Blog #5: Personal Essay Topics

                         The selfie that no                My dog Baxter                     My Mama

                         one asked for lol

           There are a few different topics I can talk about in this personal essay, but aside from being a former collegiate athlete, sports junkie, and family person, I have had other experiences in my past that really opened my eyes and has ultimately shaped me into who I am today. In 2016, just shortly before my 21^st birthday, I experienced my first anxiety attacks. Around that time I was so scared, confused, and somewhat lost because I had almost never experienced anxiety before in my life. I tried my best to just brush it off and wait for it to go away but it never did and eventually got worse. It got to the point where I had to drop my classes that I was taking that semester and it interfered with my work, where I would experience anxiety attacks and have to leave early. It was then that I knew I need to seek help.

I saw a behavioral health specialist and was put on medication and I also learned different breathing techniques and other activities that helped cope with anxiety. Within that year of my first experiences, I made major improvements with support from my friends and family and eventually got back into school and started working again. These experienced truly opened my eyes and I learned so much about myself that I didn’t know before. But ultimately, it made me realize how many others experience the same thing and how important our mental health is to us! I have always heard that mental health is just as important, if not, MORE important than physical health and now I am a firm believer in that.

The topics of anxiety and depression are difficult for someone to understand if they have not experienced it themselves. Most people think anxiety is just worrying and depression is just being sad, so I came up with some questions targeted towards an audience that are curious about anxiety and mental health: What is anxiety? Why does one experience anxiety? Is anxiety considered a weakness? Are there different types of anxiety? What ways can one help cope with anxiety? How is mental health important to us?

Anxiety as general worry and nervousness is a normal and healthy emotion, but if someone experiences disproportionate and repeated levels of anxiety it can lead to a disorder that interferes with their everyday life.  Anxiety can be caused by traumatic events from the past and can also be caused my anticipation of the future. There are different types of anxiety, some treated similarly to each other and some treated differently. Anxiety is not a weakness, but more of an obstacle in life that most people do not experience. Even the most successful and famous people have had their experiences with anxiety. The world can be a scary place sometimes and everyone experiences their own difficulties and struggles, especially in the situation we are all in right now (side note: Hope everyone is staying strong and healthy during this time!). Mental health is vital to everyone’s well-being and is important to relationships with the people you are most close to.

Blog #4: Gee and the Art of Learning a New Identity

          Almost my entire life I have been around the sport of baseball; playing it, watching it, and even help coaching it. The knowledge of the game has always come pretty easy to me and has formed into my identity over the course of my life. My father has always coached my little brother, who is 10 years younger than me, from six years old all the way up to 14. Just last year, my dad asked me to come on as an assistant coach because he needed help coaching my brother’s travel team. Even considering I had not been around the sport in several years, I accepted the offer because I always thought it would be fun to coach with my dad and would love to help him out.

          Going into my first coaching gig, I knew very well that coaching is completely different than playing, and I was right. I knew that teaching the game to these kids would be difficult from time to time and would take a lot of patience.  Some kids were fairly experienced while others were still new to the game and that was where I struggled the most and had to make some adjustments from a coaching perspective. Teaching the kids that were still new to the game and learning the basics really brought me back to the roots of the game and had me going way back to what I had learned when I was 6-8 years old.

          James Paul Gee explained it well on page 7 of “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” He stated, “Therefore, ironically, while you can overtly teach someone linguistics, a body of knowledge, you can’t teach them to be a linguist, that is, to use a Discourse. The most you can do is let them practice being a linguist with you.” This applied well to the current discourse that I was experiencing because I was capable enough to know that I could teach my players the knowledge of the game but I had to be patient enough to know that not all of them will apply that knowledge to how they play.

          I did experience a lot of “mushfaking” while coaching. In times where I did not know the proper instruction to teach the kids, I would say something that my dad would say because I did not know anything else to say. This would be my example of “make do” because my resources were very limited and I had to do my best to get by which would be instructing how my dad would instruct, in the best way possible.  This was my discourse experience, and what I learned here is something that I will take with me after I graduate or when I experience another discourse. I am positive I will experience discomfort in the future so now I know how to respond to it. We are always growing and learning new things and we do not know yet so it is up to us to decide how we want to handle this adversity.

http://jamespaulgee.com/pdfs/Literacy%20and%20Linguistics.pdf

https://pdf.sciencedirectassets.com/272057/1-s2.0-S0890406500X00345/1-s2.0-

Blog #3 (Best Advice for College Students)

 After reading about Annie Murphy Paul's three different types of learners I would say that I am a mixture between surface and deep learning. I feel like the ultimate goal when taking a course would be to have true and deep understanding of the course content but also while getting credit for that class. For me personally, I do not give myself a hard time when I do not get an A or a B in a class. I would rather be content with getting a C grade but having true understanding of what was taught. If I have true understanding of what I learned in school, the easier time I will have applying the skills and knowledge I learned into my career. Murphy Paul considers deep learners the most successful and I agree with her, however there are certain situations where strategic learners can be most successful. Generally, the higher education one wants to pursue, the better grades they need to have which may cause them to lose focus on the deep meaning of what is actually taught. For example, if I would like to apply to graduate school and pursue my master’s degree, I would need better grades than those whom are also applying because just like undergrad, those with better grades have a better chance of being accepted. This is where it conflicts with my learning type, as I never strived to get straight A’s but instead learn more about the deeper meaning and have better understanding of the course context. At the same time, everyone has their own ways of being successful. Depending on what profession you wish to pursue, all careers require different types of experience with different levels of education. It all depends on what you want in life to decide which type of learner is considered the most successful. I know people that are extremely smart but do not get the best grades, and I know people that get really good grades but do not apply themselves to the true meaning of the course context. Everyone has their own path that they choose to take, with that being said there is no right or wrong way as to which type of learner you are. I truly believe that a surface type of learner can become more successful than a strategic or deep learner. This article by Murphy Paul is such a good read because she teaches you to pursue what you truly want, rather than chasing straight A’s as she believes that will make you more successful in the future. I also like how she preaches to become comfortable with failing; a lot of us grew up with parents that put a lot of pressure on us to get good grades and sometimes we would feel discouraged when we would get bad grades because were afraid of how our parents would feel.  This mindset kind of made people going to school “to not fail” rather than going to school “to learn” and actually be passionate about what you want to do.

https://ideas.time.com/2013/03/13/secrets-of-the-most-successful-college-students/

https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/most-common-types-of-learners/

Blog #1: Six-Word Memoir

Baseball games to barks and walks

        Since I was six years old, I played baseball every single year (through college) until I was 20 years old. Through that period, apart from my family and friends, baseball is what truly brought joy to my life and it was something I grew extremely passionate about. Baseball was my outlet to any stress I was feeling in my life and whenever I was at practice or at a game, I was always having a great time with my teammates while not worrying about anything else in my life.

        I stopped playing baseball in 2014 and it was difficult for me to walk away from a sport that I grew so passionately about throughout my childhood, but it was not long for a new source of happiness to enter my life. In 2016, my family decided to rescue a 10-month-old puppy from the animal shelter and he brought instant joy into my life. I had never had a dog as a pet before that so I had a lot to learn about the responsibility and care for owning a dog. My dog, Baxter, brings me so much happiness regardless of me not playing baseball anymore.