Purpose: to generate ideas for the personal philosophy essay, to practice the steps in the writing process, to introduce yourself to your instructor.

Directions: 

Note: The journals are intended to be a way for you to explore ideas that you might later wish to refine in a paper or a discussion.  I will not censor these journals in any way, nor will I grade them on content or grammar (though, like the seminars, they must be coherent and display some measure of critical thinking about the question at hand). You do not have to answer all the questions, nor do you have to confine yourself to these questions. Write about whatever is on your mind. 

Write a page or two about the upcoming personal philosophy essay.

Some questions to consider: 

• What kind of person are you? How would you describe your personality? How would your friends/family describe you?
• What values do you hold in high regard? Have those values changed at all throughout your life?
• What events, people and places have inspired or influenced you throughout your life? You can include people that you know and events that you've experienced, but you can also write about people that you've never met that have influenced you, or places you've never visited but want to, or events that you didn't personally witness but that still have an effect on you.
• What do you think is the key to a happy (or at least satisfied) life?
• What values were you taught as a child? Do you adhere to the values considered important in your family, or do you question or rebel against them? Have you created your own 'code' by which you live, or does your world view resemble that of your parents, or some mixture of the two?

Please note: I realize, of course, that you can't distill your personality into just a few paragraphs or pages. That's not really the point of this essay. Instead, it's meant to give practice articulating your most prized values, or most influential experiences, and to identify how these beliefs/values/people/events have had an impact on you.