People learn from mistakes and so am I. I have made a lot of mistakes this year. At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t aware enough of the things which were really important to do and I wasted a lot of time doing unnecessary or unimportant things and ended up being frustrated at the end when I had a very short time to complete those works. With the passing time, I started to pay attention to the deadlines and tried to be more punctual. Now that I look back to the beginning of the year, I realize that I have become more mindful of the time and I have become more responsible for everything. My patience level has also increased throughout the year. As before I used to get frustrated and disappointed in myself for not being able to concentrate on certain things for a long time, now I have worked on myself for months to be a better version of myself and be more patient. This semester has also contributed to developing my skills in time management, being able to concentrate, and have patience.

Receiving pleasure from pain has always been one of the controversial issues from many decades. While people pretend that nobody likes pain, there are some people around the world who tend to inflict pain or receive pain in order to get pleasure. In psychological terms these are what is called sadism and masochism. In the discussion of sadism and masochism, one controversial issue has been why do people are driven into receiving pleasure from pain. In the book “Hegel & Empire” M. A. R. Habib explains in the chapter “The Master-Slave Dialectic” that some people might have sadistic behaviour in them because they want to feel superior having all the power and dominating the weaker one in a sense of getting freedom & not living under anyone’s dominance. Margi Kaplinsky, MSW and Shulamit Geller’s article “The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life” describes how sadists never care about the one they inflict pain on and how masochists feel love by humiliation, beating & hostility. The psychological phenomenon of sadism and masochism are correlated. While sadists like to dominate the weaker one being the master of the relationship, masochists like to seek pain and punishment from the superior one who barely cares about them. 19th century Russian Literature has a lot of work that focuses on the topic of sadism and masochism. “First Love” and “The Torrents of Spring” are the most well known pieces of literature of the 19th century which portrays sadism and masochism and both literature shows different types of behaviours of sadistic and masochistic characters.

In the novella “First Love,” Ivan Turgenev explains how people receive pleasure from pain. Zinaida being the most beautiful, gorgeous and young woman was loved by all the men who could do anything for her just to get her attention. She used to turn all the men round her finger and she knew that each of them was deeply in love with her. But she never cared about them. Moreover, she used to feel pleasure playing with their feelings. She continuously hurt some of them by her words and she never cared if they felt bad or not. Vladimir was in love with her even after getting hurt by her several times. Zinaida could have chosen any of the men who was in love with her and could have lived a happy & luxurious life but she didn’t do it cause she doesn’t feel pleasure being with someone who treats her like a queen. Moreover, she feels pleasure by refusing their proposal, by turning them round her finger and inflicting them pain. Incidentally, she found a man who could master her and the man was no one but Vladimir’s father Pitrovitch. Pitrovitch was very cold to Zinaida and he had complete power over her. Pitrovitch was a married man who never really cared about her and he was very abusive to her. But this is probably what attracted Zinaida towards him. Zinaida deeply fell in love with Pitrovitch and this love was very self destructive to her. She knew the love she was in wasn’t good for her & she was hurt. But at the same time she had no control over it. Even though she was hurt, she felt pleasure from the pain being in love with him. 

There are some people who cause pain by hurting others and receive pleasure from it which is called sadism. Turgenev portrays sadism in his novella “First Love” where Zinaida used to inflict pain to all the men who were in love with her and receive happiness by doing this. In the novella “First Love,” Turgenev maintains that “Zinaïda continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me, and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me away, and I dared not go near her—dared not look at her. I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was completely crushed,” ( Page 18 ). In other words, Turgenev explains that Zinaida used to interact with Vladimir based on her mood. One day she used to show tremendous affection to Vladimir and the next day she used to behave very cold to him. Turgenev is surely right about this behavioral changes of Zinaida as Margi Kaplinsky, MSW and Shulamit Geller mentions in their article “The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life” that “The sadist does not care for a relationship with a victim who actively wants to be in such a position”(Page 250). This quote shows that the sadist people never care about the person they inflict pain on and thus Zinaida didn’t care for Vladimir either. Since Zinaida already understood that Vladimir was in love with her, she felt pleasure being cold to him and hurting him.

