Deja Winfield

Personal Memoir

Larissa Pahomov

3 English

Concrete

This essay is going to be difficult for me to write because it has been two years, but it feels like it’s two days. I can still feel the hole in my heart when I absentmindedly look through my contact list and her number isn't there. Or when I’m at my dad’s house and I see her picture. The only photo ever taken of her. When I go by 52nd Street and her stand is there, but she’s not.  Or when I get stopped on the train and get asked how she is and have to explain that she died of lung cancer. Or worse, when my father is to explain and he gets a knot in his throat and you can hear him get more choked up with every word. Or seeing his eyes for the last two Februarys cause her birthday is on the 25th and we can’t hear her voice. Slowly forgetting what she sounds like What she looks like, or trying to act like everything is okay.

There are so many things I could write about. My life is a road with hundreds of potholes. Some of my stories could enlist the 86 pages of my own medical record, or growing up with two fathers who aren’t partners but best friends. These things have affected my life greatly, but nothing affected me as much as losing my grandmother days before the end of my freshman year. She was someone who help me fill those potholes. My grandmother helped so many others fill their potholes.

My grandmother played the role of cement in a world of concrete but she was not always cement. She was impossible to break without a sledge hammer. She grew up with a mental disorder, that she never told her children about. She never let a single one her four boys, know the name of her sickness, but her late husband saw it, and took them away from their home in California to move them to Rhode Island. Leaving her alone to sink deeper into her sickness. Soon after she moved to Philadelphia and begged to have her sons back. They had known their mother and the bad she done while sick and refused to go back to her unless she had gotten help. She would do anything to have them back and fought for them to be back in her life.

She began taking medication to bring herself back into reality. Her sons began to see her again but only for hours at a time, and months apart. She wanted them back in her life full time. But their father couldn’t allow for that. She begged for one of them, and the same visitations with the rest of them. He allowed her the youngest, my father. A young boy, of six years, torn away from his brothers and father, to live with a woman he barely knew. She raised with as much love as she possibly could. She broke down his concrete walls, and filled his potholes with cement.

When he turned 21, he begged his father for the right to know him. His father agree. But couldn’t keep his promise for long, losing his life to a heart attack only two years later. The word father was a word in the dictionary to my dad, and nothing more. He did not know the roles of a father or the challenges of being one. In two years he would begin growing his family. He would have to step up to the plate and understand what it meant to be a father. My grandmother stepped up to show him that there are many steps to climb and that you may tumble down them now and again but you will never hit the bottom with your child as long as you keep trying to climb. In another two years time my father would be on his fourth child, only two of them biologically his, but all four his children. He was and is a amazing father. A man I am proud to called Dad, even though he has fallen a few times, he's gotten back up to come back harder. And I thank my grandmother for this. Without her I don't know where any of us would be.

She passed away in a time I needed her the most. She was there through many of my battles. As well as I for many of her. My grandmother had gotten breast cancer when I was 11 years old. She fought a 2 year long battle and won. I cried for hours when she had told me that she was better. I didn’t return home that day. I went straight to my father home to hug her knowing for once that it wouldn’t be my last hug. But just because she had won the battle it hadn't meant she had won the war. Days before I turn fifteen she went into the hospital and was found to have lung cancer. And in that moment my only wish is that she lived until my sixteenth birthday so I could show her the gratitude that she deserved from the world. She wasn't given her life expectancy, we weren’t given if she would live or die.. She continued going for chemo until the day she died.

I watched one of the strongest women I knew start to become weak. I watched as she began to give up. I watched as my name began to be forgotten from her memory, I watched as she forgot how to walk. I watched as she began to forget how to talk, how to eat. I watch this women lose herself in her final days until she passed away at the age of seventy, five months before my sixteenth birthday. The day I had found that she had passed I spent a two hour train ride to my father’s house in tears. I felt my limbs get numb as I cried harder. I didn't want to lose her. I never wanted to lose her, but seeing her in peace in her bed I knew it was time. But seeing the tears streaking my father face like he had been out in a rainstorm, I lost myself. I couldn't returned to school. I need to be by his side. And I need to be the strong one. I couldn’t let him see me break down because we had to be strong for each other. I missed school for days, I went to the grave yard to pick out her plot, to choose the font in which her name was written on the gravestone. I was there when the mosque was chosen to host her funeral, and I was there when they placed her into the ground where she will now peacefully rest.

The day of my grandmother funeral also happen to be the day of Advisory Day at school, and. The park that hosted my classmates laid across the street from the service. I was able to make out the faces of my classmates enjoying themselves and being happy to be in that space. A space I wish I never have to be at again. It hurt me to see so many people happy when I felt that it'll be a long time before I’d be that again. And it did take a long time. It took four months for me to stop wishing that it was me, or that I had no emotions. It took a long time for me not to feel the hole missing from my heart at all times. I still feel the hole when I need someone to speak to or someone just to hug.

Can you imagine losing someone you thought you could never be lose? It was hard losing her. She made me feel like I belong, when no one else could. She made me feel as though labels couldn’t be put on me. She made me feel loved. I had wished for many months that I could have something of hers that would make me feel closer to her, but my father, as well as his brothers, couldn’t bare with losing things of hers, so they kept it. Two months after her death, they went into her apartment, the apartment that they had continued to pay rent for even in her passing. It was the one thing they could do for the mother who would risked her life to save them. They paid her rent for the five years of her living there. They made sure the money was in on the first of the month every month. But when she passed it had become routine for them. The order in which they paid never changed. Charlie, then Mark, the Terry, then Jonas. My uncle Charlie paid January, May, and September. Uncle Mark paid February, June, and October. Uncle Terry paid March, July, and November. My father paid, April, August , and December. Every year played out by clock work. My uncles would visit her when they came to pay the rent, but my father was there every day. But for the two months after her death her door was never unlocked. It was never visited. But one day, after many days of hesitation they decided to unlock the doors. They each carried a single box with their first initial on it. They each took exactly what they wanted, which was everything. But one thing they had found when looking through her things, one thing they couldn't keep was a small teal box, with a small tag with 11/11 printed on it. That little teal box holds the most important thing in the world to me. It was pair of earring that she had brought a month before she had died. They were for me to wear on the day of my Sweet 16, and I wore them proudly that day.

