Keep Your Head Up By Ben Howard

Speeches come in all shapes and sizes, some are good, some are bad, some are motivational and some are inspirational. The one thing I can tell you is that there are always a few that will linger and stick around in your head. These speeches go through history as being remembered and studied for decades. A few that come to mind are “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, “Never give up…Don’t ever give up,” by Jimmy Valvano. “Gettysburg Address,” by Abraham Lincoln and “You’ve got to find what you love,” by Steve Jobs. Each and every one of these speeches was written by men who were challenged to make difficult decisions in their lives which would inadvertently affect their future in one way or another.

I felt a genuine and intense passion in the epidemiology field, especially in the infectious diseases department, and I felt sure of where things were going. And then I met a man. For the next three years I held on to an emotionally and physically abusive relationship. Throughout my freshmen, sophomore, and junior year I lied about my wellbeing, I sacrificed my studies, I cut off ties with friends that were my only support system, and I made several excuses for a person who did not deserve second chances. I finally found the courage to leave the unhealthy relationship. Unfortunately, I suffered chronic depression during my senior year as a result. There were several days I did not have the energy or willpower to get out of bed. I struggled with an overwhelming guilt of giving up on a person who needed more help than I did. I struggled with my self-esteem, and many days I lost motivation to push myself. I grew quite angry that I wasted years my family sacrificed for. I let them down and I could not forgive myself for that. But slowly I started to realize that the person I let down the most was myself. I was once a person with ambition, and goals and somewhere between trying to make someone else happy I lost myself. I wish I could say that i pulled myself together, that I suddenly became happy, or that I pulled all my grades up but I had rough days, weeks, and sometimes bad months. Luckily

My mind was racing with thoughts about how I hated my major and never wanted to study history in the first place, how I didn’t feel I was smart enough for the school or scholarships I had earned and how I just really wanted to leave and go back to Holland because I did not love the school I thought I loved. The next day I met my mom at Aquinas College and after even more tears I explained how I wanted to drop out. After filling out paperwork and packing my things I left with my mom to Holland feeling like a failure because I dropped out of college not even forty- eight hours after moving in. When we got home my mom made a big dinner to cheer me up and said these words that still give me so much hope, “Today is the start of your new life”. After that day I truly began my new life, since I had so much time on my hands I started volunteering at Herrick District Library, a place that I have always loved, once a week, began learning how to drive and found a major that I am truly passionate about. Ultimately, I started doing what made me happy and it has turned a situation that looked sad, confusing and hopeless into a land of new

“Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your life or the world, that one song stays the same, just like that moment” –Sarah Dessen. (Goodreads) Everyone has a go to song for every emotion, memory, and expression that they feel. If you could compose a soundtrack for my life it would consists of these four songs; “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” ”Teenage Dream,” “Heaven,” and “Laughed until We Cried”. Time flies, but when you listen to a particular song, you relive those days all over again.

This is all thanks to my mom. She’s always been my support, she’s believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She made sure I never gave up because you see, the thing is, I struggle from severe depression. My resume maybe long and impressive and this, that, and the other thing, but it didn’t matter. Not getting into NYU and spending a year studying in and breathing in the culture of Paris, I couldn’t get out of my rut. All this great things were happening to me but the stress of paying for tuition and the guilt of going to an expensive school began to weigh so heavily on me that I had to stop. I transferred schools hoping for a new start, but the same issues persisted. I had trouble paying for school, worked long hours outside of school with my paychecks being filtered to the school’s bursar. So I stopped again. I felt like a failure, I had no direction, I didn’t know what to do next. It was the first time in my life when I didn’t have a plan and a bullet point list of what I wanted to accomplish. But the experience that came from taking the time off from school has been

It was the first day of senior year, which also meant the last time I will wake up after the summer break to High School. A million thoughts went racing through my head; what should I wear? What will my classes be like? Is there anyone of my classmates that haven’t changed since I last saw them? All of these questions were going back and forth all morning long. After I finally relaxed and decided to get ready, I felt an overwhelming presence of nervousness wash over me. The thought finally struck me like a lightning bolt that I am a senior in high school. I didn’t know what I was going to do. This was it, my last year of being able to enjoy childhood before I went off and had to be an adult. I decided to take a deep breath and just thank God for helping me get this far in life and give this year to Him. As I walked out of the front door, the nervous feelings went away and the next thing I knew was that my soul was full of excitement. I wasn’t worried about this being my last year, but instead I was ready, pumped, and excited for the journey

My junior year of High School I was a mess. I did things I told myself I would never do. I smoked weed after I had always told my oldest brother to stop. I drank alcohol, never beer, even though my father was a drunk alcoholic. I somehow put in my mind that that was better than drinking beer since I only ever saw him drink beer. I didn’t know what to believe anymore and had no faith in anyone or anything. The summer of 2015, going onto my senior year, my church invited me to a camp, Gravity Camp, which was supposed to make you closer to God. My church said they would pay for it,which is why I went, and I decided to go with one of my brothers. This camp changed my life since it showed me how to forgive and trust again, shaping me for the rest of my life.

