Maria Victoria DiMario
Prof. Cynthia Pittmann
Ingl 3011-402
30 October 2018
Journal Reflection
The Journals consisted of two parts, our first thoughts, and our reflection. These rules required writers to never stop writing, don’t try correcting yourself or crossing out because grammar and spelling don’t matter, lose control, don’t think or try to make sense of what you’re saying, and “Go for the jugular” meaning to not be afraid of writing something that someone else might find weird since no one is supposed to read it. This exercise was relaxing when I had something to complain about, not so much when I was stressed because me writing and thinking about it. I found myself struggling with the don’t think and don’t correct grammar rule because one, I never knew what to write so I did have to put in the effort to think of something to put down at the beginning of most entries. Also when I would make a mistake, my natural instinct was to correct or cross out but I couldn’t here so I would stop and wonder if I should cross it out or not because that would have been my reaction if I wasn’t trying to think but then that wasn’t part of the rules. In other words, in my case, the rules contradicted themselves a little bit. Now the reflections were my least favorite part because they were especially repetitive which made them really annoying to write every day because I seemed to go through the same issues with the rules every time I wrote. This issues being the same one I mentioned before. I will confess however that sometimes I wouldn’t write the reflection and instead continue to write my thoughts. It didn’t happen often, just mostly when I was really upset.
It was difficult for me to find something to write about so most of the time I only wrote what I had to do that day which was actually useful because if I felt like I was forgetting about something I would refer back to the Journal. This, however, ended up getting frustrating because it was somewhat repetitive. There was only once or twice where I spilled actual emotions onto the page but that was because I was really upset. It wasn’t until one of the last journal entries where I decided I should try to be more creative and make up a random story. Creating a story off the top of my head really goes with the “don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense" rule because since I could not go back and fix it if one thing did not go with the other it would not matter and I think it was a good way to get my imagination flowing. When I did have ideas or things to write my mind would go a mile a minute so it was difficult to keep track of everything I wanted to say. Besides all the other challenges I also had to deal with my hand hurting a lot of the time which was surprising because I had never gone through so much pain while writing but I assume it was because I wasn’t allowed to take a break.
