My Video Narrative :)

Reflection of Narriative.

              Writing this narrative was not easy for me, I am expressive in only so many ways and paper is not the best place. I could sit and talk to you about what’s going on in my life through conversation so much easier than words. I don’t know why I have trouble creating a conversation through written words but I think that is something I need to work on.

                Before even writing this essay I didn’t know if I wanted to write about the topic that I did, I didn’t know if I wanted to write about that subject because to be honest I didn’t know where I wanted to go with it. My topic didn’t really start off with me moving; it started off more as me losing my friends in general. I didn’t know if I wanted to do that subject because I knew that I still felt sensitive about the situation, but I knew that I need something that did affect me and that was one. When you write from your heart things tend to come out better than when you don’t so that’s what I tried to do.

                While writing the essay I didn’t know how to put my words together to not make the story too sad, I mean it is a sad story. Writing this made me think about how I did struggle before coming to Upstate. I was really alone at that time, and then being sick only made it worse.

                I would like to learn how to write well and be able to connect with the audience at the same time. I feel like writing that way makes your writing worth reading! I want to be worth reading, so I am going to work on sentence structure and the way I put things together. As my mom always says “it’s only the beginning, and a lot is going to happen before the end.”

Final Draft ; Read Away Guys !

Briana Lanza Kyle

Tasha Thomas

English 101 – Section 018

14 September 2012

                                                       Do I Really Need Them?

                Do you remember making friends in the first grade? That was one of the best parts about being young, having friends, running around in the park, living the care free life I know we all wish that we could bring back if that was possible. The one thing I always remembered wanting to stay with my friends, crying to my mom, pulling on her pants leg “mommy do I have to leave?” That may be why I’m not to fond of good byes, I like to say I’ll see you later cause I don’t like the idea that good bye could turn into talk to you never. Leaving people that I enjoy being around has always been a struggle for me. So moving inevitably was going to be a strenuous task. This wasn’t like when I was going into 3^rd grade when my mom told me I would make new friends and I did what mommy said because she was the boss and knew everything. I was 17 years 10 months and 28 days old when I moved this time I was no longer nine years old anymore. This was going to affect me.  I felt like moving never changed.   I packed and spent my weekends in the house packing, and throwing away, then packing some more and throwing more away to be surrounded in a small apartment by 178 items, ranging from boxes to lamps. We had it all in that place, that was my home I was cleaning out but I didn’t think it would be my life being cleaned out. All of my friends didn’t understand that my parents were moving to be closer to me so that I could have a home closer to where I went to college.  I knew that me and some of my friends would lose contact I had heard it from all my friends already in college but I didn’t expect to lose them ALL. But losing my friends didn’t start after I left for college it started before.

I didn’t slowly just lose my friends they disappeared. It went from being the crew, Janelle, Domonique, Jessica and I, to being Briana all alone. Yes I sound lonely and I was lonely. I was moving to a new place with people I had never met, a culture I was not used to. I was going from New York rudeness to Southern hospitality. Now I knew it wouldn’t be easy but I had always counted on having friends there to help me through keep me company in my new empty house for now.  But I realized that I didn’t even have people wanting to keep me company now. Of course I had my now ex-boyfriend there but at the end of the day I didn’t only want to leave with hanging out with one person.  I thought it  was pretty messed up that my “friends” hadn’t even tried to keep in touch with me. They were supposed to be my friends and we had all talked about keeping in touch but summer came and the time began to wind down until I left and I still got no phone calls, no texting. Nothing. I began to think “Was it my fault that not one of my friends wrote me? Or was I at fault because I didn’t really make the effort either?”  Maybe its mutual thing, I knew that conversations went two ways but I let my pride hold me back too much. I wouldn’t allow myself to beg for people to talk to me. I had lost friends before, it wasn’t the idea of not having the friends that bothered me the most, and it was the idea that I was going to be alone. It was like walking into a dark room, I didn’t know where things were or what stood before me, and being in the dark is a lot easier when you have someone to hold your hand. Now I am a friendly person so finding friends shouldn’t have been the problem it was the idea that something to stable was no longer there anymore.  I felt like I was going through that first break up, my heart was crushed but the people that I would have ran to in that situation was not there for me. So I cried and I thought about all the good times that I had with my friends, the trips to the movie and never actually watching them, or going to the city for someone’s birthday, walking to parties around the corner from someone’s house. I had a million moment travelling through my head and no matter how aggravated I was in that moment I wasn’t anymore. No matter how much I hated that they never knew what to watch or that we never could go the whole night without someone arguing with someone else, I strangely missed the things I once hated.  So I spent the month before coming to Upstate, feeling more alone then I had ever felt and to make it even better I ended up with Mono.

                After getting sick with Mono, spending about 2 weeks sitting in bed I figured out that I didn’t really need people who didn’t need me. I was going to meet and greet with a plethora of people at school. I learned my lesson. People will come and go but there will always be more people. So I started to find friends from Upstate through twitter, I befriended my roommate and many more people. Only a few people have written me since I have gotten here, my best friend Janelle and my friend Kristina but other than that I had nothing to show that people missed me.             

I don’t think my friends noticed that I am gone for a very long time. I have no family left in New York so I won’t really have a reason to go back. It’s not like I just went away to college like most of them did, I moved away for college. So maybe my friends saw it as me just going to school in another place and I would be back home, but now my home is in South Carolina. New York is not where I was going back to and that is just how it is now. I eventually ended up realizing that life goes on, people cross your path for a reason, to give you memories you could never forget. I will never forget the friends I hung out with in high school because ultimately I did need them, I just didn’t need them for the purpose I thought I need them for.

