Internal Journey: A Reflection on my Journey Journal

As part of our Journey in Literature class, it was assigned a special project that consisted in writing into a journal for eight weeks. At first, I felt scared because I'm not very good in English grammar and vocabulary and I was thinking about  how I was supposed to write in it having this kind of situation. The first reflection took place in the classroom and it was like a challenge for me. First, I must keep my hand moving during ten minutes, but it was  difficult because I had to translate all the thoughts in my mind to the English language and my hand started to hurt at the fifth minute, approximately. Second, to lose control and go for the jugular was a little hard because I think my thoughts weren't really interesting and crazy ones.

After the first week of writing on my journal, I started to feel more comfortable with my writing, but I know I have to continue improving  it. I had also talked about the difficult part of this experience, but I want to let you know the bearable part. The other instructions we had to followed on the journal were that we can't cross out, didn't worry about spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and don't think nor get logical. These instructions were more easy for me because I didn't really worry about how I wrote any word or sentence during the ten minutes. I simply wrote whatever I thought at that moment and most of the times I didn't get logical. Most of my entries are sentences without any logical sense. I like it because it helped me to wrote more fast in a given time. This practice helped me to explore my internal journey after experienced my external journey. I also had the opportunity to wrote about my dreams after I woke up in the morning and I felt more comfortable because I remembered most part of my dreams. The journey journal is a reflection of my inner journey; a journey many people didn't know about and a one from which I had also learned about myself.

Another thing we had to do in our journal was three life compasses per week. These compasses helped me to have a better understanding of my everyday situations inviting me to think about my spiritual or natural, mental, emotional, and physical state. Life compasses were variable as the entries, but I have learned many things from each one of them.  This activity also helped me to being relaxed and satisfied when doing my daily's reflections. I'm looking  forward to keep discovering and working with my internal and external journey throughout my entire life.

Journal Writing: 5 Smart Reasons Why YOU Should Start doing it TODAY

My Life in Bright Colors

Hi everyone! My name is Alessandra Torres and I'm twenty years old. I came from Colegio Nuestra Señora de la Providencia in Río Piedras in which I studied from fourth grade to Senior year of high school. Before that, I coursed first to third grade of primary school at Colegio San Pedro Mártir in Guaynabo. I was born in San Juan and I have the pleasure to be the daughter of extraordinary and lovely parents who are the ones who have been always there for me and still helping me to design my own script. I have two siblings that I love too much: Camila, who is seven, and Fabián, who is thirteen years old.  Being the oldest sister is a special title: it means that I'm their role model. Fabián came to the world when I was seven and I have to let you know that I was very excited and I still was after his birth. I begged my mother to give me a   little brother to have someone to play with. He was like my "baby" when I played to be the "mom" of my dolls. Camila came to my life when I was thirteen and I got thrilled too. I'm also pleasured to have a stepmother and a stepfather  because my parents got divorced when I was just a baby.  

I started taking ballet classes since I was four years old and jazz classes since I was seven.  I really loved it, but when I became 10 years old I decided to leave the dance and to take tennis classes. My tennis affair lasted only one year. Then, I wasn't doing anything! When I was fourteen years old, I started dancing with the Folkloric Ballet of Guaynabo and the Ballet Folklórico Nacional de Puerto Rico directed by Tony D'Astro. Dancing is my passion and it is also one of my hobbies. During my school years, I participated in many activities and one of them was the Talent Show. I have a twin whose name is John Travolta. It's joking! I did the Travolta's character in Grease's performance on a Talent Show. It was a little hard for me, but I did it! Otherwise, I have been in some places like New York, Orlando, Arizona, Dominican Republic, and Culebra. Someday, I will like to visit Europe. That's one of my life goals.

My family and friends are very important for me. About that, I suffered my first and only big lost with my grandpa's death. If I were asked to point out the most saddest day of my life, I will definitely answer that it was that day. My family, specially my parents, were my support in such difficult situation. They have been for me through my life. I can proudly say that I'm the person I'm today today because of their dedication and guidance to my life; their interest in gave me a good education and prepared me to college life; and the respect they always show at my own decisions. Therefore, I graduated from high school and got accepted at the University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus where I'm a Cellular & Molecular Biology major student. About my future, I want to be a  forensic pathologist. That's my biggest life goal. Getting a bachelor degree is my short-term goal. "If you can dream it, you can do it." - Walt Disney