Hey, DTF! My name is Siby and I am 17 years old (but I’m 18 days from being 18!) and I live in Queens, New York. There are few things that I’ve felt passionate about in my life, and I think in order to really know me, you need to know my attachment to words. I am a writer, and I will always be a writer regardless of what profession I go into. I live and breathe words, and that explains my obsession with reading and writing, both of which I started doing fervently when I was nine years old.
But that’s just a tiny part of me that you probably would’ve figured out anyway. I am many things: I am also a daughter, a sister, a cousin to people that I love very much. Here’s a photo of my brother and me on the day of my graduation:
Although we don’t get along (at all. EVER.), I know that at the end of the day, we’re family and that’s all that matters. So regardless of the ridiculous things we fight about throughout the day, he’ll always protect me and I’ll always love him (though I won’t ever admit it to him).
But that’s lame family stuff, here’s where you get an insight into the things I’ve learned through my favorite things in the entire universe other than chocolate and marshmallows: BOOKS!
I like to think of myself as an avid reader. Books are a huge and important part of my life, and they have been since I was a nine year old child with her nose stuck in the first Harry Potter book. I want to use this opportunity to share some of the books that changed my life, and turned me into the person I am today.
Here is the first series I ever read. There are the tales of Harry Potter and his two best friends as they struggle to fight against the Dark Lord in his efforts to assert wizard supremacy over the world. I learned many things from this series; the power of love and friendship, and how the good defeat the bad. These are important lessons to learn as a child, and I am very fortunate to have been part of the Harry Potter generation: the children that almost literally grew up with Harry Potter. These books helped me realize my passion for reading, and through that, my passion for writing. Yes, these books are what made me want to be a writer in the first place: a wanted to create a world where people would be absorbed into simply by opening a book.
I was first exposed to these books in sixth grade, when a friend literally shoved the first two books toward me and said, “You should read these.” These contain the journey of Eragon, a boy who starts off the book knowing about as much about himself as we do. Slowly, through his adventures, he learns the truth about his past, and the important things that he must do to overthrow the evil king in the future. This series transported me to a whole different world at a time when I really needed it. My parents were beginning to grow distant, and I needed a distraction from real life. Through these books, I got the distraction I needed. I must’ve read the first two books eight times (no exaggeration).
I picked this up at a time when I was trying to get into science fiction, but that was a genre that I had never really been exposed to before, so I needed to ease my way into it. This is a series about a girl trapped in a dystopian society where the president is tyrannical, hosting an annual “Hunger Games”, where two children are reaped from each district and forced to fight each other to the death. The series is a young adult science fiction one, so I was able to ease into it quite well. The thing about these books is that they make you think about real governments and the injustices that common people must face every day. It made me question the things that citizens are forced to do “because it is the law”, and whether those things are entirely necessary.
John Green is another writer that had a huge impact on me, someone who still aspires to be a writer despite that I realize how literature is slowly deteriorating and anything I write will be compared to such works as John Green’s and Sarah Dessen’s and other modern young adult novelists. When I picked up my first John Green novel, which was Looking for Alaska, I was very surprised. I had found that John Green and I had something in common: we had similar writing styles, and he wrote exactly the kinds of books that I enjoyed reading. There is always something to be learned from his books, and I find myself completing marathon readings of all his books once I’ve finished one.
Aside from books, I like to watch a lot of television shows. One show I watch almost religiously is Doctor Who. I won’t pretend to be one of the people that have watched it since the very beginning, but I have watched all the episodes since they relaunched it in 2005.
The Doctor is an alien that stole a TARDIS machine because he wanted to see the universe. Along the way, he picks up companions that make him realize how “humany wumany” he really is, and how “wibbly wobbly” time is. The Doctor is a man that constantly reminds me that there is always something to be done to save people. He truly lives up to his name: he is a doctor, he is a healer.
Another show is How I Met Your Mother. I rarely stick around until the very end of a show, but I’ve watched this show obsessively since my brother torrented all of the episodes and constantly nagged at me until I started watching it.
The show is about Ted, who is telling the story of how he met his wife to his two children in 2030. This show is hilarious and so addicting. Not only are the characters great and very well developed, they face things that real people may find themselves facing one day: like when you’re looking for someone to settle down with and fall in love with someone who is afraid of commitment, or when you’ve been with someone for such a long time (like, say, 8 years) that you forgot who you are as a person. The characters are so easygoing and lovable, and they all have these unique qualities that make them different from all the other shows out in the world right now.
So that’s me, a girl who likes to read and watch shows she loves. Here’s a bunch of other things I love: Korean dramas, singing in the rain, painting my nails, taking pictures of myself, spending hours on Tumblr, going out with my friends and doing absolutely nothing yet creating infinite memories that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
I’m not naive (well, maybe a little bit). I know that things change and people change and the world doesn’t stop for anybody. It seems like just yesterday I was pulling on my boots to go snowtubing on my senior trip, and putting on makeup for prom, and walking down the aisle during graduation with tears already in my eyes. But this is a new beginning, and I may not be the girl in the oversized purple hoodie with the dragon on the back anymore, but I am more than willing to let new people in. And the time to do that is now now now now now.
Maybe I can’t be a dragon forever. Maybe I felt so attached to my dragons because I graduated with only 99 other people. But I believe I’m ready to be a bearcat.
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