Personal Narrative-Esta Es My Parada

My background is a military one, that is riddled with fighting, leaving home, and death. “Sempre Fi” has always been a common household saying in my mother's family, considering her two older brothers were US Marines. When I was a little girl, my uncles were deported to the Gulf of Mexico to fight in Desert Storm, and that was a terrifying point in my youth life. On my father’s side, the Air Force was the branch our family adored. My great grandfather was a pilot and so was my grandfather. To this day, my grandfather is my hero but unfortunately died early due to pancreatic cancer. Flying and the water have always run through my blood and always will. The Navy was the one branch that I could combine my love for flight and water into one.

Looking back at my early childhood filled with many events and memories, I remember one in particular when my parents taught me my native language, Spanish, by reading books to me any chance they had. Beginning at the age of 8, I would bring home a variety of books from school eager to read them and learn new words. I spent a great amount of time reading that I eventually decided to move into short novels. This helped me improve so much that I never had trouble speaking Spanish. I vividly remember in my small class of 15 students, me speaking Spanish more fluently than any of my other classmates. Proud would be an understatement. This soon changed when I began second grade in the fall of 2006 with Ms. Magaña.

I am Carlos Peru. I was born and raised in Anthony, New Mexico. Everything I’ve ever gotten was due to my hard work. My whole life I was never given anything and this lifestyle grew me to be the person I am today and also the things I like today. I wouldn’t take any of it back. Given I didn’t like every day I still wouldn’t trade it for anything. These things made my major life choices such as my major, my favorite books, and movies and such things like that. My major is neuroscience and I found this love through a friend of my fathers. He is an accomplished anesthesiologist and one day I got to see a surgery love and I loved what the surgeons and doctor got to do and I loved it. From that point on and even to this day I continue to pursue

It was a quiet, cold Tuesday night, deep in British territory. I was with my Italian squadron, Cani da Guerra; our objective was to take out the front line of enemy British soldiers. My best friend and I were on recon, trying to spot enemy movement. The rest of my squadron was sleeping in cold, dark trenches lined with barbed wire. They’d recently been filled with poisonous gas, becoming a temporary grave for many British who lay helpless, rotting away. My best friend, Sebastian, was a spotter with me. It was twelve thirty-five, time for my shift to begin while Sebastian was sleeping.

Every year, a few days before Christmas break, my Spanish teacher hosts a Christmas party for all of the faculty. The students in his Spanish four class are responsible for preparing Hispanic influenced cuisine. However, the whole fiesta is coordinated by those brave enough to venture into AP Spanish. Although I’m in the level four course, my teacher assigned me as the chief organizer and décor extraordinaire. We only had four weeks to pull everything together so time was of the essence. By infusing a lot of positive energy and publicity about the occasion, we managed to spread the news and excitement among the faculty. Despite a few challenges with communication and organization, we managed to pull it off with great success. The teachers

“Same here with Spanish. I only know the common words but not all of them. If you want me to, then I can teach you German. It’s an easy language to learn. I can tell you that saying hello in German is saying hall with an O at the end: Hall-O.”

I suppose maybe my arrogance had gotten the best of me but I was not going to let my friend here go to that scoundrel Luchresi, for he cannot even tell cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry. He thinks his taste can match mine, a foolish idea at best. I greeted my friend with warmth he was akin to me in this greeting of ardor, and we were luckily met. He inquired me about this pipe of Amontillado he possessed his doubts upon and I was all too enthusiastic to retire into his vaults and appease his apprehensiveness over this Amontillado. He pleaded with me not to, as I was engaged in carnival, but I was now determined to enlighten my friend on this matter. He was very opposed to my coming, as it went from my engagement to the cold I have been afflicted with.

