Blog Feed

Sydney Rogers

Ms. Pahomov

English 3

10 January 2018

Pain and Numbness

I’ve thought about death before. What it is, what it’s like, and people’s last words and thoughts. I’ve also thought about cancer. I’ve thought about what that’s like and what I’d do if I had it. But those thoughts were always in the abstract. I’d never imagined that when I went to a dentist consult simply because they were going to talk to me about my wisdom teeth that they’d inform me about the fact that there’s a giant cyst in my jaw and there’s a possibility of having cancer. I never thought those abstract thoughts would become reality.

Over the summer I went to the dentist's office to talk about getting my wisdom teeth removed. I’ve always despised dentists and felt the worst feelings towards them, but I never thought they’d be the ones to give me the worst news I’d ever gotten. When I went in a man in nice dress pants walked in. He talked to my mom and I about how he needed me to get an x-ray done before he could really go into more detail about the procedure so he showed me to a few nice ladies in scrubs and then walked away. Once we were done, the dentist came back into the room and leaned up against the counter. He started off by asking me a few questions that I thought were a bit odd, “Do you ever have any tooth pain in your back teeth on your right side?”

“No, not really. I have occasional tooth aches but not in one place consistently that I can really think of right now. Why?”, I said a bit confused. After a couple minutes of answering his questions he ended his streak by informing my mom and I that there was a cyst in the lower back area of my jaw. My mom took a deep breath and the doctor looked sympathetic. The doctor and my mom explained that basically a cyst is a ball of abnormal cells and they’re either benign, meaning harmless, or they’re cancerous. Once I heard that my eyes filled with tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of the doctor so I looked up and stared at the lights above me, trying to dry my eyes. He told my mom and I with sad eyes and pointing fingers that the cyst was about the size of a golf ball. He pointed to the x ray and showed me that there was a nerve that ran through my whole jaw and part of that nerve had been absorbed by the cyst, and the cyst had also absorbed the root of one of my teeth, the farthest back tooth closest to my wisdom tooth. Basically I was now at risk for, cancer, death, numbness of the jaw, and immense pain. All things I was far from expecting when I walked through the front doors of the dentists building.

I didn’t want to tell my dad or even the majority of my friends. I only wanted my mom, my brother, and my best friends to know. I didn’t want people to look at me or treat me differently just because there was a scary possibility of me having cancer. I didn’t want to be “cancer girl.” I wanted to be me. Regular me. I didn’t want people to tell me they were sorry or felt bad because that wouldn’t do anything and I wouldn’t feel any better about it. I wanted things to be normal and stay the way they were, or at least how they used to be.

A big part of me wasn’t scared. I just knew that I didn’t have cancer. I felt like my body and mind would have told me, there would have been warning signs or something. Every part of me knew I didn’t have cancer. I was scared of course but I had convinced myself that I would be okay. It was early in the morning and the sun hadn’t even come up yet. I remember driving down the pretty streets of South Philly. I remember trying to appreciate every single bit of it. I was so grateful for life and the things I’d experienced. I thought of my friends and family and every single breath of air. Because who knew if those were my last few moments believing that I was cancer free. I wanted to say thank you for every single aspect of life. It was all so beautiful, those moments were purely blissful.

When I got to the hospital I went through the standard pre-surgery procedure. I met eight doctors. The last thing I remember before my surgery was laying on the operating table, strapped in, staring up at the lights on the ceiling and having a gas mask put over my face and then the strong smell of artificial oranges, then it went blank and I was numb.

When I woke up I didn’t feel anything. My face was numb and it felt big and bloated. Some nurses came over and I said they’d let my mom come in soon. I fell back asleep for I don’t know how long, but when I woke back up I was in a room with curtains all around me and my mom and her best friend were by my side. My moms eyes were happy and filled with tears, but she was keeping her cool. “The doctor said it’s not cancer. It was just a bone cyst.” That was the first thing she told me. When she told me that I was cancer free I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel a huge weight lifted off my chest. I only felt numb and like I was floating on a cloud. I felt no pain. I was hoping that I would feel like I just received the best news in the world. But it wasn’t amazing, I felt like this was old news.

Pain and being numb are two different things. Physically, I can say that I would rather be numb than be in pain. I would rather be numbed by any drugs that doctors prescribe me as supposed to enduring the pain of having five teeth removed and a giant cyst. Even months after my surgery I still felt numb. I felt pain in my mouth and I was numb mentally. I didn’t feel happy or excited about things that I would have usually been happy or excited about. The cancer scare had a bigger effect on me than I realized. I felt like I was eternally numb for such a long time until I slowly grew out of it and I fully realized that I was okay. After my surgery, I told my classmates, my dad, and the other people who I didn’t want originally knowing. It changed who I am. It made me appreciate life more and every single beautiful aspect of it. It also helped me learn more about myself and how I react to bad news. I became more understanding about people who said they always felt numb. I could now relate to them and I understood how hard it is to explain. The only word that will suffice is numb. Everything I went through during that time helped me become who I am today, someone who is grateful for this life, appreciative of the small beautiful things, and more understanding and much stronger.

“What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”

Robert Hayden

I.

I saw my father and two men hang their overcoats on the rack, drooped like wet anthers on a matte flower as they proceeded into my humble home. Their footsteps impressed the floor all at once in a proud symphony as they made their way to the dining room, where they sat themselves down at a roundtable in jolly laughter and hearty enthusiasm. Their echoes became giants through the classic Corinthian-white halls, traveling lightspeed as I sat wide-eyed watching them brag themselves out the boredom of that winter Sunday. I was spellbound by the thickly dressed ebb of their baritones, though I knew not much of the matters they speak on. Manly matters, I supposed. The bellycheer and conversation flowed as patient as tree-sap runnels, eventually finding its way to the familiar discussion of manliness—a discourse in which their stubborn egos would war relentlessly under the table. I saw battle in their eyes, broad-shouldered armies resting at attention in the buds of their pupils. Here, I learned the bane of all men; I learned of pride and power, of braggadocio and esteem defense. I gazed on in fear, in intrigue, in bloodrush fanaticism against my own father. For a small pocket in time, he did not seem like the same person. He was not the ripe-hearted hero I had once imagined him to be. He was a mere man, crowned with the halo of hubris that would soon change the way I thought of him, and thought of myself.

This was the day I first confuse love with fear of my father. I learned his percussive footsteps, heavyweight yet spacious like redwood branches falling to the ground in rhythm. When I was in trouble, they were the stimulus inspiring shockwaves of nerves and regret. When I was virtuous, they were more like a forewarning of his impending presence, snapping my conscience into full-fledged attentiveness.

His usual declaration to me was, “I’m going to make you into a man.”

“A man?” I thought, “Only God can make a man.”

I found out the hard way what make a man meant in his mind. I have early memories of his command to stop putting my hands on my hips, which he designated as a feminine pose. For a long while, I could not even define the word feminine, but from the sober tug of his voice I could tell that it is something no man should be. The look in his eyes when he chastised me over trifles is one of shame, something I learned to perceive in his deeply hickory and full iris. When they interrogated me, I, too, felt shame well up inside. I felt like an impostor of a man before I was given the chance to become one, or know what it meant to be one. In that shame was the simple irony that I had at one point in time studied and revered my father, with pure lovelight and high regard. Now, I dismissed him as a contemptible and prejudice autocrat, drowning me out in his antagonizing eye.

The years turned like pages of the same book under my father’s house as he chaptered his mannerisms into sanguine obsessions. Everyday, he made me a “man,” as if the maturation to manhood were a Rocky training montage. I had digested the stigma of wearing flip flops, the humiliation of the color pink. I found repercussion in picking nosegay flowerheads from the ground and then knew that to my father, masculinity was not something that grew like foliage, but an inborn fire. I could not bring myself to reconcile with what he thought I should be. Sometimes, it felt like he wanted to rid me of sincerity, for I was not born as an emotionless slab of concrete he seemed to be. I was very much so a lover who saw paradise in all things sensitive and kid-gloved, and the only shame I had about it was that I knew that deep down he was disappointed in me, so I thought. I could not emotionally handle this shame and so it turned to conviction as my relationship with him grew standoffish, especially when I nestled under my mother for all the empathy and acceptance he would not give me. During this time, we were two plates of simultaneous drift apart, unable to synchronize the passage of time and movement. I thought that was just the way it had to be. Our happiest moments were like phantoms of a distant past, our laughs like dying ripples in runnels of muddied water. We were two of a kind, with a strict boundary of love and contempt dividing us. Then, I would have sworn that I knew everything there was to know about my father. I would have sworn that I that I was innocent and he was guilty, I was the victim and he was the offender. The truth is, I was indeed a victim—but my own ignorance was my only offender.

II.

The climax of our cold war came last August, when unbearable humidity cloaked our days only to have the heroic breeze disrobe it at night. The heat that day had made my house a house full of hotheads, which meant no good for both me and my father. He sat on his kingly couch, swamped with sweat and temper, his thickened brow quivering with tension as angst ran rampant through the household. I, marked with the same temper, had an unusually low tolerance for annoyance that day as well, and so the inevitable always has its way.

My dad noticed my casual wear, my flip flops and faded pink shirt. It was a cardinal sin of mine. I knew it would draw a reaction from him, and yet I did not care enough to avoid it. I was ready for his worst, as I had stiffened my ego so that he may not crush it. I expect him to strike, to spike his breath and raise up from his seat disturbed.

But worse. He dismisses me, his unattending eyes deciding to focus on something of more significance. His following words pierced me like the very head of a knife ready for bloodletting.

“I can’t believe one of my sons would wear flips flops. How can a man wear flip flops this much?”

The gravity in his voice sunk my shadow deep into a trembling blackness. Time became a bony oblivion. I was not mad. I was not filled with hate. I tried so very hard to be filled with nothing—not possible. But in that moment, the mocking was worse than a beating. It was worse than anything else he could have thrown at me. There, I saw a man knee-deep in his pretense and pride, all his inhibitions twining like beeswax angles in unarmed warfare. I had been rejected by my fomer beloved idol, who I then concluded was not changing, and would never change, even for the love of me. I could not stand it. Fueled by fires of embarrassment and dejection, I stormed off alone to pity myself in my misfortune.

My poor mother saw it and immediately understood what had happened, but did not chase after me. I see this now as a balking tactic. What she would soon disclose to me was her discovered secret, an intelligence that was in turn kept secret from him. I sought her out and asked her to help me cope with the situation. I retrospectively owe her much thanks, for it was her who assured me that my father’s love for me could never be snuffed when I needed the assurance most. I asked her anxiously why he was like this, what had molded such an irreversible blemish in character. Her spirit was visibly broken to pieces at my hopeless pleading. I could see she had a tentative answer, not because she was uncertain, but because the truth might not have been a truth I needed to know. It, in fact, was.

When she began to talk, it was in her tale voice that is the sound of wind thickening through the sky. It was soothing, it was intelligent, and it signaled that the uninhibited truth shall be told. She told me of her suspicions from hints she had gathered gradually over the years: my father, an excellent student and very charismatic young boy, had a teacher in 8th grade who he had a rather close bond with. The teacher had numerous times invited my father over his house for minor menial labors and conversation. The teacher, as my father had accidentally recounted in an absent-minded recollection, was murdered in his home in 1988 for allegedly being a predator on young boys (she, perhaps very wisely, left the connection up to me). And though the pieces of mystery come together as such, my father had never confessed to being sexually abused. Out of fear, maybe, out of embarrassment, out of denial. I understood my mother’s point: perhaps ego is just his disguise of deep pain.

