1. Future Goals: I hope that I have a strong relationship with god and am not scared of death. I do not want to look at death as a clock but to live my life and let it happen. I hope to have people that I can share wisdom with and to do be lonely at that age like many people are.
2. Future Goals: I hope to be in a comfortable physical state. I do not want to suffer pain and hope to avoid a lot of prescription. With cancer in the family I hope to not have cancer at any age of life. If I do face physical problems I pray that I have my husband and children to support me.
3. Future Goal: I hope to never lose my husband but if I did have to I hope that I have ones around who love me and help me at such a vulnerable point in life. I do hope to live in a retirement home to continue to build friendships with others.
4. Future Goal: I hope to have a very close knit family and to have the chance to be a wonderful grandmother. I want to live these years of my life with my Pi Beta Phi sisters with whom I shared such an important time with my life with. I want to just enjoy life while I still can!
5. Future Goal: I hope that I have the personality and cognitive abilities to be successful in my career. I hope I can be knowledge in my position and have something to strive for, specifically promotions within the job to keep me engaged and goal driven.
6. Future Goal: I hope to be as healthy as my mom is in her middle adulthood. She exercises every day and does not look a day past 30 (she’s really 45). I hope to be healthy for my kids and to be able to participate in anything I wish to do with them. I pray to not have any cancer although my family has a past with different types of cancer.
7. Personal Story: I was enjoying my Saturday afternoon by watching a movie with my best girl-friend, Katrina. I started feeling this uncomfortable and unfamiliar pain in my middle back. Luckily she is the best at home back popper I know, who needs years of schooling to even pop backs? She popped my back and not even 20 minutes later we were on our way to the hospital (45 minute drive)! I was convinced Katrina had pinched a nerve or I was delivering a baby and earning millions for being on the show “I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant.” Turns out I had kidney stones and that is when I realized my health is just going downhill from here and enjoyed an ice beverage.
8. Future Goal: I hope to complete graduate school at the age of 25 and be a very successful social worker. I hope to start as a probation officer and continue to change jobs throughout my young adulthood. I want to bounce around jobs so I know for sure I am doing the one I love, after finding that I will stay at that job until retirement.
9. Future Goal: I hope to find the love of my life the first time around. My parents were divorced and I hope to not go down that path. I hope to have 3 beautiful and healthy children, details are not important after that point. I hope my hard work with my education can land me a job that will benefit my family.
10. Personal Story: At the age of 13 I was diagnosed with depression. I was put on medication and was forced to attend counseling once a week. When things were starting to turn around I ended up tearing my ACL and was taken out of sports for a year. This was the outlet I used my entire life and without it I spiraled into severe depression. Although I had many positive things going for me, at the time I could not see that and my adolescence was a very cold, dark and miserable time for me.
11. Personal Story: My freshman year I was simply too cool. I was on the varsity soccer, basketball and softball team and I thought that gave me the right to slack in school. I focused little on my cognitive development until I started realizing to achieve my goals in life I needed to turn my grades around. By my Senior year I was receiving 4.0 report cards and graduated with highest honors. Luckily I pulled myself out of the egocentrism I had been rolling around in for the past 3 years, thank god.
12. Personal Story: This is when I noticed my appearances changing from being a little girl to becoming a hot, dateable teenager. Every formal dance I attended my dad helped me pick out a dress. He became very specific with his comments, I like to think I helped to his new found sense in women’s fashion. He would say things like that fits your waste nicely, I like that style on the top, and when it was too reveling he would say “I think they make turtleneck dresses if you want me to ask!” That was his defensive dad way of saying I was dressed like a hoochey. I however was all about showing off my skinny waste, curvy hips and barely visible boobs (late developer, come on!) so I just focused on the backside. Anyway, we both noticed the drastic changes in my appearances.
13. Death
13.1. Physical
13.1.1. I diedat the age of 100 from cancer however my death was a functional death, meaning my heart and breathing had stopped. I died in a hospital bed peacefully. I had suffered much pain in the last month due to the spread of my cancer and my body could not continue the fight.
13.2. Cognitive
13.2.1. I had accepted the idea of death and knew death was not the end but the begining to my next life. I was confident in my faith and was scared to die but could comprhend and accept when my time came.
