Personal Narrative: Norm

People everywhere go through a lot of different experiences in their lives. These experiences could vary in importance, but all such experiences take a part in shaping a person. In my life I have gone through many experiences which shaped me in certain ways: some good, some bad. The experience I wish to reflect upon is one which taught me a good lesson. This experience which I would like to reflect on, taught me patience and gave me a lesson which I was able to learn from.

When I think back on our adventures in childhood, I have nothing but fond memories. The fondest memories include the times we spent at the river having picnic lunches and searching for clams for our ?clam club.? I also remember us frequently riding our bikes to Casey?s to buy ?suicides.? For those of you who don?t know, a suicide is a fountain drink made with all the soda flavors mixed together. Of course, we had to buy the jumbo size and poor Kari could not handle holding the drink and riding her bike at the same time. She would inevitably drop hers on the pavement before we left the parking lot, cry about it, and make me go back in to get another one with her. I also vividly remember the time Kari and I shared a room. We usually stayed up well past our bedtime throwing stuffed animals at each other, building forts under our beds, and laughing about anything and everything. To this day, Kari is the only person I know that can make me laugh so hard it hurts. I have a lot more funny and embarrassing stories about her, but because this is her special day, I will leave her alone now.

When I made thirteen years old we had move to Lake Charles Louisiana, my mother had gotten a better job and a new house. Only part I didn’t like was my mother boyfriend move with us to Lake Charles and that I had to make new friends because I didn’t know anyone out there. I started 7th Grade when we move to Lake Charles and I wasn’t happy about it because I had friends in Crowley and didn’t want to move. My first day at Oak Park Middle School I was very quiet because I didn’t know anyone or had family members there. There was this girl name Barbara Thompson who had came sat with me for lunch because I was sitting by myself and she introduce herself to me . I was very happy she came sit with me instead of me sitting alone by myself, then that’s

RodFord High school was a big change for me and I didn’t have any classes with Lauren. The school had gray walls everywhere, I felt like I was in a jail really. Lauren and I were eating lunch one day when a group of girls started staring at me. I never seem to cause trouble but I stared back until one of the girls got up. The girl was: tall, skinny, redhead, big eyed and dresses in bright colors. She sat down in front of me and told me ‘What is your problem? Don’t you know staring is rude?’. I laughed in her face and told her, ‘you really need to go back to your table and not talk to me like that again’. That’s where my big change was, that redheaded girl made me lose my bestfriend.

As my norm violation I chose to alter the way we are supposed to be dressed and look in public as society says. I walked around the marketplace in a backwards low cut shirt, backwards ripped jeans, one blue shoe, one red shoe, and a bright pink wig. First, I went into the yogurt store and everyone was staring at me with blank expressions and kids were laughing. As I walked over to get my favorite mango yogurt an old man jokingly asked if I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I told him no, I just liked to wear my cloths this way and that this was my natural hair. After I left the store and started walking around the water fountain, girls my age were pointing, giving me dirty looks, and some were laughing as they whispered in each other’s ears. Guys my age looked confused when they

The most important game of the year was coming up and I was ready. Everything was going perfect for me, because I was the starting QB as a freshmen at Englert High School. We were playing Joston High School the number 1 team in the nation since 1960, it was going to be a tough game because they had the number 1 ranked defense, but we had the best offense. The day before the game was just a normal day I went to school and had football practice after school. A couple weeks ago one of the other teams that we had played earlier in the year wanted another game so we decided to play them. They had been the hardest team we had played all year, we had only beat them by a last efforts field goal it hardly went in as it bounced in off the crossbar.

Of course the norm for me is that of any citizen living in zone three.

It was a cool November day, in the middle of Afghanistan. As a medic, I was sitting outside my make shift aid station with one of my buddies sharing stories about home. We hear a loud explosion right outside of the wire. I looked up and could see the cloud of smoke billowing up from about two hundred meters away. Not knowing how bad the situation was, I grabbed a few of my soldiers, our translator and my aid bag and ran straight to the smoke. When we got there, a group of civilians were huddled around a group of people who were yelling, screaming and crying. The translator found out that a group of three men and three children were walking around a field when one of the children stepped on a mine. One of my soldiers grabbed the mine

I personally found trying to find a single “Social Norm” to break challenging so I chose to do two instead. The first was to end my phone calls with I love you, and to talk to a stranger in the bathroom stall next to my own. Which is how I confessed my undying love to a coworker. Working at a casino, employees have to call surveillance for anytime they move around with money or have to be escorted to the vault. I’m a pretty lively person but going into work, I started to get this bashful nature about myself especially the closer it came to performing both of the social norms I gave myself to break.

Many years have gone by with much contemplation about what I wanted to do when I grew up. Due to my age, that vision has looked like many different professions. I started out with dreams of having an Army career starting at the age of 18, to have that quickly change when my new husband and I found we were expecting our first child. When our commanding officer found out, he spoke to us and explained that both of us could be sent to war at the same time. Rather than deciding which family member to give custody of our child to in that situation, I decided to depart from the Army and start my new journey as “mom”.

Spring rolled around and it was finally time for the first t-ball game of the season. The dandelions were sprouting and the bees were buzzing in the outfield. All twelve players showed up but only half of the team was there to play ball. It was hard to expect six-year olds to have much of an attention span anyway. The ball was hit and began to roll for the outfield. At this very moment the team of twelve became divided. This division separated the team players from the self-servers. Little did I know that my first time on the field would mark the beginning of something so big and influential in my life.

I started playing volleyball in 3rd grade. My dad wanted me to play because my sister also played. It was my first day being a 3rd grader and my dad told me I should get into volleyball. From there I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play. I watched my sister play every game and it looked like it was hard so I didn’t think I could do it.

On June 10th 2016 I woke up and went out to start my day. Since it was summer I usually spend my days swimming or at home playing in the yard. That day I decided it was a perfect day with excellent weather to spend my day at the Plymouth pool. It was a great day to lay out in the sun and get a sun kissed glow, but most of all to hangout with my friends. I would usually spend my whole day from noon to 6:00pm at the pool, but this time by surprise my mom picked me up early and told me my brother and his girlfriend Renee wanted to take me out to Chicago with them. I was told I was going to go to a carnival or out to eat in Chicago, but my mom knew all along where I was going. She told me to find a shirt with dark blue on it but I never knew

I wake up to a red blaring light haunting my face. As I start to regain my vision, I see a contraption of some-sort, wires, buttons and the salience of the contraption, the display. The display is made of red digital lights and a steel frame. A stale 60 is written on the display. I look around the room and it's an eerie white colour, it's empty and bleak. I assume it's a white void, It leads to nowhere as the door must be seamlessly integrated into the wall. Then on the corner of my eye, I see a body. I assume it's a female as it's long silky blonde hair fills a fourth of the room. She's wearing a puffy grey jumper and black jeans with strands of fabric hanging out. From my angle, she looks dead, but I want to inspect her body. I creep towards it, realising this floor doesn't creak like home. I proceed cautiously. As I

Her fingers traced the binders that line the wall, skimming the countless hours they had taken to compile; they stopped promptly upon one labeled, “reminders.” She drew it from the wall and took it to her desk. The wood was heavily worn, its user having spent obsessive nights and days perfecting each piece of work that met its face. Her eyes stared at the page, three boys pictures were smiling back at her with contempt. The smell of cigarettes came from these photos and the details listed below them, vivid descriptions of their lives and personalities. The tallest of the three was sandy haired and grinned, showing off yellow-stained teeth that should have belonged to a middle-aged drunk. His arms hung low to his waist and his legs added to