SOGO Personal Narrative: Epiphany

Caitlin O’Pry

SOGO

12 December 2011

A Southern Epiphany

I grew up in the South, Plano, Texas to be exact. It’s a small city about 20 miles from Dallas. While growing up in Plano, there were certain norms I had to adhere to. Football is not a sport, it’s a lifestyle, barbeque is God’s handcrafted gift to the entire southern population, Sunday morning church isn’t optional, and country music is the only form of music known to mankind. A woman is to act like a lady, and if a man isn’t a gentleman, his mother is to be incriminated by the housewife police. These are just a few of the things I grew up thinking because it was what I was told.

When President Barrack Obama was elected and my entire town went into mourning, I took his corny campaign to heart. It was time for a change. I didn’t want to grow up and go to college just to sell my degree to the devil and marry someone I didn’t love because his family is in oil. I didn’t particularly give a rat’s ass what my future bank statements said, I wanted to be a cop since the time I was seven and learned what my father’s gun was. So I traded in my cowboy hat for head gear and my sun dresses for pair of boxing gloves. I began taking classes and suddenly found my true love. Soon after I was on an all boys team, sparring Mexican and Black boys, and getting bloody noses and black eyes on a regular basis.

My mother hated it and made me pay for every cent of it with my own cash. She to this day refuses to admit that her baby girl fights for sport. When I was late for dinner, it was because I was at the gym doing cardio, not boxing boys.

However the southern states have the reputation for being gossipers for a reason, people do talk. There are certain conversational topics that are taboo, like who’s mother got plastic surgery, who’s family is having marital issues or any issues for that matter, who gained ten pounds last semester, but my name was not on the taboo list.

“She must have some real anger issues that we never knew about; she’s hanging out with Mexicans,” or my personal favorite, “she’s becoming masculine.” I wanted to say no you dimwitted idiots, I just like to hit things because my mother won’t let me hit you. I don’t see color, I see people. And I most definitely am not losing my sexuality just because I play what you deem a “man’s sport.”

I had dreams of going pro and then becoming a cop when I retired, but unfortunately my doctors disagreed. I had suffered one too many concussions and was sentenced to a lifetime without contact sports. But that didn’t stop me from giving our town something to talk about when college decisions were announced. Annabelle was going to Oklahoma, Amanda was going to Alabama, Lizzie and John were off to Ole Miss, Kelly was going to Texas, and Katie was going to, where? Colorado Boulder. That’s right Plano, the school where the girls don’t have to wear make-up, the boys climb mountains, and everybody smokes the devils plant.

Texas will always be my home and I will always carry my southern values in my pocket. I will never engage in casual sex, flirt with a married man, or forget the rules of football, but I will never vote for the conservative party again.

SOGO Personal Narrative: Question

Don’t They Know it’s a Choice?

Why do girls in Colorado have eating disorders? Why do they broadcast them? Why do they think that’s the worst thing in the world? Don’t they know it’s a choice? Why do parents tell their kids what to believe? Why do parents teach their children about politics? Don’t they want them to think for themselves? Why do women let their husbands beat them? Why do they stay with him? Don’t they know it’s a choice? Why do kids do hard drugs? Why do they melt away their brains? Don’t they know it’s a choice? Why do girls think that they have such hard lives because they had a bad boyfriend? Why do they think the world owes them something? Don’t they know boyfriends are a choice? What happened to the idea of world peace? If the basis of all religions is morality then why have trillions of people been slaughtered in the name of “their God”? Isn’t killing a choice? If God is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving, then why does he allow these things to happen? Are people inherently evil? Are people inherently good? Does God give us this choice? Why are there Christmas movies but none on Ramadan? Why does the nation believe that the islamaphobia epidemic began on 9/11 when the Oklahoma City bombing was initially blamed on Muslims? Why do people protest a Muslim mosque in New York City when the Taliban never claimed to attack us on a religious vendetta? Don’t they know Muslims have a constitutional right to practice their religion of choice? Was it really the Taliban? If we live in a country of transparency then why was there no plane fragments recovered from the pentagon? If the state doesn’t have the right to kill, why have 27 innocent men been executed? Don’t they know it’s a choice? Why is Texas passing the handguns on college campuses law? Why are guns everywhere in Texas? Why do my friends have guns? Why is my best friend an armed guard? Don’t they know it’s a choice? Why do the French have the best healthcare in world, when the French Canadians don’t? Why does Obama think that sending troops to Libya to take down Kaddafi will make him different than George W.? Why does he insist on being different than him? Why are there child soldiers in Africa? Why does no one focus on the brainwashed white supremacist children in America? Don’t they know it’s their choice? Why do people fear other races? Why do the media portray Muslims as terrorists? Why is 85 percent of American prisons black? Why do people care if I date a mixed Korean? Why does my mom think business school will make me happy? Why does she think it will make me rich? Doesn’t she know it’s my choice? If everyone has good in them, then why was my friend kidnapped in India? Why did the Embassy do nothing to bring her home? Why didn’t she have a choice?

