Throughout out our life most of us hold back from joining
many different activities. We all have the fear that we will not fit in with
those who are already part of that certain community or because we
feel as though we cant get the hang of the activity. It is a shame to
see how we let certain things pass us by do to those fears and many
others. Looking back at my own experiences I regret not joining certain
groups do to those fears. I always wanted to try many different activities such
as karate, gymnastics, cheer leading, etc. I never joined
because I felt incompetent to be part of those
communities.
I have had the chance to try and join many
different communities while growing up. I had not always been so open minded in joining the
different discourse communities though but I began to see the advantages in joining
them. I had always been afraid like many people that I would not be accepted by
the members in the community. When I got over that and began to try
different things that I had never done my life changed completely. The first
time I joined a new discourse was when I was eight years old. I had lived all
of my life in Mexico and at that age my family and I moved to Alaska. I did not
know any English just simple words like "chicken", "pen",
"my name is". I was so afraid because I felt as though kids
would not accept me for not speaking English and only knowing Spanish. That
fear soon faded away, as soon as I walked into class I meet a few friends
whom despite the lack of knowledge I had in English language began to try
and communicate with me. Though I did not know what they were saying we all
found different methods of communication and even shared laughs. They all
helped me learn to speak English along with my bilingual teacher.
Another discourse community I joined was a community of pharmacy technicians at the age of eight teen. I had never been a part of anything having to do with pharmacy. Even
though I was scared that it would be difficult I did not let that fear get in
my way to pursue a good opportunity. I soon found out that in this community I
could involve my prior knowledge of Spanish to help me
remember abbreviations that I had to know for my final exam. The
abbreviations consist of two to three letters, and can be hard to remember
which is which because they are very similar. As it is in the case of the abbreviation QOD:
every other day and QID: every four hours, this two abbreviations can cause a
major difference in the way a person takes their medications. If a pharmacy
technician was to mix this up while deciphering the prescription and writing
out the deciphered prescription to the patient it could be fatal for the
patient. Especially is the patient is that a strong pain medication. Which is
why reading, writing, and language is important in this discourse community. I used my prior knowledge of Spanish to help me remember certain abbreviations. My previous knowledge helped me make connections with the
letters in the abbreviations and made it simpler to keep myself from mixing up
certain abbreviations which are very similar. Such as OS: left eye and OD:
right eye. In Spanish O is the first letter of ojo or eye and
S sounds like the Z in izquierda or left, the O in OD again is
for ojo or eye and D for Derrecha or right.
By being a part of various discourse communities as one can
see from my own experiences and those of others like in my blog http://joinmany.blogspot.com/2014/04/join-many.html it
is obvious to see the varies advantages of joining many discourses and why we
all should JOIN MANY!!!
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