Final Reflective Post

When i first came into English 101 and found out that we were going to have to keep a blog i was very apprehensive and didn't really want to do it. I was open minded to it. After we start the blog i really started to enjoy them.They let me break through my barrier and just be free to write about what ever i wanted. I liked that she would give us topics to go off of. Some of the topics that she would give us where every hard to go off of and they where hard to think of something to write about. But after i would think for a long time i would be able to come up with something to write about. On the other hand some of the topics we were given where really fun and i enjoyed them a lot!! Overall though i don't think the blogs where hard and i actually think that they where a good think to help us just free write which gets you really thinking. At the end of the class i have become completely open minded to blogs and free writes. I do feel they they have changed me as a writer in terms of it has helped me to deep think about what i will be writing about. It taught me that i can write about what i want and it still be just as good as anything else. So yes i enjoyed them and think they were good for us to do.

What Is A PLace?

•  The cabin 
• My childhood home
• Big sur
• Forsyth 
• Bear valley
• Dodge ridge

        When I think about a place, a place I want to be it will always be our family cabin. The cabin was my childhood home every summer and every winter. It was a cabin up in Arnold California, that has been passed down from my grandma to my mom and my aunt. They jointly owned it. It was in the woods and the community was a very small community. There was only one grocery store, one cafe, one subway, one pharmacy, one gym and one doctors office. They also had some book stores and some good will stores but other than that there wasn't much else. It was such a beautiful and cute town, i loved it there so much.
       The cabin was in the middle of the wood. We had a bunch of neighbors around us but they where hard to see because of the thick forest. It was a typical cabin in the woods. Inside was beautiful. It was a three bedroom, two bathroom home. It was a two storied home that my grandpa had helped built. That why it was so special to our family! The upstairs had one bedroom that had a bathroom in it and then it had a very large living room which is where we had the pool table and our ping pong table. Also the dart board was up there. Down stairs we had the other two bedrooms and the other bathroom, the kitchen, and the living room. We had an old fashion fire place, which i loved. The rooms where all very big and spacious. We had a back porch and a front porch. I loved it, this home was the place i looked forward to going to every year!
       In the summer it was so pretty. Depending on how long we got off for summer we would spend at least one or two months up there. In the summer the weather would be any where between eighty-five to ninety-five degrees. I loved it, that is my ideal kind of weather! Our cabin was in the perfect spot as well. About a mile down the road was the first lake, which is where my mother use to take us there to swim when we were really young. In order to be able to swim there you have to own a cabin within about a mile or two of the lake. When you go there you had to sign into a book proving that you did live in the area. As we got older we switched from that lake to another one which was also only about a mile and a half down the road. This lake was so much better in my opinion though. Same as the other lake you had a card that you had to show at the entrance to prove that you lived within the mile or two radius. If you lived any father then you where not allowed to swim there. This place had everything you could want! It had a pool, food shack, tennis courts, volley ball nets, and when you would walk down the hill then you would end up at the lake. It was completely fenced in so the only way you could get in is by the main entrance where you had to show proof of that little card. Not only did it have all that but in the summer they had events for children and teens. Some of the events involved movie night or one of my favorite was teen night. Teen night was where only teens could go and you would just get to hang out meet new people, swim and play games all night. I loved this place so much! That is what we did during our summers out there.
          When it was winter break and we were out of school for about a month we would also spend a month up there. The winter just like summer was so beautiful. It snowed a bunch there so it was amazing! In the winter we would spend majority of the time up in bear valley which was only thirty minutes away. We would go skiing and snowboarding. The very first time my mom put me on a pair of skies i was only three years old. From the stories iv heard i was not a fan of them at first! Apparently i hated them and refused to learn how to use them. But my aunt convinced me to give them a chance and by the age of five i was a pro at skiing. I skied from the age of three all the way until i was about fourteen years old. When i turned fifteen i had decided to switch from skiing to snowboarding. I had watched my brother switch over to it and i wanted to try it, so i did. It turned out that i loved snowboarding more than i loved skiing. I have never gone back to skiing since. I will forever be a snowboarder. I used to look forward to winter break every year because it meant i got to ski or snowboard. It was a paradise, my sanctuary.
            This last year we had to sell the cabin. It was a very heart renching decision that my mother and aunt had to make together. It broke all of our hearts. With the economy getting so bad we could no longer afford to keep the cabin. When they found the buyers who we sold the cabin to was when it really became real to all of us, the cabin would no longer be ours anymore. It was something that was especially hard for me to deal with. It truly broke my heart. This was the home i was supposed to be moving into after graduating high school and i had plans of going to college there. I pictured my whole life in this house, raising a family one day in there and living there. It was one of the reasons i decided to leave California. It is something i still haven't come to terms with and i probably wont ever. I loved that place more than anything iv ever had.

