Metacognitive Experience

My Metacognitive experience throughout reading our novel, Flowers, has been one of a struggle. I have found many difficulties in getting to the stage of actively participating in the story line. It is indeed a great story, with interesting characters and it has a great story line. However, for one reason or another, I can't really get into the story. I find my mind wandering and racing when I sit down to read. It feels like every oppertunity I have to relax and get into a reading mentality, every other thing is in order except for my mind. I can't quiet my mind to really dive deep into our reading. It just turns into reading five, ten, maybe twenty-five pages here and there compared to upwards of fifty to one-hundred pages when sit down with our book. But as I mentioned earlier I am still thoroughly enjoying our novel and getting to know Sonny better throughout the plot. I just wish I could get even more into it, where the book becomes a total page turner and I can't put it down. Those are certainly my favorite types of books.

Frusturated...

I'm so confused! I still don't know how to use this blog site other than to post, how do I find out where our homework, what's due and assignments are? I can't find them! Help?

Difficulty

Apparently I am having a huge difficulty with our text in that I find it more often than not hard to understand. For some strange reason, this novel is difficult for me to comprehend. I am beginning to believe that it is because of the slang term "Spanglish" - or the authors use of sprinkling some Spanish within the novel here and there. Being that I am a single language speaker, sometimes while reading our novel and words come up that I don't understand for the simple reason that they are in another language, I stumble in reading and loose that concentration and focus on the story.

Metacognitive Reflection

Thus far in this semester, to be completely honest, I have had a ridiculously tough time with fitting our assigned reading into my schedule. Between work 25+ hours a week and attending school full time, having three other very general education courses besides this english 1b class, I'm very busy and find it hard to do everything. While in past semesters I have had this busy of a schedule, it's just something about this current semester that I have been struggling to keep up with my school work, including assigned readings. Typically speaking in previous semesters I have worked with this busy of a schedule and not even thought twice about it; I actually really like being busy. Maybe I'm falling behind because I'm so close to being done at Gavilan that I feel like it's senior year of high school all over again where you get that overwhelming sense of just wanting to be done with schoool already. Or maybe I'm just ready for big change, like moving to LA or Florida and interning with Disney. Or maybe it's both of those reasons in addition to the fact that my mother and I just found out that the house we just recently moved into to rent is foreclosed. The anger and frustration I'm experiencing right now of having to move again after just 7 months of renting at our current house in San Martin, and having to pack up and move again is just simply overwhelming. So those three big reasons in addition to being crazy busy and never seeing my boyfriend has honestly made school fall by the wayside this semester, which is even more frusturating because I'm typically a very good student who does what is expected of her and I get good grades and I try my best, I study for tests and usually read every assigned reading imagineable. But it's just something about this semester that is just getting to be too much. I hope that as soon as we move to our new house in Gilroy within this coming week and a half that I am able to get right back on track and refocus and become that terrific student that I know deep down I am. Wish me luck.

Free Write - My Father Always...

Has the best advice. Ever. Period. End of story. I can go to him with anything I need some help figuring out, he has the best advice that always has helped me to put my situations into perspective. Every time I have had any type of problem or situation that I just can't handle on my own, he's the first one I call. Instead of confiding my drama in a best friend or with the boyfriend, I turn to my dad. Over the years, my father has helped me through a whole lot; a lot of stress and hardship as well as emotional ups and downs, sadness and tears, and anger and fear. I love him so much, and am so happy that he's always been there for me, no matter what the situation may be.

Reader Response Journal Prompt (02/09/2011)

"It was like when the eyes aren't open but try to see." -Sonny (The Flowers, page 2). I'm not sure why, but when I was reading through those simple first two pages this sentence litterally grabbed my attention. I'm not sure if it is because I can relate to it personally or not. But it was as if I could feel my book reaching out to me and little white flags popped up in my mind, alerting me to pay attention to what was happening to our narrator. I could feel almost a gravitational pull to our character. I don't know why, but I felt a much deeper level of connection to our novel as soon as I read that sentence. I'm not sure if I can relate to that sentence on a subconsious level or if I experience that sometimes without realizing it. But as soon as our narrator, Sonny, spoke that sentence, I became much more interested in our book.