Personal Narrative #2

Tiara De Boer
February 22, 2011

Chrissy

The day that I got Chrissy as a gift, I was ecstatic. It was quite unexpected because one day my mom’s good friend Nancy called and asked if we would like to own a little lovebird. She wasn’t able to take care of the bird anymore and wanted to find a good home for him. My mom turns around and asks me whether I would be willing to take care of a pet in need of a new place to live. I was in seventh grade at the time. I yelled “of course!” at the top of my lungs because my brother and I hadn’t been allowed to own a pet besides a fish at that point in time. You probably already know how boring and uninteresting a fish is, so I’ll spare you the exciting details of owning one. This small creature was going to mine to play and cuddle with. My mother is allergic to cat fur and dislikes the smell of dogs so I was never able to experience a family pet I could hold. All of my friends had cute puppies and cats to pet; so whenever I went over to their houses I would ignore them and play with the dogs instead. I was told that the lovebird was going to arrive at our house at approximately 8pm that night. At that moment I started scrambling and looking around for a place to set up the cage. Also I was told I could name the little birdie whatever I wanted, therefore different names were running through my mind. I heard a knock at the door. Nancy had arrived.
When I first laid eyes on Chrissy, I instantly fell in love. He was small with green feathers covering his body and red feathers around the eyes. His sweet chirping instantly brought a smile to my face and all I wanted to do was hold him in my hands while rubbing my cheek against him. Nancy expressed her gratitude for taking the lovebird off her hands since she was working so many more hours at work and couldn’t watch over him anymore. At that moment I decided that the lovebird’s name would be Chrissy; there was no explanation why or where the name came from. It just was. For the next few weeks all I could think about at school was how much longer I had to be in class because I wanted to go home and play with Chrissy. My mom allowed me to let him fly around our living room and bedrooms to spread his wings since I didn’t like seeing him cooped up all day long. He would land on the paintings hanging against the wall and chew at the corners of the frame. My mom got so mad. I said that I would make sure it would never happen again; please just let him keep flying around. It never did stop, but I always found a way to distract the mother so she wouldn’t notice. I loved Chrissy so much, especially when it would sing songs on my finger. I was incredibly happy with life.
One year later my mom, brother, and I decided to go to the movies on a Sunday night. The film was some sort of comedy; however I don’t recall what the title was. We all walked in the front door of our house laughing and joking, relaxed from a pleasant day. I run over to Chrissy’s cage to hold him and let him fly around, but stopped dead in my tracks the moment I had a full view of it. Before me was the image of my lovebird on the floor of the cage, unmoving. His wings were fully spread and his tiny black eyes were glossed over, looking at nothing. I immediately dropped to my knees and tears started to silently fall down my face. My mom and brother quickly came over to witness what had caused me so much distress. “I’m so sorry,” my mom finally says. “I know how much you cared about him.” I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t look at anyone in the eyes. All I could do was stare at the horrid scene before me. Eventually, I tore my gaze away from Chrissy and just said out loud to no one in particular, “why?” We decided to wrap up the tiny little body in a handkerchief and wait until the next day to give him a proper burial. I slowly walked to my bed and laid down, still in shock. At that moment, all the memories of Chrissy flooded my head and there was nothing else I could think about. I started bawling and shaking uncontrollably. My mom rushed into my bedroom and held me, telling me everything was going to be okay. I didn’t comprehend what she was trying to say since all I could think about was Chrissy’s dead body on the cage floor. Eventually, I cried myself to sleep with eyes so swollen it was hard to see clearly. The next day, many of the kids in the neighborhood attended the little funeral I held for Chrissy. I buried him in a shallow dirt grave by the rose bushes out front, wishing I could’ve buried a corner of the picture frame he loved to chew on so much. I said my goodbyes while trying to hold back tears. It was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever had to do.
It took a couple weeks to finally get out of the haze I was engulfed in. My mother told me she didn’t think she wanted me to own another pet because of the way I attached myself to Chrissy. She believed that every time a pet died, I would break down and cry for days. Unknowing to me, my mom bought me a cockatiel one day that was beautiful to try to cheer me up. Yet, it would never replace Chrissy and my whole heart couldn’t love this new pet. To this day I think about my lovebird and every one of the great memories that we shared together.

