Learning Autobiography rough draft by Mary Carrasco Later as an adolescent, I was an active member of my high school’s Girls Football team and Volleyball. I attend a post-secondary institution right after high school; I received my Medical Assistance Certification from Star Technical Institute in Whitehall, PA. I pursue my dreams of obtaining the education I had always desired and found a great job in the medical assistance field. Another event, which shifted my life forever, was accepting a marriage proposal at a young age and marrying in 1991. I made it clear from the beginning that my education was very important to me and marriage would not stand in the way of my pursuing post-secondary studies or even completing high school. When I announced my engagement due to my pregnancy I was, determine to complete all my studies to make a better life for my son. I became a mother in February 1991 and continued to work as a Manager for a retail store until my husband, who had been unemployed since our marriage, found work. When he secured employment, it gave me the financial flexibility to pursue my dream of attaining higher education, In July 1992. Working in the medical field, you gain so much knowledge and then transferring into the mortgage career, I gained lots of experience. My last job I went back to the medical field as that was the quickest job I can find in my area that was hiring. I was so nervous due to not knowing anyone and having to relearn everything all over
My mother, Amy Neuzil, has grit because she works hard everyday to get things done. She is the reason the word grit was invented. She stumbles out of bed every day at six a.m. Then she retrieves my sister, Madison, from her sleeping quarters and dresses her in the fanciest get-up you’ve ever seen. While she is completing that task, she also has to dress for work or college. While cramming a turkey sandwich, blueberries, and five or six bulky blocks of frosted plastic ice into a teeny tiny black insulated lunch bag. After she has finished that magic act, she is practically late for whatever she is trying to get to. So, she frantically gathers Madison into the Buick. Then she starts rushing back and forth through the front door, to grab
Many times, we have memories that we would like to forget, such as an unpleasant or traumatic experience. My memory of my first internship was something that I always tried to forget, along with a lot of other negative experiences in my life. However, now that almost two years have passed, and after reflecting on it time and time again, I began to reclassify that memory as a learning experience rather than a negative experience. In life, we are faced with many obstacles, sometimes on a daily basis. Our society values stories of overcoming life’s obstacles because they are inspiring, interesting and may lead to personal growth.
In that time I was working a full and part time job to help my mother out while she was on disability. In those years I had no idea what I wanted to do and lacked the passion that now drives me. I knew I needed college to be successful but I also knew I was the only one bringing income in for my family. My academics took a backseat for extra shifts and taking care of mother when she was ill. As I left my exam, I remembered that mother from the accident and how I couldn’t of taken care of her if I hadn't taken of myself and emotions. I had failed to do that with my own mother and academics when I started college. I still work a full and part time job as an EMT while pursuing my prereqs for PA school but my passion to become a PA has transformed my lackluster grades into making the dean's
My parents filed for divorce after 18 years of marriage. In addition to the expense of my parents’ divorce, there was a change in my family’s financial status. The pressure to get into an RN program was on high. I tried nursing programs at City Tech, at York, at Adelphi, and at LIU. It wasn’t my time for any of those schools. I took two semesters off, working full-time to help my mom
Finally I have escaped. I was critical about escaping at first but now I know that it was the right choice to make. I escaped with Mary Ingles, a fellow captive. We escaped while on an expedition to find salt away from the village. Mary says we are going home, but I have no home anymore. I was the only survivor of the raid. However, Mary is a kind person and says that I could live with her family. Poor Mary she has had even worse than me she has lost all her children to the Shawnee. I feel very fortunate that I survived my captivity at all. Some of our fellow captives were even burned alive by the indians. I am lucky that I gained their respect by running the gauntlet. Mary and I escaped because they let us go out into the woods to forage
Coming back to school after being away for 17 years has been one of the most emotionally taxing endeavors I've experienced. My career experience was working in the quality control field. Being apart of the industry was very satisfying until the point in which the 2008 recession hit. Having to go through the uncertainty of being laid off and the frustration of trying to reenter the work force with only a high school diploma brought into focus that I needed to finish the bachelor degree I had started. While attempting to find gainful employment I took the opportunity to begin the process of transferring to a school here in California. I had originally started my degree in Lincoln, Nebraska, but moved out to California with my significant other.
