My name is Terris Greene, and I major in Computer Information Systems at New York City College of Technology. Growing up as a young boy from Brooklyn, the sounds of Jay-Z, Barrington Levy, and the Backstreet Boys would fill my Brownsville apartment. The balance that music brings to everyday life is something that should not be taken for granted. Through various style and genres, such as Hip-Hip and Pop, I relate with and connect to the emotions that we receive from listening to the different genres. The way that I speak, dress, move and approach life are all based off the lyrical influences of Kendrick Lamar, and production from beat makers like Kanye West. Whether you were born and raised in the melting pot known as New York City such as like I was, or are from the depths of France or Italy, the appreciation and transfer of music is universal. This makes it more of a living aspect of my life.

I keep my headphones on me at all times, listening to anything when I get the opportunity to. Artist like Lupe Fiasco, Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Nas, speak on matters that are important to society such as police violence. These songs are enhanced through producers such as Kanye West, Just Blaze, 40, Boi-1da and many. Whatever I decide to feed my ears with are usually based off my emotions at the time. If I feel the need to turn up and dance then I’ll listen to something upbeat like Daft Punk’s Discovery album. If my mood is calm and relaxed, I’d listen to Old School Rap, more with a Southern feel. The sounds of OutKast and TI give a mellow feel to my emotions, as I enjoy the slow downed tunes and uplifting lyrics. Still with me being human, I also have my sad and depressed moments as well, which is when I would let R&B or alternative Rock, such as Ne-Yo and Panic! At The Disco, take over my mind and keep me in a positive state. This is something that I’m truly grateful for, knowing that these days there is a song for every emotion and occasion. I appreciate this more due to the fact that I have had a dark past and I would need something to listen to as a reminder of the state I’m in now and how much I have grown from the person that I was a few years ago. The song that I listen to for that constant reminder is “u” by Kendrick Lamar, in which he would speak from the views of a person in my situation.

My love for music also helps push my love for dance. I have been dancing since I was four years old but I haven’t done on stage performances until my first my year in middle school. I would listen to Michael Jackson and imitate his style of dancing. It took me several years to properly learn how to do the Moonwalk and even to this day I still don’t feel that I am doing it correctly. I also learned the famous Thriller choreography like every other child at my age, and I would perform for my family and their friends at get-togethers and family dinners like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Aside from MJ, I also learned from Usher, and like their style of singing, their style of dancing was different as well. Michael Jackson was more precise and smooth, where Usher showed a lot more aggression and energy with his dancing. Picking up from both styles helped me develop a great sense of rhythm, and eventually I would start incorporating what I had learned into other styles of music like Pop or Electronic. Listening to Daft Punk and watching the music video for “Around The World”, I learned about popping at the robotic style of dancing. As time passed and I’ve gotten more comfortable with the different genres of music, my passion for dance grew. I wanted to learn how to incorporate movement into all different styles, which led to me joining the Performing Arts program in Middle School.

I attended Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, which ran from Grades 6 to 12. I had been a part of the Performing Arts program the full seven years I attended that school. With a variety of styles of dance, including Modern, Ballet and even African, came different styles of music. From Afro-Caribbean to Live Instrumentation, I found an even greater appreciation for instruments, pitches and tempos that came from songs. It also helped me show emotion that I had felt from either listening to the music or from how I was feeling from before. Songs with a strong bass and heavy play on drums and pianos led to stronger, aggressive movements that would derive from my anger, while softer, acoustic based songs had more of a gentle and liquid like flow which helped bring a happy and calm vibe to my choreography. What I enjoyed the most though was when my dance teacher would bring in West Africa drummers to play while we dance. The energy of fast tempo of the beating always brought a whole new life to the dance studio. I would jump and move so fast that I sometimes forgot how tiring it is to keep up with the drummers. The influence of the music would energize me in such a way that is hard to describe, and is one of the things that keeps me going while I dance.

