jnaffan

[jnaffan]

I’ve been in this same situation, although in this case I am the older brother always getting in trouble and ruining my parents trust. I’m so sorry that your parents had a lack of trust of trust in you just because of your brother. It’s unfortunate that someone else's actions ruined your parents ability to assess your trust accurately. This was also well written. Good job!

Journal #3

When I was a senior in high school I remember when I was having a disagreement with my parents. I was about 17 years old and I was requesting to go to a friends house to hang out around twelve pm. Going out late had always been a big issue for my mother because my brother had lost her trust doing things years prior. for context, my brother was eight years older than me and was a “wild child”. He was always out doing things he shouldn’t and my parents began to bare-down on him his last few years of high school. Being their daughter they were even more strict on me than they had ever been on my brother. I tried everything I could to reassure my parents that I wasn’t going to do drugs or get into trouble but they were persistent. I tried to use Logos by talking about how I have never gotten into trouble and I had all A’s. I tried to explain that I was missing my friends since covid was going on and I did online school. My Mom did not budge. She had lost all of her trust since my brother insisted on doing any and everything she told him not to do. The argument ended when she persuaded me to stay by bribing me with doing something fun at the house. She almost convinced me that I didn’t even want to go out at all through Pathos. I noticed she would use a lot of heart throb ideology to convince me to do what she wanted. I ended up staying home. After this incident I was able to persuade my parents better by using more Pathos. I used to use the guilt of covid to influence my parents decisions.  #Thanksbrotha

[jnaffan]

Journal #3

Just recently, I lost my best friend of three years due to a situation that affects me deeply. For conveniences sake, we’ll call him Sam (this is not his real name). This situation led to an argument that led me to sever ties with Sam. It all lingers in my mind so often. It makes me quite distraught still, makes me feel sick.

It all began when one of my friends informed me that Sam had slept with the girl I was in love with at the time. This had happened months ago, but I only just learned about it a month ago. The news had me in total shock and so many emotions washed over me. It was hard to accept at first, but the reality hit me quickly. I could tell it was true by the tone of her voice. So much time, trust, and energy gone into someone who can’t even respect my boundaries. I couldn’t tell if I should be pissed off or cry. 

After a few days of thinking everything over, I decided to confront Sam about it. He knew that I was upset at him about something, but I had just ignored him outright until my thoughts were a little more clear. It happened over text so that it wouldn’t result in us trading blows by the end of it. I’m glad I took this route. I was prompted by him texting me if I was okay and if I had ‘qualms’ with him. Oh boy did I let him have it. After asking him why he thought it was right to do what he did to me, he tried to deny it. I had to lie and say that the girl that he slept with told me for him to finally admit the truth. This was it for me. Not only had he kept this terrible secret from me but he also lied about it when I asked him.

Now, if he had slept with her and he had no idea I was interested in her, that would’ve been one thing, but I had told him multiple times about how crazy I was for her. I guess when it didn’t work out he thought it wouldn’t matter, but he was sorrily mistaken. I basically told him that either he didn’t listen to me at all, or he completely ignored my feelings and did what he wanted to anyways. Either way those are some pretty shitty qualities of a friend. He practically begged me for forgiveness, but I wasn’t there yet. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. It ended with me telling him, “please, just leave me alone.”

As you can probably infer, this argument had no real winner, just two sorry souls. If there had to be a winner, I guess it would be me because my appeal to logic was much stronger than his appeal to pry on my emotion and forgiveness. Sam had mostly tried to appeal to my emotions by bringing up all the things we’ve been through in our friendship and pleading for forgiveness. Using mostly the bolded text above, I based my argument on logical connections and appeal. I also brought up some of the bad things he had done to me in the past. I hope things work out between us and things go back to normal, but I think that’s a pipe dream.

[jnaffan]

This is a beautiful way of moving through life. Staying a positive person as well as doing the best you can is the elixir for a happy life!

Journal #2

Everyone has their own view on life. I try to start the day with a positive view on life. My most important value on life is my faith. This is extremely important to me and a huge part of my days. Whenever I’m feeling stressed I like to say a quick prayer. Reminding myself of all the things I am thankful also makes me feel better. I try my best to be the best version of myself so I can fully be there for the people I love. Being kind also makes everyone’s life so much better. I also try not to take things so seriously because at the end of the day it probably doesn’t matter. 

[jnaffan]

Journal #2 ENG 101-010

Above all else, I believe that the Golden rule sums up my set of personal values better than the rest. To me this means to be fair and honest with all lifeforms. Why shouldn’t it? It’s the most logical mode of being if you want your community in good health. Too often do I see myself and others fall into the evil trap that is anger. This anger can only lead to one thing, mistreatment. 

