Student’s Writings

Family by Mohamed Cisse

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

It was a typical Friday afternoon. I had just finished praying Maghrib and decided to watch some TV. My mother came downstairs all dressed up and said, “Let’s go.” I was confused at first, then quickly realized that we were supposed to visit the mosque and pray. I felt really tired from playing basketball so I tried to convince my mom to go without me. She wasn’t happy that I was trying to get out of going to the mosque so we had a whole argument about me not valuing my religion and culture enough. She got frustrated and left without me. I didn’t have to pray, read the quran, go to the mosque, or celebrate all the holidays. I felt like she was being unfair to me and unappreciative. I went to sleep early that night.

The next day, I woke up feeling bad about letting my mom go to the mosque alone so I decided to apologize. But before I could do anything, I found myself in someone else’s bed and it was way more stiff than mine. I got up and went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face to fully wake up. I looked in the mirror and saw that I had switched sides. I’m caucasian! I have straight long hair and my voice is different. What kind of voodoo magic is this? I rushed down the steps and found that my house is not my house. I entered the kitchen and found a lady making some breakfast. I asked, “Who are you?” in a concerned voice. She replied, “Stop acting stupid, Connor, it’s too early for this. We have to leave for church in the next twenty minutes.” 

Ok, so I have two concerns right now. One, why is this lady calling me Connor, and two, why the hell am I leaving for church? I asked her the question again,“ Who are you?” in an angry voice. She replied, “I’m your mother and if you don’t hurry up and get ready I’m not taking you to your tennis match.” I guess this was God trying to make me appreciate my religion from the argument I had with my mom. I’m not going to lie though, compared to what I went through with African parents, this will be a breeze. I went back upstairs and played along with this “test”. I put on the suit that was lying on the bed and the dress shoes I found in the closet. If I was going to do this, I gotta at least look nice.

I went back downstairs and had a full English breakfast and got in the car to go to church. (That feels so weird to say.) When we arrived, I was getting ready to pray like a Muslim but realized that I was a Christian in this test. Everyone was probably thinking what is this boy doing? After praying, we went back home. I was happy at the thought of eating Malian food, but remembered that I was about to eat some caucasian food. I ate some chicken and fries, and I kid you not, though I came into this with an open mind, the food had no damn seasoning. What torture.  

By this time I had to go to play tennis. I have had no experience except some time playing last year in Physical Education. I hope I have adapted to Connor’s skills in tennis or I will fail horribly. I took a tennis racket and the game started. I have never in my life had so many balls hit me in 45 minutes. I’m pretty sure they were targeting me, and my teammates gave me a wedgie in  the locker room. What bitc….. Let’s keep this PG now. I can’t stand this caucasian nightmare. Please god, I have had enough with this life, take me back. I learned my lesson.

                                                                                                                                                    Mohamed Cisse

                                                                                                                                                    10/18/24

Family by Kendall Curtis

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

Family to me may be different to other people. My family is full of murderers , drug addicts , and people who need to go to therapy. They don’t know how to express their emotions so most of the time problems go unsolved and they carry it with them. They don’t know how to talk to kids. I have witnessed, on several occasions, how my family’s words have negatively affected a child’s life and view of themselves.

 I got lucky with my mom because she actually treats me like a person. My aunt’s kids hate her. They come to my mom for basically any problem they have. Although my aunt and mother share the same parents, they have completely different emotional responses. My aunt(who is the oldest) was raised by my grandmother. My grandmother is a writing within itself so I am not going to talk about her today. but let’s just say she is an old ax. My mother, on the other hand, was raised by my grandfather. He was much more patient and empathetic. I believe this shaped my mother and my aunt  into the people they are today. It’s just very ironic because my aunt is more successful than my mother. She knew she had to get away from my grandmother. 

