Pierre-Louis 1

Youry Pierre-Louis
Karen Tucker
ENC 2135
1 September 2015
The Curious Case of Genre on Youry

I recall the loud bell ringing for the days demise. Excitement flurried into my stomach as
class ended. The temperature had rose 13 degrees since the morning. As a Floridian I knew not
to complain, the only weather I could expect was humid, gas-mask weather. I heard the voices of
my friends Jordan, Tamai and Dominic as we all approached the silver gates of hell. The
scorching weather intensified that sensation of dedication. We practiced on a turf, black, seven
lane track. The football field was placed in the center; it was widely used by many teams and
resembled a dirt-filled warzone. Bright, neon-green cones were always placed in a manner to
visualized or guess the workout beforehand in order to help us get a mindset of what we had in
store.

Some days itd be bright and warm; others itd be stormy and dreary. Either way I had
made a commitment to the team. An assorted amount of lyrics popped into my head during our
workouts. 'Cause sometimes you just feel tired, feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like
you wanna just give up. But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength and
just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up and not be a quitter, no matter

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how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse, Eminem. I came to win, to fight,
to conquer, to thrive. I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise, to fly, to fly, Rihanna. Don't
stop believin', hold on to the feelin', streetlights, people, Journey.

It is rare that I listen to music. The sport of track and field requires motivation and selfdetermination which had come across for me through these few lyrics. I put those songs and
lyrics to memory because those simple lyrics had the power drive me not to quit or give up.

The saying pictures say one thousand words never appealed to me until I reached
senior year. I had been a member of the yearbook staff for only a year. I applied for positions as
sports editor, coverage editor and photo editor. This girl who had been in yearbook since
freshman year, Tory Tarachand, was pretty guaranteed the position for photo editor. I still applied
anyways because I had some experience with photography. I was told 2 days before finals that I
had gotten the position of assistant to the photo editor. I was doing cartwheels.

During the summer our previous yearbook teacher had texted me wondering if I had seen
or heard from Tory because we had a meeting with our photo company, Leonard Studios. The
head photo editor also received an internship with Leonard Studios which paid $200 every four
months. They had to be present at this meeting or they would not get the position. Well guess
what? I was present at the meeting and Tory was not, now I was doing back flips. I was the head
of all photos in the yearbook and I also received an opportunity to be an intern for a photography

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studio. It was a year full of joy and laughter with every picture I was able to shoot. Id always go
home after an event and go through all 1,000 or 2,000 pictures. The photos captured a specific
moment that spoke to me. Such as the picture I took of Ashley Taylor who was an amazing
cheerleader. I captured a shot at the pep rally as she was being thrown into the air. Her face
described her trust for the girls that were about to catch her. She anticipated that they would not
drop her, she was expecting a perfect landing. Her face shouted fearless. Each face, each
position, each angle just jumped out at you. My absolute favorite mode of photography is
portraiture. I was asked to take family pictures for my yearbook advisor and needed to brush up
on my skills. I asked my friend, Beverly, to be my model. This experience took my breath away.
For one of the pictures I had her sit on a metal, black rocking bench. I angled myself correctly to
avoid the old, white house behind her but instead to capture the green in the leaves and trees. Her
face was serious. She did not smile. Her legs were crossed. She did not move. Stillness. Her lips
were slightly parted as if she had something on her mind but did not know how to say it. She
looked at the camera with full confidence yet she was slightly unsure of what she wanted to
portray with her face. I captured who she was all in that moment. I saw not a person or an object
but emotion. It is almost as if the picture described her sense of humor, the fact that shed been
struggling with self-hate, her beauty inside and out lit up through these photos. Shed always
been indecisive but bold. I took about 300 pictures if her that day and each stated something

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different about whom she was and even about what the photographer was attempting to portray
in her. That day Id come to a conclusion that photos have slightly more power than words.

Enough of the deep crap now, genre also influences me because I honestly admire fiction.
Stories shape who I am, weirdly enough, what you read has a huge effect on your day to day
behavior. In elementary school I read Junie B. Jones like it was heroine. I would come home, put
all of my homework aside, skip dinner and read until bedtime. Id wake and read at breakfast as
well. Junie B. Jones was a little mischievous child. She was attention seeking and plain rude. I
absolutely adored her sassy attitude. She was always so clever in finding ways out of trouble.
One day I had been called up to the principals office for saying something that wasnt deemed as
school appropriate. Of course Mrs. Michaels did what all principals were expected to do and
called my house. She left this long, ridiculous message about how I was not speaking with
respect and not honoring the golden rule-blah-blah. It was not my fault Tara wanted to make
fun of the way I threw so then I made fun of the gap between her two front teeth. Id learned
from my girl Junie how to escape this dilemma. The plan was to quickly get home from the bus
stop and enter the house. Grab the phone located directly north of the computer and delete this
whole scene. Boy what a shock I had when I got home. My mother was always off on Fridays
and Sundays, however, there she was in the living room, laughing at an episode of Full House. I
swear for a split second my skin went from dark brown to completely albino pale. Plan B, I
thought to myself.

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Hey, Youry, my mother calmly stated. Maybe Im in the clear.

Hi mommy, you arent working today? I quickly questioned to spark up some

conversation.

No I took the day off just to spend some time with my kids, she answered.

Oh joy! Well I promised my friend Deavon that I would call him as soon as I got home,
I replied grappling with the Panasonic telephone. Then I hear a loud beep, I thought it was my
heart stopping.

Hello Mrs. Pierre-Louis, I have Youry sitting in the office with me today. He was called
up here because he was not speaking in a school appropriate manner with a fellow classmate. He
hurt this young ladies feeling by calling her a gap toothed witch, this is not tolerable at Love
Grove Elementary. Youry was not being a respectful, gentlemen today. We adhere to the golden
rule which states do unto others what you would like them to do to you. I am not here to judge
or criticize your son however I do not tolerate bullying and would please appreciate if you would
please have a word with him because if this takes place again he will be punished with
suspension. Thank you, have a nice day, click.

I was slightly paralyzed with fear; I was also pretty disappointed because the plan failed.
I had butterflies in my stomach all day because I was so excited about ridding this whole rotten

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scene. Now I am living exactly what I was so sure I would avoid. Surprisingly all she did was
talk to me about respect and how everyone deserves respect. Junie B. Jones lost that time.

Ive had bad experiences with genre apparently. I had started reading some pretty heavy
books in middle school. There was this book called Thug Life, which was a story about the life of
Tupac Shakur. This book grew on me because I always grew up in the suburbs; I was unaware of
how a black person was supposed to act. Another book called Futureproof, which depicted the
life of a high school kid who grows up to become a crack addict. The main character was a
redhead nerd. His stepfather was a drunk and he abused him often. My grandfather was an
abusive drunk and eventually died because he fell into a river while drunk and drowned. My
favorite was The Lie by Chad Kultegen, which was about how a college girl used a boy to get to
his hot friend but then falling in love with him; the story ends with the lie being about her ring
and somehow everyone ended up with HIV. This novel was very comical and in my immature
ways I could relate. These various books led me to try some things I ought to not mention
however reading these books also taught me not to make the same mistakes as the people I
attempted to make an image out of. Id never thought of myself as a person who wanted to
achieve anything or for the most part work to achieve anything however Ive realized that by
utilizing these genres I have indeed matured.

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