FRO 1000 – BFA

Here I am writing my final blog for freshman seminar. It’s about community service since I didn’t get the chance to do anything for my community this semester. I definitely would’ve liked to do something like donate blood or something like that but the chances past me by. Community service is something that I think everyone should do at least once in their lives. Whatever it is you choose to do, whether it’s walking for cancer, donating your blood, donating cash, or even shaving your head you get a good feeling on the inside that what you did is going to help someone somewhere. I know that maybe some of you might be thinking “oh why do I have to waste my time to help someone needy” or “it’s okay if I don’t do anything, there’s plenty of people out there who will” and I just have to say that you wouldn’t be wasting your time, you’d have a great feeling knowing that you helped someone who needed your help. And as far as “everyone else helping” I just have to say that every little help counts and makes a difference. Well I hope that maybe you’ll consider doing something for your community in the future, but until then: signing off for the last time this semester
-Patrick Kargol

Wow. I can’t believe that my first semester in college is already almost over. Another week or two and then we got finals and then finally a month off! Life here at Baruch has definitely met most of my expectations. The classes are a little difficult, each in it’s own different way, but manageable if you put the time and effort in. As far as how well I did this semester? I think i did alright. Im sure I could’ve done a lot better if I put more time and effort into my work, and that would definitely be the one thing I would do differently if I had the opportunity. I’ve procrastinated alot this semester so I definitely would like to get the chance to focus more on my work.
As far as me changing in my time here at Baruch? I don’t think that I changed that much. I think if I met the Patrick Kargol that stepped into Baruch for the first time as a freshman a few months ago he’d be almost identical to the person I am today. Here’s to many more happy memories @ Baruch!

Unforgettable

Its funny how it could take just one night to change the way you look at life, and really appreciate all the chances you get. Just one incident, everything you once believed in, and everything you had never even thought of believing in suddenly change, everything changes. It was a dark and rainy night as my friend and I were leaving a party. We were drenched from running two feet to her brand new Infinity two door car that her parents had just brought her. Life seemed great, I mean, what else could we ask for. Friends, parties, our hot ride, that’s all that mattered senior year.

We have the heat blasting, laughing about everything that happened at the party, I was switching threw the radio for something good to listen to. There was nothing good on so I settled for “California King Bed” by Rihanna. The rain was getting worst as we slowed down and stopped at a red light. As the light turned green, my friend told me to text her mom to let her know we were driving home. The next thing I saw was bright lights and at that moment I just froze. I could not react even with a scream, everything was just so quick.

It all happened so fast it’s hard to remember it all. The air bags popped open and smacked me in the face. I didn’t realize until later how much the impact really hurt. Some time later, once we realized what had happened, my friend and I were screaming because we couldn’t get out. Both doors were trapped between a pole and the mystery car that had struck us.

Thankfully no one was hurt in the terrifying event. The trauma of being in an accident was horrible enough without someone getting injured. We truly were lucky, and this is the times in life when your reminded, the parties, the cars, that’s all fun and great, but that is not what matters.

It felt like hours before the police and ambulance came. They moved the car as quickly as possible to get us out. Once we were out of the crushed brand new car, it was all kind of a blur. I felt like I was going through the motions of what I was told to do, but my mind was somewhere else. Where’s my friend? Is she OK? How about my family? They must be so scared. So much was racing through my mind, I couldn’t focus on what was really happening and the reality of it all.

I remember being taken over to the ambulance truck and someone looking into my eyes and taking my heart rate. Then they told me to open my mouth and blow, I didn’t realize until after that they were checking to see if I was drinking. They must of did the same thing for my friend because after some guy said, “These two are sober”. I wanted to scream out, we did nothing, but I couldn’t find the strength.

The police officer still made us go to the hospital for further evaluation and so our parents can pick us up there. Someone must have already notified our them because they were already at the hospital hysterical. Both parents were so happy to see we were conscious and responding. After more tests, the doctor finally cleared us and said we were fine, with the exception of some scratches and bruises.

A police officer came in and told us that the car that hit us was a drunk driver, with an alcohol level of .09. Then is when I realize how much worst this situation could have been for both me and my friend and the drunk driver. 

Geez it’s 12:43a.m and I’m writing my monologue. I’m going to be honest I know it’s late but no i don’t care cause there is a reason for it. Well, first let me ask you all two rhetoric questions. What does friendship mean to you? Do you have a best friend? I myself have four best friends. My girlfriend Michelle, I could go on for days about her, but I won’t you guys don’t need to know. My buddy Matt, he’s a crazy bastard.  My cousin Karlos. Karlos with a k just saying. Love him like a brother and Erica past crush, current best friend. She’s actually the reason this monologue is late. You see when i say best friend I don’t mean it in a low key kind of way I mean i would literally step in front of a car, get shot or even get arrested for. Fun fun stuff when you just helped your best friend break into her own house and you get busted ten seconds later. Freezing your ass off and passing around a single drink while trying to make conversation with the police is fun. Evidently I’m not in jail. Obviously, but still i almost ended up locked up and for what? Breaking and entering? No for helping a friend. A friend that doesn’t just mean the world to me but a friend that makes the days go by faster. Now i know you guys may not care about my life or some of you do. I don’t know I’m probably just rambling here but still, either way I’m going to stop here by saying what’s life if you don’t live it? Or in a musician’s perspective what’s the point in playing one note when you can play a chord. Sorry if you don’t get the analogy but yea I’m done.