It at last hit me that that was the dawn of his spiritual necrosis, his enduring and mute philosophical suicide.

I leveled my breath as a spiteful silence mobbed my throat’s pit. Between the distracting knot in my throat and the stubborn weakness in my legs, there was a masquerade ball of emotions all dying to dance, my gut the dancefloor beneath all those anxious feet. In that moment, of all the emotions I felt, I above all felt sorrow. Not a pity-sorrow, but the sorrow of realizing that I foolishly assumed that my father was a pastless villain. Throughout all my fits of childish myopia, I hadn’t bothered to think with concern for him, but rather conviction. I had designed a self-pitying plight that vilified a very broken man; once a fatherless, alm-clothed boy from Detroit’s skid row, everyday vying for attention from an affectionately unheeding mother. He was the lone man of the house, coerced into what everyone under his own roof and beyond told him a man was. He only knew such pain; he was a victim of a delicate defeat—each of the civil twilights that ended the day a victor against his will to be what he wanted. Then, in this awakening, I understood that his hidden baggage had been my confused pulse, his internal demons like running axles in my own esteems. Only then did I realized that he was more broken than I ever was.

I, looking deeply, found the insulting irony in the situation to be that I had failed my father the same way he had failed me. I had thought it standard for a man to have no internal weakness, and for this I was just as guilty of the same prejudicial thinking that plagued him. Deep inside, I wanted him to be the strong, unwavering hero that I had imagined every fabulous father to be. And so, I indeed failed him. I denied him the human right to be imperfect and still beloved. In my catharsis, I found my thoughts to be mirrors in a house of mirrors, my light bending obediently to form a distorted image of my father—teary-eyed, wanting to be loved but unable to ask. It was not a pretty sight, but it was beautiful. It was beauty in the sense of revelation, raw and flowering truth undaunted by me staring into it.

For my father, and for myself, I wept that night, long and gently. I was unashamed, for that is what made me more of a man.

Amaris Ortiz

Pahomov

English 3

08 January 2018

My Hair

If somebody named a friend of yours, what’s the first word you would associate them with? People think of their friends and just automatically associate them with a quality or something they like.

For me, my memorable quality has always been my hair. One of the first things people thought of when they heard my name is “oh the short girl with the long dark hair." Growing up, I never thought of cutting it. I was always afraid of looking different if I changed to short hair. I would rather just avoid a possibly dangerous or embarrassing situation than face it head on. Except these were just assumptions in my head rather than actual dangerous situations. As I got older, I began to get tired of having the same boring long hair. I tried to get rid of this feeling by temporarily dying it colors like green or red just for fun. But even through these small changes I still felt like a needed a bigger change. The same change that I was once afraid of.

When I was about 10 years old, I was at my abuela’s house in Puerto Rico and a conversation came up about my hair. It was late at night and we were all sitting around in the living room watching TV before heading off to bed. My family was asking if I wanted to continue growing my hair and me, being the person who didn’t want change, said yes. My aunt suggested trimming my hair for the first time so that it could grow healthier. She wasn’t a professional and had never cut hair before. It was a spur of the moment idea but I didn’t really mind. So she grabbed a pair of scissors and only cut about 2 inches off of the end of my hair. Trimming my hair really didn’t make a difference in how I looked because my hair was still super long. Everyone around me seemed to be making a big deal out of what happened. It was the first time I ever had my hair cut even the slightest bit. They suggested saving the hair for memory but I thought that was a weird thing to do. My dad jokingly asked me if my head felt lighter and soon enough we just went back to our nightly routine.

I never thought of this association with long hair as a bad thing until I cut most of my hair off recently. My hair was always something people mentioned in conversations. If I was meeting new people or making a new friend I’d be asked questions like “How long does it take you to wash your hair?” or “Have you ever cut your hair?” These are all things that people have been asking ever since I was younger and since I wasn’t good at talking to new people I didn’t mind it. After cutting my hair sophomore year, I didn’t know what people would identify me with anymore. I started to think that there wouldn’t be anything else that would set me apart from others. I never thought that would be something I’d worry about. I liked the new hair cut myself but I didn’t know how other people would react. I had gotten used to the association and constant questions. Now that people aren’t identifying me with my hair as much anymore, they make other comparisons. “You act just like your brother.”

Right after I cut my hair, the most common reaction I got was “Why?” Almost every person had asked me why I cut my hair or why I didn’t like having long hair. To this day, I still get asked this same question. People seem a bit disappointed when I give them my answer. “I don’t know I just got tired of it and wanted to change it up.” I repeated this answer to different people before I started to realize that they wanted a different response as if there was another reason as to why I did it or I just didn’t like my hair. I started to feel like I had to change my response for people or like I was forced to give them this elaborate story about my struggles with long hair. Of course there were certain things I didn’t like about it but I didn’t feel like my main reason for cutting it required a long deep story.

This summer I cut my hair even shorter than the first time. I was in Puerto Rico again and even though my hair was already shorter than normal, I told my mom I wanted a few more inches off. My mom was a bit worried at first because it was unusual for me to want to keep cutting it. I wasn’t worried about the comparisons people would make when I went back home or the questions I’d be asked, I just did it. I felt more in control of what I wanted after deciding to cut my hair even shorter. That feeling of being in control shows how different my situation was from when I was worried about what people would think to then deciding to focus on myself.

It seems like if a change is made, the people around it will try to adapt to it after a while. It was a shock to people that I cut my hair so short after such a long time of only trimming my hair. But after a while, they just moved on to making other comparisons. These small problems we build up in our mind really may not be that big of a deal to others. I thought it was a bad idea to cut my hair and have people constantly ask questions about why I did it but eventually, you remember that some of the changes you make about yourself are for you and not about the emotions of others around you. They will change or adapt and you will still be the same person you were before that change or even a better version of yourself no matter how big or small the change was.

If you personally identify yourself with something like “I’m known for having bright colored hair” or “I’m the funny one in the class” make sure you don’t get too wrapped up in your association. If you overthink a situation you may start to lose yourself. If you are in a situation where you want to do better or you want to be something else but you feel obligated to follow that thing you identify with yourself or others identify with you then maybe that isn’t really you. I loved my long hair when I was younger but I started to become unhappy when I felt like I was forced to keep it long. I am still that same girl, my hair just isn’t as long anymore. I decided to try new things and you never know, maybe I’ll decide that I want to go back to my long hair. I don’t want to become attached to an association so much that I feel like it controls my decisions.

Paxton Wentzell

Ms. Pahomov

English 11

January 3rd, 2018

Personal Essay BM 2

The world around us is always changing. On a cosmic level, comets are flying and planets are being formed. On a societal level, high-up government positions alternate parties and citizens are angered about the political climate. On a more personal level, I’m making bad decisions and I’m growing up. Or maybe it should be the other way around. It’s not like I can control the decisions that I make. I’m a teenager, I’m a growing boy, and my world is always shifting.

Last year, my world changed. I switched to a new world. Hopping through that portal to another dimension. I decided to make new relationships, completely flipping the dynamics I had with others. My dynamics would continue to switch. In this dimension, things are changing constantly. In this changing world I come across hardship after hardship. No matter how hard I try, I can’t go back to my old world. I’m stuck in this changing world and it’s only given me problems. I’m the victim here. The world started changing causing me troubles that I couldn’t control.

That doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. It’s not like I came to a new world that’s changing all the time. All I did was change my relationships. I always lived in an ever-shifting world. I feel like there’s something that’s missing. If my changing world is giving me hardships even after I changed relationships, then it always has given me hardships from change.

Last year, my world changed. The rust covered gears just beneath the Earth’s crust started to rotate. Spinning me with them. All my friends abandoned me, isolating me and outcasting me from just about everything I did. As the gears began to crush my entire life, It took all I had not to give up. But I didn’t get crushed. I persevered. I still feel cut off, but, slowly, I’m getting back on my feet. I’m crafting new friendships and forgetting about the past and pushing back on those gears. I’m the hero here. I overcame the hardships thrust on me by the changing world.

What’s this? I’m pushing back on the gears, but I’m still running into hardships. How can that be? My world isn’t changing, so how can it still be creating problems for me? Life didn’t get any easier now that it’s not moving forward. Is there something I’m missing? If I stopped my world from changing and there is still hardship, then the problems must not be coming from the changing world.

Last year, my world changed. Of course it did, my world is always changing, but last year was different because I did something. I took advantage of my relationships with friends and I made mistake after mistake. I tried my best, but it wasn’t something I could recover from. The world did not suddenly shift, crushing me within its gears. And hardship did not follow me around every corner and across worlds. I jumped into the spinning gears on my own and I went looking for problems. I was the villain of the story. And I continue to make excuses for my actions.

What I did is not important. The point is that there is no excuse for the mistakes that I made over and over again. The world did change around me, but I will not keep blaming my problem on such a natural occurrence. With this new mindset I have begun to notice that many and most times peoples’ problems come out of their own faults and mistakes. They do not come because all of a sudden their world changed into something completely out of their control. So, why does that always seem to be the excuse. Why is it so difficult for people to accept that they are at fault and just fix themselves before they cause any more problems? This isn’t something I can answer for everyone. I’m still growing and I can only account for myself. As an individual, you should come to terms with reality and continue to use it to grow.

Animation Script

The world around us is always changing. On a cosmic level, comets are flying and planets are being formed. On a societal level, high-up government positions alternate parties and citizens are angered about the political climate. On a more personal level, I’m making bad decisions and growing up. Or maybe it should be the other way around. It’s not like I can control the decisions that I make. I’m a teenager, a growing boy, and my world is always shifting.

My world changed. All my friends abandoned me, isolating me and outcasting me from just about everything I did. It took all I had not to give up. I persevered. I still felt cut off, but, slowly, I was getting back on my feet. I began crafting new friendships and forgetting about the past. Overcoming the hardship that the changing world thrust upon me, I was the hero of my story.

Although, that isn’t completely true. As I push back on the world, resisting change, I still run into hardship. My world isn’t changing, so how can it still create problems for me? The problems I face must not be coming from the changing world.

My world changed. Of course it did, people’s worlds are always changing, but last year was different because I did something. I took advantage of my relationships with friends and I made mistake after mistake. The world did not suddenly shift, overwhelming and destroying me. I threw myself into trouble. I was the villain of my own story. And even in writing this essay, I continue to make excuses for my actions.

The details of what I did is not important. The point is that there is no excuse for the mistakes that I made over and over again. The world did change around me, but I will not keep blaming my problem on such a natural occurrence. With this new mindset I have begun to notice that many and most times peoples’ problems come out of their own faults and mistakes. They do not come because all of a sudden their world changed into something completely out of their control. I said in the beginning of this “I’m making bad decisions and growing up.” Does growth come because you make bad decisions, or is it the other way around? Does growing up lead to bad decisions that you don’t have control over?

Hamidou Doumbia

Mrs.Pahomov

English 3

Is Basketball Interesting

In west Philadelphia around the year of 2009, I was a 7-year-old student. I attend Martha Washington elementary school and I lived around the corner. Martha Washington was only attended by inner-city children, mostly around West Philadelphia because it was a neighborhood school. The school wasn’t Fancy like the other school. I was in second grade when I started to notice students playing sports around the area. I hated most sports during that time I didn't like basketball because It seems to not be interesting to me with an old man who was commentator are boring. Every time my dad watch the game I went to my room. I didn’t understand why my dad was watching these sport. In my mind, all I could think about was old people must love the boring stuff. But every morning I found out all the students in my class start to play basketball. Before basketball was into cartoon and cars like every little kid.

