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AlisonsThoughtsNarrative

Page history last edited by PBworks 18 years, 6 months ago

Most people who know me would probably describe me as an easy to get along with, energetic person and those people who know me really well would most likely describe me as a high maintenance, daddy’s girl with a sarcastic snappy attitude. All of these characteristics are true, except for the high maintenance one, but there is a lot more to me than my witty sense of humor and my talkative personality. I grew up in a really small town where the cows outnumber the people. Now, I would like to explain to you what I mean when I say a small community. Most of you are probably thinking small as in I graduated with a couple hundred people and the nearest mall is twenty minutes from my house. Wrong! I graduated with a class of forty people and that was a 7th-12th grade high school. The nearest mall is an hour from my house and if you want to go sit in a movie theatre where your feet stick to the floor you have to travel about thirty miles. The thing most kids do in my high school is hang out at the local Exxon or go spotlighting at night. But, this narrative isn’t supposed to be about where I grew up, it’s supposed to be about me, but in order to understand me you have to understand where I come from.

 

First of all, I need to say that I was an \"Oops Baby,\" I have a sister who is eleven years older than me. She always did well in school and is currently working on her doctorate so she can be a Professor. I also have an older brother who still lives in the area where I grew up and goes from job to job. Therefore I had a lot to live up to and lot to make up for. Since I came from such a small high school all the teachers remember almost every student they have ever had so the first thing teachers would say to me was, “Oh, are you Heather’s sister” or “Oh, are you Ben’s sister” when I would hear those five words I knew that I either had to live up to my sisters standards or I had to make up for what my brother lacked in. Therefore I did what everyone always asked of me. I quickly became the “goody goody,” but it didn’t bother me because I knew that I was living up to what everyone had hoped I would.

 

By the time I graduated I was a member of concert band, jazz band, bandfront, concert chorus, madrigal choir, musicals, and I played three different instruments. I was co-editor of the Yearbook, President of Key Club and National Honor Society and I was managing to hold down a 3.9 GPA. I was also an active member in our church, and Youth Group. Needless to say I had my hands full, but again I was making everyone happy, everyone but me. Then it came time to apply to college. All of my life I said I didn’t want to go to Penn State, it was just to big, now don’t get me wrong I absolutely hate the town that I grew up in, but going from a high school of 300 people to a college of 40,000 was quite a big jump. But, when the time came to apply to colleges I found myself once again doing what other people wanted me to do. My dad works for a branch campus of Penn State and told me that I should take advantage of the discount I would get if I came here, so I applied to Penn State, got in, and here I am. Penn State was also the only school that I appled to, mostly because of my dad, but also because of laziness.

 

I am incredibly happy that I followed my dad’s advice, because I love the area and I love all the people and I love the fact that I haven’t seen a cow or other barnyard animal in more than a week, but I am also excited to finally be on my own. I have no one to live up to anymore. This week, for the first time in six years, the first words that I heard out of a teacher wasn’t “Are you Heather and Ben’s sister” and that is the best thing in the world. All that people know about me is that I am Alison Duda, freshman student at Penn State University, after that people can get to know the real me, not the person I am expected to be.

 

 

After reading over this a few times I realized that I didn't talk much about my family or friends, who are both really important parts of my lives.

 

I read in the MrsGummyJoe narrative that she lost a cousin rather suddenly and it made me think of a similar situation that happened to my family about eight years ago. Shortly after Christmas one of my cousins was hit by a vehicle when he was getting ready to pull out of a friends driveway and he passed away a few days later. This incident brought my family even closer together because we realized that you never know when it will be your time to go. Since we are so close now I don't cringe when my mom brings up a family picnic, instead I am happy to go and spend time with my family who mean the world to me.

 

My boyfriend and our friends mean the world to me. They help me get through whatever kind of problem I have and we were all so sad to see the summer end and everyone go off in their different ways. The biggest regret that I have in life is that I didn't get to know these people soon enough. In the LaxerGreg narrative he talks about how all the clicks kind of dissolved his senior year, but the opposite happened to me in school. Instead of becoming friends with all the kids in my class I just changed groups, which I know sounds kind of bad, but that is just what happend. When my boyfriend and I started going out we hung out with two totally different groups of people, but I quickly formed a great friendship with all of his friends. I am so happy that I got to know a group of wonderful people because they were the ones that made this past summer the best summer of my life.

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