The way I dress and act comes from me wanting to be more like my favorite artists and wearing something close to what they do. At the moment I can’t afford to wear exactly what are talked about and shown in music videos, but the ideas and the influence is still grasped. I could remember wanting to wear baggy sweat suits from Sean John, RocaWear, Enyce when I was 5 and 6 because Brooklyn rappers like Jay-Z and Fabolous would wear them and talk about them. From there it moved to wanting a pair of Nike Air Force One’s all because Nelly said that it was cool to do so. Around Halloween time I wanted to be a different version of Michael Jackson, from his Billie Jean outfit to the Bad era. Eventually I started to listen to more Old School Hip Hop and became influenced by Run DMC, trying to have every Adidas, a trend that I still follow today. My biggest fashion influences today are Kendrick Lamar, Chris Brown and A$AP Rocky. From my influences I also learned that your demeanor is key in life. From the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar I could tell just how humble and grateful he is for success. Listening to him just about every day I pick up on some of his ways, including his humbleness and appreciation for the small things in life. From him I also learned to always remember where come from, because that’s the place that made you how you are today. I have no shame in where I’m from. Being raised in Brooklyn has made me aware of things that I don’t see myself possibly learning anywhere else. Plus the fusion of cultures from New York City as a whole helps me learn about other cultures and adopting them into my everyday life, including their music.

If I could make a successful career out of listening to music just for my own enjoyment, I would do so in a heartbeat. My appreciation and love for music has helped shape me into the person I am today. I learn that everyone is different and being judgmental only holds you back. There is so much you can learn from others, and the type of music of music they listen to in my opinion is one of the best ways to connect with them. Music affects all in some sort of way, and its hold on the world is one that will always be appreciated.

My name is Alejandra Avila, I am from Colombia and I have been here in NYC since 2008. This is my first year in NYC College of Technology.  I enjoy the way the city is build up and the way it works. The world becomes a multy-scenario for every individual to build and learned from their own personality and person. In life there is always one thing that defines who we are going to be, and later on it become the reason of who we are, and it helps to build our personality. In many cases this reason may be an object, a song, writing, our family, experiences and in many cases our sentimental partners. In my case there is one experience that has helped me to build up and define who I am which was cheerleading. Being a Cheerleader means to leads the crowd by shouting encouragement and supporting a team at a sports event with discipline and happiness.  Being a cheerleader was one of the most wonderful feeling and experience that I ever had on my entered life. I was a cheerleader for my elementary school “San Jose Campanath” in my native country. These memories define who I am because my family got together all in one place to support one of their family members. Cheerleading made me feel free and released me from all of my problems. Cheerleading forced me to be accurate and feel the adrenaline during the flips & the competitions I participated in were amazing.

Being all together in one place made me enjoy what I was doing and made me even happier each time it happened. I am the kind of person that loves family unity and even more when the whole family gets together to support one another. Years ago when my sister just started as cheerleading, the whole family went to support her. She was having an important presentation in one of the most famous theaters of our city Cali, Colombia. We all were proud of her because she was having a big moment. She was just 6 years old and she was having a presentation in the most famous theater as a cheerleader. This experience that I had that moment seeing my whole family together to support her made me realize that it can be even better if it was the two of us. The thought of my sister and I doing a presentation as cheerleader, along with our family cheering us on, encouraged me to become a cheerleader.

Becoming a cheerleader gave me the feeling of going to a psychologist. Prating this sport made me forgot about all my problems for at least a day, and aided me in finding solution to my problems. During my practices and presentations I tried to release all of my problems and focus in what I was going to do with my love for the sport. I gave up all my stresses that I was carrying with me, whether it was anything about school, fights with my family or with me. There was a time that I had a problem that I didn’t know if it could be fixed. My grandma who was my guardian at the time didn’t have any method of picking me up after every afterschool practice, so my mom told me that I have to quit. At first I thought how I’m going to quit the thing I love the most, I knew I was going to come up with a plan to prevent that my mom took me out from the team. Days later we had a competition between schools. During my performance I released all of my stresses, because I was doing what I loved by releasing my frustrations in a productive manner. When we were on stage we had the ability of making faces to the judges. That was the best way I could release all of my problems, moreover going into the sky while doing my flips made me feel like a free bird. I felt that no matter what there will always be a way to be free instead of being stuck in a cage. After this competition, we were in semifinal and it was a time that I couldn’t quit. My mom found a way that I could go home after the practice. She made this decision because my grandma told her how happy performing as a cheerleader made me. She realized that after every practice or presentation I was content due to cheerleading, my confidence grew and found myself happier than I’ve ever been.