Losing my grandmother was difficult, but I soon understood that it was time. That she couldn’t keep endure the pain any longer than she had already. She wasn’t happy anymore. She was hurting in ways that many will never understand. I don’t know if she was ready to go. She was cement for a long time but in her final hours she had harden to become concrete again. She had to throw up the white flag and declare her truce with the war she was fighting.

Me and my sister tried to kill each other, LITERALLY. Her name is Bryanna and we are 18 months apart. On T.V you see siblings fight of course, but not like we did. Siblings on T.V (girls especially) fight about makeup and borrowing each others things without asking. I can kinda see what had started the fighting; It was jealousy. My mom had me at a young age and ended up leaving my life when I was two so it was just me and my dad for a while until my sister was born. I didn’t like the fact that she had both parents and I didn’t. But my sister was jealous of the fact that I mainly had our dad’s attention because he was my only parent he wanted to give me as much attention as she got from both parents combined. I can only remember but so much. Here’s the first incident that I remember. “Push her” my conscious said.

“NO!” I tried fighting back.

“Just do it, you know you want to and it will be funny.”

“NO! I’ll get in so much trouble”

“Push her now!” Splash! Is all you heard when I pushed her in. It was hilarious to my six year old self.

“Imani!” My big cousin screamed. I turned around so quick and she was right in front of me, I knew I was in a lot of trouble. “I can not believe you just pushed your sister in the well!” my cousin said in anger as she tried to retrieve my sister from the deep water.

“I didn’t mean to, I promise. I tripped.” I tried to cover my ass.

“No she didn’t she pushed me!” Bryanna said as she was sobbing. I gave her a dirty look and started faking concern for her.

“Bree are you ok? I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Yes you did, you’re a liar!”

“Hey!” My big cousin said to her because that’s a word that we were told not to use. I was able to get out of trouble that day. I always wondered how I got myself out of that one. I knew my sister would retaliate so I kept my guard up, even at six and four/five we were pretty smart. I would always watch her around my food and I’d wait till she fell asleep to go to sleep. I knew she wakes up before me so I even tried to wake up before her. It wasn’t that I was scared of her, I just wanted to make sure she couldn’t get to me. A few weeks after the well incident, she got me back. She got me back real good. I was on the floor playing with my DS, and my dad was ironing his clothes. He walked out of the room to grab his shirt from his room to also iron.

“AHHHHHHHHHHH” I screamed in pain when the hot iron hit my chest. I got up and I saw my dad running back in to see why I was screaming. I jumped up and down crying and yelling at my sister. I couldn’t believe she went that far. For once, she actually got in trouble. -- but not because she pushed it on me, because he told us not to go near the iron. After that we went in. I mean we really tried killing each other. “What’s this dad?”

“Boot cleaner put it down it’s not a toy.”

“OK!”  The night of the ear spraying incident my family had a little get together. Of course it was a no kids allowed thing so me and my sister stayed upstairs in our parents room. It was bigger and because it wasn’t our room we loved to be in there. I was such a night owl so of course my sister fell asleep before I did. I began to mess with her, she was a heavy sleeper. I started pulling her hair and trying to push her off the bed. I got bored with doing after a while. I saw the boot spray again. I wasn’t gonna do it because I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to ease my way out of it. I ended up doing it anyways. She woke up when I did it and she went right back to sleep. I didn’t expect her to wake up screaming a few mins later but she did. My dad her mom ran up the steps to see what happened and why she was screaming. I threw the boot cleaner across the room so they would think that she was just screaming. She fully woke up and told our parents what had happened. I tried to lie but come on I couldn’t ease my way out of this one. She got special treatment the whole time I was on punishment. She was able to pick the food she wanted to eat and go to the store as much as she wanted. I hated it. The special treatment did not last for long though. It was about a week after I got off punishment and we were upstairs playing. Our parents then soon told that it was time to go to bed. We had made the stan that held the T.V. up wobbly. We didn’t say anything to our parents simply because we did it on purpose. When she was laying in bed I was getting my night clothes out from the dresser that was attached to the stand. She started to kick the stand and the leg finally snapped and the T.V. fell on my head. I screamed in pain. I had blood coming from the top of my head but I didn’t feel it till it got in my eyes. I screamed some more. My dad came flying into the room to see what I was screaming. He saw how much blood was coming from my head and rushed me to the hospital in his house coat. He didn’t ask questions so when the doctor asked what happened I had to explain. I ended up getting 4 stitches that night. My dad was instructed to keep me up for four hours because I had a concussion. I didn’t go to school the next day and he stayed home with me because I was up all night. My sister and I had done many other things to each other that if I went into details I would be writing a twenty page essay. As we got older our fighting turned into little bickering that you would see t.v. siblings fight over. For a few years after the trying to kill each other stage was over we didn’t really feel like sisters. We wouldn’t talk to each other much unless we had to. It did upset me knowing that my little sister didn’t want to talk to me and I didn’t really want to be bothered with her. Around the age of 13 and she was 11 my grandmother sat us down and told us that we need to start acting like sisters because at the end of the day family is what will always be here for each other. We really did listen to our grandmother and started acting like sisters should act. Now at the age of 17 and 15 we are inseparable. Our parents ended up splitting up and she now lives with her mom and I am with my dad. We go out and talk on the phone all the time now. I love her to death and it’s vice versa with her. I don’t think that I would change our past relationship because we both reminisce about all the things that we did. I can say that my grandmother’s words of wisdom really shaped a great relationship between the two of us.

“What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”

Robert Hayden

I.

I saw my father and two men hang their overcoats on the rack, drooped like wet anthers on a matte flower as they proceeded into my humble home. Their footsteps impressed the floor all at once in a proud symphony as they made their way to the dining room, where they sat themselves down at a roundtable in jolly laughter and hearty enthusiasm. Their echoes became giants through the classic Corinthian-white halls, traveling lightspeed as I sat wide-eyed watching them brag themselves out the boredom of that winter Sunday. I was spellbound by the thickly dressed ebb of their baritones, though I knew not much of the matters they speak on. Manly matters, I supposed. The bellycheer and conversation flowed as patient as tree-sap runnels, eventually finding its way to the familiar discussion of manliness—a discourse in which their stubborn egos would war relentlessly under the table. I saw battle in their eyes, broad-shouldered armies resting at attention in the buds of their pupils. Here, I learned the bane of all men; I learned of pride and power, of braggadocio and esteem defense. I gazed on in fear, in intrigue, in bloodrush fanaticism against my own father. For a small pocket in time, he did not seem like the same person. He was not the ripe-hearted hero I had once imagined him to be. He was a mere man, crowned with the halo of hubris that would soon change the way I thought of him, and thought of myself.