Although my second grade I wanted to become a spy or secret agent like the movies I usually watch after school. Codename Kids Next Door and movies like Agent Cody Banks was my favorite film to watch after school every week. I thought becoming a spy would get all the girls in my class. I believe that becoming an agent will be so cool. These reasons force me to love wearing suits and tuxedos. After that year I noticed I didn’t get any girls most girls were the boys who played the sport. But I felt like the kids in my class will change would make any difference because basketball is boring. The school year was about over.

During the summer my cousin that I was very close with came to my house over the weekend. He told me that basketball might be a fun sport. I argued with him that it wasn’t fun to watch. So how could it be found?

Hamidou: When I watch basketball games with my dad it seems to be boring. And mostly old people play the sport and old people are boring.

Cousin: I played with my friend and It was fun.

Hamidou: Look, bro, Secret agencies get all the girls and have more benefits than basketball players.

Cousin: How? You don’t even play basketball.

Hamidou: I going be rich and working with the Secret agent and every girl will love me.

Cousin: Watch believes me that won’t work.

After the argument, we made a bet that I would get more girls act like a secret agent than playing basketball. Now as I writing this story I was a foolish second grade. So I bought a  toy gun and fake badge. When he left my house I made a promise that I will put my life and sweat in of being a secret agent. After weeks I start to found out that a lot of girls was going date most the kids who play basketball. Then the school year has ended and I lose belief in being a Secret agent.

In third grade the began of every morning more kids in my class has played basketball. Most kids believe they would make it to the professional league like the NBA.  While everyone else was playing basketball I and my friends will play cops and robbers it was game that acclimates the fight between bad and good guys. I always want to be a secret agent because I always want to save people. Then one day one of friend kidnapped a girl during our game. I took him down then I believe that girl would give me a kiss. She looks at me like I was crazy. Because I was ready. I had my lip out believe that my dream would come true. After that, I felt sick that she didn’t kiss me. So when she asked what was I was doing. I lied and told her my lips were dry so I was trying a new method to fix it. The whole day I tried to keep a low profile.

After the disappointment, I finally decide to play basketball for the first time at the playground. I understand some part of the game but not the whole. I remember that shooting makes you win. So we played a game called rise and shine in the afternoon. It was one vs one and who every score first get one point then you play another person. The game went up to 11 and I know that was going to lose and might not have fun but I had to give a trie. Lunchtime was ending so everyone was just throwing up a shot that was very hard so they catch up with their point. One of my friend who played every morning won the game had 11 but I thought this sport isn’t that bad. I still didn’t understand why girl fell for a basketball player. So next period we had computer class and he gave us free period. I research advantage of a basketball player and one thing that pops up was money. Most NBA player makes million dollars than I started to understand why a lot of urban kids play sports. Then I research to the advantage of a secret agent Low-cost life insurance which I don’t understand during that time.

I had to make a choice between basketball and a secret agent. I felt I need spend most of the time on one thing. So I made a pro and con list of both. Basketball will help in the future and you get a lot of girls. But Basketball is time-consuming so it hard to different things. While secret agent has advantage to wear suits and they are heroes. The secret agent makes as much money as basketball players. This going to be a hard decision but I felt that this decision will help in future.

In fourth grade, I decided to work on my game. I was going to challenge myself to be good enough to see if I could get the girls and be one of the popular kids. So at began of the year I studied the sport by watching the game every night. Also waking up early to play basketball before school. Eventually, I found a passion for playing basketball.  I learned that you can’t judge anything by its cover. The saying was true because if I didn’t give basketball a chance then I won’t have so many fun experience. It has a huge impact on my life. I’m a starter in high school and also a captain.

New School, Who Dis?

By: Naima DeBrest

I heard my mom say in the other room “This is not working, something has to change” I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about but I had a clue that I was going to be switching schools again.

At the time, I was attending Khepera Charter School in Mt. Airy. I had started there when I was in fourth grade. It seemed like the perfect choice for me and my family : it was an African centered charter school right in my neighborhood with good credentials. All my teachers looked like me and the school had excellent parental involvement and after school clubs. Everything went continuously great until I got to seventh grade. The school started going through financial troubles and the walls began to close in on it. The students’ behaviour and attendance began to drastically decline which resulted in multiple teacher turnovers. My class had gone through five teachers in four months.  

It was sometimes hard to let the teacher go because the class had formed bonds with them. One teacher named Brother Roundtree made hefty promises to us, that he was going to be the best english teacher we ever had and that he was going to work us to our full potential. The whole class including me became ecstatic. Then he just decided to leave, abruptly, our hearts were broken. We were then introduced to another teacher named Brother Ishmael but he was fired because he told us too much. After we coverned baseline history, he took us deep into the Black Panther movement and had us all ready for a revolution. We would watch “The Boondocks” and Tupac interviews in class. Then every Friday we would listen to songs like The Coup’s “The Guillotine” which states

“Hey you!
We got your war
We're at the gates
We're at your door

We got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run”

Along with Dead Prez’s “They School”  with lyrics like,

“They schools can't teach us s***

My people need freedom, we trying to get all we can get

All my high school teachers can suck my d***

Telling me white man lies straight bulls*** (bulls***)”

There was a method to his madness, but the school didn’t really appreciate all its student running around repeating these lyrics, so he was fired. From the way that my parents reacted when I told them I knew that I would probably be changing schools. However, this wouldn’t be my first rodeo I would be moving to my fourth school before the eighth grade.

Thursday, December 12th 2013 was my first day at Hill Freedman World Academy. I remember walking into the classroom and all the students eyes were on me. The teacher introduced me to the class and she gave me a seat in the back. I don’t really remember much about the rest of that day but I quickly made friends through my time there. Everything was good on the social scene but my family and I realized that my grades started to slip.

I had consistently gotten A’s and high honors at all the other schools  that I had attended. But it seemed that this new school didn't think that my work was worthy of their A’s. It was at that school that I received my first B on a project, I was baffled. I also was not caught up on all the material that they had learned so they made me attend after school classes with the teachers. I was not thrilled but I did my best and excelled enough to get out of the after school program. Things started looking prosperous again and I was able to complete middle school there and graduate.

One of my favorite schools that I attended was my first, Ivy Leaf Elementary School. I remember my first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday. My mom dressed me in a pink polo dress with pigtails in my hair. I was armed with a Dora backpack and a Bratz lunch box and was ready to conquer the world. Even though I eventually had to wear a uniform I always felt like an important and valued individual. Even though I was so young my teachers respected my opinions and I always spoke my mind.  I also excelled at the work that they were giving me with flying colors.

I remember one day, after I was already put in the most advanced 1st grade english class, we were working on reading words on the board. It was a game that the first graders of Ms. Katrina’s class took very seriously, and I was the reigning champion.

I had just conquered my entire class and was on my way to my seat Ms. Katrina called me out into the hallway and about four other teachers were out there. I remember looking up at them while they all towered over me and decided my fate. I had no idea what they were talking about but it alarmed me. When they were done with the conversation Ms. Katrina told me to get my belongings and go with her. I was moved up to second grade math and reading and I ran into headfirst unafraid, like soldiers in a war.  I don't remember much about the reading class, besides the fact that I was given my first chapter book which was a “Junie B. Jones” novel.

The class that really stuck with me was math. I remember the teacher was a heavy set light skin woman who was so loving even though the students thought of her as a tyrant. I remember that the walls were a warm  yellow and my desk was right near the teachers and I loved feeling like my questions were prioritized.

Moving from school to school affirmed my belief change is inevitable and sometimes we get thrown into it very unexpectedly, like on the last day of school or in the middle of the school year. However most times it can have, a good effect on our lives. I didn’t want to change schools four times before my eighth grade year but I am thankful for the experience and adaptation skills that it gave me. I was able to be in environments where I felt right at home, but I also was in environments where I was one of very few people like me. I had to learn how not only to survive but thrive in the new places so I could be my best self. In the areas where I felt at home I had to make sure that I didn’t get too caught up with my friends and activities and focused on my work and in the schools where I didn’t feel so at home I had to make sure that I was maintaining healthy relationships with people my age along with my work. When my parents decided to put me into new schools I was always the last to know but I didn’t let that deter me from taking the change like a champ. We must march boldly into unfamiliar situations because how we perform in them decides how strong we really are.  

Bettering Myself

My friend Abby untucked herself from under the covers, pulling the blanket off of herself. She slowly climbed out of her bed and was now up on her feet. She took no more than seven steps before reaching the door. She placed her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and walked out of her room. She left the door open, knowing she was going to return to her room eventually. She walked at a normal-pace as she was approaching the other room down the hall. Abby was young, maybe nine or ten years old. She got to the front of the door, in front of the room. She placed her hand on the doorknob, quickly opening the door, pushing it open, and what she saw next, she was nowhere near prepared for.

She didn’t trust anyone with this story, anyone but me, and here I am sharing it. She remembers this vaguely, just enough to understand somewhat of what was going on. It was believed to be a weekend because both of her parents were home, and she barely saw them home together unless it was the weekend. Her mom didn’t work on weekends, only weekdays, and her dad always came home early enough for her to see him before she went to sleep for school, or just to sleep in general. Abby didn’t realize it then, but she realizes it now. Her parents had been fighting more frequently. She guessed it was because she gotten used to them screaming at one another and constantly fighting, Abby constantly ignored it, but she knew how it made her feel, and she knew that she didn’t like the feeling, causing her to ignore it.

Growing up, Abby wasn’t the best version of herself that she could be. She was mean to the students at school and at her program for after-school. She never really cared about how she treated them or what she said to them, as long as she felt she had power. She also didn’t pay much attention to her parents and was usually in trouble with them. It was hard to believe for someone her age, but it was true.

Yelling, screaming, inappropriate words, things being thrown, it started like that. Abby didn’t know why it was happening, but she knew it was happening. Abby was in the other room with her baby sister, her room, the place where she felt most safe, and the only place for her to go. Her parents weren’t in the room with her but in another. She remembers being on her bed, and her baby sister in her baby bed next to her, crying. Abby didn’t know what was going on. Her parents then came into the room. They were still yelling, maybe about the baby, maybe about money, She was not sure, but she knew they were fighting.

Seconds later, their yelling got louder, and Abby started crying. She was scared. She didn’t know what was going on, why they were fighting, or what they were fighting about. She was scared not knowing what was going to happen, she didn’t want there to be a next. The fighting of her parents hurt her, but not physically. Abby tried to yell at them, wanting them to stop, but it didn’t work. Abby’s grandpa then walks into the room and tries to make them stop fighting, but they still didn't. It kept going for a while, but they eventually came to a stop.

Time passed and Abby was now tucked in her bed. The lights were off, but she was still awake. She couldn’t sleep. Abby lay there, awake. There she was in bed, her dad in the other, but not her mother, not her. She didn’t know where her mom was.

Suddenly, noises began. They got louder and didn’t stop. She didn’t know where the noises were coming from, neither did her dad, and certainly not her baby sister, but she knew they were coming from her mom. Her dad then said out loud “go see what your freaking mom is doing.”