Cheerleading was my biggest passion when I was just a girl. Everything around me was about this awesome sport. When I was playing with my friends I wanted to teach them what I knew the flips that I knew about acrobatics and the choreographies that the couch had taught us. I knew that it was dangerous because when the teacher was teaching us we had special equipment. However, when teaching other outside of the cheerleading, we didn’t have anything like that yet, we till did it. My sister and I tried to teach them the basics. These basics were the bridge, and the half-moon. I wanted them to feel the adrenaline that I was feeling when I did them. Yet, I  couldn’t tell if they were enjoying it as much as I did, but what I could tell it’s that I love and till this days love doing my flips and enjoy the sensation of being in the air and flowing with majesty beauty. I love the sensation of adrenaline that goes through my body. However, if you’re not careful, you may get injured.    As it happened around 9 years ago, we were preparing ourselves for the semi-finals. We were doing great. In this sport there must be four people as base and the one that goes on the top and does the flips in the air. Our couch saw that one of the base girls wasn’t paying attention to the girl on top and she could have gotten injured. Our couch gave us us and speech about the safety, looking after one another, and the importance of our focus. At the begging I was little worried because I was one of the girls that goes on top, due to being short and slim. I was afraid that I would get injured due to my classmates making a mistake. However, since this was a team effort, I felt my fate in my team mates’ hands and did what I had to do in the practices and presentations. The risk and the adrenaline never go away in this type of sport. It’s like doing an extreme sport but in a less extreme way.

You may ask yourself, why do I love the feeling of adrenaline so much, even thought I was just a little girl? Well I can say that I love the felling that I had during each performance we did for the school. Each time I was on stage it was awesome. I can’t describe the feeling that I used to feel with words. You can only understand the way I was felling if you saw my face during each of my performances. While I was cheerleading I enjoy more than what I could. There was a time while we had a really important presentation for very important people on one of the most famous theater in Cali. We were all prepared for this big day. We all were nervous of course but when the time arrives I was so nervous that I stood laughed and couldn’t stop. Before us there was an art presentation they had trees, clowns and all that kind of things on stage, I couldn’t control myself, which caused one of the trees to fall and people started laughing. It was not my intention, but it worked in a way because that is the purpose of our performance. It is to entertain people. It wasn’t the way I used to do it but it still work, but after that embarrassing  moment I pulled myself together and them I caught up with my group. The presentation ended up being a success. I love the feeling of happiness and freedom that this sport gave me for few minutes or even seconds. We made crazy faces and entertained the audience. Felt the air on my face and body, made figures on the air with my body and heard the reactions of the people that were surprise by the things we were doing. Hearing these things will encourage you to do them more offend and better. Being apart of the competitions or participating in the practice made me the cheerful girl that I needed to be in order to have the energy to participate in the cheers that were made by our couch. I enjoyed these performances as much as I could until I quit because I didn’t tolerate the mates I had.

Now that you know more about an experience that helped me build up my personality I will like to share what I would like to do with this experience and how it can help me in the future. Being a cheerleader is a thing of my past. Now I will like to be focused on my studies and becoming and engineer, moreover I really don’t have time now to be on sports. As you can notice I really love this sport, but in order to enjoy this sport to its fullest potential I need to dedicate time to it and that is what I don’t have at the moment. However I will like in the future to teach or at least tell my children about the good times and moments cheerleading have provided me.  I will love to see one of my children to share the passion I once had, but if they don’t like it for any reason I will be more than happy because I had the opportunity of been part of an awesome group at my time.

My name is Taylor Marie Hernandez and I am an Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) student in my freshman year at the New York City College of Technology (City Tech). I am 18 years old and enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I am majoring in Architectural Technology and want to be a licensed architect when I complete school. I went to Tottenville High School and enjoyed all four years at that institution. Drawing and architecture are an important part of who I am, because they give me a way to demonstrate my creativity. I enjoy the process of sketching my ideas and watching them come to life in the physical world. In this essay, I will explain how drawing and architecture have created who I am and give me a firm direction on what I want to be by talking about how I became interested first in drawing and then architecture, and how I have seized the opportunity to move forward into the field of architecture.

