One Photo, Tons of Memories...

  When you look at a picture for the first time your mind becomes filled with thoughts. You form questions and emotions build up inside of you, especially when you can connect and relate to the image in front of you. For me, when i face a specific picture i recount memories, and begin to feel sad, afraid, and useless. The image that effects me the most is of my dad, when he experienced one of  his most tragic and horrifying moments in his life, when he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a type of skin cancer. 

When i look at this photo i remember the day i went with my mom to the hospital for his surgery. We waited for over three hours and when the doctor came out he took her aside and told her that he had cancer. Tears filled her eyes and i took her in my arms. That was the start of it all. From then on i stood my my parents and helped out the best i could. My dad had seven Chemo treatments and about 33 radiation treatments. This picture reminds me of his cranky days, his good days, and how he fought through it all and is healthy now. 

Radiation targets a miniscule part of the body and shoots beams of radiation, shrinking the cancer. It burns the skin, as shown in the picture. Chemo is given through an iv, tiny drips at a time.
http://www.uihealthcare.org/radiation-therapy-what-to-expect/

Failure

What do you think of when hear the word failure? Failure is an opportunity to learn from your mistake so that you never make it again. It's a normal thing that happens all the time. I remember back in Middle School during track season where a little mistake caused pain and embarrassment. I was approaching the last hurdle of my 200 meter race, as my foot left the ground, kicked up to run over the hurdle, my little mistake occurred. I kicked the plastic bar and flipped over the hurdle. As I rolled across the track I scrapped my knee and arm. I didn’t give up; I stoop up and pushed through the finish line milliseconds behind the person in front of me. I learned that even if you fail at something, you have many other opportunities to succeed. Giving up makes it a failure, but if you try it’s merely a small accident. Because I never gave up, I still hurdle and have gotten much better. I look forward to it every year and set new goals for myself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T97kkzRMEAY

Early Experience

From the start i knew this entry would be difficult. There are only a few childhood memories that i can recall. I decided to tell the story of when i moved to New Paltz in first grade. I was a tom boy, I wore jeans and tee shirts instead of dresses and nice shoe s. My hair was short, spiky, and eventually highlighted purple. On my first day in Mrs. Lewis' class i didn't make a lot of friends. I remember a couple guys asking who the new guy was and joking around. Ironically, they became my best friends! It didn’t take long for me to get use to my new home. I lived in the woods on about eight acres of land. My house was newly built with lots of open space and I got my own room! In my old house my two sisters and I shared a huge room but I finally didn’t have to clean up after them and put up with their nonsense. Best of all, in my back yard there was a GIANT oak tree that we use as base when we played tag. It didn’t take long before I tied my little sister to the tree! Eventually we got rid of the tree and put in a lagoon shaped pool. I like living in New Paltz but cant wait to move out!