Abby untucked herself from under the covers, pulling the blanket off of herself. She slowly climbed out of her bed and was now up on her feet. She took no more than seven steps before reaching the door. She placed her hand on the doorknob, turned it, and walked out of her room. She left the door open, knowing she was going to return to her room eventually. She walked at a normal-pace as she was approaching the other room down the hall. Abby was young, maybe nine or ten years old. She got to the front of the door, in front of the room. She placed her hand on the doorknob, quickly opening the door, pushing it open, and what she saw next, she was nowhere near prepared for.

In front of her was her mom, struggling to get out of the window while crying. She froze, then ran towards the window, yelling and begging for her mom to stop immediately. She pulled her mom away from the window and they then sat down on the floor together, crying. Her mom said, “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t want to do this anymore.” Abby didn’t know what to say or think, but she was hurt and she couldn’t believe what was happening. She didn’t want to lose her mom.

Her grandfather then walks in and does his best to calm them both down. It took a while to get her and her mom settled, but it happened. Abby then walks back into her room, worried. She couldn’t sleep knowing if her mom was now okay or not. She snuck out of her room and checked up on her mom, only to see that she was peacefully sleeping.

Ever since that day, Abby grew up with the mindset of having to watch everything she said, as well as her actions. The thought of losing someone she deeply cared about scared her. She never had to think about stuff like that. She didn’t want the reason for others to feel hurt, was because of her. She didn’t wish that on anyone, even though sometimes it seemed like others did deserve to feel hurt, but she knew that wasn’t right. Abby changed her ways and grew up a caring person. She knew what not to say and what not to do. Although Abby herself has gone through difficult times, not once has she done anything to make it “even.” She constantly did the right thing and let things go, coping in her own ways, and trying her best to move on with life.

After hearing about this story, I realized the person I was. I was a person I didn’t like, and a person I wouldn’t like if I was someone else and I met myself. I didn’t want to lose the people I loved the most due to the way I acted. I didn’t want the things I said and the actions I took to push people away and make them feel terrible, and I never wanted anyone to hurt themselves, especially not because of me. She allowed me to realize the person I was, and that if I continued acting the way I did, I could hurt someone badly.  I began thinking about how I could better myself for myself and for others. I started changing my ways and being more positive. Not everything had to be a competition and not everyone was seen below me. I let people in and I made sure those around me would not feel the negative energy they did before, from me. I only wanted to act the best possible version of myself I could, and to spread positivity. I no longer felt a need for others in the world to feel the hurt I did or do. I was a much better person than that. I constantly grew up thinking I had to look out for everyone and anybody I possibly cared about, which was everyone I met and knew. I looked out for everyone, even those who have done me wrong. I didn’t believe in revenge or anything cruel, just forgiveness and moving on.  I cared more for people and less for myself. I changed for the better, as a daughter, a friend, and as a student.

Broad Street One

It was the morning of May 3rd, 2015 I had just woken up around 4 am. I was waking up a lot earlier than I normally would, and was feeling very tired because of it. The morning was cold, so I decided to dress in an undershirt, and then my blue Students Run Philly Style shirt on top because I had to represent my running team. Besides that, my outfit consisted of running shorts, a normal pair of socks, and my running shoes, all of which had become normal wear for me when ever I had a run. After getting dressed, I proceed to go to the kitchen, where I tried to eat breakfast, but I was feeling so worried and anxious, that I couldn’t eat anything. Anything that I did eat, I vomited. You may ask, why were you so worried that morning. I was feeling worried because that day happened to be the first time I was going to run the Broad Street 10 Miler
Let's back this up a little bit though to the night before, where the story starts. It was my eighth grade year, and my first year trying students run. I had figured, "It's my last year here, why not try a sport?” I decided to join Students Run Philly Style, an organization that helped kids participate in distance running for free. I was enjoying the season all the way up to the Broad Street run. Although I was one of the slowest runners on our team, I really enjoyed being on the team.

Our season leading up to Broad Street was comprised of running distances that were getting longer and longer until we could run ten miles. Everyone on my team and me had been putting in so much effort, training 3 or 4 days a week, and always trying our hardests at those practices. By the time we were getting close to Broad Street, we had already gotten to ten miles, and I felt okay with running distances that long. I was still feeling worried though, and I wasn't sure why. All these feelings had followed me to the night before the run, when our team was having a celebration dinner. All the coaches, parents, and kids were bringing food to eat, and celebrating what we had accomplished. We had been eating and talking, and it was all really fun, but through the whole thing I was still feeling worried about the run the next day in the back of my head. People were talking about the race tomorrow and lots of the things they were talking about made me excited or happy, like when my coaches were talking about what it felt like when you crossed the finish line. At the same time, I kept thinking about things that worried me when they brought up certain situations that could happen. Like when they brought up finishing the race, my mind started thinking about having to do the whole race, and the physical struggle of doing it. I was also thinking about doing the race and how hard it would be all night as I tried to fall asleep, and all the way till I woke up. At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking of how much time and effort I had put into this, and how I had to finish the race.

The morning of the race, I was extremely worried, so worried to the point that my arms and legs were shaking, and couldn’t stop until we started running in the race. I had been getting myself so worried about the race from all the things I had been hearing from people. I had been getting myself so worried about how all these new experiences would go, and what would happen. While I was getting ready and everything, I just kept trying to calm myself down, and think of good things that would happen. I kept trying to think to myself, “You’re going to do great. You can do this,” or anything to keep positive thoughts in my head. When we got to the starting line, and I was waiting with all of my team, I was still just as, if not even more worried. Eventually, the time had come to get into the crowd of people all waiting at the starting line, which took about an hour

It felt like it would never come, but we finally started the race, and I began to feel significantly better once we began the race. Around the start of the race, I was having a bit of a hard time, but still trying to focus on keeping myself running. I was running with one of my friends and coaches, and it was really helping to talk with them while running, and trying to keep my mind off of all the things I was getting myself worried about. My stomach had been feeling extremely nauseous before the start of the race, but after we began and I started trying to focus on running and forget what I was thinking about, it started to go away. The more I tried to think about the happy thoughts like finishing the race, the less I started to think about the bad thoughts like if I didn’t finish the race, or if something else bad happened. I started feeling a lot better, and I was getting less worried as we got farther through the race.

As we were getting farther into the race, I was having a hard time running.  I was to distracted from being tired, but I was feeling happy about how I was doing so far, and that I was still going. It also really helped me feel better when at different points I saw friends and family on the sidelines cheering me on. It made me feel confident in myself, and I thought to myself that I should try my hardest to make them proud. At the beginning of the race, I was worrying if I would finish or not, but at the point I was at, I was starting to feel confident in myself that I would be able to finish. Me my friend and my coach kept going, and it was feeling like it was taking forever. Eventually though, I finished the race, and was feeling a lot happier. I was really tired and exhausted, but very proud of what I had accomplished. I sprinted across the finish line like my life depended on it, and was overjoyed once I crossed the line. I slowed down to a walk, and continued to go at that pace, smiling, and heading towards the tent where I got my medal. I walked through the crowds, got my medal, got the free water and snacks they were giving out, and then met up with the rest of my team. We all were congratulating each other on finishing, and how great we did. Later on my mom also found where me and my team were, and was telling me how proud of me she was, and it all made me feel happy with what I had accomplished.

After finishing, I thought back about how worried I had been at the beginning, and how unnecessary all of it was. When I was younger, I got worried before lots of big events that I participated in, and this was one of the biggest events I had participated in ever . There were so many events that I had tried in the race that was brand new to me. Like the fact that it was the first race longer than 9 miles that I had ever tried, or that it was only less than a year since I had started trying running and I was already trying the Broad Street Run. After seeing how I had reacted the morning of the race to all the worries I had, I felt pretty safe saying that I wasn’t the best person when dealing with change, especially large events like trying Broad Street the first time. I still felt pretty happy to say that I was able to finish the race, and all of my friends and family were all very proud of me. I was feeling very happy that I had made the decision to join Students Run at the beginning of the year, and even though it was very hard and I had a very difficult time dealing with my emotions, I wouldn’t want to experience it any other way.

This is Dedicated to You

To be completely honest, 2017 was the most difficult year of my life. That’s really saying something because I genuinely thought that my days in middle school had taken that spot. Valentine’s Day is usually supposed to be a day filled with love and positivity, but all I got was bad news and unavailable heart-shaped donuts. I was prepared to hand my mom the roses I had received at school, but when I walked in my house, there was unexpected and terrible news.  To sum up the rest of that day, I now have a larger hatred towards cigarettes.  

At that point I really had no idea what I was about to experience. I knew what was going to come, but the false hope along the way was incredibly unnecessary and cruel to my family. I constantly had the thought floating around in my mind, she survived breast cancer before, actually, twice, so she’ll be able to fight through this too. I always knew she was strong. I thought that she was going to be okay, so I believed that her strength would shine through once more. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I think that still continues to be the main reason of why I get upset when I think about the whole journey: she no longer had the fight in her. That’s what hurts the most.

My mom would always try to attend as many appointments with her as possible, so she could report back to my family about what had happened. At one point she was given a confident, “Just about 50% of the tumor is all gone!” from the doctor. I’m still angry about this. You’re a doctor, someone who is supposed to be specialized in helping people, but all you did was give us all wrong information and a wrong sense of hope in exchange for our money. I hope you felt guilty while telling her that when it absolutely was not true.

The sound that would come out of her mouth every other minute or so replicated every exaggerated smoker cough because the years of chain smoking cigarettes had finally caught up to her. Her eyes drooped, and perked up when something decided to forcefully exit her lungs. The arm that covered her mouth was wrapped with icy veins that showcased skin and bones that did not suit the sudden lack of fat. “I wanted to lose weight, but definitely not this way.” When her body became more frail and sickly due to the multiple chemotherapy sessions, all of her hair had been gone by then. She looked like an entirely different person. I guess I never really realized the huge difference until the middle of her journey. I can’t even imagine what it was like to wake up after having multiple chemo treatments. I’m sure it was absolutely horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and it didn’t even up paying off in the end.

“I read an article about a woman who was forced to take her garment off for her license photo. I can’t go like this. If I recover, there will be no way for people to recognize me.” My aunt explained to me how she was due for a new photo, and by that time she barely had any fuzz on top of her head. She bought head wraps in every color. She wanted to be able to match with her outfits and not feel too insecure about herself. Her frail hand reached along the table, grabbing her ID while her other hand clutched a tissue for whenever she coughed. My eyes shifted over to the pea green nightshirt hung low on her shoulder, revealing bones that had never been that visible before. I didn’t want to stare too long, so I shifted my attention back towards the flower place settings on her dining table.  

“Here’s my old one.” I lifted my head back up, unexpected tears forming in my eyes after I stared at my aunt’s transformation. It truly was heartbreaking to see the shocking change. On the left was a slight smile with rounder cheeks, a signature grey short haircut, with dangling earrings to top it all off. The person on the right was entirely different, and she took a slow slip of her ginger-ale while setting it back down onto the table. She wore the same glasses for years, but they suddenly looked to be abnormally large for her face. I rapidly blinked my tears away, taking a deep breath in. That night I asked my mom if she noticed it too, and she did.

