[Jennifer Sears]

Post on this discussion board by following the instructions on this post:

https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/searseng1141ol05-fall-2021/2021/11/18/discussion-board-writing-memoir-to-un-silence-silences/

[Nathaly Morocho]

I was in the 8th grade. My classmates and I went to our home room. Our teacher was in the class room. When she dismissed us, I went to the main office and asked if I can call my mom or my dad. I called my dad because his phone number was the only number I knew at that time. He didn’t answer, so I just went to the cafeteria because I had to go there for after school to meet my after school teacher. My mom came to the school just in case if I didn’t have after school. My mom asked the principle if I went home and he said yes. The security guard looked at the principle with a confused looked. At that time, kids went missing from there schools. So my mom went back to see if I was there. She checked the front yard, I wasn’t there. She checked the backyard, I wasn’t there either. So she went to all the stores, I wasn’t there. She called my sister and told her she couldn’t find me and she was crying. My sister went to my school and told them to find me. One of the workers told her what the principle told our mom that I went home by myself. My sister got mad and yelled at them to find me. So they called every single class room. Mind you I was in science class. So the phone started to ring in the class I was in. My science teacher told me to the main office because I was going home. I pack my stuff and went to the main office. When I stepped inside the office, my sister was relieved that I was in one piece. We got out of the school and went home. My sister called out mom and she answered her phone crying. So my mom told my sister to give me a phone so I can contact her or my other family members.

[Odvens]

The time when I was in the middle of a shooting. As we were walking we heard tires scraping, my brother and I didn’t care because we are in our nice neighborhood. Boy we were wrong a black suv came to a stop and just started lighting it up on another car. It felt like a dream. I was stuck just waiting for this shooting battle to go on between the two cars.
When we got home we were telling our parents what happened and they were scared but not us, also as if we did not care if we had gotten hurt. About 15 minutes relaxing at home we heard a hard knock and police storm in our house asking questions about the crime that recently took place. My brother told everything, well for me i was still in a dream and I simply said “shit went down man”.

[Faisal]

I was in Manhattan and driving uber going home and suddenly I hear a sound *boom* when I saw my left side. The electric scooter guy hit my side mirror and he was complaining that I hit him, and he was continuously saying I’m going to sue you. He was acting and telling me that he was injured and broke his arm even though he was moving normally. So I called 911 and they said what’s your emergency I told him that the person broke my side mirror and he is acting like he is injured so he told me that it doesn’t matter since he is injured ambulance is going to come first and then the police so I waited for the ambulance to arrive at the spot and once they arrived they went directly to the injured guy and once the ambulance guy checked him everything was normal but he still insisted to take me to the hospital my arm is hurting.
Then the police came in and he asked my part of the story and his side of the story and took a statement and thank God in the police report it said that the electric scooter guy was not in the bike lane and therefore I was proven non-guilty. So, yea that moment was so terrifying for me because it was my first time calling 911 and my 3 hours got wasted in there talking and waiting for the police to make a decision and making a police report. They took the guy to the hospital, and I was on my way home with a broken side mirror.

[Showmik K. Chowdhury]

This happened to me about two months ago on a summer day. I was driving and went grocery shopping. When I was returning from the shop, I was kind of hot. So instated of turning on the AC I was like since it’s nice sunny weather not to roll down the windows. As I think I act on it and roll down my car windows. After passing a couple of blocks, I stop at a red light and was waiting for the light to turn green.
At this right moment, one of the homeless ladies unlock my car and get inside. The lady was so fast that it took her a moment like me moving my head from left side to right side. I got freaked out and ask her what she want and why she was inside my car. At first, she told me to drop her somewhere and I decline her. Then she was like give me $20 and I will leave, and I will leave, and I said no to her. Then she got pissed at me and grabbed my phone from my car dashboard and start running. Seeing her running I turn off my car engine and start following her and I ask people to call 911 but people were refused to call and start seeing what going on. She was trying to get into other people’s cars and leave the area. But I did not let her escape. Then she gets into the MTA bus and try to escape so, I told the MTA driver what going on and he called 911 for me. when this homeless lady saw I am not leaving her alone and the bus driver called 911 she got scared and return my phone and I went back to my car.

[Tim]

The times when I was a near psychopathic hyper 5 year old. Back when I was much younger, around 5 I was a crazy unpredictable kid. As a matter of fact there was one time where
I got sent to the principal office during a movie showing in the auditorium. It all started because I found a lone fruit snack on the floor. I had picked it up and threw it as hard as I could across the auditorium.
It hit some random kid in the eye and I distinctly remember him screaming “OW MY EYE!”. I don’t quite remember how they caught me, but I remember they did.

