Inner Critic: When preparing my questions for the professor interview, I kept thinking to myself that I would bore my professor, waste his time, be judged for not having enough questions, and all around stressing out about how it would go. A way for me to this into inner guide would be to improve my list of questions if I don't feel confident about it and remember that my professors are there for me and would be happy to help me.

Inner Defender: The TA for my Chem Lab has a very bad accent and mumbles , so I'm usually clueless on how to do the lab. I blamed him for not explaining well when the experiment took too long. A way to turn this into inner guide would be to take responsibility for my work and read the lab before I go into the lab so that I have an idea of what. This would make what my TA says more of a summary instead of a full blown explanation.

Inner Guide: Over the weekend, my roommate left his ID at Gravitopia. Because of this, I had to wake up early Saturday morning and drive for over an hour to Gravitopia so he could go get. At first, I was pretty annoyed, but then I thought about how honest a mistake it was and how my roommate would do the same for me in that situation. He also offered to drive back, and seeing how grateful he was made my irritation go away.

Reflection

Looking back at my fear of interviewing my professor, I realize how unnecessary it was. I knew Dr. Ennis was a nice guy and cared about his students. I felt intimidated by his outgoing nature since I am so reserved, but I realize that his outgoing nature means he just wants to talk and get to know me. Once, I sat and asked the first question, he opened up immediately and the interview felt more like a pleasant conversation. My inner voice was telling me, at first, that I wasn’t prepared enough and did not have interesting enough questions, so Dr. Ennis would get bored and less friendly. An inner guide voice would change these judgements into opportunities to improve my list of questions and tell me that Dr. Ennis would never be cold to me just because of some less than great questions.

Complaining about a TA’s accent is a little silly in retrospect. The lab guidelines are given on the website, so the TA should not be completely relied on. He or she is there to help with smaller questions not explain how to do the entire lab. An inner guide voice would tell me to stop blaming the TA and actually read the lab. It would also tell me that the labs take so long because I am losing focus.

People make mistakes. It is bound to happen, so I should not be angry when my roommate makes a mistake like forgetting his ID especially since that was the first time he had done so. An inner guide voice would tell me that this is an opportunity to hang out with my roommate more and a way to help him out of a bad situation.

Self-Designed

One person with a very strong inner guide voice is Paul Buyer. He always calls on his band to be excellent and never settles for mediocrity. Whenever his band slips, he analyzes what went wrong and uses the information to better the band instead of blaming a player or a judge in a competition. He cares about the success of his players and helps out those he knows are feeling unmotivated. His first experience with a college band was being rejected only to be asked to played symbols. He could have blamed his high school for not preparing him enough for college level band, but instead he worked incredibly hard to be accepted, and his hard work pulled off as he finally got in.