Beginnings of a Journey

In unit 1, Morpheus, we learned about different people and groups who have had to endure harsh physical and mental challenge and how these trials helped them evolve. This unit really focused on finding our own dreams and our journey in getting there. As a class we have even done some endurance challenges of our own. The first being to sit silently, with no distractions, for fifteen minutes straight. The second task was to hold an ice cube in our hands for one minute, we did this twice. For our FE we went to a dojo to do boot camp training, pushing ourselves to the physical and mental limits. The action project consisted of writing an autobiography in the perspective of ourselves thirty years in the future. We will “look back" on our journeys that have lead us to our chosen goals and dreams. I struggled with deciding on which dream I wanted to go with, and after some deliberating I decided to go with the future of being a Chicago Police Officer. I enjoyed being able to do this because it gave me a real chance to think of how I want to achieve my dreams and what I really want to do in the future. Please enjoy my autobiography below.
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Chapter 1: Against All Odds

TS. Red Cross Training. 2015.

My existence is a miracle. Not only was I an accident, but also had been an emergency C section--being strangled by the thing that kept me alive for nine months, the umbilical cord. It was discovered that the cord wrapped itself around my neck four times which is rarer than rare. This trend seemed to continue as I grew up, I have constantly surprised people with my resilience. Whenever someone would tell me I couldn’t do something, I would prove them wrong. Due to this, I developed the skill to learn things quickly. I have been put into a multitude of activities over the years, always managing to awe people at the feats I was able to accomplish. One activity I did in my spare time was solving any type of puzzle. When my parents saw this, they would play crime shows on the television for me during Sunday mornings. I was hooked from then on, becoming infatuated with spies and detectives. My favorite was, by far, Batman. I had always had a love of reading, but this new interest in crime shows caused me to start reading all sorts of mystery novels. I especially loved the Nancy Drew series.

My home life was never a stable, happy one with my parents seemingly having perpetual fights and moving all around the United States. Because of this, I took on more responsibilities and acted older than I was. Other people would repeatedly tell me that I had an old soul and that I was wise beyond my years. Their words did not make sense to me until I was in my preteens. I just figured that all children dealt with issues like these. As the years passed by, I soon realized that this was not how families should act; mine was one filled with domestic violence, both emotional and physical. Being the older sibling, I took it upon myself to shield my little brother from the hate filled violence that plagued our home. I did not want him to become jaded at an early age like I had been. My desire for him was to live as carefree as possible for as long as he could. At this moment, unbenounced to me until later in life, I discovered my life’s mission: to help and protect others. When I entered grammar school, many of my friends were being bullied. Every time I saw this, I would stand up for them. I have always had a strong sense of justice and a good feeling for what was right and what was wrong, so if I saw something that I believed was bad or wrong, I would do my best to stop or fix it. I had never thought anything of it, I was just helping a friend out in their time of need the same way that I trusted they would help me when I needed them. I later found that the trust I felt had no merit as I was left behind in my time of need.

I was around ten years old when I truly discovered my mission and aspired to become just like my fictional heroes. I began reading all sorts of finished case files that were posted and easily accessible. I studied famous and infamous (well known & lesser known) serial killers that were caught or never found. The library was my second home and my face was buried in more books than ever before. Ultimately, I noticed that during shows I would subconsciously piece together the clues, figuring out things most people would not think of until much later or what would happen next. This was not limited to crime shows, but comedies, dramas, and horror as well. This went as far as to branch out to events I witnessed in real life, from me walking down the street to being in the classroom. I was continuously analysing my surroundings and the people in it, without being conscious that I was doing it. When I discovered that my family was good friends with another family whose dad was an agent for the FBI, you can only imagine how ecstatic I was. He was the first official person I had met that was the physical embodiment of the characters I grew to idolize. Whenever I could I asked him questions about what was going on and what it was like being apart of a government agency. This man gave me a true goal to work towards in the future that felt realistic and bigger than a simple detective, he pointed me towards the future of being an FBI agent.