I plan on being the person to break the trauma curse in my family. When I make it big and have plenty of money, I want to put all of them in therapy so that they can realize that the things you say to kids matter. I want them to see  what their parents did to them is a clear reflection of how they act right now.  Until then, I am stuck with a bunch of women with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and PTSD. There is so much pain just sitting in the core of all of them.

 They wonder why I want to get away from them for college. It’s simply because I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to harbor bad energy from years and years before. I don’t want to put my hands on my kids or call them slurs. Lastly, I don’t want all my hard work to be wasted because I can’t control how I react when someone says something to me. 

                                                                                                                                                        Kendall Curtis 

                                                                                                                                                         October 18 ,2024

Family by Ethan Jobita Jemadari

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

If you know me long enough, then you would know my family roots are from Kenya, Tanzania, and Afghanistan. But I wasn’t  born in any of these countries. One of my family members was born in each of these countries. My mother was born in Kenya, my father was born in Tanzania, and my father’s dad was born in Afghanistan. To be completely honest with you, I don’t know that much about my family in Saudi Arabia. So right now I am going to tell you more about the Kenyan and the Tanzanian parts of me. 

My mother was born in Nairobi, which is the capital of Kenya. My mom came to the United States at the Young age of 19, to pursue her dance career. But that really didn’t work out, and now she is an Xray-tech. We are all proud of our Ethnic background. We still bring our culture here. We eat foods like chapati, samosas, ugali, onion meat, and many more. 

Now on the Tanzanian side. My father was born in Dar es Salaam, which is the capital of Tanzania. My father was a pretty bad kid at the time. He would always play sports and skip school, until my grandfather sent him to Kenya to go to a boarding school. That was the last time my father saw his dad, since he was killed in a car crash. After completing high school, my father left Tanzania to get away from all the pain, and he came to America at the age of 19 as well. He met my mom in college, and they had me.

Now for the Afghanistan side, there is one story I can tell. The story of how my Grandmother met my Grandfather. My Grandfather was Muslim, and his parents were very strict on the type of women he would be able to be with. He was told that he was not able to date anyone outside of the Muslim Faith. Until one day he met my grandmother, who was Christian. My grandfather was deeply in love with my grandmother. His parents found out he was dating a Christian, and they were very disappointed. He decided to leave his family to be with my Grandmother, and that’s how my family is now with the Christian Faith.

                                                                                                                                             Ethan Jobita Jemadari

                                                                                                                                             October 18, 2024

Family by Madison Hansel

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

My family is an out of the box bunch. My mom’s side is quite wild and chaotic. A lot of my mom’s side of the family lives pretty close to us. All of my Uncles are crazy and loud people. My Uncle Joe is an alcoholic and amputee, Uncle Tony is completely off the chart when it comes to having energy. And my Uncle Dave no one talks to because he has burned his bridges with every person in our family, except for my biological father, Zachary. 

Zachary got out of prison two and a half months ago and went missing last night. We have been reconnecting and spending time together but he has severe depression and has been struggling at adjusting to the real world after being incarcerated for the past six years. He has been living with his best friend since he got out, but he left last night and no one has been able to reach him. I do hope he comes back and, if he is messing up, I hope he goes to rehab. I hope he is okay. 

I don’t see my dad’s side of the family as much because they live farther. Occasionally, we see my Uncle Bud, my dad’s brother. My Munt Gail and Uncle Paul moved back to Maryland last year to be closer to some family, but decided they want to move back to Nevada because they love gambling and hate the cold weather here. Sometimes they come to cookouts, but it is really rare.

For holidays, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, we just have my old mom-mom over and sometimes my Uncle Tony and my cousin Skylar and her girlfriend Liv will come. My old mom-mom used to host all the family dinners and made all the food from scratch. She always had the most festive decorations and I loved going there for every holiday. She had to move into an apartment so we can’t eat family dinner at her house anymore. She still decks out her apartment and makes some of the food and desserts. 

I don’t know what I would do without my old mom-mom. She is one of my favorite people and has always believed in me and hoped that I would be the grandchild that does something good with my life. 