I contemplated taking a semester off to have my child and reprioritize my life. However, after speaking my faculty mentor, I received the encouragement I needed to pushed forward and complete my degree. Sadly, I made the ultimate decision to postpone my journey to medical school to care for my family. After graduation, I decided to join the workforce to support my family. As a recent college graduate, I experienced difficulties obtaining employment and this was very discouraging, especially since I was caring for two young individuals. Eventually, I obtained a full-time position at a local community college and have been there for about six years educating minds to achieve their educational
She said that the world was safer when she was growing up. Sandra (Nana) grew up in the sixties in the small town of Fayette. During the sixties, not many houses had air conditioning, including her house. Central air was just becoming available. Including central air, new automatic car gadgets were becoming available. Before automatic car parts, windows were rolled up with a hand crank and trunks were opened with a key. During Nana’s high school career there were no computers; you had to go to the library if you wanted to research a topic. Since there were no computers, she learned to type on a typewriter. Nana’s senior year of high school included many turning points. She married her first husband, started college part-time, and became pregnant with her first child. By her senior year she had the minimum credits to graduate, but still had to stay in school so she took college classes at Spoon River college. She gave birth to her first child, my mom, in August of 1977. She had to quit the program she started at Spoon River so she could take care of my mom. She eventually went to Western University to receive her bachelor’s, but could only go part-time because she had to take care of her second child. Unfortunately, her and her husband divorced in 2000. Nana remarried in 2003 and seven years later received her master’s in education. My Nana has had many learning experiences over her lifetime and is truly
I remember thinking when I got married at 20 years old, that I wanted to be the best wife I could be and everything else would fall into place when the time came. After my husband returned from his first and last deployment to Iraq -- no longer the same; he was mentally and physically broken -- caring for him became a larger priority than everything else. As I adjusted from being a wife to the sole caregiver of my husband, I placed more of my educational aspirations on hold. Again, I told myself that everything else would fall into place. When his younger brother had a life-changing accident, I took him into my home and cared for him and have continued to do so for the past eight years. After my husband and I had children, I started telling myself that I was going to be too old to ever go back to school; I instead focused on my kids’ educational futures. Eventually, I promised myself that I would go back to school, once my kids were in school – I kept that promise to
I grew up in California where both of my parents were involved with gangs and drugs by the time they were in middle school. They grew up like this, getting involved with the wrong people, getting into fights for dumb reasons, even getting in trouble with the authorities. Of course, that was normal for them because they were surrounded by it through friends and family. They continued to live that life style even when they met each other at the ages of 18 and 23. They didn't like each other at first, but they eventually started dating. My mom ended up getting pregnant later that year and tried to take a break from all of it, but my dad didn't stop and that caused some tension and arguing between them.
We are all placed purposefully here to be the light for those around us. With the birth of our third child 7 years ago, I dedicated my time to being home to raise my family while my husband embarked on his military flying career. Our lives have been filled with frequent moves, numerous deployments, and friendships scattered around the world. As we move into the season of our life that the children grow older and my husband nears retirement, we are faced with the challenges that come with my return to the workforce. With no college education, there are more limits to my career options as stated in Your College Experience “American society values higher education” (Gardner Barefoot 7). My desires to have a fulfilling job that I can be proud
I am the first person in my family to attend college; both of my parents passed away before I graduated from high school, I had to stop attending college in 1991 because of financial reasons. I made a promise to myself that one day I would return to college and finish my degree. I have been employed at the same job for over 23 years, during this time I have been passed over for raises and promotion time after time because of my lack of a college degree. In 2014, I decided to return to college and finish what started in 1988. Financially, it has been very difficult with my salary to pay for tuition and maintain financial responsibility for my household. I have a daughter who is also a college; I have taken all kinds of odd jobs to subsidize my meager income.
As i'm riding to school on my bike I realize i've forgotten my backpack I start riding home and when I get there I pack my backpack and lunch. Then I ride to school. When I get there I lock my bike in the bike racks. I stare at my schedule I had mr lo first period. The bell rang and all the students piled into the classrooms. I got to mr lo’s class it had science equipment everywhere. We started off playing a get to know you game which was quite boring until mr lo did a diet coke and mentos experiment. Before we knew it first and second period were over the day was going fast.
Giving an Account of Oneself, a compelling piece of work written by Judith Butler, digs deep into what it means to give an account of oneself and how it is nearly, if not entirely, impossible to do such an activity without becoming “a social theorist” (Butler 8). Butler states “the story of my origin I tell is not one for which I am accountable, and it cannot establish my accountability,” (Butler 37) since the story is always changing. We are not able to give our accounts as the accounts we give will always be told in different lights and we, as beings, are always changing as the norms around us change. The sense of being ties into us not being the same person we were when we came into being, and nor are we the same being as when we begin to tell the story of our origin of being. However, other notable influences, such as Levinas, believe that fully exposing our origin of being would act as a sort of “surplus” (Levinas 79) meaning those we expose our origin of being to will be so overwhelmed with the situation that we would never be able to give an account of ourselves overall. Levinas’ views coincides with Butlers’ on the topic of norms and how we will never be able to act outside of norms when he states, “the moment I realize that the terms by which I confer recognition are not mine alone… I am, as it were, disposed by the language that I offer” (Levinas 26).
Learn it the hard way. That is the way I learned the old adage “no pain, no gain”. It was my first dirt bike race. My heart had been pounding like a drum in a high school band for three days before the race. The race was in the middle of nowhere in Tucson, Az. I arrived on a Friday, my race was on Saturday.