My Beloved Family And Friends

Please describe a meaningful event or experience that made you reflect on your life. Explain how that experience affected who you are or your life’s direction. Please limit to 250 words or 1,650 characters with spaces.

Who I am today is a result of my life experiences and the ways I have chosen to deal with them.

Outline your Personal Narrative What one event has shaped you into who you are today?

My life was split over two distinct culture as my family moved back and forth between Syria and the United States. My family immigrated to the U.S. in the early eighties and moved back to Syria two years after I was born. I completed my first and second grades in Syrian public schools before immigrating to the United States in 2001. I was first placed in english second language classes, which I completed in 9 months. I then continued my fourth grade in regular classrooms. These two years exposed me to various cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. I interacted with people from all around the world, which cultivated my cultural awareness and shaped my identity. However, I was harassed several times because of my ethnic and religious background. A student once told me “go back to your country, we don’t want you here”. It had never occurred to me that I was perceived as foreign even though I am a U.S. citizen.

When life begins, I believe each person has a story to be told. The story of my life, may not be an ordinary life experience. Many things have shaped and changed me into who I am today. I believe that think that has the most effect on individuals, are the people they meet and those who shape their lives. Here is the story of my life and who and what made me into the person I am today.

As a kid our parents have always told us to never talk to strangers. Not because they are bad people or dangerous, but instead because you simply do not know anything about them. When I was younger my dad always use to tell me, “Noah if you ever find yourself around a lot of strangers turn around and go back to where you came from.” It may be a cliché but every parent has said that to their children before, at least once. Let me first say that my family only consists of 6 people. Now, you may be thinking that is too small; there is definitely more than six people in his family. By blood, yes you would be correct. I count a real family as people who would give their shirt off their backs for you. Those people in my life are my mom, dad, sister, grandpa, and grandma. The rest of my blood relatives are what you could say, “hypocrites”- they say one thing to you and then their actions speak a completely different language. It’s like that one friend that says, “Bro, I’m outside.” but when you look out the window he isn’t within a mile from your house. At first it’s kind of funny, you joke around about it; but come that third and fourth time they do it you start losing trust in them and start taking everything they say with a grain of salt. Trust within my family is a huge characteristic for me and I believe that quality should be very important to everyone. Ontop of trust comes the momma rule that everybody should follow. The momma rule is, “I can talk back to my mom but if

It seemed as if a war was happening right in the middle of our kitchen. Seeing the puddles of tears streaming down from my sister and I’s face was undoubtedly heartbreaking for my parents, but it was also heartbreaking for my sister and I to find out our parents were getting a divorce. Their screaming was loud and constant. I wish my walls were soundproof.

Family. It’s one word that has a different significance for every individual. There’s multiple uncontrollable factors that can change crucial aspects of your personality, such as whether or not your parents are together or the number of siblings you have. These features can cause one to be either satisfied or discontented in their life. Most do not think about the stability of their family; after all, I never thought about it until mine began collapsing.

I think about my life every night before I go to bed. As a kid, I was not worried about the future. However, as I was introduced to the reality of drugs and alcohol in my neighborhood, my life took a turn. I chose the wrong path for a few years. As I got older, I realized life could be different if I made wise decisions.

There’s usually not a lot of words that I could use to describe myself whenever people ask me to tell them about who I am, but for this letter I’ll make it work! I guess I could start by telling you a few things about my family, so here I go. I live with both of my parents and siblings in a quite small house with a German Shepherd dog. As you know, both of my siblings--- Augustus and Ellen--- graduated here in DMCI a few years ago. They’re doing really great in university, well except when they have exams because they tend to stress a lot. I’ve done many things with my siblings, and I guess that’s the reason why I got to know and got the chance face my fears. As for my parents, they exposed me to different things in life that I could potentially love or hate, which is what made me who I am today. While everyone else made me realize the important things in life and that is living your life to the fullest, just like the summer I had this year.

I like to describe myself as a bubbly person; I am definitely a glass half full kind of girl; I love sunny days, the color pink, and peppy songs. At the same time I love pretty much anything girly, working with kids, history, reading, animals, hair, makeup, and talking about the Bible. My family has always discussed everything, and I guess that's where my love of discussing things comes from. I am the oldest of five kids and have two brothers, and two sisters. Mckinley is 15, Savanna is 13, Lincoln is 11, and Abel is 4. I have been homeschooled my entire life and enjoy a close relationship with my siblings and parents. My Dad is a state farm agent, but he spends his extra time studying hebrew, and my Mom is a full time homeschool mom and wife/super woman extraordinaire. We live in Davenport, Iowa right on the mississippi river.

I was born and grew up in Ethiopia, moving to America three years ago. Ethiopia is one of the traditional country where most of the population and the economy rely on agriculture. I was born in small rural town called Akaki in the southern part of Addis Ababa City. My family depends on agriculture, my parents grow crops like teff, barley, hard wheat and sorghum, which is the common ingredients for our day to day meal. The production of these crops takes place in traditional farming. I am the youngest kid in my family, that means I am free from any responsibilities in my culture my older siblings do most of the things in our family. I spent most of the time playing with my friends. Everyone in my family loves me. If something happens with in our family, the oldest one are accountable and responsible, even I am a young and grown guy, this thing makes me lazy and spoiled person.

There are many things in life that have shaped me into the person that I am today, but my family is easily the biggest influence on me. This is my story.

would hurt me so much seeing my friend’s dads be there for them while mine was nowhere around. The question of why was I not good enough popped up into my head multiple times. My mom would always tell me that it was my dad’s loss. He was missing out on my life.

John F. Kennedy once said, ”Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.” This quote explains how much of a support my grandparents, family, and a safe country mean to me. I am very thankful for my grandparents who support me all the time and come to sporting events and love to hear about school when they call at night. I am also thankful for my amazing family, who always stand by me everyday and love to hear about my school day and come to baseball games even when they don’t really want to. Some of the other things that I am also thankful for are that we can live safe happy lives, we don’t have to be drafted into the Army, etc. Lastly, I am thankful for a safe country that has a great armed forces, leaders, and is very generous. Moreover, I am thankful for a safe country, family, and my amazing grandparents.