Moments In My Life

This year, we read four great works of literature. Each piece is so different from each other, yet all writing demonstrates that everybody is human and experiences harsh circumstances. At the point when life gets difficult, people read books to realize that they are not the only one. In each great piece of writing, we see and feel the characters' battles and feelings of anguish that makes it so relatable for the readers. The characters show the genuine unpredictability of life. In the pieces we read we see death, tragedy, and courage portrayed magnificently.

The way I’ve gone through literature in the past and how I have gone through it now, have changed drastically. In fact, it has changed quite a bit. When I was once a wee lad, I used to read a lot. Mostly likely I would’ve read most of the time because my mother would make me read the same book over, and over, and over all the time. The book that we read together is Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. If I had my own copy today, I’d read it quite often on my own due to the current situation with my mother. This book had meant so much to me since I was a child because of the personal story that was created through the pages, the story of the bond between my mother and I. But, I believe that after reading

I viewed reading as a chore, was often unenthused, and would mostly annotate on the overarching themes without gathering any meaning from them. Books were merely a series of words printed on paper. This school year, however, I began to understand the allure reading has to offer. I have grown to appreciate reading and the insights a book can offer. When reading our numerous texts, I was able to live vicariously through the characters of the books and relate aspects of their lives to my own. Because all of the books from English I pertain to coming of age, I was able to not only learn about maturation as a process, but understand how it pertains to my own life. Through protagonists such as Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye or Esperanza from The House on Mango Street, I learned about my “misguided desire to preserve childhood innocence” and to empower feminism similar to Holden and Esperanza respectively (Heart of Gold, Raghuram). Gradually, I have finally developed the ability to relate to novels and its characters amidst writing my own story.Whether it be thematic elements or the details of a case I am working on, I have become more observant to even the most trivial details. Now when I read, I not only look at the themes, motifs, and symbols, but also repeated phrases or situations that parallel each others as well as the symbolic meaning behind some ambiguous phrases or scenes. Reading now, in contrast to last summer, is a

. . They were stories that made all I felt and feared seem less of a burden” (par. 4). It is implied in the essay that the author’s parents will soon be getting a divorce. The author is fearful and anxious for what is coming. Therefore, their love for literature allows the author to experience and undergo the transformation of her divorcing parents to be less severe. The author has a way to cope with this frightening change, and it is through reading.

In a way, literature offers one of the least harmful ways to feel all these emotions at once “by simply turning a page instead of turning our lives upside down” (Meyer 1). If we are given this opportunity to prepare for the worst, we should take advantage of it and treat literature with utmost respect rather than replace it with other subjects to fit in with our generation.

If someone were to ask me for the most significant turning point in my life, I wish I can say that it is something as dreamy as a romantic proposal, getting married, getting promoted to my dream job, or something more magical. Instead, my most relevant answer to that question is migrating. Since I was six years of age, just when my father passed away, my mother has been preparing my sisters and me to relocate to the United States. In a prompt by Bettelheim, I once read, "As Piaget has shown, the child's thinking remains animistic until the age of puberty" (319). In my case, moving was something I have been aware of for most of my growing years, and admittedly, something I have always anticipated. Because truthfully, as an Asian kid living

Throughout my life, I have not had any memorable things happened to me. Nothing dramatic like a car crash or a close family member that passed away. When I look back at my life and how I was shaped into the person I became I think about this moment in my life. How something as small and as ordinary as moving across states can be such a pivotal moment in a person’s life. One thing that did change my outlook on life is when I moved in the fourth grade to Alabama.

It is believed that there is a moment in time in everyone’s life when they come to some sort of conclusion of humanity and how the world truly works, whether it’s at a football game, or in school, or at home, everyone has that moment in their life and every moment is important to each individual person. My personal moment transpired over the course of the summer of 2015, two years ago. That summer I had decided that I was actually going to do something important, something that truly meant something to my life, I decided I was going to take part in the Glen Este High School Marching Band. I was only an 8th grader and suffice to say, I was not very good at my Saxophone. I had only been playing it for two years after switching from Alto to Tenor and even though I loved it I was terrible at it. Mr. Morgan was always there to make me feel confident about my ability but deep down I knew I had to get better and when the words came from his mouth, “If you are someone that really wants to get better at their instrument you should really try it” I knew that I had to try it out at the very least. So I signed up and weeks later we got our music for our very first show, Phantom. Of course as most people will remember our opener and most popular song was Phantom Of The Opera and it was difficult. Immediately after seeing the music I was nervous and wasn’t sure how to play most of it, right after hearing that we would have to even have the music memorized I went into full panic

There is a saying that, Human beings tend to perform more prohibited acts. The more my parents relock me to do some things the more I feel interested on them. May be this is the human nature. In my life, I experience these things ones. This incident is one of the best experience moments in my life. I have learnt many things of it. It was a rainy morning and I woke up early .My parents already woke up. My mom was preparing breakfast for us. I was sitting on the dining table and reading newspaper. In that time, my mom’s phone was ringing and she picked up the phone. It was my uncle over the phone. My uncle invited us to join his marriage anniversary function. We all were invited the function. My parents were so happy to hear this. I was also excited to join the function. At night, my father returned home with a big presents. It was a gift for my uncle wedding anniversary. I was so impatient to see what was in it. I asked my father what he had brought. My father said, “Open it and see.” I opened the box and saw a big classical Antique Wall Clock. It was a big Antique Clock I had ever seen and my mom was happy too.

One of the scariest moments in my life happened within seconds. I have lived in the house we are in now for about 10 years. It’s a four story stucco house with a pretty big back yard and a sided two car garage behind it. Then one day just like that, everything had changed. I never

Garth Brooks sang “our lives are better left to chance, I could have missed the pain, But

What was the happiest moment of your childhood? Just the thought of it probably brings a smile to your face. Take the time to imagine that moment without your parent(s). Would you still consider it a happy moment? Many children face this reality daily and it’s out of their control. One would like to think that it's due to their parent passing away, being deployed, or something of that nature. These children have lost their parents in a much different way. They have lost them to the department of corrections due to crimes they may or may not have committed. The short and long-term effects of this lost can be devastating. In some cases, it can make or break their futures.

Not too long ago, I was high in the sky looking down at the white fluffy clouds below me wondering where my life was headed next. My decisions and everything else that came to mind, mainly wondering if being there in that moment was best for me. I kept looking around at others, maybe someone to talk too just to get my mind off of things, but instead told myself that nobody wants to talk about here. My mind doesn’t stop, I’m constantly thinking about the good, bad, and the ugly. So I pressed a button, then a lady appeared with a ginger ale and pretzels. I snacked then decided to sleep it off until we landed.

A life changing moment that happened to me was when I read a book cover to cover in just three days. In all honesty growing up I never enjoyed reading. Instead I always wanted to play outside with my friends. Every day I would come home from school and dart right back out the door so I would not miss anything. We would play a variety of sports like football, baseball, and basketball. It did not matter which we would choose. All that mattered was that I was not stuck inside my house reading. As a matter of fact in school I was not much of reader either, so I only read as much as I had too to complete an assignment. Then one day I was called down to the principal’s office during my senior year at Slippery Rock High school to have a chat with Mr. Jeffries, the head guy in charge. Little did I know that this visit to the principal’s office was going to change the way I looked at reading forever.

Mother Nature was always a big and a respectful attraction to me, we come and are part of Mother Nature. I was raised at my grandmother’s farm in a remote village of my native country Peru. Food and livestock were available right there for us, as well as pesticides. However, there was no information about the pesticides’ side effects; schools and medical facilities were hours away from us.