There was another time where if I remember correctly, I had gotten called into the dean’s office of the school. I think some older kids were giving me a hard time.
I did what no reasonable human being would do in that situation, and bit him. I bit the kid right on his arm because he was being a jerk, not exactly the most reasonable or intelligent of actions to take, but if I had done something
normal, I probably wouldn’t have told these stories, now would I?

[kevinvargas24]

There was this one time where I was introduced to a friend of mine’s girlfriend and I remember her being super nice to everyone and just seemed so innocent. Until one night I open my social media and I see her dancing on and with other guys. As I’m looking through social media I see this more and at one point I even noticed that my friend who dated her was also in attendance. I was in shock because at first I asked myself why he didn’t do anything about it but I felt bad for him because knowing my friend there was a reason. Turns out she liked to drink often and also didn’t care if they were in a relationship or not, she was gonna do those things anyway because that’s just who she was. All I can remember after was my friend being lost and disappointed. He essentially got broken into two. \

Me and the rest of the friend group tried to be there for him but it just didn’t work. This experience really changed my outlook on certain things. I learned that some people aren’t who they seem to be. I was disappointed in her because she did this in front of my friend and I don’t she cared all that much either. I remember feeling so bad for my friend because he deserved to be happy and I believe everyone does. He thought she was the one. Some things however just don’t pan out and I remember telling him that at least you saw it with your own eyes and not find out she like this later or in secret. My friend who is now in the army recently told me that she played in him joining the army, he wanted to essentially get away and work on himself physically and mentally and he thought this was the best way. I feel as though now when I meet whoever, I can’t jump the gun anymore. When people being to get really comfortable with you that when you see their true side and realize if it’s worth even hanging out with them for your sake.

[Avida Sharma]

I was sixteen when I found out my mother was cheating on my dad. Ironically it happened when we were on vacation for my mothers birthday. We were leaving the hotel in Atlantic city when she was complaining her phone wasn’t working. My dad thinking nothing of it offered to help fix it and took it from her and started to restart the phone. Once he did that multiple text messages started coming in from a person named “Annie”. My dad was driving but from what he saw he could tell this person wasn’t just a friend. He asked me to read the messages on the phone and tell him what I thought. I remember how my mothers face looked when she realized she was caught. She was frantic, panicking, and fighting to get her phone back. Once I read the messages, and based off of how my mother was acting, it was obvious that she was cheating on my dad.

I remember feeling so hurt I started crying and asking her why would she do something like this, she has three children with two of them being six and eight. My aunt and uncle were with us on this vacation and noticed we had stopped driving and pulled over next to us to figure out what was happening. They quickly decided to let my mom go with my aunt and uncle come with us. Everything felt like it was in slow motion, I was so confused and hurt because what my mother did not only really hurt my dad, but it hurt us kids. She didn’t choose to cheat on just my dad but us kids as well. That pain that I felt would continue to grow for years to come and cause a lot of issues between my mother and I.I will never forget the anger that I felt that day and I would never wish that on anyone.

[Ron]

It was summer vacation and I was in the 6th grade moving onto the 7th, attending middle school. I went to the park with my cousin nearby my house to hang out and play ball. There were a lot of people at the park. It was a normal day. We hung out at the park for a few hours until it was near dusk. We both got ready to head out, like many others who were at the park. As we were walking back a red car came flying down the street at high speeds, and once they passed us we heard gunshots fired. At first, we were confused we thought we heard fireworks until we see everybody running and people on the ground. We both realized the situation going on and we bolted back to the house. We did not stop until we reached our block. That was when we saw the same red car passing by our block, we then both just hid behind the parked cars. As they passed we saw there were around 3 people in the car. The person in the back almost looked as if they were tied up, it was hard to be sure as they were speeding through. We were both terrified. We left the moment the opportunity shined back into the house and called it a day. This was our first time experiencing anything like this and made us realize there are crazy people out there and to always be cautious around our surroundings.

[brendan]

In the early years of middle school, me and my cousin decided to head over to the nearest school playground to play basketball. While we were shooting around, we noticed a random phone on the ground. It looked rather old and busted up so we were just playing with it. A not so bright idea came to my mind where we should just smash the phone, which we ended up doing. The phone ended up cracking, however it was still powered on and such. After some time passed by, a group of other younger kids our age came to the park.

They asked us if we had seen a phone around the area, and of course as naive kids, we told them where the phone was. Although they didn’t see us damage the phone, they still suspected it was us since it was a cold winter day. Nobody else around the area was outside. They questioned us but we were afraid so we decided to leave the park. They followed us to my cousin’s house since it was right around the block. My uncle had to step in to explain that we did nothing to try to avoid any further issues, however they brought their parents as well. Their parents came and they resolved the issues. Moral of the story for us kids was to not touch what was not ours.

