Encouraging Sister

             Sometimes we come across a person who changes our whole perspective on life. Before I cam to America my life was really crazy. I been bulled harassed and all of my friends went against me because they want me to be just like them and not act myself. They took my entire confidence away from me because they were all against me. They made me feel so lonely and not have no trust in my self. 

            I have always dreamed of a friend. What is a friend anyway? A friend is someone who more becomes like sister or a brother to you at the end. A friend is someone you can tell your deepest secrets with and would know that they will never go against you no matter what and will there for you and never leave you. They will fight with you through the thick and thin. They will never make you feel bad. They would want you to act yourself and not change for anyone. They are the one that will love you for who you are. The one that doesn’t want anything in return from you, the one you can call family. They are the ones that will always be there for you to protect you and to have your back and to encourage you. I have always dreamed of that.

Luckily, when I came to the United States I met my best friend Jill who becomes more like my own sister. Jill has always encouraged me through the tough times and taught me important lessons along the way. She helped me grow into the person I am and because of that I will always admire her.

            My sister, Jill, taught me important life lessons like patience, honesty, and optimism. She showed me that in the tough times giving up is not an option, that I have to keep going no matter what happens. She helped me realize that while you may not always be able to get what you want you can make the best out of what you have. Jill has always been there for me, through the gratifying and dreadful times, and I know she will continue to be there for me.

              She was always there to show me that things weren't as bad as it was making them out to be. When things didn't go my way when I wanted them to she told me to be patient and they would come – and they always did. She always told me to look on the bright side, that every cloud has its silver lining. But these simple lessons she taught me changed my whole outlook on life. It taught me that I always have to keep a positive attitude no matter what happens. It’s hard to find a friend like that. Without her I would not be as happy as I am now. Through good and bad times, I’m positive that forever we will still remain friends. She’s a friend that I could and will never forget. Jill can tell if I’m lying even if I am keeping a straight face! I don’t know how she does it! We think so alike and its like were communicating with our minds! At the same time were always thinking the same thing or have the same idea. Even if I did try to lie to her, she knows me so well; she could tell I was lying. You may just have good friends that you can count on sometimes, but to be dependable on a person and knowing they will be there for you, it’s hard to find someone like that.

She helps me through my toughest times, and is there for my best times. She helps me pick out what and what not to buy! Together we are unstoppable! We also help each other with schoolwork, and family and friends problems. It’s hard to find a friend like that. We have so many inside jokes that nobody would understand unless they were there, or if they were just us! Not everyone gets our stupid jokes, and they might think that there immature and childish, but together we make them funny and get a good laugh out of it!

            I never thought I would have this girl in my life now she is more like family, like sister. I thank god I have her.  

When I first met her, she was with her boyfriend at the Circle of Friends banquet put on by Lutheran Services of Des Moines in the spring of 2008.  My first impression of her was that she was stuck up.  She seemed to have an attitude.  I tried to talk to her but she didn’t really respond to what I was saying and when she did she seemed dismissive.    The next time I saw her was during the 4^th of July.  She was teaching my brother Hashim how to break dance.  When he saw me he asked me if I remembered meeting Jill.  I said yes.  WE invited her and her friend to come to our house to eat the next day and they ended up spending the night.  Since it was the summer and they were off from school, they ended up coming over almost every day.  We did everything together.  They lived close to our house, so they would ride their bikes to our house late at night, which made my dad angry.  Not because they come over too late, but because he was afraid that something bad would happen to them in the middle of the night.  I found that they were not stuck up like I originally thought.  We were not wealthy, but they never cared, they just enjoyed my company and spending time with my family.  That is when I realized that they loved me for who I am, I didn’t have to be anything or anyone else.  Jill was always there when anyone in my family was sick, even when I broke my collarbone, I didn’t go to the hospital, I called Jill.  I was like “hey Jill, I think I broke my arm.”  And she immediately drove to my house and took me to the hospital and stayed with me the whole night.    After that I knew that I can always count on her to help me.  Later, when Anna went back to Iowa State, it was just Jill and I and that is when we really grew close.  Even though she is older than I am, we still found that we had a lot in common.  We shared secrets with each other that we had never shared with anyone else, ever.  I would tell her some of these things, I would think, “did I really just share that with her?”  Before telling her my biggest secret, it was like taking an anvil off of my heart and letting it out.  It felt so good and I cried the whole night and she was crying too.  I was afraid to tell her my deepest secret because I thought that she would not want to be my friend anymore.  But she was loving and kind.  She became like a big sister to me, I took advice from her more than I did from my own mother.  I don’t think that I can do anything without her, she is a huge part of my life.

