For my second personal essay I wanted to write about my experience moving from the slums of New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. It was a life changing experience for me, one of those times in your life where you road shifted a completely different way. In New York more specifically Washington Heights I had just begun ninth grade in one of the worst schools in the city, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd of people doing inappropriate things for my young age and I was headed in the wrong direction academically. When I moved to Clifton my life made a 360 turn around and it was kind of a new beginning for me where I could reinvent my self and start fresh. Now I had the advantage of wonderful teachers who cared about my future and my education. I also started to hang with a different crowd of people who didn’t influence me to ruin my life but who motivated me to be a better person.
I do have an idea of what I want to write about my only problem is that it takes over a long period of time and I don’t know to how to segmented, I guess ill have to play around with it.
6 comments:
So you live in Clifton? I'm there almost every week and it seems nothing like the city. It's pretty suburban, and looks alot cleaner than Union and Elizabeth what more NYC..there's also many animals that I see in clifton that I have not seen in the city...like groundhogs and deer.....
anyway I'm going off topic. I think it would be interesting for you to compare your life then to your life now and also talk about how you had to transition from one enviornment to another. Do you have any feelings of regret? How do you feel about moving? Can you go into deeper details so that a reader can also reflect on his or her own life changing experiences that may be similar to what you have gone through. Moving, is definately life changing. How are your neighbors in Clifton diffrent from neighbors from NYC? Did they treat you diffrently?
I've moved a number of times in my life so I've gone through a lot of changes due to different surroundings and the different people that I've met. It's true that being in one place and then going to another can change you which could be the focus of your essay - changes. You were going through changes because you were an adolescent starting high school and you were also going through changes in your surroundings as well as changes emotionally.
Since this takes place during a long period of time, pick and choose events that were of significance to you, say a typical day when you lived in NY - the "bad" things that you did with your friends, etc. You can talk about moving from New York to New Jersey and how a typical day there went. Another scene can be when you noticed a shift in your personality due to the people you hung out with. Since you mentioned that your friends in NJ made you a better person, talk about an event where you realized that these friends were "good" ones that influenced you to be who you are today. You can also talk about past teachers in NY that might not have cared about you and the new teachers in NJ. These events don't have to be in chronological order, I don't think. Anyways, I hope this helped :)
I agree with Angela, I think if you compared your life before your move to you life now, your essay would be very interesting. I too moved from one place to another which changed me as well so I can definitely relate to you. I hated moving! I moved 4 times before I turned 12! I was wondering what your feelings were about moving? And where do you think you would be if you hadn't moved? I like you ideas alot and I'm looking forward to reading your essay.
Moving is a sensitive subject to alot of people in good and bad ways. For you, it did seem life changing. What would your life right now be life if you didn't move? I often think of that because I have moved alot of times and just understand that where I am , I am supposed to be. Maybe living in NY helped build your charecter but now living in NJ is what is supposed to "smooth" the rough edges... The essays focus could possibly be something like who you are today because of what you have been though. I know you stated you hung out with the wrong crowd, maybe give a little story or example of what has happened to you there and how it made you are the person you are today.
Ok, if the concept is how you rearranged your life into a more (shall we say) "healthy" form, using the story of your move....adding a 2 and carrying the 3...We get....a coming of age story!
Now these are generally a cliche but they're there for a reason - to not only discuss the idea but to offer a model for others to build on (IE kids reading this and going "hey, i can do that too if I XYZ..."
You might want to stay away from any "when I was your age..." type approaches. Do you have any younger siblings/cousins/etc that are going thru or headed to go thru something similar? If you do, you could prepare a sensitive, caring "been there done that" story for them. Maybe frame it in a conversation (provided you A have a kid around in this situation and B have had a talk with them)
I'm also thinking a letter. You'd have to work to keep it creative, which I'm sure you could - but i'm sure you can convey your idea (becoming a responsible adult) *without explicitly stating it* in that very personal, overlooked medium. To someone you know, so someone you don't know, to a kid you may have someday, to anyone.
Just a few thoughts! If I have any more I'll run 'em up the pole for you.
Edgar, for starters i like your essay idea. although i never experienced moving because i was a baby, i could say going from a familiar place to a brand new place can be scary but also exciting as well. For a weird but interesting idea you could turn this essay into a videogame type of essay. level one could be home in NYC, level to could be learning that you were moving. level three could be the actual moving away, level four could be when you first arrived, level five could be how your transition of place to place is going, and maybe so on?? You probably think this is a weird idea but it could work??? Overall, good idea and im sure you will write, or should say type, haha, a great essay. =)
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