Category Archives: Uncategorized

My name is Thomas Mincone, I am 18 years old and i attend Baruch College. The main reason I am in College is becuase of my mother. If my mom would allow me to drop out of college I would. This is becuase i do not want to have a normal job when i get older. My friend who is a junior in college is looking to start up a buisness and am thinking about dropping out to start it with him. If i can not start a buisness when i get older the only other job i would like to have is to be a dad. One regret that I have about my life is that i have to become to lazy. When is was younger I used to play soccer, football, baseball, and i used to do gymnastics. I did all of these things from when i was really little to when I was going in to high school. Around the time i was in fifth grade i met a person who today is my best friend. He did not play any sports. Since he did not play any sports and i always hung out with him i started to get less involved in sports. I dont regret meeting him because he is my best friend but i regret allowing myself to become lazy. One thing in my life that is happening right now is both good and bad.  My brother just moved out of the house and is getting married next year. This is good becuase now that my brother is out of the house I moved into his room which is bigger than mine. But more importantly the bad thing about this is that i dont see my brother as much anymore. My brother was the person in my house that i talked to about everything. I know i can still talk to him on the phone but it is not the same as seeing everyday.

Last year I went on a trip called heritage, where a few other people and I went to Poland to see everything that’s happened with the holocaust.  I am not usually an emotional person. But when I visited the ghettos and concentration camps I started breaking down crying. I learned so many things about the holocaust and I had ancestors who survived it but it never really hit me until I saw the place myself. I saw millions of shoes of the ones who had died and all their belongings. I saw all the camps and the concentration camps. It was one of the most emotional trips of my life and I will never forget it. It was a trip that made me appreciate my life and thank God that I am alive and able to live my life freely. After this trip I started to make the days of my life more productive and make use of my time. I started doing a lot of community service, visiting the elderly and the sick. I organized a fashion show to raise money for the awareness of breast cancer. That trip made me realize that all the people who suffered in the holocaust couldn’t do anything, and why should I be sitting home watching TV while I can be doing things that make people happy and make me feel better about myself.

I don’t usually like to talk about myself because in my family, I’m the one you turn to when a job needs to be done, I never really felt that I should express my feelings. Or at least that’s what I thought up until Monday July 13th 2009. On this day I received a phone call from my mother. She sounded upset but she didn’t want to tell me what was wrong. What she did tell me was that I should stop what I was doing and to go to my grandmother’s home as soon as possible. When I arrived, I was shocked to see so many people openly crying. I went up to my mother to ask her what happened, and that’s when I received the news that my grandmother had passed away only a few hour before I got there. This was the first time I ever had to cope with death. I just sat there in tears speechless, unable to even muster up the energy to get up. For the first time in my life I couldn’t do a thing to help the situation. I couldn’t eat or sleep for days, I felt helpless and alone. I was in such a horrible state that I didn’t even speak to anyone until the night before the funeral. That night I was asked to read the speeches prepared by my sister, three of my cousins, my aunt, and my own on their behalf. In my head, I felt that was the only way I could help. The only problem was that I had no access to a computer to type out my speech. I stayed up all night writing speech after speech on my cell phone, I kept telling myself that it just wasn’t good enough and I didn’t want to worry anyone, so I remained silent. Finally it was time to go to the funeral, this day couldn’t move any slower. Each and every second I spent at that podium looking down at my loved ones and that casket was like an unbearable torture. But I persevered; I read each speech one after another with tears running down my face. Every time I finished reading a speech I would have to stop and try my best to gain composure. Finally it was time for my speech, at this time I took out my phone which caused everyone watching to become dumbfounded. I stood there reading my speech, trying to get my words out as fast as I could so that I could finally leave. When it was over I felt embarrassed of the fact that I had to read it off my phone and expected to receive harsh comments from my family. To my surprise I was embraced by my family. Monday July 13, 2009 was the day my life changed, ever since that day it’s become difficult for me to take charge of my day to day problems but I’m trying. So please forgive me if I ever seem like I’m trying to either avoid any of you or I don’t respond because I’m not as open as I would like to be but I’m trying my best.

