Personal Narrative: A & P Mechanic

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

As a child there were many phases I went through in wanting a certain type of job. I wanted to be a police officer, a motocross racer, a computer technician, and now I am attending Chattanooga State to become a diesel mechanic. I have been set on being a mechanic since my sophomore year of high school, but at that time I was planning to learn motorcycle mechanics until I discovered the job placement rating and yearly income average. After the discovery of diesel demand and the salary of mechanics in this field I decided to give it a look. After going to Lincoln College of Technologies I found that this was the field for me. Although I will not be attending Lincoln I can still thank them for enabling me to make a better decision in my carreer choice.

On 10/02/2017 at 0017 hours, units were dispatched to 627 Central Ave for a report of a Domestic involving a knife. I responded at emergency speed, priority one. Upon my arrival, I located the accused female in the bathroom.

I dove through the cold currents, feeling my hands create an opening through the water. I closed my aching eyes and let the water submerge me, pulling me in. The sun cast shadows on the floor of the pool, shifting every now and then. I could feel the warmth of the sun as I swam further. I sighed, deeply content.

For the first ten years of my life, I had a very normal childhood. I went to a private catholic school in a small town called Westwego. We were about twenty five minutes south of New Orleans. During the summers, friends and family would come over to our house and we would all swim and boil seafood. The summer of 2005 was no different; I was looking forward to entering 5th grade. Fast forward to one week before school is about to start when Hurricane Katrina formed in the Atlantic Ocean. Hurricanes were no strangers to us as we have been through several throughout the years. However, a few days later the storm is upgraded to a Category 3 and is predicted to hit New Orleans dead on. My parents felt it was time for us to leave and we traveled

Have you ever just wanted to accomplish something, but you were just too lazy? Well, that was my case. It all just started in the beginning of 7th grade. It was fun and all, but then, P.E. started, I wasn’t used to the running and social activities at all. It was very difficult at the beginning of 7th grade but it got easier after a few weeks passed. But then, my P.E. teacher, Mrs. Gavello, warned her class that the mile was going to be in a few weeks. When I heard the news, I literally went on the ground and cradled myself saying “I’m not going to do good, I’m not going to do good, I’ll fail.”

You seemed as if you left out of your 4th block Spanish from those rusty gray doors on the side of our school building.

This post was probably my worst semester of college and I have no excuse for how things turned out with my classes. I'm not going to blame my job or my home life as it was me who failed and I have no one else to point the finger at. I had tried to pass the remedial math course five times previously and I started to lose hope that this one course would hold me back from finishing school. This hopelessness carried into my other courses because at the time I truly believed it was pointless to try in other courses if I can't pass this class that's been haunting since I started attending college.

The best S.T.A.R. moment had to be a couple weeks ago. In my therapy classes that I am attending. It a group dedicated to soldiers with issues, depression, and PTSD. A staff Sergeant veteran name James Terrell was missing a limb. He begins by telling us that he is proud of us. I am sitting there thinking this man missing limbs. That he is happy that we are going to get the help we need. He goes into the actual events and detail on how he is missing a limb. He was so happy just to be alive. It really resonated with me and I began to become emotional. This man has to change the way he lives but he ok cause he can live. I love how he was grateful and he had a great sense of humor. He left us saying "Now he can get his shoes half. " It didn't

I headed out first,swimming my way back onto land,I screamed as I felt myself get scooped out of the sea by some men and women,scared that the man in the blue car had returned. But these men and women were dressed in hazmat suits but without their helmets on. They looked over me as if they were scientists,asking me and each other several questions. I couldn't muster out any words, I was terrified, I wanted Craig to help me but I was terrified of what they would do to him. This part of the dream is very spacey and is chopped up. I hardly remember most of it. From what I can remember after they’ve finished me out of the water. They place me in this building, this building filled with children. They all looked genetically modified or something,

1,764 miles, 26 hours, 1560 minutes from home. My feet may have left the frigid snow in Minnesota ten years ago, for a sandier terrain in Florida, however, my heart has yet to travel. Growing up in Minnesota till I was six years old provided me with the comfort of growing up alongside family and friends, who’s families have known each other for generations. This comfort in my surroundings was shifted to a new sense of ignorance when I moved to South Florida. I was greeted by a new reality of diversity. My peers no longer resembled me, with their light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. They were replaced with a medley of skin tones, eye colors, and accents. To be greeted in a grocery store with a “buenos días”, rather than a “good morning” was a complete eye opener to my family and I.

my studies. It was there that I would max out my library card to read

Elizabeth is sitting in the living room on the couch in her pajamas. The lights are dim and low and papers are scattered around her. The home is silent except for her fingers tapping away at the keyboard and the occasional shuffling of paper work. A notification sound comes from the computer. Elizabeth leans in and stares at the screen with her eyebrows crumpled as she reads. She leans back and her face becomes blank as she stares off into the distance. She closes the laptop, stands up and goes into the bedroom. As she approaches the bedroom door she reaches up to the top of the doorframe, grabs and object and puts it into the pocket of her pajama pants. Elizabeth enters the bedroom, climbs onto the bed, brings her knees to her chest, wraps

I decide to call out sick and go to a thrift store in Madison in hope of finding a couple pair of pants for work and to get my mind off my mom’s situation. I don’t have much luck on either count. After ten minutes, I leave the thrift store unable to stop thinking about my mom. I make my way back to my car in the parking lot groping for the car keys in my jeans pocket.

My current boyfriend, Dylan Mainor encouraged me to look into mechanics, for he used to be a mechanic himself. I helped him with a few projects, which is when I learned that I have a passion for working on vehicles. The first time I helped him was when he needed help taking a transmission out of a lifted Ford Super Duty. It was a messy job, draining out the coolant and afterwards removing the transmission. Some of the situations that existed that related to my SAE were some of the problems I have experienced with my own vehicle, and how I fixed them. When I first got my vehicle, the oil cooler lines were leaking coolant; however, I didn't know what was leaking until I crawled under there to check it. I changed them myself, gaining more experience.