Personal Narrative #1

Tiara De Boer
1/13/11

My Obsession

My obsession with Asian food is one of things that people notice fairly quickly when they start hanging out with me. It is the one cuisine that I crave constantly and I can have it for every meal for a month straight if I was challenged. I’m talking about Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and Chinese cuisines. My mom is Mexican and my dad is Dutch so I grew up eating homemade Mexican food every day. I love my mom’s cooking and love Mexican food in general, but if I was given the choice between Mexican and Asian food it would have to be Asian hands down. Since I am half Mexican, I was pretty much spoon-fed salsa ever since I was an infant learning how to walk. That is the reason why my tolerance for spicy food is very high and a lot of foods in the Asian cuisine use spices that satisfy my taste buds.
Back in California there is a Vietnamese restaurant that my dad, brother, and I use to go to every Monday night for dinner. The waiters barely speak English, so you know that the food is good, but they learned our names soon enough since we went so often. My Asian taste buds have rubbed off on a lot of my friends because I introduce them to only the tastiest Thai and Vietnamese restaurants in Boulder and Southern California. A lot of people, especially my family members, have stopped asking me what I feel like eating for dinner as they already know the answer. I’ve been asked many times whether I was part Chinese because of my small eyes and because of my obsession for Chinese and Japanese dishes. I can’t really understand it myself, but all I know is that I want and need Asian food constantly. Currently I’m studying Accounting at the Leeds School of Business and wish to own my very own business one day. It may very well be a high-end Japanese restaurant. We will see.

