KM 3A

Sigh after presenting the monologue we have to post it on a blog T.T I was hoping to forget It. Well the monologue i gave in freshman seminar was on a embarrassing childhood event that happened when i was in kindergarten or near it. I would remember waking up in a brightly colored room with toy blocks, colorful wallpaper and see other kids. Seeing as how this was quite a while ago my memories don’t fair too well in this situation, so forgive me if some of what i say may seem out of place or incorrect because it probably is. Well as a kid i didn’t know much English so I was always quite confused and out of it. (kinda like how i am today except i know English) One day when i woke up from nap time or something like it, the teacher made an announcement he said or probably said something like “congratulations your moving onto the next grade, your all gonna be moving to the next room next summer”(moving to the next room back then symbolized shifting grades well at least that’s how i remembered it), but what i heard was”……..your moving…………… next room next……………”. So the next day i promptly moved to the next room and spent the whole day there. At the end of the day the teacher for that room said “Oh wait, your not my kid”. There were people laughing and a whole fuss was made and at the end of the day when i finally realized what had happened I was afraid to show my face in class from that point on.

Well that’s my monologue  and probably all that I can remember about my early childhood years, hoped you enjoyed it or you wasted all of the one or two minutes reading this.

Hello. My name is Dylan Larese. I live in Smithtown, Long Island, with my Italian-American family. I have two younger siblings: A brother and a sister.

When it comes to giving speeches in front of an audience, I can humbly say that I lack serious talent! I am much more articulate in writing, and find I can converse more fluently in that way. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to deliver this monologue, as it is required for this course here at Baruch College.

My hobbies include:

Reading both fiction and nonfiction – at the moment I have been immersed in particular varieties of nonfiction.

Listening to music – Jazz, improvisational, blues, fusion, etc. My favorite musician / composer / musical genius is Frank Zappa.

And playing guitar. I can proudly say that I have been a self taught guitarist from the age of 11, courtesy of having very good relative pitch, in musical terms.

An interesting thing about me is that I have had some types of OCD (Obsessive compulsive disorder) since I was about 5 years old. If anyone has watched the television program “Monk,” starring Tony Shaloub, they are familiar with what I am talking about. It has been a difficult hurdle, but fortunately not been insurmountable.

(At this point in the monologue, I will share an anecdote about an OCD / Phobia of mine.)

I decided to study here at Baruch primarily for two reasons: To receive a good education, and to explore and discover NYC. To be honest, I have had mixed feelings about the former. I suppose you could say I was disillusioned by what I had anticipated college at Baruch to be. Unfortunately, I find it to be eerily similar to high school. Freshman students are still lacking freedom  (e.g., forced to choose “block class schedules”), and have to comply with a number of arbitrary school rules and regulations. Furthermore, the information presented in the majority of the classes a freshman is enrolled in is largely a rehashing of what he/she already learned years prior in grade school. I set out for college, eager to learn new, exciting, and pertinent information, but have instead been presented an extended version of high school, replete with menial tasks in the classroom.

But perhaps classes will improve next semester. For now, I will give college my best effort and strive for good grades.

My blog was about my home state, Connecticut.  I started by giving a little backround information about CT.  It’s the southern most state in New England, north-east of NYC.  I also threw out some quickfacts, like how Connecticut has been voted “Most Beautiful State” for the past…..1 billions years.  I explained how Hartford got it’s name, because people love it so much.  Next I went on to tell you about places to see.  Yale, mystic seaport, Long Island Sound beaches, mountain ranges and cities etc.  I listed some famous people from Connecticut.  (Kevin Bacon, Katharine Heigl, Jesus Christ, John Mayor, and like 2,000,000,000,000 other legends.  I told everyone about Governor Jodi Rell and how much everyone loves her.  Finally I finished by rebuddling against some of Connecticut’s foolish criticisms.  Like why Connecicut is so small and that people from CT are snobby (we are but whatever).  Thats it, and I guess I need a picture so here.  Thats just me and my brother doing typical CT bro things, dressing alike and eating popeyes.

i dont really remember what i said for my monologue but i pretty just summed up my weekend two weeks ago. So i went to the drake concert which was pretty fun. The bus ride was pretty long and binghamton was really nice. I liked the campus there. Also the next day i went karaoke which was pretty fun too.