Where there are people who get pleasure from inflicting pain, there are some people who get pleasure by receiving pain which is called masochism. An example where Turgenev shows that people can receive pleasure even when it causes physical pain is “Zinaïda sat up, and stretched out her arm…. Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it” ( Page 39 ). In this quote, Turgenev urges how Zinaida was being physically abused by Pitrovitch and instead of being sad over this Zinaida was surrendering herself to Pitrovich so that he could beat her with the whip. She received intense pleasure as she kissed her arm where he had beaten her up. The reason why Zinaida received intense pleasure by Pitrovich’s abusive behaviour can also be explained by  Margi Kaplinsky, MSW and Shulamit Geller’s article “The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life.” In this article, they mention “ he can feel love only when camouflaged by humiliation, verbal beatings, and hostility. And he unconsciously chooses to be in relationships that look hostile but conceal a wish for love without having to risk acknowledgement and exposure of his own sense of weakness” (248). This quote means masochistic people feel erotic love by getting humaliated or by getting beaten up. They tend to be with those types of people who are not weak and are more powerful than themselves. As Pitrovitch had complete power over Zianaida, she unconsciously was driven towards him and his self destructive behaviour where she felt pleasure through pain. 

Ivan Turgenev’s another novella “The Torrents of Spring” also explains about some sadistic and masochistic behaviours. Dmitry Pavlovich Sanin met a beautiful young woman named Gemma who was already engaged with another man named Karl Klüber. Sanin had a “Hero” type of image in front of Gemma’s family as he saved Gemma’s brother Emilio’s life. Sanin even went for a duel with the officer who misbehaved with Gemma because he started catching feelings for her. When Gemma cancelled her engagement with Kluber, Sanin and Gemma both confessed their love for each other and Sanin proposed to her for marriage. Sanin expressed his noble intentions to Frau Lenore and convinced her to take care of them financially too. When Sanin went to Russia to sell his estate so that he could marry Gemma, he met Maria Nikolaevna there to whom he was planning to sell his estate. Maria was a gorgeous lady who was married to Ippolit Sidorich with whom she had a very open relationship. Maria used to seduce men by which she used to get pleasure and her husband knew everything about it but he didn’t have any problem with that. This is the reason Maria got married to Polozov with whom she can live with freedom. Maria was sadistic towards all the men she could have control over. Maria Nikolaevna fell in love with her teacher Monsieur Gaston at a very young age. He was the only person she had ever been afraid of in her life. Maria saw a great deal of slavery in her childhood and she had suffered enough from it. Maria gave Sanin conditions to stay with her for two days in order to buy his estate. Sanin was astonished by the beauty of Maria but even at that time his heart was full of Gemma. Maria had a wager with Polozov on whether she could seduce Sanin. Maria started to continuously seduce Sanin and Sanin seemingly against his own will, finds himself increasingly obsessed with Maria Nikolaevna. Within three days, Sanin ends up cheating on Gemma by making love with Maria. Maria won the bet with Polozov and thus received ultimate pleasure from it. This shows Sanins masochist behaviour where he cheated on his love of the life Gemma with a woman who doesn’t even love him back and is sadistic towards him. Even after being humiliated by Maria and knowing that she will destroy his life, he purposely followed Maria to Paris and left Gemma alone. 

