My Family And My Life

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.

My faith began as soon as I was brought into the world as a baby, it didn’t mean much then but that has changed so so much over the last 14 years of my life. My loving parents always raised me in a Christian home, teaching my brother and I to live out the ways of Christ. When I was a baby I obviously didn’t know how important this faith would be as I grew up. I was baptized at our church when I was a baby by my parents. They always knew the best decisions for me as I grew up as a family believing in the one true God. We went to a church that had bible school for the little ones, which my brother and I always went there and met so many new friends that I still hang out with today actually. As schooling became an option my parents knew they were going to send my brother and I to Zeeland Christian School, where their parents sent them when they were young. Once I was four I was attending Zeeland Christian starting in Preschool. I love Zeeland Christian so much, it’s home. I remember that Preschool was so fun and the teachers starting teaching me little by little how to live out faith in God. This school has changed the way I look at the world, my faith in Christ, and my relationship with those struggling in their own faith. I will never ever forget this school. All the teachers have taught me so much about their own faith and how to live out my own. They know the right advice to give us and I couldn’t have done it without them. As I got older my relationship with God got

I often ask myself what I must achieve to find some semblance of stability, freedom, and safety in this world. My path so far is in line with reaching this goal of freedom and stability. To achieve safety, I’ve studied everything I could get my hands on so far collecting experiences and life lessons whenever the chance arises. I define stability as the ability to engage in financial freedom, as having the skill set to reduce the amount of work required to survive and thrive to a minimal amount of time invested each week while maximizing the efficiency of resource collection. I’ve worked for as many successful people as I could interact with hoping to glean more information to better myself with. I’ve come to the stark realization that this world is centered around a very old and very entangled power structure. To navigate through this maze of modern man I plan to devote all my time to acquiring knowledge and using it to synthesize production to add to my material wealth while at the same time enjoying myself with a good book or a video game. This strategy has served me well so far, in fact my ability to converse has gotten me where I’m today. I’m lucky to count quite a few professionals as my friends drawing on their wisdom kindness and knowledge has taught me many things about this world that most people neglect in the hum bug of day to day life.

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.

My life has always been boring. It’s always been the same things again and again, but without my music, family, friends, and my daydreaming, I would never have a chance to at least try overcome my problems such as social anxiety. Without those things I probably wouldn’t be able to do things like die my hair wacky colors.

We all have relatives who started a family of their own in this world. When relatives start making a family, the amount of a family will grow and many loves to share. As days have gone by, I looked at myself in the mirror to see where I stand today. One day I looked at my younger cousins who have brothers and sisters. What I see them as they play with each other, I think of the day when I was young either I started school or before I went to kindergarten. To think that being the youngest in my family was great for some people. But when time flies, it is possible the relationship with your siblings will change. Of course, siblings will fight and chances are they will forget to forgive one and another. In this day, I thought I had everything I ever wanted when I have siblings, but sometime scars won’t heal without love. “There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” Was quoted by Bryant H. McGill when he posted on the website. As I read this, it reminded me with my relationship with my older sister, Arlene.

My mom once told me when I was young and ignorant, “Faith is the foundation of a beautiful friendship with the one person who will always remain by your side”. These words were expressed even more profoundly every Sunday in the echoing corridors of a small church by a priest I had yet to know or even care about. Preaching with his perplexing words in which I could only muster barely a fourth of my full attention span listening to. Thus, the term faith did not exactly resonate with me until many years later. My early years were filled with the teachings of the bible in Sunday school and later on as well in middle school during Friday night sessions. Unfortunately, my mom was an extremely strong enforcer of our faith for she was also raised Catholic from birth, but my dad on the other hand has a more scientific approach to how the world came to be. The years I spent in Sunday school blurred into an everlasting line of bleak nothingness just a ticking clock waiting till an end. Even today I do not remember anything that occurred within those taxing sixty minuets of constant bible studies it’s as though I lost the key to the inner workings of my childhood. Nonetheless, there have always been unbelievably great role models in my faith such as my mom, youth ministers, and friends who encourage me to be open to my faith. However, it’s always been my own restrictions that prevent me from furthering my relationship with God. So when my sister suffered her first severe

