Pandora’s Box

Have you ever wanted to have telepathic abilities? When having a boyfriend or girlfriend you wish they knew what you want all the time. You don’t want to tell them “oh I want this ring and I want you to get it for me, without me having to tell you oh I want this ring” I don’t know maybe it’s just me.

On November 26, 2019, I received a Zelle payment of $180 while I was at the mall from my boyfriend. I was surprised I wasn’t expecting money from him, so I called him and I asked him what was it for and he said: “It’s so you can buy yourself a ring and matching earrings from pandora”.  I was so shocked because I had been throwing hints at him since we started talking. I replied with “OMG *heart eyes emoji*” but in reality, I wanted to say “ TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!” It took him 2 years to get the hint, 2 long years. My boyfriend and I started talking in the summer of 2017 and we started dating in 2019. I guess that’s why I wasn’t really expecting it. Don’t get me wrong I was happy but I just wished that more thought and effort had been put into it because I remember one time he accompanied one of his bros downtown to a mall to get his friend’s girlfriend a ring and it’s like you can accompany your friend but you can’t go yourself to get me a ring. I might sound a bit ungrateful but it’s just how I felt at the moment, of course, I was excited to finally get the ring but it would have been more romantic if he bought it. Even if he would have ordered it to arrive at my house it would have been romantic because then it would have been a surprise. 

I lost the ring about 2 years and a half later, I normally take it off when I’m going to wash my hair or put lotion on. I had left it in the bathroom or that is what I thought at least, I’ve misplaced the ring before so I wasn’t all that worried cause I would always find it but this time I didn’t. If losing the ring wasn’t bad enough I lost an earring a few months later on a plane while my boyfriend and I were on our way to Florida. I was very sad because I had already lost the ring and now I lost the earring. I felt so bad. He surprised me while we were in a Disney outlet, they had a Pandora store and he said “let’s get you some earrings babe” I was so excited because I was tired of looking like a little boy since I didn’t have earrings. I picked the same earrings I had lost which were the “Square Spakekle Halo Stud Earrings” because those are the only ones that I really like. He also told me to  “pick a ring” after I had picked my earrings. I was very surprised and amazed because the first time I went to get my ring I went without him and he just sent me the money which was not romantic at all but now he’s like being all romantic surprising me by stopping by the store and telling me to get it. I was going to buy it myself because I felt bad after all I was the one who lost it. It’s like I telepathically told him “I lost it but you should still buy it for me because you love me” it was very sweet of him to buy it for me again.

Maybe if I had telepathic abilities I would have gotten my first ring faster, maybe it was just the universe showing me that patience key. Either way, I am in a way grateful that I got the ring when I did because that is when we really made our relationship official. So although I thought the ring didn’t have a significant emotional value, now that I think of it was his way of making our relationship official.

Reflection
This paper was very hard for me to write, I struggled to pick an item that I would consider a “personal artifact”. I thought I didn’t have anything that I valued let alone have an emotional connection with. I chose to write about my promise ring because I thought this was something that I could have an emotional connection with because it was my boyfriend who got it for me. One of the course learning outcomes I used was enhancing my strategies for drafting, revising, and editing. My first draft was something I wrote very last minute I didn’t really put much thought or effort into it because I didn’t believe my ring had any sentimental value. It was just so I could have something to help guide me in the direction I wanted to go with this paper.
The second-course learning outcome I used was trying to acknowledge the range of linguistic differences. I hoped to write about how it made me feel, but I didn’t know how to express that in words. I asked myself how can I make sure my audience knows how I feel if I don’t know how to express myself. But it wasn’t until after I asked for guidance and help to reflect on my draft that I got a better understanding of how to get my thoughts and emotions in writing. The third-course learning outcome that I used was developing and engaging in collaborative and social aspects of the writing process. Meeting with my professor and my partner for peer review really helped me because without the feedback I received from them I probably wouldn’t have such a strong and academically cohesive paper. Seeing that my partner and I both wrote about promise rings we gave each other insightful criticism on our drafts. The fourth-course learning outcome that I used was negotiating my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of the genre, medium, and rhetorical situations. Receiving the feedback I got from my peers I realized what was the main point I was trying to get across and successfully got that point across in my paper.