When I was about seven years old, I began to develop what has become a lifelong interest in drawing. Whenever I would go to the mall, I would stop by a certain kiosk where an artist would draw and sell his artwork. As I would watch him practice his art, I would picture myself as a professional artist one day. When I was home and did not have anything to do, I looked around my immediate environment for objects and pictures, I imagined them in my mind, and then, I tried to draw them exactly how I visualized them. Also, I, tried my hand at drawing people. The days I went to the mall and stand by the artists kiosk, not only was he drawing places and objects, but he was drawing people. , The first drawing of a person I did was Miley Cyrus, who portrays the film and television character, Hannah Montana. When I completed each drawing, I would decide if they were good or bad. If they were bad I would try to critique them in a way where the drawing wasn’t so dull and if i didn’t like how it came out at all, then i would just throw it out. This has made me work even hard because I feel that every piece of art should be very creative and very unique from another. . I can connect this to my drawing of Miley Cyrus because whenever I tried to draw her if I didn’t like how the photo was coming out, most likely I would throw it out ad starts al over again. The days I was in school and I had library class, I always took drawing books home so I would be able to practice my drawing skills.

My interest in drawing eventually led to my fascination with architecture, which began when I was in the fourth grade. At that time, I began to wonder how buildings were designed, what materials were used to build them, and what tools were used to construct them. My interest in architecture took place when I was about nine years old and would go to Buday and Schuster Architects with my grandma and mom. Whenever my grandmother had an appointment to see her architect and discuss her plans, I always tagged along. I would sit down at the table and pay attention as the architect explained the exterior and interior of the blueprints, such as, where the rooms are going to be, how big they will be, what the outside would look like, etc. Once we got home, I would go on the computer and research different types of architectural plans. When I found a plan that looked simple, I would sketch it out myself and label where everything is located. When my dad was home he would always be on the computer making different layouts for kitchens. At the time my father worked for a company called Modern Kitchens, and every time he would come from work with a packet of layouts I would look through it and I would take a marker and write all over them. I would label where and what everything is. One day I asked my dad what he was making on the computer. He said he was creating a kitchen layout for the building he was working on. I asked him how he made it and if he can show me how to, and so he did. He showed me what to do and I was really proud of myself for making my first layout.

Recognizing my commitment to drawing and architectural design, I focused on ways to improve my artistic skill and architectural knowledge. By doing this i would look of books, ask people for advice on how I could make my work better, look through the grandmothers set of plans, etc. When I entered high school I continued to challenge myself by taking up art classes since I wanted to learn different drawing techniques. Every time I went to the city I would look up at the tall structures and observe the details and textures that are inside and out. During my four years in high school I decided to setup a goal for myself. During my last three years in high school, my plan was to take up architecture classes. From there I would branch off by taking these classes during my college years. Unfortunately, I wasn’t quite able to do that. For 4 years my school decided to ask me why I didn’t take architecture classes if I knew I wanted to take this as a my future career. I responded to the question by telling them how I asked my grade advisor, and the teaches if the school offered architecture classes and how they told me they didn’t offer it. However, here at NYCCT I have the chance to follow my goal. The classes that I am taking now are a little difficult because in the beginning, you are learning all new material. By the end of the day you have so much information stored in your brain, that you will say to your self, “I’m done. I’ve had enough. Time to go home.” I know because there are days where I get like that.

Now that I am in college, I have the chance to make my goals come to life by working hard and showing people that I have the ability, skill, and dedication to be successful as a future architect. I want to pursue architectural design as my career, which will enable me to create places for people to live their lives in safe and inspired surroundings. My goal is to be the best architect out there and constantly stay on the top of my game. As part of being an architect I want to be able to design houses, building, floor plans, etc. No matter how hard the work may get, I will push myself through every obstacle out there just to achieve my goals and to get to where I want to be. As you were able to see, drawing was a big part of me ever since I was a little girl. I always had an interest in creating different things by using my imagination along with objects I saw around me. I first started out wanting to become a professional artist one day, but then as I got older and more mature, I started to have a different perspective on life and many other options started to come to me. Therefore, I got into doing different types of things on the computer with the use of different software. Fundamentally, it is amazing how you can take something abstract like a design and make it physically real. This is what I intend to do with my work.

