Author Archives: allan.ali

I am really enjoying Baruch so far. I really love it. I am glad I was able to share something personal with my class during the monologue session.  I am happy that I got to make the friends I did.  I am doing really good in my classes and I cant wait till next semester and to be able to register for more classes next semester.  I got to work on my music at the same time and do good in school too.  I really like it here and am excited for the future..

On Oct. 17^th 2011, I woke up to not the sound of my alarm clock but a facebook alert on my phone. It was a message sent from my older brother Kwaku, he wrote to inform me that he had left for deployment to Afghanistan and said he’ll be back next summer. I took some time to reflect on our memories together, though they weren’t much. Since he left to join the army in 2001, I’ve only seen him in total a week to this day. It was only up until a couple of years ago that I really began to miss him too; before then I hadn’t thought about him that much, there was no reason too. The only times he’s come to visit were for 5 days on thanksgiving weekend in 2005 and for 2 days on March 13^th and 14^th in 2010. I honestly wish I had his influence growing up, teaching me how to talk to girls and other things; it would have made the process a lot easier because I didn’t have anyone else to guide me. I always hear people talking about how much they love their mothers and how they’re constantly there for them but truthfully I hated mine. I remember every slap, every hit, and every beating I’ve ever taken and they still resonate with me as much as they did then to this day. My mom has gotten better and I give her credit for trying but I feel it’s all fake because honestly I don’t think people change. My dad wasn’t much better, he would sit idly by as I would get slapped so hard, marks were left on my skin. My brother had a similar experience with my mom but wasn’t beaten as much, I remember when we stayed on the phone for more than 2 hours one day discussing his and my problems and it felt wonderful to connect with him like that because we never got the chance to before he left. My mother wasn’t abusive, I would say really unpleasant but I’ve grown to appreciate a bit more. She wants a relationship with me where we can talk and be close but I could never give her that satisfaction, not after all that she did; that connection between us was dead before it began. However I look back at my life and I have no regret. Although I might have learned things other kids would have learned much sooner with their family support I’m happy to say I made to this point in my life without anyone else’s help… well not entirely. Now I’m in the midst of a promising music career and the opportunity for success is within my reach and I have the work ethic and the passion to reach it.

Community service is volunteering one’s own time, free of charge, to help or aid others for a valuable cause. Whether we have to do it as s a requirement, or we choose to do it out of the goodness of hearts, its an intricate and significant part of our society and more people should volunteer their time to non-profit organizations.

Who am I? That’s irrelevant.

I don’t have many concerns about freshman year if any. I know one burden that will definitely frustrate me is having to complete an exorbitant amount of insipid work throughout my time here at Baruch. Another concern would be me having the ambition to complete such a volume of work in the first place. My last concern is that I don’t know if i will have the stamina to complete all the requisite credit requirements and graduate without the overwhelming desire to just dropout dominate my feelings.

What will make my Baruch experience differ from Staten Island Academy? Well the volume of people for one. I went from having 129 students in my whole high school to over 17,000 kids crammed into one space. Finding my clique is differently going to be a challenge as well. I have people I associate with and I enjoy their company, no complaints, but acquiring friends that I would like to and have a chance to hangout with on a weekly basis is going to take a lot longer than I initially thought. My hopes to play for the men’s basketball team will also be a difficult challenge in itself, especially since my former school didn’t have tryouts for any sports, but I look forward to sporting that jersey one day and I’m willing to put in the time and work for that opportunity.

I don’t think I’ll change really except for my study habits. Acclimating myself this new atmosphere, befriends schoolmates, joining clubs, partying, and all that good stuff is all an eventuality. It’s safe to say that we’ve all been through this process several times in our life so for it to change anyone, especially me in particular doesn’t really make much sense. My environment has incessantly changed my whole life and the only constant is me, so I don’t see any alteration in my personality anytime soon. If anything I’ll learn a lot more about people and how their minds operate.

I know I need at least 400 words so I’m just going to type about how i need more words until I fufill my daily quota of words for this blog. Dang! only 360 words, I need to waste more space. Now I have 374… almost there. I’m watching Conan O’Brien right now at 1:10 AM because I cannot sleep, this guy is pretty funny though I appreciate his work. Well I’m done, bye

Last Thursday I was taken on an informative tour of the library. It was absolutely amazing and I loved every minute of it. Aiman was a spectacular guide and taught me so much information. I would definitely say the tour was efficacious in helping me pick out books. <33333333333333