A Bit of Required Reflection!

I have to say that this last assignment I did for school was rather interesting. I was able to attend a military ball recently with my wife, Blondie and it was a first for both of us. We were really spoiled by it. We had a stimulating speaker, memorable ceremonies throughout and got to dress up for the occasion.

My college writing course required me to write an essay of a memorable experience (in which I chose the ball) and then write a blog entry response to it the work.

I had to sit for a while and write down all I could remember and how it was that I recalled it best (sight, sound, smell etc.). The wife and I also looked over the program from the evening that was provided to us. It is different how much you can remember just by looking at the menu and remembering tasting the food you had in the past. I had a flank steak that night as opposed to chicken. Remembering the taste and feel of the food in my mouth is a different way to recall memories. We as a society are mostly stimulated by sight and sound and we usually rely on only those senses.

I also recalled much more of our speaker, Gene Kranz’s speech and his meaning and message behind it. If I did not ever again have to recall his speech and take notes for school I may have lost a lot of the experience from my memory.

In writing a reflective writing piece, you could find it difficult because much of what you are writing about is not necessarily documented. Also, it is more often than not a non-fiction piece rather than fiction. Fiction is very easy at times because it is aimed at not being entirely true leaving much of its creation to a writer’s imagination. The difficulty in my piece of writing was just gathering and reorganizing all of my experience of one single event. At the time of the event I had no idea that I would have to put much of it onto paper. Had I known that I might have been more attentive that night. But the good thing about that was that I had the opportunity to research and in a way inwardly interview and interrogate myself for information.

I have to say that in a few ways I was challenged by this last assignment and that I was able to learn a bit by required reflection on my own life experiences.