Turgenev portrays sadism in his novella “The Torrents of Spring” where Maria had sadistic behaviour towards Sanin. The psychological phenomenon behind Maria’s sadistic behaviour can be explained by Hegel’s master-slave dialectic of M.A.R. Habib’s book “Hegel & Empire”. In his book he explains Hegel’s theory that “ The superiority of the master lies in his achieving a degree of freedom through this conquest of immediacy.” In my own words, this quote means in order to get freedom, one person tries to overpower or control the weaker one so that they can be recognized by the former as the superior one and can live without any restriction and fear. Turgenev mentions in “The Torrents of Spring” that “ I suppose it must have been that I saw a great deal of slavery in my childhood & suffered enough from it” (Page 72). As Maria Nikolaevna saw a great deal of slavery in her childhood, there is nothing more important to her than freedom as she mentioned that “ freedom, more than all & before all. And don’t imagine I am boasting of this—there is nothing praiseworthy in it; only it’s so and always will be so with me to the day of my death.” (Turgenev, 72).  This is the reason she got married to Polozov with whom she can live with freedom. She wants to surround herself with those types of people on whom she has complete power over & she can feel superior among them & at the same time get freedom too. Hegel’s theory in the book “Hegel & Empire”  also explains that “ ‘The object is my idea: I am aware of the object as mine; and thus in it I am aware of me too.’ Indeed both reason and freedom consist in the fact that ‘I know everything as mine,’ that I ‘grasp every object as a member in the system of what I myself am, that in the world I find myself again.” By this quote, it can be determined that the reason behind Maria’s sadistic behaviour is that she wants to overcome her childhood trauma by recreating the same type of situation- but this time she would play the role of the master. According to the Master slave dialectics, in Maria’s childhood, she was the slave & Monsieur Gaston was the master of that situation and Monsieur Gaston had all the power. Having this past story, while Maria grew up she tended to reverse this situation & be the master this time, have all the power & live without being afraid of anyone. That is the reason, she is sadistic towards Sanin where she can manipulate him according to her mood and where she has a complete power over him. As Maria gave Sanin conditions to stay there for two days & do whatever she asked him to do, Sanin couldn’t stop himself from doing stuff which he was even guilty of and he ended up cheating on Gemma with Maria. In this case, Maria received pleasure by causing guilt in Sanin.

Turgenev also portrays masochism in his novella “The Torrents of Spring” where Sanin had masochistic behaviour towards Maria. Even though Sanin had a perfectly organized relation with Gemma, he got himself involved with someone who would bring in his life nothing but destruction. In “The Torrents of Spring” Turgenev mentions,”Snake! ah, she’s a snake!” Sanin was thinking meanwhile; “but what a lovely snake!” (Page 73). This quote explains how Sanin shows masochism by falling in love with such a woman who doesn’t love him back & even after knowing that she is a wicked woman as he referred to her as a ‘snake’, he continues to get more involved with her & receive pain. In the article “The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life”   Margi Kaplinsky, MSW and Shulamit Geller again explains that “ the masochist, in his search for a good person maintains an illusion that the sadist will turn into a good person’’ (page 250). This quote means masochist people seek to ask for pain and punishment from another person who doesn’t care about them but the masochists hope that the person will change and start to love them back. Like this, Sanin also was hoping that Maria would love him back one day and this is the reason he kept feeling pain and ended up leaving Gemma who loved him unconditionally.

Zinaida’s sadistic behaviour towards Vladimir & Maria’s sadistic behaviour towards Sanin had two different types of psychological phenomenon. While Zinaida inflicted pain on Vladimir unconsciously, Maria inflicted pain on Sanin on purpose according to the bet with her husband. Zinaida’s masochistic behaviour was associated with physical pain since Pitrovitch used to beat her up. Whereas, Sanin’s masochistic behaviour was associated with emotional pain & guilt and also sexual behaviour. The reason behind Maria’s sadistic behaviour was achieving freedom & power where she would be the master of the relationship & the reason behind Zinaida’s masochistic behaviour was to be with someone who could master her & who was more powerful than her. 

In conclusion, there is always a reason behind people’s sadistic and masochistic behaviour. Some people tend to be the master of the relationship & some people tend to be the slave. Likewise, some people choose to be the dominant one & some choose to be the victim. Thus, the psychological phenomenon of sadism and masochism are corresponded.

Work Cited Page

Turgenev, Ivan, and Constance Garnett. First Love. Barnes & Noble Books, 2005.

Turgenev, Ivan. The Torrents of Spring. Translated by Constance Garnett, 1897.

Geller,Shulamit and Kaplinsky,Margi. The Sadomasochism of Everyday Life, 2015.

