Who Am I Now?

“Let me reintroduce myself

as a man with a cause

I’ve had a lot of time to think

and look at who we are”

- Cartel, “Let’s Go”

In order to do an analysis of the person I am now versus the person I was before this class began, I decided to look back at the “Who Are You?” discussion board prompt from this past summer. I got so caught up reading everyone’s entries before I even got to mine and, boy, was that a fun experience. It’s so funny to read everyone’s descriptions of themselves while being able to not only put faces to names but personalities to names as well. It felt almost like looking back on a school yearbook or something – it made me both happy and yet depressed because we’re almost done with this year, and there will be no more figuring out who we are or writing long, thought-out DB’s about ourselves. There will be no more exploring this journey of a class together. We are finished! It really was so cute to read everyone’s posts – each of us so excited to begin our college experiences and naïve of what this class and all of classes here at Plan II would open our eyes to. I feel like we have all grown up SO very much this year, it’s really incredible.

My post about myself from last summer was totally typical of me – way too verbose and not at all concise (nothing’s really changed in that department, even though Bump has tried….)! On the surface, a lot of things are the same. I’m still a swimmer, I’m still dealing with a back injury, I’m still a TV fanatic, I still have a weird name! However, if you look deeper, I see a lot of really cool changes between who I was then and who I am now. I think the most notable change in how I describe myself in that post and how I would describe who I am now is the sort of lack of substance in my summer’s post. Not to say that I had no substance to me back then, but it just seems to me like there are so many important things missing from that post. I don’t mention religion – that I am a Christian who is still searching for exactly what I believe and scared sometimes about finding the answers. I don’t mention any of the things I struggle with that I have learned about myself this year – like dealing with stress, problems with patience, and being open to different views. The last one is the most important, I think, and I have improved that a lot this year. I didn’t include any of that in my last summer’s DB but I definitely see fit to include them now.

Another noticeable difference in how my view of who I am has changed is in regards to animals. Last summer I wrote, “Over the years I think we've had about 19 pets ranging from rabbits to geckos to cockatiels to guinea pigs - we've pretty much done it all. I love my pets and am excited about the connection this class has to animals.” Now, when asked to write about my feelings for animals, it would be a completely different paragraph. I’d talk about Earthlings, how much it affected me and how heartbroken and physically sick I felt for days after watching it. I would talk about how important it is that videos like that get seen by more and more people, so that this incredible cruelty to animals that goes on right under our noses can stop. I would talk about how I plan on adopting a little kitten from a shelter next summer – and that all future animals I acquire as pets will no longer be from pet stores or breeders but instead from the pound or SPCA or another shelter-type organization. I know that my love for and undestanding of animals is ongoing, and if you check back with me at this time next year I might have a whole NEW set of things to talk about regarding animals. I’m just grateful this class opened my eyes to something I hadn’t – and didn’t really want to – see before.(My love of animals goes far beyond that of just my pets, now).

I feel secure in myself now. I didn’t feel that way last summer. I talked last summer vaguely about working in television when I grew up, but I didn’t really have any crazy goals or dreams that most almost-college-students have. It’s weird, while most kids feel their outlandish dreams fade away once they enter the “reality” of college, I think that Plan II and especially World Lit have caused me to START dreaming big. I’ve forced myself to confront issues this year that I definitely did not want to like racism, animal cruelty, all different kinds of religion, and compassion. I wrote an entire project about supporting homosexuality – something I NEVER would have felt comfortable doing before this year. I’ve inspected myself under the microscope we have used to look at our books and our themes and I feel confident that I have held up okay. I have formed real, lasting opinions about really important issues. I feel less shallow now, if that makes sense. So I feel like I can talk about my big dreams. Like how I want to go to the Olympics, like how I want to run an entire television network, like how I want to save as many animals from pain as possible, like how I want to get some kind of writing of mine published, like how I want the world to understand the INCREDIBLE value and importance of compassion. I can say those goals and dreams out loud now because this class and this year at college has given me confidence in myself to speak without fear of judgement from others. That’s what I’m most proud of.

I’ll end this DB similarly to how I ended it last summer. Last summer I said, “I can’t wait to meet you guys and experience this journey together!” Well, we made it. I honestly can say that I feel like we are a little family – we’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve teased each other, we’ve learned together, we’ve disagreed with one another, we’ve all stressed out together. It’s been the most amazing experience getting to know each of you, I’ll miss you all SO much next year. Promise me that we will all get together as one big class every so often next year, I don’t know how I’ll get through the year otherwise! Lots of love,

Spin.