Taylor Prentice
SOGO- Personal Narrative
2/21/11
Frances Charteris
Lost?
People lose things everyday: money, homework, backpacks, and everything in-between. These things seem to be very important at the time a person loses these items and can really piss the person off, but all these things can be replaced. Not until you lose something so precious and rare do you realize the insignificance of material things and how little most things in life matter. In my case I lost the person who showed me the light when everything was dark. I lost something that many people spend their entire life’s trying to find. I lost the person I loved and with losing love I also lost a big portion of myself but also gained maturity and a sense of what is real and what really matters in life.
Her name is Jourdan Link, or what we used to say, my other half. We met on Myspace randomly and began to talk. We talked and talked for days, which turned, into weeks and then to months. It got to the point where we texted each other everyday for the majority of the day. She even told me once that we were like yin and yang and that we seemed to complete each other. This is when we decided it was time to meet so we went to see “Drillbit Taylor” and when I saw her I knew she was something special. Two days later I worked up the courage to ask her out to another movie, “Jumper”. I don’t remember the movie very much because I was working up the nerve to deploy my plan. At the end of the movie I told her I had a present for her, a temporary tattoo of a yin-yang where under the directions how to put it on I wrote, in crude handwriting, “will you go out with me”. Of course with how cheesy of an attempt it was, she began blushing several shades of pink and red looked me in the eyes and said, “Of course I will”. We continued to talk everyday, if I woke up first I would text her “Good morning I hope you have a great day, love you” and vise versa. We got to know each other to the point where we knew everything about each other; we knew each other better than our parents knew us. It even reached the point where I could sing “our song” and make her cry tears of joy. It was a perfect relationship for two and a half years; then I lost her.
It came close to our two and a half year anniversary when I began to lose my grasp on her. Who knows what it was that made her lose hope, maybe my restless mind, her still in high school, me in college, my childish mistakes, or maybe she just found something better. There is no way to guess the right answer, only that I was losing the battle. She saved me several times when I was lost and tried to leave her for both selfish and unselfish reasons. She always looked me in the eyes and said that she needed me by her side, but the look in her eyes was all that I needed; I could see the pure love and desire in her steel-gray-greenish eyes. She saved us but then our relationship began to get choppy and our personal lives were hectic as well. Then the tables flipped and she was the one telling me she was lost and needed change. I tried to convince her to stay and showed how much she meant to me but when I looked in her eyes they were cold and empty, I could see her mind was made up. I gave her birthday present to her, got a kiss and then never saw her again after that.
She told me that she couldn’t even be my friend and couldn’t even talk to me and I took this with a heavy heart and accepted it and decided to give her time. Two weeks went by when I found she was in another relationship with a varsity football player at her school, this was the moment my heart was ripped out of my chest and felt alone and lost. Soon after she became a waitress at Hooters and is currently living the high school dream. I lost not only the person I loved, I lost a part of me that I considered the better side of me. More time went by, each day seeming to take longer than the first and everything reminding me that I lost something very precious. Pain, despair, hopelessness, and loneliness are some of the many negative emotions felt after this hard break up until one day I realized it is a part in life that everyone will have to face at some point. I used my broken heart and all the pent up emotion to improve myself, both physically and mentally, and to mature in ways that only love can show you how. It has been about five months to this day when I experienced one of the hardest things, losing someone you love and having no control of the situation which made me lose myself. I would be lying if I said I am no longer lost, but the difference is I’m not depressed that I’m lost; I’m excited not knowing what’s next and continuing to move forward into the great unknown and my path will form step by step.

Taylor Prentice

4/7/11

Personal Narrative

It is believed that soon the Apocalypse will happen and completely wipe out the human race. This is supposedly predicted by many ancient civilizations from different parts of the world but the Mayan civilization is most commonly cited. It is said that the Mayan’s calendar ends in 2012 and many other clues lead people to believe the end of times will come in this year. There are also many other theories saying the world will end sometime in the 2000’s like the Nostradamus theory or Mother Shipton theory. Both Nostradamus and Mother Shipton were people claiming to see into the future, seeing the demise of mankind. Of course all of these are just myths and hypothetical predictions for the fate of our world. The thought that is accepted by most is that humans have the fate of the world in our hands and it is up to us to save it ourselves or destroy everything. The human race has continued to evolve and discover unbelievable technologies; this is what has given us power. Inevitably this power corrupted humans and got to the point where humans were killing each other over territory, religion, pride, and anything else imaginable. As humans have continuously waged war on each other the technology of war has improved to devastating levels. This was clearly shown in 1945 when America unleashed the power of nuclear weapons on Japan. Weapons have gotten to the point where they can completely devastate a nation in a single blow, but the crazy part is, most nations in the world have the technology to build these tools of destruction. So if the Apocalypse does come about it will most likely be brought upon ourselves in some type of epic, pointless war destroying most everything and everyone.

The point of all this being that for an average person like me there is no way to avoid or stop the Apocalypse. If the human race decides it is time for some outrageous war at least I was there at the end of all things. How I look at the situation is at least it will be exciting while it lasts and the thought that I may have been one of the last people to walk the Earth is honestly pretty remarkable. This of course is not saying that I will just sit there and wait to meet my demise. No, I will fight like everyone else and maybe be one of the few people left after some crazy event wipes out most of the population. This all of course will just be a spur of the moment thing driven mostly by human nature and the will to survive. No planning will be taken for the possible end of the world; I will continue to live how I see fit and if the Apocalypse happens then hopefully I get lucky and struggle through it. The intent of all this being to live a good life and to realize how precious life is while not worry about death even if it is the Apocalypse that kills me.