Habib M.A.R. (2017) The Master-Slave Dialectic. In: Hegel and Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Narcissism and Pechorin’s Seduction Techniques

Narcissism and ego play a vital role in Pechorin’s pursuit of Mary. Pechorin is a wicked person and he knows how to make a woman fall in love with him. He always gets the women he wants and he is well aware of how to manipulate a woman in order to get their attention and make them fall for him. Pechorin attempts to seduce Mary because Mary didn’t show interest in him or give him attention at the very beginning and it hurt his ego. Besides that, he found it interesting to pursuit her. 

Pechorin is a Casanova type of womanizer. Casanova type of womanizers are those types of persons who observe women very carefully and notice what is lacking in her life. After careful observance, they try to offer those things to women and eventually women fall in love with them. Pechorin did the same thing with Princess Mary too. At first, he noticed Princess Mary from a distance. Princess Mary didn’t even give attention to him at all. But then Pechorin started to play mind games to get her attention and love and Mary eventually fell for him. He seeks attention from women because he wants every woman to pay attention to him and admire him. ” ambition with me has been suppressed by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another form, since ambition is nothing else than thirst for power, and my main pleasure – which is to subjugate to my will all that surrounds me, and to excite the emotions of love, devotion, and fear in relation to me – is it not the main sign and greatest triumph of power? “(116) This quote shows how Pechorin looks for women’s love and attention to satisfy his ego and desires.

Pechorin observed Mary very carefully and played mind games to seduce her.  At first, he saved her from getting embarrassed. A part of the story says, ” ‘Yes, such was my lot since my very childhood! Everybody read in my face the signs of bad inclinations which were not there, but they were supposed to be there – and so they came into existence. I was modest – they accused me of being crafty: I became secretive. I felt deeply good and evil – nobody caress’d me, everybody offended me: I became rancorous. I was gloomy – other children were merry and talkative. I felt superior to them – but was considered inferior: I became envious. I was ready to love the whole world – none understood me: and I learned to hate.”(119) This quote shows how Pechorin told Mary emotional and sad stories of his life to gain sympathy from her. This sympathy, later on, turned to her love for him. Besides that Pechorin ignored her for two days on purpose so that her weakness for him increased. This teaches us that one can easily manipulate an innocent person by playing mind games. This also teaches us that love may develop from sympathy. If one person is not careful enough and trusts another person blindly, they may end up getting hurt emotionally.

Receiving pleasure from pain has always been one of the controversial issues from many decades. While people pretend that nobody likes pain, there are some people around the world who tend to inflict pain or receive pain in order to get pleasure. In psychological terms these are what is called sadism and masochism. Although many people do not have enough knowledge about sadism and masochism, psychologists have studied that sadism and masochism has a huge impact on people’s lives and their romantic relationships. In the discussion of sadism and masochism, one controversial issue has been why do people are driven into receiving pleasure from pain. On the one hand, psychologists argue that it is our inherent unconscious drives which lead us to dangerous or self destructive behavior and we feel pleasure from it. On the other hand, general people contend that people don’t seek pleasure from pain. Whereas people want happiness and pleasure and that is why they seek love which sometimes causes painful situations in their lives. Others even maintain that it is the evil people who inflict pain and receive pleasure from it as well as it is the weak people who receive pain from others and think that it is love and thus they receive content or pleasure from it. My own view is we all have sadism and masochism on some level hidden inside us but very occasionally we might not recognize it .

