#3 Identity (About Me)

If I start writing about myself it would be best to include my name, Gerardo Alberto Ortiz Cámara, before writing about any other aspect of my life. Nothing noteworthy comes out from my first name; but when we get to my second name, it can tell you how my late grandfather was called. Now that a family member is on the line, I can say that I come from a family in which nothing was found easily, but instead all was brought upon with great effort and sacrifice. Everything my family currently is, was brought upon by themselves. My position in my immediate family is the youngest, following a 9 year older brother, making me more like an only child than the youngest. In my house, every idea or decision that we made was never considered bad, instead it was considered a good idea or a not so good one from which we learned for ourselves why it would never be a good decision. This is mainly what created me, the fact that when you get home and share your day with your parents, you know there will never be a misjudgment but instead there will always be a positive comment with a hint of sarcasm but nothing more. Besides this, something that created me could be the friendships I had and the ones I still have. I once read that you tend to acquire something from the 5 people that surround you the most, and this I can say is true. Not the fact that there are five people, but the fact that the few people I surrounded myself with were the main reason I chose what I chose, good or bad.

The script I was born into helped me choose the path I wanted to follow in life, so I can say that I don’t want to differ from it since it was chosen by my interests and experiences, brought by the good or not so good decisions I made. In a near future I see myself walking through freezing hallways wearing a white lab coat that has a tag in which after my name says, “M.D.” I can’t say that wearing the coat has been my dream because it has more elements of nightmares than it has of dreams, but instead it could be considered as a challenge I proposed to myself and will soon complete.

#2 Running Brave Post-Movie Reflection

If you happen to overcome an external and internal journey in order to accomplish something you had proposed to yourself you may be called Billy Mills. If you look at it this way it may seem as if his journeys were somewhat easy, but in fact it was the complete opposite. In his internal journeys throughout the movie he had to fight alongside his external journeys in terms of class and racial differences. Both these issues are mainly related to the fact that he is native of an Indian reservation. This is portrayed in the scene in which he is treated as a criminal/animal by the security guard of the university. The guard is completely against the fact that Mills is a student enrolled at the university since he is seen peeking at nighttime in front of the girls’ dorm. The guard calls him depictive names that incite a hint of racism since he calls Mills, “chief”, something that is offensive due to the fact that in the Indian Reservation Mills was born there's actually a Chief whom Mills is very fond of. Mills is seen outside the dorm after he catches a glance of the girl that has been so nice to him and who also contributes to both his internal and external journey. She contributes to his internal journey since she showed him that there is nothing wrong with some of the people that surround him outside the reservation, a place he’s spent most if not all of his life at. She also contributes in making Mills go back to town and keep improving for the race she knows he can win. As we talk about the external journey Mills experienced about going back home and the reaction of the people that cared about him, another group of people that influenced him in going back were the fans and followers Mills had whom he never knew existed. The most significant person portrayed in the movie is the kid that takes out a newspaper article all wrinkled from his pocket and shows Mills that the article is about him and how proud he is to meet the guy in the article. This event probably made Mills realize that there are lots of people that are expecting more from him, we can say they may have influenced in his external journey of satisfying everyone’s expectations. It is seen throughout the movie that Mills is not only influenced by the people that surround him but also by his own mind, his internal journey. For example, many people tell him that he can do more for himself if he goes back to town, contributing to his external journey, but it is not until he sees with his own eyes how Frank ends up after having the same opportunity as he did that Mills decides to return and compete for his gold medal. 

#1 Running Brave Pre-Movie Reflection

Billy Mills went through both an internal and an external journey in order to overcome his adversities and succeed in what he had proposed to himself. The first external journey Mills experienced was the fact that he was a member of an Indian reserve where nobody before him had gotten a scholarship or even went to college, this is something that puts everyone’s eyes on you and makes you feel pressured by the need to succeed. This makes it both an external and internal journey because it is something that was brought by the society but it has to be overcome only by him. Another important external journey Mills went through was the fact that when he got to college he was only used to life in the reserve, where there are customs typical to the Indians, and the fact that the people that surrounded him at college had none of these customs could've been really shocking to him. An example of this is be the fact that he was not used to running on tracks, instead he ran around the reserve in an open space surrounded by nature. The external journey of the differences in classes or customs can be also an internal journey given the fact that Mills cannot let this superiority get to him because it can affect his outcome in the races and even in his grades. A very important internal journey Mills experienced was the fact that the first days of practice his coach tells him to forget humility and start thinking in terms of competition, he has to start thinking on winning the races instead of letting others win thinking its alright, this was challenging to him because he brought with him from the reserve a large sense of humility towards others, something that the coach apparently didn’t believe in. The outcome of his winning race happened that way mainly because of the decisions he made, as it says in the video about Mill's winning race in which he narrated thee fact that he had to remove two whole minutes from his final time in order to win and he did this by taking less time finishing each lap. Since there were a total of 25 laps he just had to improve 2 seconds per lap and he would then probably win the race. The fact that he won the race shows a lot of perseverance from Mills given the background he had and also reflects that he made good decisions.