Who Are WE? We're PR3!

There are so many things I’d like to know about myself. And the things that I do, I wish I knew for sure. Because a fact is only a fact if there is known evidence. I’m constantly changing. My opinions, my ideas, my pure knowledge. It’s all kinetic. I am human though, a living, breathing, speaking, walking, and learning human being. With the positive however comes the negative. I fear, I love, I hate, I make good, I do bad, I mess up, and I make right. I know that every action and emotion I go through will be validated by the success I will potentially earn. Earn, not receive. I believe success comes in all forms. Whether comes in a personal, educational, or career sector. This is where I fall short. Each of these types of success brings its successes and fear.

                Personal success to me goes hand in hand with finding your own identity. Something most people go to college to find, and others never find it. I believe in my short 18 years and 7 months I have an idea of who I am. I am a strong willed, hard headed, caring, intelligent young woman who always seeks a challenge for a potential growth. This personality has yielded me to my friends who also make me who I am. Part of each of them lives in me and encourages me to do things that I normally would never do. It does not matter who or what I fear I know that my friends will always persuade me to be a better person. And love….as a wise friend one wrote “love is probably the best invention of voluntary motivation to do anything that comes along.” I know that no matter how badly I may fight with the ones that I love, they are making me a better person deep down inside. Each argument sticks to the back of my mind, correcting my wrong doings. Things like this bridge the gap between my personal and educational life.

                As of this day, my educational and my careers sectors are one in the same. It is MY JOB to go to school; a completely social and educational event. I know at a college level the friends…and enemies I make now will become permanent facets in my life. This is where my fear comes in. My fear to fail always prevails over me, and the fear of leaving this school without any type of lifelong connections. My family has always told me how important these friendships are imperative. So what if I am to make more enemies than friends. What if I leave and cut our time in half. What if what I learn here is different from what I will need to know much later on? It’s all so subject to change. Fearing that if I do poorly in school always pushed me to do more, because in my strong opinion fear facilitates action, no matter what you do. If I feared nothing, nothing would get done. Point blank.

“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..

Simplicity is easy to describe but difficult to achieve.

Our first free-write question asked us to write about one thing that we like about ourselves. I realize now that what I put, patience, is a quality that I don’t really have. When I can’t get something done I’ll let it bother me to no end. Hell, even if the person in front of me knocks me off my walking pace, I can’t help but get anxious and try my best to get around them.

Something that I do have, and like about myself, is understanding. There are some really ignorant people out there that think that everyone else is wrong. But I know that everyone has their own problems in life, and their own ways of dealing with them. But just because I understand why someone is the way they are, doesn’t mean that I have to agree with them. Or even like them.

I don’t like changing for others. If someone tells me that I should stop wearing or doing something, I’ll want to do the absolute opposite. If I want to change something, I’ll do it myself when I have the motivation to. Some of this attitude is also used towards my parents.

I have a weakness of insecurity. I usually take care of this through some sort of bodily movements. Either I’m shaking my leg up and down while sitting, tapping a pen against the desk, or just tapping my fingers. This isn’t very uncommon, I guess. I came into high school with not a lot of self esteem, and it took some building to set everything straight. I met some really beautiful souls there, who I hope will stick by me for the rest of it all.

My family has shaped a lot of me. Growing up, their only way of punishing me was by making me feel guilty. Which is worse than just getting grounded, I think. Their reverse psychology still stops me from doing some things that tempt me, because I don’t want to feel the guilt of being the reason for their anger. My mom is amazing when it comes to talking about family gossip, shopping, cooking, and basically anything emotional. My dad is there for intellectual talks. Even if I don’t respond, my dad could sit for a whole hour telling me about why this or that happened in history. It’s all very intriguing. My brother, who’s older than me by 4 years, and I have practically nothing in common. Maybe only that we both come from the same family.

I like to live by the quote, “Carpe Diem,” meaning, “seize the day.” This quote means that you shouldn’t let anything hold you back, and do more than just exist. I believe that things happen for a reason; that it’s more than just coincidence. So even if something wasn’t meant to be, life goes on.

I’d like to add a quote by Michael Scott from The Office:

“There are certain defining moments in a person’s life. The day he’s born. The day he grows hair. The day he starts a business and the day he sells that business back to Dunder Mifflin. What have I learned from all of this? It is far to early to tell. All I know is that I’m flying high and I don’t even want to think about it. I just want to enjoy it.”

I don’t understand why people always think of making themselves happy… I don’t see happiness in that at all. It seems very selfish to make yourself happy. Don’t people feel happy when they make others happy?

