My cultural background is Native American, Scottish, Irish, and Canadian; I have been taught a lot about our cultural background throughout my life. I have also been lucky in the area I grew up. I grew up in a very culturally diverse area. Many of my friends from elementary school through high school were from many different cultures. I grew up eating food at friends house that to this day I still cant pronounce.…
My greatest influences are my parents and my brother. My brother suffered from Guillain- Barre Syndrome when he was eight. He lived in the hospital on an artificial ventilation for 97 days and later he had to continue physical therapy for at least ten years as he was completely paralyzed. My parents and my brother devoted their few years completely for his treatment. Today, my brother is a successful engineer working in the bay area. I learned that with dedication, determination and diligence we can achieve our dream in life…
I am a Jew! Due to that very important fact, some parts of my life were harder than it would have been if I was a Christian or Catholic. But using my faith in myself and my religion I was able to persevere myself. A good quote that describes myself is from a Kelly Clarkson song “What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Stand a little taller, Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone”. I always think of that song whenever something bad happens that makes me question myself, my friends, or my beliefs. I believe that simple words and beliefs don’t define a person, but their actions towards others do.…
Taking into consideration my Libyan heritage, one might say I was able to experience the best of both worlds as a first generation Libyan-American. They wouldn’t be wrong, growing up, I was influenced by the cultural aspect of a Libyan as an American citizen. I partook in many common Libyan traditions, for instance, I would eat couscous most nights for dinner and learned how to play the darbuka, a Libyan drum held sideways and played with the fingers. I was convinced that everyone lived this way, and I knew nothing outside of my bubble of comfort. It wasn't until my first trip to Libya, during the reign of Dictator Mummar Gadafi, that I realized not everything in the world was perfect and that my childhood was more Americanized…
In my early childhood, my parents moved numerous times back and forth between the Untied States and Iran. Eventually, my family ended up settling in North Houston, where my father bought a traditional two-story home in a typical gated community. Throughout the years, the house preserved many struggles, and witnessed many successes between my family and I. However, not only did our home observe our experiences, but it also embraced our culture. Throughout my life, my home has had a revolution of its own; transforming from a dreadful and dull place to a home that I now look proudly upon. However, what I truly value in my home is the fact that it acts as a safe haven for my Persian culture, something that is as delicate and as priceless as my…
This shows that the world has realized that we need to give people ways to express themselves in different ways. And as the world of technology advances, we need to find a way for people of different races, Arabic, to express themselves, while still abiding to their culture’s…
In chapter 12, the key event to me was when Claudia and Finn talked to each other through the keys. I felt many emotions when reading their interaction one of them being happy. I felt happy when they talked to each other because it was a turning point in the story in my opinion. I also felt surprised because at first, I thought by having two keys, there would be a lock that would need both keys to hear and speak to each other. I also felt confused by the way they conversed; How could they now hear each other but not before. I think by having one key being touched, the other key can hear because on page 153 Claudia says she breathed and rubbed on the key making it warm and on page 154 Finn says when he touches the key it's warm.I like the way the author wrote the scene from both perspectives, it gave us the readers a clearer understanding of how both Finn and Claudia felt. I also like how the author described the way both keys affect each other and have a "key" connection.…
I dislike being asked “Where are you from?” because I do not consider myself from any specific place. I have moved around several times as a child, which has given me the opportunity to meet different kinds of people each from distinct walks of life. Being faced with the challenge of meeting new people has taught how to come out of my comfort zone at any given moment. The experiences I have had in life has caused me to become an outgoing, hardworking, and very multicultural person.…
This connection that I have with my mother is a dime a dozen if you look at our entirely culture here in America. Less and less families these days actually cook or sit down to eat a meal together which has left many Americans searching for something they have lost. This lost feeling is being capitalized on by television networks by the vast amount of cooking and food related shows that are being broadcasted. Frank Bruni asks in “An Experts Theory of Food Television Appeal”, “For these young people, does the televised cooking have have the appeal of a missive from a lost utopia” (Bruni 111)? I believe he hit the proverbial nail right on the head with this line of questioning and he couldn't be more correct. Young adults who lead busy lives,…
The Shared Vision I am currently in the process of crafting includes working for an organization that will challenge me to grow both in knowledge and as a person. Peace Corp is one organization that can give me what I want out of my company and organization and how I am going to get that out of my new organization. At this time I am trying to link my personal vision to the organization’s potential in order to help myself align the organization’s purpose with my own purpose (vision): and to prepare the individual groundwork for creating a shared vision. I am at a crossroads on my career path, where I can either I can decide on my personal vision and try and line up my career with that vision or I can let someone else determine what type of work…
Throughout my seventeen years, I have met and dealt with various groups of people with diverse ethnic backgrounds from school or through my volunteer activities. However, nothing prepared me for my summer job at the new local Walmart store. The first day of my first paying job was also the grand opening day for Walmart at the Dulles Landing store. I have met countless employees and customers with so many different backgrounds and cultures, who communicate with each other in so many different languages. The whole atmosphere at the Walmart store feels like I am in the middle of the busy World Market. There are countless demanding and exasperated customers that I deal with each day at the customer service counter. Through this experience,…
Growing up in a diverse city, the culture around me has always been different. Every person that I see always has a different type of belief than me. I’m a 17 year old Muslim student who lives in Southeast Texas. My father is from the Middle East, and my mother is from Western Europe. My parents migrated as refugees from Croatia to Houston in 1995 due to the ongoing war in Yugoslavia. After they’ve migrated they’ve lived in peace here ever since. However that has changed a lot since 9/11, one of the biggest terrorist attacks in history to ever happen in the United States. Now everyone who originates from the Middle East has been looked at as an abomination, and how we're judged for everything that we believe in. It just happens to be that I was born in the time of all of this monstrosity.…
Ever since I was born, I was a military brat. Not knowing where to call home, or if any place could be home, I moved. I moved six times, four of those places were towns that nobody could think about. Germany, North Carolina, Alaska, North Carolina, Germany, and Alaska, yet no place to call home. May 22, 1999, my first day on this world; Kronach hospital had its first American baby in their hands, yet they acted like I was a different species. The only event I remember was when I was about one. While I was one, I grabbed everything in my reach, even a grill handle. As a baby, I did not know that the handle was moving, the grill top had smashed my thumb. Ever since that event, I now have a starfish mark on the side of my right thumb from where the stiches were.…
In 2013 I went to Israel with my family, cousins and some of the people who belong to our Temple to watch my cousin become bat mitzvahed in the middle of a dessert. It was the most wonderful experience that I had ever had and I will never forget about it. I was 11 years old at the time when I went.…
Imagine being seven and in a foreign country seeing all types of new things. This is what I experienced when I went to Yemen in 2007. It was a world different from my own, but little did I know it would change my life. Seeing things from a different perspective really does change your view on the world. Learning to understand that not everyone sees things the same way you do can be difficult sometimes, but definitely not impossible.…