It’s kind of funny when you come to college the first time and expect to make a choice, but instead you’re just handed a bunch of papers to choose a schedule with classes already fixed for you. Isn’t college all about making choices for yourself? But when you put these things into perspective, I guess we really don’t end up choosing most of the things in our lives. You could ask people from different parts of the world about who your dollar belongs to, but you’ll always get a different answer wherever you are. You might ask the man in Washington, then it’ll belong to the state. You could ask the man in the Vatican, and it’ll belong to God. If you ask the man in Moscow, then it’ll just belong to everyone. The land of the free isn’t even that free anymore when you look at it now. Well, at least next semester I can put a bunch of classes on a piece of paper.

Modern times suck aside from all the benefits that medicine and technology bring us. The quality of music in the mainstream is really one of the things I can’t stand.Creativity in lyrics pretty much just turned into writing about an experience about some party you went to, drugs, and killing people. Well, music really just is a matter of opinion so who am I to say what’s good and what’s bad? To me it really just seems like these artists sit down and flip a coin to decide whether the next song they write is about a) killing people or b) drugs. The media’s also pretty bad in my opinion. Is it really news when we’re talking about things going on in the lives of celebrities instead issues that affect our daily lives? Is Beyonce becoming a mom really a big enough deal that everybody should hear about it? Things could definitely be worse, sure, but as it is now I think we should try and put a little bit of effort into what we broadcast as news. Well, at least Baruch doesn’t suck and the people I’ve met here are some of the more intelligent and nicer people I’ve run into. Hopefully the people I meet today are the people that change things tomorrow.

There’s nothing like owning your own set of wheels. I don’t know about any of you guys but I always get this great feeling whenever I get into my car to drive somewhere. To paraphrase Bernie Mac from Transformers your first car is your first enchilada of freedom. I’ve had a love for cars ever since I was a little kid and I still go to the car show at the Javitts Center every year. I don’t know what it is about them. Is it the looks? Is it the speed? The power? I guess it’s different for everybody. Some people just view cars as methods of getting from point a to point b, others might view it as a way of showing off how loaded they are, but for me…a car is a way for someone to escape their daily lives. There’s nothing stopping you from just getting in your car and driving till the wheels fall off. Its more than just a machine, it’s almost like a personification of who the person you are. You know what I mean? Anyway, If there’s one thing that I can’t stand about cars, it’s the automatic transmission in some of them. You know the one that says Drive, Reverse, Neutral and so on? I think that people who drive automatic transmissions are either lazy, or just ignorant. Lazy because they just want to sit in the car and press their foot, and ignorant because they don’t know about the other options. I think that the only REAL cars have manual transmissions. For those of you that don’t know, a car that has a manual transmission has three pedals instead of two and the stick in the middle has to be constantly moved in between gears. To put it in really basic terms, YOU have complete control over the car, so it won’t go anywhere if you don’t know how to drive it. I think that this is way better than automatic cars because i don’t know about you guys, but i don’t need a computer to tell me when i should shift gears, i can do that myself. Also, driving a manual car is loads more fun than an automatic car. You can do burnouts, slides, peel outs, they’re more fuel efficient and their faster. Plus there’s nothing better than the feeling you get when you put the car into 1st gear, build up the revs, let go of the clutch and burn some rubber. But thats just me. Anyway, if there’s anything you can take from this rant, it’s to try new experiences. This is college after all, live a little…you just might like it.

Coming home from school was always a joyous occasion. I would run to my mom’s arms at the bus stop while I would wait for her to ask me what I did in school that day just so I could answer with the words everyone gives when asked that question; nothing mom. Except on this one day it wasn’t my mother who came to pick me up from the bus stop. It was my grandmother who was visiting from Cyprus. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy to see her too, but I had to know something strange was up. I went to go say hi to her and realized her eyes were red with tears running down. At that point I really didn’t want to know what was wrong. We continued to walk back into the house, I saw my mom in the kitchen doing the dishes but then when I looked over at the couch I saw something I’ve never seen before in my life, and to this day something I have never seen again. My father was sitting down and crying. I soon connected the dots in my head and realized my grandmother had passed away. It’s a strange feeling for an 11 year old to have. I knew I wanted to cry but for some reason I couldn’t. I just sat there in my dad’s arms trying to figure out how such a thing could happen.

