Know your audience

Halfway through our summer semester, I can admit that after a slow feeling spring semester, this one flies by so quickly it scares me.
What surprised me is that I see so many differences between all of us taking this class, but yet we are so much alike. We have students fresh out of high school and parents, and they all think alike at some points.
For example, one question was about the bucket list. I did not expect that students fresh out of high school even pondered about everything they wanted to have done by the time of their passing. Between the ones who want to visit Hawaii and the ones who wanted to discover their roots through traveling,and some even want to go to space, one can notice that most of us who have been living in the Ozarks have felt the need to see what the world, and the universe has to offer. The answers differed, but the same goal remains in the vast majority of students.
One of the questions made me ponder: If someone offered you a free study abroad semester, where would you go? What would you study? One chose France and it is about the cuisine. As a Parisian, French citizen, I do happen to live the stereotype that since I am french, the only job I can get is by the stoves. I have been in America for now fourteen years and I have once had a job that was not about cooking. That is one out of over a dozen jobs! What is curious is that surveys show that Americans consider French being the most romantic language, that Paris has the most frequented art museum on the planet with the Louvre, that historically France has millenniums of history that can be lived and seen, but yet only one would go. I was fortunate enough to have visited many countries growing up, mostly in western Europe, and even though I visited magical places such as Venice, Florence and Amsterdam, I will always believe that Paris is by far the most beautiful city in the world. Since I have gone so many places, I decided not to answer to that one because most of the places I would want to go to would be for leisure, not for studying.
Also, there is that one question that brought so many answers which show how different we, the online class of English 101 are so different and left me without answering :What color is your attitude?  Explain. Until this week, my attitude was a color, so it was easy to reply to it. I felt blue. Blue because I love this color, but also blue because I miss my son every day, every night, every time Spongebob, Cars or Spiderman comes on television. Blue because I am beyond being red with anger, beyond being a white blank page after everything had happened in a flash, losing everything. This week changed my view on what my attitude should be. I will be a different color everyday because of all the sorrow, anger, fear, pain that I have meditated and learned to deal with through mental wellness with Geshe, Tibetan monk living in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I cannot pinpoint which color humbled could be, because just like his flags and gardens all over his house, all the colors are there in harmony. I can be any color, and my audience has shown to be every color.
As I stated, we together are all alike, yet different. And it is humbling to be one of many.

What is a credo anyway?

After a life changing two weeks, I finally can get my head into my homework which I have not been able to get into as much as I want to. After stewing about what I needed done and where to start, I decided to go for the first thing that came to mind: what is a credo?
According to Bing, a credo is a "statement of principles: a statement of principles or beliefs, especially one that is professed formally" and the light bullb above my head lit all of a sudden.
I was in Fayetteville, Arkansas until Saturday and spent time with a Tibetan monk who gave us an experience on relaxation, and wellness through meditation, and after spending those moments with a high ranked monk in the Buddhist order, my credo could be "we are all flawed, so do not stress about it". I used to have that "don't worry be happy" attitude as a teenager but it only got me lost when I lost both my parents when I was twenty years old. I began acting like an adult, stressing over everything because it made me feel like a grown up. My parents were always worried about me and they were great people, so stress must be good!
This humbling experience with a man who turned out to be as much a prankster than I was saved my summer. Geshe  (meaning grand master) is a personal friend of the Dalai Lama and we both spent our free time cooking and playing pranks on others. He also taught me one amazing quote from the Dalai lama who was asked if things from the outside world we getting to him: "Heck yea I get mad sometimes, who doesn't?" and thinking that a so highly respected Godly person is just one of us made me feel so small. He is a human like me and just like me "we are all flawed, so do not stress about it"!
Fred

