I was inspired to write this piece just two weeks ago after I had accomplished a big goal that I had set in my life. The piece is a narrative (though, not a literacy narrative) and it is a reflection on a process that I went through. Please point out either what was effective or confusing (or both) about the piece. What resonated with you? What would have made it stronger (what did you still want to know)? Your response should be six to nine sentences long.
17 thoughts on “Blog Post #2: A Piece by Professor Corva”
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The part that was very effective for me was when Professor Corva achieved his goal. I was able to relate to this because last year, I challenged myself with my friends to walk from flushing main st to Brooklyn bridge. Just like Professor Corva, I was able to learn many things by walking and looking around how world was like. I was very thankful for people who made car, bus, train, etc. I started to feel thankful for many things that made our life easier. I wanted to know more about why traveling to that specific movie theater was a goal. I understood that it was Professors childhood place but I felt like there’s more than just childhood place.
Something that resonated me from this blog is how you have the ability to open your mind and know what you want and how to do it. Despite the fact that you know that fear will overtake you, you actually find alternatives in order to reach that goal. For instance, you had a hard time going over the hill, you may have given up on the fact that you could not go up without panicking but you looked at this situation and found an alternative. You started to jog on a treadmill which soon helped you get your body use to the jogging you plan on doing. This really opened my eyes to how I should not ignore my fear and let it take the best of me, but overcome it and find a way around it. I also noticed how determined you are on achieving your goal. For example, when you were biking to the movie theater, it was raining and cold but you were so determined on getting there. You found an alternative that moving forward in cold weather is necessary if you want to get warmer.
While I was reading Professor Corva’s narrative piece, I resonated with his perseverance that pushed him to continue cycling despite the bad weather. His story reminded me of a trip I took with my family a few years ago. My parents wanted to get away from the city and decided to take a family trip to go hiking. Personally, I could not care less about the great outdoors, and would rather stay indoors and read a book. However, I had no real say and was forced to go hiking with them. The hike was on rocky terrain and a few miles long. Throughout the hike, I wanted to give up, but I kept pushing myself to keep on going. I managed to see some beautiful scenery and felt more appeciatiation towards nature. The thing I still wanted to know was why
did he come up with the goal of cycling from his apartment to a movie theater? I thought it was effective how he used his new approach to life to bring up other aspects of his life such as becoming a full-time lecturer.
This narrative is inspriational. Professor Corva is able to combine so many small elements in your life to a large picture which reflects personal lessons as well as social problems. The point that is effecitve is when you illustrate how sustainable changes happen. I agree with it. Sustainable change is a process. It needs take time and effort to change one’s body and mind both externall and internally. One thing that resonates me is that I am a “workout” person, my gym also closed during the pandemics. Instead of training in the gym, I chose training at home. I know that I can’t let extrnally factor affects the process of my sustainable change. The only factor that works is myself. When we climb up to the hills that has been scared us the most, we will find that its view is the most attractive and fascinating.
Elaborate how wining the “teaching excellence” award shaped your attitude and empathy.
Overall, this piece was effective in illustrating the experiences that Professor Corva has endured and was able to discuss the lessons he learned from it. He clearly stated his challenges and acknowledged that there was no overnight solution to his internal issues. With that, he welcomed new ideas to change and trusted the process of listening to his own instincts, as well as learning the significance of empathy and patience. Additionally, there was one quote that resonated with me – “Less thinking; more feeling. Less rationalization; more intuition.” This quote was a reminder to myself to trust my own guts. I tend to overthink or have irrational thoughts about certain decisions I make, so I want to make an effort to change that habit. Furthermore, this narrative was an inspiring piece to read on the importance of how we should work on ourselves first before we overcome any obstacle that is in our way.
