Personal Narrative: Defining Me As An Individual

My identity can be defined by moments in my life. Moving to Canada, learning English and going to high school are three major moments in my life. Going through these experiences have changed the person in me and made me more confident, stronger, better in everything.

The lessons I’ve received from transitioning through the church as a child, youth, and adult member have taught me a number of lessons; patience, reverence, and empathy are all traits I’ve strengthened, and they have undoubtably helped me through my high school career. Taught how to ask thoughtful questions, I’m unashamed of my curiosity. Our faith is not always one of direct answers— even our most devoted

My is name Kyra Alexandra Avila Kepfer. Kyra is my mom’s name and Alexandra comes from my dad’s middle name “Alexander”. My Dad’s last name, Avila, is from Spain and Guatemala. My mom 's last name, Kepfer, is German. My mom was originally going to call me Katherine Andrea. My names meaning is light, throne, and sun. Since my mom’s name is also Kyra my family calls me Kyrita which is my name in spanish. At times my mom will call me “Alex” which is short for Alexandra. My mom has always called me that and my family has called me Kyrita for as long as I can remember. Many strangers pronounce my name Kira which kinda gets annoying after a while but it 's understandable. To my family my name means a fun, lovable, and active 15 year old girl who loves to spend time with family and friends. I like my name because its original and not common. The fact that my name means the sun is interesting because it 's so unique and bright, which is how I want my future to be. If i had the chance to change my name i wouldn 't because i 'm used to it and i feel like it defines me as a person. I’m grateful that my mom named me Kyra and i 'll always embrace it.

One aspect of my identity that has shaped my life experience and the way I see the world is my race. I am an African- American who has Nigerian descent from both parents. Growing up African American is hard for many of us, but we always come together to help each other out. We get judged for our skin color, religion, sexuality, and economic status. When I was younger, I always thought about what other people would say about me and how I looked. Even though it was hard seeing how other races portrayed my race, I have learned to embrace my skin color and not let anybody judge me. The society believes that African Americans are lazy, uneducated, and violent. Things people say about me and my race only make me want to prove myself to them that I am proud of my race and would never change myself for anybody.

Growing up in a Christian Orthodox religion I went to church every sunday and attended sunday school as well as all church related festivals. Going to college and working became an excuse on why I stopped attending church regularly. When college came along I absolutely hated the idea of taking a religion class as a required course. I was so close minded and complained relentlessly about taking this course. As time went on in class I told myself, “there is no way this professor is going to turn me into a Lutheran.” Little did I know my professor was trying to open the doors of knowledge and expand my views in both science and religion. I came into theology one hundred and one believing I knew everything there was to be known about God. I was arrogant and foolish. My perspectives were so narrow, like my mind. I did not allow my professor to enlighten me with his knowledge. I believed that since I passed my tenth grade Sunday School exam there was no more to learn, or no mind great

My Identity connects to my culture because it describes the way I look and the point of view I have on certain topics. My culture is the Native American tribe, Wampanoag and I am also Mexican. I have some facial features and body structures from both sides of the family like: most of my family has brown or black hair, we are taller than the average human, and our faces have an oval shape. Some topics that my family has taught me from both sides of the family is, family always sticks together and always comes first, and If you see bad things going on in the world, always try to help and do whats right. From my Dad’s side of the family, I learned tons about survival skills and on my Mom’s side I learned a lot about traditions. An example from

What defines me is my drive to help people, and the adrenaline and mental high I get from doing it. I can accredit this to my Aunt Rhonda who was a Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) During my early childhood. I remember her letting me sit on her lap after she got back from a long weekend of volunteering, and me marveling over her stories of the shift. By the time I got to elementary school, I had started carrying extra band-aids in my backpack so as to save the life of a possible wounded classmate. When I got into middle school, I was familiar with the first responder standards of care and had my own basic medical bag. I spent my weekends reading “Grey's Anatomy” and watching endotracheal intubation demonstrations on youtube instead of doing my homework. But everything I

Since being adopted, I have continued to try to find more about who I am and what I am supposed to do. Although I have been asked many times when I found out and how it makes me feel, it is still a taboo topic to talk about because of the little information I know. I was admitted to the orphanage after being found at the bottom of a staircase in the middle of a village square. After ten months of being admitted, I was adopted, but I almost did not make it because of a high fever and infection. As a baby, I did not want to hold any medicine that was given to me and because of this, a close family friend had to fly in some Western medicine so that I could have a chance at life. Since then it has been a challenge to find my place in this world