This was the day I first confuse love with fear of my father. I learned his percussive footsteps, heavyweight yet spacious like redwood branches falling to the ground in rhythm. When I was in trouble, they were the stimulus inspiring shockwaves of nerves and regret. When I was virtuous, they were more like a forewarning of his impending presence, snapping my conscience into full-fledged attentiveness.

His usual declaration to me was, “I’m going to make you into a man.”

“A man?” I thought, “Only God can make a man.”

I found out the hard way what make a man meant in his mind. I have early memories of his command to stop putting my hands on my hips, which he designated as a feminine pose. For a long while, I could not even define the word feminine, but from the sober tug of his voice I could tell that it is something no man should be. The look in his eyes when he chastised me over trifles is one of shame, something I learned to perceive in his deeply hickory and full iris. When they interrogated me, I, too, felt shame well up inside. I felt like an impostor of a man before I was given the chance to become one, or know what it meant to be one. In that shame was the simple irony that I had at one point in time studied and revered my father, with pure lovelight and high regard. Now, I dismissed him as a contemptible and prejudice autocrat, drowning me out in his antagonizing eye.

The years turned like pages of the same book under my father’s house as he chaptered his mannerisms into sanguine obsessions. Everyday, he made me a “man,” as if the maturation to manhood were a Rocky training montage. I had digested the stigma of wearing flip flops, the humiliation of the color pink. I found repercussion in picking nosegay flowerheads from the ground and then knew that to my father, masculinity was not something that grew like foliage, but an inborn fire. I could not bring myself to reconcile with what he thought I should be. Sometimes, it felt like he wanted to rid me of sincerity, for I was not born as an emotionless slab of concrete he seemed to be. I was very much so a lover who saw paradise in all things sensitive and kid-gloved, and the only shame I had about it was that I knew that deep down he was disappointed in me, so I thought. I could not emotionally handle this shame and so it turned to conviction as my relationship with him grew standoffish, especially when I nestled under my mother for all the empathy and acceptance he would not give me. During this time, we were two plates of simultaneous drift apart, unable to synchronize the passage of time and movement. I thought that was just the way it had to be. Our happiest moments were like phantoms of a distant past, our laughs like dying ripples in runnels of muddied water. We were two of a kind, with a strict boundary of love and contempt dividing us. Then, I would have sworn that I knew everything there was to know about my father. I would have sworn that I that I was innocent and he was guilty, I was the victim and he was the offender. The truth is, I was indeed a victim—but my own ignorance was my only offender.

II.

The climax of our cold war came last August, when unbearable humidity cloaked our days only to have the heroic breeze disrobe it at night. The heat that day had made my house a house full of hotheads, which meant no good for both me and my father. He sat on his kingly couch, swamped with sweat and temper, his thickened brow quivering with tension as angst ran rampant through the household. I, marked with the same temper, had an unusually low tolerance for annoyance that day as well, and so the inevitable always has its way.

My dad noticed my casual wear, my flip flops and faded pink shirt. It was a cardinal sin of mine. I knew it would draw a reaction from him, and yet I did not care enough to avoid it. I was ready for his worst, as I had stiffened my ego so that he may not crush it. I expect him to strike, to spike his breath and raise up from his seat disturbed.

But worse. He dismisses me, his unattending eyes deciding to focus on something of more significance. His following words pierced me like the very head of a knife ready for bloodletting.

“I can’t believe one of my sons would wear flips flops. How can a man wear flip flops this much?”

The gravity in his voice sunk my shadow deep into a trembling blackness. Time became a bony oblivion. I was not mad. I was not filled with hate. I tried so very hard to be filled with nothing—not possible. But in that moment, the mocking was worse than a beating. It was worse than anything else he could have thrown at me. There, I saw a man knee-deep in his pretense and pride, all his inhibitions twining like beeswax angles in unarmed warfare. I had been rejected by my fomer beloved idol, who I then concluded was not changing, and would never change, even for the love of me. I could not stand it. Fueled by fires of embarrassment and dejection, I stormed off alone to pity myself in my misfortune.

My poor mother saw it and immediately understood what had happened, but did not chase after me. I see this now as a balking tactic. What she would soon disclose to me was her discovered secret, an intelligence that was in turn kept secret from him. I sought her out and asked her to help me cope with the situation. I retrospectively owe her much thanks, for it was her who assured me that my father’s love for me could never be snuffed when I needed the assurance most. I asked her anxiously why he was like this, what had molded such an irreversible blemish in character. Her spirit was visibly broken to pieces at my hopeless pleading. I could see she had a tentative answer, not because she was uncertain, but because the truth might not have been a truth I needed to know. It, in fact, was.

When she began to talk, it was in her tale voice that is the sound of wind thickening through the sky. It was soothing, it was intelligent, and it signaled that the uninhibited truth shall be told. She told me of her suspicions from hints she had gathered gradually over the years: my father, an excellent student and very charismatic young boy, had a teacher in 8th grade who he had a rather close bond with. The teacher had numerous times invited my father over his house for minor menial labors and conversation. The teacher, as my father had accidentally recounted in an absent-minded recollection, was murdered in his home in 1988 for allegedly being a predator on young boys (she, perhaps very wisely, left the connection up to me). And though the pieces of mystery come together as such, my father had never confessed to being sexually abused. Out of fear, maybe, out of embarrassment, out of denial. I understood my mother’s point: perhaps ego is just his disguise of deep pain.

It at last hit me that that was the dawn of his spiritual necrosis, his enduring and mute philosophical suicide.

