Journal Two from Abigail Flores

 Journal Two

My camping trip right before I left for basic combat training.

Hello everyone! My name is Abigail Flores. I am going to school to get my degree in nursing and my overall goal is to become a physician's assistant in emergency and trauma. I love to go fishing, shooting, and hiking in my free time. One fun fact about me is that after high school, I enlisted into the Army National Guard and I left for training in August of 2019. My training was supposed to last until February of 2020. In October of 2019, I was on our last graduation requirement for basic training. It was a 10 mile ruck march. About halfway through, I fell and I thought that I just pulled a muscle so I got up and finished it because I wanted to graduate and see my family. When we got to the end I could not walk. They had to carry me onto the truck and I went to the doctor the next morning. They took x-rays and then I found out that I had broken my femur and my pelvis. I was told that I could not graduate and I had to stay there and heal. No contact with my family until I was able to come home for a week for the holidays. Overall, I spent nine months in basic training and with strength and hope I was able to heal and then move on to my training in Texas to become a combat medic. I had to spend another four months away training. I was supposed to be home within about six months and I didn’t end up coming home for almost fourteen months. This pushed me back a lot for school and my career. I want to be able to put in as much effort as I did in those fourteen months while I am here because I want to be the best that I can be no matter what gets in my way. 

So far, from reading “The House on Mango Street”, the theme that has stuck out most to me is not to expect the best or things to go your way. Throughout the story so far, Esperanza has been told that she is going to get what she and her family dreams of having and when it actually happens, they end up not getting exactly what they expected. It does not live up to the dream. I kind of relate to this because my fun fact for example, I expected to be home and done with training on time, but it did not go the way I ever thought it would. I think that we are all told or believe that something will go just as we dream it would, but it does not happen like that very often. It occasionally seems to turn out differently whether it is better or worse than we thought. One of my favorite passages is “Boys & Girls”. I highlighted the last sentence. “Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor.” This really connected with me personally because I have been in situations where I feel like I am a balloon tied to an anchor until something happens like waiting to heal so that I can move on with training.