Reflection Letter

Hello everyone my name is Christian Davis. This has been my first experience with online education and schooling. Which I have found myself obtaining new problem solving skills as well as increasing my ability to analyze a situation and develop a well rounded conclusion. After I had completed high school I entered the fire service at the age of eighteen. Twenty years later at 38 this whole college experience has been a new and exciting adventure for me. I work as a Battalion Chief of Operations for North County Fire / EMS which is located in North Snohomish County. I have to perform a lot of written corresponds and reports as well as daily emails to the on duty crews. My writing style could have been best described as poor until now. Because of English 101 I have noticed a raise in the bar of quality and content of what I release to the crews and administration.

Returning back to school to complete a degree in the fire service was a very difficult decision for me. However, I had met most of the core classes for the degree but was concerned as English has always been a struggle for me. I have though learned a great deal over the last quarter and find myself reviewing the lessons learned in identity, community, and tradition. These lessons gave me a much deeper understanding of diversity and opened me up to newer ideas and thoughts from so many different aspects. The blogs encouraged me to do so much personal exploring of the subjects such as “What’s In a Fire Fighter’s Wallet?” This really helped me analyze my identity based off of items found in my wallet and how they may be perceived by others.

When I looked into community a whole new world for me was discovered. I had no idea just how many different communities there possible could be and so many unusual ways to discover their existence. I found myself taking a step back and looking outside of the box while analyzing the information that had been provided to me on this subject. In the past I had looked at a community as folks who may live in a small town or a city. I now know that there is so much more to it and what a community can mean. For example I wrote about fire service community in the 2^nd discussion board for the lesson “In my own experience I even see such tribes formed in the fire service. We work 24 hour shifts which works out to 9 to 10 shifts a moth for each assigned crew. There are three assigned crews or shifts per department and they are identified as A-Shift, B-Shift, and C-Shift. Each shift seems to have their own way of performing daily duties, emergency responses, and even customer service levels. Individuals will jockey for position in hopes of being assigned to a particular shift if that does not happen you can see their attitudes turn negative and discouraged on which shift they had been assigned to.” This really showed how I was able to see even the communities within my own work place.

Traditions opened the door for me to take a look back at many things that I have felt where being lost as time went on. I find myself holding onto traditions to ensure that lesson and cultural traditions that we taught to me by my grandmother will be able to live on in future generations. For example, in my blog “ God Jul a Norsk Family Holiday Tradition” I was able to analyze a traditional family holiday and the similarities I saw in many others that I had read. It showed people connecting and the simple yet very meaningful memories that are created with traditions.

When I worked on picking my four pieces to present I found myself in deep reflection. I reflected on the great many things I have learned, the strength I have gained in my papers thanks to the great feedback from my instructors and how to bring someone into your thoughts and readings by building a thesis and applying throughout a paper.

Thank you for the memories, lessons and wonderful thoughts and guidance throughout this quarter. This has truly been and experience and a cultural awareness that I will not soon forget. Best of luck to all of you and bless the 343 firefighter who made the sacrifice so that so many would live!