7-I believe I am a better parent than my son's mother ....The freewritten rant

Ten minutes to talk about a thing i have been fighting for over five years...let's do it!
So I do believe the legal system has lot to change. There is a major difference between a father and a daddy. I am a daddy. I am the kind of guy whose kid gets pissed off about because he gets hugged and kissed too much , but is happy because he knows every cook play place and where the best ice cream is. I am so mad that the legal system only sees me as a man who is an immigrant, therefore a threat that he could kidnap his son to this terrible place that is Paris France so he can get to see his family, the real one, not the fake, two faced pseudo christian one. If only he could see and meet my side, his uncles aunts cousins and that language that freaked him out when he heard it while trying to pull a terrible twos stunt on me. He tried to be a grumpy bug and that one day I stared at him while telling him to stop being a brat in french. he gave me the saddest puppy eyes ever asking me "what did you say, daddy?" and his terrible twos were over. that was the experience I get to remember because, well thanks to a legal system badly flawed, a daddy has not seen his son since he was 3. He is 7. That system that allows a woman who has the maturity of a 10 year old to be in charge of a child, letting her get her way into not letting her child be with his daddy he loves so much becasue he was 7 minnutes late giving his son back because he was trick or treating. "you are late and you will never see your son again" was the last thing Ryan has heard while seeing both his parents in front of him. It has been an all out battle that cost me my job, my home and my health, but I am still fighting. Not because I am a better parent than she is. Because I love my son and he needs me. I talked to many lawyers and the only thing that came to their mouth is that I cannot afford them. LAWYERS WHO CLAIM THEY ARE WORKING TOWARDS HUMAN RIGHTS!!! I am sorry, that just ticks me off to see that people who claim to want to help for a better future cannot see further than a bank account. Just like Ryan's mom and her wanting to be the star of the whole thing, neglecting that one soul who is my reason for breathing. Ten minutes. The fight goes on.

This I believe! freewriting believing funfest AKA Fred's ten minute utopia frenzy

1-I believe the earth is not quite round
2- I believe the school system needs revamped and respected
3- I believe the world can be at peace with more intelligence used
4- I believe people should travel more so they could understand others better
5- I believe my neighbor is a nutjob
6-I believe some of my friends are a bit too optimistic to not be on drugs
7-I believe I am a better parent than myson's mother
8- I believe women should appreciate my accent more so I do not have to suffer through my shyness with comunication
9- I believe we can all love each other and that my neighbor should be in a closet by herself until she cools off
10- I believe I need to go easy on my neighbor , no matter how much of a nutjob she is
11- I believe i should scratch 10 because she is a hopeless case
12- I believe it's been ten minutes and I am getting crazy ideas about getting rid of my neighbor.

Jung Typeology Results

I guess I am an INFJ: Introverted Intuitive Feeling Judging.

              After a mature thinking about the matter, I can do nothing but agree on the results. I am definitely the kind of person who will not be the center of attention, while making my judgement based on how I feel. I am undoubtedly a humanitarian, and I have only my country to judge. France is known for being the country of human rights and I was told and raised that every person is born equal and even after thirty eight years globetrotting, I still will not change my views. One thing I am glad to hear is that I am the same type as one of my heroes and mentors growing up, that man being Nelson Mandela. I do not agree on what "careers" are suggested however; I used to be an art person, but it was my way to express myself and to distinguish myself as a strongly introverted teenager. As far as social work and education is concerned, I did try those but I found out that I lack patience when the people I try to guide are the exact opposite of me. I cannot bear people who will think they are right and be stubborn about it while they know that they are wrong, especially when proven wrong.

I have often been criticized for being an idealist. I do see the good in people and that if everyone do something towards the same goal, we can make this world a much better place. 

Just like two other INFJ, Martin Luther King Jr and Mother Teresa, I do think that peace is the greatest weapon and that thinking over acting and when acting is needed, it is maturely thought and measured and aimed towards the best solution.

As a writer, one can definitely tell the intuitive and the feeling aspects of me as I decided to free-write my first blog. I decided to free-write then out of pure feelings, because deep inside it felt right for me to express myself through this interesting process which I have never exercised before. While I do not express myself in a crowd, mostly out of fear, the wheels in my head constantly turn, trying to better everything I can. 

My ancestor was known for being one of the biggest creative thinkers of the modern world and the founder of modern mathematics, and just like Blaise Pascal, ideas stay in my head until it is time to put the thoughts on paper, with mature and logical thought process perfectly executed into it. 

This week has been a tumultuous one, and the next two weeks are planned to be a thrill. Hopefully they will end the right way, or at least better than this week.

To be continued...

First post

Well, here goes my first blogging experience. Let's hope that it gets better than it first appears. I am freewriting as of right now, not even thinking about something conclusive or shall we say solid for my first time on this site. It sure is a pretty tough way to write, this freewriting thing. Interesting way to think about htings, but weird to say the least. well since the library will be closing in five minutes, I guess it is time for me to close it up. Next time, it will be better, I promise!