Doodle
When this course began, my idea of reflection was introspection and analyzing oneself. My goal was to learn how to do this more productively so I could avoid slipping into the anxiety laden part of myself. I believe I have made a significant amount of progress in the last 5 weeks. My previous method of reflection was basically just continually asking myself "what are you doing? why are you like this?", which was, obviously, unproductive. The purpose of my reflection was and is to make myself the best version of me by learning and growing. Now, I feel as if I am much better at this task. Rather than getting anxious and upset with myself, I am able to stay calm and almost indifferent, like a separate person looking in on my life and thoughts. My anxiety stays out of my reflection much more often now than it did before. The outside activity where we had conversations really helped me because I was able to act like the unbiased person on the outside looking in, which really worked well with my analytical personality. I was able to analyze what made sense and what did not, which allowed me to move on from the unimportant things. I do think that I have already become a better person in these 5 weeks, as well. I have learned when to take time for myself, that it is okay to slow down every now and then, and that in a world of constant noise silence is powerful.
The word I chose for this map was "questioning". Reflection, to me, is all about asking "why", whether it's in regards to yourself or the state of the world. I don't believe we can truly reflect until we start asking ourselves this difficult questions. Last week, I was struggling with my future and applying to graduate schools a lot. My challenge was to dive deeper into the work I would be doing in graduate school by reading published journal papers. Scientists are constantly asking questions about what is out there, why things work the way they do, and so on. Questioning is an integral part of science. As I was attempting to get a better handle on my future I had to question myself as well. Is this really what I want? Can I handle it? Is there something that would make me happier? My best reflection always comes as the response to a question.
There is a lot going on with my doodles and most of the time I didn't even know why I was drawing what I was drawing. The question mark is obvious. The small circles were my failed attempts to draw a perfect circle. The curved lines in the top right represent sound waves, which is related to what I hope to study in graduate school. You can see the four card suits because I will be going on a vacation to Las Vegas soon. There's a guy and a sail boat because I love the sea; that's also why there's a fish and a river. You can also see the Chinese symbol for "love", which is one of the few characters I remember from studying Chinese in high school.
Like with any topic, your understanding of it changes as you learn more. The more we learn about reflection the more my ideas about it change. I think the most important thing to remember so far is that reflection doesn't just happen automatically. You must take the time to do it, put in the effort and ask yourself the difficult questions. So it goes in the making of these maps. Even when I was doodling I found myself thinking about what I wanted this to represent and I put in effort to make it so. I think these maps also represent the importance of reflecting in different ways. I can talk inside my head all day long or even reflect verbally, but reflecting by using your hands and creating something is a powerful tool, too.
The word I chose for this map was "questioning". Reflection, to me, is all about asking "why", whether it's in regards to yourself or the state of the world. I don't believe we can truly reflect until we start asking ourselves this difficult questions. Last week, I was struggling with my future and applying to graduate schools a lot. My challenge was to dive deeper into the work I would be doing in graduate school by reading published journal papers. Scientists are constantly asking questions about what is out there, why things work the way they do, and so on. Questioning is an integral part of science. As I was attempting to get a better handle on my future I had to question myself as well. Is this really what I want? Can I handle it? Is there something that would make me happier? My best reflection always comes as the response to a question.
There is a lot going on with my doodles and most of the time I didn't even know why I was drawing what I was drawing. The question mark is obvious. The small circles were my failed attempts to draw a perfect circle. The curved lines in the top right represent sound waves, which is related to what I hope to study in graduate school. You can see the four card suits because I will be going on a vacation to Las Vegas soon. There's a guy and a sail boat because I love the sea; that's also why there's a fish and a river. You can also see the Chinese symbol for "love", which is one of the few characters I remember from studying Chinese in high school.
Like with any topic, your understanding of it changes as you learn more. The more we learn about reflection the more my ideas about it change. I think the most important thing to remember so far is that reflection doesn't just happen automatically. You must take the time to do it, put in the effort and ask yourself the difficult questions. So it goes in the making of these maps. Even when I was doodling I found myself thinking about what I wanted this to represent and I put in effort to make it so. I think these maps also represent the importance of reflecting in different ways. I can talk inside my head all day long or even reflect verbally, but reflecting by using your hands and creating something is a powerful tool, too.
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