Friendships : My Best Friend

Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) observed children’s friendships by asking a number of children to write an essay about their best friend using the approach called “content analysis”. William Corsaro however dictates that in order to study children you must study them in the context of their own peer culture, he used the “ethnographic approach”. In this essay I shall attempt to compare and contrast the approach used by Bigelow and La Gaipa (1975) and that taken by William Corsaro (2006).

Every single individual has a set of values that are dear to them and and as individuals we tend to live our lives by these particular standards or principals and we all find things to have different levels of importance. The values i chose include friendship, happiness, dedication, adventure/exploration and curiosity.

Friendship is universal. It can bridge societal gaps of gender, race, social class, and differences in abilities. College is a time of personal growth, and friendships have a tremendous impact on the development and experiences of an individual. Through Best Buddies, college students and adults in the community with disabilities have the opportunity to share friendships. These relationships bring people of all abilities, interests, and talents together, as equals and as friends. I chose to look at these friendships

Until, it was work time. We were assigned to work on one of those beginning of the year projects that teachers used at open house. As I was working, I needed help. Instead of opting to ask Ms. Naz I chose to ask a girl I was sitting by. She had short, blond hair that cut off at her shoulders and a petite frame. “Hi, I’m Sia,” I announced as I walked up to her, “Can you help me with this?” That was how I made one of my first friends in fourth hour. She introduced me to some of her friends, and we all started talking. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after

When I was young, I didn’t have many friends. I was not very socially outgoing, but I had three great friends that were bound to me by the virtue of meeting at an early age. While I was not a popular young man; my three friends and I managed to create our own niche .We made our own little group that could become our refuge, our own world where we could be each other’s strength, entertainment, support in school, and eventually life itself. Acquaintances, coworkers and schoolmates came and went, but our friendships remained. Eventually, this came to be the foundation of a belief of mine in life. I would always believe in and gave my loyalty to my friends and was given back faith and enduring companionship. If only I had known that years later I would experience something that would shatter my faith in friendship.

Been 6 months 194 days, 8 hours ,49 minutes , and 20 seconds since I lost my best friend. These past couple months have been horrible for me. She is all I think about on a daily basis. Everything I do is for her. I remember this day like it was yesterday. All the tears, memories, laughs, conversations. Kamilion Jenkins meant a lot to a whole bunch of people. She was filled with laughter, love, smiles, everything you can think of. All the memories we had together, the night I heard the bad news, and the day we said our last goodbyes are the days I won't ever forget.

We met on the first day of eighth grade- my best friend and I. Upon walking to the cafeteria, it felt obvious that first day jitters filled the overly decorated and colorful middle school hallways with anticipation. The time was approximately 10:45 in the morning as hungry students quickly shuffled their way passed each other in a race for their meals. I remember the familiar smell of square cut pizza filling the sunlit lunchroom as I made my way towards the last available seat of one of the many round tables occupying the room. I noticed that every seat had been claimed by recognizable faces, except one, a small girl with ivory skin and light purple braces. With only one vacant seat to her left, I unknowingly sat next to someone that would become a major influence for the next five years and counting. Madison Faith proved to be the smartest, funniest, and most loving being I have been blessed to call my bestfriend.

Best friend (n) - a person’s closest friend (Dictionary.com). By definition, a best friend could be one’s closest friend, but there is so much more to it than that. Imagine a best friend. They help in the darkest times, but they also laugh at the best times. Often, the greatest time spent together is with this best friend. This best friend knows everything there is to know; what would you do without this best friend? Well, one afternoon, a call comes in. This best friend took their life earlier in the morning. The overwhelming, but hidden, issues they had been facing at home fatally surfaced. It’s a reality now, what really am I going to do without them? Charlie, in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, ponders the same question as he enters high school alone. A void in his life in the wake of his best friend's suicide the year before. If Charlie’s best friend could’ve been honest and talked to Charlie about what he had been dealing with at home, he may still be around. However, Charlie, like time itself, must move forward. He must bravely walk through the halls of his new school and discover new relationships. Stephen Chbosky develops intricate relationships between characters dealing with the hardships of high school in The Perks of Being a Wallflower to reveal that relationships connected by lies fail, but complete truth prevails.