In the novella “First Love,” Ivan Turgenev explains how people receive pleasure from pain. Zinaida being the most beautiful, gorgeous and young woman was loved by all the men who could do anything for her just to get her attention. She used to turn all the men round her finger and she knew that each of them was deeply in love with her. But she never cared about them. Moreover, she used to feel pleasure playing with their feelings. She continuously hurt some of them by her words and she never cared if they felt bad or not. Byelovzorov who was a hussar, Lushin who was a doctor, Meidanov who was a poet, Nirmatsky who was a retired captain and many other well-established men who was in love with her despite of knowing that she doesn’t love any of them was trying to impress her so that she might choose one of them to marry. Vladimir was also in love with her even after getting hurt by her several times. Zinaida could have chosen any of the men who was in love with her and could have lived a happy and luxurious life but she didn’t do it cause she doesn’t feel pleasure being with someone who treats her like a queen. Moreover, she feels pleasure by refusing their proposal, by turning them round her finger and inflicting them pain. Incidentally, she found a man who could master her and the man was no one but Vladimir’s father Pitrovitch. Pitrovitch was very cold to Zinaida and he had complete power over her. Pitrovitch was a married man who never really cared about her and he was very abusive to her. But this is probably what attracted Zinaida towards him. Zinaida deeply fell in love with Pitrovitch and this love was very self destructive to her. She knew the love she was in wasn’t good for her as well as she was hurt. But at the same time she had no control over it. Even though she was hurt, she felt pleasure from the pain being in love with him. 

There are some people who cause pain by hurting others and receive pleasure from it which is called sadism. Turgenev portrays sadism in his novella “First Love” where Zinaida used to inflict pain to all the men who were in love with her and receive happiness by doing this. In the novella “First Love,” Turgenev maintains that “Zinaïda continued to play cat and mouse with me. She flirted with me, and I was all agitation and rapture; then she would suddenly thrust me away, and I dared not go near her—dared not look at her. I remember she was very cold to me for several days together; I was completely crushed,” ( Page 18 ). In other words, Turgenev explains that Zinaida used to interact with Vladimir based on her mood. One day she used to show tremendous affection to Vladimir and the next day she used to behave very cold to him. Turgenev is surely right about this behavioral changes of Zinaida as recent studies have shown that people who like to inflict pain on others in romantic relationships tend to behave that they are so into someone one day and this behavior disappears the next day. Since Zinaida already understood that Vladimir was in love with her, she felt pleasure being cold to him and hurting him. Turgenev portrays another example where Zinaida caused physical pain to Vladimir encouraging him to jump from the height in order to prove his love for her. Turgeneve urges, “What are you doing up there at such a height?” she asked me with a rather queer smile. “Come,” she went on, “you always declare you love me; jump down into the road to me if you really do love me” ( Page 24 ). In this quote Turgeneve emphasizes how Zinaida was so careless and cold to Vladmir that she asked him to jump from the height. Furthermore, when Vladimir jumped from the height for real to prove his love to her, Zinaida was shocked and all of a sudden she started to kiss him saying “how could you do it, dear; how could you obey?… You know I love you…. Get up” ( Page 24 ) as if she was sorry about this whereas she was feeling content knowing that this guy didn’t even hesitate to jump from the fourteen feet high wall. Here Turgenev is pointing how Zinaida was a sadist to Vladimir. Turgenev’s example of sadism is extremely useful because it sheds light on the people who face violence by their significant other in a romantic relationship nowadays as it shows that sadists tend to hurt and abuse people in the name of love.

Where there are people who get pleasure from inflicting pain, there are some people who get pleasure by receiving pain which is called masochism. In the novella “First Love” Turgenev shows, “‘That the heart cannot choose but love,’” repeated Zinaïda. “That’s where poetry’s so fine; it tells us what is not, and what’s not only better than what is, but much more like the truth, ‘cannot choose but love,’—it might want not to, but it can’t help it” ( page 19 ). In other words Turgenev explains that Zinaida was hurt by Pitrovitch when she fell in love with him. But she had no control over this and she felt pleasure being in love with someone who has power over her and who hurts her. Adding to what Turgenev explained, I would add that psychologists have studied that our conscious minds drive us towards self destructive behaviour where we feel pleasure through pain. Another example where Turgenev shows that people can receive pleasure even when it causes physical pain is “Zinaïda sat up, and stretched out her arm…. Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it” ( Page 39 ). In this quote, Turgenev urges how Zinaida was being physically abused by Pitrovitch and instead of being sad over this Zinaida was surrendering herself to Pitrovitch so that he could beat her with the whip. She received intense pleasure as she kissed her arm where he had beaten her up. This shows how people receive pleasure from things which are abusive and self destructive and it is because we all have sadism and masochism hidden inside us and it reveals when we face certain situations in life.