I leveled my breath as a spiteful silence mobbed my throat’s pit. Between the distracting knot in my throat and the stubborn weakness in my legs, there was a masquerade ball of emotions all dying to dance, my gut the dancefloor beneath all those anxious feet. In that moment, of all the emotions I felt, I above all felt sorrow. Not a pity-sorrow, but the sorrow of realizing that I foolishly assumed that my father was a pastless villain. Throughout all my fits of childish myopia, I hadn’t bothered to think with concern for him, but rather conviction. I had designed a self-pitying plight that vilified a very broken man; once a fatherless, alm-clothed boy from Detroit’s skid row, everyday vying for attention from an affectionately unheeding mother. He was the lone man of the house, coerced into what everyone under his own roof and beyond told him a man was. He only knew such pain; he was a victim of a delicate defeat—each of the civil twilights that ended the day a victor against his will to be what he wanted. Then, in this awakening, I understood that his hidden baggage had been my confused pulse, his internal demons like running axles in my own esteems. Only then did I realized that he was more broken than I ever was.

I, looking deeply, found the insulting irony in the situation to be that I had failed my father the same way he had failed me. I had thought it standard for a man to have no internal weakness, and for this I was just as guilty of the same prejudicial thinking that plagued him. Deep inside, I wanted him to be the strong, unwavering hero that I had imagined every fabulous father to be. And so, I indeed failed him. I denied him the human right to be imperfect and still beloved. In my catharsis, I found my thoughts to be mirrors in a house of mirrors, my light bending obediently to form a distorted image of my father—teary-eyed, wanting to be loved but unable to ask. It was not a pretty sight, but it was beautiful. It was beauty in the sense of revelation, raw and flowering truth undaunted by me staring into it.

For my father, and for myself, I wept that night, long and gently. I was unashamed, for that is what made me more of a man.

Hamidou Doumbia

Mrs.Pahomov

English 3

Is Basketball Interesting

In west Philadelphia around the year of 2009, I was a 7-year-old student. I attend Martha Washington elementary school and I lived around the corner. Martha Washington was only attended by inner-city children, mostly around West Philadelphia because it was a neighborhood school. The school wasn’t Fancy like the other school. I was in second grade when I started to notice students playing sports around the area. I hated most sports during that time I didn't like basketball because It seems to not be interesting to me with an old man who was commentator are boring. Every time my dad watch the game I went to my room. I didn’t understand why my dad was watching these sport. In my mind, all I could think about was old people must love the boring stuff. But every morning I found out all the students in my class start to play basketball. Before basketball was into cartoon and cars like every little kid.

Although my second grade I wanted to become a spy or secret agent like the movies I usually watch after school. Codename Kids Next Door and movies like Agent Cody Banks was my favorite film to watch after school every week. I thought becoming a spy would get all the girls in my class. I believe that becoming an agent will be so cool. These reasons force me to love wearing suits and tuxedos. After that year I noticed I didn’t get any girls most girls were the boys who played the sport. But I felt like the kids in my class will change would make any difference because basketball is boring. The school year was about over.

During the summer my cousin that I was very close with came to my house over the weekend. He told me that basketball might be a fun sport. I argued with him that it wasn’t fun to watch. So how could it be found?

Hamidou: When I watch basketball games with my dad it seems to be boring. And mostly old people play the sport and old people are boring.

Cousin: I played with my friend and It was fun.

Hamidou: Look, bro, Secret agencies get all the girls and have more benefits than basketball players.

Cousin: How? You don’t even play basketball.

Hamidou: I going be rich and working with the Secret agent and every girl will love me.

Cousin: Watch believes me that won’t work.

After the argument, we made a bet that I would get more girls act like a secret agent than playing basketball. Now as I writing this story I was a foolish second grade. So I bought a  toy gun and fake badge. When he left my house I made a promise that I will put my life and sweat in of being a secret agent. After weeks I start to found out that a lot of girls was going date most the kids who play basketball. Then the school year has ended and I lose belief in being a Secret agent.

In third grade the began of every morning more kids in my class has played basketball. Most kids believe they would make it to the professional league like the NBA.  While everyone else was playing basketball I and my friends will play cops and robbers it was game that acclimates the fight between bad and good guys. I always want to be a secret agent because I always want to save people. Then one day one of friend kidnapped a girl during our game. I took him down then I believe that girl would give me a kiss. She looks at me like I was crazy. Because I was ready. I had my lip out believe that my dream would come true. After that, I felt sick that she didn’t kiss me. So when she asked what was I was doing. I lied and told her my lips were dry so I was trying a new method to fix it. The whole day I tried to keep a low profile.

After the disappointment, I finally decide to play basketball for the first time at the playground. I understand some part of the game but not the whole. I remember that shooting makes you win. So we played a game called rise and shine in the afternoon. It was one vs one and who every score first get one point then you play another person. The game went up to 11 and I know that was going to lose and might not have fun but I had to give a trie. Lunchtime was ending so everyone was just throwing up a shot that was very hard so they catch up with their point. One of my friend who played every morning won the game had 11 but I thought this sport isn’t that bad. I still didn’t understand why girl fell for a basketball player. So next period we had computer class and he gave us free period. I research advantage of a basketball player and one thing that pops up was money. Most NBA player makes million dollars than I started to understand why a lot of urban kids play sports. Then I research to the advantage of a secret agent Low-cost life insurance which I don’t understand during that time.

I had to make a choice between basketball and a secret agent. I felt I need spend most of the time on one thing. So I made a pro and con list of both. Basketball will help in the future and you get a lot of girls. But Basketball is time-consuming so it hard to different things. While secret agent has advantage to wear suits and they are heroes. The secret agent makes as much money as basketball players. This going to be a hard decision but I felt that this decision will help in future.

In fourth grade, I decided to work on my game. I was going to challenge myself to be good enough to see if I could get the girls and be one of the popular kids. So at began of the year I studied the sport by watching the game every night. Also waking up early to play basketball before school. Eventually, I found a passion for playing basketball.  I learned that you can’t judge anything by its cover. The saying was true because if I didn’t give basketball a chance then I won’t have so many fun experience. It has a huge impact on my life. I’m a starter in high school and also a captain.

New School, Who Dis?

By: Naima DeBrest

I heard my mom say in the other room “This is not working, something has to change” I didn’t know exactly what she was talking about but I had a clue that I was going to be switching schools again.

