Personal Narrative: Upward Bound

Now that I have been in The Fellowship Initiative for over a year, an extracurricular activity sponsored by JPMorgan Chase. I definitely see myself growing as a person. From advancing skills to building personal relationships with other people , I am glad that everything is falling into place in my life on a professional spectrum. In TFI we went on a trip this past summer to upstate New York for a camping trip called Outward Bound. For Outward Bound , we went away upstate for 10 days in the Catskill Mountains. As this trip is unforgettable , I am happy to say I found my inner self over the course of time. This experience was essential which would make me a great candidate for The National Honors Society.

It was the last inning in our all-star game, and we were losing 10 to 8. Our team had 2 outs and we couldn’t get the third. Our pitcher was doing bad, throwing all balls, while all of us in the field were tired, ready to fall asleep at any moment. There goes another walk. They score again. Great! I was thinking. At this point in the game I thought for sure that I would die right there in center field. However, baseball is baseball and things can change rather rapidly.

I didn’t know it yet, but the way I viewed the game of lacrosse was about to change drastically.

I don’t recall having a hard time learning how to read. It was one of those things that just came easily to me for some reason. For the most part I enjoyed reading as well. The only time I didn’t enjoy reading was when I didn’t understand a certain word or a certain phrase. One of the strongest memories I have from learning to read was when I was unable to pronounce the word “the”.

My goals for this year i wanna get good grades. I also wanna start on the junior high football team. When basketball comes around I wanna be the starting shooting guard. I wanna have good relationships with my teachers. I just wanna have a good year in school and in sports.

Lani: I was helping for someone’s project for COMM 245; I was in the video lab, in the studio. I was on campus and decided to contact everyone I knew who comes to the school. I remember I sent out a snap saying guys I think there is a shooting, be careful and then I started sending out individual texts to people making sure they were okay, like hey are you good? Stay out of an area. I didn’t know how many people were getting shot. I just knew it’s not good and that we have to be careful. At first, the campus was like we are unsure, just be careful, and then it took some time till I finally got an email that said stay on campus and were held there for about two hours, I just kept recording.

I used to be so oblivious. I would attend school every day and criticize my surroundings, little did I know how much I actually had. Come junior year, I observed a flyer for a club called S.A.L.T. (Student-Athlete Leadership Team), it seemed interesting to me so I decided to fill out an application. During our first meeting at 6:45 in the morning, Coach Jones, the head of the club, explained, “I did not cut anyone since you will cut yourself, you will give up and you will not want to put the work in, so you will stop coming. As a result, I will know who our leaders are”. That proclamation was something that genuinely made me think.

How a person behaves, what they say, what they do, where they go, what they watch, what they listen to all comes down to three things…what they believe, who they believe, and how much they believe it. As followers of Christ, we will act, speak, and respond differently than when we did beforehand all based on believing the Word of God as true. For me, sometimes believing is hard and seems downright impossible because of situations and circumstances that are beyond my personal control. Sometimes I even question God, His ways, and His plans, and then, He reminds me not to lean on my own understanding, but on His. It’s okay to have questions, but it’s not okay to lose faith over them.

Living as a low-class minority, college education is a major problem for me. I was oblivious to the idea of applying to a big university because of my lack of confidence in myself, my education level, and my financial needs. When I started ninth grade, the talk of college increased and people warned us to start preparing for the whole process. I was unaware of the specific requirements for applying to a college. Growing up, the only thing I knew was to study hard, and get good grades. So when I began my high school career, I needed a guide, someone there to advise me through these four years. Joining Upward Bound was one of my proudest achievements because through this program, I have gained life, leadership, and academic skills that I would not have known otherwise. Preparing for the ACT numerous times, having resources to connect with colleges and

During the Great Depression there were many hardships, because of this many children and adolescents had to acclimate to an adult’s point of view. Throughout my life I have also had a significant amount of experience stepping into the adult world. I have had an ongoing boxing match with Sydenham’s Chorea(SC). Sydenham’s Chorea is an extremely rare autoimmune disorder; there are about ? cases of SC per year.

Life is not life without obstacles standing in our way; obstacles are what make us a better or a worse person. In a college student’s life obstacles are an everyday thing because we do not only have to worry about school, but about our homes and jobs. Maybe our mother is sick and there is no one else to take care of her, so we have to stay and help her. My barriers are not something I can fix overnight, but I am trying.

Growing up, I was always thought that good things come those who wait but growing up I have come to release that was all a lie. If you wait around doing nothing, you won’t get and achieve anything you want. People think waiting for things to happen, it will eventually happen. I was once told by a millionaire that it’s better to take opportunities than to wait on them. You get out what you have put in, so don’t sit around doing nothing.

Waking up was always easy. The morning freeze painted the walls in my room until even my blanket was insignificant. I crawled out of bed and slipped into my favorite t-shirt and jeans, topping it off with the sweatshirt my father had given me. I grabbed the nearest rubber band I could find and tied my hair up. I, unlike most kids, didn’t care so much about my appearance. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we didn’t own any mirrors in my house. I did, however, always put my hair up. Not that it helped at all with my looks, but it did reduce the number of insults I received at school. While knocking off only a tiny portion of the slander may seem insignificant to most others, my hair, as wild and curly and poofy as it may have been, was the one thing I could control. Other things, like how I wore the same sweatshirt simply because my

A time in my life where I transitioned into adulthood was a very recent experience. Just this last year my mother made the decision to move to a new town, it 's closer to her place of employment. It was a just a very convenient decision for her. I wasn 't really thrilled about moving to a new school my senior year, the school in this new town is a very small district. Where I attend school it 's a lot bigger and my school has an amazing running program. I run cross country and track, my passion is running and my goal is to run in college. I knew if I moved it would hard for me to be able to accomplish my goals , because the new school is small as little no running teams. After explaining all this to my mother we talked it over and we

Since the day I was born, my parents knew I was a thinker. With my first breaths of life, I silently observed the room with a meticulous eye, not letting out signal shriek. Growing up, I was incredibly passionate for math and science. Often, I added the numbers in my soup, counted the clouds in the sky, and bombarded adults with numerous questions about the Earth and the universe. School was a great influence in my life, and I couldn't spend a single moment not reflecting on my future. But, if it was one thing my skills for math and science didn’t prepare me for, it was communicating.