Earlier today I trudged through the snow for lunch with Christine, Britta, Maddy and Kelsey. We walked from campus over to Kumo Sushi where we each ordered about three rolls. I ordered, as part of the lunch special, the spicy scallop roll, tuna & avocado roll and the spicy salmon roll. Before the rolls were ready we were each served miso soup in a black and red bowl. The sushi rolls were brought out upon a square white plate accompanied by a tray for soy sauce. They were delicious. I ate all of the rolls I ordered for myself and then proceeded to eat the rolls that my friends couldn’t finish (lame, right?). I tried eating the rolls with ginger for the first time. Nothing special about it in my opinion, it didn’t really taste like anything

I just described my lunch earlier today. Of course my roommate took a picture of her sushi plate before digging in, but this assignment wasn’t calling for that.

Dear Mom,

Thank you for being an amazing mother. You may not feel like you have, but you’ve raised four fantastic daughters. Each one of us loves you very much. I’m so thankful I look forward to coming home and hanging out with you; I’m thankful for the wonderful relationship that we have.

I hope to travel more with you, and share some laughs and tears. I hope to make it through these tough years ahead of us.

Love,

Sophia

(Dad, Isabelle, Samantha, Mom, Sarah; I’m taking the picture and making them laugh)

This assignment required me to pick a quote that I liked and write about why I found it interesting. For this week’s task I was required to complete writing assignments that equaled six stars. This assignment was worth two stars. I was required to tie it into the western course theme. As such, I found this quote from John Wayne:
“Courage is being scared to death – and saddling up anyway.”
In my opinion this quote definitely fulfills the western theme for multiple reasons. The first reason is the speaker, John Wayne. John Wayne was an American actor that played many western roles. The quote uses the idea of “saddling up” which can be associated with riding a horse and this action generally elicits the idea of wide open country spaces or desert areas with cowboys and cattle. The third reason is the meaning behind this quote. A reason I like this quote is that it can pertain to someone with a western background or just someone like me, who has grown up in the city. In my opinion, this quote is uplifting and encouraging. It relays the message that if I am scared of doing something, not to give up but instead go for it and give it my all. I feel at some point in everybody’s life they reach a point where they need to use their courage to complete a task they are scared to death about. It could apply to things such as a school exam to flying in an airplane to performing on a world stage. For me, it would be the latter. With my skating, I practice my programs everyday completing them as I would hope to perform them in international competitions. When I get to those competitions I sometimes feel so nervous and scared but I have to go out there and perform. Once, I “saddle up anyway” and get out there I generally am able to use my courage and let go of my fears.

I enjoyed completing this assignment and I am glad that I had to tie it into the western theme. That is because if I didn’t have to choose it from a western theme I would not have come across this quote. I can really relate to this quote and I feel it will help me in the future when I need a little encouragement and push to conquer some my doubts.

My final assignment bank post of the week (worth 3 stars to complete my 6 star total) is a writing assignment called tell us about your future life. This prompt tells you to write about yourself as if you were a small blurb in a history textbook. It tells you to focus on college life and what happens after. I chose this because I thought it was kind of a neat concept to act like it was in a textbook because I have never seen or thought of that before. Here is goes:

Julianna Procaccini (1993-) graduated from The University of Mary Washington in 2016 where she majored in biology on the pre medical track. During college Julianna spent most of her time volunteering at a free health clinic for the homeless, scribing at MWH, and shadowing surgery. In her free time, Julianna would train and run half marathons. After graduating, Julianna attended Tuft’s Medical College from 2017-2021 where she excelled in cardiology. Following this, Julianna started her residency in pediatric cardiology at Mass General where she specialized in interventional cardiac procedures for three years. After completing her residency in 2024, Julianna became a pediatric cardiologist at Mass General. During her career she developed a new technique that was less invasive than the previous cardiac catheterization procedures on pediatrics. She also did research on Ebstein’s Anomaly in which she published many papers for the New England Journal of Medicine. Following retirement in her late 60s, Julianna still volunteered and helped out with The Ronald McDonald House and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Julianna still continues to give back to her community and travel to pediatric cardiology conferences around the world.

For this assignment bank post (which is 3 stars) called short story with random words and animal. This assignment told you to go to a random word generator and select for 10 random words. I did this and it gave me the following ten words: noble, aquarium, blueberry, distant, aggression, teeth, hope, honey, diva and emergency. Once given the 10 words, I had to also pick a random animal and I decided to pick a great white shark. After having all the words picked out, the prompt tells you to write a short story using the animal and the words… This assignment is also the post that I will be linking with the western theme. Here is goes:

Once upon a time in a distant and far off land called Iowa there was an aquarium. In this aquarium there was a large array of different types of animals from the smallest starfish and plankton to the large killer whales. There once was a baby great white shark named Marvin. Marvin was honestly the smallest of all the baby sharks at the aquarium. This made him very shy and introverted. Marvin enjoyed watching the people who walked by the exhibit. Marvin’s favorite day was western day where he would see people with western boots and cowboy hats. When it was western day, Marvin’s trainers would even strap a western hat on his head for him to float around with. It was his favorite. One day he was was swimming around when he saw a small group of female great white sharks who were acting like complete divas. They were gossiping and talking bad about all the other animals in their tank. Even though Marvin was a kind shark and he never wanted to hurt anyone’s feelings, but this brought out some aggression in Marvin. Marvin brushed it off his shoulder though and went on with his day. That night while Marvin was eating a shark delicacy of blueberries and honey when he heard a lot of commotion on the other end of the tank. Being on the curious side, Marvin stopped eating and decided to swim over and see what the commotion was. There in front of him was the biggest and baddest great white shark ever known named Costanzo. Constanzo had heard about all the rumors that the diva sharks had started and he didn’t like it. Marvin saw Costanzo using his fins to push the diva sharks around and he was snarling his teeth. Marvin, even though he didn’t like the diva sharks, he knew this was an emergency and that he had to help. Without even a second thought Marvin pushed the divas out of the way of Costanzo and hit him really hard with his tail. Costanzo was shocked and tried to fight back, but Marvin was the clear winner at the end of the fight. Costanzo swam away very quickly at the end of the fight and little baby Marvin had won. Who knew that there was hope for the smallest great white shark out there. The divas stopped acting so mean, Marvin became a noble shark and everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

This was kind of fun, but hard to be that creative. I was just kind of picturing the sharks from Finding Nemo when I wrote this. I chose this one because I saw some shark commercial on TV and made me think to write about them

For this assignment I am to write five things for my bucket list and reasons why, so here I go!

1.) Compete in either and NPC Bikini or Figure show and win my pro card. I love the sport of bodybuilding and with my competitive dance background I’ve been itching to go back on a stage. This time with a sculpted physique I am proud to have achieved. Winning my pro card also means I would get closer to the Olympia which is the dream! Also being higher up means cash money prizes which could help fund me going to shows and training and what not.

2.) Get sponsored by companies. This is for when I compete. Having a company such as Legion or Angel sponsor me would be icing on the cake. There are so many things to worry about when going into competing and having supplements and my stage presence covered would take a little bit of the stress away!

3.) Do good. I am super passionate about helping those less fortunate and hope to be able to do that as well. I really want to help stop childhood obesity so joining an organization and making a difference is something I definitely want to do.

4.) Pay back my parents. With everything they have ever done for me I hope one day that I can look at them and pay off their mortgage or their cars or just give them a huge check that will help them live easy when they start getting old.

5.) Adopt a bunch of dogs. This is just a last random one. I really do love dogs and I believe they all deserve a loving home. I always joked around that if nothing works out I’ll just start a dog sanctuary. They are just the best!

(Two Stars)

I have absolutely no idea what the future holds for me. This assignment requires me to write to myself 10 years from now.

Dear future Tierra,

You’ll be what, 30? when you read this. Dear God woman you’re old! Except not really, I’m just kidding. You’re writing this to yourself on January 24, 2016. There’s a crap ton of snow outside from winter storm Jonas and you have no idea whether you have work today or not. So if you remember all this stuff, you’re awesome, if not, go take some EHT by Nerium and get smarter ya dingus. Well I imagine you have already been on the bodybuilding circuit and have a few competitions under your belt. Hopefully sponsored by Legion Supplements and a bikini company. You train people at your own gym and help children with their health, like you always wanted to. You also got your masters for nutrition through Liberty’s online courses like you planned. I hope you’re married to the love of your life and possibly have a little baby or one on the way, if not that’s cool, take your…my….(???) time. You have a beautiful house with a wrap around porch and a lot of indoor potted plants and books everywhere. I imagine you live on a big piece of land somewhere in Virginia so you’re not too far from all your siblings and friends. If this is all too far fetched than here is my more achievable standard that I’ll give myself. I think I’m married to the love of my life in a cute little townhouse either in Virginia or Maryland. We have multiple dogs because I love dogs and can’t live without them. I am a counselor of some kind, hopefully with children, but also a personal trainer. I have competed in a bodybuilding show and want to help others do it too. And I finally got that Audi I have been dreaming out since I was 19. I hope I put my anxiety and negative thoughts about myself away and only think positively. I have no idea if this is how the future will even end up but it’s always a great outline. Most importantly, I hope I am happy. So if I’m not and I’m reading this well, cheer up buttercup. You’re alive and reading this and have gotten to be 30, let’s see how 40 and 50 and so on look on us.. me.. you… this is hard. Anyways, cheers to being 30!

Love, Tierra

(Two Stars)

For this little diddy we have to write about our Freshman year move in day, something I loved and hated all at once.