I always try to make others happy before I make myself happy, I don’t why. Numerous people question me why. I tell them I don’t know why. It’s just the way I am I guess.

People always tell me, you should always make yourself happy before concerning yourself with others. I don’t understand, how can I be happy, when there are others that are in the same situation as you? Isn’t it hard to be happy with others suffering around you? But if I make these people around me happy, wouldn’t I be happy too?

It’s confusing; sometimes I don’t even understand myself. Why do I try so hard to make others happy instead of making myself happy? Is it the feeling of satisfaction I get after helping others becomes happy?

Like this one time, one of my friends felt really down and he started to post depressing posts all over Facebook. I was in a depressed state too, so I know how he felt. However, I felt like I needed to help him in order for me to lift myself out of my own depression. I tried my best to convince not to be so emotional, give life one more chance. Even though, he was really stubborn, he tried to be happier. In a few hours, he turned a 180 becoming a positive person instead of the pessimistic person he always represented. I don’t know what I did right but I don’t think I can convince myself to be happier with everything I said.

However I indeed became happier when he became happy. It’s weird, happiness is so contagious. Once someone else has it, you’re bound to catch some symptoms no matter how strong your immune system may be. Happiness is so mysterious; how I obtain it in this bizarre manner, I have no idea. But I have made this into my motto: make others happy, because you’re going to catch it.

*I wanna change it but ill do it when i have time*

Harry Dana
My Monologue

After being in college for a month or so, I’m starting to learn the system a little bit better. Getting to know the teacher’s and what they expect from me. Honestly speaking I’m not so cut out for college, some people that I know they work, they go out at night and they still pull in amazing grades. These people have no problem to sit in the library for 6 hours at a time. For me to do that I would probably have to get paid. That doesn’t mean that I should give up, it just means either, I have to try much harder then they do or I just have to hope that college doesn’t get much harder then this.
I wanted to go into a little bit about a free write question you gave us to do in class once. You asked us what our personal motto was and I answered “don’t worry be happy”. Interesting point here Bob McFerrin is the true composer of this song. Huge classic rock fan by the way, also love house music, I DJ hear and there, ill get into that, maybe. Anyways I was saying that yes that’s the mottoI like to live by. Although sometimes being to chilled can bite me in the ass. People can take advantage of me; abuse their privileges so to speak. One of my friends been sleeping on my couch for the past 2 weeks I don’t say anything of course, its just one of many examples. It also doesn’t help my procrastination problem. Being worried about paper’s and test that are coming up isn’t all that bad. My problem is I keep telling myself that really all I need to do is graduate and not really care about my GPA so much, I mean its not going to say my GPA on my diploma. If I keep that attitude I’m probably not even going to graduate.
It’s starting to get mad cold outside, everyone is starting to wear their jackets to school and stuff, gets annoying though. Because when it cold outside no matter how much the air conditioning is on inside, its always to warm. Then your stuck with your jacket and you don’t want to wear it but you also don’t want to carry it. So you decide to shove it in your bag, but then your bag just looks massive. Mr. Fink by the way, you’re my role model.

So hear we are almost at the halfway marker of our first semester hear at Baruch. This class is the shit by the way, really chilled kids in this class. My friend was telling me how much he hates all the kids in his block. I honestly don’t have one negative thing to say about any of you guys, hope same goes for me.

Living life is living the way we want to and only taking into account others as a supplement of our actions. I know that life is real when I get to do the things I want to do, laughing at the jokes in life and loving every moment I live. To me, Love conquerors all and it’s my driving passion to achieve. Love is like my personal kind of drug. It makes me do things I normally wouldn’t do and continue to live on through all walks of life. Love is probably the best invention of voluntary motivation to do anything and everything that comes along. Therefore, the most important people in my life are the people that I love. That includes my family, my friends and my boyfriend because they give me a purpose in life. They give me a reason to strive for the right things and a reason to laugh. These people are the meaning of life and the checkpoint of my reality. They are the most real that real can get.

However, I am far from personal satisfaction, of course I realize there are aspects in my life I can improve on or even just have to deal with. I dislike how I am short. I dislike how I worry too much. I dislike the idea of not living up to parental expectations. The list is basically endless, but one thing I did learn is to be optimistic. Whatever the situation may be or however bad it gets, I know it can get better. I know life moves on and this is only an instance or that there would always be compensation. I always look for the light at the end of a long dark tunnel. So, my optimism allows me to live through any situation and bring light to others as well.