[Kevin Ho]

I am on my way to college, for my spring semester. I just got on a F-train in Jackson heights Roosevelt Ave. I stand near the entrance of the train cart and my right hand was holding on the supporting pole which is attach a row of seats. It was quiet, the only thing you can hear is the train moving on the metal trails. Then a laughter came diagonal across my right hand. I look to my right and saw 2 African American women. One woman had a hair wrap, wearing a summer dress with tropical color dots on it, she was laughing at the other woman. The woman who being laugh at have a bob cut hair style and wearing blue jeans, was throwing a fit. I pay no attention to them at first, thinking that they are joking around and that they both look likes grown-ups.
Then I look at them again, the bob cut woman start pushing and hitting the woman with hair wrap. The hair wrap women were still laughing at the other woman as if the hits were light. As the passenger start realizing a fight is starting, they all run to left of the cart. I stood still; I was near the entrance which is in the middle of the cart. My left has the group of passengers and the right have 2 women. The bob cut woman start yelling at the other woman, “stop laughing at my god!” I assume the fight started because the hair wrap made fun of the other woman’s beliefs.
Then I look to my left, I realize a man that is in front of the crowd. He is a peach skin man with Pompadour hair style wearing with glasses took out his phone from his right back pocket and wanting to record. The elderly woman who is at his right, “why are you recording, do something about this instead of recording,” the elderly woman is white with curly puffy white hair and wear glasses. After hearing the elderly woman, the Pompadour man start putting his phone away. Then a light brown man who is about 2 meters tall with short fuzzy beard and had a red cap on facing backward. The tall man walks over to the 2-woman trying to calm the bob cut woman down.
Then I hear a voice at the end of the crowd of passengers, I saw a white man with a back pack, wearing a sport watch on left arm, have brown curly hair and have glasses. His left index hand finger was pressing on the red button, which on top of it, is labeled “Customer Assistance Intercom.” “Hello, there is fight going on …. ok thank you,” said the brown curly man who was speaking to microphone that that is cover by hexagon shape fill with dots. I couldn’t hear what the brown curly man was saying, but I know he ask the train MTA worker for help. After the call, everything was silence.
When the train stop at 21 St-Queensbridge, the 2 women immediately left the train. They left separately. Then after a delay on the train, the MTA worker with his MTA uniform arrive. He is an Asian, have gray hair and have glasses, then asked, “where is the fight?” “They’re gone, gone, just start the train,” replied from the crowd of passengers.

[Ahsham Nasir]

Arthur and I had just gotten out of school, we walked down eight flights of stairs, just to leave the building. We started to walk towards our building, he asked me “Dude you wanna hangout”
“Sure bro, let me just go home and change, ” I replied
“Yeah me too, wanna meet in the lobby afterwards?” re questioned as we got into the elevator in our building
“Aight bro, lets meet in like 10 minutes,” I told him as he got off on the sixth floor.
“Okay 10 minutes,” he replied as the elevator door closed.
I got off on the tenth floor and walked to my apartment door, my mom opened the door, which I was surprised, because I thought she was at work. but she told me she took the day off to get some of her college work done. I went into my room to change out of my uniform, and since it was very humid outside I decided to wear shorts and a tank top. once I came out of my room my mom asked, “where are you going?”
I replied as I started to put on my shoes, “I am about to go hangout with Arthur at the park.”
“When are you coming back?” my mom asked as I finished tying my shoes.
“Probably in like 2 hours, I think we’re going to go play soccer or go to the swings,” I replied knowing what she was going to ask next.
“Okay have fun, do you want to eat something before you go?” she questioned as I opened the door.
“No not really” I quickly replied as I started to leave.
“No wait take the sandwich I made for you, it’s on the counter,” my mom said calling me back.
I went back to grab the sandwich, it was a strawberry jelly sandwich which was my favorite, and let the apartment I walked to the elevator and got on it once it came. the elevator stopped on the sixth floor and to my surprise it was Arthur. I offered him half of my sandwich and we both got off the elevator which we ate our halves of the sandwich. we decided we were going to go to the black swings park to sit there for a while. we started walking down the hill and talking about school and how we hated our Religion Teacher, because she would never answer our questions. one we got to the bottom of the hill we decided to walk along the bike path to the park since there was a breeze there. We stated walking in the walkway then suddenly, someone yelled “Move to your left!” without looking back I knew it was a bicyclist and I quickly moved to my left. Then suddenly, something hit me from the back and my head hit the ground, and then I closed my eyes, once I opened my eyes, I was lying on the bike path. “What the fuck is wrong with you, you fucking asshole!” I heard someone yelling repeatedly as Arthur was helping me up. It wasn’t until I got up, I realized it was the bicyclist. Still in the shock of what happened, I asked “Are you okay?” I couldn’t make out what he was saying to me, but I heard a cry coming from behind the guy. As I looked behind him, I saw the bike lying in the bike bath and there it was a yellow children’s saddle, where the crying was coming from. As I started coming to back to reality, I could hear the Arthur and the guy arguing cursing each other out. “Is your daughter okay” I asked, the guy calmed down and went to grab his bike. He started looking at his daughters arms and legs to see if she got hurt, while saying, “it’s okay there’s nothing to worry about-“
I started to zone out again and the next thing I remember was Arthur helping me home, since I couldn’t walk straight. The tears in my mom’s eyes as she took me to the hospital. The comfort in the nurse’s voice trying to condone my mom.

