Obvious, yet hard to see

In previous blog posts, I have confessed that I am not a very strong writer. Throughout the years I have lied to myself by trying really hard to write in a manner that would make me look “intelligent”, while following “standard English” rules in order to get “good grades”. It is funny because before taking this course, I had never felt like I was doing myself wrong. After learning about invisible narratives and how they are everywhere in different shapes and forms, I feel like I have been lied to. This course has taught me how to write in my own discourse or how I most feel comfortable, while following standard English rules.

After reading my first assignment, the “diagnostic essay” I’ve realized that I hold many beliefs for women. My beliefs have to do with defending women because we have never had equal opportunities although the country claims so. As a matter of fact, by the country claiming that men and women are equal that is an invisible narrative itself. Reality is that men and women are not equal, and we don’t have to be scientists to understand this concept. During the course, we discussed many ideas regarding this issue, but one that really called my attention was that the word “woman” has the word “man” involved. It is almost like society does not want to allow women to be independent from men. I think that both men and women have the ability to be who they wish to be in life, if no gender restrictions were involved.

As far as making judgments, I think that we all do it. Some of us do so more than others, however, this does not make it okay. We have all heard the concept of “treating others the way we want to be treated” yet, most of us like myself first make judgments of individuals without first getting to know them. By the time that we do get to know a person we come to realize most of the time, our assumptions about them were incorrect.

I usually try to stay quiet and not make conversations with students who look “too serious” because I assume that they are not nice people. These assumptions have been proven wrong several times and I have even ended up becoming very good friends with my victims. I remember in middle school when I had an argument with a student who was new to the school. I felt threaten by her trying to make friends with my friends. After some time, I learned how good of a person she was and up to this date we are still friends. Although it is difficult to not judge others because we are so used to doing so, I will definitely make better observations without first assuming that he or she is not a good person.

With the help of this course I have learned how to be less repetitive with my words, which has been one of the biggest problems with my writing. I have also learned how to revise assignments in a way that they are straight to the point, have some sort of organization by not speaking about more than one idea in a paragraph, and the use of credible sources to strengthen our ethos in a writing assignment. Most importantly, I learned that an essay does not need to follow a certain criteria as long as you state all points that prove your thesis or now know as the controlling concept.

Additionally, after conduction a research paper on my discourse, I have learned that nursing and other careers in the medical field leave out all those individuals who do not belong in the discourse from understanding their concepts especially the science behind research and illnesses. Because I am barely getting started with my nursing career I had a very difficult time trying to understand what my article was saying. It made me sad to realize that most of us who are not from the medical field leave a hospital room without truly understanding our diagnosis because of the language that is used. Nonetheless, I am excited to make a shift in my career by learning the concept of nursing, and hopefully in the near future I can explain to my patients medical terms in a way that they can also understand.