This I Believe...
What Do You Believe and Why?
“Having a sister is like having a best friend you can’t get rid of. You know whatever you do, they’ll still be there.” –Amy Li
Have you ever looked back at a picture realizing that everything has changed; it’s all just a memory? Photos are keepsakes of memories. When I look back at pictures I can remember all the memories that are attached, especially pictures of my sister and me. But for me, in these pictures of us, nothing has changed. We are the same two girls, just older.
I believe in friendship that will last forever. I believe this because of my sister, Mira. She is my best friend and has been since the very start. Looking back at all our childhood pictures, I realize that I have one person who I will always be able to count on, who will stand by me under any circumstance, someone I can share my deepest secrets with, and who I can completely be myself with.
Though we have always been each other's best friends, we have gotten into many fights, and competitions. But I believe we went through these rough patches because we were too young to realize what we meant to each other. Once we realized how important our friendship was, it only got stronger. Even when we were so far apart, we were still standing by each other's side.
With the topic of our relationship in mind, my best friend Conner Murphy declared, “Your relationship has passed every test, because you know you have each other.”
In every picture of Mira and me there is a childhood memory and story to be told. From one of the foolish picture Mira and I took of ourselves, I can tell you the memory that I associate with it.
One memory being from our trip in Ireland: It was a long, tedious drive to the airport and to make the time go faster we decided to take pictures of ourselves. It started out with normal pictures, but then out came our true selves… the two childish, crazy, bothersome, nevertheless cheerful best friends. And at one point Mira turned to me and said, “Bryn, we are the best sisters ever.” These pictures show me that Mira is my other half, the one person I will always have by my side.
Another memory being from my brother’s birth: Around the age of five, my little brother was born. Mira was two years old at the time, she decided that she didn’t want a little brother and refused to call him by his real name. But she knew that she was a big sister to him, like I to her. I remember her begging to hold him even though she wasn't strong or big enough, so she asked me to help her. Together, we held our new baby brother, two big sisters. I now understand, looking at this picture, that working together we can achieve anything.
I believe in friendship that lasts forever. I believe in having one person who knows me better than I know myself. I believe my sister is my best friend. I believe in having a soul mate, mine being my little sister.
Have you ever looked back at a picture realizing that everything has changed; it’s all just a memory? Photos are keepsakes of memories. When I look back at pictures I can remember all the memories that are attached, especially pictures of my sister and me. But for me, in these pictures of us, nothing has changed. We are the same two girls, just older.
I believe in friendship that will last forever. I believe this because of my sister, Mira. She is my best friend and has been since the very start. Looking back at all our childhood pictures, I realize that I have one person who I will always be able to count on, who will stand by me under any circumstance, someone I can share my deepest secrets with, and who I can completely be myself with.
Though we have always been each other's best friends, we have gotten into many fights, and competitions. But I believe we went through these rough patches because we were too young to realize what we meant to each other. Once we realized how important our friendship was, it only got stronger. Even when we were so far apart, we were still standing by each other's side.
With the topic of our relationship in mind, my best friend Conner Murphy declared, “Your relationship has passed every test, because you know you have each other.”
In every picture of Mira and me there is a childhood memory and story to be told. From one of the foolish picture Mira and I took of ourselves, I can tell you the memory that I associate with it.
One memory being from our trip in Ireland: It was a long, tedious drive to the airport and to make the time go faster we decided to take pictures of ourselves. It started out with normal pictures, but then out came our true selves… the two childish, crazy, bothersome, nevertheless cheerful best friends. And at one point Mira turned to me and said, “Bryn, we are the best sisters ever.” These pictures show me that Mira is my other half, the one person I will always have by my side.
Another memory being from my brother’s birth: Around the age of five, my little brother was born. Mira was two years old at the time, she decided that she didn’t want a little brother and refused to call him by his real name. But she knew that she was a big sister to him, like I to her. I remember her begging to hold him even though she wasn't strong or big enough, so she asked me to help her. Together, we held our new baby brother, two big sisters. I now understand, looking at this picture, that working together we can achieve anything.
I believe in friendship that lasts forever. I believe in having one person who knows me better than I know myself. I believe my sister is my best friend. I believe in having a soul mate, mine being my little sister.