Bringing light to others is important to me. I believe happiness is a result of social interactions. By caring for others, others care for me. One thing I fear is being alone, having nobody to share life with. Loneliness makes me detached from others and every situation in life harder to bear. I’m needless to say a social person and live for the interactions between people. Another fear of mine is not living life to the fullest, by growing up too fast. I don’t want to go through the motions of life and miss out on the small things that makes life enjoyable. Its easy to pass by life on autopilot, going to school, getting married, having a family and growing old; but it’s the times in between that constitutes life. Life is not about just being in it, but being a part of it. I go on in my life to, not only be something, but to do something.

This is Chung Sing Chen. Who am I? I am just a normal person going to Baruch. Well with a little twist, maybe? My life at Baruch has been going down hill so far.Nothing is going right for me at this school. I really hope it will turn around soon. Me Myself and I? I think those are my three best friends? lol jk? It hard to tell others about yourself because it is not always true about how a person is and who they think they are. Personally, I like to think of my self as a good kid that is very lazy. I mean even posting this took a while for me. My laziness is both a good and bad aspect I like about my self. I am unable to do work well and time manage but I really enjoy the slow and peaceful time I get. I can do nothing and stare at the sky for a few hours.

My personal life ….. I have two older brothers. One 35 and the other 32. They are nice to me I guess. My parents are doing alright. I have a job teaching. I live in Queens New York. I’m 19 years of age.

My concerns right now is being a good college student. That is something that is very hard to do. I would need to better time manage and better myself. I gotta stop being late to class. I also need to change my work habit.

Hey, I’m Michael. I don’t exactly know who I am; your guess is as good as mine. I like to argue with people. Does that count as something? But seriously, I can’t tell you anything about myself that won’t be the same a week from now, or a month from now. What I’m trying to get at is, I’m not a normal person, or maybe I’m exactly normal, at least, I don’t think so, I’m always changing my mind and my opinion of things, see? I change; I think we all do, so when you ask me if I know who I am, all I can say is this. Do you want who I am right now? Or the person I was yesterday?
Alright, maybe I’m being a little antagonistic, so, Let me start off as if the question asked me who I was right now. Can I begin? Cool.
I procrastinate chronically. I love getting in fights with people. I love exercising. Think that’s it? I’m not done yet, here’s where it gets complicated. I also hate handing in work at times, (like this, I feel like crap right now), I also hate it when the fights get out of hand, and I absolutely abhor that feeling you get right after you’re done working out, as if the muscle isn’t there anymore. I know, I’m contradicting myself right now, but hey! That’s me, live with it!
Anyway, if you want to know, the only constant in my life may be that I’m a hopeless, hopeless romantic. Honestly, I just realized that that particular characteristic maybe the only constant in my life. My parents even thought I was gay once because I would always write poetry for hours every day to a crush of mine at the time. I’m not, just saying, but you get the point, right? I think that’s my biggest weakness, actually, deep down, I know that’s my biggest weakness. I always end up a complete wreck when things end, so if you notice me being less “chipper!” than usual, than you can probably assume I’ve been dumped.
Oh, and my personal life? I wish I could tell you something that no one else has told you, but I can’t. My life is perfect. My parents are happily married, I’m a middle child in a group of three, yet my mother still dotes on me like I was her only son, and My father’s only vice is that he loves to gamble. (Don’t all fathers gamble?), So, Please, when you tell me a sob story, I’ll throw on a sympathetic look, I’ll try to relate, but really, I can’t. You’ll have better luck at the end of the day with a sociopath. I’m not being cruel, just realistic.
When I saw number three, I laughed. Want to know why? Because Baruch is exactly like my high school, I went to Tech, which explains everything? This means that, at some point or another, I have met, or am going to meet the entire freshman student body. Isn’t that cute? No, not really. I expected a new beginning, my mistake? I figured.
Alright, I’ll get serious. Baruch is definitely going to be different, for one thing, the very act of doing something new means that you’re going to run into new and amazing people. That’s not the case at Tech; everyone you knew was always part of something. So, it’s exciting, if anything, striking a conversation with someone you don’t even know.
Personally, my biggest concerns are that I’ll finally get to like this college, than get swept away for Marine Boot camp or another one of the many distractions in my life. I don’t want to make connections, I get hurt to easily, please try to understand. I also worry that I’ll lose everything, in contrary to the first concern, I don’t want to be a complete outcast, I actually love being social, it’s just the timing and situation, is all. If anything though, rather pressing concern I’ve had contemplated it the idea of actually doing badly in my studies! Trust me, I don’t normally do bad in school, but you can’t help thinking it sometimes, you know? With the sudden change from High school to college must come a changing of systems, from the comfortable Tech system to the (unforgiving?) Baruch system.
Anyway, Did I mention that I’m not coming back next semester? Yeah, I joined the Marines, so I’m going to have to take a three semester break as I try to learn the way of the soldier, or whatever you want to call it. Truthfully though, I want to get the most out of this semester, I hope this semester of college will make me a better person. I mean, I have a major organization problem; I definitely need to work on that. Trust me, you read this, you would know.