13.3. Socioemotional
13.3.1. I was surrounded by my family and got the chance to say my goodbyes. Being surrounded by the ones you love make you feel like your worth was well lived. I kept my family close to me throughout life and saying goodbye was very emotional but gave us all closure to the situation.
14. Late Adulthood
14.1. Physical
14.1.1. Physical problems are amounting with late adulthood. Hearing is declining and I am forced to begin wearing hearing aids. Visual abilities also fade and I have yearly check up’s to intensify my prescription. The amount of prescriptions increase and the side effects are also starting to take a toll on my body. At the age of 87, I go in for a mammogram and am crushed with the news of breast cancer. With a family history I am not surprised and begin the necessary steps to recession.
14.2. Cogitive
14.2.1. Short term memory lose declines and some long term memories become less descriptive. I focus much of my time on my spiritual life because of the illness and age. I try having faith and accepting death and what my afterlife will be. I use the time I have left to share my wisdom with those around me including my children and grandchildren.
14.3. Siocioemotional
14.3.1. My husband passes away and it adds deep sadness to my life. I become lonely and rely on retirement funds to support myself. The stresses are high but I am more at ease with life and try enjoying the time I have left. I live in a retirement home to help with the loneliness and meet new friends.
15. Middle Adulthood
15.1. Physical
15.1.1. I start noticing a few gray hairs at the beginning of middle adulthood and schedule hair appointments religiously. I give up my platinum blonde hair and have a few highlights to cover up any grey hairs that survive the bleach. I notice my athletic ability fading and physically it is becoming harder to participate in rigorous physical activities. I walk every day to help relieve stress but am not playing in completive sports. I am starting to lose muscle mass and decided to get steel knees because of my previous knee problems in life.
15.2. Cognitive
15.2.1. I have been in my career for some time know and are perfecting daily job tasks to become more efficient and productive during work. I tend to be more organized than ever before due to the demands at work and juggling three kid’s schedules. I take up card games on the weeks with friends to stay sharp on my cognitive abilities and to keep up with my social life.
15.3. Socioemotional
15.3.1. At the beginning of middle adulthood the house is stressful. There are many extracurricular activities among the kids and it takes much of my social time and shapes who I am socializing with. Parenting seems to be the most common factor within my friends and topics discussed are focused around the kids and not so much you as an individual. In the later stages of middle adulthood the kids are moved out and attending college or pursing their goals which may include extending the family. This leaves much needed downtime and I begin taking up my own hobbies. I enjoy scrapbooking, sailing with friends and cooking. I am starting to focus on the family because of the realization that I am getting older and I start seeing my genetic clock.
16. Adolescence
16.1. Physical
16.1.1. I stopped growing with my height being 5’5” and my weight staying around 120 pounds through adolescence. My shoe size was a 7 ½ at 14 when my growth peaked. I went from being the tallest girl in elementary school to being average if not one of the shorter girls among my peers. I specifically remember shopping for prom dresses and being able to squeeze into a size zero. The biggest physical change in a girl’s life is starting her period. I started my period at age 14 and was the last of my friends.
16.2. Cognitive
16.2.1. I entered into the stage where it was cool to not care about school, use sarcasm as a first language and not to show any emotion. I coped with problems alone instead of depending on my parents. I was married to my cell phone and texting was my main form of communication. After getting my license at age 16, my adolescent egocentrism peaked. I often fought with my parents and was always trying to gain more independence. By the end of adolescence I started focusing on life goals, which involved being successful in school. I was accepted into college where I joined a sorority and was introduced to many outside influences which affected my cognitive reasoning.
16.3. Socioemotional
16.3.1. I was the person who should have loved high school. I was always dating the star football players, was a starting varsity player in every sport I played, went to every school dance, and won royalty. With all these achievement you would think I would be having the time of my life but I actually had very low self-esteem and was always putting pressure on myself to be better. Peer’s opinions were very important as well as what social group you were associated with and was the reason why I was an easy target for peer pressure because of the need I had to “fit in”. This peer pressure added to negative influences in my life from simple things like skipping class to bigger issues like drinking and partying. This was also the point in my life where I was struggling with religion. It was the first time I was allowed to form my own opinions about religion and I came to the conclusion that the Mormon religion was not right for me.