                                                                               

 

Literature Memoir

Briana Lanza

Tasha Thomas

September 2012

                                                                Do I Really Need Them?

                Do you remember making friends in the first grade? If you ever moved to you remember having to make all new friends, did you keep in touch with those friends? I feel like moving never changes. One thing that always stays the same about packing its time consuming and always rushed. So no matter how premeditated the move is you always lose a friend, in most cases when your younger its because of miscontact and you forget about them. But I was 17 years 10 months and 28 days old when I moved. So whos fault is it now that me and my friends all lost contact, it took me just about until I came here to get over it.

                This didn’t start right after I moved it started literally right after graduation, I went out to dinner with them all that night and have not seen one since. Now I thought this was pretty messed up because after all they were supposed to be my friends and we had all talked about keeping in touch but summer came and the time began to wind down until I left and I still got no phone calls, no texting. Nothing. I wasn’t one of those girls that was close with a million people I was friendly with most, but I only had a couple “true” friends, I could count them on my hand. So maybe cause I had a small group of friends it was my fault I should have been more friendly, I remember telling myself this my last week in new York. Was it my fault that not one of my friends wrote me? Or was I at fault because I didn’t really make the effort either? So maybe its mutual thing, I knew that conversations went two ways but I let my pride hold me back too much. I wouldn’t allow myself to beg for people to talk to me, this had happen to me before I had lost friends but to lose them all to go to a place you don’t know is really scary and I didn’t know what to do. So I cried and I thought about all the good times that I had with my friend. I felt like I was going through that first break up, my heart was crushed but the people that I would have ran to in that situation was not there for me. I literally felt alone in that month, within the month before school and moving here I got sick and had myself stressed to no end.

                After getting sick I just gave up, I didn’t care that my friends were gone because after the week of sitting in bed I figured out that I didn’t really need people who didn’t need me. I was going to meet and greet with a plethora of people at school. I learned my lesson. People will come and go but there will always be more people. So I started to find friends from upstate through twitter, I befriended my roommate and many more people. A couple of my old friends eventually wrote me saying that they missed me but it just made me think how much could you possibly miss someone if you didn’t even put in the effort to see them when they are leaving for ever.

                I don’t think my friends noticed that I am gone for a very long time. I have no family left in new York so I won’t really have a reason to go back. Its not like I just went away to college, I moved away for college. So maybe my friends saw it as me just going to school in another place and I would be back home, but now im home in south Carolina. New York is not where I was going back to. But maybe I didn’t need them after all, maybe I will be okay without them. I mean I already have new friends back but starting over isn’t that much fun, so every once in a while I wish I still kept in contact with the people that knew me better than anyone else. But yet again I don’t need them.

                                                                               

Personal Memoir.

So it’s been a couple days since I’ve had this class, but I do remember that I had to write down something that affected me significantly, maybe even taught me something I decided to write about moving. The day it all started was the day after prom. Now although my prom only happened a less than 3 months ago today, so much has changed for me since that day. Prom was the day I found my real friends were; let’s just say I don’t have many anymore in New York. Everyone in my school knew that I was going to school down south and everyone claimed to keep in touch and hang out before I left but that definitely didn’t happen! I know they say college is where you find your “real” friends but it would have been nice to keep these friends forever since I had spent years with them in school, so of them since nursery school. But people I had known for weeks alone were willing to hang out with me at the drop of a dime, but the “friends” I had didn’t ask not once. Everyone knew that I was moving soon, they knew the exact date and everything. So I spent half my summer sad and alone because all the friends I thought I had left all of our memories in the dust. The one thing I figured out though was that I really can’t depend on others to be there for me. I have to be able to be strong all by myself. Although I knew I would make new friends I spent my summer preparing myself to be independent and ready to face the world.

Now although I wrote about this in class I don’t know if I want it to be my subject, I just thought I would share my brain process, I hope someone can help me figure out what I want to write about. I am completely lost I will not lie, and I’m not ashamed to ask for help.

Literary Narative Reflection.

While reading “Literacy Behind Bars” by Malcolm I was truly inspired.  He was such a significant person in history not only because of the fight he put up for equal rights. He became significant when people realized that he had conquered his demons and pushed forward, not matter the difficulty. So the idea that he would not have been able to create the imagery and fluency of what he was writing if he had not learned how to read in jail that is mind boggling to me. Malcolm was not always my favorite historical advocate, civil rights hasn’t been my favorite part of history in a long time but reading this made me want to look more into that era history, his writing made me want to put down the books about the holocaust and their struggles and read about the struggles that happened in my own country.  I think without people like Malcolm X and others who stood up for equal rights that the world we live in would not be the same. But I also think that without a well-developed vocabulary these people would not have gotten to where they are. So the fact that people could go through jail or even just a life changing experience and it makes them want to better themselves is inspiring.

Malcolm X created an inspiring situation through his words, he gave you hope. He give you the hope that you could overcome oppression, whether it is from someone else or because your pride won’t let you admit that you are not where you need to be. Malcolm X knew that his audience would be open minds like ours, or closed minds he would have to convince otherwise. Either way his writing was assembled in a way that everyone could relate to his struggle in some way or another. I admire his inspirational writing and wish one day that I could write with the same passion and inspire someone the same way.