Writing Conference

I like to think of myself as a pretty good writer. Not the kind that goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize, but a decent writer. However, when I found out that a paper I had written had been chosen to be read at a college-level conference I may have thought of myself as a little better than just a good writer and may or may not have patted myself on the shoulder because someone else read my work and found it had some potential. When I first wrote the selected paper I had no idea that it would potentially be chosen for an activity within the university's English Department. But, after all was said and done I preferred it that way because it took some of the pressure off of having to write the actual essay. 

The day of the conference arrived and I told myself I wouldn't get nervous. But, once I sat at the table alongside my peers with a microphone in front of me, the nerves started to creep in. Luckily, I wasn't the first to go so I had some time to warm up to the idea of reading my work to a crowd. Although I thought the audience would be much larger than it was, I was thankful that most of the people were my classmates, who've listened to me over and over again in the classroom. When it was finally my turn my heart literally sank into my stomach, but I had no choice but to read. After the first couple of sentences the nerves were gone and I just kept reading my work with ease. At the end I was parched, yet filled with pride because I felt I had written a really good essay worth listening to.

In the end, I really enjoyed the experience. I would have wished that the activity would have been filled with more audience and professors to hear my work, but maybe a small crowd helped to ease the nerves. Personally, I took a program with me for a keepsake, but a participation or recognition document would have been a nice touch for the students to proudly display their accomplishments to their families or even future professors. All in all, I'm really grateful for the opportunity and would not hesitate to participate in another conference if given the chance. 

The Golden State

After taking a Journey in Literature class and learning about traveling, tourists and travelers, I can't help but to see a potential adventure in the most trivial matters. I also can't help but want to travel. So much so that I decided to go to Poland over the Summer, but not before making a family trip to California. I've been to California twice before when I was younger, and still manage to remember bits and pieces. However, my younger sister wasn't even born for those trips. This time around, she is a lot older than I was when I first visited the state and she will surely remember it for a very long time. The reason for this trip is that my cousin is pregnant and she's due sometime mid-June. My dad's brother is my cousin's dad so of course he's coming on the trip too! We are going to visit my cousin in L.A. and eventually making our way to San Francisco. We did this the last time we visited Cali, for my cousin's college graduation. But, besides from spending time with my family, I had a secret reason I didn't want to miss this trip. 

Ever since I graduated high-school my parents wanted me to check out schools in the West Coast, but I was too much of a home dweller to actually have the guts to move out there to study. But, time has passed since then and I feel that I may want to check out potential grad schools for my master's in California. I am almost done with my bachelor's degree and, although I have no idea what I want to pursue a master's in or even where I would want to achieve one, I want to start looking for options. After a failed attempt at Boston, maybe the East Coast/New England area wasn't right for me, but sunny and warm California just might be what I need. I've been doing some research and there are some extremely high-ranked colleges in the state of California that I would definitely not mind being a part of. Our trip is roughly two-weeks long and we're making a road trip from South to North so maybe I'll convince my family to make some detours along the way to scout for my future alma mater. 

An awesome vintage postcard from California

"I Live Where You Vacation"

My sisters and I were practically swimming before we learned how to walk. My grandfather on my father's side always had a boat and he would make sure the whole family went on trips all year round. By default my dad too grew up on boats and wanted to share that experience onto his daughters, so my family also bought a boat. Being girls didn't stop us from learning all the maritime laws, the sea's do's and don'ts, how to properly make knots, steer the boat, and throw an anchor correctly. We had a blast doing everything all the other boys did and probably showed off to my dad's friends from time to time. As a family we would take the boat out to Palomino, Icacos, Culebra, St. Thomas, Tortola, Virgin Gorda and so on. We would swim in the ocean until the sun set and got a nice tan without even trying. Eventually the bliss came to an abrupt end and we had to get rid of the boat because it cost too much to maintain. 

All those years of taking in the salty sea and playing in the sand are very near and dear memories for my family so we try to take a couple of trips at least to Culebra to relive the good old days. This past weekend we made one of these trips. The last time we went for me and my sister's birthday weekend (our birthdays are a day apart so we celebrate them together from time to time) and my mom, dad, and younger sister got to kayak and snorkel with my uncle and his family. My uncle's dad recently set up a kayak and snorkel rental adventure in Culebra called Culebra Island Adventures, and they all came back talking about all the fun they had had that this time I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to go. 

