Personal Narrative: Too Awful

Not that I wasn’t happy with the choices that had led me to this point in my life, but I knew that I was destined for greater things than a “Doc on a Boat”; another nameless enlisted member of the naval medical community serving three years of sea duty on a constantly revolving door of new check-ins and farewells. Working long hours on little sleep and crappy food is what boat life is all about. You are united as a crew by what is affectionately known as “The Suck”; a general catchall term that you can blame any and all problems on and one that you signed on for by receiving orders to a boat. Now there are three types of people that I encountered, those that love and are borderline addicted to the suck, those that tolerate the suck for the

After so many incidents, I was determined to learn this foreign language and prove to people that I wasn’t not lost in this country. Every day afterschool I would ask my family to help me with my English. One year later, I was able to understand what people around me were saying, and I could do basic communications with people. School came to me as an enjoying part of my day, something I looked forward to when going to bed, and an opportunity, a gift for me to learn the language of this new country.

One of the greatest life skills that you can attain is to always double check! I unfortunately had to learn this lesson the hard way. Even though obstacles come up, you can always learn from them. In this certain situation, my brother David and I thought that we did something when in reality we didn't.

As I stood on the outside of the arena watching teen girls traditional finish dancing, my stomach filled with butterflies. I walked into the arena as the announcer says “Next up teen girl's jingle,” with all the other dancers in my category. It was Sunday, the last day of Indian Summer Pow Wow, and my last contest for this pow wow, this year. Although I was nervous, I was also filled with happiness, confidence, and gratefulness. “Take it away boys” the announcer says. That’s when I knew that the drum group was going to start playing and this meant I had to start dancing.

Lurid means vivid and unpleasant. Lurid was a word on a weekly vocab quiz I took the week I first visited Simon’s Rock. Lurid was a word used casually (and properly) in a passionate discussion about a Rococo painting, The Swing, in an art history class at Simon’s Rock.

I attended school from the age of six. Even my family to be from a poor origin, I took good grades at school. I studied hard because my parents always told me how was important the knowledge in our lives. I studied during all my life in public schools, concluding my high school in 1994, in a humble public school in the country of the Mato Grosso State. In 2008, I had the opportunity to conclude the course of Human Resources by São Paulo University, in Brazil, giving a huge proud for my father and mother.

This old desk won’t look like much to most. It’s old, scratched up, and out of style. To me, it’s everything I remember about my Grandmother, who has passed, and my Grandfather, who will outlive us all. Every drawer in this desk had a purpose, no junk drawers here. Pens, paper and other office necessities in the center drawer, unpaid bills in the top left drawer, envelopes and stamps in the top right drawer, important documents in the center drawers, saved greeting cards in the left bottom drawer, and after I gave birth to Mikhail, some of Mikhail’s favorite toys in the bottom left hand drawer (just to make sure he could always get to them). Since I was 15 and until they moved from California, with the addition of Mikhail’s drawer, the

My English was very limited when I moved here from Mexico, however during my High School year in the United States, I was able to improve my speaking and writing skills through the various writing assignments and daily interaction with my teachers. Unexpectedly, I made efforts which gave me skills to improve my knowledge. Even though I did not speak English even a little, I achieved my goals by using my discipline and self-confidence. Now that I am able to understand what people are saying to me in English, I remember how confused I was and my low motivation. Unfortunately, my situation at school made me want to go back to Mexico. Instead, nowadays my goals and dreams for a better future are my motivation and allow me to feel confident and

    “Do I look okay to you? I dread being happy again, I dread the feeling that you gave me when you broke my heart, I dread waking up in the morning to deal with this,I dread looking into the mirror, I dread hearing the words that miserably fall from my lips, I dread going to school knowing that people hate my existence, I hate the fact that my family knows all of this and continues to pretend everything is okay, as if it is going to help. How is everything going to be okay Sylvia?”

It's lucky for one to never be called inadequate. The idea of having lesser value grows unstoppably from a thought to a major mental roadblock. Pride is hard to come by after it has been lost. I have had my abilities tested across many fields, and while I often come out on top, I tend to take losses much to the heart.

Last Wednesday I ate in the cafeteria with a friend for the first time. Most of the time my classes and their subsequent homework make it impossible for me to find a time to go to lunch with someone else. It was an interesting experience since I rarely eat meals in the presence of others. On that note, I did notice that I could not fully focus on how I felt talking to my friend because I had to constantly work on keeping my thoughts on the current situation. If I try to think about other things, my mind would get so far on track that I could not productively contribute to the conversation. During the lunch my friend and I split up to go to our respective lunch lines. Upon getting our meal, we sat down at one of the long tables in the

Alright, this is something defiantly NoSleep worthy. There’s no doubt in my mind. It’s really weird, maybe (I’m hoping) you guys can’t help me figure out what exactly went down. But, first. You need to know everything I know. So, here it is:

At the end of High School I received the “Student Excellence Award” and won a scholarship to study in Universidad APEC, where I started my Bachelor degree majoring in Advertising. At first I wanted to focus on copywriting or TV production. Then one day through the passion of a very talented professor, I shaped my dreams. She was not supposed to be my teacher, but

I was impressed by a good friend of mine when she mentioned about the classes she was taking at my home country there in La Paz Bolivia, South America. My friend’s emotion, passion, and energy when counting me about her experience by at that time doing her internship in an agency in that, later on, she would become the Director until the present, made me think that Social Work is the career that I want to pursue. I enrolled in the social work career and I finished it working in an NGO. In that agency, I worked with several woman migrants from rural areas, that wasn't inserted in the labor force and that several of them were the breadwinners. I started my life experience as a social worker there, and that experience inspired me to continue my education years later. After have worked and lived in my hometown for several years I decided to move to this country which would give me more opportunities to work and study., but I had to face one little problem here, at this moment that problem was the propulsion that helped me to stay here to apply for a master classes at this time. I didn’t speak the English language, I just knew the basic but I saw that starting as an ESL student I would one day to learn this language and look for a job I wanted to perform. That job was to have a spot as a Social Worker in some place I would be welcomed to work.

“Tendrás que trabajar mucho y no tendrás el tiempo para aprender suficiente inglés e ir a la Universidad.” “You’ll have to work hard and won’t have the time to learn enough English to go to college” This was my welcoming to the American Dream. Being 21 years old and only knowing how to say “hi”, those words meant the end of my aspiration. Like an omen, three months later, I found myself making pillow cases and mattress covers in Brooklyn. Nevertheless, I decided to defy the odds by attending ESL classes Monday and Wednesday evenings Manhattan ,and on Sunday mornings in Queens. Since 2009, I was on a hiatus from college. But, I knew that learning English was the only way back to it. Despite suffering from sleep deprivation at that time, I persevered until the day I received my admission letter.