Red

      When I was younger i had a dog and it was a saint Burnard. His name was Luke. He was black and white with some brown through the colors as well. I loved him he was my favorite dog. When I was ten years old he disappeared one day. We didn't know where he went and he was gone for quite a while. We all though that he had gotten hit by a truck or car. We though something really bad happened to him! Once we had it stuck in our minds that's what happened, he randomly showed up! We were so excited and i was more excited than anyone because he was my dog that i loved. A couple weeks went by and then all of a sudden our neighbor showed up at our front door and told us that Luke had gotten her dog pregnant. She was not happy what so ever! I cant remember what kind of dog she had but it was big like Luke. So anyways she was not happy what so ever! We had to sit down and talk about what everyone wanted to do with the puppies and we decided to sell them once they where born and of age to sell. A little while passed and the neighbors dog had the puppies. They were so cute. The mother was all black so the babies where all different sorts of colors. Some where only white and black, some where black and brown, some where brown and white. They where the cutest little things i had ever seen! When it came time to sell them i didn't want to sell any of them. Of course i was still young and every young kid wants to keep all pets. That was definitely not an option. So i was determined and went to school and kept bugging all my friends to have their parents get a puppy so i could still see the puppies when i wanted. Well believe it or not that worked and eventually all the puppies went home with my friends. I was supper happy about it! As i got older so did Luke and eventually his back legs went out like some dogs experience. It was a horrible day when this happened. Me and my mom made the decision to take Luke to the vet and have him put down because that was the best thing for him and to take him out of his pain. I still miss that dog to this day and am sad that happened and we had to take those measures. But that's the circle of life.

Deer Season!

        I'm so excited for this weekend! On November 16th deer season opens for rifles. I have been waiting for months for this and cant wait!! I actually took the weekend off of work just for it. I'm going up to forsyth Missouri to my dads and will be hunting on his property. He owns one hundred and fifty five acres and on his property he has six deer stands in the trees. Me, him, his two sons, and his cousin will all be out there in the stands hunting. My goal for this deer season is to get a nice big buck! That would truly make my whole hunting season and i would definitely trophy it if i killed a buck worth trophying. I'm so excited to the point where i feel like a little kid at Christmas. Hunting brings me so much joy and i love the adrenaline rush from hunting and knowing that you killed that. We will be going out before the sun comes up and then we will go in for lunch and then come back out for the night time hunting. I only have a few more days! I know i will end up getting something but my intimate goal is to get a nice seven or more point buck. I cant freaking wait!

Culpepper Place

         So I got a new job at Culpepper Place Assisted living home and i love it. I'm so excited that i don't work as a hostess at Red Robbin anymore. I loved all of my co-workers there but the actual job wasn't for me. Before i moved here i worked at a long term nursing home for six months while i was in my CNA class and then after i passed my state test and became a Certified Nurses Assistant, I went into private home care. I took care of an elderly gentle man for a year and a half and i loved him to death. Then when i moved to Missouri i decided that since i had only worked in nursing home environments, i wanted to branch out so i decided to try to get a job at a restaurant. Which i ended up getting my hostess position at Red Robbin. After three months of working there i really started to miss working with the elderly so i decided to apply at assisted living facilities. Luckily i received a job at Culpepper Place. So then after i put in my two weeks at Red Robbin and took the job at the assisted living home. I love it there so much and couldn't be more thankful that i received my job their! This has proven to me that my heart really is in working with the elderly and helping people in general. Nursing has been and always will be my care path way. I would always dread having to go to work at the restaurant but with this new job i can work 8 or 9 hour shifts and i am as happy as can be all shift. I love it and am so happy i received a job their!!

Phonography

          In this picture I see a lot of metal. It looks like a UFO landing! It looks cool though. In reality it probably is some sort of factory or something. Its in a circle and has green metal things going up the side. In the background it looks like a factory setting. That is why i feel that it might have something to do with a factory or something involving building and creating things. It looks very mechanical. Its really hard to describe because i don't fully know what it is. But like i said it looks like some sort of space craft thing.

Sharon Gardella

       I chose my mom as the most influential person in my life. I have looked up to here my whole life and have always been inspired by her! She is the strongest person i know. She has had a very ruff life growing up. She was born and raised in Italy and lived in Germany as well until about the age of thirteen when she finally came to the united states. Her father was in the army so she grew up as an army brat that was moved around A LOT! When she move to the United States she hated it! Her teachers that she had did not understand nor care that she did not know English and she had a very hard time in school. Her and her parents did not always get along and she ended up moving out of the house at age sixteen and lived in multiple different places. Despite everything she has been through she remained strong and always made everything and every situation work for her. She is a single mother to me and my brother. She has struggled to give us what we needed and wanted but she definitely did it. She has provided the best life for me and my brother no matter how hard it may have been and i admire her so much. I have always been a big mommas girl! I never had my "father" in my life so i clung to my mother completely. She is my mother but she is also my best friend. She is the only person in my life who has stuck by my side through thick and thin and never gave up on me! She is my life saver and i love her more than i love life itself. She is my everything. Moving so far away from her has been a big change because back when i lived at home i spent littlerly everyday with her. Any free time i had i was with her. She is my back bone, i don't know what id do without her love and support. I'm so thankful that i was privileged enough to have her as my mother and to be raised by such a strong woman. When i have kids someday i truly hope i can be at least half the mother she was to me and my brother!