Personal Narrative: The Suite Life

I just spent the better part of my weekend binge watching Parks and Recreation on Netflix. Netflix the reason I do not get eight hours of sleep everyday, just like many college students whose priorities have yet to be put in order. I like to think that I will just

The environment i was raised in was a diverse environment.The people who had shaped me

I am extremely fascinated about sleep and the impact it has on the body since it is something that affects all living creatures.

Tomorrow, I will sit in somber silence as my neighbors set fire to their money in the form of loud noise and spectacular light shows. Very few know WHY they do it; it's just a day to party. I was born (so I am told) in 1965. I became aware of the concept of "freedom" sometime in the seventies. While in school I learned I lived in the “land of the free” and got my drivers license, my fishing license, hunting license, and was given all my shots, certainly against my will at the time. The eighties and nineties, I quit school (Thank you, Mr. Harrison for being a man of honor and telling the class that you did not believe what you were required to teach!)and went in a pursuit of the almighty dollar, starting a family, maintaining a home, sitting

The Pieces that Shaped My World Many times when people speak about what shaped who they are and how they view the world, it goes back to a work that they loved as a child, or a piece of literature that taught them how to think, or a poem that challenged them to feel more deeply. The pieces of art and works of fiction that surround us, impact our thinking and the ways in which we live our lives. Personally, my parents were continually forcing books upon me to read and my father loved taking us as a family to various museums so that we could learn and appreciate other cultures and the importance of art in society. These experiences, though they felt like a drag or a downer on our vacation, eventually taught me how important it is to learn something

New town, new school, and most importantly a new family. It's all the same to me, I've done this a million times before, so what was so different about this time? Why was I so nervous about a fresh start once again? That's the thing. I don't know why, but I was. Walking out of the foster group home out into the parking lot, and seeing the new family, it all was too familiar for me. But this time, this time something was different. It felt different. And I had no idea why. Until now.

Today has been pretty strange. I saw this thing, well I actually didn’t see it, but it was there…

In my Life, I have had many experiences that have shaped me into the person that I am Today. One experience being when I was able to volunteer at the Booker T. Washington Nursing Home with the Hopewell Baptist Church Sisterhood Ministry that is based in Shreveport. Our objective was to keep the Elderly patients company and we decided entertain them by engaging in Bingo and giving them gifts in the forms of cookies, snack cakes, and toiletry items. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t know what to expect upon my arrival at the nursing home.

Utopia ‘ahhh’ … I was told it was the land of the free, the place where anything was possible no matter where you were from or who you were. I had once stupidly thought that it would’ve been possible for a man like me, a man with skin darker than most and a family without a spare penny, to do the impossible. To achieve a better life. To save my family from poverty. A man once told me that I cannot succeed in life until I want to succeed as much as I want to breathe.

Back in dark ages, when people used to have to tune into their shows once a week, it seemed like people would get a lot more done. If nothing was on that interested him or her, they would simply find something else to do such as yard work or reading

In this world of technology and scientific advancement, we have lost ourselves. We value money more than life. We idolise people like The Kardashians who portray the "perfect life", yet are the epitome of a vacuous existence. We humiliate others and build a ladder of dead bodies to achieve their wishes and replenish their hunger for money. We scavenge for gratuitous items just so they can look down on others who cannot afford it. Even with everything, we still want more, so we can nourish the greedy, egoistic monster inside us which feeds on lifeless objects. Many of us go into frenzy as if they are possessed by a voracious demon.

The tv show Modern Family and I made an immediate connection a few years ago. I was hooked after the first episode after being able to directly relate it to my family. My moms side of the family through a divorce and second marriage many years ago built quite a complicated family tree very similar to the Pritchetts and Dunphys. Aside from my smaller family with my two sisters and I, acting as the braniac, the awkward younger sibling, and typical teenager my grandpa has remarried to a young woman from China who has a son my age, now my uncle. The combination of this and my grandmas remarriage, which added three additional girls to the family has created such a fun, dysfunctional, and diverse family. In fact, watching Modern Family and relating

On our break we walk around the park to see what they had. It was my first time volunteering in stern grove and I didn’t realize how big and dark the park is. There were carnival rides, food trucks, shows, crafts, cemetery, and haunted house. We sat down to watch people sing, dance and magic shows. Then we walk through the cemetery and went inside the haunted house. It was pretty fun because I love going to these events but I haven’t gone to one in a long time.

There were boxes all around me. My room had gone from being colourful with posters to a bare, white room with all of my belongings collected, packed and ready to be moved. Mum had told me that we were moving to a place called 'Victor Harbor', a place I had never heard about before. I began to imagine what this new place could look like. I first imagined a street like those stereotypical ones in movies; with houses on both sides and a straight road in between. There were beautiful, leafy green trees scattered along with an asphalt path along each side for pedestrians to walk along.

Even after all my objectives for the day had been completed, I would be wasting time on the internet, playing video games, or hanging out with friends. All of these things were fine, but they were causing a distraction from my attempt to get to bed early. A few variables that I also noticed that could have been causing disruption in my sleep were lights flooding into my room from my window, my neighbors playing loud music late at night, and the temperature of my room being too warm. The average amount of time I was spending asleep each night was around 6 hours and 45 minutes which is just below the average recommendation of 7-9 hours for someone my age. I believe this week of reflection will prove to be very beneficial in the coming weeks I improve these shortcoming to reach my goal of getting up earlier and being less tire while doing so.