Personal Narrative: Emerson

Walking away from everything you once knew and starting over is never a picnic. Leaving Iraq, and moving to America has impacted my life more than anything. I was only 4 years old at that time, and the only English I spoke was “excuse me, water please.” My family and I did not know it then, but our lives were going to change; we would become “Americanized”. Learning English was one of the massive changes that occurred, the way I dressed (culture), and even the way I had power to go to school and educate myself.

By eighth grade, I managed to bring her into the group of friends I was in and by that time we had formed a true friendship bond that we knew, or somewhat thought, would last forever. She had become my best friend, the main person I could count on to be there for me through the good and bad times. No matter what anyone would say about us, we stuck by each other’s side. We made the best out of our eighth-grade year. When it was time to get ready for high school, we both decided to apply for Townview Magnet Center. I applied for Business and she applied for Health and Professions. The biggest joy of all was to find out we had both been accepted there and could go together.

*disclaimer: bare with me... the next 5 chapters are crap because i wrote them over a year ago...chapter 19 will be the start of some great shit*

For two more weeks I remained in the hospital. Three times every day a nurse brought me a tray with a meal and medication. She watched as I swallowed the tablets, but never as I ate the meal. Compared to a normal sized portion of food, what I was given in hospital would be considered small, but my stomach was far too used to rations beyond small. Most days I was able to eat almost half a plate of pasta before my stomach rebelled and decided to throw it all back up again.

I rush into my home and run up the stairs to my room. I jump on my bed and roll over to my laptop and open it quickly. I log onto the One Direction site and see that I made it in time to see the bid. I scroll and try and find my name and I see I'm in third place for the tickets and the time is running out. I've already bid $7000 for three tickets and backstage passes. The reason it's so expensive is because these passes are the last set of passes for their concert. 5sos is also playing so we would be meeting two bands and hearing both of them play.

I am an enslaved African American bought by an army surgeon. My owner’s name is John Emerson. Emerson bought me in Missouri, but took me and his family with him to an army base in Illinois. Illinois is above the North latitude 36 degrees 30’N, so it is a free state. We did not stay very long in Illinois because Emerson was called to Wisconsin Territory which is also a free slave state. I can’t believe that I have been in TWO free states, yet I am still be counted as a slave. Once Emerson was done in Wisconsin he packed up his family and me, and went back to Missouri. Soon after we returned Emerson passed away. Emerson was a loyal owner. Since I am property of Emerson and he is now deceased what am I? Free? Still a slave? So back in 1846, I sued for my freedom from Emerson’s wife-Irene.

In 2025, I will be twenty-nine years old and hopefully married. I will be married to my significant other of ten years Earnest Palmer III, who is a dentist. I would have been recently graduating with a bachelor’s in Culinary Arts and trying to plan to open my own restaurant, BubbaD’s Eateries. Knowing my big headed husband of mine, I probably had a baby then and trying to have another baby. Hopefully, by then Earnest will get rid of the idea naming our son, King. We will be living in the suburbs near New York City but working in the city. Being a woman with great memory, I probably wrote a memoir about my crazy life and trying to sell it to a publisher. If none of the publishers wants to publish my memoir, I will probably sell it the Lifetime

Before I came to Baker Middle School, I attended elementary school in Laytonsville. I had a group of friends that consisted of five people, Olivia Fink, Olivia Pallas, Mason LeBlanc, Kody Johnson, and Stefan Jacob. The Olivia’s both attend this school alongside me, but sadly the other three attends a different school. I became friends with those three because we all had common interests in multiple categories such as cartoons and humor. I still keep in touch with them, but I know we aren’t as close as we used to be. With the Olivia’s we all became best friends in the first week of Kindergarten and we still have been by each other’s side since. We became friends because we all sat next to each other on our little chairs, and talked about anything

A saying i've kept to myself is to get back up when knocked down. This saying doesn’t just stand for getting up when literally knocked down but can keep a deeper meaning than what it says as for example being knocked down by a difficult obstacle to overcome and getting up to find a way to get past it and achieving it. Some people may not see this as something important but they don’t think about how getting up after knocked down can be something that can or would have been like a positive outcome into their life and how they are given two choices when knocked down which is to stay down or get back up and continue going forward.