My name is Malique and I go to Baruch College. I love football more than anything in the world, that’s all I ever think about half of the time. Even though I over analyze and stress sometimes, in the end I make sure I do whatever it takes to prevail in the end. I view myself as a very strong willed person that makes sure he handles business all the time. For the most part I think when it comes to being in groups I usually lead just in the fact that I don’t like authority at all. My mother is the most important person in my life because she played both roles of the parents and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her. The one and only thing I’m afraid of is failure, when I fail at something I feel as if I’m a weak person. The second thing that I love the most is Food, that’s all I do is eat and work out when I have free time. School has been good so far, made new friends, learned new things and just experienced a whole new environment. A motto that I have went by for years is , “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, in my point of view if you’re dealing with obstacles and they aren’t defeating you, you can learn from your experience to become stronger from there. Life is good right now, everything in my life is finally coming together after dealing with so much on my journey to college.

I’m Erika Yzique I’m from Long Island, and I’m  a commuter. I’m starting  to hate commuting since it’s a long period of time on a train which is pretty boring. But also the fact that I have to wake up super early to make it to class on time. I wake up at 5 to get ready and catch the 5:55 train so I can make it on time to my 8:15 class. Commuting is really tiring but also it makes it seem like I spend more time in school then I did in high school which is not really true. I live in the suburbs which is very different city. Where I live is very quiet and the city is very noisy. Baruch and the high school would be the same diversity wise because my school was huge and it was very diverse just like Baruch is. My school district is one of the biggest school districts in Long Island, we also had a pretty big school which made of have a great amount of graduating seniors, but also a three hour graduating ceremony since they had to call everyone’s name to receive there diplomas and also guest speakers . I like the city and the suburbs because in the city you could really go anywhere cause of the subways but in the suburbs you really need to have a car to go out. But also everything is really far away.

Life is a Gift.  There have never been truer words
spoken.  Although we all struggle day to
day with things that make us question our purpose, life is something we should all be thankful for.  Some people don’t get a chance to even experience life.  This is true for my best friend Amanda.  Amanda passed away when she was seven years old.  We got
really close because of our situations.  She had leukemia and it got the best of her. She was denied treatment at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York because her family did not have the money.
At the same time, I was in Sloan for treatment of bone marrow
cancer.  Amanda was the one that kept me going.  She gave me hope and strength and something to look forward too every day.
We spent time playing like six year old kids should, she was my only
friend.  It was the worst most devastating feeling to hear that my only hope had passed away.  At seven years old I learned how tragic and unfair this thing called life could be.  I didn’t find out about her untimely death until I was almost discharged from the hospital.  Amanda’s mother continued to visit me at the hospital and whenever she was there I could truly feel Amanda right next to my hospital bed.  I was there for two years.  I was admitted right before
my sixth birthday and was discharged in the summer of 2000.  That journey was the longest most miserable experience anyone should have to endure.  I suffered through chemotherapy and radiation which made me even sicker.  I cried and screamed every day
that I had to go for treatment.  I lost my hair, my appetite, my desire to get up from my hospital bed, I lost my smile, I lost everything at only six.  I hadn’t seen my two brothers since before I was admitted because my mom didn’t think it was somewhere they should see their sister.
My mother only came once a week because it was too much for her to handle.  My mom really let me down.  Especially after Amanda’s death, my mom really limited the time she spent with me because it was just too difficult.  To this day I still feel like my mother let me down, but I have learned to forgive and forget even though it
stays with me.  However, in January 2000, my mother was told that if I didn’t receive a bone marrow transplant I wouldn’t make it.  After blood transfusions and constant testing, I was eligible for a transplant.  In April 2000, my guardian angels were with me while I underwent a long surgery, when I woke up I was happily surprised
that my mom was right beside me holding my hand, but Amanda wasn’t.  After my surgery I spent the next three months in the hospital before I was finally discharged.  The weeks following, I was instructed to continue visits with my doctor.  It had
only been a few weeks since Amanda passed away and I was still distraught and wished I could have said goodbye.  When I
went to see my doctor my mother got the donor report from my bone marrow.  The results were shocking, almost too much to
even believe.  My marrow was donated from my best friend, my angel, Amanda.  The surgery made her sicker and ultimately caused her death.   She died in order to save my life.  She is a true hero and my guardian angel.  I live every day knowing I am living not just my life, but also my best friends because she sacrificed her
life to save mine.