She taught me a new way to live, she showed me how to see live differently.  I have gone through so much, had problems with family and friends, war, bullying, abuse, and I lost confidence in myself and I didn’t believe in myself anymore and I felt like I was worthless.  Then one day she took me to her parent’s farm.  For some reason, I forgot how to speak English, I would keep talking to Jill in Arabic, and she would look at me like I was crazy.  Then I asked her parents how they met.  I was curious because I saw her dad always doing dishes, helping out around the house, helping his wife out.  He wouldn’t let anyone make her mad, he would always defend her because in his eyes she was always right.  They were like cute little lovebirds, so I wanted to hear their story because I want a relationship like that in the future.  They had experienced worse pain than I have, but the love they had for each other endured.   After hearing their story of car accidents, not being able to have children, then proving the doctors wrong, then beating cancer with a stick, you feel like you were there in each moment and feeling everything.  I saw such love in both their eyes as her father told the story.  After that I ran to the barn and started screaming like a crazy person and crying.  Jill asked me what was wrong, I was struck by her father’s faith that kept him going.  At one point I was going to give up and end it all, I felt so stupid and felt bad about myself and hated myself.  I said sorry to myself for hating myself.  It wasn’t a rational conversation, but I was just expressing the pain and sorrow that I had felt.  I guess in that moment I said, “life is good.”  I was struck by how I lost faith in myself.  I knew deep down that I could do better, and her parents story showed me that even though life doesn’t turn out the way we want to doesn’t mean that it can’t still be good and that I can still find happiness.  Through Jill’s friendship and the love of her parents, I found a new direction in life.  I am still lost in finding my way, but I am on a better path than I was before I met her. 

Jill is the kind of person that I could never lie to. She is the person who inspired me the most. I am so lucky to have her and I couldn’t live without her. She is a true friend and I know I am glad have her now. Our friendship is so strong that we can get through anything. She is here to protect me and hold me every time I fall. I know she will always have my back in anything and fight for me and I sure do the same for her.

The Use of Facebook and the InternetToday Facebook has become a huge impact in our daily life. Almost everyone has a Facebook account. We see people using Facebook all the time but it has become addicting to teens especially ages 10-19 years old.  Socially anxious individuals and obsessive compulsive people are also more likely to be addicted than regular people.  According to Nielson Online report, Facebook use increased by 175% from April 2008 to April 2009 across all age groups.
The internet makes life easier and faster. It is also a great resource for almost everything you need. Whatever you need the internet will help you through it. Today people are relying on the internet all the time. They are putting their education level down. People now think that there is no need to learn while having an internet. You can search almost everything up and it is causing a huge destruction.            We all use the internet today and it is a great resource. You can get information faster and easier. Many of us use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to reach people we might not be able to see everyday. It is a great way to communicate with people all around the world. It is also easier to type your paper up instead of hand writing it. The Internet has different features and tools provides an easier way to learn different materials such as online colleges and jobs you can be involved in. Many people are busy and can have a choice of doing school online. It is a great way to finish school and work.            Knowledge can be gained in minute rather than hours and days. The incredibly rapid transfer of data means that people can travel less. You find information in click. It is fast and simple and many people are using it and loving the information it gives for us. It has become and impact took in everyday life. The biggest issues with Facebook now is that people now are relying too much on theinternet and it is taking up too much of their time.  Facebook is more like a drug, it even
effects older people not just teenagers (515).  They are now not allowing themselves to
go out and meeting people, they just sit on their phone or internet to message peopleinstead of seeing them. It is also lacking face-to-face conversations some people are in hesame room but rather send messages on the internet to talk with each other. Alsoprivacy is being compromised by the everincreasing storage of personal data on servers accessible worldwide. Emails havereplaced the usual face to face conversations. The internet can be used as crime as well as legal activities. Many people identity gets stolen from it. Also all of your life can beshared on the Internet and some people might steal your pictures and conversations.Depending on personality, may have negative affects on people.  A 2009 study showed
that students who used facebook and were already lonely became lonelier.  Students
who already had lots of friends had a positive effect from Facebook.     Lonely people are
more likely to get hurt online, because they are more sensitive to negative reactions,
real or perceived and respond more strongly to social threats (501).  Many Facebook
“friends” are not really friends, which makes people feel lonelier.
Many suicides had been committed because of the internet. Many people had beenbullied on Facebook or twitter. They get harassed and it becomes public for everyone tosee. A lot of people tell rumors on public and everyone can see it and many get hurt.
Teens are the one that are mostly involved in this. Many teens think that their onlychoice is committing suicide because of the online rumors. It causes many deaths and
Changes the way people interact with each other.  Interaction is less dynamic, no body
language of physical contact.  People create a false image of themselves online.   It feeds
The use of internet has grown tremendously among the teenagers over the last fewdecades. This has largely been caused by a variety of reasons such as education andthe need for entertainment. The internet provides a variety of free information andresources that can either build or destroy the life of a teenager. As a result, manyteenagers have ended up destroyed morally and psychologically due to excessive useof the internet for the wrong reasons. As a matter of fact, many teenagers getexcessively addicted to the internet from the first time they gain access information inthe web. The growing and excessive use of the internet among the teenagers has alsolargely been influenced by the affordability and availability of internet both at school andhome. This continued use of internet by the teenagers has its positive and negativeeffects. How do you use the internet?  

