Hi, I’m Christine, well to be more specific I am an Asian- American female who is trying to live a normal life. Before I continue let me just say that this is not going to be a depressing monologue so don’t feel sorry for me because with out my allergies I am not the Christine I was today. So when I think of allergies I think of itchy eyes, sneezing and rashes. I never thought to think about other severe allergic reactions but now I have to. One of my more severe allergic reactions are my rashes. My rashes started in elementary school, 5th grade, and they continue today but one major difference was the severity of my allergic reactions. My allergic really got worse in 7th grade, it got so bad that I had to wear Gauze to cover the rash, the rash ripped through skin and flesh. Since the rash got increasingly worse me and my parents had to go from doctor to doctor to find the cause of my rashes. I ad to go to many doctors, both professional doctors and Chinese herbal doctors. The doctor never helped me out until I was referred to ENT Allergies where I met Dr. Li who told me that I am allergic to many things. Some common things that I were allergic to were rodents, cockroaches, seafood, cats, dogs and dust. When I heard that I was allergic to due and it was the cause of my rashes I thought , what? You can be allergic to dust? To help with my allergies Dr. Li proposed that I try taking immunity shots to make my body more immune towards dust. Those shots never helped but she prescribed me an lotion that helped but never freed me from the rashes. What helped me was my mom, she even contacted her relatives in china to get lotion that may help with my rashes and it did. As of now my rashes are not apparent and I can move my fingers but I do have the the results from my rashes. As I am getting over my rashes I learned that I have hives. This is another allergic reaction where if I over heat my self my body cannot regulate my body temperature and it forms hives. I must say my life has been a roller coaster of emotions but one thing I know is that I am gong to live with these allergies for the rest of my life but I must say that because of my allergies I love to draw and create artistic items or pictures. As I have said before I am Christine because of my allergies.

Snow As I Grow

I sit in my room and I watch the snow fall to the ground
I’m inside looking out, safe and sound
I watch the snow flakes as they fall
Wishing I could go outside and touch them all
I stay inside because it’s too cold
I want to go build a snowman but I feel too old
I miss the days of snow ball fights
But I think I’ll stay inside, I’ll be alright.

I go out to shovel the sidewalk and driveway
All that time wishing I could just play
I want to compound the snow into little balls
And throw it at things and watch them fall
I want to run with friends, and sled and ski
I want to be young again, I want to be free.

Snow on tree branches and covering cars
Falling down like shining stars
The sight of snow is fresh and clean,
Reminding me of a Winter Wonderland scene.
Fresh snow is a beautiful sight
Like a soft white cloud or a radiant light.

Winter is the best time of year
Christmas movies on t.v bringing out cheer
But, nothing can replace the delight of a winter night
Hanging with friends in the midst of a snow ball fight
The years of being young were oh so great
I wish I could go back in time and date

I might be too old to play and run
But watching the snow fall is just as fun
I observe from my couch and from my bed,
I watch the snow fall on top of my head.
I watch, I listen, I taste, I feel
The snow is so alive and so real.

Sokol Sheri

I hate mimes.

His hand goes up, he’s happy,

His hand goes down, he’s sad,

His bipolar disorder needs to be taken care of.

Don’t pretend to reign me in,

There is no rope,

I’m not your b****h.

I’m not a mind reader;

Pictures have a thousand words,

How am I supposed to know

Which string of the thousand combinations

Is the one he’s trying to convey?

Communication is key to a relationship,

But how do you communicate

When language –

Words I should say,

For the smartasses that will argue

Miming is a language –

How do you communicate

When words are dispelled?

I would have preferred

The traditional silent treatment

Over this sick version,

That has me twisting my head

To figure out what you are saying – or rather aren’t.

I played along with it at first,

But this game has become exhausting,

Quite frankly it’s annoying.

You were probably one of the kids

Who wouldn’t fall back in drama class.

I don’t know what happened that made you shut up

But darling I’m flying,

And I can’t be with someone

Who won’t even scream when I fall.

Never fall in love with a mime.

As I stepped foot off of the plane, I knew I was ready for what was ahead of me. The thought of living in the greatest city in the world had me so excited that I couldn’t even form complete sentences. This had been my dream since I could remember, and nothing was going to spoil it. Days went by, and I finally moved into my new home. New faces appeared, as well as new surroundings, and I was very content with it all-nothing made me happier. Within my first few weeks, I have already made unbinding friendships and memories that will never fade from my mind. And I think the most exciting part of living in New York City is all of the opportunities it holds, as well as how, magically, the city makes everyone fall in love with it. I never thought I could love a place like I could love a person, but as always, New York is the one place that is different than the rest. Even the things that aren’t supposed to be loved, like the freezing cold mornings and the smell of the subway, still manage to make the city even more of a home, and make me fall in love all over again, as I did the first time I stepped foot into it. My life here is one that I couldn’t experience anywhere else, and this city will always hold a special piece of my heart, regardless of where I end up in the future.

