Who Are WE? We're PR3!

Free time comes about twice a week at Baruch, well for me at least. Monday’s and Wednesday’s I have a three hour break because I dropped Sociology from my schedule due to already having taken it in high school. The first few weeks of school all I did was go to the library and sleep not he couches for a few hours. After waking up I felt unproductive and surprisingly, even more tired; which led to me sleeping in my history class. I decided that I would go to the gym for the first hour and then go out to eat. So on Monday’s and Wednesday’s I bring my gym bag with a change of clothes and I work out for about an hour. Monday’s I do chest and Wednesday’s I do legs. This worked out perfect for me.

After the gym I drink my shake and then I journey to the outside world, in close parameters of Baruch of course, and search for places to eat. I usually get egg whites with ham on a whole wheat roll, sushi, spanish food, or if it is raining out I get lunch in the cafeteria. Lunch in the cafeteria is pretty expensive and not worth the money, but I have to eat so sometimes I just order the Japanese food. Once classes are over though I must venture back into the wild, Staten Island that is, to return home. Three out of the four days I go to school I have work. Ugh, work…

“You guys might now know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack…” – Hangover

For the most part, everyone pretty much knows who I am, on a first name basis that is. What people don’t understand is that there is more than meets the eye with me, and I guess that goes with a lot of other people. When I think about it, I don’t consider myself to be a very interesting person. So what, I have a few interesting experiences I could talk about but how long could I ride that boat for? I need to start making something out of myself..

When I think about it, growing up in Italy has given me a totally different perspective of the world. I look around now, especially in Staten Island, and honestly, I am disgusted with this generation of teens. And the worst part of it is, its not going to get any better. Staten Island is not a place to raise your children. I know I’m not raising mine there. What were my parents thinking when they brought us over here? I didn’t think my life in Italy was that bad, but I had to follow what my parents said; after all, it was for the better…that’s what they told me. And I guess yea, there are more opportunities, blah blah blah, but did they know that it was going to be like this? This screwed up? It seems like no one here knows what a family really is. I consider myself to be very family oriented and it disturbs me to see this generation of kids treat their parents and elders with no respect at all. I have a lot of criticisms towards Americans, and I guess that is partially because I am very judgmental. Its not my coolest attribute, but its one of mine none the less. As much as I don’t want to, subconsciously I always judge judge judge. At the end of the day, I just don’t want to be considered an American. There is nothing wrong with being American, but I don’t really find much pride in it. I feel like the American mind is corrupt and greedy. I fear that if I become fully Americanized that I will loose my values and traditions. That is because to be American you have to do American things. You know, just recently, about a few weeks ago, my father became an American citizen. He was so happy, my family was so happy. I…I only acted happy. Why couldn’t he just stay a citizen of Italy? I feel like my family has lost a part of its identity because of this. I’m not afraid of many things, but I am afraid of breaking close family ties. I just hope we don’t become like typical American families, and I’m just stereotyping here.

I look back at the answers I wrote down in class and I notice that they all had to do with family and friendship. I guess that’s just who I am. I really didn’t know what to write about, but we were told to be personal and I think that this is pretty personal, and I’m actually having doubts about sharing this with everyone..

Josh. Simple, yet complicated. Coming up for an answer to this question is not an easy task. Ten minutes pass, fifteen minutes, already, half an hour in front of this laptop and I am still drawing a blank. My life is not a sad story, nor what you might consider an exciting one. I am eighteen years old and I’ve spent the first eight years of my life in Italy. My father is Sicilian and my mother is Venezuelan. And yes, I do speak sicilian and I do know some spanish too. But all this doesn’t really help in figuring me out. My mind is always all over the place. I don’t even know who I am. I know the things that make me happy but not many people do. That is because I don’t like to reveal my true self to everyone around me. I’ve always had trust issues. That is why I am very family oriented, they are the only ones I can truly trust. I feel that I am misunderstood. When people meet me for the first time they assume that I am outgoing and happy all of the time. And that is what I want people to think. Why should I bring down others when I’m having personal issues? My mentality is that one should always think positive, be optimistic all of the time. And that is how I try to seem on the outside. That’s how far I’m going to get into that, I feel uncomfortable talking about this, remember, I have trust issues… Anyhow, I don’t know what I’m writing about. So much time is passing and I needed to write something down. Basically I am curious to find out who I am also.

Moving on.. My concerns..my biggest one has to be becoming just another face in the crowd. I have too much ambition and too many dreams to get lost in the crowd. But in a school this large, the odds of me becoming invisible are creeping up to the odds of me possibly becoming someone important. Time management is another concern of mine. Its not that I procrastinate a lot, its that I find myself to be always busy. Now that’s no excuse but some people have to actually work to maintain what they have. That brings me to my third concern; I am really concerned that people will think that I have money because of the way I act and dress. As I said before, don’t judge a book by its cover. Money has always been a big issue of mine. It took my family ten years to get to where we are now, from being poor immigrants to middle class citizens. I work very hard for everything I have and I am very grateful for it all. I don’t want people to assume that I am made of money just because I have a some-what good sense of fashion. Everything I buy , I buy myself. Who paid for me car? Me. Who pays for insurance and my phone bill? I do. Hard work pays off. For someone who doesn’t have everything handed to them on a silver spoon, I am very content with my life and everything I have.

The transition from High School to College has not been too difficult. I had imagined something completely different. So far the only major difference I noticed was the amount of freedom we are given. Everything is up to us. How much we put into the college experience is how much we will get out of it.

College will only change me for the better. I think that I will become more mature because in College they don’t baby you, they treat you like adults. And when your treated like an adult you tend to become one.

You know, before I wrote this, I tried reading other peoples blogs and everyone sounded to interesting. I don’t want to just write things everyone wants to know because it will make me seem more interesting, I only speak the truth. I think about the things I could have wrote but decided not too. I wish there was a better way for me to put this, but there are too many things to explain about me that are difficult to write about. I don’t really know what else there is to say, other than I feel like my current state of mind got in my way of expressing myself more…

Josh Campanella –