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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