“You Can’t Judge a Book by its Cover”

Sitting among my closest friends in High School and I would spend most of my time in silence. Why, you may ask? It’s not that they disliked me, considering I have known these guys for years, or I couldn’t keep a conversation; rather I had no interest in what they talked about most of the time: sports and video games. Even better, sports-video games. Everyday. All the time. I had other ideas in mind, as I sought out my own outlet through music. Most people, who don’t know me very well would say I am a quiet guy, who minds his own business. And I agree with them 100%. However most people have never seen me play the drums. Who’s the quiet one now?

I have always had a passion for music, whether it was blasting my parents Bruce Springsteen records, playing classical piano for 5 years, or trying to learn guitar to some extent. All it took were two words: Rock Band. Everyone starts somewhere, right? Finally, a video game I could relate with and actually enjoy playing.

Picture this: My 8th grade graduation party, my family is over. My cousins and I spent the entire evening in my basement playing “The Beatles Rock Band” (a game that I easily mastered). My cousin Katie asked “Hey Mikey, have you ever considered playing drums? You’re really good.” I had a basic concept of rhythm. If Dave Grohl could do it, why couldn’t I? Piano had grown old, so I figured I’d give it a try. To no surprise my parent’s got me a drum set. I was hooked. I don’t know what it was. The rush, the energy, the thought of hitting things.What better way to let out any anger or stress? It was fantastic. I didn’t need sports or video games. I found my own path as a self-taught drummer. Something I enjoyed, that not one of my friends would ever understand. Oh well, I’d say that’s their loss.

What a journey it has been, what a journey this will be, and what pressure it all bears. From taking a school bus to school, to driving myself, to graduating to college and taking the 6 train. What have i really learned? From sitting in classes like then, like now, what have i learned? Spitting back knowledge then, spitting it back now, how will i use it? Going through the motions then, going through them now, just following the path cause i don’t know what i want to make mine into

My First Trade

A lot of people have different big “firsts” in their lives: first kiss, first relationship, first time driving. My biggest “first” was my first trade. It was in some pharmaceutical company; it is also the crappiest trade I’ve ever made. I was so anxious to put on my first trade, that I bought the first stock I saw whose ticker scrolled across the bottom of CNBC. I logged onto my trading platform, typed in the symbol, and confidently pressed the ”buy” button, not even knowing how many shares I just bought. I spent half, yes half, of my one thousand dollar account to buy what could appropriately be described as “dog shit”. But I didn’t care. I was overwhelmed with joy; my very first trade. What’s next? After placing the trade, I just sat at my desk, and started daydreaming of being the teen sensation that turned a thousand dollars into 2.7 million (the exactness of the number makes my dream feel real). I was on cloud nine, until the next day, crashed back down to reality. As it turns out, the stock I bought filed for bankruptcy the very next day. The stock tanked. All that ran through my mind was, “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit”. When I finally gained my composure, I sold shares; three hundred dollars, gone.

Tony Cai

Camp Ramapo

It is the year 2008. In case you forgot, it was an era of baggy jeans, air force 1’s, and decisions to be made between getting a sidekick or blackberry. My friends and I, along with the rest of the 6^th grade class are headed to Ramapo. I handed in the list of the ten people (who were my friends) that would share a room together, weeks in advance and since then it was a whole lot of waiting now waiting is over. We were all excited and agreed to meet each other at the front of the school in the morning. I remember getting up at 6 and feeling groggy that morning but unlike the other days where I would calculate exactly how much longer I could stay in bed (down to the last second), I rubbed my eyes, sprung out of bed. The rest is a blur because I was trying to get to my school on time to board the bus. My dad who walked me to school bought me some gummy bears but unlike the gummy bears, I survived the bus ride and now I’m able to tell you my stories at camp Ramapo.

It is springtime and if you’re allergic to pollen, you’re probably aware of the three types of itches that affect the eyes. The first is the itch that is tolerable but you wouldn’t dare relief it because of the fear of making it worse. The second one is the one that you know will only itch more if you keep rubbing but can’t stop because it’s so annoying, as if someone imbedded a small rock into your eye. The third is the type that results from the discovery of a heads-up penny or anything that gives good luck because the third type is the kind that when you rub your eyes, the itch goes away.

