Reflective Pieces

Hello Everyone! My name is Tiffany Bennett and I am 27 years young. I have experienced much, I would say too much, in my young life. This is my first quarter at Everett Community College and it has involved overcoming many obstacles to get to this point. I was a good student in high school, when I actually tried, but I became pregnant at 15 and a mom at 16 which lead to me dropping out when I was just a few credits shy of graduating. Before I dropped out, I was in the running start program at Edmonds CC. I enjoyed it, but because I dropped out of high school, I had to drop out of college. I then spent the next 11 years of my life working no less than 40 hours a week and working my way up the management chain at various fast food restaurants and eventually a video store until being laid off at the end of last year. In 2006, I had a beautiful daughter named Lily. She was the light of my life, but tragically passed away 11/30/2008. Since then, my perception of life has taken a drastic change, I believe, for the better. Before, I wanted to spend time with my family, but didn’t try hard enough to make that my number one priority. I often spent more of my time working than anything else. I now want to focus primarily on my family now and in the future. So after my tragic loss and me being laid off from my job, I decided now was the perfect time to go to college so I can get a career that will allow me to work from home or at least not work so many hours. I have always been an analytical person and I love math, so that has lead me to study to get a transfer degree to Central Washington University in Computer Information Systems. I have faith that my daughter is smiling down on me and is happy that I’m trying to make a better life for myself.

Before starting this course, English 98, I was hesitant because I have never been a fan of English, but I had a bit of hope being that I always seem to do well at it anyway. I surprised myself this quarter by the ability of my writing, especially after being out of school for 11 years. I thought I wouldn’t do so great because of not being in school so long, but I ended up getting good grades on all my assignments which gave me more confidence. It was a rocky start to being able to write with a good flow, but it soon came easy. But I learned that I had a lot to learn when it came to punctuation….that dang comma! The comma has been a persistent challenge throughout this quarter, but I am slowly getting better. Another thing that I have learned is how to write in third person. It was a challenge at first but as time has passed, it has become second nature while writing essays. I also have discovered that I am pretty good at summarizing, something that I have never tried before.

A fact that may astonish you is that I have not read a book since I was 15 years old! But just in this first quarter, I have read two for this class. The book, Three Cups of Tea, was an interesting read at first, but I lost interest toward the end. The book just became semi repetitive and boring. Even though I did not enjoy the second half of the book, I cannot deny how much it changed my point of view on people of the Middle East. I have a new found respect for different cultures. The second book we read was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I found this book to be an interesting read, and again it widened my perception on different cultures. Prior to reading these books, I didn’t know much about the Middle Eastern or Indian culture. I now am somewhat knowledgeable about them, which results in a better understanding of people and their differences.

During this English class, we were asked to partake in what is called Service Learning, which is kind of like community service. I chose to help out with a program called Community Meals through First Baptist Church of Everett. Almost every Friday night I would go down to the church and help prepare their Friday Dinner for people in need and then help serve the dinner. It was a good opportunity to experience different walks of life. It definitely increased my thankfulness for what I have and how fortunate I really am.

So as my first quarter of college comes to an end, I have gathered four of what I would consider to be my best pieces of work from English 98. These pieces show my ability as a writer, as well as my growth. My first piece is our first major writing assignment, a compare/contrast essay, which I did about fast paced work environment compared to slow paced. I feel I did a good job especially being the first essay of the quarter. My next piece is our second essay, a definition essay, in which I defined what the word ‘Success’ means to me. This one was close to my heart. My third piece is a summary of “Two Ways to View a River”. It was the first summary I have ever done, and I discovered I do well at. My final piece was the very first assignment of the quarter, An Inventory of Being, which was like a poem about who I am and my likes and dislikes. I really enjoyed this one because it let me express myself in a way I have never done before.

I have learned a lot from this class and I now feel more confident as I go on to Eng 101 & 102. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts, and I hope you enjoy reading my writing pieces!