أحببت الحياة..........عذبتني !!؟؟ أحببت القدر.............ظلمني؟!؟! أحببت الزمن..........لم يرحمني؟! أحببت الفرح..............أبكاني !!!! أحببت الحزن............رافقني!؟؟؟ ...أحببت الصديق..رحل ولم يعد؟؟ أحببت الحبيب .....لم يفهمني!!!!! أحببت كل شيء......... فلم أجد شيء.

The Language : Offensive or Inoffensive

The author of this article is writing from personal experience to persuade the audience that using the word retard has consequences on people with disabilities that understood by the people that are saying the word.  The dictionary states that the word retard means a “mentally handicapped person but is often used as a general term of abuse.”  And the word retarded refers to someone who is less advanced in mental, physical, or social development than is usual for one's age. 

The word ‘retard’ is hurtful and has lost its meaning in culture.  We live in a world where people use the word as a joke and assume there are no consequences.  They judge others without understanding the person’s situation and what they have been through.  When people use the word inappropriately it doesn’t just affect the handicapped person, it affects the whole family.  The media uses the word to make money.  It worries about other forms of discrimination, but not discrimination against disabled people.

This is a short article on the author’s experience with the word retard and how it affected the family and how people do not understand how hurtful it is.  The central claim of the article is that the word ‘retard’ is hurtful.   There is a stigma associated with disabilities and using the word inappropriately reinforces that stereotype.   The author related a story about how her daughter with Down’s Syndrome was teased by some young girls and how it affected her.  “Margaret hadn’t done anything to attract the unwanted attention.  But then, my blond, blue-eyed daughter lives every day behind a face that can be a lightening rod for such talk.  The beautiful face I’ve loved for 24 years displays some of the characteristic signs of Down syndrome”  (Bauer 118).  This quote exemplifies that instead of helping people with Down’s syndrome, the media goes against them by producing films and more that make fun of these people.  Media uses mocks handicapped people to make money.  The movie Tropic Thunder prompted the author to write this article.  Bauer gives quotes of some statements that appeared in media. For example, on a website, a marketing campaign featured the quote, “once upon a time…there was a retard” (118). Another quote was, “never go full retard” (119).  the author states that she “can’t help thinking that those people (movie audiences) have been handed both a weapon and a target” (120). Bauer explains that people just want to make fun of someone else, and that the media is not helping; when they say “don’t go full retard,” the media has told the world that it is okay to make fun of those with Down’s Syndrome.

The author uses many statistics to help the readers understand the issue. For example, she detailed information and research about the lack of a federal policy to provide community services, which has caused concern for parents when they get too old to care for their Down Syndrome child.  Another way Bauer supports her argument is by providing evidence that young people nowadays do not want to spend time with intellectually disabled people. Even parents do not want Down Syndrome students to go to their own children’s schools.  Her final statistic was that young people did not prefer to sit next to a student with Down Syndrome. These examples provide evidence to make clear that many other people experience the same situation as the daughter of the author.