In this writing you showed me how there are multiple ways to approach challenging obstacles. Receiving help from your peers and acknowledging their statements can be helpful and a piece of motivation to accomplishing you’re goals. This writing piece also remind me of what I will receive and take away in this class. We have to over come manny obstacles in this class, but most of us aren’t capable of that. But if we have the help and the motivation, like Professor Corva had with his running, it will help us and we will have no problem facing challenges in this class. Receiving help from others opens up many different ways to approach one situation, especially from all different perspective.
In that writing, you showed how much persistence and motivation you have. Many people start something and give up after a minor inconvenience. However, you kept pushing yourself to get to our goals. I think it’s inspiring and I admire your hard work. I like two points that you made in your writing. First is when you talked about the obstacles and challenges you faced on your way. You said that you need to work to get to the goal even if it is hard, even if the weather is bad, even if gyms are closed. Another part that I think is important is that you thanked other people that helped on your journey. You said that you won’t be where you are now without other people’s help and I think it’s very good: to seek help when you need it and to take it when it is offered.
The most effective piece that I got from that is when Professor Corva accomplished his goal but also learned something after the fact. In order for us to fix all the insane amount of problems in this world we need to get our mental state right. We need to just evaluate the wrong and right in the world. Everyone should know wrong from right but it is sad that we don’t. I have been telling my friends the same thing for the longest and I would love to hear more on that subject. Brooklyn to Long Island that took some endurance props to you Professor!
This piece was effective to me since I understand the ideas you were trying to share in the piece. You built up pieces and pieces from your training goals to the ideas you got from the goals clearly. I like and agree with your ideas, especially for the quote, “If we are truly going to embrace the idea that Black Lives Matter, and if we are to cope with the challenges of a pandemic, climate change, and the whole host of other issues that we are currently facing, then the first changes we need to make are internal.” This quote resonated with me the most because I also agree that our heart is the first thing we should adjust when we face challenges and issues. Adjusting our internal builds us an understanding of the problems, and sets up the courage we need to face the problems. After we understand and have the courage, the next step of resolving the problems can be moved more easily. The piece would have made it stronger if you could explain more about why the movie theater is significant to you, and why it is a magical place in your life. It is because I believe the meaning of the movie theater for you can help us to define the reason you would want to set the goal of cycling from your apartment in Brooklyn to the movie theater in the first place. But overall, I think it is a very meaningful and thoughtful piece, as well as containing some interesting ideas. Anyway, congratulation on achieving the final goal of the three training goals, and also on the award for ‘teaching excellence!’
The things that was effective to me is not when you achieved your goal, but how you achieved it. You achieved your goal by creating the new you. What I mean by that is you overcome yourself in many ways. One thing that resonated with me was is the moment when were about to give up on your goal because of the weather, but you did not. This is really resonating with me because there were a lot of moments in my life when I could give up and be like “Alright…whatever”, but just as you I kept going to my goals to finally achieved them. In my opinion one thing that could make your writing stronger is details. Even thought you added some, I would like to know how were you feeling while making those changes in yourself.
What was effective about the piece was that Professor Corva had showed us that even if there is a challenge and the road to success might not be a straight line you can still learn from your struggle. What resonated with me is that though he wasn’t able to achieve his big goals at first, by setting small goals and building himself up he was able to over come the bigger challenge. Due to the corona virus my body has gotten very weak, I haven’t been outside in months. It’s because of that I made a plan for myself to get healthier. But I cant just get straight there I have to take many steps one by one like how Professor wasn’t able to get through that particular hill during his first try he had to first improve his body and build upon himself up through his training goals. If I started off by running I wouldn’t last very long, I would feel very sick and might even end up fainting. So I started by taking walks on the weekend, i still struggle due to my lack of stamina, but i still have to manage through it if i want to get better which also includes eating a balanced three meals a day.