The first piece I have chosen was our first major writing assignment. We were instructed to write a compare/contrast essay about a topic of our choice in which we clearly defined our side of the argument. The title of my essay was “The Advantages of a Fast Paced Work Environment”. I compared a fast paced work environment to a slow paced work environment. I have worked at both and am definitely a fan of a fast-paced work environment. I picked this essay because I am passionate about the topic and I feel I did well on it. I supported my view with good personal examples. For example, “As the day dragged on, I counted down the minutes until I could leave, and dreaded having to do it all over again tomorrow. I knew I had stuff that I probably could have done to pass the time, but not anything I was excited about doing. I asked myself, “When will this day end”’? This essay shows my strength in the organization of my writing. I was very satisfied with the result, especially being my first essay in 11 years. Enjoy…

While working at Hollywood Video, I realized that choosing a slow, relaxing job may have not been the best choice as I found myself fighting to stay awake. I wanted a change of pace and thought that being a retail store, it would have some sort of customer base, but I was surprised at how few people still actually rented movies from video stores. As the day dragged on, I counted down the minutes until I could leave and dreaded having to do it all over again tomorrow. I knew I had stuff that I probably could have done to pass the time, but not anything I was excited about doing. I asked myself, “When will this day end”? Although a laid back work environment, like Hollywood Video, seems less stressful and more intriguing, the increased productivity, higher quality employees, and overall quickness of the day makes a fast-paced work environment, such as Arby’s, the better choice.

Increased productivity in the work place is vital to a well-run company. Without productivity, everything would constantly be falling behind. Working in a laid back environment could potentially give someone the chance to get stuff done, but where is the motivation? Nothing is there to motivate or push someone, so what is stopping them from just standing around and talking with friends, or checking on Facebook? For example, I found myself looking on Facebook and playing games on my phone quite often while working at Hollywood Video. Having a lot of extra time on their hands gives people the “I will just do it later” mentality, and nothing will ever get done. I found this to be very true in the case of most of my employees.

In contrast, when working in a fast-paced environment, there is no chance to slack off or put a task aside until later. Everything is constantly go, go, go, which makes it easier to get the necessary things done. Constantly being busy and concentrating on tasks keep the mind on track at all times and provides no time to day dream or get distracted. While managing an Arby’s, I got a lot more stuff done throughout the day than I did while managing a Hollywood Video store. Everything at Arby’s was fast-paced which kept me on track all day to get stuff done before my shift was over, so I did not have to stay late.

Along with increasing productivity, a fast-paced work environment has a way of easily weeding out employees that just cannot hack it. Just about anyone can stand around and occasionally help a few customers here and there, but it takes a good employee to be able to keep up with things in a fast-paced work environment. Sometimes it was hard to tell which one of my employees was truly great at Hollywood Video. If the store was fairly clean and there were no customer complaints, it seemed like an OK night, but I never knew if they were sitting on the counter most of the night or out on the floor talking to customers as they should be. Managing people at Arby’s, however, was a different story. I could tell pretty quickly who was going to be great and who was not. There were a number of tasks that needed to be done on a daily basis as well as helping with the constant flow of customers. If someone was used to slacking at work, it was not possible at Arby’s. Being able to notice this quickly gave me the chance to weed them out and try someone new. This resulted in having a great quality staff.

Another reason that a fast-paced work environment is better is that it makes the day go by very quickly. Working in a slow, laid back work environment can make it seem like the minutes suddenly have a lot more than sixty seconds in each of them. When the mind is not being kept busy, time drags on. The time in one day at Hollywood Video sometimes felt like two or more days. So much extra time on my hands would seem nice, but it just had me checking the clock that much more, counting down the hours, minutes, even seconds until I could leave. While working at Arby’s, sometimes the day went by so fast it felt like I had only been there for an hour. Constantly having things to get done, and having customers to help made the day fly by. When the mind is consistently busy, there is no time to think about checking the clock. That made the day so much better. It is much easier to come to work knowing that the shift will be over before there is time to blink.

A slow, laid back work environment may seem like the easier choice to some, but how will it make them feel at the end of the day? A high amount of productivity is of course great for a business as well as having a high quality staff. And having the day speed by is great for a person’s sanity and happiness. Enjoying coming to work is important. I enjoyed working at Arby’s far more than I did at Hollywood Video, and it was all because of the work environment. Choosing to work in a fast-paced work environment is more satisfying and exciting than most people would tend to think. Everyone should try it out and see.

The next piece I chose was a piece that shows my ability to write effectively. Our second major writing assignment was a definition essay. We needed to pick a word and write an essay explaining what our definition of the word was. I chose to define the word “Success”. I chose this topic because my definition of what success really means to me is often different from what most people would define it as. I like to write essays on a topic that I am passionate about, and this was another example of that. This piece shows my ability to write effectively because of the structure, organization, and flow of the essay. I used strong topic sentences and good personal examples. I also had a strong thesis: “Success is achieving a goal or a set of goals established by oneself and as a result experiencing happiness and a sense of accomplishment”. My overall organization of this essay improved from the first. I still had some comma issues, but was beginning to understand the reasoning behind my mistakes. Take a look…

Some people would define success as how much money or possessions one has, but that is not the true meaning of the word. After all, money does not necessarily lead to happiness, but success does. Success could be different things for different people. It all depends on what goal is set by someone in order to achieve happiness in life, whether it is education, career, family, or love. Success is achieving a goal or a set of goals established by oneself, and as a result experiencing happiness and a sense of accomplishment.

