This is My Life…

I am Nicholas McNerney, most of you probably do not know who I am. I am a student athlete, aspiring business man, and determined man of my work. It all started back when I used to read “The Cat in the Hat” by Dr. Seuss, with my mother. If I was not reading about Green eggs and Ham, I was mostly on the field. Football is where I blow off steam. As a kid, I always looked up to my dad, who came in from work roughly around seven. At that time, my mom was cooking up some of her famous Sunday sauce. As I sat at the kitchen table reading “The Cat in the Hat”, I hear the door slowly starting to open as I see my dad walking in from a long day of work. I was too young to realize it then, but as I started to mature, I realized that the real world requires hard work and determination. You see, my dad worked seven days a week to pay the bills to make sure the family was happy. Now that I am grown, I quickly understood what it is like to work seven days a week. As being a student athlete my whole life, I have never had so high expectations to succeed not only on the field, but in the classroom.

It was a hot summer afternoon, and I had just come home from my first day of kindergarten. I was very excited to see my mom after a long day of school. On the other hand, I was excited to receive my first actual book called, “The Cat in the Hat”. The only problem was, that I did not know how to read. My mother was a great multitasker. As my mom was making dinner, she was also teaching me how to read my first book. We started out with the introduction page. She asked to read the authors name of the book, and I said, “Dur Suss”. Little did I know, it was correctly pronounced “Dr. Seuss”. That was just the beginning. The words became harder and harder every page we went through. I could smell my mom’s cooking and wanted to stop and eat for a quick second. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes turned into hours. At that point my mother taught the trait of procrastination. There was no time to goof around. I had to get back to work if I wanted to catch my daily cartoon show, if I wanted to be in bed by eight. We started to get into depth of the book and I started to feel myself already becoming a better reader. It took time, but it became an ease. I can start to hear my cartoon show coming closer to me. It was a sign of success and it was not fading away. The words started to become more difficult as the book went on. I was just learning how to read, so the words did not make any sense to me. My mother told me, “It takes some time, but you will get it”. We took a break for dinner, but it was back to work right after that. While we ate, she told me to remember the words that I have learned, because they will appear again sooner or later. My brother then walked in and sat down. He looked depressed, so I asked him if he wanted to help me read. A smile came to his face as we went into the living room. Our living room smelled as if my mom cooked our dinner in that very spot. We started from where my mother and I had left off. We came to a word that I had no idea what it was, how it was said, etc. So, my brother made it easy for me. He made me spell it out first before we did anything. So, I spelled it out. Then, he made me sound it out and put it all into one. It worked, and I finally figured out the word. We finished the book and I said thank you to my brother and it was time for bed. As my mom went to tuck me in, she looked into my eyes and said, “You just read your first book”! I went to bed with a smile, and it became one of the happiest days of my life.

Years went by, and I made my way intoelementary school. It was another tough part of my life because reading became a bigger challenge to me. The words became more of a difficultly to me and harder to pronounce. I was put into a class to learn how to read. It was not a class for everyone but more of one to help the children that need it. I was in Northvale Elementary School, and my teacher, Mrs. Vialonga, decided it was time to read our first book. We started to read, “Diary of a Wimpy kid”. These words were a blur to me and I had no idea what any even meant. That’s why I was in the class I was in. We started the first page and I was called on to read the first paragraph. I got passed the first couple words and came to a stop. I could not pronounce the word and I was embarrassed. Students started to laugh at me, but my teacher did not. My teacher paused, and said, “Nick, what’s wrong”? I said, “I cannot pronounce this word”. She wrote it on the board for me and not just the word, but she separated it for me, so I can get the sound of it down. Once she taught me that way of reading words, it became an ease for me just like it did with my brother. I got through another problem with reading and my reading has never be the same from years on. I have become one of the best readers I can be from learning with my mom, my brother and my teacher. There’s a chance, I can enhance my reader to even bigger level. It all it just takes time and practice.

Finally, I arrive into Old Tappan Highschool. I am becoming more of an adult realizing my future is just up ahead. It was September 9^th, 2013, and I was about to walk into my first English class of my freshman year. Thinking to myself, that it is syllabus week, and we would not have any work. I was wrong. The first thing we did was read our first book. We were assigned to read, “The Hobbit”. I started to read the first chapter in my classroom, and I had no idea what any of the words were trying to tell me. My teacher, Mr. Conner, saw me struggling from his desk. He came to me, and said, “What’s wrong”? I did not know what to say and my mind was blown. My teacher gave me the best solution to my problem and it was to annotate my words and phrases. I did not know what he meant at first, then he taught me, and it changed my life. He explained to me, that when you highlight and write a little summary about what you read, it makes it easier to realize what the story is trying to point out. I took the advice, and I have never been more impressed with my reading in my life. I never used to like to read books, but with the new tips I have learned, I kind of like it.It took my level of reading to a new peak and I was ready to move on to bigger challenges in my future. I am ready for anything to come my way and there is nothing that is going to step in my way.

Reading has become one of the biggest accomplishments of my life. I would of never knew that reading was so important in the learning experience and even future job experience. Starting out, being in kindergarten reading, “The Cat in the Hat”, and leaving high school reading, “The Hobbit”, knowing what it means in every word, is an accomplishment. My mother always taught me, that when you start something, you better finish it. In my life, I do not go down without at least gaining a little more knowledge about my future, and there is still more to come. I look back to what I have done in the past and I think that none of it was possible at the time. Now, I feel like anything is possible, it just takes time and effort. I live my life one day at a time and I work on what is at hand at that time of the day, no matter what it might be. I never thought that my life would go so fast, but time is running out to be a kid and a student. One of these days, I am going to be a real adult and have a job, and I will look back to all of these memories and think this is where I started. I do not know what my future holds in store for me, and I do not know what is going to happen in my college life. One thing I do know is that I am not going down without a fight and there is no obstacle or challenge that I am going to let stop me from becoming who I am and to let me not become a man. My parents and teachers guided me through half of my life and now it is time for me to step in and take control. This is my life.