Digital Voices

Madi is a Junior at Charlotte High School. Plans to attend Western Michigan University to major in Psychology. Here she is with her speech on her beliefs about family.

Madi’s “This I Believe” podcast

Sisters

From the time I awake, my alarm sounding at 5:30 a.m., to the time I drag myself back to bed after my long day at school and after making sure everyone’s had a glass of water and been tucked in with a kiss on the forehead, I lay down, hoping to get in a couple of hours of sleep before the entire routine starts over again.

I live in a family of five children; and not just any five children, FIVE GIRLS. Yep, that’s correct. Five girls. I am the oldest and am seventeen years old. I find that by being the oldest, it is my responsibility to help my mom out as much as I can, and that means helping take care of my four younger sisters. I have two sisters who are fourteen and two sisters who are ten. All of whom are nothing short of a handful. Sometimes it seems very stressful and hard being the “Big Sister” all the time, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because I believe in being the best big sister I possibly can.

Sometimes, it seems so overwhelming; always painting someone’s toe nails, or doing someone’s hair, or giving advice on how to get a cute boy at school to notice them, or even just as simple as being someone to vent to. Quite often, people forget how to use their listening skills and sometimes, that’s all a person needs, just someone to listen to them. My sisters know they can come to me with anything, and I mean ANYTHING and most of the time, they do. They completely trust me with everything and sometimes it seems very hard, but no matter how challenging it gets, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because I believe in being the best big sister I possibly can.

My sister Alli and I have the best relationship out of all of my sisters. She is fourteen and I can proudly say she is turning into a beautiful young woman, inside and out, hopefully with a little bit of help from me. We share a room and needless to say, she’s my best friend. We are constantly wearing each other’s clothes and doing each other’s hair and wrestling around together on the floor. She talks to me about everything and I love that she has complete trust in me. I try my hardest to be a good role model to my sisters, Alli especially, because I’m closer to her than I am to any body else in the world. Sometimes, she gets on my nerves and I’m sure I do just the same with her, but we’re sisters, and best friends, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because I believe in being the best big sister I possibly can.

I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the love and support my sisters and I share. A bond between sisters is unlike any other feeling in the world. I wish I could explain the feeling, but it is just so magical that words cannot describe it. I try my hardest to keep my relationship with each and every one of my sisters as strong as can be, because I want us to be just how we are now, fifty year from now. I believe we can accomplish it, because I believe in being the best big sister, not just for now, but for as long as I possibly can.

“This I Believe” Response

Madi

Speech Class 4^th Block

March 14, 2007

a.) I feel like I understand the whole “pod casting” thing now because before, I think I was a little confused with the entire craze about it. Now I understand that pod casting is just another way to listen to online media amongst the many other ways that I am familiar with. It’s a way to let people create their own bit of something they are passionate about and share it with whoever else is interested in your passion. The technology about it is incredible! The way that virtually anybody can put whatever they have interest in on the internet and anybody in the world can see or listen to it with the click of a button is crazy. Also, the sound that any body can put on their pod cast is very cool because any sound that is related to that person’s essay can be pasted into that essay.

b.) I listened to many “This I Believe” essays on NPR. Many of them I selected from the “Top 25” essays and the others I just randomly searched for a topic that I was interested in. I searched for some about dance and performance, love and relationships, family and psychology. There were a wide variety of speeches about performance and love, but not really anything for the other subjects I searched for. Some effectiveness of the speeches I listened to was being able to hear the author give their speech, and, at the same time, read their speech in text. I really understood their speeches because I got to process it by seeing and hearing the same thing, and that really helped me understand them.

c.) I really enjoyed the introductions before each speech. They really captured the meaning of what the author’s speech was going to be about. They also caught my attention. They were very interesting because many people were able to record themselves saying what they believed in, in correspondence to the author of the actual speech.