Reflective Essay #10

Tori Beaty

INTG 323

Reflection #10

22 April 2012

Reflective Essay #10

1.      The coach basically tells Thom that he can’t be on the team because he’s different, as in gay. If I was in the situation I would like to think that I would stand up for myself, but I think it would completely depend on my current relationship with the coach.  I am the type of person that is either extremely vocal about my opinion or extremely shy/quiet about my opinion.  In this particular situation I think that if I did stand up for myself I would probably say things in haste and out of anger, so they would not necessarily be productive. My parents would definitely be upset about the situation, but I don’t think they would get themselves involved. They have always raised me to be extremely independent and to handle situations on my own.  My mom would be angry and give me someone to rant my feelings with while my dad would be much more logical and give me helpful advice to deal with the situation appropriately.  He would definitely think the coach was in the wrong, but would point out that reacting impulsively would not solve anything.

2.      Ruth was telling Thom to start being himself and to stop expecting some major event to come along and change his entire life. He needed to start living his life in the moment and to do what made him happy.  I feel like I was very much like Thom during my senior year of high school and the beginning of freshman year at Monmouth.  I broke up with a boyfriend during my senior year, which led to a bad end to my cross country season and eventually a bad track season.  I was constantly upset and seemed to blame everything that went wrong on that one situation.  I came to Monmouth looking for a new start but basically expected a whole new life to fall into my lap.  I fell into the same type of running problems which again, left me dissatisfied with my results.  After a lot of phone calls home to my dad I finally got myself on the right track.  I realized that coming to a new school was not going to change my life; the way I handled myself was going to change it.  Starting with my track season I started working much harder and really believing in my coach’s training methods, I put much more effort into the school work, and I started talking to more people and being more social, eventually led me to my current boyfriend.  I went through a point in my life where I blamed the world for putting me in bad situations, but eventually I realized that I had put myself in those situations and my bad attitude had kept me there. I learned to be in charge of my own happiness by understanding that I have control of my life and that every decision I make will either benefit me for the better or for the worse.

3.      I think that every person has one thing in life that they feel especially connected to and once they truly succeed in that one thing, they feel as though the whole world is cheering for them.  I don’t think everyone will have the entire school throw them on their shoulders and cheer their name, but everyone will as some point feel as though they’ve done something truly great, which will eventually lead to similar feelings.  As I’ve said a million times, my passion is running. I came into my first college visit telling my coach that I wanted to focus on the 10K (which hardly anyone ever says due to the nature of the race).  I was just mediocre my freshman year, I was seated to win the conference last year but ran a very poorly strategized race as came out with a third place finish, but so far this has been my year to shine.  I ran my first 10K of the season a week ago simply hoping to run a decent time and not get last (we were racing against a bunch of pretty good division 1 schools).  I ended up running over a 2 minute PR.  On my cool-down my coach pulled me aside and told me that I’d beaten the school by over a full minute.  That was my moment to feel exceptional and that I had finally truly succeeded.  I only had about 10 people there to watch me so I didn’t have an “entire crowd to cheer me on,” but those 10 people were ones that honestly cared and had a direct influence on my success.  Through that experience I think I gained a sense of relief and confirmation that all the work I’ve put in has been worth it.  Since this is my last year I’ll be able to run track, I feel as though I’ll have a lot more closure knowing that I achieved something tangible and memorable out of the entire experience.

4.      The perfect kiss is hard to describe because it’s different for each person, but I think the perfect kiss is reserved for the person it’s meant to be with.  I’m not overly religious, but I do think that in the universe there’s a designed path for every person and that each event in a person’s life leads them down the path to their eventual destination.  At that destination I really do think that there’s someone that everyone is supposed to find.  Once that person is found and they develop a real/true love they can have that perfect kiss. (Obviously it would never be that first kiss, because those are always incredibly awkward despite what the movies show.)  Overall I think the perfect kiss would be the result of a true loving relationship with the person you know you’re going to be with the rest of your life.  As for the celebrity crush, I don’t think I’ve ever had one like Thom.  I think certain celebrities are attractive, but I would assume I never had a real crush on one because it isn’t very realistic. (I tend to think about everything very logically).  I think people tend to have crushes on celebrities because the media bombards us with their images and we’re taught that they are the type of people we are supposed to envy.  Psychology has proven that people tend to be attracted to things we see more often, so the more often we see a celebrity in the media, the more attraction we feel for them.