I fear that mistreatment is like a line of falling dominos, taking everyone in the way of it’s inescapable grasp. It’s all too easy to become subservient to our reactionary emotions in times of distress. If someone driving in front of me is going 10 under the speed limit, I'm not going to be very happy. It’s moments like this I try and appreciate the fact that without a car, life would be a lot more inconvenient.

I really think that’s what it’s all about, seek out an optimistic angle in all situations. This certainly doesn’t mean go invalidate your feelings of sadness because you could be worse off. Feelings are natural and they’re what makes us so human, but sometimes they contain a very potent poisonous effect to our thoughts and actions. Many relationships in my life have ended this way. Love, sadness, anger that burns so passionately that it leads to heartbreak. 

Besides kindness and compassion and love and all that jazz, I think an important quality (not to mention a great indicator of success) is drive. With drive can come only greatness. It’s a difficult task to undertake, but it’s needed to complete any task with precision, and why would you not want to be precise in any matter? Anything worth doing is worth doing right.

I’ll use myself for example. Last semester I came into campus with intense motivation, much like a dry sponge ready to soak up knowledge. This feeling died out within the first month. The true state of life became fully apparent to me, and it overtook me. At the end of my first semester, I left back home with a C- and two mediocre B’s. At the time I couldn’t be less bothered. You know the old adage, “C’s get degrees.” This ignorance was short lived. Seeing many of my friends bragging about getting all A’s or A’s and B’s, it was disheartening. I wanted to be in that position. Over break I realized that I want an education, not a degree. Put in the work and the rest will follow. I just had to break my old habits and I’d be golden. 

Here I am a month into the new semester, feeling just as much if not more passion than the very start. It’s paying off.. In five of my classes, I’m sitting at an easy 100%, as well as improving my music and skateboarding. It hasn’t been easy at times. I mean hell I’ve broken down. Who hasn’t. But we move forward and leave the past where it belongs.

[jnaffan]

Writing is hard. Once the creative juices start flowing after I’ve gotten a jumping point, it’s not too difficult, but I find the starting point to be the most difficult. The first step for me is usually to come up with what topic I want to write about. I usually do this by taking a few minutes to write down as many topics as I can come up with. From there, I refine them until I find the one I want to work with and start going from there. I write down what I know about that topic in a few minutes then look it over and ask myself what I want to know more about regarding that topic. Working from there I can pretty much go any direction I want with it as long as I follow the basic guidelines to the writing assignment.

Learning to take any activity in stride is difficult to do. I’ve experienced too many times where I throw my skateboard and scream in frustration of not being able to accomplish a goal I’ve set out for. The best way I’ve found to not make any craft too draining, even in failure, is to have fun while doing it. While this may sound corny and kind of obvious, it’s a universal truth. The reason super-productive people (take Elon Musk working 120 hour work weeks for example) are able to accomplish near-impossible feats is because they not only work hard, but they have fun and are passionate about the work they do. 

When I encounter difficulties in my skateboarding, I take a step back and view my issues from a bigger perspective. Maybe I’m thinking too hard about it? Maybe it’s just too advanced? Maybe I should try a different variation of my goal? Any way I look at it, as long as I stay persistent I know I can accomplish anything, but that persistence can become my demise at the same time. Some days I’ll spend 5+ hours on my skateboard. The next day and the following ones I end up so sore I can hardly walk without being in pain. This is why moderation is also key with anything. Maybe I should spend an hour or two skating and then take an hour to watch a skate part and study how other skaters accomplish the goals I strive for. Any way you look at it, It becomes a hell of a lot easier if you're not ripping your hair out for not getting it the way you want to.

1. https://www.inc.com/kelly-main/science-reveals-how-elon-musk-can-work-120-per-week-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-time-management.html

Journal #1 Prompt

Students: make sure you've read the assigned Forbes article on "Scannable Content" before creating your first post:

Acknowledge that writing is hard. Write it down. Then write about how you’re going to make writing happen. How will you find the balance in yourself to combine willpower with relaxation, stubbornness with joy? Write about how you’ve struck this balance in the past, with writing, a sport, a musical instrument—anything you’ve successfully learned to do.

References:

Heffron, Jack. The Writer’s Idea Book. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2000. Print.

Heffron, Jack. The Writer’s Idea Workshop. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2003. Print.

Rekulak, Jason. The Writer’s Block. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2001. Print.