To Achieve The Impossible Dream: The 2nd Edition

By Geurlaine L. Small

I instantaneously took a bitter - acid bite of New York City's Big Apple. My first step had favored me with a ride on the Greyhound Bus. But my life changed drastically, for the worse. My second step led me to live on the street. I became a homeless vagrant, in the greatest city in the world. The epoch of my ordeal appeared an eon long; yet, time passed swiftly. For one solid year, I ate nothing cooked by fire. The only weapon I possessed was my vital power of intellect and a mighty vision of academic prowess. Profoundly, the fundamental leap from a non - existent high school education, when my studies were curtailed and I became a Drop - Out without a Regent's Diploma, to college in 2008, was overwhelmingly gigantic. The American Dream was a barrel of hard, difficult maneuvering, with only the possibility of parading off the streets in my homeless state To Achieve The Impossible Dream. My studies at the College of New Rochelle, my Four - Year Bachelor's of Art Program in Liberal Arts, with a Major in Psychology was successfully completed, in May 2012.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Geurlaine L. Small
• Release date: Jan 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386457541

Book preview

Acknowledgement

Authentically, this book was an Honorable Gift instituted by: God’s Saving Grace, Ceaseless Guidance, and Imparting Knowledge. I thank God for granting me the courage and the willpower to do those things I could not achieved on my own ingenuity. Without God’s All - Empowering Knowledgeable Wisdom , I could do nothing. I give God the Glory. I Praise Him for The Spirit to aspiringly excel in the things I could.   

I thank these persons for their: Faithful, Unconditional Support. I generously thank Colonel Doctor Pastor Andrew R. Harewood for pushing me to: The Limit. I thank myself for having the audacity to say: Yes I Can! Do all things through Jesus Christ! With fortitude I withstood the monumental test of time with Faith in God that I did not know I held, as it seemed Phenomenal Forces worked steadily against me.

Bibliography

Blissfully, after attending classes at St. John’s and Mount Tabor Elementary Mixed Schools, I entered The Metropolitan High School, in Barbados. A High School Drop - Out without a Regent’s Diploma, I gained my education independently by The Written Word of God, assessing The King James Version of The Holy Bible. Also, by The Eyes of Great Novels like: The Aeneid by Virgil and Roots by Alex Haley , which inspired my English Language and Literature.

My General Educational Development Certificate and my Computer Applications were gained in Canada. As well, my Home Health Aide and my Credentialed Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counseling - Trainee Diploma was acquired in New York.

Working with The New York Police Department led me to a Liberal Arts Four - Years Bachelor’s of Art Degree, with a Psychology Major. It was obtained, in 2012.

Non - Fictional

Autobiography

Please Note:

This Non - Fictional Autobiography Book was written mainly by an act of: Faith in God. All information was actually experienced and was authentic to the best of my erudition.

Please Note:

Deliberation had been made in the use of Photo Images. All were Creatively Cropped and / or Redesigned, by the compliment of the Book’s Author: Geurlaine L. Small. I profusely thank all my Credited Photo Sharers for their kindness in the completion of this Great Art. If I had Credit anyone incorrectly or have not Credit someone, it was not intentional.

Photo Cover Image Designed by: Geurlaine L. Small

Original Images taken from Public Domain Pictures at: 

https://commons.wikimedia.org

https://en.wikipedia.org

https://www.en.wikipedia.org

All Rights Reserved:

Except quotations, this book may not be copied without consent of Authorized Persons or Author, Geurlaine L. Small.

Author’s Note

Perceptively, this book took shape, in my College Years, when I wrote personal letters to my family and to my friends. As well, it was formed while I contributed to my Four - Year (2008 - 2012) Life Art Project Assignments each semester, during my attendance in College. Thus, I gained a Bachelor’s of Art Degree in Liberal Arts, with a Major in Psychology, from The College of New Rochelle, The District Council 37 Union Headquarters Campus.

This book is Non - Fictional Autobiographical. The Chapters were compiled from the start of my Junior Year in College, until the final year. Simultaneously, I had been a Homeless Guest of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Subway System, in New York City, while I also worked as a School Crossing Guard with The New York Police Department. The events are glimpses of that Four - Year Era.

For confidentiality and privacy sake, all names have been slightly altered or were replaced by pseudonyms.

Since my First Book had been published, I have written my Second Book New York Cherokee Indians: The 2000 Epic Millennium and my Third Book: NYPD: From The Inside Looking Out. I am currently on my Fourth Book Pressing To The Limit For God.

Introduction

Be

The Star you are.

Though the journey was long,

keep your love alive and Your Spirit strong.

You are A Dreamer, A Seeker with courage to give.

You are An Artist,

A Poet who

will never:

Give Up!

Hawley & Laine

Characteristically , for many people, The American Dream came true, albeit, with a price, a great sacrifice. Mine was achieved while I lived homeless on The New York City Streets and while I was a vagrant of The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Subway System. Simultaneously, while I attended the College of New Rochelle and while worked part - time as a School Crossing Guard, with The New York Police Department.

