My Journey In My Life

As I crouch, hardly breathing, in a barrel much too small for me to be in, I wonder how on earth I got into this mess. The ancient ship creaks and rocks as a sinking feeling grows in my stomach. It was a dare by my so-called friends for me to sneak onto the museum attraction on the last day it was in town, simply to “have a little fun” and to see where the museum kept the huge boat. I was all for it – I needed some adventure in my life. Unfortunately, I seem to have stumbled on something a little bigger than a display.

A lot of people wish that they can have someone to guide them through the journey of life. The ups and downs and the trials and tribulations. All this time I didn’t know that I had someone that was in my corner that I would consider to be a mentor. I didn’t see him as my mentor until two years ago. My mentor is my older cousin Isaiah, he is a mechanical engineer at General Electric. He has brown hair, brown eyes, and he’s athletic. Isaiah is caring, understanding, and very intelligent. Me on the otherhand, I am determined, honest, and very stylish. I have brown hair, brown eyes, and I’m short. He is twenty four years old and he is a graduate from Miami University of Ohio. Growing up there was a big age difference between us, but as we got

I grew up in a remote rural village in Rift valley-Kenya, my family and friends expected me to join the Kenyan police like most of my relatives, but my life would follow rather a different course. Unfortunately, in 2012 my father died of meningitis. It was hard watching him in a hospital transition from a strong man to a mere shadow of what he once was. The most prominent memory I have is when one night, the hospital machine began beeping louder and louder as my father laid comatose in his bed. I knew something was wrong and rushed to the nurse station, but no one was there. I looked around in the hallway, but my search was in vain. When I went back to my father’s bed, it was already too late. He was gone. I was deeply affected by his passing and felt like I was now the surviving father of my family and had to soldier on to comfort my siblings. Desperate, I turned to God for answers. I needed to know of God’s love and my spirituality became a guiding force that brought peace and happiness in my life. I became a youth pastor and a Sunday school teacher for a local church in Kenya, a role in which I acquired leadership skills and a gained a better understanding of the western medicine. Due to those tough times and other instances of medical neglect in my village, I generated a deep desire to help my fellow villagers thence began my life-long pursuit to become a physician.

I enjoyed when people would gaze up at me and express their admiration of my so-called God-given intellectual, as if the most dexterous dancer came out of the womb on pointe. My journey of running in the first tier of the marathon began when I was fighting to reach the fallopian tube as a perplexed cell, and continued to my teenage years of sprinting through the academic block. I had never planned for this increasing momentum to the top of the podium to cease, until last year. No really, I genuinely believed that I would never drop from that spot, and that if I did, my world would be completely demolished-the gazillions of shattered pieces splattered at the bottom of the Atlantic. Well, I guess I did not pacifically need to glue those pieces back together anyway; the peculiar glisten they reflected underwater didn’t seem to be any duller than before.

When a child is born, its family raises it in hope for him to become successful. Inevitably time remains slow, yet it is constant. Thanks be to God that we wake up every morning knowing that we can rely on its consistency to creep on us as children grow older. A mother’s dream, with three children, is for the last child to live happily and a father’s is for his children to be cautious of the threats the world has within. But as a result of the values and characteristic that the child has developed, he chose his own path in life. He chose to become a pilot. When he reached high school, he learned that the best way to earn your career is to obtain a degree that certifies you in your profession. That is when he decided to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. There he wants to major in Aeronautical Science and someday earn his way to his own 747.

On March 9, 1996, I was born to a teen mother and father in Savanna-la-mar Westmoreland, Jamaica. Two years later my sister was born. A couple years after my sister was born our parents split after they had a huge fight. From that day forward my relationship with my father has degenerated as he wasn’t around as much as he used to. He would promise to take me and my sister to the beach or out to eat, but never showed up. On December 2006, my mother, my sister and I moved from Jamaica to the United States. My mother used all of her life saves to get us to America where she hoped we would have better life. We stayed with my aunt in San Antonio for a year until my mom get back on feet. Schools in America were much different from those in Jamaica, but I was a great learner so class work was easy for me. In Jamaica, we spoke “Patios” a broken form of English, so while I could understand everybody else they couldn’t understand me. I would constantly have to repeat what I said previously, which discouraged me from talking much. After a year in San Antonio we moved to Houston where we got an apartment close my other aunt. I wasn’t really a fan of the move as I would have to make new friends again as I had done the year before, but I grew to like it. The coming school year I decided to join band because I loved music and wanted to make some myself, I chose the trumpet as my instrument. The next year I entered middle school and was finally able to play sports, and I was so excited.

“Flight attendants, we are ready for take-off” I heard the pilot say. I put away my computer and tell my family I love them, but I want to sleep because my flight was at 7:50 am. But I can’t sleep! I am about to leave my hometown to come to my new home, New York. I have never stayed in New York for more than two weeks; rather I have never traveled on the subway with thousands of people I don’t know sitting in a seat where millions have sat before me. I am tossing and turning in my chair, so I start to think. What will my new life have in store for me? Will, I become a stereo topical New Yorker or will I stay a Chicagoan? Will New York be my home? I was ready for this journey; ready to get off the plane, and make my own “personal New York.”

The journey of life is not meant to be feared and planned; it’s meant to be traveled and enjoyed. Waking up every morning, I still can’t believe it’s been almost two years since I moved to America. I mean it’s crazy, one year ago all the street signs are in Chinese and the next thing you know I wake up in a world of English. I can still remember the day I step off the airplane, it was a day that changed my life. Some of my friends were amazed by how quickly I adapted to America, but that’s not true. I had a transition year when I was 13.