First thing I want to say is that, you wrote this piece without having done a rubric or academic goal. I like that because this is not a literacy narrative but just a reflection, you are not writing to a professor but to people who you want to engage with. However, without being too much of an academic writing, you wrote in a way that is still engaging. So the same principle of writing still apply to this writing style and an academic writing piece. From what I got from your writing and the comments is that people do relate with what you write, even if you didn’t asked us, it’s still relate with others. I believe that is very effective in a writing piece and you have implemented in yours. I wouldn’t know what would make this writing stronger but the progression can lead to engagement and engagement leads to enjoyment in reading.
The description of the setting was very detailed. Even though I am currently indoors, I could imagine myself in that weather condition. What made this writing piece really strong is the choice of words. Your word choice showed show much motivation. What really resonated with me is when you wrote: “achieve the final goal.” It made me, as a reader, feel happy for the author knowing that they achieve something. In many ways, I could relate to what you were feeling when you first started to work out. I slowly went out of shape since the beginning of high school. When I started to exercise to get back to shape, I noticed how my body was so weak compared to before. After my workouts, I would have many negative thoughts going around my head. Since then, I still have these thoughts going around but they aren’t as negative as before. I am slowly accepting that change doesn’t happen in a day but over a period of time.
In my opinion, this piece was quite effective as I was able to understand how Professor Cora was motivated and ambitious to achieve his goals and overcome challenges. He did an excellent job at writing this piece in a way that it is a reflection of his experiences rather than an academic piece because as I read it, I was fully convinced by what he had gone through and what helped him fulfill a positive outcome. In fact, he was very specific about his goals that he was able to give great examples that everyone can relate. For instance, he mentioned that we must learn to appreciate, love, build courage, and be empathic regardless of our skin color or how we portray ourselves to the world. I really like that he also mentioned about the amount of support he gained from his workout partners, family, and friends as it shows that he genuinely cared about the people in his lives who would always bring out the best in him. Moreover, I resonated with how Professor Cora was physically and mentally out of shape since I’ve also passed through that stage at a certain point in my life. At the start of my freshman year, I noticed how I was chubby and unfit among my friends and teammates. Not more than a week later, I started working out two to three hours a day for five days every week. Gradually, not only was I able to achieve my goals and became in shape, I was also able to have a more positive and strong mindset. Overall, your piece was truly inspirational.
I feel resonate to this piece written by professor Corva. First, I can feel the complicated emotions professor had (sad but need to adjust to be optimistic) in the rainstorm because of the inaccurate weather forecast. Not everyone can have the courage to keep moving on after frustration and anger. Second, this piece of adventure reminds me of participating in the fencing tournament in 2018. Just as every challenge people may encounter, training is tedious and exhausted. I could even be angry when lost to my teammates in the practice, who I should have no complaints but appreciation. Without them, I could not made progress so fast and our team could not stand out in a dozen teams.
I found the narrative piece to be very inspiring because some of Professor Corva’s goals are similar to my own goals that I have set for my self. I found the motivation in setting high goals and being patient in reaching them to be very effective. Because this is something I struggle with, I often set unrealistic goals, never reach them and be disappointed at my self. I also liked how listening to your internal self was discussed in the narrative, because in the process of reaching such great accomplishments as Professor Corva, we need to be reminded to know our limits and not to push ourselves too hard. Overall I thought the narrative was really amazing, but I wanted to know more about the process in reaching the goals, how Professor Corva did not give up in difficult times and what exactly motivated him to keep going.
When I read, I see myself. In grade 10, I went to an activity that every one in my school needs to attend, which is cycling around Taiwan in 12 days. The 1,000 km journey was impossible for me at the time. I can already feel my body aching from thinking about it. Besides, I have not participated in any physical exercise for many years since middle school. (I’m not really into sports.) But I pushed myself in the end. Because I know there are bigger challenges ahead. I need to overcome some challenge to be able to overcome bigger challenge. So after my efforts, I finally completed the “impossible” task. I remembered one of my High School Teacher taught me that overcoming obstacles is like eating an elephant. It’s huge, but if you eat it a little bit each day, you’ll finish it one day.