I got paired with my sister on the kayak and we were off into the Atlantic Ocean, just as we remembered. About 15 minutes later we put on our snorkeling gear, got rid of our life jackets, and dove into the water. The first thing we saw was a stingray making its way through the seagrass and I was already impressed! During the swim we saw the corral reefs and all the different types of fishes, even a lobster!! It was unbelievable to think that there was so much exotic life just an hour outside of the mainland. Puerto Rico may be an island, but it's so full of life that no wonder so many tourists pick us a tourist destination. I was so excited to get to experience nature in that state that I didn't want to leave. However, I wasn't feeling well from the day before and had to leave the trip early. I was bummed because the kayak/snorkel adventure was literally just beginning, but I had to stay on the beach while the rest of the group continued. My younger sister volunteered to fill my spot and off they went to see the Carey sea turtles, starfish and even more stingrays.

My dad and the sea turtle I didn't get to see :( 

Blog Experience

When I was little I used to keep a diary where I would rant about the silly fights with my sisters or the total tragedy of a boy not liking me back in the ever so dramatic third grade -ahh, those were the days... Flash forward 12 years up until the beginning of the semester and I had no clue how to express my feelings so freely as my 9-year old self could. 

As part of the Journey in Literature class, the students had to set up a blog, and apart from an amateur Tumblr page, I had no idea how to write and maintain a proper blog that people would actually want to read. I decided to keep it simple and clean and write as I normally did. Since I do like writing assignments and especially enjoy them in English, I thought of the blog experience as writing bits and pieces of a never-ending essay with the main topic being "journeys". As I kept writing post after post, I thought the project to act as a good therapy session (much like the journal entries!). Although I mainly focused on the class topics and assigned themes, a comment by a fellow classmate and blogger (shout-out to Armando!) triggered the idea that I could keep up said blog and narrate all of the other journeys that await for me in the near future. 

I have a lot on my mind and ideas I like sharing with people, and by setting up a blog I feel as though there are other people out there in the world that may agree or disagree with me and I would absolutely love to read about what they would have to say. The internet is the new social scene and one can connect with another person in a whole different continent without ever leaving the comfort of your room! I wonder if people from different places would like to read my blog for the class or continue reading any other adventure blogs I might come up with after being introduced to the blogging world by a literature class. 

Journey Journal

As part of the Journey in Literature class, the professor had the students develop a journal in which we were to write in each day. The writing process had to be a reflection of each of the student's stream of consciousness and had to flow naturally, including mistakes, misspelled words, randoms thoughts, and so on. To make our journals even more personal, we had to decorate the cover and back-cover with pictures that represented us and our different journeys. 

I sat down with a bunch of magazines trying to figure what pictures represented me the most. After a while I noticed that I was having a much easier time when I focused on phrases and words that meant something to me. I did, however find some pictures of places that were meaningful to me and so, the first area of my journal are either places that I have visited, like California and New York, or places I want to visit, such as Paris, England and Holland. Even though I haven't had that much travel experience, my dream is to take a year off and go everywhere I've always dreamed of going to take in different cultures and gain so many different experiences in life. 

The second area of my journal is focused mainly on my internal journeys -past, present and future. To represent these I cut different phrases or words that stood out to me. Some of these were: renewal, now, change, what's ahead, driven by dreams, "search for: ", and unravel. I am in the midst of figuring out who I am and who I ultimately want to become. I've slowly grown and started making that transition from being a naïve adolescent to a young adult that still makes plenty of mistakes along the way, but tries to learn from them as much as possible.

The third area is mostly centered around the things I want to accomplish in life while I still have the passion and drive to do them, such as: save for a once-in-a-lifetime family trip, ride a vespa, start something curious, learn a new language, among many others. I strongly believe that by stepping out of my comfort zone I can discover what I truly want out of life. By trying new things I can also get to know myself a little bit better along the way. Through the class I learned that a person can change so much just by stepping out of their bubble and traveling. A journey is so much more than just taking a plane; you grow as a person mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and sometimes even physically if you just allow yourself to be open to change and all its magic.

This is how the journal finally turned out!

Greetings from Poland

- "Czy znasz polski?" 
- (lets out a nervous laugh) "Oh yeah yeah I eat there all the time!"

Even though I am utterly and completely terrified that I'll find myself nodding with a stupid grin on my face to every Polish sentence I hear (like said example), there is something magically wonderful about just being thrown into a new country without knowing a single word of its language. Also, applying class concepts and ideas about tourist vs. traveler to the real world and practicing what I have been so fervently preaching in the classroom will be an experience by itself. Hopefully, one I will be forever fond of. 