My monologue was about the types of shoes i wore throughout my teenage years up until college. During me freshmen year of high school i didnt really have a fashion sense or any idea what to wear. I bought my first pair of Nike airforces that were about eighty dollars and thought i would fit in. The thing was that the whole outfit i wore with the shoes simply did not fit and i felt somewhat insecure. I started to buy more expensive shoes as i grew up. The shoes i wore simply matched what kind of activity i was doing at that time of my life. Skateboarding, i bought Nike SBs, Basketball, i bought jordans, and jogging i bought lots of lightweight shoes. In college i could care less about the shoes i wear, i am not trying to fit in nor am i trying to make an impression. I simply do my own thing. Being carefree is wonderful =]

hmmm Jordans.

Lots of expensive skateboarding shoes. Owned a few before i sold them =\

This is my ideal room. I could live there and life would be great.(this was actually a ebay sale that went for $9,000 plus or minus a few thousand.

So I wasn’t actually in class last Wednesday, therefore I didn’t get to hear everyone else’s monologue 🙁

I honestly had no clue what to talk about when I was told that I would have to present this to the class. Being that I hardly have any classes with you guys, and although I’m in your block, I feel like you guys don’t really know me that well. This made it complicated for me to pick something to talk about. Something worth mentioning.

I”m a seemingly n average eighteen year old girl for the most part, I love to shop, spending time with those I love and I love adventures. I didn’t really know what to speak about in this monologue so I decided to talk about this, not to drive you guys away from me, but to give you guys some insight into me.

I tend to hurt the people I love most in my life. ALOT. My sister says I need anger management, I’m surprised my boyfriend hasn’t left me yet, and I’m unsure of how my parent tolerate my constant screaming and hollering when I’m agitated. Maybe it has to do with my impatience, which I have actually worked on. My anger, on the other hand, is something I feel is uncontrollable. One time I was so angry I told my mom I hated her. I truly have forgotten what I was angry about, but I remember how much it hurt her. We both know I didn’t mean it, but nonetheless it was hurtful. I remember how much I regretted saying this to her, and how bad I felt afterwards. Why would I be saying that to someone I cared about so much. All I remember was seeing her cry that night. It reminded me of when my grandfather died and how bad she hurt, only this time I caused the pain. As I had done when my grandfather died, I tried to comfort her by apologizing and as I had done many times to my boyfriend, I baked some cupcakes and wrote ,”I’m Sorry” on them. I truly did feel bad, and from that day on I decided to never say I hate you to someone no matter how enraged I feel. So even though I do have an “anger management” issue as my sister would call it, I learned to control one aspect of it; if only I could stop the yelling.

Self Portrait

One of the best nights of my life, my prom night. This picture captures me as a happy girl, which is the way I try to live my life, despite the angry moments 🙂

When I got up to present my monologue, I strayed away from what I really wanted to talk about, but I stayed somewhat along the lines of it.
So now I’ll say everything I wanted to say.

Most people including my closest and dearest friends know extremely little about the life I live at home. They all have the general idea but don’t know the extent to which things go. Sometimes I give little snippets and they can’t handle even that. Oh well. Maybe that’s why I mostly keep things to myself.
My parents have had the biggest and most negative impact on my life. I don’t know if I should thank them or be upset at them for making me the way I am today. My parents started arguing soon after I turned 4, but they have had serious problems since the very beginning of their relationship. Their issues existed solely because they were different people with different priorities and values; I don’t think they were meant to be. I always heard both sides to one story and they often asked me what the solution would be to their problems, take their anger and frustration about each other out on me. On top of that, they would blame each other for the “failure” that I am. I remember begging them to get divorced. Through their problems, I missed out in my childhood and I had no one to go to for consolation because I am an only child.

