Good Morning Prof. Jorge,
Forwarding to you my Reflection Paper 2.
Have a nice day ahead. J
God Bless!
Best Regards,
Jackelyn Aspiras
External
Family experiences that shaped me today
I grew up in a very loving and family-oriented Catholic family.I am the third of four children and we were raised with a deep-rooted faith home environment. Every Sunday we'll wake up at 6am have our breakfast together and attend mass to be closer to the Lord. My parents wanted us to have deeper appreciation of the incredible gifts we receive and by attending mass regularly, it has provided us with strong religious background.
My faith is strong, but by attending Sunday Mass I feel renewed each week. Faith is a gift that I am so lucky to have and I feel that it needs to be nurtured and fed in order to be maintained. I feel that Sunday Mass offers a warm and friendly atmosphere to do that. I find that I am a happier person when I attend Mass every week and take that time out of my hectic life to pause and reflect.
Conclusion
In order to get a full and complete picture of who we are, it is imperative to look back at where we came from. This means a deep reflection of your past and especially your childhood and the people who helped to shape you.
My family and my faith have brought me through many trying times in my life and I would not want to be without it.
School experiences that shaped me today
In college, learning becomes my own responsibility. I study a lot more than I did in high school. I have surrounded myself with studious people from the start. Also, by committing to a certain number of hours, I planned my study time into my schedule accordingly, which helped so much with time management. I've learned that I need to be proactive in my own learnings.
For midterm and finals, I tried to do about 20-25 hours of studying per class. As a result, I got a perfect score in our evaluation exams (Advanced Accounting) and helped me exposed to different opportunities and people such as Ms. JPIA candidate (Junior Philippine Institute of Accountants) but I quit, because I am not really comfortable joining pageants like that and during that time our school have received an invitation to join an accounting quiz bowl so I told my professors that I'll join the quiz bowl instead and we won. Accounting quiz bowls (participant at Pasig Catholic Schools and champion vs De La Salle University). Coming out of my shell at school was hard, but everyone (my parents, professors and friends) from senior to freshman, was so supportive. I felt a new sense of family and enjoyed being able to hang out with my seniors and people whom I would have never thought to associate with before.
Conclusion
Change happens to everyone. Whether it is good or bad, we have to adjust, and what matters most is how we adjust to that change. College is a huge change, in all and every way possible. I think that adjusting to change and finding a "new normal" is more productive and just feels better. You just need to keep an open mind and an open heart. Work hard, find something you love and can live off and study it. The sooner you know where you want to go, the better you can plan your route.
Internal
Your values, strength, weakness and how do they affect on how you decide act
How do they prepare you for your future challenges?
In order to understand my vocation, and my place in the world, I must understand myself. If I don't understand myself, my full self, how can I ever know what I am meant to do with my life? My experience in UAE, helped reveal part of myself that I hadn't acknowledged before and I know that this will undoubtedly help my own life journey.
When my best friend first suggested to me the idea of work abroad, (during that time she resigned at SGV and joined Delloite, UAE) I completely brushed it off. Why would I want to leave all of my friends and family for such a long time and more importantly, why would I want to go so far, all by myself not knowing anyone? Honestly, the whole idea scared me to death. But after more thought (and nagging from my mom and dad), I began to realize the real merit of the idea. I could travel; I could expand upon my knowledge of a foreign language; I could gain great global experience that could help in my career in the future; and I could even get to step outside my comfort zone and grow and learn more about myself in the process. The more I thought about it and talked about it with other people, the more I began to see that this unplanned revision of my future plans was really an opportunity of a lifetime! And that is when this whole journey really began.
It may sound a little ridiculous, but throughout the process of this entire experience I have become very proud of myself for being able to "make it on my own" abroad and have a newfound confidence in my abilities. Yes, I have lived independently outside the home of my parents since I was 20 and I am for all intents and purposes an "adult." However, I have always had them a close phone call away to help me if I needed it. I honestly hardly knew the language (Arabic) at all. Simple everyday tasks, like going to the grocery store or talking to my landlord, were actually quite difficult at first. In fact, my first couple of weeks there I spent second guessing my decision and wondering why I ever decided to work abroad in the first place. But eventually things started to get easier. I started to learn about the culture and the language and I started to meet people and to gain a new confidence in myself that I never would have had without this experience. It was a very interesting position to be in and observe and I feel that I learned much more in those short three years about the Arab and other nationalities and their culture than I ever would have in a class or from a textbook. Through my work abroad experience I also had the chance to travel and learn more about other Emirates. Through these trips I have learned that I love traveling and learning about other cultures and histories and they have instilled in me a desire to travel more in my future. I just can't wait to explore more of the world. Finally, I also learned a lot about myself throughout this whole experience. I have gained a newfound confidence in my own abilities from having to live totally and completely on my own and gain financial independence. It is a great feeling to know that if for some reason I am left completely alone in the world or have to start over making a life for myself in a new and unknown place, I am confident that I can make it and that I can capably handle making good decisions on my own. Also, I have learned a lot about my own beliefs and perspectives. While in UAE, I was constantly surrounded by people with different opinions than me and this really forced me to self examine my own beliefs. It led me to have a firmer understanding of the way that I choose to view the world and it also led to growth and an new openness in my perspectives by being exposed to other people and their experiences. I learned people can still have a respect for each other's beliefs and their reasons behind what they believe, even if they don't necessarily agree with them. Some of my closest friends from India (Nazia) and UAE (Irfan) have almost complete opposite beliefs than me due to their own life experiences. But we still had respect for each other and could learn from each other. The dialogue about our similarities as well as our differences made us all the better for them.
In conclusion, what started out as a setback to my work plan and a dilemma for my future really turned into something very beneficial for me. I did not only gain qualities and knowledge that will take me far in any career that I choose in the future, but I also gained a respect and appreciation for countries and cultures other than my own. I have come to love traveling and learning about different countries' histories and way of life. And I now have plans in the future to travel to as many different places as I possibly can. I would recommend to anyone searching for a new work experience outside the books or wishing to learn more about themselves, other countries and cultures to work abroad. It has turned out to be one of the best decisions of my life. I say that it was an incredible learning experience. After having lived in UAE, I am more aware of my social location and how that informs my interpretation of the world which may be radically different from the perspectives of others. I am now able to understand and anticipate cultural differences in worldview and communication. I discovered my strengths and my limitations, (selfawareness) and I encountered new ideas that continue to challenge how I choose to live my life. Working at UAE may have flipped me upside down initially, but it also showed me that my view of the world is relative and that I am always growing and evolving. I can think of no better lessons than these. And just like my favorite quotation:
Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work." (Steve Jobs)
I commit to use these leanings in my daily life as a student (MBA), in my career (FedEx) and in everything that I do.
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