My Experience In My Life

Have you ever been in a conversation where you have no clue what to say next. Have you ever been in a situation where you see someone you don't know and wanna talk to them but dont have the courage to say anything?

Aurora, Illinois, a suburb near Chicago with many hills, big and small, and many lakes, rivers, and ponds. The townhouse I lived in was quite noisy at times, thanks to mom and dad. Aside from all the parental chaos, home was home, purple chicken noodle soup and bike rides were what I looked forward to. I loved the landscape and how much of it there was, the sky was always so colorful, the fireflies lit up the city parks making the city seem magical in a way. Aurora was a city that was all about unity, everyone came together for events, clubs, and during tragedies. You would always see a group of people running the hills in matching shirts or a whole neighborhood celebrating someone's birthday.

Throughout my life, I have made many changes, taken on many challenges, and accomplished many goals. Before now, I have not spent much time or energy examining my motivations, attempting to determine how or why things turned out well, or did not. However, currently I find it necessary to do just that, as I am beginning a new chapter in my life: college. As I move through my first year of college, at the age of fifty-six, I feel I do not have the time to guess at what will lead me toward the best possible outcomes. I need to be clear on what works and what does not. I can think of two important experiences I have had in my adult life, one motivated by intrinsic values, and one by extrinsic factors. An examination of both may give me better understanding of how I can make the most of my education.

When I was only seven years old, I had decided that I was going to be a professional ballerina. My parents had enrolled me in the local dance lessons since I started walking and I fell in love with ballet right away. My friends and I would attend a dance group everyday after school and would travel to places on the weekends for competitions. Living in the suburbs, mommy, daddy, dance lessons, and me, I thought I had a perfect life and wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world. We would enjoy the summer breezes, and the Long Island Beaches; it was a true American dream until all good things come to an end.

I was used to visiting family in the hospital; for the first part of my life, I spent nearly every day with my grandmother and great grandmother to watch my great have her dialysis done. I was around three when she passed on, and at the time I hadn’t realized the severity and high stakes that a hospital can suggest. I would later discover, at the age of thirteen, the urgency and pain that hospitals can cause when my grandfather Allison passed away. Seeing him hooked up to all of the strange machines and devices that solely could prolong his life has been one of the most tragic and saddening experiences of my life. Witnessing some of his final moments has taught me to value life and is ultimately what has driven me into my current path in life.

When I was younger, I always found myself with a pencil and paper in my hand. I would leave a multitude of marks on the paper in some form or fashion, whether it be scribbles, repetitive words and sentences, my name, or the names of family members. Growing older, I would find myself writing more than enough when it came to essays. I could never bring myself to leave out any details and I rarely used simple sentences. Originally, I thought it was because I wanted the validation of my parents and teachers, but it was something else I had yet to realize. I liked writing and it hit me one day when I was in my room, listening to music.

On June 10, 2006, I woke up like any other Saturday, expecting it to be a good day of baseball. Little did I know, how much my life was about to be turned upside down. Getting the news that my father had passed away from a heart attack, at the age of 30, really took a toll on my family and I. I couldn’t let that stop me from having a successful life because he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. That meant it was time for me to step up to the plate and be a man, be a role model for my little brother, and also be the shoulder that my mom could lean on. Even though I was only 10 years old and in the fifth grade, I really grew up and matured since that day.

Despite how average my life has been thus far, especially compared to others, I have learned so much. Whether I was faced with minor complications or major decisions, I had much knowledge to gain. Regardless of the outcome of my actions, I simply reflected on what I had to learn and carried on. Because, regardless of whether I like it or not, time will continue forward, even if I’m not. If not my age, then it’s my experiences that define who I’ve grown to become.

Knowing who you are is an important step in life. Knowing your identity is something that is expected of you before you even graduate highschool. When students are being surveyed for acceptance, they are being chosen for what they have done rather than what they can do. Granted, what you have done is a good reflector of what you can do, but what you can do isn’t what you have done. I come from a family that values hard work and character. No one in the entirety of my family has any special diploma or fancy piece of paper that tells everyone what they are good at. No one in my family has any clue what I am writing about right now.

As I'm writing this, we have just returned from a 5 day hospital stay. Life has become a series of doctors' appointments, tests, and hospital stays. This is life with a chronic illness. . . especially one of which not much is known. But life wasn't always this way.

My personal life has had many twists and turns that have shaped my life and my view on language as an individual. My life began growing up in a mixed family household: my mother being born in Jordan and moving to the United States when she was young, and my father who has lived in the United States. Growing up in a mixed household I only spoke English and I rarely heard any Arabic in my life. I would only know hear Arabic when I did something wrong or when we were spending time with my mother’s side of the family. While I was very influenced by Arabic culture I was not submerged in the culture so I did not understand all the complexities of Arabic culture in the US. If I grew up in a household where Arabic was spoken regularly (maybe not

Want to know what I did this summer that is different than yours? Well you’re going to hear a lot about it from me in this writing. Traveling in a long hot car ride down to Panama City, Florida is one heck of a ride let me tell you. The hot air on your face as you’re just trying to relax in the back seat of a crammed SUV. The air is so hot that it’s way to hard to fall asleep in the fifteen hour long car ride to your destination. So then you're forced to actually communicate with the people in the car with you, which than you figure out isn’t so bad after all. Laughing the whole way down and jamming out made our whole trip down so much better than it originally was going to be. And than when you finally pull into the driveway of your new

It's hard living alone, in a jungle, and your only resources are what you can find. Being a nomad is definitely not easy, especially when you live in a place like Nicaragua. I have no friends, no family, no home, no entertainment, and the only things I have is a compass, a tent, a water bottle, a knife, and a bag. Almost everything I once had, is now lost. More specifically, taken. Taken by the almighty ruler, petar. He and his slovakian army killed each and every single person in Nicaragua, including my family. I'm the only survivor, and if there are other people who are still alive, they’re probably in prison, getting ready to enter the gas chamber. I have never been so sad in my life, and petar is probably feeling the exact opposite. All the Slovakian wanted was power. I’m only sixteen years old, and I decided not to continue on in the pool of sadness that I'm in.

The summer after freshman year, I went on a journey that completely changed my life forever and opened a whole new door to my life. My four weeks in Grenada, Nicaragua, put me in situations that not many freshmen get to experience at home. During this experience, I was able to do lots of community service, visit students at their school, play games with kids, and of course, study Spanish.

I was 16 when it happened. It was a surprisingly warm December day in 1994 in Bangladesh. It was already past dinnertime. My dad ran a little bit late from work, since so many people were out enjoying the nice weather. My dad owned a tailoring shop downtown, and it was always pretty busy, since most Bengali stores at the time didn’t sell stitched clothes. My mom and my three siblings went ahead and ate, but I waited for Dad to come home. We always ate dinner together, no matter how late he came back. When he finally came back, it was almost 9:00, so we decided that we were going to eat dinner while watching TV. We watched Looney Toons together. I asked him if he had any wacky customers at the shop. He jokingly tried to convince me to switch from pursuing biology to English. It was running gag between us. Anyone who knew me knew I sucked at English. After he finished eating, he got up to take his plate to the kitchen. I was finishing up my food when I heard a crash come from the kitchen. I ran to the kitchen and I saw my dad collapsed on the floor. I yelled for my mom. We quickly rushed him to the hospital. The quickest way to the hospital was by rickshaw. My mom, my brother, and I kept yelling at the rider to go faster. We finally got to the hospital only to realize that he was gone. He had died of an ischemic stroke on the way there.