Unfortunately, me being inside a cabin surrounded on all sides by trees and vegetation resulted in me getting the worse of the second type of itch. By nighttime I was a wreck: my eyes wouldn’t stop itching, my throat was itchy and every time I coughed it resulted in a pain that rippled through my body starting at the throat. There was nothing I could do but lie in bed and watch my friends monkeying around.

I like skittles but like many other sweets, there’s only so many you can eat at one time before you feel like throwing up the next time you see another. That was the case with the party-sized bag of skittles that Yuxiang brought with him. We (my friends and I) had barely gotten through a quarter of the bag when we really did feel like throwing up and that’s when he had the idea of throwing the skittles at the revolving ceiling fan. Pretty soon everybody was throwing skittles at the fan and watching which part of the room they would end up in. It’s too bad none of the skittles hit anybody when it reflected off the fan because we would have laughed so hard at him. They later upgraded from throwing skittles at the fan to throwing pillows. There was also a failed attempt at throwing Yuxiang’s sidekick.

During the whole skittles, pillows, and failed attempt at throwing a sidekick at the fan festival, I was in bed feeling like crap, that’s what spring allergies do to you. However, if it was not for me feeling miserable, I would not have seen the lone yellow skittle on the floor next to the bunk bed. What’s so important about this skittle? You may ask but that’s because I haven’t told you that my buddy Reishaun was standing with his back to me, just a few feet in front of the bed. I picked up the skittle, aimed and released it. The skittle hit him square in the middle of the back of his head. Immediately Reishaun spun around and said: “What the fuck?” but I had already dived back under my covers and my in my current condition, there was no one else to blame except for my friend Oscar who was on the top half of our bunk bed. It took a lot of effort to laugh quietly as Reishaun took one of my shoes that were on the floor and hit Oscar with it Oscar was so confused as to why he was getting beaten with a shoe and that was when it was especially hard to keep the laughter down.

I’ve never been hiking before but I assumed it must feel great because I’ve seen people hiking on television and they look so amazed at their surroundings, breathing in deeply to sample the scent of nature in the meantime getting great exercise. I couldn’t have been more wrong. By the time we got to the top of the hill we were hiking I was so tired. Though I may have been amazed at my surroundings at the beginning of the hike, that amazement quickly began to lessen as I got further and further up. Between the flies in my face and the quickly accumulating sweat, I was miserable all over again. As we began to walk down the hill towards flat grassy plain, I lost my steady downward pace. You may know that when you’re walking down a steep slope its best to keep your steps measured and firm as to avoid stumbling, falling your whole way down. Well as you may have guessed, I took too long of a step and the momentum sent me stumbling down the slope. I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to look like an idiot stumbling my whole way down the hill so what did I do? I ran down to make it seem like I was doing it on purpose and I guessed I looked pretty normal until I finally stopped when a bush broke my fall.

When we reached the plain, one of the instructors at the camp provided us with a challenge: Whoever could find the most colors on the plain could decide for the group whether we should head back or not because by that time everyone was tired and annoyed so they were eager to set out on the quest. As you probably already know, a grassy plain contains mostly the color green and whatever color of the flowers it has so it wouldn’t be surprising if I told you everyone found the same colors. That is except for George. He was the only one that found something white and kind of grayish. It was dried up and everybody laughed at him including me. Can you guess what the dried up white and grayish thing was? It was in fact bird poop and since George won the challenge, the instructor asked what he wished to do. Of course someone so eager to pick up bird poop would be eager to continue on so we knew his answer before he said it. Sure enough he said yes and everyone began to complain and yell at him. I guess that’s what we get for laughing at him.

“My Better Half”
Four years of high school, and maybe three words were said to each other. We traveled the same hallways and even had the same classes together, and the longest conversation we had was probably, “Hey, what’s up?” It’s mind blowing how we’ve managed to go from strangers to best friends, and now we’re inseparable. Every day spent together, talks on the phone, walks in the park. You make me smile, laugh, and glow. You make me a better person, you make me who I am, and you’ve become my better half. But now, our days are numbered and you’re leaving me soon. I support you in becoming a Marine, but I know this won’t be easy. You always tell me that this isn’t goodbye, it’s just see ya later. You’re like a cherry blossom, you’re about to bloom. You’re so attractive, but you’ll be gone soon. I can’t stand knowing that we’ll be so far away from each other. You tell me to stay strong for you, but I feel like I’m losing a part of myself. I know you’ll be coming home to me, and I’ll be waiting here, counting down the days. I can’t wait to see your smile and your bright green eyes. I can’t wait to hear your stories and I can’t wait to see how you’ve changed. Having you back home will be the greatest feeling in the world. I’m so lucky you’re mine.