Life is a gift; treasure it, because not everyone has an equal chance.

Monologue: Usman Bhatti
Hi, I guess I’m supposed to like open up about myself right now; but its hard to open up when everyone in my life has told me to “keep it to myself”. I guess I can start by saying what I am on the interior. I’m self-conscious about how I look, and I hate when people stare at me on the bus, because I feel like something’s wrong with me that I’m not aware of. That’s why I think coming to Baruch was such a big step. All these faces staring at you, judging you before they even get to know you. Even now, standing up here, I wanna barf because who knows what you guys think of me. Life has given me many challenges, but I don’t complain about it; I just take it in stride. Now I can’t talk about me without talking about my girlfriend. She’s my best friend and the one person who I can depend on. I know you’re supposed to love yourself before you can love others but, she helped me to love myself. Everyday I wake up I say a little prayer, because I’m thankful to be alive. The reason? I almost killed myself twice, once an accidental overdose and once intentional. Now don’t ask why I did that, it was just a very dark moment in my life, where people around me were dying, my mom had cancer and I had nobody to talk to. It was scary, because you think you know what pitch black is until you get knocked out by 10 pain killers. That’s scary. Three years later though, I’m definitely a changed man, a man with a semi full time job and someone who’s semi full time in school. Basically, I have a full time life, that moves to fast to sit and do pot, or drink or do any type of drugs. Exterior wise I dress in dark colors and I don’t try to get to much attention. That’s a big reason why I wear the hats, because a lot of the times I don’t want to be seen or judged. I’m a poet at heart, not a rapper or a singer but a poet. I love making words flow from line to line and its that which helps me get through the dark times. You can probably tell that my thoughts are all over the place because I don’t really know what to focus on. Life’s changing around me, I just hope I’m ready for everything. I hope everything goes how I want it too. I hope I become a lawyer. I hope when I tell my parents about who I love they accept me. I hope my family learns to love me. I hope God forgives me for the times that I have sinned. I hope you guys understand that I don’t like opening up but I just did. Other then that I don’t know what to say about myself. Who am i? I’m Usman, and I’m ready for whatever life has to offer, because I’ve been through the bad, now I’m waiting for all the good.

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.

What is community service? I think that community service is taking time out of your day to help someone specifically or a whole community. It is doing what you can to help your community. You can do community service because it makes you happy to help other people with thier problems. On th other hand you can do community service because it is mandatory for some reason. Whatever the reason for you doing community service does not matter. It is all the same because in both ways you are helping benefit the lives of others which is what community service is.

Have you done any community service? Community service has not always been very important to me. I have not done much community service in my life but i have done a little. A few years ago i used to help teach gymnastics at a gymnastics camp to kids from the age of 6 to 12. Even though i did this service because i had to for school it still felt good to help people out. Because i liked the feeling of helping the kids out with their gymnastics i volunteered to help teache for a second year. This time it felt even better because i was doing because i wanted to not because i had to.

What do i think of community service?

Community service is very important in my community. we are always helping people out and always there for each other. I do a lot of community service, but the biggest one i ever served was volunteering to help with a fashion show that raises money for breast cancer awareness. I was in charge of all the models clothing and their appointments for make up and hair for the show. I took care of the food and drinks for the audience. I also had to give a speech what this fashion was really about and it showed many people how important this fashion show was. Besides the night of the show, i had to raise a lot of many for it which i asked many people from my community to donate money which worked out well because we raised a lot of money. I worked on it for a whole year just to make one big night happen. It was very important to me and it really made a big impact on me. Even though it took up a lot of my time it was well worth it in the end.  This is an annual show and will continue year after year.