17. Young Adult
17.1. Physical
17.1.1. I first start noticing my metabolism slowing down and then am practically slapped in the face with that reality. Being in college helps add to the freshman, sophomore and junior weight gain. I also start to face more health issues including additional knee problems, kidney stones, and sleeping problems. Before stress was only something I felt emotionally and know I start feeling the physical symptoms of stress. Growing old just adds on to the stress and will most likely continue to add physical consequences. I continue playing sports through intermural and city leagues.
17.2. Cognitive
17.2.1. Attending college sharpened specific intellectual skills which included widening my vocabulary and overall knowledge. In May 2013, I graduated the University of Idaho with a B.S. in Psychology. The hard work and dedication I put into school helped me get accepted into Eastern where I continued my education through Graduate School. I received a Master’s degree in Social Work where I started off working as a probation officer.
17.3. Socioemotional
17.3.1. At the beginning of my young adulthood I live in a sorority. My friendships with my sisters are very important and could not compare to any other relationship in my life. Through my young adulthood that idea shifts into sharing that relationship with a partner and making my partner my main priority. I work hard on my identity which is influenced drastically on my career and pay. As a social worker I am making $80,000 a year and it becomes my identity until I have children. I have my first child at age 29 and two other children following. My main identity is then being a mother.
18. Personal Story: One project I was found of was my fifth grade science project. It was a month long, intensive and time consuming project, also known as the dreaded Bug Collection Project. I collected over 30 different bugs. I had beetles, butterflies, spiders, praying mantises and a bubble bee to name a few. They had the privilege of being preserved in the family freezer and I’m sure they were the result of all the frozen food being thrown out after the project was complete.
19. Personal Story: Blair and I walked to his house after school every day. We would have a whole hour to do whatever we wanted. This ranged from anything to card games, climbing trees, to skateboarding which leads us to our next story. Blair had a long drive way leading to his house; the drive way was steep and paved making it the perfect dare. Although we were neck and neck at most sports, I was a clear loser when it came to skateboarding. Blair had mastered the driveway while I on the other hand were still trying to get quarter turns under my belt.
20. Personal story: Previously stated I was completely consumed by Blair Collins (his picture is the one I used for preschool section). He was a whopping 25 pounds and stood three feet tall at the mature age of four. I must have had the same effect on Blair because we were inseparable. It didn’t take long until holding hands moved into kissing, kissing moved into dates and our dates led to our many marriage ceremonies. Our dates included me sitting on his lap while he peddled us around in his 1991 red and yellow Little Tikes car and drove us to the drive through window (the basement window at his house) where he would buy our two cookies. Who could resist a man who drives a well-kept car, feeds you cookies and tops it off with a kiss at the front door every single day; it is easy to see why we got married at such a young age.
21. Personal Story: Early on in infancy I was called Dani instead of Danielle. I kept this nick name throughout school and it was what I had to practice writing for preschool. My mom knew I would never believe her so she kept many of my papers to prove this story is indeed, true. I decide that D-A-N-I was just too easy to write and wanted to spice is up a little bit so I added a “P” to my name, which doesn’t sound like a big deal but it was where I put it as D-P-A-N-I. Yes, I spelled my name as Dpani (D-panie). I told my preschool teacher that since I didn’t write my entire name out I was allowed to add a letter. It was not until the end of kindergarten, after being threatened, that I changed it back to Dani.
22. Personal Story: I was involved in little league baseball at age four instead of six because my mom was best friends with the coach. I begged to be the umpire every game and took extreme offense when my coach said no with a confused look on his face but at that point we were both entirely confused. My mom told me if I threw one fight or was not a good sport I would not be playing little league until I was six and I could not afford to lose that, so I held my tongue for the majority of the season. At the end of the season I finally expressed my deeply emotional concern to my mom and it turned out all I wanted was to be the catcher, not umpire. The problem was easily fixed and I still remember to this day how excited I was to finally be playing umpire!