They failed to understand that raising a child in a household where parents never show affection and love to each other, where there is no such thing as peace, no sense of what being comfortable at home is like, was destructive. The only person who saw it was me.

To this day I long to know what it feels like to enjoy being home, to relax at home, to enjoy my parents’ company.

And because I’ve been dealing with it all by myself for so long, I decided to continue. I’ve become so used to suppressing what I feel, that it’s just a normal part of my life. As depressing as it is, I learned that I am quite optimistic despite everything. I take each day at home as it comes, even if I know a lot of the bad things are going to repeat themselves on an almost daily basis. I just think of my long term goal of setting a positive impact on the people around me, to help those who can’t help themselves. Maybe after all that I’ll be able to love my parents for making me the person I will become.

bats
Bats.

Can’t stand to look at them, to hear about them, to read about them, and sure as hell not to see them.

If there’s one thing in this world that scares me, its bats.

Their beady little eyes, ginormous wings, sharp little fangs, and hairy pointy ears are not appealing in the least.
They way they always travel in flocks of hundreds and thousands is sketchy by all means.

Plain and simple – they freak me out.
Just thinking about them, and writing this blog right now, gives me the chills.

Despite society’s attempt at making vampires and bats look cool  and sexy,
I still cannot bring myself to accept the animal as just that – an animal.

oh, and here’s my real self portrait, and my alter ego 🙂

So I don’t really remember my monologue word for word, but I’ll try to sum it up for you guys.

I talked about my horrible lifeguarding experience at the Baruch pool last week. I first described how I became a lifeguard. It was my mom’s idea when I was about 14 years old for both me and my brother to become lifeguards. I reluctantly took the course, and I worked at the YMCA in Saratoga Springs for a few years, and during the summer I worked at a summer camp up in Fort Anne, NY. (Near Lake George, for all you city people 🙂 ). I have worked at the summer camp for the past 5 summers, and thought that it would be no problem swimming the 8 laps that they wanted me to swim for my lifeguard test here. So I got in the pool and started swimming. I started getting tired by the 6th lap, and by the end of the 8th, I was surprised I wasn’t dead. WOW, was that more difficult than I thought it was going to be! Anyway, I felt really light-headed after the 8 laps, and went into the locker room, and, well, I “got sick”. (No one wants me to go into too much detail there.)

Update, though (this wasn’t in my monologue, but for anyone who cares, I did go back and finish the test, and they hired me!)

Hmm, a self portrait:

Tada!

My monologue was about one of my best memories.

Two years ago I joined a year long program that took me around America. This was kind of a church program that was supposed to help you “discover yourself” but it was basically my alternative to college. I had a lot of awesome experiences there. My favorite one took place  in Southern California. Gorgeous place. I got to live in a house of maybe 20 people, 10 guys, 10 girls. We all got really close and the house was so nice. It was different than im used to, which is the city of New york. In the backyard they had a volleyball court and we played all the time.

There was one time in particular, when after we finished playing one game it began to rain, and four of us decided we wanted to keep playing anyways. I was the only girl but I didnt feel that inferior. One of the guys was trying to teach me how to spike but it wast really working out considering my jump is pathetic and im mad short but he tried. At first i dont think they thought it would be much of a game if we played two on two but i was feeling confident so i suggested we play. It started out ok but then it got really intense, cause with two on two you gotta cover the whole field, so we started going all out in the rain! It was soo fun, i got so into it. I never dived so much for the ball before and I could tell the guys were impressed. It made me feel so good about myself. In the end we won by four points, it was so insane. We were all covered in mud and i was so sore the next day. I loved it.

And thats when i fell in love with volleyball.