The trip east from Toronto, Canada to The United States, in December 2006, began with my first step. And, I stepped on The New York City Scene, with utterly naught!

I came to The United States of America confident, idealistic, and sweetly fresh - faced. Oddly, my biological sister was inaccessible by her Cell Phone Number. Her Home Landline Phone rang to yield a disembodied voice that informed me it was out of service, though my coming was known.

I arrived in The Big Apple on a time when Americans faced a bleak economic outlook. Being a New Yorker was not like The Flicks: The Movies. Great challenges arose. I was a financial leper, a third - class citizen. I saw fretful misfortunes of a withering economy. But I was ready to conquer.

With maximum shock, detours, roadblocks, and setbacks were many. I clawed my way out of one dark canyon after the next. I saw no caring family members, no aid towards my goals. It was an era when people greedily exploited.

I did not know what my crimes were. I knew that I had never called my sister a fool or placed a thread in her path to trip her. Routinely, she did not realize that wealth, for many people, was The Fruit of Hard Labor, not Planned High - Class Burglary. She cared nothing about the effects of her ransomed demand. Hence, I did not go ballistic or nuclear.

Cerebrally, my sister’s quintessence and mine was never in synchronization to engender consummation. Willingly, without the knowledge needed, I had ruined myself by: Staying Confined with Wickedness. I tried hard to grasp from whence her bad intentions would end.

I philosophized that I carried one of the world’s most dreaded disorders, preferably: The Bubonic Plague. When I gave thought to my life’s barren emptiness I wept. My sister’s strategy to be rid of me was: A Great Sledgehammer.

During my traumatic eviction, I did not dawdle on the dismayed aspects. A close encounters of the worse kind, it had all started long before. That prediction boded unwell. For many years, I crept by in drudgery with differences that simmered. I had excused slights. I had toured, trampled, and flattened the same grounds twice. But nothing had changed but the venue. From a close - up perspective my patience had run dry.

For my sister, I was a thing to be tolerated only if I were willing to conform, to share the financial burden. Else, it was a righteous sacrilege to not be seen or be heard. There were days when nothing went right and I acted in a symbiotic decay. My body dragged, my mind slowed, and I agreed that The Promised Land was nowhere, if not in one’s own mind.

The only ammunition I had was my wits. No one would have withstood my unworthy services! I knew! I came with too much baggage. But I had no time to ponder insecurities.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Subway System showed me a Beacon of Light. It kept my sanity. I had joined the homeless rank but I heard the voices of my tutors at Outreach Training Institute, urging: Stay focus!

To survive, I needed Faith in God or sunk in Futility. Wherefore seeing that we were compassed with A Great Cloud of Witnesses let us lay aside every weight, The Sin, which so easily beset us, and Let Us Run With Patience The Event set before us.

Firmly, I crossed a bridge when I had reached it. Only I could save myself, with trials. Landor chided: We could not defeat fate and need; yet, we could yield to them as if we could.

I was a Seventh - Day Adventist Christian; thus, I kept a horizontal spotlight. Boldly, I forged visions. Robotically, I rose from the ashes. I recreated Phoenix. I Lived My Dream. My Bachelor’s of Art Degree in Liberal Arts was worth the price. It typified: Achievement of The Impossible Dream. And I Geurlaine L. Small, symbolized by The Pronoun I, DID IT MY WAY.

The challenge

was to learn to live with flux and instability

as ethically, as humanely,

and as responsibly as possible.

To do so we must cultivate: Courage, Flexibility,

Individualized Resilience, and Tolerance.

Stacey, (1996)

Chapter - I

Coming to America

I shifted focus.

The next slice of time,

did not take place in normal speed.

Parts of it stretch out in tortuously slow motion

and other parts were: Heart - Stopping Fast.

But even if I could not track time,

I remembered every detail of what happened, from that second!

Gardner, (2006).

Determinedly, in Coming To America , as a new, vulnerable arrival, my prevarication to relocate was not a decision made likely. When I disembarked the bus at New York City’s Port Authority, I equivocated that I was about to enter unknown territory. I had reasoned that rather than a necessity any cumbersome luggage would have been a hindrance. With my unsophisticated two - piece baggage, my philosophy was, things would eventually fall in proper perspective. Perfection was almost always impossible; I held strong resolutions!

Accordingly, I calculated that with three weeks before The New Year of 2007, it would be: Out with the old and in with the new. In my quest I Prayed to be ambitiously successful but Faith was a Phenomenon that could not be disproved nor proven. However, Christian Believers: Walked By Faith and not By Sight.

The Great Depression (1929 - 1941) and World War II (Sept 01, 1939 - Sept 02, 1945) were two tumultuous events in American History. The Recent Slump outlasted The Post - World War II Slump. But Americans lived in awful times in the lingering Recessional Era.

In Gotham City, New York City, The Big Apple, The City That Never Slept potent stimuli in: Commerce, culture, education, finance, global art, media, study, style, and theatre, was exerted.

Host to The United Nations Headquarters, a vital center for global affairs, The Big Apple had lagged in entering The Recession. Once started, it gained impetus. From bad to worse, New York City Residents lost sense of: Compassionate self.