I have known my participant for many months previous to this interview so some of this information I already knew while other information was new to me. It is interesting to me to see the different cultures within the same language. Angie is from Columbia so she speaks Spanish as her first language. Within our swim team there are two different cultures within the Spanish speaking teammates, they are from Spain and Bogota, Columbia. All four of our teammates including Angie that are from Columbia have their own little subculture here. When talking about the settings that she speaks each of her languages in it was interesting that she only spoke Spanish to our teammates from Columbia. She discussed how it is natural for her to speak Spanish to the other Columbians because she already knew all of them before coming to America. Unlike the people that are from Spain, she speaks English to all of them. When I ask both types of Spanish about what words to use it is interesting that both of them give me different answers. I feel that the Spanish that the Columbians speak is easier to learn with already knowing English because they do not have as many phonetic differences such as the “z” sound in Spain Spanish is pronounced “th.”

She carries symbolic bracelets and tangled up headphones and torn playbills. She carries crumpled sheet music, a highlighted play script, a rusty gun and holster, an old calculator, worn out journals for writing fragmented lyrics, passionate feelings, unforgotten memories, and so much more. Twice or three times a week she carries packets of law and a lunch that was packed that morning. She carries a water bottle that is always half empty, or much like herself, half full, depending on how you see it. Wyatt carries the priceless shark tooth necklace she gave him, locked away somewhere unknown. Hannah carries the cheap but meaningful books that she gave her, unread but still valued. Her mother carries the candy she gave her, hard but sweet, a reflection of her soul. Something they all carried in common, was that they all carried something that was given; taking turns, they carried pieces of her shattered heart.

both luck and strategy that the siblings loved to play all the time. After about 5 rounds, however, they decided to put away their card game and eat something, for the time was approaching noon and none of them had eaten breakfast except Celosia.

My project went fairly well as I hoped and I did get some good reactions when I spoke Spanish around some people. I did take notes during the entire process so I have some notes that I would be able to look back at and recall what happened during the process of this project. I tried to focus where I spoke Spanish specifically around people that didn’t look like they spoke Spanish just so I could see the type of reaction. I spoke Spanish in variety of different places to ensure that I would get a good amount of results and reactions from people that were different. I spoke Spanish at restaurants, gas stations, at school, at the mall, wherever I went. We made a pit stop for gas at a station in Coachella and as expected the clerk did speak Spanish

When it comes to my parapharising stratiegies I like to include at least two different approaches. First I like to read over the material and least times to ensure clarity and secondly, try to connect any personal association with the material as this was a suggestion in our reading (Laureate Education, 2015). For me what this does is allow for me to be able to interpret or paraphrase the information that makes more sense to me in my own writing. Writing is about reading and gaining an more involved understanding then what the author had wrote. One strength in which I think I possess is the ability to draw from different analogies simply because I am a more visual learner.

Seventeen years ago, my father made the mistake of telling my mother, her latest abstract “Two Lovers’ looked more like G.I Joe and Barbie seated on a skateboard, playing in a pile of dung. Naturally, I heehawed like a jackass, why not, I was only seven years old and thought the comment extremely funny. Well, my mother didn’t and screamed, ‘Alea jacto est’, louder than a banshee, ran to my father’s art studio. By the time my father and I arrived she had already picked up an enormous Waterford crystal vase, smashed it on the floor, taken a chard of crystal, and slashed one my father’s award winning masterpieces. A day later, my mother and I headed off to Paphos, Cyprus. When I asked why, she says, “It’s the birthplace of her favorite Greek

Have you ever been to a place where beauty surrounded you at every corner? A place where you could sit and think about everything and nothing all at the same time? Well I have, and it’s my secret, my private getaway from the world. I call this place Paradisio. Paradisio has it all. It offers beautiful wildlife, crystal blue lakes, vibrant green trees and a diverse fauna. I discovered this incredible place by accident about three years ago, I was twenty years old. I had just taken up Photography as a hobby and nature shots had become my kryptonite.

All (but one) of the courses I enrolled were conducted in Spanish. Each of the courses were 3 credit hours and required formal Spanish. Also, I was able to enroll in courses, such as a 2nd philosophy and a Spanish literature class, needed for graduation. As a pre-med student, I was able to take General Physics I and the lab, which were both taught in English. I learned about the Mexican culture through my interactions with the people and the community through school, homestay, and cultural excursion. Moreover, I learned about the Mexican healthcare system and traditional medicine through shadowing Mexican doctors in the public hospitals and during the cultural excursions, which some involved shadowing doctors in rural