At the time, I was attending Khepera Charter School in Mt. Airy. I had started there when I was in fourth grade. It seemed like the perfect choice for me and my family : it was an African centered charter school right in my neighborhood with good credentials. All my teachers looked like me and the school had excellent parental involvement and after school clubs. Everything went continuously great until I got to seventh grade. The school started going through financial troubles and the walls began to close in on it. The students’ behaviour and attendance began to drastically decline which resulted in multiple teacher turnovers. My class had gone through five teachers in four months.  

It was sometimes hard to let the teacher go because the class had formed bonds with them. One teacher named Brother Roundtree made hefty promises to us, that he was going to be the best english teacher we ever had and that he was going to work us to our full potential. The whole class including me became ecstatic. Then he just decided to leave, abruptly, our hearts were broken. We were then introduced to another teacher named Brother Ishmael but he was fired because he told us too much. After we coverned baseline history, he took us deep into the Black Panther movement and had us all ready for a revolution. We would watch “The Boondocks” and Tupac interviews in class. Then every Friday we would listen to songs like The Coup’s “The Guillotine” which states

“Hey you!
We got your war
We're at the gates
We're at your door

We got the guillotine
We got the guillotine, you better run”

Along with Dead Prez’s “They School”  with lyrics like,

“They schools can't teach us s***

My people need freedom, we trying to get all we can get

All my high school teachers can suck my d***

Telling me white man lies straight bulls*** (bulls***)”

There was a method to his madness, but the school didn’t really appreciate all its student running around repeating these lyrics, so he was fired. From the way that my parents reacted when I told them I knew that I would probably be changing schools. However, this wouldn’t be my first rodeo I would be moving to my fourth school before the eighth grade.

Thursday, December 12th 2013 was my first day at Hill Freedman World Academy. I remember walking into the classroom and all the students eyes were on me. The teacher introduced me to the class and she gave me a seat in the back. I don’t really remember much about the rest of that day but I quickly made friends through my time there. Everything was good on the social scene but my family and I realized that my grades started to slip.

I had consistently gotten A’s and high honors at all the other schools  that I had attended. But it seemed that this new school didn't think that my work was worthy of their A’s. It was at that school that I received my first B on a project, I was baffled. I also was not caught up on all the material that they had learned so they made me attend after school classes with the teachers. I was not thrilled but I did my best and excelled enough to get out of the after school program. Things started looking prosperous again and I was able to complete middle school there and graduate.

One of my favorite schools that I attended was my first, Ivy Leaf Elementary School. I remember my first day of kindergarten like it was yesterday. My mom dressed me in a pink polo dress with pigtails in my hair. I was armed with a Dora backpack and a Bratz lunch box and was ready to conquer the world. Even though I eventually had to wear a uniform I always felt like an important and valued individual. Even though I was so young my teachers respected my opinions and I always spoke my mind.  I also excelled at the work that they were giving me with flying colors.

I remember one day, after I was already put in the most advanced 1st grade english class, we were working on reading words on the board. It was a game that the first graders of Ms. Katrina’s class took very seriously, and I was the reigning champion.

I had just conquered my entire class and was on my way to my seat Ms. Katrina called me out into the hallway and about four other teachers were out there. I remember looking up at them while they all towered over me and decided my fate. I had no idea what they were talking about but it alarmed me. When they were done with the conversation Ms. Katrina told me to get my belongings and go with her. I was moved up to second grade math and reading and I ran into headfirst unafraid, like soldiers in a war.  I don't remember much about the reading class, besides the fact that I was given my first chapter book which was a “Junie B. Jones” novel.

The class that really stuck with me was math. I remember the teacher was a heavy set light skin woman who was so loving even though the students thought of her as a tyrant. I remember that the walls were a warm  yellow and my desk was right near the teachers and I loved feeling like my questions were prioritized.

Moving from school to school affirmed my belief change is inevitable and sometimes we get thrown into it very unexpectedly, like on the last day of school or in the middle of the school year. However most times it can have, a good effect on our lives. I didn’t want to change schools four times before my eighth grade year but I am thankful for the experience and adaptation skills that it gave me. I was able to be in environments where I felt right at home, but I also was in environments where I was one of very few people like me. I had to learn how not only to survive but thrive in the new places so I could be my best self. In the areas where I felt at home I had to make sure that I didn’t get too caught up with my friends and activities and focused on my work and in the schools where I didn’t feel so at home I had to make sure that I was maintaining healthy relationships with people my age along with my work. When my parents decided to put me into new schools I was always the last to know but I didn’t let that deter me from taking the change like a champ. We must march boldly into unfamiliar situations because how we perform in them decides how strong we really are.  

Broad Street One

It was the morning of May 3rd, 2015 I had just woken up around 4 am. I was waking up a lot earlier than I normally would, and was feeling very tired because of it. The morning was cold, so I decided to dress in an undershirt, and then my blue Students Run Philly Style shirt on top because I had to represent my running team. Besides that, my outfit consisted of running shorts, a normal pair of socks, and my running shoes, all of which had become normal wear for me when ever I had a run. After getting dressed, I proceed to go to the kitchen, where I tried to eat breakfast, but I was feeling so worried and anxious, that I couldn’t eat anything. Anything that I did eat, I vomited. You may ask, why were you so worried that morning. I was feeling worried because that day happened to be the first time I was going to run the Broad Street 10 Miler
Let's back this up a little bit though to the night before, where the story starts. It was my eighth grade year, and my first year trying students run. I had figured, "It's my last year here, why not try a sport?” I decided to join Students Run Philly Style, an organization that helped kids participate in distance running for free. I was enjoying the season all the way up to the Broad Street run. Although I was one of the slowest runners on our team, I really enjoyed being on the team.

Our season leading up to Broad Street was comprised of running distances that were getting longer and longer until we could run ten miles. Everyone on my team and me had been putting in so much effort, training 3 or 4 days a week, and always trying our hardests at those practices. By the time we were getting close to Broad Street, we had already gotten to ten miles, and I felt okay with running distances that long. I was still feeling worried though, and I wasn't sure why. All these feelings had followed me to the night before the run, when our team was having a celebration dinner. All the coaches, parents, and kids were bringing food to eat, and celebrating what we had accomplished. We had been eating and talking, and it was all really fun, but through the whole thing I was still feeling worried about the run the next day in the back of my head. People were talking about the race tomorrow and lots of the things they were talking about made me excited or happy, like when my coaches were talking about what it felt like when you crossed the finish line. At the same time, I kept thinking about things that worried me when they brought up certain situations that could happen. Like when they brought up finishing the race, my mind started thinking about having to do the whole race, and the physical struggle of doing it. I was also thinking about doing the race and how hard it would be all night as I tried to fall asleep, and all the way till I woke up. At the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking of how much time and effort I had put into this, and how I had to finish the race.

