My Personal Experience : My Experiences In My Life

We are interested in learning more about you and the context in which you have grown up, formed your aspirations, and accomplished your academic successes. Please describe the factors and challenges that have most shaped your personal life and aspirations. How have these factors helped you to grow? (800)

I examined every wound and damaged emotion, reviewed my childhood trauma and saw how this changed who I would become. The abused became the abuser, adopting unhealthy and destructive ways of interacting with the world. Showing this to me was done with care and compassion within the most loving, accepting, and affirming Christian community that I have experienced to date. It is one that heals, disciples, and guides one another to claim our identity and authority in Christ. This community withholds judgment, is transparent, admits its flaws, knows we all fall short of the glory of God and it led me to Jesus. The positive impact was to feel loved, cherished, forgiven, innocent, pure, valued, and chosen. God’s redeeming love permeated every fibre of my being, gave me the legs to start walking in freedom, truth, honesty and helped me find purpose in God’s Kingdom. This community is where I met the Trinity, was baptized, welcomed the Spirit into my heart, learned to pray, to share, to give testimony, to forgive, to repent and to make genuine amends. I learned accountability and how to correct others with

Over the span of my lifetime, I have had many life changing experiences. From good to bad every aspect has shaped me and made me the person I am today. The biggest challenge and experience I have had is tearing my MCL multiple times. I never realized how much of a challenge it would be going through surgery, rehab, and the overall complications of a recurring injury. Tearing my MCL made me learn how to overcome obstacles and helped me work harder than I ever had to bounce back from the injury.

When I was young, every adult I met told me, “Don’t be in a hurry to grow up!”, and I told them I was not. Though I looked forward to my freedoms I would achieve as I became older, I usually enjoyed being a child to the full extent. There was no other time in my life that was full of pure happiness; but one minute I was five years old, spread out on the living room floor, tearing through the Target toy catalog and circling everything with a black marker, the next minute I was seventeen, smiling sheepishly while my parents’ friends ask where I planned on going to college.

This whole summer was the worst summer I have ever encountered. I learned many different lessons and the whole experience taught me a lot. It all started in the beginning of May 2016, when I first ever talked to Raf, the new foreign exchange student, over Facebook. We talked and Facetimed several times throughout the summer. Most of the time I could not understand what he said because his English sounded truly horrendous. His bad English and his accent would be difficult to adjust to.

I live in a small house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was starting middle school in a few months. I didn’t want to leave all my friends I had in Elementary school but my parents said I would make new friends at my new school. The summer went by so fast it was already the first day of school. I was so scared but before I had enough time to get back into the car my mom had already drove off and I knew I had to get through the day so I could go back home and play with my friends I had already knew. Throughout the day teachers helped me find where I need to go and I realized I had one girl with the same classes I had which made it easier for me and her. Sixth grade was over and I had made so many friends but I only had a best friend I made that year. In seventh grade, I had the same classes again with my best friend. I never thought I would make more friends. I trusted this girl with everything but things started to change throughout the school year. My best friend was not my best friend anymore by the time we were going on Christmas Break. Noting made sense on why she just stopped talking to me. I would come home and cry and talk to my mom about everything, “just let her be and you guys will be friends again” my mom said so I just left it and maybe my mom was right so I just let it go until Christmas Break was over and we had to go back to school.

Throughout my life, I’ve had the opportunity to call several places my home. Coming from a military family, moving is not an uncommon occurrence, though I have been fortunate enough to only have lived in three states, Virginia, Arizona, and Texas. Each different place has had a unique effect on who I have become today and my goals.

It was early in the year of 2013 that I had thought my life would be changed forever. I was 12 years old when I first heard the news of my parents getting divorced. Devastated and in denial I had to learn that it was for the best and the last thing I would have wanted was unhappy parents. My Mother was offered a job in Charlotte, NC, where I currently live, that she couldn't pass up. When I heard that I would have to move from Akron, Ohio after completing seventh grade I was very nervous and terrified for my future. No one likes being the new kid, but to me it was almost a relief and a chance to start fresh. When we moved to Waxhaw, North Carolina I did not believe I would struggle has much as I did. The teaching and the ways they had taught their students at Cuthbertson middle had added more stress of being the new kid. I made friends fast and that's where I learned how to be outgoing. I didn't think anything could go wrong because my life was back to being balanced. When eighth year had been coming to an end and the pressure had been lifted off, my mother got the news that she could reclass me because I was not use to the learning, it felt like an enormous setback. It added much doubt to my mind and fear of what would come next. With the support of my mother alongside me and supporting me, the doubt I had about a new school began to wash away, but during this time my anxiety began to flood in. High school came around and it was never easy for me, but I learned to push