Yet some people may challenge my view by insisting that no one wants pain and no one tends to receive pleasure through pain. Some people might say that when a person falls in love with another, they come across many hardships and many ups and downs. Thus they fight for their hardships if they want to make their relationship last. While facing their struggles, they may go through pain. But it is because they have no other choice and as they are in love, they are ready to receive this pain in order to be with the person they are in love with. But that doesn’t mean that they receive pleasure from that pain. This is not true because as we see in the novella “First Love”, Zinaida was a sadist to all the men who were in love with her and a masochist when she fell in love with Pitrovitch. Just like her, we see many people in our society nowadays who choose a hard life or a difficult partner instead of going for a easy life or an ideal partner and this is how human nature is.

At first glance, some people might say that there is no such thing as receiving pleasure from pain. But on closer analysis, we can say that sadism and masochism do exist  throughout history. Psychologists also studied that it is our inherent unconscious desires which lead us to those things by which we receive or inflict pain in order to get pleasure and we also see these types of behaviours in modern day relationships too.

Work cited page 

Turgenev, Ivan, and Constance Garnett. First Love. Barnes & Noble Books, 2005. 

There is nothing more satisfying than seeing one’s dream coming true. But little did I know that it was just the beginning of a new adventure. I heard a dialogue in a movie, I don’t exactly remember which movie it was, which said “ The ending is a new beginning.” Eventually I realized the meaning of this quote once I moved to New York. I had been dreaming of coming to New York from an early age. Life in New York seemed quite interesting to me in various movies which I used to see back in my country – Bangladesh. When i was 14, my family decided to move to New York and settle there. I was very excited as my dream was coming true and I was looking forward to a new interesting lifestyle. Saying goodbye to my family and friends in Bangladesh was never an easy task. I cried so badly before leaving my country and at the same time deep down I was happy too as I am going to my dream city. I still couldn’t figure out how I was happy and sad at the same time. That was weird. 

It was the end of fall of 2017 and the plane landed on the runway of JFK airport. I stepped out of the airport with my family carrying 50 lbs weighted luggages. As soon as I stepped outside of the airport, a cold breeze came with a refreshing vibe. That breeze felt quite different. I don’t know if it was only in my mind or the breeze of New York hits differently for real. Still couldn’t believe that I had reached New York. Forgot to mention that my father had been living in New York for around 20 years. So he already rented a one bedroom apartment for us in Queens. Soon as I reached our new little home, I could understand or I could say that I had a thought that life in New York would be very different from the life I used to live in Bangladesh. There were four members of our family- My dad, my mom, my sister and me and we used to live in a two storeyed building in bangladesh and I was observing how I moved from a two storeyed building to a one bedroom apartment. The apartment rent was $1750.00 a month and I did a quick calculation that if I had paid this amount of money in Bangladesh to rent a home, I could have been living in a home like a palace. But here I am paying $1750 for a one bedroom apartment. But New York is New York. I shouldn’t be comparing how I would be living with the same amount of money in a different place. Next day, we went to a nearby place to buy beds and wardrobes for my new home. To be honest, I was already a little disappointed with the collection of furniture they had. Actually not because of the collection of furniture but because of the price range compared to the collection of the furniture. I would have never spent my money buying this type of average looking furniture with those high amounts of money back in Bangladesh. But we had no other choice. So we chose some furniture and my dad paid the bill. 

It was the beginning of winter. Me along with my family went shopping for some winter clothes. I bought a jacket for myself. Next day my dad took us to Times Square. I wore my new jacket and took the subway. It was my first time taking a subway. I was so excited and everything started to seem very interesting. I heard Times Square is the heart of New York. When I went there, it was quite fascinating. The lights, the big screens, the crowd everything fascinated me. I was happy. But deep down I was wondering what speciality this place has which made it so popular. I never got this answer. We walked down the street and took some photos and then posted on Facebook. My friends and family on Facebook were commenting on our photos and were wondering that life in New York is so cool. At that time, I was mostly happy and I was ready to explore New York. 