The morning of the race, I was extremely worried, so worried to the point that my arms and legs were shaking, and couldn’t stop until we started running in the race. I had been getting myself so worried about the race from all the things I had been hearing from people. I had been getting myself so worried about how all these new experiences would go, and what would happen. While I was getting ready and everything, I just kept trying to calm myself down, and think of good things that would happen. I kept trying to think to myself, “You’re going to do great. You can do this,” or anything to keep positive thoughts in my head. When we got to the starting line, and I was waiting with all of my team, I was still just as, if not even more worried. Eventually, the time had come to get into the crowd of people all waiting at the starting line, which took about an hour

It felt like it would never come, but we finally started the race, and I began to feel significantly better once we began the race. Around the start of the race, I was having a bit of a hard time, but still trying to focus on keeping myself running. I was running with one of my friends and coaches, and it was really helping to talk with them while running, and trying to keep my mind off of all the things I was getting myself worried about. My stomach had been feeling extremely nauseous before the start of the race, but after we began and I started trying to focus on running and forget what I was thinking about, it started to go away. The more I tried to think about the happy thoughts like finishing the race, the less I started to think about the bad thoughts like if I didn’t finish the race, or if something else bad happened. I started feeling a lot better, and I was getting less worried as we got farther through the race.

As we were getting farther into the race, I was having a hard time running.  I was to distracted from being tired, but I was feeling happy about how I was doing so far, and that I was still going. It also really helped me feel better when at different points I saw friends and family on the sidelines cheering me on. It made me feel confident in myself, and I thought to myself that I should try my hardest to make them proud. At the beginning of the race, I was worrying if I would finish or not, but at the point I was at, I was starting to feel confident in myself that I would be able to finish. Me my friend and my coach kept going, and it was feeling like it was taking forever. Eventually though, I finished the race, and was feeling a lot happier. I was really tired and exhausted, but very proud of what I had accomplished. I sprinted across the finish line like my life depended on it, and was overjoyed once I crossed the line. I slowed down to a walk, and continued to go at that pace, smiling, and heading towards the tent where I got my medal. I walked through the crowds, got my medal, got the free water and snacks they were giving out, and then met up with the rest of my team. We all were congratulating each other on finishing, and how great we did. Later on my mom also found where me and my team were, and was telling me how proud of me she was, and it all made me feel happy with what I had accomplished.

After finishing, I thought back about how worried I had been at the beginning, and how unnecessary all of it was. When I was younger, I got worried before lots of big events that I participated in, and this was one of the biggest events I had participated in ever . There were so many events that I had tried in the race that was brand new to me. Like the fact that it was the first race longer than 9 miles that I had ever tried, or that it was only less than a year since I had started trying running and I was already trying the Broad Street Run. After seeing how I had reacted the morning of the race to all the worries I had, I felt pretty safe saying that I wasn’t the best person when dealing with change, especially large events like trying Broad Street the first time. I still felt pretty happy to say that I was able to finish the race, and all of my friends and family were all very proud of me. I was feeling very happy that I had made the decision to join Students Run at the beginning of the year, and even though it was very hard and I had a very difficult time dealing with my emotions, I wouldn’t want to experience it any other way.

This is Dedicated to You

To be completely honest, 2017 was the most difficult year of my life. That’s really saying something because I genuinely thought that my days in middle school had taken that spot. Valentine’s Day is usually supposed to be a day filled with love and positivity, but all I got was bad news and unavailable heart-shaped donuts. I was prepared to hand my mom the roses I had received at school, but when I walked in my house, there was unexpected and terrible news.  To sum up the rest of that day, I now have a larger hatred towards cigarettes.  

At that point I really had no idea what I was about to experience. I knew what was going to come, but the false hope along the way was incredibly unnecessary and cruel to my family. I constantly had the thought floating around in my mind, she survived breast cancer before, actually, twice, so she’ll be able to fight through this too. I always knew she was strong. I thought that she was going to be okay, so I believed that her strength would shine through once more. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I think that still continues to be the main reason of why I get upset when I think about the whole journey: she no longer had the fight in her. That’s what hurts the most.

My mom would always try to attend as many appointments with her as possible, so she could report back to my family about what had happened. At one point she was given a confident, “Just about 50% of the tumor is all gone!” from the doctor. I’m still angry about this. You’re a doctor, someone who is supposed to be specialized in helping people, but all you did was give us all wrong information and a wrong sense of hope in exchange for our money. I hope you felt guilty while telling her that when it absolutely was not true.

The sound that would come out of her mouth every other minute or so replicated every exaggerated smoker cough because the years of chain smoking cigarettes had finally caught up to her. Her eyes drooped, and perked up when something decided to forcefully exit her lungs. The arm that covered her mouth was wrapped with icy veins that showcased skin and bones that did not suit the sudden lack of fat. “I wanted to lose weight, but definitely not this way.” When her body became more frail and sickly due to the multiple chemotherapy sessions, all of her hair had been gone by then. She looked like an entirely different person. I guess I never really realized the huge difference until the middle of her journey. I can’t even imagine what it was like to wake up after having multiple chemo treatments. I’m sure it was absolutely horrible. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and it didn’t even up paying off in the end.

“I read an article about a woman who was forced to take her garment off for her license photo. I can’t go like this. If I recover, there will be no way for people to recognize me.” My aunt explained to me how she was due for a new photo, and by that time she barely had any fuzz on top of her head. She bought head wraps in every color. She wanted to be able to match with her outfits and not feel too insecure about herself. Her frail hand reached along the table, grabbing her ID while her other hand clutched a tissue for whenever she coughed. My eyes shifted over to the pea green nightshirt hung low on her shoulder, revealing bones that had never been that visible before. I didn’t want to stare too long, so I shifted my attention back towards the flower place settings on her dining table.  