My name is William Santiago, I am eighteen years old, and this is my first year of college at New York City College of Technology. As a beginning college student, I can reflect on the first phase of my life that has led to me becoming who I am. However, what makes me who I am? When it comes to what makes me who I am, the number one thing that I believe that makes me the man that I am would be my commitment to working out. Exercise is something that has changed my perception on everyday life. It has helped me to evolve and grow into the man that I am today. I consider the path that I have paved myself through working out to be my self-proclaimed “road to greatness”. This “Road to Greatness” as I like to call it, is a vision of a path that I have laid out for myself. It is a vision of thoughts becoming things. This very vision came about as I experienced many different things while working out starting from the very beginning where I was not really into working out and my road to greatness did not exist. I was just a sophomore in High School, who had athletic potential. It was after I had an epiphany that my “Road to Greatness” began. With time, consistently working out eventually became a personal drug of mine, enabled me the ability to overcome adversity and allowed me to set out for personal goals and seize each and every one of them.

You can say that I was just physically active. I was just above average in the sports that I chose to partake in. I would play both football and basketball whenever the opportunity presented itself. Even though I was average at both sports, I enjoyed playing them thoroughly. However, a point in time came where I really wanted to be physically inclined with something. I did not want to be just physically active; I wanted to be the best that I could possibly be. I had the desire to be great at something, I just did not know what that something could be. One day I actually looked at myself in the mirror from head to toe. Then thoughts of people always calling me “skinny” or “flaco” popped in my head. I stood staring at myself for about 5 minutes or so, and then said to myself “I’m tired of being skinny”. After that day, I vowed to myself that I would work out every day to change my physical appearance, thus began my road to greatness.

My journey began around early 2014. For Christmas, my Aunt Mille bought me a pull-up bar since I told her that I wanted to start working out. While I might not have been the best handy man at the time, I read the installation manual, assembled the pull-up bar, and then, installed it inside my kitchen doorframe. Now that it was ready, all that was left to do was to test it out. The pullup bar has various grips from wide, standard, narrow, and neutral. Therefore, I decided to try a standard grip. When I did, I found that I had a hard time getting myself up to do just one simple pullup. I stopped for a second since calluses were forming on my hands and were hurting quite it bit and sat down for a few. While sitting down I thought to myself, “How the hell am I supposed to do a pull-up without it hurting my hands?” Since I could not think of an answer, I took the logical approach and decided to look it up on YouTube. After I did so, I went to my pull-up bar again to attempt the same pull-up except with a more efficient grip that I saw on YouTube. When I did so I still struggled to do one pull-up, however I found that calluses were not forming on my hands as much as when I did pull-ups the first time. For about a few weeks, I tried to do at least three pull-ups every day, and within a short span of time, it became easy for me to do pull-ups.

Around the time when I could safely say that I mastered pull-ups, the second semester of my junior year of high school began. I was given the opportunity to do weight training in my gym class. Once I saw that I had a chance to be able to exercise every day at school and not be limited to only my pull-up bar, I signed up for it immediately. I discovered the school weight room to be the ideal place for my evolution into who I wanted to become. It is where I grew exponentially and learned most of the things that I know about exercise.

The weight room that I used in my High School would not be ones ideal commercial gym to workout in. It was about the size of a big classroom. It had a white board with a bunch of different graffiti’s that were written on it with permanent marker. It smelled like dirty metal, B.O, and sweat if you did not open the windows. It had sets of dumbbells ranging from 5lbs being the lightest to 55lbs being the heaviest. It contained about eight Olympic barbells and sets of weighted plates ranging from 2 ½lbs to 45lbs to utilize on them. It also had one power rack everyone used. There were two types of machines used for the back. One of the machines were broken. That machine was the machine press that was used for the chest. There were multiple benches in the gym, two individual flat benches, one flat bench to do bench press on, an incline to do inclined press, and a decline to do decline press. The weight room had one gym seat that the weight-training teacher would always sit on, as well as more broken equipment. This equipment was a broken preacher curl beach, a broken easy curl bar, and about four safety clamps. Lastly, there was an oddly placed bathroom at the end of the room located to your left hand side where the benches were that had a dirty toilet that did not work, and a shower that did not work with a dead cockroach inside of it.