I was once told that in order to figure out how to become who you're supposed

My identities are complicated and hard to explain so the best way I can do at this point is do kind of a free form of the two and then explain them the best way I possibly can. My first identity would be the blue collar professional one (Mr. Coverdale). he is well-spoken, poised, well-mannered, and knowledgeable. The second identity (Henry). He would be the short tempered, disrespectful, and just do not care about anyone or anything but himself and takes no bull from anyone. They get along more than they disagree with each other helping each other out in a way that things get done in the right way, but they do bump head from time to time. The situation in which that happens has to be the most challenging and conflicting. sometimes one is entirely

“Sweetheart I have always been identified for being a mother, sister, and a daughter, but never as me. In the midst of managing family, I was never able to build my own identity,” said my grandma who got married right after high school.

My life has been dominated by an invisible line of division attempting to constitute who i should be; but I am Switzerland. Under no circumstances would i be able to choose one part of the cultures that make me who i am. The best display of this unusual conjunction of cultures is Thanksgiving. My plate is separated by that line of division between collard greens, macaroni and cheese, corn bread on one side, and arroz con gandules, penil, tortillas and pastelillos. Its funny how that separation is something comical when it comes to food, but turns into a constant struggle inside of me every time i am reminded. Being multiracial makes it impossible to fit into one specific mold that society tries to set for people. Going into my senior year schools have asked me to define myself, to try and explain who i am on a piece of paper by

An event within my life that will influence my academic work and goals at Colorado Christian University (CCU), will have to be the way that I acquired my current job. I am an ordained minister and have been doing my best, by the grace of God, to live the gospel lifestyle we are all called into. I mention this fact simply because at first glance or mention that I happen to work at a brewery; a lot of believers take issue and/or offence, and feel compelled to question my authenticity as a “man of the cloth”. I have to admit, I fully understand the questions that are raised and the motivations behind them…In a society that has turned its back on the teachings and practices of the True and Living God, and one that has found itself flooded with contrary blasphemous “preachers of the Gospel”, the masses and babes in faith, often don’t know who to trust and what the spiritual realities are when they see something that appears to go against their understandings. When the opportunity first presented to me I also struggled with the idea of it for a very long time, however when I sit back prayerfully meditate on the circumstances that afforded me role that I’m currently in I see nothing short of the grace of God moving me into position. To be clear I must relay the events that have gotten me where I am…The previous job that I held prior to coming to MillerCoors I held for 10years, I was happy there for the most part however towards the final years of my employment there I was starting

Many weeks have passed since I last wrote about my theological perspective at length. I began the class with lots of questions, and I do not believe I can say for sure that they have been answered, but I can say that I am now at peace with the idea that some of my questions may not be able to be answered in this life. It amazes me that I have been able to grow so much in such a short period of time. The growing pains were great, but the reward was greater. I feel that I am in a much better place in my life now. In the past few months, I have tried to reclaim some of the closeness to God that I feel I have been missing. It has not been easy for me to give up control of my life. I have strong tendencies to be in control of what goes on, so that I have some inclination of how to prepare to react. As a result of learning to let go, I feel much less fearful of the future or my place in it. Not only has this class helped me come to terms with the idea that I should not have total control over my life, but it has also reminded me of things I had forgotten about. It truly left me pleasantly surprised with the content of the class.

While reading, something irked at me as wrong with them. They answered all the questions in the plan, but to me the answers were wrong. They were not going in a direction that I felt would help me care for myself. After reading, rereading and checking the projects direction endlessly the error became clear. I was trying too hard to change a concept that can’t be changed intentionally. Directly trying to change spirituality is like trying to change the direction wind by turning your body. While I may have been going in circles during most of the nine weeks, by reading the bible strictly for the project and without searching deeply for my own personal reason, praying only because it was for a progress report and because of faith or viewing my negativity as something new and devoting so much attention to it during the progress reports. Despite all that, there were moments when the wind blew a certain way over my body, touching something deep under my skin. That thing has been called soul, by Plotinus Poe St. John of the Cross or myself as just another metacognitive strategy to explain what my words cannot. Allowing myself to accept that these great thinkers may have been onto something was healing. By doing so it removed such a weight off my shoulders. For the first time since I was young I felt like I again could be free from the responsibility of being. I could exist as creation, an ideal that under no circumstance could stray too far off the well