I have three sisters who I don’t live with. We all live with the parents of one of our parents, except the youngest, Gracie, who was adopted 24 hours after she was born, so I never got to meet her. Mariah lives with our biological mother’s parents and then Hailee and I live with our father’s parents. Out of my siblings, I got the best parents. My parents take really good care of me and actually wanted to raise me. My sisters didn’t have much of a choice and are with people who don’t want to take care of them. I used to feel obligated to take care of them and always make sure they are doing what they are supposed to do, but that’s not my responsibility. I talk to Mariah and she lives in Essex so I see her sometimes. Hailee lives in Delaware and is completely off the rails. 

I have other “family members” that aren’t biologically related to me and that would include Myshell. Shell and her family are like a second family to me. I get invited to all the family events and Shell comes to all my family gatherings. Our moms treat us like sisters and buy us matching clothes like we are twins. She comes on vacation with my family every year. We talk almost every day and see each other often. I love her so much and am so grateful that she is in my life. 

I am definitely a daddy’s girl and am spoiled rotten by my dad. To him I will forever be his little girl and as soon as I do the puppy dog face, he caves. My dad and I used to go grocery shopping every Sunday and we would listen to rock music on the way there and back. I would sit in my car seat and pretend like I was the drummer and my dad was the guitarist. We also would go to breakfast at the Lunchbox which we still go to today. 

My family is very complicated and filled with crazy stories. Stories that I can’t even share because they are so wild you probably wouldn’t believe me even if I told you. Still, we are somewhat normal and my parents are so caring and helpful to everyone, even people who don’t deserve their kindness. My mom can hold a grudge against someone but not my dad. He is one of the most genuinely sweet people and cares about his family more than anything. I don’t know what I would do without any of my family. I love them all, even the slightly crazy ones. 

                                                                                                                                                    Madison Hansel

                                                                                                                                                    October 18, 2024

Family by Danny Buck

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

I’m a massive subscriber to the idea that family is made, not born. The word family has two main definitions, which are the following: the first is a group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit, and secondly, all the descendants of a common ancestor. My idea of family is different from this notion. I have three families, and only one of them is genetically related to me, although I exclude the majority of them from the title of family. My mom, sister, brother, aunt Brittney, and grandma are my only genetic family. I also have uncles, who are the siblings of my mom, aunt, and grandma, but they’re not family because I don’t feel any familial love or connection. My definition of family is any person or group that I feel a visceral bond or connection with, whether they’re related to me or not.

My other two families are the Rivas’s and my best friend Rashod’s family (they don’t share a surname, so I grouped them by my relation to Rashod). I’ve known Rashod’s family ever since elementary school, and I know them fairly well at this point. I’ve spent somewhere close to a hundred thousand hours with them, sharing experiences and building bonds. They were always there for me whenever I needed them. They’re always kind, and I know that our moms consider both me and Rashod to be their sons. He’s probably my closest brother, and I don’t believe anything can separate us from that bond.

My final family is the Rivas’s, and for obvious reasons. As much as Ruth doesn’t want to accept it, we are a real familia. I’ve been spending several hours everyday with Hector since sixth grade, with Karla since seventh grade, and with Ruth since ninth grade. We’ve done a lot together, and all of our relationships and dynamics are super authentic, and we never fail to have a laugh. We go out pretty often, we’ve spent major holidays together, and our relationship is strengthened by each time we show we’re there for each other. I’ve bought them food, they’ve bought me food; I’ve given them money, they’ve given me money; and they’ve taken care of me, as I have to them. Every time we spend time together, I feel like I’m becoming a little more El Salvadorian. I might even buy an El Salvador jersey, since I kinda feel a connection to the culture. I eat the food, have listened to the music, and become accustomed to some of the media. Each day that goes by, I become an even stronger Mayan warrior. I always make sure that I let them know that I love them, and even if Ruth refuses to accept it, I will assimilate. I’m kinda like the aliens from The Thing in that way.