Project Reflection:
#1:
For this project we wrote a personal narrative about a belief we have, one we wanted to share with people. To generate our core beliefs we started off by reading other peoples “This I Believe…” statements on a website called http://thisibelieve.org, then we did a lot of brainstorming on what beliefs other Americans have, other people have, and beliefs that we have personally. We then choose one of our beliefs and had to write a credo on it. A credo is a short essay stating our belief and why we believe it. After that we started to create our “This I believe…” statements. When writing these we had to make sure we used narrative coherence: making sure everything worked and sounded good together, communal relevance: making sure it had some connection for the reader, and authentic voice: making sure our own voice was present such as stories or narrative.
#2:
Throughout the process of creating my statement, I, at first, didn’t have any troubles; I knew what I wanted to write about from the start. But as we started to actually write the paper it got harder and harder to organize everything, make it have an authentic voice without sounding cheesy, and making sure that I got my point across concisely. I think that I grew as a writer because I learned how to persevere through all the little stuff to create a good piece of writing.
#3:
The thing I am most proud about is how much emotion and authentic voice I put into my essay. Because I wrote a story about my little sister, I had a ton of stories I could have shared but I choose the ones that I feel expressed my belief the best. I also think I did a great job using authentic voice to share my belief in a way the people with sisters or brother could connect. For example the part where I say, “I believe in friendship that lasts forever. I believe in having one person who knows me better than I know myself. I believe my sister is my best friend. I believe in having a soul mate, and my sister, Mira, is mine, as I as hers.”
#4:
I think that I could have refined my story to where I cut a few things out to make it even more concise and shorter so I could have sent it to NPR. I would have made it so that my belief was still really clear but maybe just cut out some useless words and maybe replace then with one or two words that mean the same thing.
#5:
I feel like sharing our beliefs and views has helped our class to get to know people better and so people can see who we are and what we really care about. Each one of the “This I Believe…” essays, in our class or not, have brought a new perspective or belief that I didn’t think I had but actually did. I was able to connect to a lot of essays and that’s a new thing for me, since I read mostly fictional books. I really took a lot out of this project and had a lot of fun with it.
For this project we wrote a personal narrative about a belief we have, one we wanted to share with people. To generate our core beliefs we started off by reading other peoples “This I Believe…” statements on a website called http://thisibelieve.org, then we did a lot of brainstorming on what beliefs other Americans have, other people have, and beliefs that we have personally. We then choose one of our beliefs and had to write a credo on it. A credo is a short essay stating our belief and why we believe it. After that we started to create our “This I believe…” statements. When writing these we had to make sure we used narrative coherence: making sure everything worked and sounded good together, communal relevance: making sure it had some connection for the reader, and authentic voice: making sure our own voice was present such as stories or narrative.
#2:
Throughout the process of creating my statement, I, at first, didn’t have any troubles; I knew what I wanted to write about from the start. But as we started to actually write the paper it got harder and harder to organize everything, make it have an authentic voice without sounding cheesy, and making sure that I got my point across concisely. I think that I grew as a writer because I learned how to persevere through all the little stuff to create a good piece of writing.
#3:
The thing I am most proud about is how much emotion and authentic voice I put into my essay. Because I wrote a story about my little sister, I had a ton of stories I could have shared but I choose the ones that I feel expressed my belief the best. I also think I did a great job using authentic voice to share my belief in a way the people with sisters or brother could connect. For example the part where I say, “I believe in friendship that lasts forever. I believe in having one person who knows me better than I know myself. I believe my sister is my best friend. I believe in having a soul mate, and my sister, Mira, is mine, as I as hers.”
#4:
I think that I could have refined my story to where I cut a few things out to make it even more concise and shorter so I could have sent it to NPR. I would have made it so that my belief was still really clear but maybe just cut out some useless words and maybe replace then with one or two words that mean the same thing.
#5:
I feel like sharing our beliefs and views has helped our class to get to know people better and so people can see who we are and what we really care about. Each one of the “This I Believe…” essays, in our class or not, have brought a new perspective or belief that I didn’t think I had but actually did. I was able to connect to a lot of essays and that’s a new thing for me, since I read mostly fictional books. I really took a lot out of this project and had a lot of fun with it.