Caponigro_Integration II 1 Moreau FYE Integration II Confidence; Capability; Belonging; Bravery: A Change in Self-Perception My brain works through images: through pictures, through thinking through ideas visually. I take a lot of pictures, and for a long time, I took a short video each day. This ritual of photo taking helps me to remember the memories I’ve shared, the emotions I’ve felt, the relationships that have grown or diminished, the people and places I have encountered thus far, and helps me to reflect on who I am. Over this past Thanksgiving break, I took the time to put together collages of memories from the past semester, from Frisbee, to Boxing, to Game Days, to just being utterly myself. In doing so, I reflected on the semester, my experiences throughout the journey that has been these past few months, and realized how much my perception of Notre Dame has changed, and also how differently I now see myself as an academic, as a friend, as a creative soul, and as a light. Coming into Notre Dame, my image of the University was one of serious academic rigor, that both the students and faculty were some smart people, and that greatly excited me. I was ecstatic to come to a place where people wanted to learn, and were studious people. My understanding of Notre Dame was also that there were, to put it bluntly, a lot of white people. Not just students, but faculty and staff as well. While Notre Dame seems much more diverse in its commercials and advertising, the University is undeniably filled with a majority white population. While that understanding has felt as though it holds true, what has shifted is my image of the diversity at Notre Dame. Diversity comes in all shapes and sizes, and attending events like Show Some Skin, like the midnight Glee Club concert outside of the Dome, 2 impromptu adventures with unexpected companions revealed the beauty in the interactions that we discussed in Week 11. Just like the Diversity Matters TedTalk discussed, “seeing people around you who are not just like you gives you a context. It allows you to interact with a diverse array of people. Diversity in the community lets you see different lifestyles, different ways of being, bringing in different backgrounds to communicate, to experience, to share. In scholarship, different voices, different ideas, different experiences show us different ways of looking at data, different ways of interpreting that world around us. And finally, if we're really serious about trying to make the world a better place, then diversity matters for all of us” (“Diversity Matters!” by Professor Agustin Fuentes - Moreau FYE Week 11). In order to create a better world together, we must celebrate the diversity that we encounter on Notre Dame’s campus, whether that is in a classroom with the students next to us, the teammates we throw to, those living right next door to us, within each community found at Notre Dame, because as we discussed in our Week 6 conversations, we each come from such unique backgrounds with beautiful stories to share, as we discussed in our class conversations in Week 10, from such distinct communities that have shaped us into the wonderful humans that we are, here, together, celebrating our brokenness and our rebuilding, putting our hearts back together (“Women Find Healing Through Kintsugi Workshop” from Grotto - Moreau FYE Week 10). Thus, my picture of Notre Dame transformed from one of inauthenticity and “fakeness” to one of celebration and vulnerability, alongside hard, important conversations of how to celebrate one another in our differences, and how to work to create an inclusive community together. https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/modules/items/105096 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGJLJEqD8gg 3 When talking about our Life-Giving Relationships in the in-class discussions of Moreau FYE Week 4 with Gracie during our virtual walk around Campus encountering sacred spaces at Notre Dame, I recalled a very clear memory of a sacred space for myself at the University of the Grotto. It must have been in February or early March of 2020, during Notre Dame’s Spring Break, when I decided to go for a run up to campus to visit the Grotto because my dad’s college roommate’s dad was put into Hospice, and I wanted to pray for this family that was so close to my heart. When I stopped my watch and took out my earbuds to walk up the Grotto, a ritual I have come to know so well at my time thus far as a now-student of Notre Dame, I walked up to find I was not alone at the Grotto. That is one phenomenon that I absolutely love about going to the Grotto, is that I am never, ever alone there. I had started to walk into the gated area when I was stopped by a student who came to ask me “how to do it.” He said that he was a student from China who could not go home because of the then seemingly far-away virus, and he wanted to pray for his family and friends back home. Together we walked into the space, we touched the Grotto stone, we lit candles, and we knelt together and prayed. We then parted our ways, him back to whatever dorm he was then residing in, me to run back home. Growing up coming to the Grotto, this experience humbled me. This image, this memory, I’ve only shared with a few others, and I realized sharing it that the Grotto plays such an important role in my life, and truly is one of the reasons that I chose to attend Notre Dame. This image has only become stronger for me, as my relationship