By the time I entered high school I was extremely jaded, having laid witness to too much and being used as an outlet for my parents rage towards each other. At this point they were in their third year of their divorce and, being the eldest, I was held responsible for my brothers mistakes and was visualised as either my mom or dad, depending on who I was with, due to having picked up traits from both of them over the past fourteen years. Now, despite appearing healthy, I noticed that something was apparently wrong by reason of the fact that I started to actually struggle in multiple aspects of my life. In order to ascertain if I had a legitimate problem I went to my mom’s psychologist and got diagnosed with ADHD. This explained the extreme difference in my grades compared to grammar school, and why I struggled to remain on task with work I found uninteresting. Despite this hindrance as a freshman, I was still aiming to become an FBI field agent. It was not until sophomore year where I started to question my dream. This was the year where I had been informed of my severe depression. My already low grades dropped along with my GPA. I began doubting whether or not I would be able to make it into any good schools and/or programs that the FBI highly recognized, so I decided to pursue the military path (preferably the Coast Guard or Marines). However, right before junior year I figured the military wasn’t for me and I ended up changing it to do something with history because of a couple of reasons, one being that I’m good at it. The other reason is that I strongly believe in the words George Santayana once said: “ Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” Half way through the year I learned that being a history major required writing a lot of essays, and since I knew I wasn’t a strong writer I switched to wanting to be a psychologist. I thought that I could help a lot of people, especially because it’s hard to find good psychologists that truly help those who have mental disabilities; most just prescribe medication as the solution. When I entered senior year, the pressure of the commencement of applying to colleges and basically figure out what I planned on doing with my life was on. From the start of my last year I knew I needed a break from school, but I did not know where to go from there. In October a friend told me that the Chicago Police Department test was coming out again and, because I was eighteen, I was eligible to apply. I knew that inside I still wanted to be apart of the law force, so I finally chose to take the test and move towards becoming a police officer. Despite the constant changes to what I wanted to become there was one common trend, my mission that I have had since young childhood -- the need and action of helping people.

Subsequently after applying to the CPD I needed to prepare for the tests. There were three main parts that I was required to pass before being given a number that would tell me when I would start at the academy. First the written test, then the physical test, and lastly the interview. I knew that the written test would be rather simple, but I’ve always struggled with self-doubt and, add that to my anxiety, it was difficult to think I’d pass. The POWER test, physical fitness exam, was by far the most challenging and taxing. Due to my small size, no taller than five feet two inches and weighing one-hundred and ten pounds, I’ve had to do intense workouts for longer periods of time to have a chance at being able to keep up with the other, larger candidates. There were numerous exercises that had to be completed in either a certain amount of time or by reaching a specific number minimum. These tasks had been doing sit-ups for a minute, bench pressing half your weight, push-ups, and a mile and a half run. Not only was I hindered by my stature but by past injuries from accidents and activities. The run ended up proving the most demanding, with me barely finishing in the expected time for my age bracket, because of my bad knees from years of softball, volleyball, and track/cross-country. I was very surprised to find out that I passed the test and received a date for the interview. I was a nervous wreck and feared that on account of my poor mental health, which totaled up to three disorders, I would be deemed unfit for the job. Luckily this ended up not being the case.

Reflecting on the road I have taken and the opposition faced, I think of these two great people: Demi Lovato and J.K. Rowling. Both of them have strained relations with their fathers, suffer from sever depression, and lived in a home that had some form of domestic violence. However, despite these adversities they each did/do something grand. Rowling went on to write the Harry Potter series while Lovato continued to create music and wrote a book, Staying Strong, about her daily affirmations. They had both overcome their own ordeals when they were at their lowest points, in the end making them stronger than they were previously. That is all that I did. At my lowest point there were only two options left: give up on everything, or claw my way back up. I used these two women as inspiration to keep me going knowing that they have dealt with similar trials in their youth and early adulthood as I have, yet became successful and achieved their goals.

Many believed that I would have amounted to nothing. I used to believe them, but now that I see where I am and how far I've come, I know I always chose the best path for me. Being a police officer has given me so much purpose in life. Regardless of the crap the news and people say about cops, and the overall assumption that we are corrupt, I love what I do. Working on a much smaller level than the FBI has allowed me to get closer to my community and help more citizens rather than the government. It has become painstakingly clear to me over the past few decades that I don’t possess the ability to change everything or help everyone. Although, in spite of not being able to change the world, I can change someone’s world. As Mother Teresa once said “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person nearest you.”