The Reflecting Pool

Wow- it’s hard to believe this quarter is almost over and I’ve managed to live through it. It’s been a challenge to return to school after 32 years. I’m grateful for the support of my husband and co-workers, but I’m most grateful for the support of my classmates and instructors, who challenged me to step out of my comfort zone. I’ve always felt that anything worth having was worth working for, and this is no exception. What factors have led me to be in this class in the first place?

Here’s my story: After graduating high school in 1975, through an unfortunate turn of events I saw my academic scholarship to the UW slip away. I attended a local community college and graduated with a degree which served me well. I worked part time while my husband and I raised our children, but now my years as room mother, soccer coach and part time stay-at-home mom have passed. In 2004, after spending many years as a lab technician I began a new career in the field of bioethics in clinical research. Although this career track was a perfect fit for my values, something was missing: that lost opportunity to obtain a Bachelor’s degree had left a void in my life. Today, I'm a married woman with grown children, and I’ve decided to fulfill my lifelong dream by returning to the UW for a B.A. in Public Health.

Throughout my life I've been fortunate to have known many interesting people from all walks of life. I've come to appreciate people's varied perspectives and the factors that have shaped them. Some people like to label me as a liberal; I prefer to think of myself as open minded. Through my participation in this class I’ve reaffirmed my position on the importance of embracing diversity in my life. My careers in healthcare and in an academic environment have afforded me exposure to diverse cultures, and while I’ve always tried to celebrate the differences, this course has enabled me to step outside of my shoes and consider those differences from another person’s standpoint.

This English class is the first step on my journey towards that Bachelor’s degree. The diversity component of the course is an added benefit in that it has taken the English 101curriculum and made the course more thought provoking and challenging by exploring the ideals of identity, community, and tradition. The class and my classmates have stretched my perspectives and expanded my insights. Although I use critical thinking skills every day at work, it seems that applying them in an academic setting is similar to returning to the gym to work the upper body when you’ve been working on just the lower body for a long time. In expanding on these processes I’ve caught myself thinking about them in my sleep. As I recently posted on a discussion board, “If only I could think as clearly when I’m awake as when I’m asleep- and why is it that I can’t remember all the really good stuff from my sleep/think processes? This tells me that I have set mental boundaries for myself that I have difficulty crossing”. There’s the word of the quarter: boundaries.

Through this course I’ve discovered that boundaries are much more than simple lines in the sand. Identity boundaries are evident in the ways in which we perceive ourselves or others. In her essay “Who You Callin’ a Bitch?” Queen Latifah indicates that her identity is influenced by the choices she’s made. In contrast, Emily White’s work titled “High School’s Secret Life” illustrates how identity is defined by how we perceive others, using high school students as an example when they “imitate one another, because the imitation speaks of their power” (18). I now have a greater appreciation for what boundaries are, how they affect us, and how we respond to them.

I’ve learned that community boundaries present themselves when we try to determine how we fit in with others, which in turn adds another dimension to the development of our identities. The community unit expanded my own concepts to consider those communities that may not necessarily act in the best interests of their members, and to think about how being in these communities affects a person’s identity. In “A Secret Society of the Starving” essayist Mim Udovitch describes Internet sites as places for anorexic girls to connect; their identities are defined by their membership in a faceless club. On the other hand, gang members publicly declare their membership in the ways they dress and communicate. This class has inspired me to look beyond the obvious illustrations of community that we see on a daily basis and to conclude that we all have a strong need to belong.

The challenge of maintaining old traditions while assimilating new ones is a natural part of our evolving society, and is something we all struggle with. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” Gloria Anzaldua demonstrates the struggles faced by immigrants as they try to integrate into American society while maintaining their native roots. The “traditions” unit really stretched my thought processes and made me look past my own concepts of traditions, based on my middle aged, white, female, and moderate station in life.

The pieces I've chosen to include in my e-portfolio are:

1. Critical Thinking: Timed Write #2- "Crash". I enjoyed this movie and the team discussion that followed. This particular section of the course challenged my sense of boundaries by allowing me to look past the obvious boundary of race and see that everyone has boundaries of some type that can be destructive to others and/or self-limiting to personal growth.

2. Revision Skills: Identity Paper "It's All Up to You". I changed the title to "The Choice is Yours" because I felt it was a better fit for the essay. Since I scored my lowest grade on this paper, it seemed a logical choice for revision. While all of the assumptions in the Identity unit were valid ones, I felt the strongest about the assumption that identity is shaped by personal choices.

3. Illustration of Awareness of Audience/Voice: For this piece I chose my discussion board posting "The Evolution of My Identity Markers" which demonstrates my skill at synthesizing various readings into one main idea.

4. Writer's Choice: "Dating Trends in Popular Culture" (Tradition #3 Paper). After a great deal of deliberation, I opted to analyze how the culture of dating has been altered, thus having an impact on society as a whole.