Majority of the time it has always been that fathers should be the protector of the household, but that’s not always the case. There was a time in my life where everything was perfect. Everyone was happy, laughing , and smiling. There were hardly any arguments or fighting... just good vibes. All of that changed; my perfect life and perfect family became this dark place. There were constant fighting, beating, arguing, fear, and pain. My life started to go downhill after the death  of my grandmother. I was 9 years old at the time when my grandmother, Elida, passed away. She was the light to our family, putting everyone before herself, and always gave the best advice. Elida’s death came with more than just heart aches, her death left all of our lives questionable for what the future held for our family. I knew things weren't going to be the same without her. Grandmother Elida was a wise , warm and caring person. She was the light of everything and knew just about every answer to every question. After her death there was no more laughs, smiles, and happiness; instead there was pain, fear, and darkness.

In my life, I have always tried to find things that make my life more joyful and peaceful, and there really are three things that I can think of to best illustrate my love for peace and joy. The first is the willow sapling that, to me, represents the joy of my childhood. The second is the guitar that I first learned to play on, that represents my love of music and the peace that I get from it. The third is the postcard I brought back from New Zealand that represents my love of travel and adventure and the joy that it brings me. These things are the most important to me because they remind me to always seek joy and peace in my life.

Your family only loves you because they have to. They only care for you because they have to. Your friends take care of you because they want to. Your friends love you because they chose to. This is the credo that I have lived by my whole life because that is all I have ever known.

Betsy Sparrow, a psychologist at Columbia University, defines transactive memory as a shared system of knowledge where we have external memory systems available to us, typically in other people or the internet. We have learned to rely on these external systems to provide information rather than remember it ourselves. Even though I’ve never heard the term ‘transactive memory’ before watching this video, it makes sense. We can’t possibly remember everything, especially if we don’t use it every day, but if I remember where to find it, I can still utilize the information when I need it. This isn’t a new concept; employees who work in team environments often rely on coworkers to provide a unique set of knowledge and expertise that other team members don’t have. It allows team members to focus on their area of responsibility and can create a cohesive team environment. I do this in my personal life with my family and friends. If I can ask someone else or look it up on the internet, like driving directions or a recipe, I don’t have to store it in my internal memory. I just need to remember where to locate the information. Dr. Sparrow says that we typically rely on external memory systems for information that we don’t use in our everyday lives. The amount of information at our fingertips has grown exponentially because of the internet and search engines like Google; we have learned to adapt by prioritizing what we must store in our internal memory and what we can store in external

On January 17, 2016, my family and myself travelled about two hours to a small town called Yantis in east Texas. The elders of our family would always get together multiple times a year to catch up and see each other since they were getting to an age where they can’t depend on themselves being here on this Earth. Out of the seven or eight senior members of the family, two or three had already passed by this time. Our Uncle Charles was not looking good either, over the past few months he went from multiple doctor check-ups a week, to being in the hospital, and then ultimately hospice care.

With the power of hindsight I have come to understand the effect that my family and family life has had on the person I was, on the person I am, and on the person I hope to eventually become. On the day of my birth, I was welcomed into that proverbial, “…it takes a village to raise a child”. I had two parents that loved me. Maternal grandparents that ensured that I knew the love of the Holy Trinity. Neighbors who looked after me. Close family friends that I would end up calling “Aunt” and Uncle”, while calling their children “Cousin”, though there was no blood relation. Unfortunately, my paternal grandparents had passed away before my birth, and yet family members on my father’s side were also considered to be a part of my “village”.

“For I know the plans I have for you for welfare and not for evil, to give you future and hope”

I was thinking, “Am I an obstacle on the path of my husband's achievement. He wanted to use me as the stepping stone for his success. He disregarded my love, affection and romantic overture because I am a woman.”