Personal Narrative: Mean Girls

For the Best of the Best, Determination Outweighs Nature and Nurture by Alina Tugend, discusses the age old question about a person’s acquisition of talent. Are people naturally talented or can talent be gained through years of practice? Tugend’s article addresses the issue on a personal level and a scientific level. As she introduces the study, she reflects on her personal skills. She describes herself as a good writer and terrible singer, but questions why that is so. Her questions leads to expert’s opinions with scientific evidence in order to find an answer to this question.

At twenty one years old, while others my age explored life, I was examining mine. Sue, assisting me in the process, was my co-pilot covering as the therapist and played the part well because she represented everything you 'd imagine a therapist to be: the soft voice becoming stern if need be, the sympathetic look yet retaining an air of detachment and the clothes: pastel colours, beads, turtle neck. However, the therapy itself was not exclusive to self-exploration, I was there to sing but not to Sue; this wasn’t drama therapy. The dominant reason I initiated therapy was to free up the unconscious repressions I believed or was convinced were holding my voice back. In relation to the repressions, there could have been a few reasons but it was why Sue got paid; her job was to locate and release my repressions because my job was to make music.

When I was fourteen, my choir teacher told me I had the vocal ability of a twenty year old. Rising from my stomach, bubbles of pride mixed with confusion. Because I was so young, the praise felt unbelievable. That conversation began an avalanche of pressure that forced me to choose between two parts of myself. Consequently, starting in the fall of ninth grade I began the struggle between my love of singing and my love of my religion.

Four years ago I met a girl! That is what a teenage guy is supposed to do, right? Kelly (not her real name) and I have been friends for several years now, and I am proud of the relationship we have built. However, when I first met her, she was not in high school. Her mother had taken her out of high school for a year, because she was being severely bullied by other girls at school. When Kelly first shared her bullying experience with me I felt her pain deeply. I told her that I had been bullied too, when I was ten-years-old. Though Kelly never divulged to me the actual details of her experience, I was nonetheless willing to try and help her by sharing what I went through. I relived for her, my days in fifth grade, as I waited in line for recess. Two of my classmates made it their daily ritual to pull my hoodie off as proof that they could do whatever they wanted to me. Their intimidation tactics were regularly followed up with promises of things they might do to me once we reached the playground. Unobservable by teachers and staff at that point, I believed them.

Aaliyah Grayson is a quiet, happy thirteen year old girl. She goes to Redside Middle School in Seattle, Washington. Everyone in the school raves about how she is the kindest, sweetest, amazing singer. Her best friend Amelie says, “I always hear her singing, she never stops!” Aaliyah hates being the center of attention, but when the sound of her beautiful voice flies through the air, all eyes and ears are listen and watching her. “I love to play the guitar and sing because it makes my peers feel happy.” Everyone agrees on the fact of how pretty she is, inside and out.

Introduction: High School taught me that not everybody going to like you. As I entered the gym i notice that some girls was looking at me funny, while I was walking over to sit with my friends.

A little girl was on her way home and decided to pick a flower for her mom, so she went over to a big patch of flowers that varied in size, color and smell and picked her favorite one. This was a very special flower, so the little girl carried it with pride as she continued her walk home. A robust gust of wind came and lifted the flower right out of her hand. The flower drifted into another nearby patch of flowers, and she lost sight of it. This flower then sat in a strange place with no one familiar in sight and had to begin a new life.

It has been a couple days since her close friend, Holly, disappeared from the streets. Stan, their pimp, also disappeared around the time that she went missing. The police don't care about prostitutes unless they want sex with them to 'release stress'. Selina grew tired of waiting for the police to do their job and put on her catsuit again. She just got word that one of Stan's prostitute was somewhere in Gotham and she didn't have a clue where she was. Selina got finished putting on the suit as he grabbed her mask and grinned as she begun to say, "It's time from me to get answers.". She put on the mask and opened the window as she exited out of it.

As I get closer to the building I hear voices ranging in pitch and tone. I walk through the large, bulky double doors with people running in and out of the building. I reconsider my decision to come here. It is instant chaos. It reminds me of the scene in Mean Girls where they are in the mall and Katy imagines the teens acting like wild animals at the water fountain similar to how she saw animals act in Africa. It is actually quite similar and a fascinating idea.

I was three years old standing in front of over two hundred people in my church, about to sing “Go Tell It on The Mountain” for our yearly Christmas extravaganza. I remember being paralyzed with fear and running off stage crying into my mother’s arms. Two years later, I refused to let fear get to me, and I was determined to get back on stage and sing. My five-year-old self was very proud of finally getting to perform my favorite Christmas Hymn, and I fell in love with being able to sing in front of others. If there is one thing that has shaped me who I am today: it would be music.

As a young child, I have always had a passion to sing. My mother always told me “You are just wasting your time, Justin.” I signed up for many singing competitions, along with spent my nights practicing and writing songs. Although I was discouraged by many, I never lost the determination to make a career out of my voice. One summer evening, when I was sixteen years old, the opportunity of a lifetime was presented to me. I was sitting on my couch watching the local news. The news broadcaster announced that they were having a Burnsville’s Got Talent, and that the winner would get to meet a record producer. I knew this was my time to show the world how good I actually was.

Picture a baby screaming at the top of her lungs every time she gets her hair washed, with a sound as though someone is murdering her. Now imagine a child, giving her mother headaches, as she makes one of her mother’s biggest wishes come true. My mother used to always listen to a famous singer named Aaliyah, sadly the singer passed away at a young age, and she cried for weeks. Mom prayed that one day, if she had a girl, that she would have a voice like Aaliyah’s. Her prayers came true: I continue to sing in cars when she leaves to enter stores; singing in the basement, acappella and even in the shower. One thing that she didn’t expect is for me to be humbled, which makes it a curse to want to perform. I wanted to break-free from that shell

Since I can remember, I've always been an avid fan of the movies. Finding out that we have actors in the family at a young age, gave me even more confidence to follow my passion, acting. Watching movies incessantly has helped me to improve my acting and honestly, has given me great motivation to get my career going. To try and choose a movie that has been a great influence in my life would be somewhat difficult since there are many. Yet, when I really think about it, from the moment I saw it, I knew that that's what I wanted people to feel after one of my performances. A character that you could not necessarily relate to at first but by the end feel like you totally understood who and what they were and what they stood for. That character for me was Lisa Rowe played by Angelina Jolie in the movie Girl, Interrupted.

I loved the musical and that means a lot coming from me because I do not like musicals but the singing, dancing, and the storyline was just lovely. The lighting was on point it fit every scene I loved the lighting scene when they went dancing how it was flashing random colors. The Spanish was on point they did really well speaking it. Spanish is one of the hardest languages to learn but the cast did really good speaking it. The set oh my gosh was so awesome I couldn't believe it was a set, it looked so real. the dancing went on the play, it stuck I loved it you can really tell the cast practice a lot on the dancing because that type of dancing is a little hard to teach if never danced to that type. The singing was just wonderful I loved

Standing on stage, fifteen spotlights bright as a sun shone on me. I could barely make out the faces in the audience under the blinding lights. I took three steps upstage, opened my mouth and prepared my vocal chords, and I sang. At this moment at the age of fourteen, I knew what I was going to do with my life, entertain. I have worked hard since that night to do my best and learn as much as I can about Visual and Preforming Arts.