Wednesday, October 23, 2013

iExamen 2


Katelyn Barone

Dr. Ellis

EN. 101. 17

October 23, 2013

Self-Observation in a world of Self-Absorption

                I woke up around 8:30 on Tuesday, October 22nd due to my light sleeping and the loud movements of roommates around the apartment. As someone who values my sleep as a treasure, this led to some unkind thoughts but fortunately, no unkind words. I rolled over and checked my phone to read a nice and kind message from my boyfriend that lifted my spirits. However, this feeling did not last all that long as I realized my embarrassing debacle of being a sophomore who has still never opened her mailbox- and desperately needed to that day to get my Colin Powell lecture tickets. My history with lockers is a long and harried tale. In sixth grade, my social studies teacher had to open my locker with a crowbar because I insisted I could not open it when in fact, I had been memorizing the wrong combination. My boyfriend had offered to help me knowing my stress level and life-struggle with locks and I tried to remain as polite as possible when there was problem after problem. Usually when I get frazzled it seemed I have a tendency to take it out on people around me, but when I had to observe my way of speaking I was actually much calmer and it made the experience and its little bumps and challenges easier to deal with.

                After that small incident of concern I moved along with the rest of my day. My roommate had suggested for the swiftly approaching Halloween that we would be the characters of “Mean girls” which was ironic considering those characters were anything but kind and truthful. Despite that, I thought the idea was amusing and texted my mom asking if she could send me my “old, pink, and ugly Abercrombie and Fitch wardrobe” to fit the part. I realized after sending the message that even though I may not like that clothing anymore and did not mean it in a nasty way,  it wasn’t the nicest thing to say considering plenty of people still wear their clothing and that statement may not be “true” to them.  After this exchange class begun and our professor seemed upset regarding some of the class’s performance on our midterm. Our professor is super helpful, interesting, and very passionate about the subject and her test was not unreasonable in the slightest.  She made us write an anonymous note about her and the class in general and I made my best attempt to be useful but to especially be kind and true because I really do believe she is doing a great job. I meant the things that I had said and really hope it makes a difference in how she feels.

                Later in the day I attempted to dress to impress at the Colin Powell lecture I would soon be attending. Before I left my roommate and I debated whether or not it is pronounced “Colin” or “Colon” to which I responded “Are you serious? Colin, duh. Who would say it “Colon”? Well, once I attended the event I learned he prefers it pronounced “Colon” and felt like a you-know-what for being such a know-it-all and so swiftly shooting down my friend who turned out to be the one saying what was truthful. This definitely highlighted something I already knew about myself- although I am open and will listen to other people’s opinions, 99 percent of the time I believe I am right. I apologized to my roommate afterwards and we talked together in our room until the fire alarm went off around 10 o clock.  Once I was outside I made a conscious effort to not say anything unkind considering I MAY or may have not set off the fire alarm completely on accident once before myself (don’t hate me if you read this). When this incident MAY have happened it was much earlier in the day, much warmer, and much shorter yet I could hear people cursing me out and read tweets that told my room to kindly “f ourselves”.  Although I know these events are annoying, I was surprised with how hostile some people were and how when one person complained a group of 3 or 4 others would join. It made me realize how prone we are to gossip in a group and how what one person says can become the words and thoughts of others. When this event happened it definitely made me think twice about making remarks about such minute things and also made me realize there will always be people who make those remarks and it is best to ignore them (though I had to restrain myself to throwing about some “f’s” myself).

                I really enjoyed this iExamen because it let me look in to the daily communication I make, good and bad. It also allowed me to examine some of my habitual habits and let me see what could be changed or tweaked. It made me greatly appreciate those who were kind and truthful to me and made me aware of those who are not so kind and made me think, would I want people to treat me this way? Definitely  not. So maybe it’s time for me to be more kind, useful, and true.

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