Notice Me More: A Personal Narrative Of My Life

There are many ways One’s identity can be defined. Only you can truly define who you are. You control what your experiences and influences make of you. When asked who am I, there could be millions of different answers depending on what you base your identity off of. To me, the question who am I, can only truly be answered in one way. So, who am I? For me, it’s an easy question. I’ve always known that I was the quiet girl In the back of the classroom by herself.

For some people reading can be a difficult experience. For me it became difficult at the age of five years old. I really wasn’t an educational kid I was more of a kid that like to play with my toys and four brothers, whenever they came home from school. As I grew up reading became a little more difficult for me to master, at times in my middle school my teacher Mr.G would test us on how well and skilled we were at reading. Every day when it was time for him to test me I would get nervous and started to stubble on words and fail my test. By the time I was in high school I learned how to take my time and read, which has help me to progress my reading skills over the years.

Ever since I was in elementary school, I was never able to grasp what I was reading. It was always a chore and I would speed through it or avoid it entirely. The extra help I received was meant to help me provoke, my eventual, love for reading, but at the time only made me feel as though I wasn't smart enough to read what everyone else my age could. While most kids would push themselves to read books like Harry Potter, I was the kid who was still reading the Magic Treehouse series. It was through the assistance of my parents encouraging me to read 30 minutes every night that caused me to love reading and become the reader I am today.

Reading is a basic skill that students develop and improve throughout their whole life. There will always be room to improve a person’s reading skills; whether they be nine or ninety, one’s brain will always be building and making new connections and like Jonathan Seagull, one should strive to improve.

Identity. Who we are. How we define ourselves. Imagine taking away something that defines you. You’re left feeling “who am I?”

The summer following my senior year in high school, I was called to serve in the, “Virginia Richmond Mission,” for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was anticipated that I would serve for a period of eighteen months. This was a voluntary decision: one that would require I leave my home, family, and loved ones behind to focus all my time and efforts on serving others and sharing the good word of God. I knew that this experience would have a huge impact on my life and help me to build my character.

There is a lot to learn about me, but here are just a view things. First, I live at home with both of my parents and I have two younger sisters. I also have a three year old dog named Ella. She is a pointer beagle mix. Most of my time I spend outside of school and on weekends dancing. I am on a competitive dance team at Vibe Dance Center. One of my other hobbies is playing the piano. This year will be tenth year playing the piano. My parents love to travel so I have been to the majority of the states in the US. I have also been to Mexico and Canada. This year for spring break we are going to Costa Rica. When we are there we will spend have of it in the jungle and the other have in the mountains. That is all there is to know about

Learning to read is one of the most important and critical skills you learn in you're early years of elementary school. For some kids it clicks no problem, but for other such as myself it is one of the more difficult skills you learn through the your time in school. For me I was lucky enough to have a teacher who wanted to invest her personal time to help me grow and conquer my struggle with reading.

This applies to me while I was growing up. When I was little, and my tummy was hurting a lot, my mom would touch it. If it felt hard to her, then she would use one of her Indian remedies of mixing various thing until it made this paste. You apply the paste to your stomach for a few hours and then shower to take it of. I would do this lot when I was a child because that’s what my mom told me and I knew it worked. As I got older, I would tell my friends and they all thought I was so weird because they have never heard of it. For me, it is something my grandparents did, my parents did and something I plan on doing with my kids. It is part of my culture and just because it is not part of everyone else culture, does not mean my mom was physically

In my Life, I have had many experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am Today. One experience being when I was able to volunteer at the Booker T. Washington Nursing Home with the Hopewell Baptist Church Sisterhood Ministry that is based in Shreveport. Our objective was to keep the Elderly patients company and we decided entertain them by engaging in Bingo and giving them gifts in the forms of cookies, snack cakes, and toiletry items. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know what to expect upon my arrival at the nursing home.

One thing that I feel everyone should know about me, to really understand who I am, would be what I do with music in my life. I think that the kind of music people listen to defines them more than what that person could ever put into words.

One of the things that always bothered me about the idea of immortality is, as you can guess by the title, persistence of self. Identity. Whether I'd still be ME, in any way that matters, after a large period of time.

The most challenging obstacle on my educational journey was learning to love to read. When I was in first-grade reading was a struggle: I refused to sound out words, I was easily frustrated, and I simply didn’t enjoy it. Needless to say, my parents were worried. Reading is the foundation that your entire education is built on, and I refused to even try. Knowing this, my mom signed me up for summer reading camp. The summer before my second-grade year was spent in a classroom learning strategies to sound out words and read faster. Immediately, there was not much change. In second-grade I was less frustrated by reading but overall still not interested in the activity. Reading was like eating my vegetables I knew I was supposed to do it I just couldn't bring myself to because I hated it. By

As a child, reading was always something I loved to do. I started reading at an early age. I went to preschool for two years, so I had an advantage when it came to reading. Once I’d gotten into elementary school, I excelled tremendously in that area. Sitting in my kindergarten class, I’d love to hear Mrs. Reed say, “Alright my shining stars get on the magic carpet for reading time.” It was the highlight of my day, every day. Who would’ve known that something as simple as reading would be so beneficial to me later in life? Reading became one of my saving graces, as I got older.

I remember my mom telling me we were going to see my grandfather in the hospital. As my family packed into the car, I was excited to see him, but also really nervous. We arrived to the hospital and I followed my mom to the elevator as she pushed the tiny up arrow. After a minute of waiting, we all piled into the elevator. My mother again pushed the number of the floor my grandfather was on. Once we got to the floor, we got off the elevator and headed down the hallways covered in cheap pictures showing such happy people. In that moment I remember wanting to feel their enlightenment. I looked down at the gray, glossy floors feeling dread as we continued down the dull hallway until we stopped, reaching his room. My mother slowly opened the door as the room became visible. My grandmother came over to us and hugged me. She brought me into the room and there he was, my grandfather, lying in the bed. I had always seen him so strong and full of life, but as he laid there he looked so helpless and vulnerable. I could tell he was uncomfortable. He reached over to me and smiled. I leaned down to hug him and smiled back. He was such a different looking man. His wrinkled skin was more pale than usual and his beard was stubbly. I looked around the hospital room. The walls were as plain as the rest of the building, cream colored and dressed in the same pictures hung in the hallways. The only color in the room were the flowers in vases sitting beside the window. A nurse came into the room and started to tend to my grandfather. My mom shooed me out of the room as the adults all talked to the nurse. After waiting a while in the waiting room, we left.