I moved into Jefferson Hall around August 2013 at 10a.m. I had absolutely no idea where my room was and thought my Mom couldn’t be anymore embarrassing. My Mom and I unloaded everything onto the curb in front of the building and then she went to go park the car. I had to bring everything up with the help of one person because she got lost parking her car. By the time everything was up in my room it was super hot and humid since it had rained a little bit. Everything was a huge chaotic mess and by the time my roommate had got there with even more stuff, which she took up all at once because she had so much help, it looked like a tornado had hit our room. Eventually everything was unpacked and put in spots, soon to be moved so we could open up our floor to be bigger. But the entire time moving in I had one thought, I want to go home. Obviously because it was a new place but also, I didn’t really know anyone and it didn’t feel like home to me. I was tired, scared and excited all at once.

My Mom and I went to lunch and went shopping for things that I forgot which completely took my worries away at the time. Then we got back and the anxiety about being in a new place and not going home to my family every night started kicking in. When my Mom was getting ready to head out I kept making up excuses for her not to leave but she said she had to. It wasn’t the emotional but by the time she got in the car she called me and told me how proud she was and quickly ended the call due to what sounded like a sob. I watched her drive away like something an actress would do in a movie and just wished I could be going back home with her.

So obviously freshman move in day was a mixed bag of feelings but since then I have made some friendships and have made it to second semester junior year! I call my family frequently just to catch up with them and try to go home any chance I get free from work! Move-in day sucked but I’ve gotten this far and can’t wait to see where I end up later in time.

(Two Stars)

This weeks assignments are mostly writing and out of three options I decided to choose this one. My Mom is my best friend and closest confidant so of course I wrote a letter to her. It got kind of “mushy-gushy” but I love her so who care! Here’s to you Mama!

Mama D,
Words can’t even begin to describe how much I love you and how appreciative I am of your constant love, care and support. I wish I had known that back when I was a stupid teenager that you would grow to be one of my biggest fans and best friends. You always were there for me even if I would say the worst things to you. You never once left my side and always had something uplifting to say after a bad feis day or bad day in general. I know we still get into our little battles over who has your snow boots, what to eat for dinner or whether you should leave my sister alone or not, but I can never stay mad at you. You are the reason I am a clean freak and over pack when going on day trips. You never know when and ice pack comes in handy. You’re the reason I care for my friends when they aren’t feeling good because I know how wonderful it was when you did that for me. I’m awful at math just like you but I do know how to make a child listen – just like you. I call you frequently since living in an apartment because I realize how much I don’t know about living on my own. I realize how much I don’t know at all Contrary to when I used to think I knew everything. You are a walking book of useful knowledge, dumb jokes and remedies for every sickness. I love you so much and hope when I have kids that I will be just as knowledgeable and loving as you were to me. I hope, after I pick up my kids from school, I blast 80’s rock in my car and all my kids sing a long just like we did when you would pick me up from middle school. I hope they get to experience everything they could ever want because I can provide it just like you always did. I hope they learn many lessons from you and your brain filled with everything, exactly like I did. I love you Mom.
Love, Tierra

For the assignments, I like to just click the random button and see what comes up until something sticks out. For this one, monologue of a household tool, I read the normal assignment, had a thought that relates to my life, and decided to use the assignment to reflect that thought, however mundane it may be. I was writing about an everyday object, after all. The interesting part of the story, to me, is that is gives me a new way to look at and outwardly express that simple idea. What might be a complaint or gripe because an opportunity for unique story telling.  So, without further ado..

Lost in Space: A Cramped Unfamiliar One

This is not my home. I don’t even know how I ended up here. All the other contraptions here are keeping to themselves, but I am sure they are giving my dirty looks. It doesn’t matter anyway, not one cares what they think. They could never do what I do, rescuing objects from the fire and such. That one is pointy and small, I don’t know what anyone would want with that… and that one looks the same but much larger; I think it might be dangerous. I smell something going on out there, I suspect they will come after me very shortly… but how will they ever know where to look? Last time I took a shower, those small creatures brought me here; that seems like days ago now.
I really just want to be home, and to be quite honest about it, I am scared. I think I smelled the burning smell yesterday, but no one came. What if they found someone else to do my job? It isn’t like there is unemployment for things like me…. I will just end up stuck here forever… or worse. If they really did meet someone else, I might end up going with all those boxes, and paper, and old food, to whatever hell it is they run off to on Tuesdays and Fridays.
And now I smell the smell again… What is that sound, though. I don’t want anyone reading this to get too excited, but it sounds frantic. I hear banging, shuffling, movement, and that burning smell is intensifying. It smells like buttermilk and flour, with a hint of maple off somewhere in the distance; no way they can solve this one without me. I know they are coming, I just hope they make it in time. Being lost in the darkness most of your life is bad enough, but being lost in this foreign darkness is so much worse.
It is all happening so fast now, the noise got so much closer. There was some discussion between the big one and the little ones, it sounded frustrated. Now I smell a new smell, like a fruity sort of lotion one might use on their hands… Finally! I know it is ok now, I can feel the sliding and rolling underneath me, and the space is illuminated. I just need all these other guys to move so that she will see me. It is times like this when I despise being so flat, but how could I do my job if I wasn’t? Time to wrap this up for now though, it is only a matter of time before I am removed from here, off to work. I will need a shower when I am done again, but hopefully I find my way back home after the shower this time.