Success is achieving happiness in life and is not purely represented by money. When I was sixteen and coming straight out of high school and into the working class, I had the impression that success was purely measured by how much money I made. Therefore, I spent ten years working 40-60 hours a week and working my way up the chain of management to make as much money as I could. Along the way, I had two wonderful children and married a wonderful man. Although I was making decent money for only having a GED, I felt guilt for being away from my family for most of the day. But I pushed on, thinking that I had to make as much money as I could in order to live a happy and successful life. But when my daughter unexpectedly passed away at the end of 2008, my perception on life and success took a drastic change. I realized that all the money in the world could not take the place of those precious moments I could have had if I spent more time at home than I did at work. Success is not wealth, and therefore success for me now is to spend as much time as I can with my family and creating as many memories as I can. Because in the end, money did not bring me success and happiness, but time with the people I love did.

Success can often be characterized as victory or triumph. When setting short term goals such as accomplishing a task at hand, a sense of triumph and victory is commonly felt when the goal is achieved. When my fiancé and I finally set a date to get married after being engaged for nearly three years, we foolishly gave ourselves a mere two weeks to plan our wedding. As the reality of all that needed to be done in such a short time set in, I seriously thought about calling it all off and pushing the date back once again. But I was determined to pull it all off and make the wedding a success. As each stress-filled day arrived, I persevered through and accomplished the tasks at hand. When the wedding day arrived, I could not believe all that was accomplished in such a short amount of time. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and truly was one of the best days of my life. When it was all said and done, looking back, I felt an incredible sense of victory and triumph. Not giving up when I easily could of was a great feeling of success, and I am so glad that I pushed through and persevered. Being that success ultimately is achieving happiness in life; even if we couldn’t pull the wedding off in time, I would still have a level of success by being with a wonderful man that makes me happy.

What other people perceive as success is not relevant for every individual. For example, many people view success as purely having a lot of money and possessions, but everyone has an individual opinion of what success is in one’s life. An example of this misconception can be found in the book, Three Cups of Tea, where a well-known climber of Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary states, “I don’t know if I particularly want to be remembered for anything … I have enjoyed great satisfaction from my climb of Everest. But my most worthwhile things have been the building of schools and medical clinics. That has given me more satisfaction than a footprint on a mountain” (Mortenson 129 and 130). Hillary’s climb of Mount Everest is what people believed to be the great success of his life, but as he explains, building schools and medical clinics brought him more satisfaction, therefore making that the great success of his life.

Success can be explained as many different things, but the common factor is that true success results in happiness. Success to one person may not be success to another. Success is what someone makes of it. It is all about setting a goal in one’s life that will ultimately result in happiness, whatever that may be. For some it may be being educated, finding true love, or building strong relationships with family and friends. If, at the end of my life I have tons of memories and experiences with the people closest to me, then I will feel truly successful. Whatever someone’s goal in life for success is, I hope it is achieved so that person can experience a real satisfaction of happiness and achievement in life. True happiness is deserved by all.


 

Mortenson, Greg, and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea. New York: Penguin Group, 2007. Print.



 

The third piece I chose is one that demonstrates my ability to write analytically. In our second week of the quarter we began learning how to summarize. Our first assignment on the topic was to read and then summarize a selection called, “Two Ways of Viewing the River” by Samuel Clemens. The idea of summarizing is to write the main ideas of the writing in our own words while keeping the author’s same ideas. We also needed to use a few exact words from the article, but not too many that made it sound like we were just stating a bunch of quotes. The idea was to keep it short and sweet while still getting the author’s point across. While writing this first summary, I felt pretty confident, but ended up doing better than I imagined. My summary was even used as an example for the class on how to write an effective summary. One of the best parts of my summary was my first sentence which needed to state the author’s full name, title in quotes, and a summary of the article. Here was my first sentence, “In this selection called “Two Ways of Viewing the River” from Samuel Clemens book, Life on the Mississippi, he describes how someone’s view of something can change so drastically from over exposure to it, like in this case a river he steam boated on”. I have done well on all the summaries we have done this quarter, but I am especially proud of this one…