23. Personal Story: Potty training is an exciting time in a little kids life, although very intimidating, terrifying and exceedingly confusing it is a huge accomplishment for a three year old! Or so that is what I am told? I seemed to need a little more time warming up and getting rid of my stage fright than other kids might and I WILL use that as my excuse. For some reason I could not focus my attention on such a big task and within a blink of an eye I would be falling off what seemed like a 10 foot high porcelain god. I had many falls off the toilet and a couple included falling in the toilet. For any concerned readers, I did get over this hurdle in life.
24. Personal Story: I was big into nicknames and also using a finger point and one word instead of sentences. Not that I did not or could not put sentences together but I was just a lazy talker. I used things such as mom, Dada, Papa, GG and Nini (Niney). Along with names for people I also used naner, for banana, pack pack for backpack, and hand cops for hand cuffs. The best reference I made was when we were in the city. I lived in the country and anything bigger than a dirt road was considered the city. It was later in my infancy stage, if not the end of my infancy stage and my mom was parked at the stop light. I pointed to a yellow taxi and called it a sexy. My mom asked multiply times what I was saying and swore I called it a sexy. From then on my whole family now refers to taxis as sexys.
25. Personal story: I was a very active baby even before I was fully active. I was always kicking and playing with toys. My mom had no problem leaving me lying on the floor to play and entertain myself for hours. One day when showering she laid me in the middle of the floor on a blanket to play while she showered. I had not rolled in front of her but apparently was a pro-roller. She came back to the living room to find me missing. She called my dad in a panic thinking I was kidnapped. The police were called and the house was searched. What seemed like a life-time to my mother, which was probably a merely hour had passed when they then heard a cry. I had rolled under the couch and had taken a nap. Luckily I was not kidnapped and had developed rolling at a very early age.
26. Prenatal
26.1. Physical
26.1.1. I completed all three stages of prenatal development which included germinal stage, embryonic stage, and fetal stage in order to be a healthy baby girl. I was conceived in the middle of June, around my mother’s birthday.
26.2. Cognitive
26.2.1. I developed all essential brain developments and had no negative influences in my prenatal development. Although my mom craved ungodly amounts of grapefruit she did not negatively affect my cognitive development with things such as alcohol, drugs, or tobacco.
26.3. Socioemotional
26.3.1. Again my mother did not partake in any negative effects that could potentially harm my socioemotional development. However, I was predisposed to develop anger problems and anxiety from my father’s side of the family. Due to genetic evidence only, this would predispose me to have a neuroticism personality. From my mother’s genetic, the Big 5 personality trait I would be predisposed to would be agreeableness, they say opposites attract and this is why my parents got along, giving me two completely opposite personalities, this being based only on nature , genetics and not nurture.
27. Infancy
27.1. Physical
27.1.1. I was born February 26, 1991. I weighed 6 lbs 5 oz, and was 18 ½ inches long. Compared to the average weight and height of a newborn I was a practically born model (joke…you are supposed to laugh). Although I did not add a personal picture of myself in my infant stage I strategically placed a picture of a cabbage patch doll because we looked identical. My physical growth was normal throughout my infant stage and I continued to be in the lower percentiles for weight and higher percentiles for height. I was sitting, rolling and crawling all at an early stage but continued crawling longer than expected and was a late walker.
27.2. Cognitive
27.2.1. My cognitive development was not as impressive as my physical development. I was a healthy baby and had no cognitive disabilities, specifically social or learning disabilities but I did not speak very often. Even babbling was delayed, instead of babbling at 2 or 3 months I did not start until around 4. I believe it was influenced by me being an only child and lacking social interactions and communicating skills with peers and/or siblings. I understood the meanings of words and often used holophrases but did not fully understand semantics or grammar. Although being a late talker, I tended to use overextension in my speech. Specifically, I called any animal a cow, making the connection that anything that was furry with four legs must be a cow (obviously). I also leaned more toward referential style speech and just threw fits to express my emotional needs and feelings. What a wonderful first child for my mother! (another joke, just for clarification)
27.3. Socioemotional
27.3.1. Something unique about my social development was that I expressed more separation anxiety and overall attachment to my grandpa, who was not my main care-provider. I still however, showed attachment to my mom, who was my main care-provider and the person I was around the most but was not as distressed upon her leaving as I was when my grandpa would leave. When I was at the beginning of my infancy stage I had a wide range of facial expressions but my family’s favorite expression I made was raising one eyebrow when I was confused, frustrated, and/or mad. I still do that today but as a baby it was a very entertaining expression. By age three, I began potty training and days that we stayed home I was encouraged to dress myself which helped my self-development and was the start of my independence. During infancy I also met my first friend, Blair, who turned out to be my best friend of 21 years. We would share toys, laugh uncontrollably even without words, and would crawl all over the daycare together.