The amount of times I picked at the raw skin on my thumbs at her funeral was unable to be counted. It was awkward, and I was stressed. It was two days before my birthday and it was utterly depressing. I didn’t want to hear birthday wishes at my great aunt’s funeral, I wanted to hear her sing to me through the phone and be able to expect an early card in the mail. That was her thing: she always sent everyone cards for their birthdays and Christmas. When my mom had handed me a yellow envelope the night of my birthday, I crawled into my bed and bawled my eyes out. I kept it right next to my bed, tucked right under my CD player. It’s always the thought that counts. My aunt was sick and still kept my birthday in mind no matter how terrible she felt, and that absolutely ruins me. I can only hope that I will strive to be that kind and thoughtful. The next morning I could barely open my eyes. The top lids were so puffed out I could barely recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. My hands reached up to slightly pull at my undereyes while inching closer to the mirror, the purple veins being more present than ever before.

Speaking of being kind and thoughtful, that was the complete opposite case for my cousins, and even my uncle. “Oh, so I guess you’re the special one.” I stood in the middle of the church with folded arms, a slight scowl formed on my face. I decided to not respond, because of course they always have something to say. And so what if I am? I was there to visit and help her out, where were you? To this day, it still makes me irritated that they even had the nerve to act so insensitive towards me. She specifically asked me to go with her to work, and asked me to help with things around her house. I tried to block that out because it isn’t what matters at this point. I know I did something good, and I’m not going to let the words of others take that feeling away.

Attending school immediately became something that was a struggle for me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, only those who I really trusted. Even then I felt like I was a bit of a bother, regardless of all the times my friends told me it was completely fine to release my emotions. It didn’t help that I have a really guilty conscience about everything. My mind constantly felt empty and soon there became a lack of motivation and a constant state of unhappiness. I grasped onto little things that would make me feel better, music being a huge outlet. Although it helped me temporarily, I still felt like I was dragging myself around with a rain cloud over my head. I never used to fall asleep around 8 o’clock, but there I was doing it multiple nights a week. I was tired of not only being in school, but being forced to socialize, of constantly being sad and emotionally exhausted. I kept being questioned by my mom, but I never really wanted to answer and say why I was upset. I always answered with a monotone, “I’m just tired.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, but I really didn’t feel like getting into a whole discussion with her about the situation.

To this day, I still feel the same way but not as extreme. I knew the consequences of being around to support my aunt, but it never fully occurred to me until the moment finally came. It was bittersweet; she no longer had to suffer, but it opened a new thought process I had never experienced before. This was the first time I’ve had a chance to fully process the whole journey of what has happened, and little pieces of her are everywhere I go. Jewelry, furniture, photographs, recordings. I face every single day with negative thoughts and constant stresses, but they’re slowly becoming less and less as I attempt to become more optimistic and positive about situations. Remembering the good times and having physical remembrances has reminded me to not only treat people with kindness, but to also not take what I have for granted. Everyday I am attempting to build up my strength towards the level she had. I hope she’s proud of me.

Hair has always been a hard subject for me. How do you want it cut? How short? How long? Why do you have so much hair on your arms? You missed a spot. Growing up I always thought about hair as something that defines you, that hair gives you character, that hair gives you your identity. My mother always had crazy hair; blue bob, blue and bleached mohawk, and other combinations. Everyone always loved her hair so I thought my hair might mean something to me. You can style it, dye it, cut it, crimp it, you can do anything to your hair. That's what I love the most about it, but of course I was cursed, with dark, thick, hair. This left me with the hairiest arms and legs known to mankind. I was never praised for any of the hair on my body, it was more a disadvantage than anything else.

As I walked up to the lunch line, my young 3rd grade self never saw her coming. I felt a presence near me. My long thick dark brown hair that was to my lower back was lifted. I felt the wind rush to my neck. I turned around wiping the person behind me with my lushes locks. A 5ft tall girl was standing behind me. Maxine. I saw one of my hairs fall from her fingers to the ground. I looked her in the eyes as I said, “Don’t touch my hair.”

The girl stared at me with her short bob of blonde hair and her glazed blue eyes. She replied,“It is just so pretty. I like to touch it.”

“ Well I don’t want you to so don’t.” I was two people away from the front.

I grabbed the boats of crackers and cheese sticks and walked off to sit on the yellow bench of the cafeteria table. That wasn’t the last time she struck. Everyday I would get in the lunch line and like a car trying to start I heard her engine roar then choke out as she stopped right behind me. One touch and I would turn around and smack her hand. Sometimes I was too late.

One day I was standing in line waiting for everyone to get back from the bathroom. As we were waiting, Ms.Johnson would scan over the line of children but she stayed a little too long on three people, Maxine, Joyce, and I. I scratched my head, why are staring at me? Am I doing something wrong? Maybe I should step a little more into line. As I side stepped into line everyone was back from the bathrooms. We climbed up the stairs. I stopped on the platform to turn to go up the other flight. My arm was grabbed tugging me back.

“Shilo, go to the nurse please.”

“Okay Ms.Johnson.” I went through the second floor doors. The nurse looked at me. I looked to my right and what do you know Maxine is here. I sat in the small chair closest to the door. My eyes were glaring in the direction of Maxine as she went up to the nurse. Maxine’s hair was checked for lice. Lice? What is that? Well I found out as the nurse pulled a tiny little 6 legged insect from the top of Maxine’s head. My eyes widened. It was then my turn. I walked up to the dreaded chair. The nurse checked all over my thick head of hair. It was 2:30 pm when she started but as the time passed nothing was found. 3:01pm an egg was found in my hair. I was devastated. After that moment a rumor went around saying I gave Maxine lice. I hated my hair. I hated how thick it was. I hated Maxine for making me hate myself. I missed the last day of school because of my lice infestation. No one talked to me.

As I grew older I realized that the lice infestation that wreaked what seemed like my entire life from then on, didn’t affect my life at all. No one knew or cared about anyone else's past because we were in 7th grade getting lockers and finally being able to switch classes. We were working on a memoir project in english towards the beginning of the year. Mrs.Greenberg, the english teacher from hell, wanted us to all come up with ideas for our memoirs. I have a go to memoir idea, my dog Buster. She let us think for 15 minutes. After those 15 minutes were up she put us into pairs. As she assigned them I knew as per usual that I was going to get the worst partner. “William, Guang, and..” Please not me, “Shilo.” My whole face slouched, gravity took over every feature. Of course I was in the only group of three due to our odd numbered class size. Everyone moved to their partners or in my case, group. We formed our t shaped formation right next to the window and a little away from Mrs.Greenberg’s desk. I started first, Guang went next. He started off with pointing at my arm. I looked all over my arm to see what he was pointing at, I set it back down. “What.” Guang said, “You have very hairy arms.”

I looked at my arms. I never realized how hairy they were, he repeated it, “You have very hairy arms,” I felt like Murph from the Yellow Birds when the chapel collapsed. I just wanted to curl up into a ball.

That evening I went home and shaved off all of my arm hair. I was so ashamed to have it. As I was shaving my arms I realized my legs were hairy too. I shaved them. I just went on a shaving frenzy shaving every visible hair possible. I hid my arms the rest of the week because I didn’t want Guang or anyone else to know I felt defeated. I hated everyone from McCall after that point. My hair had helped cause my downfall. At the end of 8th grade I shaved half my head and was made fun of the whole rest of my time there. I was pointed at and talked about, sometimes in another language. I couldn’t wait to go to high school.

My freshman year, I thought everything was going well, I had friends, a boyfriend,  I felt proud of myself. I shaved my head so that bleach blonde mess of a side was gone leaving my dark brown buzzed hair in its place. I was at 30th street station, where I would normally go after school. I was sitting at a table near the entrance off of Market and 30th. I got up and walked over to the subway. I was looking at all of the drinks they had. I grabbed the Coca Cola. I heard a man's voice as I turned around to walk to the counter, “Is that all you want mister.” MISTER. He just called me mister. My body was paralyzed that I forgot to answer the question. There was a lump in my throat as the answer rolled out of my mouth, “yup.” I paid and left. Not just left the subway but left 30th street station. I just walked home. Mister. Do I look like a man? I could feel the tears building up behind my eyes. Throughout my life, I had been mistaken for a boy a couple of times, due to my tomboyish charm that I embraced when I was younger. I looked like a boy. Do I have manish features? The longer I thought about it the more it came true. I looked like a man. I couldn’t even look in the mirror without thinking of punching the reflection of myself. He could have just made a mistake? But he looked me in the eyes.  

Throughout my life I have changed my hair so many times that the rest of myself changed as well. Everyone would always tell me how amazing it was. How cool I was for dying it or cutting it in a “unique” style. I would always thank them and say I love it but, how did it look good. That is all I could think about, are they looking at me or they looking past me, but I’m the idiot that answered. People either hate it or love it and I never understood how I couldn’t have a straight opinion of my hair. It seems like I just hate it but sometimes I wake up and love it then when I see myself again I hate it. It’s mine, I should have a clear opinion but I don’t think I ever will. I have grown to love it the older I have gotten. All I know is after high school there will be nothing holding me back.

Can two worlds combine into one? As a person whose ancestors, descendants, and parents come from another country from the other side of the world, it’s kind of a struggle growing up. Not as a kid really, but it begins when you hit puberty. That age where you need someone, specifically an adult you feel really close to, to talk to about literally everything and anything. Now this can’t be just any adult, it has to be someone that’s understanding of your situation and helpful, not judgemental. Someone who understands your background and where you’re really coming from, who won’t be judgemental. I’m sixteen and right about now, you’d think that I’m writing about how the world judges me for how I dress, or the amount of makeup I do and don’t wear, or the size of my body, or how I do or don’t have a boyfriend, or how I do or don’t always have an attitude towards everything and everyone. You’re wrong, but you’re on the right track.

The Strength of Values at its Strongest

I follow the scent of turmeric, garlic, tahini, red chilli powder to the kitchen, I spot my dad on the right side of the stove making  roasted tomatoes and kous- kous.  My brother, on the other side of the kitchen counter, mashing the potatoes. My mother and aunts busy themselves on the stove top mixing curry until they get the perfect texture. My uncles preparing the turkey along with my cousins. Soon enough, they all spot me and say, “Are you ready for the ‘Barabsgiving?’ This is my dad's  take on Thanksgiving; the combination of Bengali and  Arabic cuisine.

My mother is from Bangladesh, a place many people don’t even know exists. While my dad is from the land of architecture, the capital of all cars known to mankind. They both come from two very different worlds yet they balance each other out perfectly. Then there's myself, I am a physical and cultural mix ; I am the compromise of both cultures . One with a president and as well as very different political system and as well as culture than the other. Another with Sheikh who has say and control overall, alone.  It all surprisingly works, I am still here in one piece and sane. There differences are what balance me out. The understanding that I have amongst it all is that they aren’t actually that different, their environment and circumstances might have been, but the way they grew up as a family is the one thing that makes them separate but yet so close. My parents are both muslim and find that nothing else is more valuable than family.

I walked through the streets of Abu Dhabi there was freedom, you could dress in any fashion,  but then there is respect, respect towards others, respect towards the culture and respect towards religion. Although there were many others who dressed the way they pleased, which was Americanized, as they call it. I remember their shorts and tank tops . The majority of the people are Muslim, they wear Abayas and or Niqabs, black gown- like clothing that drape their whole body. The niqab which is common amongst females for covering most parts of their faces except for exposing the eyes. Even through the normal 100  degree weather they stay consistent with their traditional and religious values. This is what I see with my mother, no matter what the environment  or circumstance is, she never abandons her religious values.

September 11, a date that will be carved in all of history’s books and works this is also the very same date that will carve into my mothers brain and heart until the day she dies. It was the decision of whether to be safe or abandon her religion. The terrorists who attacked the twin towers were stated to be Muslim “those who wear turbans and hijabs” my mother had to make the decision to walk away from her religion, bow her head and remove her scarf or continue wearing her abaya and hijab and hold her head up high as she did everyday. She wrote in her journal that same night as she did every day the words went as followed.