with my faith I feel has strengthened since coming to Notre Dame, and the Grotto continues to be one of my sacred spaces on Campus. The fact that I am never alone at the Grotto has reminded me on several occasions that I am not alone on campus in general. Especially coming back from Fall Break, I encountered so 4 much feeling of self-guilt, of loneliness, that nothing I did was right, especially as a friend. My roommate’s father was put in Hospice right as the break ended, and she had to fly home the Monday we returned, just to fly back Tuesday night, and I had no idea what to do. So I did what I do most of the time when I have no clue: I called my dad. Just to hear his voice reassured me that I did not have to know what to do, and I felt better about the situation, even though there was nothing truly that I could do. But one thing he recommended I do was to visit the Grotto if I was called to do so, and to listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Going back to my dorm that night, I was so lonely without my roommate, and while it was not my father, and I had only known her for a few months, I felt so strongly that I needed to do something. A close friend of both my roommate and I went down to the Grotto with me, and to find the Grotto filled with students, and to have him next to me, reminded me that I was not alone at Notre Dame, that I would never have to be alone. Just like we discussed in Week 9, just as Emery Bergmann put it,, “The hardest thing to tell struggling freshmen is that acclimation takes time — and ‘thriving’ even longer” (Advice From a Formerly Lonely College Student by Emery Bergmann - Moreau FYE Week 9) Each day following Fall Break, I went to the Grotto, sometimes to pray, sometimes to just sit and be in the presence of God and Mary, the love of the Holy Spirit that quelled my anxieties and reminded me to breathe. I found so much hope in going to the Grotto, in the ritual of finding hope in the people I prayed with. Going to the Grotto seemed so obvious, to be reminded that, as found in the Screwtape Letters of Week 12, we are so obviously made in the image and likeness of God, that he wants us to take his hand when we need it, that, as we saw in the beautiful sculpture brought in for us, that God is always there reaching out to us when we need a hand, so full of love, patience, and hope (The Screwtape Letters “Chapter 8” by C.S. Lewis - Moreau FYE Week 12). https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/well/family/advice-from-a-formerly-lonely-college-student.html https://canvas.nd.edu/courses/24970/files/188325?module_item_id=105117 5 My self-image throughout my time thus far has fluctuated: as an academic, my idea of perfection has swayed; as a friend, I feel that I am still figuring out how to build relationships with people that are meaningful to me; as a creative mind, I feel that I have not been able to exercise; as a light, I have been bouncing between feeling drained and excited. As an academic, during high school, my image of myself always came with a large mountain of books or sitting at a desk late into the night, with near-perfect grades, doing work instead of going out with friends, or prioritizing homework over friend-time during lunch. I sacrificed relationships with friends for relationships with teachers, which in the end immensely benefited my ability to ask questions and seek out greater discussion with adults in my life, but I was nervous to build relationships in college because of this experience in high school. Since my transition to college, not only have I encountered meaningful relationships with professors who I feel I can talk with outside of class, but also with peers academically and personally. Whenever I find that I need help with classes, there has always been someone to be there for me, to talk out a math problem while frantically attempting to finish a problem set at 2AM in the Hesburgh Library, or going to the writing center for the first time after feeling overwhelmed and defeated after receiving a grade back in a class. I continue to struggle with the image of perfectionism, but have learned that the greatest growth comes from failure, and that it is okay to fail. My image of myself has transformed also in the expectations that I hold for myself. I expect myself to maintain good grades, but also to build relationships with those that I can be vulnerable with and can be vulnerable with me. I expect myself to have reasons for taking 6 classes or participating in activities that align with who I want to be, with strengthening myself physically, emotionally, academically or spiritually. I expect myself to be who I am, and to take a step back and breathe when I feel that I am not being true to myself, because I have found that the easiest thing to do is to fail myself because of expectations set so high, but that the most growth comes from rebuilding my own brokenness. What I have found to be the most beautiful images, though, are that through the Holy Spirit, through the relationships I have created, I always have someone there to hand me superglue or a screwdriver when I need it, someone to light my path with a smile or laugh when my flame needs more oxygen, someone to rock my boat when I need to grow, someone to be my rock when I feel unsteady on my own feet, and most importantly, the image of someone helping me up after I have fallen on my hike that is life with an outreached, full-of-love hand saying, “I got you, buddy.”