6G. I know my voice was loud for the children because they were engage in the story and the song.
6G. I know my voice was loud for the children because they were engage in the story and the song.
“Just because the going gets rough doesn’t mean you have to give up,” our pastor advised us this past Sunday. The highlight of my entire weekend in one simple yet deep sentence.…
Who am I? That has always been an essential question for as long as I can remember. I never really understood why we had to answer that question along the way, but I’m now a senior at SJPII and I still have no idea who I am. It really bothers me that for 16 years I still haven’t figured out who I am. Constantly going from class to class and making new friends I still can’t pin point who the “real” me is.…
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said “To be yourself in a world that is trying to make you something else is a great accomplishment”. A question such as “who am I”? Really gives me the opportunity to differentiate and express who I really am and who I can be. I am not a complex person who thinks the world is against me, nor am I overly sophisticated “know-it-all” who doesn't take time to pay attention to my surroundings. I can't say that I am like every other person because there are certain things that make me a unique individual. What I can say is that I am progressing towards a brighter future.…
The advice that was given to me about writing my personal statement is that whatever I wrote, it must be a statement that came directly from the heart. I’ve found that in order to do this, I must actually write about my heart. When I was born, doctors discovered that I had a ventricular septal defect. The defect needed to be repaired, or I would have been wheelchair-bound and not lived past my fifth birthday. The experience of my heart surgery was not only life-altering for me, but for my parents as well. I was their first-born child, and they had just purchased their first home. It is hard enough to learn the ropes of becoming a parent - but to be the parents to a very ill child was something they had never prepared for. They always…
Ever since I was born, I was a military brat. Not knowing where to call home, or if any place could be home, I moved. I moved six times, four of those places were towns that nobody could think about. Germany, North Carolina, Alaska, North Carolina, Germany, and Alaska, yet no place to call home. May 22, 1999, my first day on this world; Kronach hospital had its first American baby in their hands, yet they acted like I was a different species. The only event I remember was when I was about one. While I was one, I grabbed everything in my reach, even a grill handle. As a baby, I did not know that the handle was moving, the grill top had smashed my thumb. Ever since that event, I now have a starfish mark on the side of my right thumb from where the stiches were.…
Finally, when I moved to New Orleans I started volunteer work at the Children’s Hospital and helped with pop up clinics for the Latino community twice. Overall I found that helping others shouldn't be something seen as duty or mandatory, it should be spontaneous. Through others experiences and hardships we learn and grow as human beings, not only did I enjoy helping others but I felt that it helped me with my problems. Having moved around so much and meet so many people and living by myself so many years I came to truly be thankful for my blessings and specially for my hardships. Hermann Hesse once said, "I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value." Helping others made me realize that we all need help and that my way to help others would be through their health. It also taught me not to judge anybody, especially if you don't know what they have been through. I am hard believer that everything happens for a reason, and all the weekends I spend watching my parents help others helping others myself made me the determined person that I am today. Finally, the most important lesson I learned was to never give up, no matter how hard the task is or how bad the problem is there will always be someone willing to help and you can always be both sides to that, the helper or the one who needs…
Growing up with divorced parents from two radically different cultures was at first difficult. My mother’s family was from Peru, while my father’s was from Bangladesh. In my young mind, there was an internal struggle with what my identity actually consisted of. I wasn’t wholly from one culture or the other, and felt like a black sheep when interacting with either side of my family. Due to this, I attempted to keep these cultures partitioned. At the time, they were different portions of my life that simply couldn’t intermix. This mentality in turn led me to foolishly shy away from my joint heritage. I kept myself enclosed in a box, blind to the beauty of my surrounding culture. However, as time progressed, I knew I had to make a change in my understanding.…
The Shared Vision I am currently in the process of crafting includes working for an organization that will challenge me to grow both in knowledge and as a person. Peace Corp is one organization that can give me what I want out of my company and organization and how I am going to get that out of my new organization. At this time I am trying to link my personal vision to the organization’s potential in order to help myself align the organization’s purpose with my own purpose (vision): and to prepare the individual groundwork for creating a shared vision. I am at a crossroads on my career path, where I can either I can decide on my personal vision and try and line up my career with that vision or I can let someone else determine what type of work…
Most teenagers do not have a clue about what they want to be when they grow up. Most young adults also do not know where their path is in life. Even some full-blown adults are still trying to figure out their purpose. I was lucky. I knew exactly where I belonged from about the time I was seven up until now, at the decently young age of nineteen. I do not see my path changing anytime soon; in fact, I know it will never change. But, I did not just wake up one day as a child and know what my path was, while that would be impressive. Defining moments in one’s life defines who they are. There were lots of things I experienced in my life that made me realize my purpose, my absolute passion. I had four of these defining moments in my short span of…
Football has always been a big part of my life. As a young boy I would day dream of making insane touchdowns, making tackles that would leave man stuck in the ground, and even winning the heisman trophy. In 7th grade I had begged my mother endlessly to sign me up for pee wee football because she would always worry about the risks of football. After finally getting her to sign me up, we went straight into the season. I chose to play running back because as a 12-year-old I was remarkably fast having timed 5.3 in the 40 yard-dash. After a few weeks in the season we approached the playoffs and found out our opponent for the first round of the playoffs were the jaguars who were undefeated. Our team didn’t have the best chemistry on…
Traveling into the Indian Territory, we were being angrily chased down by three Indians furiously shouting at us. Dashing through the thick forest, the savage Indians were throwing spears and shooting arrows that narrowly missed us. Although neither Gideon nor I was mortally injured, I did suffer from a nick from an arrow piercing near my ear. Thankfully, a group of burly fur traders approached from the side, which frightened the Indians to run away. Acknowledging that Gideon and I were inexperienced travelers in the west, they offered us protection in exchange for some valuable possessions. As a consequence, knowing that they were our best alternative for survival, we gave them our antique gold pocket watches and assumed the identities of novice fur traders. From that point on, we followed them through the west and adopted their skills for efficiently hunting animals and keeping warm in the harsh, cold weather. During one of our rest points, we approached a large Cherokee settlement located in Park Hill in which our group leader was friends with the Cherokee leader John Ross.…
My mother, “Regina Hopkins,” has been a positive influence in my life. She has raised 6 kids all by herself as well as earned a Bachelor’s degree in nursing from a City College in Gainesville, Florida. My mother has been through pretty much everything a person can go through outside of war and was still able to be there and provide for all 6 of her kids. In high school, my mother wanted to play football and couldn't because she was a girl and back-in-the-day women were not allowed to play football with the guys. However, she remained strong by raising 6 kids and independently took care of all of us on her own. My mother has several qualities that I would love to develop. The first quality she has is balance; she certainly knows how to make…
I've always prided myself on my ability to adapt. Being optimistic and working with the cards I've been dealt, has always been my strong point. When life throws something at you knowing how to adapt to it is your best option and it affects the way you look at life.…
I am of Chinese descent and one of the biggest parts of being Chinese is food. Food in China is diverse and unique from region to region. As a result, one’s cooking will often reflect one’s identity. As I learn to cook, I have to choose. Will I favor the Szechuan style, hot, spicy, yet heart-warming? Perhaps I’ll favor the sweet Shanghai style, more delicate, yet more refined. Or, I may go with my parent’s Shandong Style, rich, powerful, and familiar to me. As I learn to cook, I will refine my identity through the dishes I…
10. Contrary to what you might hear in songs or see on TV or in the…