Advanced Essay #1: Stubborn Ol' Tony

My piece Stubborn Ol’ Tony is about me reflecting on past experiences, and sharing what they helped me learn about myself and other things. I hope that when reading this piece it’ll help the audience/reader to learn or see something about their self that they didn’t notice before. A lot of my piece is about reflection, and I want people to learn to reflect on all their actions. After they reflect on all their actions, they need to learn from them and see what they will do differently next time, including myself. When it comes to my essay, I’m unsure of how I did. I personally am proud of my reflection and all pieces that revolve around me reflecting on experiences in  life. My explanation about understanding one’s perspective is also a very dominant piece in my work, in my opinion. The memories could’ve been more descriptive or just included more important english rules, for example, figurative speech for describing the scenario and everything around me.

Last summer was when it came to me… It started when my best friend and I got into an argument. This argument went on for a long time due to lots of different factors. We aren’t able to see one another all the time, and that’s because of different household rules. My mother isn’t strict when it has to do with going outside, and how far I go. There are the limitations, however, for example, I can’t just go to New York out of nowhere. Some would say it sounds like she doesn’t care, but I know that she just wants me to explore, and get out more. She is treating me like a young man, and that is what I am. My lovely friend has cautious parents who don’t allow her to go outside all the time, there are actually limitations for how often she can go out.

I was as blind as a bat. I emphasize this because arguments happened.

I’d constantly say “I’m always trying to make plans and you say no”. Statements like this can have a huge strain on a relationship between people. This is the case because it seems like you are blaming someone for something, and saying that they don’t want to hang out. We don’t live close to one another, I live in Grays Ferry (South Philadelphia near Southwest), and she lives in Frankford (Northeast Philadelphia).

She’d constantly say “I am not able to hang out all the time, I don’t have as much freedom as you do”. These things are all true, she doesn’t have as much freedom as me, she isn’t always able to hang out. These arguments would go on because of me. I wasn’t putting myself in her shoes and in doing so got mad at her. It wasn’t fair, and seeing things from another’s perspective is always important and at the time I was incapable of that.

Everyone in an argument or debate will say “oh, I get what you are trying to say and how you see things.” That isn’t always the case, sometimes people just say that to say it. I’m an example of this, I figure this as much because being stubborn is what Antonio DeRock is known for. Meeting new people and entering high school helps people mature and learn more about themselves. Being stubborn was a trait I never realized about myself beforehand. Everybody in the world has their own perspective on issues or even ideas, the problem is people don’t respect their point of view. You don’t have to agree with them, but you can’t argue something if you don’t know where they’re coming from. I truly didn’t know where my friend was coming from. That is why no matter the case I was wrong in that situation. It was wrong of me to do, and didn’t have a good representation of who I think I can be. It was disrespectful, and I want to be a better person than that. I want to see other perspectives, respect them, and be open to new ideas. This is about me reflecting on past experiences and reflecting on moments in general. Reflecting on moments such as arguments and other things like debates or even conversations are important because you can learn a lot from your mistakes. Reflecting in general is an important strategy to do in life, sometimes we don’t even realize it when we’re doing it.

There was a morning recently where I was woken up due to loud noises. When I made it to the dining room window I look out and see my mom and her friend, Larry. I see the sweat going from their forehead down the side of their face. If I touched them, I know for sure that my hand would result in being moist.

I then called out “what are you guys doing?”

My mom responded “we are cleaning the garage, would you like to help?” I was hesitant at first due to me just waking up, I still decided to help though however. When I went down through the garage door, I could see that everything was basically cleaned and taken out of the garage. My mom went through the totes and she found some baby pictures of me. They were cool pictures that I’m glad that I saw. A picture of me with a bowl on the top of my head as a baby, and I had a big smile on my face as I sat in the baby seat. Moments like these are significant because we see times when we’re happy and wonder about that. As a baby, it’s either you are crying or the happiest person in the world.