“This date whether I record it or not will be engraved in my brain forever, many are telling me to loose the hijab and abaya for the sake of my own and my child’s safety, they say I can not walk in  the streets and be looked at the same, life has changed. How can I lose it when losing my hijab and abaya mean losing me, my humanity and who I am? Without these things I will no longer be Romona, wife of Mohammed Ali Siddiquee and Mother of Aysha. If I don’t show respect and hold on to my religion during these times then how will I guide my own daughter and family and set any example, I will be a failure to not only my religion but to my family. Letting go of the hijab and abaya is letting go of me and who I am. So no I will continue wearing my scarf and walking out these same doors holding my head  high, those who committed this horrendous attack are not Muslim, if they were true muslims they could never bring harm to others, they will be punished for their doings they will face tremendous consequences. Putting this scarf down means surrendering and feeding into a false “truth”.

So my mother continued wearing her hijab and never once has she walked out the house without it or feels any remorse, she knows what she is doing she is doing for her religion and herself. Her hijab is what makes her who she is and is a crucial part of her how she was raised and her values.

“Mohammed Ali” Not the world renown boxer but my father. His full name is Mohammed Ali Siddiquee. After 9/11 many people with the name Mohammed were harassed and interrogated since it is a very common Muslim name this however did not impact my father as it did to many others. He was pressured by others a numerous amount of times to change his name to something else since it wasn’t safe and it would make him an easy target. But my father knew a name is one of the most important things that makes a person who they are. It gives them identification and ideas and things to signify them. People hold family titles and as well as accomplishments with their name. To remove a person’s name is to remove their accomplishments and a personality. Making someone who they are. My father's name means more than everything to him, my grandfather name all of his children very carefully each holding a special meaning to him, and my grandfather had recently died only 5 months before 9/11 making the name even more meaningful and special to my father. One of the few things he had left to hold on to from my grandfather. Replacing his name would mean replacing all memories and accomplishments associated with the name and the importance or presence of my grandfather in his life, basically removing a part of him and who he is. His whole life attached to one name.

Changing his name would be stripping him of his identity and what he strived to become his entire life so he stuck to his name and what would come with it.

Both of my parents and their encounters and decisions make me who I am today everything I do, I do for them not out of obligation that they both came to America to provide a life for us, each of their countries individually provided great opportunities but they both knew that in order to live a life with both freedom and opportunity America was the right place. They both sacrificed what was comfortable for them to provide a more opportunistic life. In that kitchen, that day, I realized how we were all from different backgrounds and cultures, but yet, we all shared the same values of family and religion.

My name is Zahira. I’ve had this name since birth it was given to me by my mother. I was kindly named after my brother Zahir, yep how original. When I was younger I realized people would come up to me and say “Hey pretty girl, what’s your name” and I would answer in my oh so cute voice replying “Zahira” with a cheeky smile. I wondered if that’s where it all began, this long journey of insecurity that I tend to wrap myself around like a blanket.

When you’re younger you never tend to realize or care enough to correct someone when they trip upon your name as if there was an imaginary foot there causing them to misstep. You don’t realize these things as much unless your name isn’t your average Suzy, Rebecca, or even Hannah. When your name is complex and tends to cause people to actually use their brains they often tend to be lazy. They pronounce it the way they want it to sound. You don’t want to be rude and make them sound dumb by correcting them and say “ Sorry, it actually pronounced (Za-ear-uh).” So, you tend to brush it off like it didn’t happen.

The bad part is when you constantly have to repeat yourself to someone when they ask your name knowing within a 5 minute span they’ll ask again because they forgot.  The bad part is when you have to pronounce your name again for that person because the pronunciation is what they stumble on the most. The bad part is not feeling like you fit in because everyone around you has a name that you can remember without even trying.

There was a day I was out with my friend and we were going to meet up with some of their friends. Once we go to them they were rather friendly and were easy to talk to. Then came the part for names and I was excited to hear the names of my new friends. Until this day I still remember their names. Their names are Alicia, Katelyn, Avery, Josh, and Troy. Before I started to say my name I told them that it isn’t the hardest name but not exactly easy either. They agreed that it was fine and so I told them I didn’t particularly like my name but they insisted it was okay. Once I had said that my name was Zahira they then tried to pronounce it, they stumbled a couple of times so I had to keep repeating myself. At first it was fine until Alicia said, “”okay, so I’m not going to remember that can I just call you Z?” I looked at her and my expression read “Umm it isn’t even that hard but whatever,” and I’m pretty sure she could tell. She then continued calling me Z throughout the entire time which was by the way rather annoying since we weren’t close. They all followed along with what she did by calling me Z, but then Troy turned around not long after that and said, “Hey, Z so what’s your real name again I kind of forgot?” I then shot him the ugliest glare I could muster at the time and the friend I had came with saw and replied to him instead.

Have you ever thought about changing your name not just for amusement, but for an actual reason? Lola for me is an escape from living within this nightmare of insecurities. I’ve never wanted anything more than being able to fit in and not like an outcast. The funny part is that people only tend to want to change their name not for fun but for a serious reason. It wasn’t that I was getting bullied or anything but It gets tiring and I’m officially fed up with having to repeat myself for people to understand. It makes me feel like someone is playing with my insecurity purposefully even when they have no idea the effect that my name has on me. Does the name Lola make me feel secure? Maybe. Is the name Lola a mask to hide my flaws? Probably.

I was once watching this movie and the name of that movie was LOL and it was about this girl who goes by the name Lola who goes through highschool with many trials ahead of her. She goes through a lot and has many insecurities and a messed up family. I may not relate to the entire movie but the bases of that movie where I struggle and have many insecurities. Can you guess where the inspiration of my name Lola came from?

I don’t know many people who are insecure about their names. Usually when I say anything about my name to my friends they tend to say things like “Oh you look like a Zahira,” but what does a Zahira look like? I believe we say things like this because we don’t fully understand the meaning behind how a person can look like a word and or their name. We were born with that name, our parents didn’t name us based on how we looked. Most of the time your parents already had your name in mind before you were actually born. So, therefore how can I look like my given name? Impossible right? I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate the so called compliment but it logically doesn’t make sense. I believe this is also a method of trying to make that person feel better.

How is one supposed to cope with having their name trampled repeatedly? How are they supposed to deal with being insecure about the thing that makes them who they are?Some people tend to just suck it up and deal with it unlike me, who actually started with the people closest to me to see how lola would sound. Then, I slowly started using the name Lola instead of Zahira if it was easier for the people. That didn’t make me a coward for not dealing with it how others would but it instead makes me more comfortable with myself.

My family does not know about my name change as of right now but I hope to one day tell them. I want to hope that they will support me but looking back at things like this in the past they weren’t exactly the biggest supporters. I had a cousin who changed their name from Nadia to Aidan and my family still to this day calls them nadia. I believe that’s very disrespectful to not respect a person’s wishes especially if it’s legal.

This problem will be a forever one at least for me it will. I believe you should be most comfortable with yourself and I am not when it comes to my name. I want to either become more comfortable with my name or change my name for good for the reason of making myself comfortable. I don’t try to offend people by getting defensive when I correct them when they mispronounce my name, but it feels like they’re playing with my insecurities if they do it more than once. Therefore, I want to in the future find a solution so I don’t keep feeling insecure about this.

https://www.wevideo.com/view/1050018687

I was sitting in the office of a new school, but with a new guardian. She looked like my mom...she sounded like her, but her breast weren’t as big and she talked a lot more than my mom. Who was she? Why was she enrolling me into a new school? The new arrangements were only temporary…weren’t they? She should know that.

It started the night he came home, the one that left us for her best friend. The one that beat us....introduced terrible habits to her; my step dad was finally home but for how long? My brother and I were in the kitchen eating old, mushy ramen noodles for dinner because they forgot to feed us again. We were listening to the snoring baby in the other room, and bickering parents in the next. The noise got louder and louder. We never did finish our dinner that night.

That nightmare was a recurring dream I would have for nights on end. I’d wake up from it screaming and crying, soaked in sweat with my cousin holding me.

She would tell me, “It’s only a dream.” But if only she knew that it actually happened.

That night I saw something that no first grader should have ever seen: police barging into the house called by a crazy ex-girlfriend and ex-best friend. She told them that my step-dad robbed her. however, the only thing he stole was her heart, which he ended up stomping on in the end.

The police wore shiney badges and really bulky black vests. They all marched to the door that my parents were locked behind. I wanted to tell them it was locked but I was rushed into my room with my brother and was told to lock the door and not let anyone in-especially my step-dad. They made me promise to not let my step-dad in.

The last thing I saw was a man extending a gun towards the locked doors. He kick down the locked door to the room which my parents were in, then BAM, went my door, as it was slammed in my face.

Six years have past...six years of phone calls, letters, and supervised visits. I could see the light in her face again, and I believe it was because she was no longer with my step-dad. People says it’s because she went to rehab, but deep down we all knew that the reality of it was that she left Him behind in that old house in Atlantic City. Everyone believed that it was finally happening, it took the women six years to clean herself up for her kids.

But then what they say is true: once an addict, always an addicted.

She ended up with John again, I felt bad for her. My mother was a kind women, but one thing she wasn’t ever taught was how to love. She was young, she didn’t understand that you shouldn’t have to do things in order for someone to love you; that you shouldn’t have to change who you are.

My mom had a rough childhood, she lost her mom at a young age and her living situations after that weren’t perfect either. She was labeled damaged and stupid because she couldn’t learn like the other kids. What she went through made her feel different, and it caused her to rebel against her family. Who wouldn’t want to leave that situation; that life style?

Those things that people told her, built up in her head and she started to believe them, causing her to eventually believe that the love that she gets is what she deserved. Even if it means being physically and mentally abused.

The light dimmed from her face. Months would go by without an exchange of words. One day she called, I couldn’t sit still, I was running around to person to person saying, “See! I told you she’d call!”

When I finally picked up the phone she said, “I don’t think I’m suppose to be talking or contacting you.”

“But Mom,” I said, “Wh….” She hung up on me before I could finish, I was left crying for days. I was stuck in a bubble that no one could bust in or out of.

Months dragged by until we got another call, but I wasn’t the receiver of it my aunt was. My aunt was at work when she got it.  I tend to imagine that everything slowed down for her when she answered that phone. I believed that she stopped cleaning someone's ass, because she was a nurse's assistant at the time, and ran out the door.

While she was there frantically running around her work trying to put pieces together, I was out shopping with my brother and Uncle for a new Easter dress and as we got to the car, another call went through.

Ring.. Ring, his phone went, and it was my aunt. As soon as he answered the phone there was a sudden change in the atmosphere my brother and I could feel it.

My uncle turned to us and said, “Get in the car.” We obeyed.

In the car we watched my uncle pass back in forth at the front of the car. From time to time he would stop, say something, and rub his prickly beard, in what it seemed like, frustration. Time ticked by of the same pattern; walk, walk, turn, look at my brother and I, say something, rub his chin, walk, walk again. It was a continued cycle.

Eventually the silence in the car was broken without looking away from our uncle, my brother asked, “What do you think happened?”