I had been planning on traveling soon and at this specific time in my life I felt compelled to take a leap of faith and just do it. As part of a new member of a global community outreach program, I sent out applications to various countries hoping that they would find my résumé appealing enough to allow me to fly halfway across the world to intern for them. I applied to Australia, Poland, and Bulgaria for Summer internships related to psychology. After narrowing my options to these three, I dared to hit the send button on the applications. 

The first to respond was Poland, thus the Polish introduction above, that for all of those who are curious translates into English as a simple "Do you speak Polish?". This specific internship was working with children and teenagers in schools, camps and orphanages to further develop their English skills all the while learning about each of the intern's culture. There are interns applying from all around the world, something beneficial to the children and to the interns as well. I am terribly excited and completely ecstatic to potentially fly out to Poland to have this experience this Summer that will hopefully broaden my worldly knowledge, all the while contributing my grain of sand towards helping the good in the world to peek through all the negative things that have been happening lately.

Emergency Room

It was the middle of the night when I opened my eyes and began to visually scan the dark room in vain. Then, the pain started seeping in all at once. All of a sudden my abdomen was being attacked by a very sharp pain; a pain I could only close my eyes very tightly and hope for it to pass. I tossed and turned in my sheets as the hours passed by until the night slowly went by and dawn was now creeping through my window. I dared to open my eyes once more only to be horrified that the pain had worsened. As I crawled out of my bed I could not bring myself to stand up straight because the pain would stab me immediately, reminding me of the restless night I had just awoken from. 

Truth be told, I had had these stomach aches for around three days, but they were not strong enough to make me slouch around my house instead of walking upright. This was definitely more than an ordinary stomach bug, so I decided to go to the doctor. Unfortunately for me it was a Friday and my two primary doctors do not work on Fridays. My mom suggested I go to the emergency room at the local hospital so I would get a somewhat speedy service. Very unfortunately for me, I had a Biopsychology test in an hour that I simply could not miss. But how was I to drive in my condition? Luckily, my mom offered to take me to the university so I could take my test. After I took the test in my personal best time in this class of 45 minutes, I slouched my way back to the car and drifted in and out of sleep all the way to the hospital. 

It was a small hospital, very quaint and all too familiar since about a year and a half ago my grandfather passed away in the same emergency room I was walking through. I still remember every detail of that day because I stood there in awe of what was happening and took everything in. I was abruptly shook out of this flashback by the screeching sound of a woman's screams. She was an older woman in a wheelchair with eyes that weren't all there. She seemed to be frantically searching for a reason for her being in a hospital and after observing her body language, I believe she never quite understood why. The sound of my name brought me back once more. I was swiftly taken into another room for my vitals to be checked. After I was cleared, the hospital protocol demanded I be hooked to an I.V. -still not knowing what was wrong with me. As I looked the other way while my blood was being drawn I heard my name being called once more. This time, there was an obese woman in mint green scrubs holding a chart and pointing at me to come and sit in the wheelchair she was trotting around. With my blood drawn and tightly sealed in a tiny crystal tube, I made my way to the wheelchair and the impatient woman behind it.

As the woman in the mint green scrubs turned my wheelchair around I could see the beds where sick people that where laying there, hoping to get an answer to their sickly prayers. I dared to take a look at the bed where my grandfather passed away. It was taken by an old man that reminded me of my grandfather. It was still the same bed, it was still in the same position, it was still in the same hospital, yet it had been through so many stories and patients-before and after my grandpa died- that it seemed very different now. The moment we passed by the bed and unleashed very vivid memories seemed like a long time, when in reality it was a mere instant. 

After waiting for X-Rays, blood results, urinary specimens, and whatnot, I was exhausted. I was still in a wheelchair, but I felt strong enough to sit down in a normal chair. However, hospital protocol reminded me that I would continue to be in the wheelchair for the rest of my visit. I was wheeled into the emergency room once more and started to look around me at the people who where coming and going. I wondered why were they visiting the hospital? What did they stop doing midday to come to the emergency room? Why where some of these people alone? None of them looked deathly ill or in dire need of medical attention, yet again neither did I and I was the one in a wheelchair. After attempting to do a complete sociology and psychology report on ER patients, I was wheeled back to another room only for the doctor to inform me that I just had a infection. I waited six hours to find out I was not being stabbed in the stomach, but was just fighting a very simple and treatable infection. In the end, I was left with a fifty-dollar emergency bill, a prescription for antibiotics and a amateur, yet complete analysis of the patients that visited the hospital's ER that day.