Days went on and it was time for her funeral. We were sitting in church and the family was crying but not me; still no clue why. I while into the service, my aunt was passing out sucking candies. For some reason, my 2 year old brother ended up with one. 2 minutes later I hear someone choking. I didn’t want to turn around. All I saw was my dad grab my brother and run outside. My relatives thought that maybe my brother had to throw up or something but no one knew what was really going on. Here I am, at my grandmother’s funeral, and seeing my brother maybe take his last few breathes of air.  It should be noted that on my grandmother’s deathbed all she had in her hand was a picture of my baby brother. One day I know they’ll be reunited, but not today, not now. At that moment I had all these thoughts running through my head and it all came out. I don’t think I ever cried aa much in my whole life. I truly knew what it meant to be completely and utterly hopeless and in control of absolutely nothing. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t think, all I could do was wait and see what happened. It was the longest 2 minutes of my life, but when the advisor of the church came up to our rows, all I could hear was his voice. “Everyone don’t worry, they got the piece of candy out and he’s doing ok.” Relief. That’s the only way I could describe it.

A couple days later, still trying to make sense of everything, I awoke on a Sunday morning and realized the hallway was brighter than usual. I looked up in the sparkling sun and saw my grandmother float down and tell me she loved me and that everything will be ok. I expected to soon wake up from this dream but guess what, I didn’t. I kept looking around and realized that it was for real. Pretty bizarre, and I understand why people would be skeptical about me saying what I saw, but I really really don’t care. That put so much joy into my heart and it gave me something that I couldn’t achieve on my own. Closure.

Note: These are the words to my actual monologue excluding “NOTE!” ^_^

Hi! I’m Cybele.

I usually talk better if I just say things on the spot! So I’ll try that…

But I’m not going bending the rules because Joanna told us to post our monologues on the blog last night… And I did. This is it.

Honestly, I could just talk about myself for three minutes and be done with this monologue, but I don’t really want to do that…

I see this as a chance to learn how to talk in public so I won’t take the easy way out…

Anyways…. back to my monologue… wait a minute…. this is my monologue! Haha! Everything that I’m saying right now is part of my actual monologue! Even now!!

Hmmmm… isn’t this a predicament? If everything that I’m saying is part of my monologue then when does it stop? Or when did it actually start? Are all these rhetorical questions really part of my monologue??

Should I answer that?? Yes? No? Am I answering that right now!!

Sorry if I lost all of you! I’m really nervous!

So back to what I was saying before… I could just ramble on about my life for 3 minutes and talk to you about my adorable boyfriend who has been busy because NYU- Poly is crazy killing him with homework and tests but seeing as the majority are all boys… I’m gonna spare you all the girly details! Side note: We’re currently 9 months and I’m happy! ^^

So.. what should I talk about…hmmm…. I don’t know….

Oh I wish I can speak in Filipino right now… All of you would be getting an earful if I talked to you in my language! Yeah! You’d all be bored and think “When will she ever finish??” “OMG, she talks too much” “Shut up… SHut Up… ShuT uP… SHUT UP!” So thank god you can’t understand tagalog!

Not that you would want to… I mean it’s hard…

You’d have to learn the phrases first, then learn about different words… the different sentence structures.. how to conjugate! I mean.. can you believe it?? In the Philippines, I had a total of 11 subjects and one of them is Filipino! I even had to learn about my own language in class!!

Well,I can’t really blame it… the education system I mean… I talk in Filipino slang all of the time so my Filipino vocabulary isn’t really that big anymore…actually, now that I think about it… It was never big to begin with! And did I even pass that class???

Hmmm… Wow… I wanna stop talking in english now…

Gusto ko lang na malaman ninyo na ako’y nagbibiro lamang! Hindi ko intensyon na pagtawanan kayo kasi hindi ninyo ako maintindihan. Para sa akin, gusto ko lang na mapakinggan ninyo ang wika ng aking bansa. Salamat po sa pakikinig!

Translation: I would just like all of you to know, that I am only kidding. It wasn’t my intention to make fun of you because you can’t understand me! For me, I just wanted to introduce to all of you my language! Thank you very much for listening!

Formal right???? I was trying to sound intellectual!

Well… anyways! I don’t really want to extend my time anymore! If any of you want to know more info please go to my website “idon’treallyhaveawebsite.com/cybele” … and yes! That was a joke!

Again! Thank you all for listening! :3

New York has been pretty awesome so far. Having moved here from Los Angeles, California about two months ago, I have really been enjoying my time here in New York City. I remember when I first visited back in April last year.  After only a couple days here, I knew I had to live in Manhattan at some point in my life;it was just too cool of a place to pass up. So I decided to come to Baruch, and so far I have really liked the school. Everybody seems nice and some of the teachers are alright but some might need some improvement. Although there are definitely some notable differences between living here compared to the west coast. The lifestyle is very quick around here and everybody always seems to be in some kind of rush. Everything is much more relaxed on the west coast and the atmosphere feels a bit more chill. However, I knew what I signed up for when I decided top move to New York so this shouldn’t be a surprise to me. I also have been enjoying Baruch’s game room lately and there are some good ping pong players out there. Baruch even has its own ping pong team; an a and a b team. Wow. Anyways, I’ve made some really good friends here and I hope that the rest of the school year goes as well as it’s been going.