with boat shoes and a nice sweater or collared shirt, we start making jokes about how snobby they must be. This is ridiculous, because how you dress does not in define you as a person, but it's easy to get swept up into stereotypes and believe them.

Field Trip!

Reading Terminal Market

Reading Terminal Market is a wonderful place. As soon as you walk through the doors it's buzzing with hungry people and you notice the array of delicious smells. When I visited last Wednesday, it wasn't my first time there, but I was still overwhelmed. I am not good at making decisions, and at a place like Reading Terminal Market where you can find any food from any culture, it is next to impossible for me to make up my mind. But I was determined to try something new, so with a little help from friends, I finally settled on an Indian and Pakistani restaurant. While I'd had and enjoyed Indian food many times before, I'd never tried Pakistani food, and this seemed like a good opportunity to step outside of my food comfort zone.

My dinner excursion

I orded my chicken dish (I'm still not sure how to pronounce it) and confirmed with the men working there that it was in fact a traditional Pakistani dish. I tried to further converse with them, but neither spoke English well and had thick Pakistani accents that were difficult to understand. I then sat down and enjoyed my chicken and complementary chai masala tea, both of which were delicious. I can't wait to return to Reading Terminal Market with my roommates so we can all push our food comfort zones.

Tagxedo

Relationships

   It's  strange to  think about how relationships can help to form your identity. When you think about the about the person that you are, it's easy the credit yourself  with the making of that person and overlook the relationships that got  you there. But how much of yourself is actually a reflection of the influential relationships in your life? I think that it varies from person to person how much of an impact relationships have on their identity, but everyone's identity is influenced at least somewhat by relationships they've had in their lives.

   The most significant, identity forming relationship I've had is probably with my mom. I've never been super close with my mother, so it took me a while to realize how much she's actually influenced my personality. Unknowingly I picked up traits and ideas from her. I think that the biggest trait that she influenced is my open-mindedness and willingness to embrace diversity and change. I always took this for granted, but once I came to college I realized that this is not a quality that everyone has, and I started to think about why I am that way. I also think that it's because of her that I'm more apt to doing creative activities than sports. If I hadn't moved away from my home and from my mother, I might have never realized how much she influenced my identity.

   I also wonder how influential my friends are in forming my identity. While I probably owe the largest part of it to my mother, I still wonder how different I would be if I had had different friends in middle school and high school. It's interesting to think about how different parts of your life have influenced your personality. 

Reflecting

The reason that I wanted to be in this seminar class is because I felt so unsure of my path coming into college. I was (and am) unsure of what I want to study and do, and I thought that being in a seminar class would help me to figure myself out. Right now my path is uncharted, and there's nothing wrong with that, but by the end of the semester I hope I have more clarity with what I want to do.
So far seminar has been a bit different tan what I expected. It's a lot more interactive than what I would've excepted, but I'm enjoying it, and I'm enjoying getting to know other people in my class.
On the wandering map we did in class last week, two major themes I found were places and hobbies, although they rarely overlapped. Places and hobbies did both tend to overlap with people, though. I found that most of the places that I love are intertwined with memories and dreams that I share with friends and family.
 One place that I listed is New York City, which I've always dreamed of living in. My friends and I used to go visit and see plays often, and now a few of my friends are living there. It will always have a fond place in my heart.
Another place I listed is Lexington, Kentucky, where I visited a few years ago for my cousin's wedding. That struck me as an important place because all of my family was together at once, which hadn't happened for about 6 years before that.
With my hobbies, I noticed that they are social hobbies, which surprised me. Almost all of the hobbies are things that I do with friends, such as going to baseball games with my dad and brother, and making music with my friends.
I guess the overriding theme of the web was people. Although there are not a lot of people that I specifically listed, the people that I did list connect with everything else. It is interesting to have what is important to me laid out on paper and to see how everything connects.

Time Management Part 2

Well the results are in, and it turns out that I'm not great at following a set schedule. Other than classes< I didn't really follow any of the set events on my schedule. Here's what I ended up doing this week:

The interesting thing is that although I didn't follow the set times on my schedule, I did end up doing most of the things that I wanted to do. While planning out every second of my time didn't work for me, I found that having everything written down helped me manage my time and be more productive. I didn't like planning my time on a schedule because I tend to be spontaneous, and the schedule didn't allow for that. I think that in the future I am going to write more of a list as opposed to a schedule because I've learned that is what works best for me. So although this exact method of time management didn't work, it did help lead me to something more efficient. 

First Impressions

The concept of first impressions is strange. I feel like it's not something that is usually consciously thought about, but when you dwell on it you start to wonder. How much do first impressions actually affect the way a person perceives you? In class, we each wrote our first impressions of each other on notecards that we passed around. When I got mine back, it made me wonder how true I am to my personality when I first meet people.  Here's a picture of my notecard with the responses:

I thought that the comment that I was "reasonable" was interesting. I would say this is fairly accurate, as I am a logical person. It's interesting how team building brings out traits in people that might otherwise take a while to find.

Two of the comments on my notecard are contradictory. I was called both "outgoing" and "quiet". I don't know how I could make such a strong impression on one person to be called outgoing, and such a weak impression on another to be called quiet.

I also wonder about how I let subconscious first impressions of other people affect the way I perceive them. How many times have I let something meaningless negatively affect the way I saw them after the meeting was over? For example, I felt irritated by one member of my group, but when I actually broke down the each thought about them I had to write on the notecard, I realized that they weren't as terrible as I had thought at first. As people we are so judgmental, and that will never change, but sometimes it does good to step back from a situation to figure out where the judgments are coming from. 

Time Management

Well, I made a schedule for this week. Let's see if I can stick to it. More news to come.

Who Am I?

There are only three words, but it is such a loaded question. While I believe that it’s next to impossible to try to describe oneself on paper, I am going to try my best to do just that in the next few lines.

         I am logical. I enjoy when things are logical. That is why I like math so much.

         I am theatrical.

         I am musical. I like to make music. I like to listen to music.

         I am very opinionated. And I tend to be loud about my opinions.

         I am excited to be in college and studying subjects that I enjoy.

         I am bad at making decisions. I am very indecisive.

I am a big fan of comedy and satire.

         I am appreciative of and interested in other cultures.

         I am loving Temple (especially honors!)

         I am a friend, a sister, and a daughter.

         I am a perfectionist, which is one of my best and worst traits.

         I am blonde. I am average height.

         I am unsure about my future and my course of study.

         I am a bookworm.

         

While none of these words by themselves describe me completely, together they start to make a bigger picture of who I am.