All the talk about the possible end of the world makes me want to live up life even more just because of the off chance that something could happen to kill everything off. If I’m going to be one of the last people alive then I may as well live life to it’s fullest and see as much of the world as I can, find all that I can to do in the world, and to meet as many people as I can along the way on the adventure of life. On the probable chance that the world won’t end any time soon, at least I lived like it was and took as much as I possibly could from my one shot at life. If I grow old I will have a lot of fascinating stories to tell my kids and grandkids. The talk of the Apocalypse being in my generation doesn’t scare me in the least, it actually does the opposite by making me excited to do as much as I can while I have the opportunity. The thought of the world ending really puts into perspective how lucky the human race is and how valuable life is so don’t waste it cause the world could be destroyed tomorrow.

Personal Narrative #3

Jane Frye

I am constantly at the receiving end of my siblings’ jokes, so I make sure to think about what I am going to say before I say it, or at least look it up on Google. When I am not careful, however, there is, without fail, a quick jab in response to my comment. Anna, Lucy, and Max, my three siblings, occasionally slip a dense comment, but no matter how hard I try no one joins in when I try to tease them. They say they only gang up on me because I am easy to make fun of, so most of the time I just try to ignore them because, according to them, my behavior invites their jokes. Many of their taunts stem from a statement I repeated over and over in angst one summer, “someone stole it!”

During New Bedford’s three-day regatta the confusion of lifejackets, sails, lines, soggy and burnt sailors consumed my mind, leaving no room for the little things, my iPod being one of them. Temper Trap, Pearl Jam, and Nicki Minaj were far from my mind. When the regatta was all over I decided to go on a run to clear my mind of my poor performance. I could not wait to sweat out my frustration to my “work out” playlists but my iPod was nowhere to be found. After searching for what seemed like hours I gave up and went on a run anyway. Without my iPod, I could hear every step and every breath, which quickly turned into a pattern that drove me crazy due to my already present aggravation. Before going to New Bedford I was in training for the up coming cross-country season. After losing my iPod, however, I rarely went on runs. Runs were once a time to relax but without music, they just made me angry and reminded me of my loss.

With only a month left until we had to pack our things and head back to Hamilton, I knew that if I did not find my iPod it would be gone forever. With as much patience as I could muster up, I searched for several days with no success. Next, I tried to retrace my steps. The last place I remember having my iPod was before heading out onto the water the last day of the regatta. There was so much going on during the three day regatta that I had no idea what I had done with it. Maybe I had left it in a boat? Maybe I had left it on the trailer? In the car? In the yacht club? I could not find it anywhere and I was positive it was not in my car or my house so the only logical explanation for its disappearance was that it was stolen. I left my iPod somewhere during the regatta and someone must have taken it. Someone, somewhere was listening to my music and my playlists. Even though I was furious, I accepted my loss and tried to move on. My family’s jokes, however, didn’t help.

The two hour drive back to Hamilton was miserable without my iPod. Having to deal with commercials, repeated songs, and songs I do not like made the usually painless drive, excruciating. Bitter, hot, and tired from the drive I tried to unload the car as quickly as possible. In my frazzled state I dropped one of my bags, its contents going everywhere. There was a sound, though, that didn’t sound like clothes hitting the ground. I assumed it was a piece of jewelry and so without thinking twice I half-heartedly put the clothes back in the bag. Picking up the last couple of shirts I heard the same sound. When I turned to see what it was I almost screamed with joy. There on the driveway was my iPod. I had no idea how it had gotten in my duffel bag with all my summer clothes but I did not need an explanation. Immediately, I ran inside, updated it, put on my running clothes and went on a run. Although I was not in as good of shape as I should have been in with preseason only days away, I did not care, I was just happy to be listening to my iPod again.

The next thing I needed to do was call my mom and tell her the great news. As soon as I told her she yelled to my siblings, in a sarcastic tone, “Guys! Jane found her stolen iPod!” I was too happy to be bothered by her teasing. But soon I was easily irritated because within the next five minutes I received texts from all of my siblings, even good friends from Chatham, with some sort of sassy remark. From that moment on whenever my family sees me looking for something or hears me saying I have lost something they say, “ Are you sure it is not stolen?”