As you may be able to tell, it really was not ones ideal commercial gym, yet for me it was the best gym I have ever been to, although it would not qualify to be one. It was in this very gym my vision of my “Road to Greatness” came about. In order to achieve greatness, you need tools. All of the weights that became available to me in the weight room I used as my essential tools to carve my own road. Through the many trials and tribulations that I had endured in this weight room alone, along with the many triumphs, I find that this is where the idea of my “Road to Greatness” had first originated. This is where I decided to make small things become very big things, and where most of my physical evolution took place.

The first few months of my training were not very great. It was what I like to call “the learning faze”. It was now that my nervous system was learning various new motor patterns with each workout that I did. I did not know what I was really doing, so just like what I did when I was trying to learn how to do pull ups efficiently, I returned to YouTube for workout tips. On YouTube there are many different YouTube fitness related channels, however, I was not sure as to which one I should rely on as a good source to follow in order to ensure that I make the most efficient gains I can possibly make. Therefore, like most people who do not know much about fitness I looked for the best-looking person in terms of physique to rely on since they would probably know what to do. However, at the time, what I did not know was that on YouTube they are quite a few people who claim to be natural, yet use performance-enhancing drugs to make easy gains and give off a fake persona to easily fooled people. Additionally, I did not know that genetics play a large role in how efficiently you can build muscle, as well as the result of what they will look like. I ended up watching generic videos on how to do certain workouts, and eventually I knew a decent amount when it came to lifting weight, but my technique in terms of executing the workouts themselves, among other things was not on par just yet.

At first, I was quite conservative as to how much I would try to lift, even though the people who were actually working out in the weight room, instead of being couch potatoes like the majority of the class who signed up for weight training, lifted sub-maximal loads that looked heavy. Although they seemed to struggle with the weight and would just move it, instead of control it. On top of that, their form was mediocre. I was no guru at the time, but I had watched enough YouTube fitness related videos to know the difference between doing alternating bicep curls and looking like you are doing a throwback to 2004 when Lean Back was a hit. After some time being above the influence of heavy lifting, I gave into trying to challenge myself with lifting some serious weight. It all started with the Flat Bench Press since it was said to be the king of upper body exercises, and since almost, if not all stereotypical meat-head would ask you “how much you bench bro?” I thought that being able to bench some heavy weight would give me some credibility. The first time I actually tried to flat bench, I had a hard time just benching the bar itself. At the time, I did not know it was due to my nervous system learning the correct motor patterns in order to perform the workout efficiently. I thought it was because of the frail arms that I had at the time. Once my body had developed a better understanding of how to do the workout, my bench went from just the bar, to being able to bench 135lbs. For me it was a big deal. For the first time ever, I actually felt strong. It gave me the sensation that I could do anything I set my mind to; it also made me feel like I was the man. Of course, as I have heard many people say before that, “You have to get hurt in order to learn to never make the same mistake again.” That is exactly what happened one day while benching.

Around the end of my junior year, on a Monday, which for most “gym rats” or regular weight lifters is chest day, it was the one day I always benched. I did my warm up, slapped on some 45lb plates on the barbell so that it weighed 135lbs, and started to do my thing. I had no spotter since I always used weight that I could handle and since I was already used to benching 135lbs all the time, I saw no need in having one. During this point in time, I had developed a bench press technique that had my hands gripping the barbell relatively wide, so wide that the ends of my hands were located right near where the barbell itself rested on the bench. After finishing the second set, I racked the weight, in the process; a small portion of my skin was caught in between the 135lbs that I was benching and the bench itself. It pinched my skin hard enough to cause eternal bleeding, and it hurt so much that I almost passed out. The weight-training teacher immediately took me to the nurse to make sure I was all right. Luckily a few minutes after feeling groggy, I cleared up and felt better, although the side of my left hand was killing me, it was bearable. You could say I got off lucky there. Ever since that day, I never benched so wide again, and ended up narrowing my grip by a few inches.