I turned to look at him and said, “Either she got fired from her job or someone died.” Josh, my brother, looked at me. He didn’t say anything else but nodded and we both turned to look at our uncle again. By this time he had already put his phone back into his pocket and had walked to the side of the car. He opened the door, and got in. The ride home was uncomfortably silent, besides the engine that was roaring and the traffic around us. Before we pulled out of the parking lot, some words were said and questions were asked. All that was needed to know was that Josh and I would find out what happened when we got home.

At home, no one was home. The house felt so much smaller because of all the tension and anticipation. I didn’t favor the atmosphere so I hid in my room.

Down stairs the dog began to bark, the next thing I know I’m down stairs on the couch, with my head faced down in the cushion. I was crying, my aunt was crying, my brother was crying and my uncle was just there holding us.

Looking back, I realized I didn’t know why or who I was crying for. When my aunt came home that night she had called my brother and I downstairs to talk, which was a bad sign at the start. The first words were “I’m sorry.”

That night I found out my mom had overdosed on heroin. At the time I was 13, I was hitting about 4 years of living with my aunt. It was half as long as living with my mom. Looking back I realize it was a sad experience, but not because I lost my mom but rather because I didn’t know the severity of the situation.  I reacted the way people expected me to, with tears in my eyes longing to be left alone; It seemed appropriate.

At the funeral people cried and moaned and, yes, I was sad. Though, not to the point where I felt depressed; she was a shadow in my life. My mom was a blank screen. You couldn’t read her, she barely showed emotion. How was I supposed to mourn someone like that? She was and still remains my mother, nonetheless and she will always have that place in my heart.

If I am being completely honest, because I didn’t have complete contact or a viewing for her funeral, I still believe from time to time that she is still out there somewhere.

I always wanted a job for the same reason that most people want jobs, for money, but I never knew how much you would have to do for $7.25 an hour. From the countless numbers of wings needed to be sauced to the progress of cleaning the flyers know as filtering. I have done many summer projects, varying from taking classes to volunteering, but Wingstop was another beast. A hungry beast wanting my energy and time. Wingstop is a fast food franchise with its main food item being bone in and boneless chicken wings. I worked the one on Aramingo in Philadelphia and I dislike working there. I don’t say hate because I have been able to find light in the darkness such as having somewhat flexible hours. I dislike Wingstop as anyone who has worked in fast food before. The fast past and little pay of fast food is something I think few people would enjoy. Everyone I know says who worked in the fast food industry says they learn so much, but they don’t talk about the struggles of working. The countless hours on your feet or the lack of tips that people give. They are blocking those unpleasant memories of doing bone aching work and only remembering how you learn about to make unhealthy food in less than five minutes.  

The worst part of the job is dealing with rude customers. I can’t remember the countless times customers feel the need to argue about mistakes they have made like wanting to change sauces last minute or ordering the wrong thing, saying the cashier misunderstood them. Sometimes, they had young children or grandchildren ordering food and wonder why they don’t get boneless chicken instead of classic. However, I shouldn’t complain much because I got the job without doing much. I got the job on June 10, 2017.

“Hey, Thila wants to talk to you about the job. Meet me at the 25 bus station. So we can go together,” said Sabrina over the phone.

“Okay, thanks!” I answered. I was on my way home from school. It was a breezy Wednesday. My sister, Sabrina, has worked in Wingstop for about a year now and she went to high school with both the manager and assistant manager who are sisters. I have met the assistant manager, Alondra, one or twice, but we don’t talk much because my sister doesn’t like me talking to her friends.

I was nervous about meeting Thila, the manager because I never had a job before and I wasn’t sure what she would ask. I thought about all the typical questions that may be asked like “why do you want the job?” or “what is one of our weakness?” My sister told me that it was a sure thing, but I still had to put my best foot forward or at least show-up.

“Hey, this is my brother,” said my sister passing Thila to go into the kitchen to clock in.

“Hello, nice to meet you,” I answered with my shaking hands out to Thila.

“Nice to meet you,” answer Thila.

I sat down on the light brown seat in the front of the store. The store is small and in a weird location. It’s filled with Tv’s all turned to sports event channels: football, baseball, and tennis, but I don’t see soccer. I never understood how people could be entertained by the repetition of sports. The constant kicking or throwing of a ball into something seems so boring to watch. There were barely any customers in the store. Thila looked bored and facetiming with someone on the phone. The store is “aviation-themed” from the propeller on the side of the cash register to the photos of pilots covering the walls.The walls are covered in green and a dark off-white color. The green reminded me of the green from Ben 10. I don’t remember much from the “interview” because I wouldn’t call it an interview. Thila said something along the line that she was tired and just gave me the job as a cook. I started training the following Friday.

“Are you high?” asked Mark as he pulled the red lever in to stop the oil from moving.

“No, I’m not high! I just need more time to figure this out” I said.

I could feel all my nerves tremble in fear as I hold the metal hose pouring hot oil into the fire’s fryer with old rubber gloves. I could only think about the numerous times I have spilled soup, water, and other liquids on myself, but never oil. I fear how the hot oil could burn my skin and leave Wingstop mark on me for life. I also felt like I was performing an act that I don’t know to a nagging audience of one who surely doesn’t help me but those feelings to go away. Mark was mad because I don’t completely empty the fryer with oil before spilling it with oil. I know it may sound bad, but it was an easy mistake to fix. You would just have to pull the red lever down to stop the oil. My face turned red and I lose the need to try after that question. I wanted to shake the nerves and do a good job. However, I allow Mark to take away my confidence and cause an emptiness in my stomach like the feeling of going down a roller coaster. I felt embarrassed.

Many months have passed since I got hired, about seven months to be exact. I’m was earning $7.50 an hour and still dislike my job. The job was more mindless repetitive at this moment than a nervous adventure. The shifts seem like endless cycles with an unstopping amount of customers. The cycle was sauce chicken, clean, and repeat until the end of my shift. I have learned a lot of things in those seven months such as how to balance school work and a job, how to train other people, and how to deal with annoying customers. I now understand why many people say you learn so much from working in the fast food industry. The most important thing I learned is I’m ready for something new and better. So, I quit on January 5, 2018.

“I have to quit because I have to focus on school.”

“ I understand. When you are right to come back. Let me know,” answer Thila with a face of sadness.

We were in Thila’s office in the back of the store on a cold Friday night. It was a small room with white walls with papers all around. I had to quit because I needed to let go of the job to open myself to find another. I understood that I would not be able to find a new job while working at Wingstop because I would not have time or energy. However, I don’t tell her the real reason I quit because I thought it would be disrespectful to tell her that I am leaving to find a new job. I also wanted to keep my options open if I was unable to find a new job. A job in retail or anything not having to do with making food. I am grateful that I had worked at Wingstop, but it is time that I spread my wings and fly.

To Say or Not to Say

During my freshman year, I got into an altercation with a student during African American History. The topic was police brutality. A classmate of mine opened her mouth, I prepared for the worst, and said, “Black men are always getting shot because they are always up to something.”

As I pressed my teeth into my tongue, attempting to be less dominating as I was often called, I wondered how someone could sound so empty-headed. Nevertheless, I let her continue.

“So look, my family and I were in church one day and a black man came in who was intimidating so someone shot him.”

Now, how could I have been expected to keep calm and not respond to that?

Without even waiting to be called on, I said, “Do you think about things before you open your mouth? Firstly, you couldn’t give me an example of a black man who was unreasonably shot by the police. Instead, you told a story about how your people shot a man who walked into your church. How is that supporting your point? What was intimidating about him in church? Was he singing too loud? Praying to intensely? God, when are you people going to admit that you have an irrational fear of black people? When are you going to admit that you’re the problem? Like…”

I was interrupted by my history teacher, “That is enough Afi.” But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t nearly done, but I let it go.

Later on, my teacher had the nerve to approach me and say, “Afi, what you did today was unacceptable. I didn’t appreciate it at all. The next occurrence of this will result in a progress note.” I was stunned. I was on the verge of getting a progress note for speaking my mind. While the other student, who basically confessed to being racist, or prejudiced at the least, and shooting a black man who came to her church, didn’t receive any backlash. It’s experiences like that that molded me into a less assertive, less honest version of myself because I felt that my words would bring my downfall.

To say or not to say? That has always been a question. Ever since I was young, I’ve gotten into trouble for saying too much. I was raised to always speak my mind, finding inspiration from my outspoken mother. I thought it was so cool how fearless she was. Because of her fearlessness when it came to speaking her mind, she became someone to rely on because of her honest--sometimes brutally honest--truths. But as life continued and after repeatedly being told to be less aggressive and less angry, I was made compromising, self-belittling, and conventional.  

Feeling constricted, I needed something to enlighten me. At the time, though, I didn’t know what it would be. Poetry was something that found me because the idea of poetry never even crossed my mind. To my surprise, it has worked, over the past few years, as an outlet for me to express my opinions without interruptions and get things off my chest. Shortly after my confrontation with my history teacher outside of room 307, a friend of mine approached me with a strange proposition.

“Hey Afi,” she said, “I need a favor.” A favor, of course, I thought. Could anyone give me a break? I was annoyed but a managed to utter, without sounding too irritated, a simple,

“What do you need, Bea?”

“I’ve been meaning to go to poetry club. I think it’d be fun and Mr. Kay is running it. Cool, right?” I was searching for a point as she continued, “I think it’d be nice for both of us.” I must’ve given her a face because she finished slowly asking, “They have a meeting tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

“Are you saying this because you really think it's nice for us or are you just afraid of going alone?”

“Both, I guess. Come on, please!” I figured it couldn’t hurt. Maybe a change of scenery was what I needed to get out of the horrible mood I was in.

“Sure, until tomorrow then.” The next day, I dragged my feet through the school day and when 3:05 hit on that Tuesday in January, I found Bea and we walked towards room 309. Mr. Kay’s room is, arguably, the coziest in the entire school. He has couches and blankets and tons of kids in there all the time. So when I walked in, I immediately felt loads better. After the first meeting, filled with ice-breakers, brainstorms, and talk of competition, I understood that poetry club was the place to be. There were times where I wasn’t sure of myself at all. I didn’t think I was as good of a writer or performer as everyone else. With encouragement, practice, and teamwork, I improved. In April of my freshmen year, with my best friend, Zoey Tweh, I wrote Corduroy. This piece pushed me beyond my boundaries. The piece was written from the perspective of a corduroy bear who loses his owner, Lisa, a little girl, to an incident of police brutality.

There are little girls like Lisa everywhere

In Philly

In Detroit

In the Southside of  Chicago

They are not America’s children

They trespassed in their own homes

Their melanin a badge of its own

A temptation for white men in blue uniforms to forget protocol

Their joy, their presence, their potential

Replaced with teddy bears like me

Yellow caution tape is just as common as jump ropes

They wrap around entire communities

until our breath buckles into submission

Lisa

They have forgotten what it feels like to bury a child

To send their kids to school

praying that they will return home

To report them missing and never get an answer

To call the police and never receive justice

Because to have a black child is to be left in the dark

Avoiding the flashlights as best you can

They have taken too many childhoods

Leaving nothing

But the remnants of  lonely Corduroys

Like me

Corduroy was unlike any piece I had ever written. Police brutality and gun violence were always issues that I wanted to discuss but I never thought about writing it like that. Though that isn’t the first piece of my poetry career, it is the one that showed me the power of poetry.