[Tania]

I live on the seventh floor of a fourteen floor apartment complex. The building adjacent to us is only six floors so I am able to see the roof from my building window. When I was thirteen I clearly remember seeing someone contemplating living or dying on the roof of the building next door. I watched her go through what it looked like the five stages of grief; all from my window. Her hair was dyed blue and she wore a champion sweater with black leggings. She did not seem to be older than twenty four. Nearly the same age as my older sister at the time. She contemplated jumping about five or six times before she stepped back off the edge onto the rooftop and started bawling.

I knew if I yelled she would have heard me. Yet I did not say anything. I was choked up, terrified that she was going to jump at any second. Thirteen year old me was ignorant. I felt that if I had said the wrong thing, she was going to jump. If I had said the “right” thing, was she still going to jump? I did not feel like I had the power to save her. She was there for what felt like days, but I witnessed this all in around forty minutes before her boyfriend found her and told her to come home. A part of me is happy I did not say anything because her boyfriend came to save her. Yet, sometimes I think to this day, what if he never came to her?

[Yazline]

The time I got attacked by a pitt bull was a terrifying moment that I stood speechless. It happened earlier in the year, one day i was walking in a hall way of a resident building with my baby dog who’s a Shih tzu compared to this big all bully pitt bull. Someone had opened their front door, and what I thought was a friendly welcome ended up being this big old pitt bull who just latched onto my dogs leg. At this moment i was so stuck in shock that I did not have a correct response until like maybe 3-5 minutes into everything that was happening.. Once I realized me screaming in fear wouldn’t get the pitt bull to get off my dog’s, I started punching my way to trying to get this dog off and what seemed like my worst nightmare became a reality. I ran throughout this building trying to lose the pitt bull while its owner she just stood back more terrified that her boyfriend’s dog was attacking my dog. All i could think about in the moment was run, scream, and carry my dog. At the end of the night i ended up in the emergency room with blood over my hands, both my hands got injured and I ended up needing an antibiotic to make sure I wouldn’t get an infection from the dog bite. Ended up calling out of work that next morning because my hands weren’t in working conditions honestly, they gave me 3 days off but I just took 1 day off even though I still needed healing.
Seeing what happened after the fact I’m just lost to why no one called the cops, why no one intervened, why would the owner not have a leash on her dog like i just don’t understand. Things could have been prevented, as well as my response to protect my dog could have been quicker.

[Isaiah Ortiz]

Ever since I can remember there was only one family other than mine that was Latino/Hispanic living in the apartment where my grandmother lives. Not only that but every other family is Hasidic Jewish families. Now we’ve never had problems with any of the families, one of the mothers downstairs is a good friend of my family and has been for over 30 years. The only thing I noticed was not how we were treated but they acted in our presence. Specifically when I was a child.

When I was about 7-8 years old I was going downstairs with my grandmother and I was stopped by one of the residents that lived on the 1st floor. She told me that at 5 am she heard loud footsteps and banging on her door. Although I didn’t know what she was talking about she told me she knew it was me and caught me on camera. This was strange because she didn’t get a camera on her door until a few years later. Not only that but every day the neighbor’s kids would be loud and play in the hallway and block the stairs from sun up to sundown. I felt so helpless and scared as she towered over me blaming and judging me over something I never did. After arguing with my grandmother we stormed off and never spoke to that family again. I never really understood what it meant to be judged before being given the chance to show others who you really are but, I’ll always remember this encounter as one of the many that will forever be burned into my memory. To this day every time I walk past that door the first thing I look at is that camera reminding me of how quickly I was judged even as a child.