Reflection Letter

Welcome to my e-portfolio. My name is Todd Olson and I am 47 years of age.  I have been happily married for twenty great years to my lovely wife Judy.  We have three wonderful kids and four grandchildren. Our youngest child still lives at home and is a freshman in high school. I am living my dream of being in the fire service and I am currently the Assistant Fire Chief/Training Officer for the City of Sedro-Woolley.  I have been in the fire service for twenty one exciting and rewarding years. I grew up in Everett and graduated from Everett High School. Shortly after graduating I decided to continue my education at Everett Community College. At that time I aspired to become an engineer. Soon after starting school my plans came to an abrupt halt.  My father had suffered from the effects of diabetes for many years and he finally succumbed to the disease. His death caused a hardship for my family and I had to put my dreams aside and help my mother and siblings out wherever I could. 

Life happens and things don’t always go as planned. My dream of becoming an engineer had been put on hold but God had a bigger and better plan for me that included helping people in their time of need and saving lives. I started to volunteer for the Marysville Fire Department and realized that my passion was firefighting and specifically training. Years passed and after much procrastination because I was fearful of going back to school. I decided it was time to put that fear aside and follow my new dream of receiving an associate of arts degree in fire science. I did start back to school last year and I currently have two more courses to complete after this class  to get my degree. I plan to further my education with a bachelor degree in Fire Administration. The last English course I took was in high school 29 years ago. I had a lot of anxiety about taking this course and that is also where the procrastination came from. I knew deep down that I could become a proficient writer and I do enjoy story telling.  I have a creative mind for it. I suppose I get that from my grandfather, he wrote a book of poems that was published. This course has been a huge challenge for me, but with many long hours and a lot of hard work and dedication I am a better writer and have learned a lot about diversity. With the support of my fellow classmates, their feedback on assignments and encouraging words they have helped me succeed in this course.

In this course we had to write three thesis papers on the subjects of Identity, Community and Tradition. I had never written a thesis paper prior to this course.  Writing these thesis papers has made me take a closer look at the meaning of each of the subjects, expanding my thoughts about each one. We were given several reading assignments. They were short stories about each of the subjects.

One of the stories that I read titled “The “F Word” was about an Iranian family that moved to America. The family was discriminated against because they were not considered true Americans. Firoozeh, was the daughter and she was teased incessantly about her name. At one point she was called the “F word" because a person did not even try to pronounce her name or ask her how to pronounce it. She decided to change her name to an American name “Julie” because she thought this would help her fit in. She continued to struggle with her identity even after graduating from college. Identity is much more than what is printed on an identification card.  It is who a person is; their heritage, history, life experiences, hardships and accomplishments. It is also how these things have affected them that create their identity.

Community is more than a neighborhood, town or city. Communities can be small groups with something in common. Such as the fire service, church groups, workout groups or even an on-line gaming group. We were given an assignment to watch a movie and write about it in regards to community and identity. We were given several movies to choose from. I had watched them all but I chose to write about the movie titled “The Rabbit Proof Fence” because it was based on a true story and an incredible one. It is about three young aboriginal girls that were taken away from their mothers and put into a training camp called Moore River Native Center. They were being trained to do domestic work, to be slaves for Australian families. The girls escaped the camp and made it back to their family after traveling approximately 1,500 miles in 9 weeks. The journey changed Molly’s identity. The change was forced by the outsiders (white man) by taking them away from their family. She was now the adult the care taker the leader.  This experience gave her strength and confidence that she may not have had before but needed later in life.

Tradition is more than holiday traditions. It is also courtesies and manners, family game night or a road trip, communication, rituals and marriage. There are new family traditions that are created and sometimes changed over time. These are traditions that we hope to pass down from generation to generation. An interesting read about tradition was a story about a family thanksgiving titled “A Wobegon Holiday Dinner.” Uncle Jack and Aunt Dee were not getting along and Aunt Dee “threw something at him, playfully, which happened to be a paring knife, and it made a deep scratch down his cheek.” It reminded me of a Jerry Springer episode.

The final project for the class was to create an e-portfolio to highlight the work that we have done and what we have learned in our English Diversity Course. We had to choose four of our writings. A paper that demonstrates our critical thinking skills, I chose a paper that I wrote about tradition titled “Techno Speaking”. This paper is about how cell phones have had a negative impact on tradition of communication. Another thesis paper I have chosen to demonstrate my revision skills is my paper on Identity. This was my first thesis paper and it needs a lot of revision.   I also had to choose a paper that illustrates my awareness of audience and voice; I choose my writing on my blog titled “A Workout Group is a Community.” This paper describes my workout community and its common goals. The final writing I would like to share is one of my favorites titled “A Red Neck Thanksgiving.” It is a blog post and is about my families Thanksgiving traditions.

My writing has greatly improved in the way that each of the paragraphs flow and moves the argument along. The diversity portion has broadened my thinking about identity, community and tradition. I hope you enjoy my writings.