One morning I woke up from sleep and looked outside of my window. “ Oh my God ! Is it really snowing ?” That was the first time in my life when I first saw snow falling. Referring to where I have come from, it was a country with a warm atmosphere and it never snows there. So it was a new experience for me. I went downstairs wearing my jacket and touched the first snow of the season in New York and also the first snow of my life. That day I was really realizing that “ Oh Boy ! Is this true or am I day dreaming? Am I really in New York enjoying the snow fall ?” It was still surprising to me. This connects with Joan Didion’s essay where she said, “ and then a flood of summer rain (even that seemed remarkable and exotic, for I had come out of the West where there was no summer rain).” The way summer rain seemed remarkable to her, the same way winter snow fall seemed exotic to me.

Soon I got admitted to high school in New York and there began a new journey. High school in New York is diverse. I met some people who were born and raised here, met some people who moved to New York. I made a lot of friends in school. But I was barely in touch with them outside of my school. They always asked me to hangout with them. But most of the time I didn’t go with them or I made excuses. Because life in New York is expensive and as I was just a high school student with no part time job, I didn’t have the money to spend on doing fun stuff and hanging out with friends. This situation refers to Meghan Daum, My Misspent Youth when it said “As I write this, I owe $7,791 to my Visa card. To be fair (to whom? Myself? Does fairness even come into play when one is trying to live a dream life?), much of those charges are from medical expenses, particularly bills from a series of dental procedures I needed last year.” This shows how financial problems one faces while living in New York. 

Life was going on and I had the same everyday routine for 2 years. Waking up at 6 in the morning, leaving for school taking the subway, staying at school from 8 to 3 o’clock and then coming back home taking the subway again. I realized how excited I was when I took the subway for the first time. But now as it has become a part of my everyday routine, it doesn’t make me excited anymore. Moreover, I have got used to it. Maybe every new thing seems excited and when we get used to it, it doesn’t feel special anymore. But gladly, I am not bored with New York yet. Because I have many more things to explore in New York. At the very beginning of me coming to New York, I always used to get lost in streets and avenues. It took me months to figure out how the roads of New York work. 

On a winter day, I went to manhattan with mom and dad. We went to McDonald’s. My english wasn’t very fluent at that time. When I went to order food for us, I was having difficulties understanding what the cashier lady was saying. She was so rude. I was trying to explain to her what I wanted and she gave me the attitude that my English wasn’t perfect. Like this incident, I experienced many more situations in New York for not speaking English fluently or with an American accent. It really hurts when someone makes fun of a person who doesn’t speak with a American accent in New York. 

Three years have already passed. I have changed a lot in these three years. When I first came to New York, I was into exploring different places in New York. But now with the passing times, I am more into finding opportunities to get a good job in New York so that I can give my parents whatever they want and make them proud. Now I am studying in college and also looking for job opportunities. I can’t wait to see where life takes me to within five or six years in New York. Even after three years, New York still seems interesting to me as it used to be when I first moved here. I still believe that New York is the only place where I can fulfil all my desires and make my parents proud of me.

My name is Lianor Samira. I’m a 17 years old freshman in college. I was born and raised in Bangladesh. I moved to New York only 3 years ago. After moving to New York, I started my sophomore year in high school at the end of 2017. It has been very challenging for me to get used to a new environment with people of different cultures and lifestyles. In these three years, I have experienced the major ups and downs of my life. I found it very challenging to adopt this new lifestyle and education system which is very different from the one I had in my country. But I never gave up. I worked really hard for the last 3 years and finally made it through my high school graduation and getting accepted to The City College of New York.

I’ve always wanted to finish high school and go to college for higher studies. My family also encouraged me to go to college for higher degrees so that I can get a well-paid job. My goal is to finish college on time and get my desired job. My major is still undecided. But I’m looking forward to getting a degree in Architecture. I wanna be an Architect. I love to design unique structures and I think this job will be perfect for me.