Two years later, I am still a part of the poetry club and I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Poetry and performing have changed my character for the better. Not only has poetry given me a way to talk about what I want to but it’s allowed me to bring awareness to the things that are important to me. Poetry has allowed me to unearth and expose topics like race relations in America, the ineffective combination of social media and protest, police brutality and the current romanizing and “trendiness” of the African Culture to the world. Poetry has challenged my writing in a way that allows me to craft different tones and personas at my leisure. Poetry has given me a way to find that balance between saying too much and saying too little. It’s been effective, but recently, I’ve been thinking about whether I really needed it. Maybe I wasn’t the problem. Maybe the world needed to change. I believe that we, as people, have found ways to censor people in ways that can be problematic. Everyone should feel that their opinions matter and should be allowed to introduce new ideas to groups. The self will generally change to fit into what the world demands of it. Sometimes, though, the self finds ways around what the world’s expectations like I did with poetry. The world should change for us, not the other way around.

I’m Justin Stewart, a junior that attends Science Leadership Academy. During the first quarter of my junior year at SLA, my class and I would take vocab quizzes every other week.  It sounded easy to most people but was it really easy? For me, it was a struggle because of the anxiety that I have. Anxiety is a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with someone's daily activities. My anxiety first started in fourth grade. We had to do group presentations about what we found while researching how light bulbs worked. It was my groups turn to go up and that’s when my anxiety kicked in for the first time. “Justin lets go” my friend said as I continued to stare at everyone in the classroom. At that moment, I came up with an Idea. I decided to pretend that I was sick and ask to go to the nurse. Surprisingly It worked and my teacher let me go to the nurse.

Before every vocab quiz, we had to write down the words that she posted on canvas in the back of our notebooks. Then we had to find the definition and write a sentence for the word.

On the very first vocab quiz, I was feeling confident because I spent that whole week studying. I thought that I was going to pass it by getting a 10 out of 10,but I was wrong. As my teacher, Ms. Pahomov, wrote the words on the board, I felt really nervous and was afraid to take the test. There were some words that weren’t coming back to me. “You may begin” Ms Pahomov said. I spent the first 20 minutes just staring at the paper. I couldn’t believe that I forgot the words so quickly and so easily. After about 20 minutes, I began to try my best. I started with the words that I remembered then tried to figure out the ones that I had forgotten. Before I had known, time was up. “Put your test in the middle of the table” Ms Pahomov said. As I put my test in the middle of the test, I realized I did it with fear in my eyes. I knew that I didn’t do too well on the test. We then were asked to grade our classmates papers as well, and as we started to grade each other’s quizzes,  I zoned out. I couldn’t focus on grading the test that I had. All I could focus on was who graded my test and what they would think of me.

The next day, I went on canvas to see if she graded the quizzes and she did. I got a 5 out of 10. I did better than I thought I was going to do, but it still brought my grade down. “How can I bring my grade up?” I thought to myself. I then thought about the 2fer essays that she assigns us every week, the weeks that we don’t have vocab quizzes. The 2fers could be about anything as long as they weren’t in first person. I took these essays as opportunities to bring my grade up. Completing  one of the 2fer essays, and I got an 18 out of 25. It wasn’t too bad, but I knew I could do better.

The week after the 2fer, we had another vocab quiz assigned and my anxiety immediately kicked in. But this time I wasn’t scared, I was just nervous. I wasn’t afraid to take this test because I knew some of the words already. So I was even more confident than before,ut I slacked the whole week and didn’t study a lot. When I walked into the room, all I could hope for was the words that I knew were on the quiz so I could at least get some credit on the quiz. When Ms. Pahomov wrote the words on the board, none of the words that I knew before the test were on there. At that moment, every last bit of nervousness crawled back into my body. My hands started to sweat and my heart started to beat really fast. “You may begin.” Ms. Pahomov.” It felt like deja vu all over again. I couldn’t believe that I was getting nervous again. While I was taking the test, the words were coming back to me, or I thought.

The next day I went on Canvas again to see what I got this time. This time I was even more nervous and scared to look at my grade than before. I haven’t seen my grade yet, but I already knew that I did worse than the first quiz. I got a 4 out of 10 and my grade dropped again but not as much as I thought it would. I then thought of the same method I used last time. I then started thinking about my next 2fer topic. I worked even harder than I did on my first 2fer and I did slightly better than I did last time. I got a 19 out of 25. It was better than last time, but once again, I knew I could do better. I had no anxiety when it came to writing the 2fers. I began relying on them to bring my grade up.

The week after our second 2fer was the week for our third vocab quiz. When Ms. Pahomov revealed the words in class, I felt even more confident than the first two vocab quizzes. I felt like the words were easier to remember.  I spent that whole week studying and this time I made flash cards to help me remember,ut they still didn’t help. By the time I got to the classroom, I forgot some of the words. Now my anxiety was even more intense than last time. “You may begin” Ms Pahomov said. As usual, I started out with the words I knew.  That brought my confidence up. But then the words I forgot took my confidence away. I felt like it was happening all over again. Me being somewhat confident in myself, only to get let down in the end. I was tired of it. By the end of class, I was so depressed that I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I went straight to advisory and sat down.

What I learned from this experience is that quizzes are not my strong point.  No matter how much I prepare for them, they will always be a struggle for me because of my anxiety. My anxiety has been going on since fourth grade and I still don’t know how to overcome it. It would prevent me from being comfortable with talking to some of my classmates and doing presentations in front of them. Over the years my anxiety settled down a lot. But it’s not fully gone. When I first started school in Kindergarten, I didn’t talk to anyone because I was afraid to. But now here I am in 11th grade and I am more comfortable when I am talking to people.

December 20th, 2016 was a great day. I remember being in my English class talking to my friends in the back of the classroom sitting on a red sofa. It was at 10:26 am, I went onto Snapchat and took a picture of one of my friend he was wearing blue Adidas pants with a grey hoodie while my other friend ended up being in the picture because she had her head on his lap playing games on her phone. She was wearing black leggings and a pink Adidas hoodie. I showed them the pictured and we all laughed. I continued my day like any other, going to lunch then going to three other classes then school was finished. After school, I would do the usual and walk with my boyfriend to 15th street City Hall.

We would part ways and I would meet up with my mom, we would ask each other how our days went as we walked to 13th and market to her car. That day my mom had asked me if she should go see mom-mom and my mom had been doing so much with the house and the bills and working, and on top of this still taking care of me and my dad making sure we had dinner every night. So I told her that we just saw her on Thursday and she was doing good and that the doctor had just called today and said she was ready to move out because she was improving a lot.  So me and my mom made some pizza and ate it on the couch while we watched tv. The night was normal, I went to bed a little early and was in a really deep sleep, a sleep I hadn't had in awhile.

Then in the middle of the night of December 21st, 2016 I was woken up by screeching cries and shouts of “No, this isn't real!” I sat up trying to get myself out of sleep mode and focus on what was happening. I then realized something bad- really bad had happened and I had the idea of what I thought it was. I went to my mom and dad's room as the screaming and crying was still happening and getting louder as I got closer. I saw my dad trying to hold my mom up from falling on the floor because she couldn't stand. She was the one crying and screaming because what she heard couldn't be true it didn't make any sense. We all immediately went to the hospital to see her. We walked in and told the nurse at the front desk who we were coming to see and everyone got so quiet then they took us back to the room. Pulled back the curtain and there she was. It looked like she was sleeping but she wasn't and even when seeing her I myself thought that this wasn't real. The days that followed I felt like I was in someone else's body just looking out their eyes.

The start of it all. She was supposed to go in to get stents put in her legs and it was supposed to be a day in day out surgery. Then there was something else that was wrong, and then very rapidly there were all of these problems popping up. The hospital became her life. I went to see her in the beginning but over the time it got harder and harder to see her like that and not being able to talk to anyone due to her having a tube. I tried to blur it out and not think about the pain she was going through and not trying to have that image stuck in my head. I knew that she would have never wanted that. It was December 15th, 2016 my mom told me that I should come with her to visit. So that's what I did I got dressed got her Christmas present in a bag and we headed out to the car. While we were in the car I was so nervous, and I was never nervous to go and see her. I was always excited and she was someone I could be myself around. But I was nervous that she would look at me differently because I hadn't come to see her, and I could understand why she would have felt that way. So we got there I sat there for about 5 minutes and then we finally entered the hospital. We got to the front desk and told them what our names were and who we were coming to see they gave us visitor stickers with our names on them so that the workers would know that we weren't just some random people.

My mom had known where her room was because she had been there to see her before and the times before when she went to see her she said that she hasn't really been doing that well, she would have her good and bad days. When she was going to see her she was telling my mom how she missed her daughter Julie and would talk about her granddaughter Alex and how she missed her.The problem wasn't that she was talking about her feelings and what had happened between all of these people. But my mom is Julie and that's what the problem was. So I thought that when we were going to enter the room that she wasn't going to know who I was. But as soon as we walked into the room she knew who we were and she was excited to see us. I went over gave her a hug and kiss and so did my mom. We started talking about what she would do in the hospital and she said she would watch tv and color in the coloring books my mom bought for her. Both me and my mom were standing up talking to her and she kept telling me “Oh sweetheart, sit down right here.” She was moving the sheets and her feet so that I could have a place to sit and that I would be comfortable. My mom said to her “Alex has a Christmas present she wants to give to you.” So I handed her the bag with her present in it. I took it out for her. It was a beanie baby snowman with big eyes and a Santa hat on its head. She said she loved it, but she didn't want to keep it there because she didn't want someone to take it or for it to get lost when she moved out of the place. So we spent a little more time there and then it was time to leave. I kissed her and hugged her. She kept saying she loved me and kept blowing me kisses and I said I loved her and did it back. Then my mom kissed her and hugged her and they said I love you to each other and me and my mom headed to the car to go home.

      Six days after we saw my mom-mom that's when it happened. December 21st,2016 at 2:18 am is when my mom-mom passed away. This was a day that I didn't even think about, that I didn't think would happen for a long time. I thought I had years and years left with her. So much time that she would be able to go to my wedding to be able to see my first child and so many years that I could travel with her and take her to places shed dreamt to go. These are things that I think about all of the time. I miss her so much. The pain in your heart and missing someone you were so close to doesn't ever go away. But you can try to distract your heart and mind with good memories and laughs you remember.

*Gets home*

Oh yeah Ms. Smith said my grade would be in by now lets see. *Pulls out computer and starts checking grade* Wait What? No. A 40%.Oh no how am I supposed to bring this grade up. Why do I try so hard and I always do so bad…. Why??? My mom is going to kill me. Nothing ever goes right for me anymore.

Nothing goes right for anything I do at all. Why am I constantly feeling like I can’t catch a break? Why now out of nowhere does everything go bad? I’m going to fail this quarter now.  I’m supposed to be the one who goes to school and gets good grades. Everyone expects so much of me and I feel like they’ll see this and they will be disappointed. This is too much stress and I feel like I’m dropping the ball. Why can’t things just work out for me?

My mom and dad expect me to be so smart and organized and have everything handled but it’s so hard. I can never just get everything in on time. I try so hard to stay on top of the work but it’s like I miss so much and I don’t even know how to do this. I don’t want to ask for help because then people will think I’m not on top of things.

But I have goals and I gotta be strong. I have much to dwell on but I am going to get nowhere worrying about what happened in the past or what people have to think. I have to go to school and get good grades but I will do good. I will go to college to become successful. This is a lot to juggle all the time everyday but I will be able to do it. I realized that the more and more I go through this that it’s hard but it also makes me stronger and stronger, mentally and physically. Over the course of 2017 my mind is so much further than it was.