Personal Narrative: The Lasting Popular Culture

In the “Grand Canyon: A Whole New World” the author proclaims, “The canyon was not the same one I’d first encountered at the conclusion of the mule ride. It no longer disoriented and terrified me but, in accordance with Colter’s ideals, it elevated the mind, enlarged the heart” (Kirn 40). This quote shows that our culture does not allow younger generation to have exposure to the natural world, but once they do experience it they can learn to understand and take responsibility for it. The vast influence of technology in one’s culture can be a deterrent from taking the time to experience nature in its true beauty. The lack of responsibility for nature has had some dramatic effects on the natural world. In the article “ Letter to the Editor on Climate Story” Walker and Roberts states, “Humanity’s reliance on carbon-based fuels is pumping dangerous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to a steady rise in average global temperature and attendant ill effects including droughts, the spread of infectious diseases, and sea level rise” (Walker and Roberts 137). If millennials do not take responsibility for the natural world they will continue to harm and ultimately destroy it for their generation and generations to

I experienced my pop culture moment when I was a senior at my high school. My transportation to go to my school was buses. I took the same buses to school from freshman year, but I have never noticed what I notice in my senior year. Every morning I wake up to go to school at 8 a.m. I would see people going to work, schools etc. but one day I notice there was a group of white women who is going to their work wearing sari (sari is a garment which is long and usually it’s draped around women’s body. Asian women mostly wear it). I found that very odd because they didn’t look like to me that they would know anything about the roots of sari or the culture. I thought they were mocking the culture because the saris that they wearing weren’t 100% correct. I used to see them wearing traditional Indian cloth and I

Over my years of school, one big influence on me has always been sports. Ever since a young age, I have always enjoyed playing and watching sports. In my four years in high school, I have fell in love with the sport of lacrosse.

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

I’ve always asked myself,” what does it really take to make it big? To play amongst the greats, how could I do that? Me, Skylar Ross, a young man with this desire, the passion, wanting to play side by side with legends, to become someone people talk about, is what has pushed me all these years. It drove me to become a better player, to become more informed about the sport. This also influenced me to become more intertwined with school, that way I could have a better chance at getting a scholarship at a college.

So, I made a wrong turn today - literally. My brother called to cancel plans while I was driving, and I ended up somewhere in the DEEP south. (cue banjos) But I am wholly confident that God uses every of my wrong turns for his good.

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.

Everyone in my generation has probably grown up seeing ads or watching videos about pollution or about the environment in general, so much, to the point that these constant reminders about protecting our planet are already part of the norm for us. While these reminders have had positive effects, like how more and more people have become informed of the Earth’s condition, many people, myself included, still remain indifferent to the threats our environment faces. I won’t lie; I’m no saint or crusader for the cause, but every now and then certain videos or articles strike a chord within me and makes me reflect on the way how I’ve been living affects the environment. One such article was the one we read last week in class, “The Sixth Extinction” by Elizabeth Kolbert in the Upfront magazine.

There are seven billion people in this world. Those of us who come from second generation families often find it difficult to have a sense of cultural identity because they don’t quite fit in as Americans whose families have lived in the U.S for generations. First generation families, like my siblings and I, also struggle to fit in. To illustrate, we come from a very diverse background involving Swedish, Arabic, English, and Somali culture. This upbringing has shaped my beliefs, view of the world, and morals to make me the person I am today.

Along with my love for the environment came a pain in watching it suffer around the world as human development encroached onto once untouched regions. I felt powerless and desperate to somehow use my individual influence, no matter how small, to slow the damage to the planet and lessen the impact a growing population was having as we dive deeper for resources.

Over the past week, I went into an elevator and stood with my back to the doors as I face everybody. I had the perfect opportunity to test this out when my cousin was in the hospital having her baby. Before completing this task, I felt nervous and shy to violate this social norm. During this task, I felt very uncomfortable and embarrassed, like I was doing something wrong. But after, I thought it was so funny that I was so nervous. I got many different reactions while completing this task. I received many blank stares, confused looks, and many looked like they were going to burst out into laughter. And some people didn’t even make eye contact with me and to say the least, it was an awkward situation. After this experiment was over, I explained

I grew up in two different places. From the day I was born until age 6, I lived in a small village in Ukraine. My family then moved to California, where I continued growing up in Sacramento. These two places have completely different lifestyles. I will begin with my life in Ukraine. As previously mentioned, I grew up in a small village, where everyone had land that they farmed. Farming was our main source for food, because back then not everyone was able to afford to buy food at stores. Everyone also had animals, mostly chickens, pigs, and cows. Most families had one cow; the lucky ones had two or three. Every day, there was always work to be done, we couldn’t just sit in and relax the whole day. The farmland had to be plowed, watered, and farmed, the animals had to be fed and cleaned after. This was our daily routine. Our family had an old car that literally had to be fixed after every single time it drove. Our life in Ukraine was very sustainable. We rarely used our car, so there was very little carbon emissions. We didn’t have electricity, so we used candles and oil lamps as our light sources. Overall, our lifestyle was very green in Ukraine, until we moved to Sacramento, CA.

The legacy of our generation is environmental issues which are a major concern to me. Building a legacy is changing things; it’s so hard because people do not like changes. For example, in the early 1900s, horse carriages in New York were the big thing, but nothing’s perfect. The horse’s that drives a carriage need to use the bathroom and do their business, and it is not like they have a bathroom for a horse. So the horses just go wherever they want to, leaving New York to have a stench. Many people were very mad because of this and wanted to get rid of the horse carriage. When automobiles became popular, the horse carriages were replaced. Some of those drivers have a

I have noticed when I choose to only speak up about things that I think really matter, more often than not people are inclined to listen to what I have to say. When I have been in groups like this it is easy as a group to respect the opinions and values of everyone. Have you ever been in a group that experienced this kind of culture? Why do you think that not every group can be like this?

As a 17-year old teenager going to high school, contrary to the environmental activist, David Suzuki’s, remarks about the ignorance of humans about nature, I receive much information about these kinds of problems at my school, from dedicated assemblies, eco fairs and special days that address our responsibility to deal with nature in a more responsible fashion. Yet, when the school day is over, all of the information seeps out of the roof of the school; plastic water bottles are still found in the corners of hallways and leftover Tim Hortons cups are still present in the desks of my former Business class. Even when I step inside the door of my house, the disconnection from nature is apparent. Most of my time at home is spent looking at a screen and doing homework and the only sign of nature would be the fly