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…
Everyone in the world can testify to their trials and tribulations but they are exactly what morphs and shapes us into who we are. The weak succumb to the poison and destroy themselves, but the strong understand eventually that where you come from and what you have been through does not define you. It is an individual choice you make to lay down and die or stand up and make something of yourself. Kari Patterson understood that. Since she was a little girl, she represented hope for a better tomorrow. Continuous negative events in her life was like putting black food coloring in hydrogen peroxide. Tina Mabry’s one solid message to the world is, “there are always options when you think there are…
As this is one of my favorite classes, I can remember several lessons that were entertaining this past year. One of the first materials that come to mind is when we did the presentations about whatever we wanted. A recent topic, I enjoyed was reading The Crucible as a class. I also recall finding Edgar Allen Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" amusing but slightly disturbing. The element I enjoy most about PowerePoints is researching the information. Although presenting them is something I am not inclined to doing, being allowed to select the subject of the PowerPoint was especially pleasing to me. Reading The Crucible as a class was surprisingly highly entertaining to me. I considered the various people’s perspectives, reading the lines…
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Are you pleased, or do you immediately come up with an endless list of insecurities? As a child one of my favorite memories was laying around the house with my older sister on rainy days. We would leave the windows open so we could hear the rain coming down on the tin roof over our patio, while watching reruns of our favorite tv show “America's Next Top Model”. I always thought that these women were gorgeous and I would catch myself constantly comparing their looks to my own. I wanted to be just like them until I realized the unrealistic expectations that they had to live up to. A sizeable butt and breasts, but not too large; they have got to be proportional. A skinny waist, impeccable hair, blemish free face although even with clear skin you are expected to cake on makeup because no one is actually pretty without mile long eyelashes, the perfect smoky eye, and exemplary contouring. Society has idolized these things as “beautiful” and shamed the girls that do not meet these standards; however, society should be making everyone feel confident in their bodies. Girls need to know that it is okay not to have an “hourglass figure” so they don’t…
Have you ever had a reoccurring challenge in your life? The one that sticks out the most is my challenge to still get on and ride with my knee. Every time I ride it could be my last. I still get back on every time though.…
It was June 14, 1858, and we were on our way to Mr.Lincoln’s house. My Dad happened to be one of Mr.Lincoln’s colleagues;therefore, he was always helping him compose his speeches. We weren’t too far from his house so we just took our horse and small wagon.…
My mother, “Regina Hopkins,” has been a positive influence in my life. She has raised 6 kids all by herself as well as earned a Bachelor’s degree in nursing from a City College in Gainesville, Florida. My mother has been through pretty much everything a person can go through outside of war and was still able to be there and provide for all 6 of her kids. In high school, my mother wanted to play football and couldn't because she was a girl and back-in-the-day women were not allowed to play football with the guys. However, she remained strong by raising 6 kids and independently took care of all of us on her own. My mother has several qualities that I would love to develop. The first quality she has is balance; she certainly knows how to make…
Moving on is easy but what you leave behind is what makes it hard. Once you get to a certain age in your life you know you have to move on sometime. I know times are hard but you have to push yourself toward what you really want in life even if it means moving away from what you love.…
Life is full of risks. And not all risks are predictable. The first and the biggest crisis in my life happened a few days after the fifteenth birthday. I was diagnosed with a kind of cancer and took a year off from middle school to have chemotherapy after surgery. Fortunately, I was on the mend after hospitalizing for the first three months, so I received the outpatient treatment after that. Now it was time to go back to school. However, I had a lot of different thoughts running through my mind. I no longer wanted to take my life for granted. Instead, I wanted to be stronger and challenge myself. So I decided to go on to high school in the abroad. I persuaded my parents for six months and they finally agreed to let me move to New York! It was…
I managed to spit out, though it sounded more like blabbering than what I would have liked. With a few seconds to spare, I passed my ticket to the flight attendant, panting as I walked through the narrow aisle in search for my seat. like a sack of potatoes, I threw myself onto the cream cushions, submerging myself into the seat as if it was a second home.…
Every human struggles everyone has hardship. When I was young I began to notice that maybe it is hard to understand what other people struggle with. The start of a mundane life began as usual a bus ride to school, but today something else happened a flash of yellow a soundless luxury sports car zoomed bass by a Lamborghini. As the car passed by everyone looked at it with amazement as the never seen a car pass from this part of the street. I began to wonder when will I get one with imaginary job I will live the high life. The bus hits a bump on the road I am begging to rationalize who much work will it take to achieve greatness to struggle to overcome adversity.…
Growing up with a family that loved baseball, with a dad that played college baseball and also coached the game it made me want to be the next Derek Jeter. I wanted to be the best of the best! It was my very first love, it's what I grew up doing. Ever since I was really young I had aspirations for playing at the college level and beyond that. On July 2nd, 2015 my life was changed due to the publicly acclaimed worst baseball injury in history, Tommy John. I had tore my right ulnar collateral ligament in the middle of a game. This devastating news would easily break the spirits of any other player, but as each day passed my drive to succeed became unstoppable. Dealing with this prolonged injury…
Throughout my life I have encountered many circumstances that have shaped me into the person I am today. I was born in Moroleon, Guanajuato, Mexico. I attended school in Mexico all the way to second grade. In the summer of 2006 I moved to Cumming, Georgia. It was the hardest thing to do because I left everything that I care the most about. We lived in a trailer which was not the nicest place and in the middle of the forest. I started school at the beginning of August. I had always loved school so I was so excited for the first day. I knew it was going to be hard because I would have to conquer so many obstacles on the way. At this time the only English I knew was probably counting from one to ten and some of the colors. My Father knew some…
Growing up, I noticed a lot of discussion about financial problems between my parents. It’s not that we were becoming poor, it was because of our growing family needing more supplies. My mother just gave birth to my little brother when I started noticing the financial issues my family were facing. As a little girl, I do not know how our finances worked all I knew was many bills were due and I knew it because when I was a little girl I liked to practice reading and those bill statements were the papers that attracted my interest due to its colorful paper.…
Most teenagers do not have a clue about what they want to be when they grow up. Most young adults also do not know where their path is in life. Even some full-blown adults are still trying to figure out their purpose. I was lucky. I knew exactly where I belonged from about the time I was seven up until now, at the decently young age of nineteen. I do not see my path changing anytime soon; in fact, I know it will never change. But, I did not just wake up one day as a child and know what my path was, while that would be impressive. Defining moments in one’s life defines who they are. There were lots of things I experienced in my life that made me realize my purpose, my absolute passion. I had four of these defining moments in my short span of…