"My Mother Never..."

My mother never allowed me to drive with someone who was under the age of 18 while I was a minor. And while I didn't understand it at the time, I believe now that this rule stemmed from her profession. She is a deputy sherif for the city of San Francisco and I know she only had my best interest and safety in mind. But as you could imagine, this still made high school feel extremely difficult for me. I felt left out when it seemed like all of my friends were going out and driving with their parents because they just got their permits; I was just in the passenger seat of our truck being driven by my mom. Or when my friends had their restrictions removed after an entire year of driving and would drive everyone around just because they could; I didn't get to celebrate along side with them. Instead, I was that one kid growing up who always had to get a ride somewhere from her parents, which was embarrassing enough in itself. However, if that isn't convincing enough, my mom has been, and probably will always be, notoriously late. So not only was I that one kid to show up with her mom yelling "bye, sweetie" out of the window, it was always later than everyone else; giving everyone the chance to witness my face blush a deeper than any shade of cherry.

Now if you're still not convinced about the embarrassment I had to endure from this seemingly simple rule she had, on top of all that, I rode the bus to school until my junior year in high school. Because according to another one of my mom's little rules: in order to be able to obtain my own license and drive myself, I had to have grades of B's or better. Well needless to say, I got a few C's throughout my high school career which prevented me from driving until I was 18. Because of these two innocent and simple rules, those four years of my life were always carefully planned and a synchronized schedule of events. With the whose driving where and when, the freedom one experiences from driving, felt more like restriction.

Now this all changed when I met my current boyfriend of three and a half years during my sophomore, his junior year summer, all because he could drive at age sixteen. Before I knew it, I was riding around in his charcoal grey, hand-me-down, '96, lifted, Dodge Ram. Of course with my mom being in law inforcement, it wasn't a secret for too long. She saw right through any tales I would attempt to feed her. Eventually my mom found out, everything: the fact that we were dating and the fact that he would drive me around and that he was a minor. But surprisingly, she didn't mind. To this day, I'm not too sure if she could tell that we were in it for the long run or maybe somehow knew that she wouldn't be able to stop me, or what the reason was, she didn't try to stop me. Although he has long since sold that truck and bought a new one; every once and a while when I see a spitting image of that truck driving down the road with a couple of teenagers in it, I can't help but think about how my mom's rule bent and wonder that if it hadn't, whether or not we'd still be together.

"I Am"

I am...
A chidlrens; ages 19 months through to 10 years of age; gymnastics, dance, and "mommy and me" lead instructor at The Little Gym of Morgan Hill. I've worked there for about a year and a half. I love working with children and can't imagine doing anything else at this time in my life. I work with children because I am one of those people who wants to improve the world and I really feel like the best place to start is with future generations. I want to leave the world a little bit better than I found it, and if I can do so through being that positive influence on children's lives than so be it. While I love what I do, I love teaching and working with my kids, I can't see myself being an instructor for the rest of my life. That's why I am currently here at Gav.

I am planning on completing my general education here at Gavilan Community College, then transfering to CSU Monterey Bay within the next two semesters to major in an art field. I feel that I wound up at Gavilan because I never knew what I wanted to do with my life, and sometimes I feel like I still don't quite know. But one thing I'm sure of, is the fact that I want to fallow my heart, and my heart leads to art. I have dreamt about becoming a Disney Imagineer since I was young; and now things have become surreal because instead of it being just a dream in the far off distance, it is becoming reality in that I am now persuing that dream and hope to make it a reality through my education. I love anything and everything Disney. From Steamboat Willie to Princess Tiana, from Disneyland to Disney World, and the rollercoasters to the atmosphere; since I was young, I have loved what Walt started with just a mouse.

In addition to everything Disney, I like hiking, camping, the beach, fishing, dirtbiking, and scrapbooking. I fish primarily for bass in the many lakes we have surrounding our community: Chesbro, Anderson, Coyote, and Uvas. Besides all of that, I try to spend every oppertunity I have with my boyfriend of 3 1/2 years; typically doing outdoor activities. I love summertime, it is easily my favorite season because it allows me to do all that stuff with awesome weather. The warm nights and twinkling stars, drinking iced tea and listening to country music; summer is my favorite time of the year.