My Junior year of high school I found my self sitting in a freezing classroom of my Money Management Skills class. I was struggling to keep myself awake as my teacher and DECA advisor, Mr. Kaluza, rambled on through ways to plan for retirement, and best ways to invest your money in the changing market. Then he introduced our guest speaker for the day, Kyle Hoggarth, a local financial advisor at Edward Jones. Kyle introduced himself and went right into carrying on what Mr. Kaluza had begun, nearly putting the entire class into a glorious slumber. Moments before I was about to fall in line with my classmates. He gave some advice that I have found to be profoundly true so far in my life, looking over the class he said.

There is a point in every teenager’s life where they have to take a moment to sit there and think, if only for a moment, “Oh dear God, I’m an adult.” Some approach this point too early while others will have this epiphany too late. It all depends on what the person has gone through and the experiences they have had growing up. For me, I didn’t realize that I was growing up until I started my first job at a family fun center. Working in that rundown arcade, I hated it, yet it was honestly the beginning of what I would call my growing up phase. My family was the coddling sort, so there weren’t many times where I was allowed to go out and be around people who I didn’t know until I reached the age 16. First taste of freedom, first pay check, and the first feeling of legitimate pride for myself that I had, all of that led to me growing into a young woman as opposed to the little girl I once saw myself as. From then on, I started to develop a sense of responsibility and independence I loved.

When I met Josh around three years ago as his teacher assistant, he was shy, quiet and kept to himself. Yet as the semester went on he became more comfortable around me and his peers and engaged in conversation with myself and other classmates. I never imagined I would meet up with him again to do an assignment for our summer English 101 class. When I sat down with him in the Douglas library, the first thing I noticed was his prominent green eyes contrasting his darker hair followed by his welcoming smile. We chatted about what our lives had been like since the last time we saw each other and he surprised me by mentioning that he graduated from Plattsburgh State University only a week ago with a Bachelor’s of Science in Fitness and Wellness Leadership. Over the two years that he was there, he would travel forty-five minutes one way to get to class from his small town of Lyon Mountain.

Throughout my childhood, there were many different places I considered home. From the southeast to the northwest I have lived in various environments and experienced different cultures and types of people. It started when I was born in Jacksonville, Florida and after two months my parents moved my brother and I to Chamblee, Georgia to be closer to family and out of the countless hot days in Florida. We were there until i was six years old, after I had developed good friends and had a solid community surrounding me. Moving out of Chamblee was not the worst, but it was hard because I was little and did not fully understand why we were leaving. From Chamblee we went to Vashon Island, Washington, across the country. My parents fell in love with Vashon after visiting during the short period of its sunny days, so they decided to move us out there. Vashon was my favorite place ever and it still is. I was there from six years old to ten. It was not the longest amount of time I’ve ever lived somewhere but it was the place I grew out of my shell, met lifelong friends, and started swimming. After the crash of 2008 hit, my parents lost almost everything and we had to move out of the place I thought I would live forever. We moved off Island to University Place and were there for only my 5th grade year. It was a hard year, but I swam again and met great friends. After a brief year in University Place, my parents decided to move back to Georgia to be close to supportive family, and that

There is a myth that in seven years, your body regenerates itself. The idea is that in that time span span, all of your cells will have regenerated themselves, so the individual parts of your body have been switched out. If this is true, this raises the question: are you the same person you were seven years ago? Unfortunately, this myth has been debunked. There are some parts of your body that stay the same throughout your entire life, like your tooth enamel and your retinas. Nevertheless, the original question still stands.

When i was 6 years old my whole life changed completely my life became a living nightmare.

It is difficult to write about my life—not because I do not know what to say, but because I am often fearful of sharing my experiences and having them impact how people view me. My identity and upbringing are not necessarily unique, but I have been in situations that society tends to be uncomfortable with. Repeated sexual assaults, psychological abuse, neglect, and financial hardships are factors in my life that I tried to forget when I started college. Now that I am at the end of my undergraduate education, I realize that the obstacles I faced in my early life will never be forgotten. Consequently, I feel that it is important to share this information, even though it is painful to do so, because the last four years have opened my eyes.