Last year during winter, my friend and I decided to spend our day in Chicago. It was a cold, brisk day and it started snowing. We had our warm coats on, yet we were still freezing. On our way to get to the train station, we saw a homeless man, he had no coat on and he was shaking from the cold. I looked at him, and suddenly I felt his pain. It was a strange moment and I wanted to feel the cold that he was feeling, I wanted to be in his shoes so I took my coat off and I offered it to him. My friend stopped me and he gave the homeless man his coat instead. In that moment, there was a smile on the old man’s face, he wore the coat immediately, and he gave us his blessings. After reading both, the article “ Baby in The Well”, and “ The Empathy Exams”, this occurrence immediately came to my mind. While reading about empathy, I felt déjà vu, and I remembered how I empathized with the homeless man by the train station. In the article,

Starting off my journey as a young adult I went through many job opportunities starting from my first job at Disneyland. Started working there as a foods clerk and transitioned into other job opportunities as a bank teller and now working in the United States Army as a Human Resource Specialist which is difficult but very interesting. Over the past couple of weeks, I have learned the different aspects of Human Resources Management (HRM). According to Youssef; Human Resource Management (HRM) “is the managing of human skills and talents to make sure they are used effectively and in alignment with an organization 's goals” (Youssef, 2012). As people and businesses grow and develop innovatively, the purpose of this department continues to

I have struggled a lot in my life. During the fifth grade I noticed my life was changing, and I didn’t think it was going to be for the better. At first it was little things, my fifteen year old brother getting yelled at more often or the fact that my seventeen year old sister and my mom were getting into fights more frequently. Looking back on my life I realized that this wasn’t actually the start of what would be years of hardship, but that, it was simply the first step in my life where I saw passed the rose colored glasses that most children see life through. Nevertheless, I can still remember the first day I started to see my life crumble. On a cool brisk fall afternoon, my brother, Jonathan, was getting yelled at again for one minuscule thing or another and ended up having to help my mom do yard work before going to my dad’s house for the weekend. Even being eleven, I knew that my brother’s punishment was undeserved, so I decided to help my brother but, all that resulted was further evidence that my life was changing. To illustrate, my mother screamed at me for helping my brother, then through with me, proceeded to terrorize him further. I was never particularly close to either of my sibling due to the major age gap between us, but seeing my brother cry for the first time deeply broke something inside of me. Afterwards, once my mom had left, I vividly remember my brother giving me his phone and telling me to go downstairs in his room and call my sister. Holding in my own tears until safely inside, I called my sister explaining as best as I could the events that had transpired. Instances like these became common in the Brand household. My mother, whom I had been very close to before, became the world most dangerous roller coaster, going months being happy and normal only to eventually erupt and bring her wrath upon her children. The life I once knew was gone, and I only had two options, learn how to survive on my own or crumble under the new pressure and stress.

Life is like a roller coaster it can take people in different directions, it has its ups and downs. But that's the beauty of life we can enjoy the finer things in life when we are up, and, we go thru the pain and suffering when we are down. But it is how we deal with the challenges in life that can make us stronger. Also, the ability to change oneself to adapt to a new environment is one of the essential skills that a person can possess in life. My life has been full of challenges since I can remember.

From my birth, to my first steps, to learning to ride a bike; My mom has always been there for me. She has been my biggest supporters at every sporting event, my number one fan in life. The amount of advice and life lessons I have learned from her are countless. It all started when I was 10 years old, a girl just starting middle school. With this step in my life came a boatload of new opportunities, but also responsibilities that I was not prepared for. At the time I was a bit blind, and needed somebody to help open up my eyes to the real world. I have never gotten anything in life without working at least a little bit for it. I remember when I was going into middle school and it was time for back to school shopping. My best friend had just gone to the Woodfield Mall and had an extensive shopping spree. I became jealous of her new items and wanted them for myself too, so I spent several days online shopping and compiled a list of items that I wanted, worth about the same as a new car. When my mom got home from work the following night, I presented this list to her. Thinking that this was completely reasonable, I started with my wants from Nordstrom: “Ok, so I want all nineteen of these shirts, and I need to add to my jewelry collection, so these five necklaces, and the total will only be 978 bucks!”

When I was a child, my father always came to me and told me a quote, but over the years I have changed it into my own and now I live by it everyday: “Tomorrow is a brand new day, and a gift from yesterday. If you’ve failed, rise from your ashes and create your own path and leave a trail behind because you cannot take others paths to live your life. Life is your adventure and what you make of it.” I have always loved life and the people that are in it. Since I was a child I have had the biggest dreams of going and doing anything I wanted to be and that nothing was going to stop me. To pursue and make that “any dream” come true I focused on these three things: being determined, encouraging others, and hardworking.

On October 4th in 1999, I was born in Incheon, which is near the West Ocean and the North West side of the South Korea. Since I lived here until I was 3 years old, I really did not have the memory about here. But, as my mom told me, that three years were the most happiest moment for her because my parent had me and my sister late, even my dad cried when I was born ( although I can’t remember it..). After my sister’s first birthday, my family moved to Mock Dong in Seoul -- when I was three. At that time, my grand parent and father’s health became worse, so my family decided to move. Also, for me and sister’s education, it was a good choice because that town was the second famous place for the education ( Of course, first place is Gangnam). I lived same town until I studied abroad, but my family still live in. The most advantage of living in Seoul was the public transportation. You do not have to have the car, and you can see many people walking. ( I guess it’s like New York City, but more comfortable subway line and safety). And, as I spend in Seoul near 15 years, I feel it’s my hometown.