Jan: Journal, Compass, and Multigenre Reflection

Jan C. Navarro Lopez

Prof. Pittmann

ENGL 3103-134

5 June 2018

Through Journals, Compass, and Art

We had to do the journals again this semester, the professor gave the same rules. As last time, those being, using an ink pen for all entries, don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar, and keeping your hand moving. Those rules were easy to understand. Then there were some rules that I didn’t understand at the moment such as lose control, don't think, don't get logical, go for the jugular, and write your first thoughts, out of these the ones that I had a hard time following were the ones of not thinking, not being logical and, the one of writing your first thoughts like, how were we supposed to write a journal entry without thinking what to write about or the ideas that you write about in that paper not being coherent with each other. Yet, as the teacher explained it more it made more sense. This wasn’t going to be your typical journal where you start with “Dear journal…” or “Dear diary…” The purpose of this school journal, unlike a regular journal, was to do a sort of psychoanalysis on we with the thoughts and ideas that you’ve had during the day. This is better shown when we begin to do the daily compass, as its purpose is for us to analyze how we’ve been feeling during the day.  Before we started doing this project I would take my time writing and thinking of the correct way to put my ideas together, dropping the pen and thinking. But now that we were in a time limit, and we also had a rule to not stop moving your hands for the time limit helped me to think of words quicker and to memorize them.

Just like the journal, we had to do the compasses again and during the time that we did this activity, I always wondered what its purpose really was. Well after doing eleven of these and then reading over them again, I can say that I’ve figured out the purpose of this activity. Obviously, it’s to know how you’re feeling at the day you do the compass. However, this exercise helps you be more connected with your emotions since you’re doing self-meditation analyzing how your day go, to help you fill out the compass. It also helps you understand the emotions you are feeling for the future purpose of asking yourself, “Oh, why am I feeling like this?” You’ll be able to tell yourself, “I’ve felt this way before and this is how I cope with it.” Even if I didn’t understand the purpose of this assignment I think I do now, it helped me understand more what I was feeling and coming to terms with it, something that’s easier said than done.

The Multigenre project was neat. I couldn’t do a cover for my journal last time so that was a predicament, however, it was implemented this time and it came out rather nice. Doing the letter to my past self was also really fun and doing the metaphor too.