                  My name is Knee, just kidding, it’s Ni. I am a very fun-loving guy, I don’t care if you joke with my name; I’ll laugh with you. I try my best to stay relaxed, I don’t stress out over minute stuff. My life is hectic; my family life is, complicated. I spend as much time as possible relaxing and hanging out with my friends. I Love to find out everything about the world. I try to do everything at once. I am a novice at 5 instruments, I read books, play games, philosophize and participate in many other activities. I always wish I can clone myself so I can have 100 clones each working specifically towards one goal and specializing in it.

My top 3 concerns at Baruch are tests, essays, and deciding my major. Tests are very important, they assess whether you have learned to material or not. Professors will judge whether you have learned enough material to pass or not. Essays area big concern for me because I was a big procrastinator in High school and there are a lot of essays to write in college. Unlike the 10 question homework of high school, college essays are very long and tedious. I won’t be able to procrastinate anymore. I am also concerned about deciding my major. All my life I was very indecisive. When I was a child, I would spend 20 minutes deciding which ice cream I want, after finally choosing it, it was bubble gum flavor and I couldn’t eat it. I have to learn more about myself in order to choose a major, the major I choose will have big consequences on my life. Businessman, lawyer, engineer, every choice leads to a different path and a different life.

College and High school are similar in some respects, but very different in others. In high school, I have homework, I go to class, and I have tests, just like college. The differences though, are very obvious. College instructors are called professors and not teachers because they don’t ‘teach’. A teacher incorporates all the information and asks questions and answers questions from students. A professor gives out countless bits of detailed information, but doesn’t make sure a student learns it. College work requires me to be diligent in my own mind. I must learn to be independent in studying and researching data; this will help me when I become a working adult in just a few years time.

I think college will make me more mature, and more connected with the world at large. College is a place where you learn about how to live and work in the modern world. For every career, there are rules and regulations. The pace the college sets will help me over come my procrastination due to necessity. As the amount of essays and homeworks increases, I have to try harder and become more diligent and ultimately overcome my habit of procrastination.

To claim I know who I am would not be entirely honest. I’m not sure any of us really know yet. Yes, the majority of us believe that at the age of 18 we are adults. We are all so convinced that we know ourselves and have the right to claim who we are as individuals. I, however, don’t think so. But because I have to, I will try my best in explaining who I am. I’m Isabelle and no I’m not German or Polish. I’m Brazilian. I’m also very loud if I want to be, but mainly I keep my mouth shut. Most of the time I don’t think twice about anything I do or say and am very impatient. I can procrastinate, but will always get the job done.

My first month at Baruch has really opened my eyes to a few concerns I didn’t think I would have. The first, would be time management. I didn’t realize how important this would be until just now actually. I forgot about the FRO Blog and cramped two papers into the night before they are due. Will never happen again, hopefully. My second concern is being able to experience college with all its glory. Its very easy to not get involved with anything because this is a commuter school. Which gives way to my third concern, what to join?! So many clubs and organizations and this and that, its a little overwhelming.

My experience in Baruch so far has been different from high school in some ways but the same in others. It has been different because college is a lot more individual than high school. Which brings me back to that damn time management. I hope I get a grip of that soon, or else I’m in deep, uhh trouble. I guess I can say it’s very different to manage time in high school because well what did any of us even have to manage? College is well, college. We all begin knowing what to expect, yet when faced with something like managing our time, we have trouble doing it.

However, I think as I progress in my first year at Baruch I think I will change and will be able to do something as simple as managing my time. I’m probably exaggerating with all this talk of time management, but really its a challenge for me. I was told that in college a person discovers who they really are, so I’m expecting just that. Maybe not in my first year at Baruch but I think it will begin to happen during this first year. I have no idea how, and can’t even think of how I might. But I’m excited to see what happens in this coming year, so bring it on Baruch.