One of my favorite memories from the summer was walking into a restaurant and asking for a table for that would seat forty-nine. The reaction on the hostess’s face was priceless. I come from a forty-nine person family. My grandmother on my mom’s side had ten children, and all of them went on to have families of their own. The smallest consists of three people and the largest consists of six. We are very a very Italian-Catholic family, and when we get together there is never more love in one room. My mother is the sixth of the ten and the only child to remain in Pittsburgh with her parents. I have two older brothers and one younger sister.

I was born in Bethel Park- a small suburb of Pittsburgh. In preschool, I moved to another small suburb- Peters Township. This is where I have spent the bulk of my life until now. Peters Township is a white-washed community where the only culture that tends to be known is that of American Eagle and Abercrombie. My high school was about as diverse as the cast of Dawson’s Creek. I didn’t hate growing up there; it was a great place to grow up. I tried however not to buy into all the popular trends that made most of my peers look more like clones. I tried to find my own style that I like to describe as cheap and comfortable. I like to listen to the oldies and my favorite singers are Barry White, Bruce Springsteen, and The Clarks. I am a Pittsburgh girl through and through. I like to live by the philosophy that you can take the girl out of Pittsburgh, but can’t ever take the Pittsburgh out of the girl. I am an avid Steelers fan, and like most hate Cleveland even though I have never been there. I have always been Daddy’s Little Girl and grew up following the examples of my two older brothers. I love to play Nintendo and watch cartoons, X-Men is my favorite.

The point of my small family history was to give a bit of insight into the thing I value most in life- my family. I absolutely love it when we all get together, even though that usually means I am sleeping on the floor next to at least two of my cousins. I can remember one Christmas when my Mom hosted all forty-five (we were smaller then) for dinner on Christmas Eve, and twenty-five ended up spending the night. I slept in a nine by eleven foot room with four other people, and I loved every minute of it. Apart from being very family oriented I am very religious. I was christened a Catholic and have stayed true to that for eighteen years. My faith has helped me through a lot and I hope it will see me through to the end.

One experience that has really affected me was the death of my grandfather this last summer. He passed away due to colon cancer. This was the hardest thing that I have ever had to deal with. He was always around for any and every event of my life. We would talk football, and he was the one person I always tried to impress. He was the man who started the family I treasure so much, and the glue that held us together for so long. His is the only death in our family that happened when I was old enough to be affected. He was only seventy-eight and once they found the cancer he was gone in about a month. This is the last event that brought our family together, and the time when we needed a restaurant to seat and feed forty- nine, instead of an even fifty.

I now reside in South Halls in a supplemental room with three other girls. I am undecided in my major, and really have no idea what I want to do. Penn State is different than anything that I have ever known, and I am ready for all the new experiences and challenges. I have always thought that college shapes a person into who she is to be for the rest of her life. I hope to leave behind my white-washed roots and really make myself open to the diverse world we live in.

After reading some of the other self narratives I noticed one thing that a lot of people did, but I didn't do. I never actually incorporated my name into my self narrative. The ParkerBlogNarrative is an example of this. I also never incorprated any of my high school academic life into my narrative as was done in many blogs like AllisonsThoughtsNarrative.

Another technique that I noticed was using one event to give the class insight into one's life. Using one event to illustrate who you are. This was done in the ElizabethNarrative