“Here’s my old one.” I lifted my head back up, unexpected tears forming in my eyes after I stared at my aunt’s transformation. It truly was heartbreaking to see the shocking change. On the left was a slight smile with rounder cheeks, a signature grey short haircut, with dangling earrings to top it all off. The person on the right was entirely different, and she took a slow slip of her ginger-ale while setting it back down onto the table. She wore the same glasses for years, but they suddenly looked to be abnormally large for her face. I rapidly blinked my tears away, taking a deep breath in. That night I asked my mom if she noticed it too, and she did.

The amount of times I picked at the raw skin on my thumbs at her funeral was unable to be counted. It was awkward, and I was stressed. It was two days before my birthday and it was utterly depressing. I didn’t want to hear birthday wishes at my great aunt’s funeral, I wanted to hear her sing to me through the phone and be able to expect an early card in the mail. That was her thing: she always sent everyone cards for their birthdays and Christmas. When my mom had handed me a yellow envelope the night of my birthday, I crawled into my bed and bawled my eyes out. I kept it right next to my bed, tucked right under my CD player. It’s always the thought that counts. My aunt was sick and still kept my birthday in mind no matter how terrible she felt, and that absolutely ruins me. I can only hope that I will strive to be that kind and thoughtful. The next morning I could barely open my eyes. The top lids were so puffed out I could barely recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. My hands reached up to slightly pull at my undereyes while inching closer to the mirror, the purple veins being more present than ever before.

Speaking of being kind and thoughtful, that was the complete opposite case for my cousins, and even my uncle. “Oh, so I guess you’re the special one.” I stood in the middle of the church with folded arms, a slight scowl formed on my face. I decided to not respond, because of course they always have something to say. And so what if I am? I was there to visit and help her out, where were you? To this day, it still makes me irritated that they even had the nerve to act so insensitive towards me. She specifically asked me to go with her to work, and asked me to help with things around her house. I tried to block that out because it isn’t what matters at this point. I know I did something good, and I’m not going to let the words of others take that feeling away.

Attending school immediately became something that was a struggle for me. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, only those who I really trusted. Even then I felt like I was a bit of a bother, regardless of all the times my friends told me it was completely fine to release my emotions. It didn’t help that I have a really guilty conscience about everything. My mind constantly felt empty and soon there became a lack of motivation and a constant state of unhappiness. I grasped onto little things that would make me feel better, music being a huge outlet. Although it helped me temporarily, I still felt like I was dragging myself around with a rain cloud over my head. I never used to fall asleep around 8 o’clock, but there I was doing it multiple nights a week. I was tired of not only being in school, but being forced to socialize, of constantly being sad and emotionally exhausted. I kept being questioned by my mom, but I never really wanted to answer and say why I was upset. I always answered with a monotone, “I’m just tired.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, but I really didn’t feel like getting into a whole discussion with her about the situation.

To this day, I still feel the same way but not as extreme. I knew the consequences of being around to support my aunt, but it never fully occurred to me until the moment finally came. It was bittersweet; she no longer had to suffer, but it opened a new thought process I had never experienced before. This was the first time I’ve had a chance to fully process the whole journey of what has happened, and little pieces of her are everywhere I go. Jewelry, furniture, photographs, recordings. I face every single day with negative thoughts and constant stresses, but they’re slowly becoming less and less as I attempt to become more optimistic and positive about situations. Remembering the good times and having physical remembrances has reminded me to not only treat people with kindness, but to also not take what I have for granted. Everyday I am attempting to build up my strength towards the level she had. I hope she’s proud of me.

To Say or Not to Say

During my freshman year, I got into an altercation with a student during African American History. The topic was police brutality. A classmate of mine opened her mouth, I prepared for the worst, and said, “Black men are always getting shot because they are always up to something.”

As I pressed my teeth into my tongue, attempting to be less dominating as I was often called, I wondered how someone could sound so empty-headed. Nevertheless, I let her continue.

“So look, my family and I were in church one day and a black man came in who was intimidating so someone shot him.”

Now, how could I have been expected to keep calm and not respond to that?

Without even waiting to be called on, I said, “Do you think about things before you open your mouth? Firstly, you couldn’t give me an example of a black man who was unreasonably shot by the police. Instead, you told a story about how your people shot a man who walked into your church. How is that supporting your point? What was intimidating about him in church? Was he singing too loud? Praying to intensely? God, when are you people going to admit that you have an irrational fear of black people? When are you going to admit that you’re the problem? Like…”

I was interrupted by my history teacher, “That is enough Afi.” But it wasn’t enough. I wasn’t nearly done, but I let it go.

Later on, my teacher had the nerve to approach me and say, “Afi, what you did today was unacceptable. I didn’t appreciate it at all. The next occurrence of this will result in a progress note.” I was stunned. I was on the verge of getting a progress note for speaking my mind. While the other student, who basically confessed to being racist, or prejudiced at the least, and shooting a black man who came to her church, didn’t receive any backlash. It’s experiences like that that molded me into a less assertive, less honest version of myself because I felt that my words would bring my downfall.

To say or not to say? That has always been a question. Ever since I was young, I’ve gotten into trouble for saying too much. I was raised to always speak my mind, finding inspiration from my outspoken mother. I thought it was so cool how fearless she was. Because of her fearlessness when it came to speaking her mind, she became someone to rely on because of her honest--sometimes brutally honest--truths. But as life continued and after repeatedly being told to be less aggressive and less angry, I was made compromising, self-belittling, and conventional.  

Feeling constricted, I needed something to enlighten me. At the time, though, I didn’t know what it would be. Poetry was something that found me because the idea of poetry never even crossed my mind. To my surprise, it has worked, over the past few years, as an outlet for me to express my opinions without interruptions and get things off my chest. Shortly after my confrontation with my history teacher outside of room 307, a friend of mine approached me with a strange proposition.

“Hey Afi,” she said, “I need a favor.” A favor, of course, I thought. Could anyone give me a break? I was annoyed but a managed to utter, without sounding too irritated, a simple,

“What do you need, Bea?”

“I’ve been meaning to go to poetry club. I think it’d be fun and Mr. Kay is running it. Cool, right?” I was searching for a point as she continued, “I think it’d be nice for both of us.” I must’ve given her a face because she finished slowly asking, “They have a meeting tomorrow. Will you come with me?”