Now I’d like to explain my reasoning for why I don’t consider  my relatives to be family. Evolutionarily, the idea of family is more often than not people who are related to you, but they don’t have to be. The point is that a group is generally more effective than an individual, and if you spend the majority of your life with this group or tribe, you’ll likely interbreed and the later generations will be related. Philosophically, relatives aren’t necessarily someone you share a bond with, and they may not even support you. This renders blood meaningless, as you’re technically related to everyone anyways. It’s also proven true that relatives are less helpful sometimes because of biases, and because of entitlement.

I’m also a pretty critical and analytical type of person, so I examine a lot of the things humans generally consider to be status quo, instead of blindly believing it. Ever since I was little, I questioned the idea that you have to respect someone who happens to be genetically similar to you by sheer chance, and how that makes them different from anyone else. I’ve also grown up in a way that feels as though my existence is a hindrance, which is ironic due to the fact that your parent’s made a decision to make you, and you didn’t make yourself. Why should I necessarily be so grateful for the life that was given to me without my consent, or with me being aware of what the experience entails. The term “Blood is thicker than water” is a poisonous idea, and can often lead to manipulation. I think, as humans, we often forget that the majority of our experiences are based on chance and predisposition but not a divine factor of things being “meant to be.” This is why friendship supersedes relation in my eyes. Would you be more grateful for a faulty home with many flaws and parts that are useless, or a home that you built with your own two hands. One of the attributes of man is that we don’t necessarily have to subject ourselves to what the world around us chooses, but rather to what we make on our own.

                                                                                                                                                              Danny Buck
                                                                                                                                                              10/18/24

Family by Kennedy Lewis

“FAMILY…functional, dysfunctional, uniquely personal.” – Don Riesett, Writing Mentor & Teacher

You know, I kind of wished I knew anything about my family, whether it be about our heritage, culture,  or just  stories. Whenever I hear people telling me about their family’s culture, I feel so disconnected with mine, and this fact makes me very sad. I can’t bear to stay in this skin for much longer, I crave to be with my REAL family. Not the evolved chimps that walk around on two legs, I’m talking about my fellow furried Canis lupus. That’s right, I’m a wolf, sometimes at night, I’m a  dangerous stalking beast hungred with the feeling of the wind blowing through my fur. By day. I’m a fleshy disgusting putrid nasty homosapien.

It’s so hard to be a wolf;  literally no one talks about the struggle. Every day, I have to resist the urge to just go outside, rip my shirt off and howl to the moon. I’m embarrassed to say that last night, I just couldn’t control those urges. The moon was just so big, beautiful and full. I immediately wolfed out at the mere glance of it. Don’t even get me started on my love life, it’s so hard trying to find a mate these days. I remember, I found this person online who I really really liked. We really hit it off, it was going well until they asked for a picture of my face. When I sent it, they asked if I was joking. When I sent a video of me to confirm I was in fact not joking, I was blocked. Like come on, at least tell me WHAT I did wrong. Anyways, I figured that maybe in person would be better. Just so they could really see who I am. Last night I went prowling around. Lingering near the city’s darkest alleys, finding someone who’d be acclimated to my taste. After a couple of hours, I found a group of women, lovely. I make sure my fedora’s tipped and my fur is clean before I saunter towards them.

Kennedy: “Nǐ hǎo, ladies.

Ruth: Is that a costume?

Kennedy: Oh no, no. This is the real thang, right here, right now.

Quinn: Oh m gee, that costume is so adorable!

Kennedy: I assure you ladies, this is all-

Before I can finish my sentence, one of them touches my tail. And everything goes red, then black. When I wake up, I’m propped up on a tree, and my head is absolutely throbbing. Oh god, what happened?

                                                                                                                                                       Kennedy Lewis

                                                                                                                                                       October 18, 2024