28. Middle Childhood
28.1. Physical
28.1.1. At the beginning of middle childhood I was still very tall for my class. It was quiet a big deal to be on the top row of our concerts, which required being the few tallest kids in the class and luckily I managed to squeeze my way up there every year, it also helped my mom put my hair on top of my head, but that is beside the point. I continued improving my physical abilities and with age came better fine motor skills which allowed for more physical activities. New hobbies I picked up during this time were swimming, ballet (my mom said it would help me in sports….worst advice ever) and skateboarding. I was very skinny, mostly resulting from my picky appetite. Grossly enough my favorite meal was a sandwich with ketchup, mustard and mayo. It is not scientifically proven, but I would put good money on the assumption that it is not the most nutritional meal (another joke, I’m on a roll). My lack of nutrition could have been the underlying reason to migraines and growing pains I started experiencing at this time.
28.2. Cognitive
28.2.1. School was the biggest cognitive influence like 99% of children during this time. Starting in kindergarten and continuing to increase through school, each year provided new and more complex learning material. I was learning to write papers, proper letters, researching, adding, subtracting, multiplication, division, spelling, science, geography, and cursive. The biggest jump in cognitive development for me was during middle childhood. I learned all the above things through the education system, yet I was also learning from my peers. I lived in a highly dense Mexican population and was exposed to Spanish where I would pick up on words through my peer’s interactions. Because of the diversity, I was also lucky enough to learn in a multicultural education system.
28.3. Socioemotional
28.3.1. Middle childhood is an important time for one to find their place. I dealt with Erikson’s industry-vs-inferiority and conquered the new challenges that were put in my environment. I found a sense of personal growth and competence in achieving things like awards through school and winning a sports game. Instead of focusing only on my physical abilities I started taking notice in my physiological characteristics. I often described myself as funny, outgoing, determined and hardworking.
29. Preschool
29.1. Physical
29.1.1. The preschool period was when my physical abilities were first noticed and differentiated from other child in the same age range. I took up an interest in anything that related to physical abilities which most of the time included sports. My favorite, starting around four was basketball. By kindergarten I was dribbling, passing, and shooting a basketball, along with throwing and catching a baseball and football and kicking around a soccer ball. I was tall for my age group and as a result of my hobbies was very defined, muscularly. I did not stop at just organized sports, I was also climbing, jumping and ninja kicking all furniture and walls within the house.
29.2. Cognitive
29.2.1. I started attending preschool and learned all the essentials for a successful kindergarten experience. This included my name, counting, letters and colors. I still did not have a large vocabulary but had improved my grammar significantly from the previous stage. I was talking all the time and the biggest influence in that was the fact that I was around other kids and interacted with my age group on a daily basis, allowing me to practice my speech. My attention span was as big as any three to six year old, meaning it was nonexistent. The only time I focused with my full attention was when it had anything to do with sports or counting numbers.
29.3. Socioemotional
29.3.1. At age 4 I started attending preschool and day care regularly. I was able to exercise different types of play. The play I often participated in was cooperative play, where my friends and I would share toys and use our imagination to play together. When not using cooperative play, I was involved in associative play, which involved being around others and sharing toys but not necessarily playing together. My best friend, Blair, was of color and also a male. It was in this stage that I started to realize we were different from one another, me being white and female, realizing gender identity and gender schema. My only focus was on Blair, however, preschool did provide me with the opportunity to create other friendships which included Cindy, Blake, Hayden and Janae who were all within a year of my age.