“Are you saying this because you really think it's nice for us or are you just afraid of going alone?”

“Both, I guess. Come on, please!” I figured it couldn’t hurt. Maybe a change of scenery was what I needed to get out of the horrible mood I was in.

“Sure, until tomorrow then.” The next day, I dragged my feet through the school day and when 3:05 hit on that Tuesday in January, I found Bea and we walked towards room 309. Mr. Kay’s room is, arguably, the coziest in the entire school. He has couches and blankets and tons of kids in there all the time. So when I walked in, I immediately felt loads better. After the first meeting, filled with ice-breakers, brainstorms, and talk of competition, I understood that poetry club was the place to be. There were times where I wasn’t sure of myself at all. I didn’t think I was as good of a writer or performer as everyone else. With encouragement, practice, and teamwork, I improved. In April of my freshmen year, with my best friend, Zoey Tweh, I wrote Corduroy. This piece pushed me beyond my boundaries. The piece was written from the perspective of a corduroy bear who loses his owner, Lisa, a little girl, to an incident of police brutality.

There are little girls like Lisa everywhere

In Philly

In Detroit

In the Southside of  Chicago

They are not America’s children

They trespassed in their own homes

Their melanin a badge of its own

A temptation for white men in blue uniforms to forget protocol

Their joy, their presence, their potential

Replaced with teddy bears like me

Yellow caution tape is just as common as jump ropes

They wrap around entire communities

until our breath buckles into submission

Lisa

They have forgotten what it feels like to bury a child

To send their kids to school

praying that they will return home

To report them missing and never get an answer

To call the police and never receive justice

Because to have a black child is to be left in the dark

Avoiding the flashlights as best you can

They have taken too many childhoods

Leaving nothing

But the remnants of  lonely Corduroys

Like me

Corduroy was unlike any piece I had ever written. Police brutality and gun violence were always issues that I wanted to discuss but I never thought about writing it like that. Though that isn’t the first piece of my poetry career, it is the one that showed me the power of poetry.

Two years later, I am still a part of the poetry club and I don’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Poetry and performing have changed my character for the better. Not only has poetry given me a way to talk about what I want to but it’s allowed me to bring awareness to the things that are important to me. Poetry has allowed me to unearth and expose topics like race relations in America, the ineffective combination of social media and protest, police brutality and the current romanizing and “trendiness” of the African Culture to the world. Poetry has challenged my writing in a way that allows me to craft different tones and personas at my leisure. Poetry has given me a way to find that balance between saying too much and saying too little. It’s been effective, but recently, I’ve been thinking about whether I really needed it. Maybe I wasn’t the problem. Maybe the world needed to change. I believe that we, as people, have found ways to censor people in ways that can be problematic. Everyone should feel that their opinions matter and should be allowed to introduce new ideas to groups. The self will generally change to fit into what the world demands of it. Sometimes, though, the self finds ways around what the world’s expectations like I did with poetry. The world should change for us, not the other way around.

The purpose of restaurant designers are to create a foundational design meant to draw in potential customers. The key to a successful restaurant is the use of subtle tricks and psychologically researched design choices made to attract clientele and keep them coming back. Restaurants have three main areas that the customer experiences and needs to be perfect. The most important is the menu, followed by the restaurant appearance, and finally the physical layout. Each of these three parts are vital to a restaurant's potential for success because they all work together to create the perfect image to draw in future customers.

The menu is perhaps the most important part of any restaurant. Every single restaurant has one and every visit includes one. The purpose of a menu is to tell the customer their food options and how much they cost as quickly as possible. Gregg Rapp, a professional menu engineer, has contributed to Janie Kliever’s article on the best hacks for menu design. “One of the biggest problems in menu design is that on average, a customer will only spend 1 minute and 49 seconds reading their menu (Kliever)”. For this reason, menu designers must analyze their target audience’s reading patterns. This means putting the best and most expensive dishes where the readers eyes will pass over the most. Menu designers have to understand the clients’ strongest menu choices and most expensive items, so they can place those choices at the tops and bottoms of food lists, because that is statistically where our eyes read the most. Another very important part of the design is the theme of the menu, which must adhere to the same concept as the restaurant for aesthetic purposes. Finally, the designers will sprinkle in some sneaky psychologically appealing tricks to keep the customer looking at the expensive menu items. One will notice almost every single good restaurant does this through arrows and ribbons, extremely appetizing images of the food, and highlighting the most or second most expensive thing on the menu to make is seem better than the others and worth the buy. Every feature of the menu designed in this fashion to promote the restaurant. All of these ingredients collage together for the ideal menu in any restaurant employing these methods.

The arguably second most important part of a successful restaurant is the restaurant appearance. This includes lighting, wallpaper, the materials, the color scheme, and more. According to Tom Strother, a co-founder of an established interior design firm, the most important aspect of restaurant appearance is the lighting. “...It has to be soft and flattering to make guests feel comfortable so that they are confident and relaxed and enjoy their stay in the restaurant. We tend to do this through soft ambient lighting to complement the more targeted architectural lighting and also to suit the time of day. (Gander).” Different basic lighting techniques have different psychological effects on any customer. This reaction can actually be tested and then applied in different settings through mass experimentation. What one does is test 100 volunteers with different stimuli and have them rate them. This creates a clear percentage of how popular the stimuli is. The psychological reaction to different stimulants works with wallpaper, furniture comfort level, testing restaurant impressions, etc. All of the restaurant appearance choices are considered when constructing the restaurant.

The last, but not least major aspect of restaurant design is the physical layout. This is how the tables, chairs, restroom, kitchen, host/hostess stand, and basically anything decorative are arranged. Chris LaBan, a professional restaurant critic, includes a description of one great example of a random restaurant showing how the physical layout influences a customer's perception. “With sleek glass walls folded up for al fresco dining and an airy dining room outfitted in woody Nordic chic, this ambitious corner restaurant-bar in West Philly's new Study boutique hotel gives University City a handsome all-purpose destination for a stylish New American meal.” The way that every part of the restaurant looks gives the restaurant something of a theme. In this case, the theme was New American or modern eating. This restaurant categorizing is very important for customers because they have options, and they like those options to be clear. Physical layout dictates the atmosphere of the restaurant.