December 2002

I Define Who I am, Not my Culture Ever since I was a child, I feel like I struggled with my identity. To me, I was seen as no one in the eyes of many. I knew I had so much potential but I did not think people thought the same of me which was bad. I have always felt like I was walking between two different cultures all my life. As I grew up, I always had two sides of me: this is my African side and my American side. Overtime, I had to accept the fact that I was always going to be different…

My life is plagued by trivial and constant problems that I have often allowed to completely blind me from anything else. I must wake up for school before the sun even rises. Sometimes it takes me an hour just to figure out what to wear and I will never have enough clothes. I can’t decide what to eat in the morning and the school I go to, in an understatement, is less than perfect. I have countless tiny problems and a habit of complaining about them daily. Ignoring how many positive things there…

I have had a rough year but I have been controlling myself a lot better than i have. My temper is really bad and I have harmed a couple of kids and myself. I hate the fact that i hurt those kids because i felt like a dad to them. They loved me and i loved them and i cant express in words how bad i felt. I have learned how to control my temper and it has made a world of difference to my attitude. At the beginning of this year I didn't even feel like i was myself. I did some terrible things to…

The belief that freedom is worth having regardless of it including the freedom to make mistakes, is a misunderstanding in the lives of numerous people. The entire point of having freedom is to explore, discover, and learn something new by going beyond one’s own limitations. Additionally, whenever one attempts something he/she has never done before, he/she will usually make a mistake. However, he/she learns from that mistake and can utilize this new information to aid him/her in the future.…

Never Fear Change. Like a superhero; “Never fear, change is here!” Change means divorcing your husband. Change is the first day of Middle School. Changing your sister’s diaper. Changing your outlook. Changing your philosophy. It happens when you throw flower petals down for your mother on her second wedding day. It happens when your Dad is dating a new, soft smiled woman. You can find change at the bottom of your mothers purse, tinkling away with her tube of lipstick. Change is when Dad’s…

I was once a little girl who loved sports, was full of life, who took any chance to make someone smile, learn something new, and my only goal was to live life to its fullest potential. Anyone that knows me now may see me as a kind, intelligent, and helpful person, maybe that’s who I strive to be, but it’s not really me. Many occasions involve me, shielding emotions and lying about my real intentions are my specialty. Because of how long I have trained myself to act different it is slowly…

Nothing Stranger The week before anything had happened; it was just a normal day in Chicago. The weather was perfect, birds were singing, everyone was alive and well. A group of kids went to one of their friends houses on that Saturday to hangout and catch up on the new hit show that everyone at school has been talking about, Stranger Things. Michelle, Maple, Vince, and Joey all headed to Joey’s house to enjoy the day binge watching some Netflix. They enjoyed all eight episodes of the first…

Changing people is a difficult task which often end in a disaster with the one being changed harboring ill feeling towards the changer. The reason so many attempts to change someone fails is due to the systems and implementation which are common practice are ill suited for true success. Throughout reading Dale Carnegies book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” I discovered that there are delicate steps to changing people without them getting offended or having them arouse resentment…

Fear can be a strong motivator. It is one of the most effectual and common forms of motivation that have helped people to conquer and overcome struggles. Depicted in her latest best-seller, Room, Emma Donoghue tells an extraordinary story of Jack and his Ma and how they used their fear as motivation to liberate themselves from Room and re-adapt to the modern world. Ma was kidnapped at the young age of nineteen and was forced to endure imprisonment in a single room for seven years, but her…

Freedom, the sweet feeling of being able to decide what to do and where to go, without the interference of others’ thoughts to sway one’s decision and way of life. The majority of people can agree that freedom is something that should be cherished and strived for. Afterall, freedom is what our Founding Fathers have fought for and declared in the Declaration of Independence. However, the majority of parents place restrictions onto the youth, which violates the so-called freedom they cherish. This…