Growing up I had feared the responsibility of my younger brother, but now all I wanted was that responsibility. It was then that I realized what was happening. The cycle was changing; it still would try to pull me away from college, but it did it differently. That terrible year may have been the revelation I needed. I researched scholarships every night, and I learned that if I worked hard enough, I could get money to go to college. I refused to be sucked into the cycle. I helped my dad and brother as much as I could, but I exhausted every last surge of energy in school. By the second semester of 9th grade, I achieved straight A’s and the school newspaper advisor offered me the position of Editor in Chief. 10th grade began and my life itself had ameliorated. My mom had lost the custody battle and home life returned to normal. Aside from the newspaper I joined the Student Leadership Team and Academic Decathlon, all while acing my first AP class. I realized that my hard work was already paying off in opportunities and that if I worked even harder they’d multiply. That year was one giant

Throughout my life I have had many challenging obstacles thrown my way such as moving to a new country without speaking the language. At the start of my highschool career however the struggles ended and Myself as an individual began to abandon the hard working character I had once been. My self esteem lowered and I began to let everything fall apart. This portion of my life was horrendous as I cared about my education and my social life but yet I did not have the energy to do anything to fix myself. I spent my first two years of high school without any purpose being put into my work in which case i failed certain classes. After joining a sports team I was put into a social setting with friends and also my older sibling.

For some of the boys on the Fugees, soccer almost acts like a lifeline. If these boys weren't given the chance to play soccer as a team, their lives would be much different. Being a refugee and practicing a foreign culture and language makes it hard to fit in and make friends. Because of this, refugees without support are more likely to end up in a gang or committing a crime than other people in an American community. The song “Keep your head up” by Andy Grammer represents the significant role that soccer plays in many of the young refugees on the Fugees lives. The song states “This is just a journey drop your worries, you are gonna turn out fine. Oh, you'll turn out fine. Fine, oh, you'll turn out fine. But you gotta keep your head up, oh

To this day, certain songs will bring out that emotion in me. Whether it be a song like this one, where I could still get emotional, or a more euphoric tune that would keep me going until 4am while I worked on things, this genre is still the music of

The article provides a general overview of how music can evoke specific memories. Hearing music activates the limbic system, which takes part in controlling the memory and emotions, and automatically, brings up autobiographical and episodic memories. One of the strong emotions that music evokes is nostalgia. In general, this article provides useful background information on that music evokes emotions, but does not necessarily define feelings. Since some sad songs can be associated with happy memories, and happy on opposite --with the

Looking back at the beginning of last year, life was not the best for me. At the time I was going through the transition of moving back from my previous college back to my home in Miami, Florida. Disappointed, at how I did not push myself enough to succeed in my foregoing college, I came to question what I should do now. Everything felt so rushed, the control I had on it was nonexistent. I, like an audience in a movie theater sitting back and watching my life unfold in front of me. Eventually as time went on I decided the best thing to do, is fix myself. I found myself a job at the Grand Beach Hotel in Surfside, Florida as a hostess at the restaurant and everything changed since then. My job helped me become a better individual by showing

My heart wrenching odyssey all started at the end of my junior year of high school. I had just gotten out of a heavy relationship with someone who didn't care about me from the beginning. I was wrecked emotionally but I would never acknowledge this as a fact. My self esteem was at an all time low and at the time I had no idea how to rebuild it, trial and error was my plan of action. My first mistake was thinking anyone else but myself could fix what was broken. I put all my problems on my friends unknowingly asking them to do the impossible. I was scared of the quiet, because it held the truth. So I would spend time with anyone that would give me just a moment of their time. This plan had worked well enough for an amount of time but it soon became to repetitive and didn't keep the sorrow away for any amount of time. I could also tell I wasn't the best company in the

Music, at its essence, is what gives us memories. And the longer a song has existed in our lives, the more memories we have of it.