As some time passed, I began to incorporate more heavy compound movements, those movements being the Barbell Squat and the Deadlift. The Squat is known to be the king of lower body movements and known to get rid of those chicken legs that one may have. The deadlift is also known to be a great lower body workout, yet involves much more back activation and stabilization than leg power. The Squat is a workout where you carry the load over your base of support, Squat down as low as possible, then get back up to a normal vertical stance. The deadlift on the other hand is a workout where you pick up weight right off of the floor, stand up with the weight in your hands, then put the weight back down, hence the name “Deadlift”. These exercises sound relatively simple in retrospect, however, the execution of both exercises are much easier said than done. Both the Squat and Deadlift require a certain amount of flexibility within one’s joints in order to properly execute each exercise, as well as be taxing on one’s central nervous system due to the integration of the various muscle groups being exercised. Both exercises will expose any imbalances that you may have in your body, and aid you in building immense lower body strength, posterior chain strength, grip strength, and mental toughness.

I began deadlifting before I began squatting because I did not want to stunt my growth by barring any load over my base of support and causing spinal compression, although I was done growing in terms of height once I turned 16. The process of learning these movements was relatively similar to that of when I began bench pressing. I trained my body to efficiently perform the movements before proceeding onward to much heavier loads. Around the beginning portion of my senior year, I once again made weight training my go to gym class, as this was the case for the rest of my High School Career. During my senior year, exercise truly found a stronghold within my heart, for it helped me get through many hardships I had endured during my senior year, the main one being breaking up with my psycho girlfriend that I was with for almost two years. During the “recovery phase” of breaking up with her for the last time, I found working out being my safe haven. Exercise was my escape from all of the stresses of the SAT, college hunting, applying for financial aid, working at McDonald’s, and trying to keep my overall GPA as high as possible. I used working out as my personal drug. I would go into the weight room every week, five times a week, lift some heavy ass weight in order to release all of my anger and frustration, and get out. With each day I got to work out, I found myself turning exercise from a mere hobby, to an addiction of mine. I found myself watching YouTube videos on working out to be not just for workout tips any more, but for my personal entertainment. During last winter, since I was on Christmas break and did not have access to the weight room, I would run about a mile or so in the snow, then I would go to a jungle gym near a baseball field around where I live and do all kinds of calisthenics just so I could get to work out.

I also found that with my physique drastically improving due my consistent exercise that everyone I knew began complementing me on how strong I was looking. There were girls coming to the weight room to check me out as I exercised, as well as flirt with me. I began making more friends with people who lifted in the same weight room in the other schools in my high school campus during class periods that I did not have class. Due to working out causing this entire chain reaction of things to fall in place around me, I found my confidence was through the roof. I was at a point in my life where I was pretty satisfied with myself in terms of what I was becoming, yet, at the same time I really was not due to the fact that I found myself heart broken. Although working out was my escape from everything, it did not provide me an escape from my ex-girlfriend, for I had to bare seeing her every day I exercised. The relationship we had, although no longer together was still strong. Strong enough to have me continue to go back to her every time I felt the need of some sort of love and affection, even though I still had other girls talking to me.

