WRITING IN PROCESS
My Fear Story
Original Story
While I originally ranked moths as scarier than motion sickness, I think motion sickness comes in as a close second. Whether it is sitting in the backseat of a car, being on a boat, or riding in an airplane, my motion sickness is exceptionally sensitive. The worst motion sickness I experience is when I am in a car. I get super anxious when I am not the driver and on top of that extremely motion sick. When I motion sick in a car, it gives me severe anxiety to speak up and tell someone that I am going to be sick. One time being that I literally threw up in the car because I just strictly did not want to mention it to anyone. This was an extremely embarrassing moment for me, but it still causes me anxiety to speak up to people in the car.
Edited Story
While I originally ranked moths as scarier than motion sickness, I think motion sickness gets an award for close second. Whether it is sitting in the backseat of a car, being on a boat, or riding in an airplane, my motion sickness can be exceptionally sensitive. The worst motion sickness I experience is when I am riding in a car. I get super anxious when I am not the person driving so, the anxiety mixed with the movement of the car is not a good pair. When I was in my early years of high school, I was riding in the back seat of my friend’s car and was I feeling extremely motion sick. I had severe anxiety about speaking up about how I was feeling. Because I was so afraid of speaking up, I ended up just throwing up inside the car. This was obviously extremely embarrassing for me and caused even more anxiety considering they were newer friends. After we got back home, I helped my friend clean her car, apologized up and down, and explained to her what had happened and why it happened. By explaining this to her, it helped her better understand me and what I was experiencing. Moving forward, I learned that I need to put my anxiety and fear of speaking up to the side and be able to warn the driver when I am not feeling good and allow them to pull over so that I can recover.
WHAT WE KEEP
Challenge 1
Ted Talk Takeaways
3 Big Ideas:
1. When you meet a stranger, there is no semantic meaning behind the questions you ask them, but there is social meaning.
2. As humans, we are raised to believe strangers are dangerous, and we cannot trust them.
3. "It's good to be friendly, and it's good to learn when not to be."
2 Takeaways:
1. Learn from strangers
2. Notice Strangers, don't ignore them.
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1 Interesting Idea:
If you don't know how to spark a conversation with a stranger, start by noticing their baby or their dog.
Challenge 2:
Be Your Own Detective
Brainstorm
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What have been some of the happiest moments in your life? The saddest?
One of the happiest memories I have to this day is my experiences playing sports. I met some of my best friends during my years playing softball and volleyball and I wouldn’t trade the things I experienced with them for the world. The saddest moments of my life were when I had to experience death or when my parents got divorced.
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Who has been the biggest influence on your life? What lessons did that person or those people teach you?
The person who has had the biggest impact on my life would be my oldest brother, Parker. Parker is 9 years older than me so he experiences everything first hand and then is able to teach me what he has learned through his experiences. I have seen him go through the good and the bad and keep a positive attitude through it all. One of the biggest lessons he has taught me is to just do what makes you happy. While there are occasions where he doesn’t follow that, I can always learn that lesson due to whatever he is going through.
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Can you tell me about a moment when a person’s kindness made a difference in your life?
Over this past summer I worked on a golf course as a summer job. Just recently I had gone home from school for a weekend to work to make a little extra cash for spending money at school. I had made $140 in tips and my manager gave it to me in an envelope the next day. I then misplaced the envelope and was out $140. I looked around everywhere, I even went through the garbage cans. I then located the envelope that the money had been inside, but no money. One of the regulars that comes into the restaurant every day then caught word of what had happened. Once I returned back to school he sent me $140 to make up for what had happened and told me I didn’t deserve to lose that money and that he knew how hard I worked for that little bit of extra spending money.​
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What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?​ The 3 main lessons I live by are:
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Do what makes you happy, stop trying to please everyone but yourself.
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Be nice to EVERYONE.
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Everything happens for a reason, just accept it and move on.
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What are you the proudest of?
One of my biggest accomplishments so far in my life is getting the opportunity to participate in a collegiate sport. While it was only a junior college softball team, it was still super exciting to be able to continue my love for the sport at a higher level.
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If you could hold on to memories from your life forever, which would they be?
Some of my best memories stemmed from going to Florida every other year with my mom’s side of the family. My mom is one of 7 children. Every other year we all gather down in Siesta Key, Florida for a family gathering. We all spend a whole week together and it is one of my favorite memories to this day.
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How would you like to be remembered?
I would like to be remembered as someone who never gave up. Someone who was always kind to everyone around me. I have never been capable of being mean to someone. I wish I could and that probably sounds so conceited, but I’ve never been able to do it.
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If you could talk to a younger version of yourself, what would you say?
I would want to tell myself to always treat others how you would like to be treated. You will never achieve anything by being mean to someone else. Also, do whatever makes you happy. Don’t let your own decisions get affected by someone else. In the end, your happiness is the most important.
TED Talk Takeaways
3 Big Ideas:
1. Joy is an intense, momentary experience of positive emotion.
2. Happiness measures how good we feel over time. Joy measures how we feel in a short period of time
3. Adults who exhibit genuine joy are often dismissed as childish, too feminine, or unserious
2 Questions:
1. How are we supposed to feel joy when our world looks like the pictures she showed?
2. If attendance rates go up and crime goes down in these updated schools, why don't all schools do it?
1 Brainstormed Thought:
1. What small things bring me joy?