Mama's Girl

Today I was having a pretty rough day, wondering if anything could go right and then I checked my received an e-mail from my mom. She was basically telling me that every time she hears my voice and gets to talk to me she gets so tickled. She told me that I was a wonderful daughter and that she always tries to do whatever she can for me. She said she appreciates all that I have done and all that I am trying to accomplish. Then she told me to stay true to myself, stay focused, and wished me God's blessings. By that point I had tears in my eyes.

Her e-mail came just in time and brightened my day and gave me my hope and strength back again!

Let me start by saying that I just love my mom to death. She is truly my best friend. I can talk to her about any and everything. Not many mothers and daughters have a relationship like we do. I am very fortunate to have her as my mother and grateful for the kind of relationship we have. I pray to God that I can be as good a mother as she was to me. And I pray to God that me and my future daughter have the same relationship me and my mother have. And if my future daughter ever feels that she can not talk to me I know she will be able to talk to my mother and everything would be okay because she is so caring and loving.

I will continue to do my best to make my mama proud!

A Love Story

It was the spring of 2007, my senior year of high school, when I met the love of my life.

We had seen each other around school and around town before but never said anything to each other. We laid eyes on each other at a gas station. The next day I got online to check my Myspace messages and there was a message from him. We exchanged messages for a while then ended up exchanging numbers. From that moment on we talked on the phone everyday. After a couple months of talking on the phone, summertime rolled around and we finally began to hang out everyday. The end of the summer came quick and we went to our separate colleges. I thought we would lose interest in one another but we did not. We continued to talk everyday. He would even come up to visit me! I began falling deeply for him.

Summertime came around again, but this summer could not be like the last because he had to go to basic training. So before he left, we had spent every single day together. When the day came that it was time for him to leave for eight weeks, I cried like a baby. That’s when I knew that there was truly something real between the two of us.

I did not have to wait long to receive a letter from him. We wrote each other everyday. I was the one he used his first phone call on. I only missed one call of his the whole eight weeks he was gone. I went to his graduation with his family.

When he got back home, we made it official. He made me his girlfriend. I was the happiest person ever!

And the rest is still unwritten...

Gotta Get Back in The Groove

I don't know what it is about this semester but for some unknown reason I just can't seem to get back in the groove of things. Last semester I was very focused. I finished assignments way before they were do. This semester I wait until the last minute, more specifically, the day before the assignment is due to begin working on it. I am already feeling like I am off to a bad start.

Before classes began I told myself that I would pay attention to every one of my professors’ words, take good notes, and read over them throughout the week regardless of whether or not there was an upcoming quiz or test. I have not been doing that at all. I still feel as though it is still winter break. I still feel like I should be on vacation. I truly do not know why I have yet to get back in the swing of things but I hope I figure it our soon and get over this spell. I have to do well this semester!!!

Make 'Em Proud

With the Martin Luther King holiday coming up, I have been doing a lot of thinking. It has got me thinking about where I am at in life and where I plan on going in life. This Holiday is also making me very aware of how thankful I am of all the opportunities I have been blessed with.

My name is RaShaun Jasmine Downs. I am an African American female born in Baltimore, Maryland but raised in Sumter, South Carolina. I am 19 years old and a junior at Winthrop University. I am majoring in mass communications, specializing in broadcasting. My dream is to become a news reporter.

I am so grateful for my mother, my father, and my older brother. Whenever school has me feeling down and out and just ready to give up, I just think about them and how proud I want to make them by finishing college and achieving my goals. They were not as fortunate as me to have this opportunity and college experience. Seeing the smiles on their faces when they see my grades and just how hard I am truly trying is just a joy to me.

I am not only doing this (college) to make my family proud but I also feel like I owe it to all of the people, like Martin Luther King Jr., who fought and shed blood, sweat, and tears for a united nation and equality. I owe it to them to show them that they did not go through all of that for nothing. I want to make a difference in this world somehow just like the great others before me.
Of course I am doing this for me as well, to make myself proud, but when I think about it, it is really for my future family. I want my future family to live a prosperous, secure life. With me getting a higher education, it puts me one step closer.

I don't know. I guess a long story short, my family, the great ones who came before me and fought for the many rights I have today, and my future family of my own is what gives me the drive to make them proud and finish college, go back for my masters, then even go back for my doctorate and hopefully get my dream job being a news reporter. Whenever I begin to feel like giving up, I will just think about all of them.

I will make them proud!