I think that is an excellent thought, Lindsey. When I first read this that is what I thought as well. Whenever Ada begins to let Susan love her, and whenever Susan starts to show more affection Ada lashes out. I think that Ada lashes out because she feels like she is not deserving of love, and she is not deserving of nice things. This just tears me up inside when a person does not feel like they are worth being loved. The amount of damage that Ada has suffered is almost irreversible now and I think Susan is starting to realize that this will not be an easy fix. I am honestly surprised at how normal Jamie is because even though he was not the one who was abused, he witnessed the abuse. I am glad that he has not lost his trust in people. This

Jena Zarroli and I were stuck in the same Spanish class together my freshman year of high school. I guess you could say we bonded over our mutual hatred for it. But I never would've guessed that we'd later go on to become best friends. School ended and summer began, but Jena and I rarely hung out. Not until a few weeks later anyways, when we had the most outrageously funny sleepover I'd had possibly ever. After that we were practically inseparable, so inseparable to the extent that I even started going to work with her to help out. We usually worked late nights. And boy did we goof off. But things got done none the less. Afterwards, I would sleep over at her house.

I received the 1823 scholarship and I never would've expected to be so blessed. I was initially scared to be attending Trinity, I come from a title 1 (low income school) in the middle of Georgia and to be going to a school so far away with such prestige felt amazing, but nerve racking at the same time. I was excitedly anticipating starting school in the fall, but I also doubted myself as a minority coming from a background not as extravagant as others attending Trinity. Then one morning I got an email and a call that changed my life. "The 1823 Scholarship is awarded to students who continue to represent our deep-rooted history of strong academic vitality and personal character." It wasn't just the scholarship fund that brightened up my day, it was the fact that Trinity would choose me as a person that represents academic vitality and personal character.

My friend Ellijah is one of the most outgoing, animated and hard-working friends I have met. He is the same age as I am. We have been extremely close friends since 6th grade, when my transfer from Farmington Schools to Lakeville Schools happened. Our friendship started in Middle School gym class, and still continues today. One of the first things we learned about each other was, we both lived between two houses growing up, and had many brothers and sisters along with step-parents. Joining a new school was something scary to me and a hard to do. Especially becoming new to the city of Lakeville. Ellijah was there to hang out and help me whenever I needed it. We are still close friends today! We attend the same Church group at Hosanna, play on the same football team, and get food with Tommy, Bryce, and Jack on the weekends at Chipotle.

Throughout the past few months of rehearsing Chasing Charming , the class and I overcame infinite challenges. Firstly, we recognized that everyone’s roles are equally important- including cast and stage crew. As a team, everyone began quite rough in terms of focus, discipline, and integrity; although, we eventually realized the definition of “You’re only as strong as your weakest link”, which motivated us to a great extent, and encouraged us to use our integrity and self-discipline under all circumstances. Another challenge we faced was coordinating the set changes such as moving the castle pieces on/off stage. The level of frustration reached its peak-considering that the set pieces exceeded

About two months into freshman year I began to realize she or anyone else would ignore me or keep it conversation short. To this day, I still do not know what I did for this to happen. As far as I knew we were on good terms and had made up an alone time ago. I confronted them with what was going on and how I was seeing it. Their responses show a little sympathy. My friendships were going downhill fast and the only person who I had was Nathan, to lean on. During these few months, I felt so alone and unworthy. I came home crying every day and ate a lot more which caused me to gain weight. Online I saw my name appear for the most hated and many hateful tweets referring to myself. I did not want to go to school or see anyone; except for Nathan. I resorted to cutting myself on the leg where no one would see it. I did not want to live and cutting makes me feel like I was alive. I eventually got a dog who i named Poe and for a while he was one of the only reasons i had a reason to live. I began to reconnect to old friends in seventh grade. The group of the five of us held me somewhat together for a while, but truly Nathan held me together. We became so close from hanging out everyday and doing everything together. They even got our poe’s brother and their own pet. He was my only best friend, but i wanted things to change. There was nothing i could so to change the place i was in but i NEEDED