People judge handicapped people by the way they look and make up stories about them, demean their accomplishments, and do not try to understand them.  The author uses her daughter as a counter example of the stereotype of mentally handicapped people.  The author brings in a description of her daughter in order for the readers to understand that even though she looks different, actually she has a normal life like everyone else. “She’s a high school graduate, works part-time at a Mediterranean restaurant, takes care of her own apartment, and volunteers at her local hospital and senior center.  She’s a regular at the gym.  She has a lively social network, a cell phone, an e-mail address.  That is not to say her life is rosy, but it seems to be working” (120). Even though people say hurtful things, it doesn’t represent the truth.  The author tries to make an argument that when people use hurtful words, they put more pressure on the family and make it more difficult for them to have a normal life.

 To persuade the audience in her view, she describes more about her view: ”my husband and I have spent much of the last two decades doing all we can to shield Margaret from the effects of what I’ve just described.  With lots of hard work on her part, and with the active support of family and friends she’s faring far better than doctors predicted when she was born” (120). The author also describes what her family has done to support their daughter by making sure she is not affected by the hurtful portrayal of her looks by others around her whose thoughts have been influenced by media.   Used as a joke, people assume it doesn’t mean anything, or is not hurtful.  When the author confronted her friends about their use of the word, they would play it off and say “Gosh, everybody says it.  It’s just a joke. Or: I didn’t mean it like that.  Or: Lighten up. It doesn’t mean anything.  People reacted as if I’d offended them when I would tell them they were insulting my daughter and others like her; they would never insult such people, they said.” (119)

The author uses by describing how it affects her daughter and the rest of the author’s family.  The story is emotional and tries to draw the audience in her daughter’s story and make them part of it.   The author forces the audience to feel guilty about the word retard by appealing to their sense of values.  It is wrong to make fun of handicapped people, but many people do it without realizing they are bullies.  The author grabs the audience’s attention by describing her Down syndrome daughter’s response to people using the word retard against her. The author uses a lot statistics to help the audience understand the issue, which supported her main argument.  She tried to humanize the issue by discussing her daughter and her families’ struggles, making the problem less abstract.

The author intends this article to be read by everyone, there is no specific age or group that the author is targeting.  The author uses her own experience to make it more interesting to the audience, which pulls readers in emotionally and makes them feel like they are part of story and relate to her and her daughter. Those who have discriminated against people with Down syndrome may find this article to be interesting because they will be reconsidering the use of the word “retard.” For those who come from different language and cultural backgrounds, it is a new experience to understand, a new story, and a new word never heard of; they too will also understand people who have Down Syndrome. Teenagers will be more influenced when they read this because they will see Down Syndrome students all around them in class,  and in the school; they will start to  understand the hurt that is caused by language that they never thought twice about. For other parents of children who have Down Syndrome, this article may first give them emotional support through knowing others are experiencing the same thing, and also may empower them to fight for the rights of their kids.

The organization is good – very clear, direct, and to the point.  It started with an anecdote to draw the audience in to the story and relate to her daughter.  Next she mentioned how the culture that we live in doesn’t understand, people are very ignorant about how the words they speak affect people and how words can be used as a weapon to hurt people.  She goes on to provide more statistical evidence to state the problem.  She also focuses on her daughter to bring statistics to life and put a face on the numbers.  The media is a main culprit, particularly how the word is used in the movie Tropic Thunder. 

Send message to people that the word retard is painful, and how it is defined is hurtful to those that are handicapped.  Author uses personal history to present a complete story.  The author presents a classic argument in order to convince us to stop using the word retard.  Her focus is on the movie tropic thunder, this movie caused her to write the article and want people to think about what they are saying and how it affects those around them.  The main issue in the article is based on a current event and may lose some relevance as time goes on.  

Words

“Words are magic. The right word, in the right place, at the right time can change a life, maybe even save a life. Use your words for good, and know the power that you wield.”

عين على الشاآم ،، وعين على مصر وقلب بالعراق ،، وروح بفلسطين احترناآ على أي موطن نتألم 

؟!

Dreams

Broken dreams are not the end of the road. They are the beginning of new dreams and a new direction in life. You just need to be strong enough to take the first step