Stanley Yelnats was accused of stealing a pair of shoes and got sent to Camp Green Lake, a juvenile delinquent centre. At Camp Green Lake you dig holes to “build character.” Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather somehow put a curse on his family, which made them always be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Beginning in public school for thirteen years I have learned a lot. Some things I have learned are how to read, math, science, etc. These are good things to learn in school, but not the most important thing I have learned in my life. I have learned the hardest thing anyone can learn is how to from friendships with others. Forming friendships is a hard thing to learn because no one teaches it. There is no classes that helps kids learn to make friends. Everybody for the most part has to learn all of it on their own. I struggled like everyone else to learn this, and at times I felt I struggled more than others.

Samuel Clemens and Mary Mason Fairbanks had a friendship, but different. Sam describes Mary in his letters as young and a mother figure. She shows strong criticism towards his bad habits and tells him things he should know. A mother instinct is right most of time in wanting the best for her children. Mary was a woman who speaks her mind especially towards Samuel she feels she can tell him anything since there friends. Having a friendship with someone is based on communication, honesty, being there when needed. Sam Clemens was thirty-one and Mary Mason Fairbanks was thirty-nine very close in age. The two met in June of 1867 loading the steam ship in Quaker City and made their way to Brooklyn. Sam and Mary both love to write and found out the two were writing for different newspapers in their hometown. When starting a conversation with someone you will find out information that could relate to each other. Such as what interests between the two, like or dislikes, and the background (Stahl, 2008).

Being in public school for thirteen years I have learned a lot. I have learned how to read, math, science, etc. While all these things I’ve learned are superb and can help me in life they are not the most important lessons I’ve learned throughout my life. I have learned the hardest thing anyone can learn is how to form friendships with others. Making friends is a hard thing to learn because no one teaches it. There is no class that helps kids learn to make friends. People must learn how to make friends on their own, it is a life skill which no class in school can teach people. I struggled like everyone else to learn this, and at times I felt I struggled more than others.

With friends, it’s nice to think that nothing will go wrong, that the trust is well-placed. However, that’s not always the case. Friends are someone that can be trusted, someone in which the care between one and their friends is mutual. Nobody ever imagines that they would be given something as serious as trust issues by their friend. Being betrayed by a friend is worse than hatred from an enemy because of how much more unexpected the incident is.

I didn’t have the most normal childhood that there was to have. I had more family issues than a child under the age of 5 should probably have for proper development. My biological mother couldn 't ever behave like a responsible adult and most of the time couldn 't afford to feed me and take care of me, so she would drop me off with my different family members and I would bounce around from place to place, week to week; Because of this, I moved from Medford, Oregon to Colby, Kansas when I was 6 years old. At first, it seemed like a bad dream. I was thrown into a life with people, my birth-father and step-mom, who I had never met or even talked to before, and now I was being forced to live with them. I felt scared and nervous, like I was a poor animal in a cage with no way out. I had to adapt to love them and treat them like they were my “real” parents, which they were, but to me they didn 't seem like it. Nothing seemed right and I knew I needed someone to make things easier; then I met Hayden, a fun, chubby, and bubbly little kid, who I knew because our parents were friends. Hayden became my best friend, when we were both six, for what would be the next 13 years and is continuing to be a great friendship. We’ve had some great memories and adventures and hopefully have more to come. He taught me how important it was to have a friend like that and to always have someone that I could be close to and be myself with.

“Friendship is a virtue or at least involves virtue. It is necessary to life, since no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all other material goods. Friends are a refuge in times of poverty and misfortune; they help to guard the young from error; they help the old in their weakness, and help those in the prime of life to perform noble actions.” –Aristotle