Joanna+R.

**__April 15, 2009__** The virtue that I have chosen for my project will be Tranquility. Tranquility is supposed to mean that you do not need to worry about the small things and you let them make you mad and irritated, which in the end you are sometimes never able to relax. I have choosen this virtue because most of the time I cannot take a joke, I get confused instantly, and I always take things the wrong way; which then I make myself worry about everything that goes on around me, especially the small things. I have chosen Tranquility because when I worry about every small thing around me then I cannot think straight or look at the different possibilities for other activities and things. I hope that through these next two weeks I will be able to handle the small things or accidents, and I will not let it get on my nerves; because then it will make me worry more and more when I should only be relaxing.

I will be perfecting Tranquility through the next two weeks by taking series of steps for the same or different situations, and in the end of every situation I will be calm, relaxed, and best of all not worrying about anything at all. First I will be perfecting this virtue by looking at everything all around me and just trying to breathe and then if there is a conflict near by then I will try to help or just look at the happy thoughts and not worry about the bad thoughts. For myself, I will keep my mind at peace, and relax because I know that if I worry and let the small things get to me, then I will never be able to relax. It is very scary and hard to worry about many things all the time, but most of the time I only worry because I care about what could happen next. For the next two weeks I will also be looking at other ways of not trying to worry about things, and maybe just make a warning or statement of caution that will make me feel much better than worrying constantly. I will prove to myself that I can control myself to not worry to much as I do now, I will not let things bug me anymore.


 * __Udate #1 April 16__** I am now going to start becoming more relaxed and calm when it comes to small things that are annoying or might make me very confused. I do not know how I will be in the next two weeks, I am worried that I might still be easily irritated and still constantly worried or I could end up being okay and always being able to breathe without anything going wrong. Sometimes I will have days where I go somewhere or just get up from bed and be happy for the day, and then the next day I can act alittle sad or moody; I would much rather change back to the first choice of days. It is not fun when you may be able to bum yourself out easily, or make others worry about how you feel when they say or do something. Hopefully next time I write on the wiki page I will be able to have a sucess in being more virtuous. For now I am going to just try to take things in and let them flow, and if they might get me irritated then I will ignore them and being relaxed. Lastly the only challenges for me to face would be to calm down and do not let things get the best of me or else I will never have peace of mind.

**__ Update # 2 April 20 __**Again, still trying very hard to be calm and to not let anything bother me, it is especially hard for me when I am doing my homework or doing something else that is also as important as homework is to me. But actually I have been doing better for the past couple of days, and it feels awesome. Some of my sucesses over the couple of days are that I have not been taking everything so literal and seriously, when most of the time it is always a joke. I have been more calm and relaxed around others, and not having mood swings in parts of the day. I do not worry about everything under the sun as much as I did before, now I am trying to just take a step at a time and hope that if I take my time with each step and not bunch things all together at once then I will be fine. It is still hard to take all of this worrying down in a couple of weeks, but I know that I can do it. When I worry constantly it is just not who I am, and I will be so happy once I finally get rid of all of these worries. From now on everyday when I get home from school or places over the weekend I will sit in a comfty chair and just clear my head or I might just want to listen to some nice and relaxing music. I love to always be happy and relaxed that is who I am, not being worried and moody, I will always be able to change my mood if it is ever sad or worried, I have confidence in myself.

//Joanna, I have confidence in you, too! It seems like so far you are doing wonderfully with your project, both in how you're creating your wiki, and in your personal goal of tranquility. I'm impressed! Keep up the good work. -Mrs. V P.S. I love the Ben Franklin clip art you found.// **__ Udate # 3 April 21 __** It is still hard to try and put all of these worries behind me and to not take everything is literal. But over the past couple of days people have been noticing that I have not been taking offensive things to jokes, I have been comfortable around others around me, and best of all I have not been worrying like crazy. My boyfriend and my parents have been giving me good ways to relax, and teaching me that I should not let all of the small things get the best of me. They have been saying to me that I have been able to concentrate more on what I am doing anywhere and I do not let any small things get on my nerves as much anymore. I do face some challenges still from day to day, like my brother always tapping with his fingers, getting homework when I already have to much to do on any day, and thinking something bad could happen with anything that I am doing or what people around me are doing. But I am just glad that I have Thank you for the compliment Mrs. VanArsdale, that means a lot that you can understand why I need to work on Tranquility, and thank you for having confidence like my parents and boyfriend have for me. I still know that I will face more and more challenges, but there is never any harm trying to prevent myself from becoming irritated or upset, just walk away and ignore it or go do something that will be fun. **__ Udate # 4 April 25 __** For the past couple of days I know that I have been doing much better than usual, because I have not been worrying as much, I have not been having times where I get very annoyed with something, and that I feel more relaxed when I do things with my friend and family. I know that I can become more virtuous by listening to my parents advice on learning how to relax and by controling my mind to not be disturbed by sounds or others by what they do or say. I have been having some sucesses and some challenges at the same time, I hope to only have sucesses soon. I do not have any examples of either of them, but I can share something that happens every single day anywhere I could be. People like to joke around, not about me, but just joke around in general about life and future stuff, and I get offended by anything they might say and then to make things worse I end up worrying about what they might have said to me. The things is I know that they are joking around, but somehow I always wonder that they say things that will hurt me somehow or make me feel stupid; I need to work on how to not take everything so literal and offensively towards me. That is my biggest challenge that I will be working on and that I should be okay with doing that because I know that if people are just joking around then I should be fine. I only have one more update left to write about, I predict that everything will be much better than what has been happening over the past couple of weeks.


 * __Update # 5 April 27__** This is my final update, and to tell you the truth it felt really good opening up to someone who understands too and might have the same virtue to work on, as well. Over the past two weeks and a couple of weeks before I was really in need of tranquility and I did not know how to think straight all of the time because of this problem. I also let things get on my nerves so easily, even when sometimes I could have tried to ignore it or just walk away from it, and I was never 100% relaxed most of the time, like I always should be. I think that over these couple of weeks I have improved the way I think and the way I control my mind, it feels so great to not worry about a lot of things, and the best part about it is that I now know how to relax again, and if something were to get mad or worried then I would ignore it or I would go talk to my mom because she knows how to always help me and come up with a solution. But sometimes I cannot rely on other people to help me with this kind of stuff, I have to believe in myself too, and if I keep on doing that all of the time then I will not have to cause any trouble inside of my mind. There will still be many challenges in my life to think about, all I have to do is think carefully and know what I think or what to do and I will not need to worry about the small things anymore or let small things get on my nerves too. I am just really happy that I can calm down and not have to be paranoid anymore, but still the only thing left that I need to work on big time would be do not take everything that is said to me so literal, I cannot help that it is just a reaction that I need mor practice on.