A point in time came where she had “moved on” to another. However, this other, so happened to be a person who was known to be one of the strongest guys in my school. I had nothing against him, yet the fact that he ended up going out with my ex gave me a very disgusting feeling of jealousy on the inside. I realized that it was not my place to be jealous. I broke up with her, and she found another. Once this happened I found myself in a deep depression. Even while exercising, I found myself to be a pitiful, pathetic excuse of a man. I was no longer the person that I wanted to be. Exercise gave me that sense of assurance that I never had, however, it just could not heal a heart that was longing for love. Yet, during this difficult time, I met my current girlfriend on Facebook. While our initial connection was only over social media, the feeling that I had when I talked to her compared to that of girls that I had talked with before, during, or after my workouts was completely different. She seemed to be a genuine girl, although I knew there would be a chance that I could be getting cat fished. After the first day I met my current girlfriend, I asked my weight room teacher if he could let me stay in the weight room by myself. He told me that he was not allowed to do such a thing, yet allowed me to do so anyway. From about 11:35 to 2:00 o clock I stood inside the weight room just thinking, reminiscing, contemplating, and plotting multiple thoughts. I found myself in the same exact position that I once was when I made the decision to begin working out. I asked myself, “What kind of man do you want to become Will?” “Do you think that if you keep up this weak state of mind going that you will continue to make progress not only in the weight room but in your life?” At this point, I stopped thinking and began to take action. I no longer found any interest in longing for love, yet allowed love to find me. After a month, my ex-girlfriend broke up with that person and began trying to get me back. She would tell me how she just did not feel the same with him as she did with me. She began to flirt with me more than the other girls at my weight room did and would get extremely jealous when they did. I was even able to get her to dye her hair a color I found that suited her very well. Yet, although a piece of my heart longed for her, I found myself in love with only weights, and falling in love with my current girlfriend. She soon knew the love that I once had for her was fading away, so her efforts eventually came to an abrupt halt. She had lost that piece of my heart that was longing for her in the midst of many careless actions that I found out that she had partaken in, all of the leading on she had put me through, and all of the headaches that I had to put up with due to all of her nonsensical crap. A point came where I found that same love that my heart longed for went to loving the weights. I used that desire to love to be able to Overhead Press 135lbs, Bench Press 185lbs, Squat 225lbs, and Deadlift 365lbs. It was at this point that I knew that nothing and I mean nothing would stop me from achieving my goals. I had developed a fire inside of me that was not just a flame; it was an inferno so massive that it could burn down a village. This fire consisted of a few things… love, sweat, and tears.

Since I am no longer in High School, I no longer have access to the weight room that was in my High School. I decided to join a gym where I can continue to exercise and strive for success. I have some personal strength goals for the distant future, those goals being to Bench Press 225lbs for reps, being able to Squat 315lbs, and to be able to Deadlift 425lbs. I also have long-term strength goals in mind that may come sooner than later with the amount of effort I constantly put into lifting weights. In addition, I would like to compete in a power lifting event someday. Other goals of mine include helping those who wish to get into exercising, whether it be just to look better, to get stronger, or to train for a specific sport. I would like to spread the knowledge that I have acquired on exercising to the majority of people to help society.

I find exercise is more than just exercise, I find that it has to become a lifestyle choice that one integrates into their everyday routine. Exercise—including lifting weights and doing pull-ups or dips—has helped me grow into the man that I am today. Put another way, I would have become a different person without the exercise. Exercising has become a part of my lifestyle and the more I do it, the more I learn about my body’s physiology and myself as a person. It has given me the sense of accomplishment for it was once a dream of mine to be where I am now. As I stated previously, I was tired of being skinny. The reflection that I saw of myself was not the ideal sight that I wanted for myself. The sight I wanted to see was the greatness that I see of myself now, as well as the greatness that I have envisioned for myself through these thoughts of mine becoming things. These very thoughts becoming things are the dreams of mine that I wish to become a reality. Working out so happens to be one of these main thoughts for it is something that I think about every day on the hour. I am always looking for a way that I can better myself. I continue to look for ways to get stronger. Because of working out, I want to be the best I can be in every aspect. By being more organized, more personable, and more studious, I continue to find ways to expand my horizons and improve myself.

At this moment in time, as I look towards my future, I am not sure what is awaiting me, but what I do know is that it will be greatness. I do not say this to sound arrogant, I say this because of the confidence that I have. I say this because I will not allow all of the hard work and effort I have put into consistently pushing my body further and beyond its own limitations to be in vein. I will not stop until I know have reached the end and have attained nothing but greatness. Even when I reach the end, I will continue to seek greatness, for this how I will leave behind my legacy. The mindset that I have is similar to that of a soldier on the battlefield. They will not stop until they know that their mission is complete, with one day hoping they will leave behind a legacy for other soldiers to be in awed. Once I have reached the end of my road, I would like be able to inspire others to achieve their own greatness. Until then, I will continue to walk along my own road to greatness.