The Nation still cried and mourned from The World Trade Center Attack. The Original Twin Towers Landmark, which was backed by The New York Port Authority, had been The World’s Tallest Edifice on April 4, 1973. It left a torturous aftermath.

During the time of my arrival, the price of gasoline had gone through the roof, one in ten home mortgages nationally were either in foreclosure or sadly failing, and medication was offered but at an all - time low to those who needed it. And, The Federal Post Offices were in a riot. Apart from postal stamps and fees for services that rose yearly, offices closed left, right, and center.

A close look at the economy, at the banks’ interest rates, netted disaster. Compared to the late 1980s when a Bank’s Certificate of Deposit was good for a solid 10%, the interest rates percentage points dropped like roasted flies on a barbeque grill.

By 2006, the banking economy had not once enhanced, during 20 years. In financial calamity, near disastrous quagmires, people were upset in the banking system. Could things have gotten worse and not better?

Wall Street Financiers vowed that soon money in the bank would only worth the paper it was printed on. Like a sand - house on a hillside, The Nation’s Economy drifted.

The Recession caused a drop in tourism, which frugally increased the dollar; thus, ensuing a global economic downturn. By many optimists’ standards and as many people had foresaw, tougher times lied ahead.

As a result of The Country’s Enduring Recession, it was a time when, Kansas City opted to close 28 of its 61 schools.

It was said that New York City was The Place to be. But unruly kids in New York City had threatened to burn schools; the inhabitants wanted everything and they wanted it now, with little effort; and prestigious people thought the rich should be richer while The Disadvantaged Poor deserved to be Forever Poorer.

Generationally, times were hard, real hard, and daily getting harder. I had scheduled my work in Toronto to the last day. After, I had grabbed my packed bags and proceeded to The Greyhound Bus Terminal, for my trip: Coming To America. Ergo, if the bus had delayed, my Temporary Residency U. S. Visa due to expire at midnight, would have been revoked. But even with cultural values that fostered hardship, The City That Never Slept still held prospects, prosperity, and vigorous life. Despite the atmospheric cold and The Recessional Times.

Notably, when Henry Hudson and Giovanni da Verrazzano entered The New York Bay, The City’s History did not reveal the frills of The 21st Century. But New York City grew.

Still, New York City’s economy went wild. Though it was America’s Most Populous, one of The World’s most Crowded Cities, and the center of The New York City’s Metropolitan Areas, the sharp drop in consumer spending triggered a cascade of chaos. Strategically, economists warned: It was at its lowest ebb.

In progression, while the cost of living rose, sagacious people engaged in cutbacks. Conservative consumers perceptively urged that it was better to buy: Canned foodstuff, un - perishable items like bag rice that could be stored, or sale items. Physically, these affirmable ideas generated, but A Dream could only be fulfilled and realized if one had the money to buy and to spend.

The populace at large cried that it was better to put money under a dugout tile or the mattress. But that complacent scenario created fat rats and healthy roaches. And, on a global percentile scale, the money grew slim before it was spend. So, many people weathered the storm by tilting to an old way of saving, as defense.

But The United States of America was not the only nation with hard times. It was a World - Wide Economic Downturn that incredibly affected near every country. Around the world, people were in an abject state about the economy and the daily hardship they were forced to undergo.

In those daringly fearful times, one Australian National who was innovatively secured in his courageous contentment used his kitchen oven as: A Banking Institution. The brainstormed idea was most brilliantly implemented. It rebounded when his wife, not suspecting the enormity of the occasion nor that she was in the process of burning the family’s wealth, was in her culinary heights of producing the day’s dinner. It all went up in smoke.

What it was, it was; long, sorrowful, aggravated tears for years of labor and a home that would be lost due to unpaid mortgages that were many months of hard labor.

Universally, fear fed on procrastination and timidity. Bewitched, they vowed earthquakes magnified. Islamic Clerics claimed that immodestly dressed women led young men astray and spread adultery. Their chastity was depraved. Know them by Their Fruit. Do men gathered figs of thistles or grapes of thorns? Every Good Tree brought forth Good Fruit but a Bad Tree brought forth Bad Fruits.

Like others who were brave enough to dare, I took improper chances. Thus, the chapters in my life unfolded and filled. It was the huge price I paid for pride. With no home, I became a street vagrant. Wolfe said: You Cannot Go Home Again.

For every

New Immigrant who

came to The United States of America

fleeing Political or Religious Persecution,

thousands more came in hopes of:

A Better Quality of Life

for their offspring, their families, and themselves.

Still, the distinctions between those who came

for economic reasons and those who came

to live in a free society were a blurry one.

For many, it was a mixture that

drew them to: America.

Wills, (2005).

Chapter - II

Living With The Enemy

A New Immigrant

living in The United States of America

had experienced tremendous suffering.

Some having fled from: Ongoing Civil Wars,

Political Oppression, Torture, and Tyrannical Regimes.

They came to The United States of America seeking

The American Dream of freedom and liberty,

viewing this country as a refuge,

a Safe Haven from Persecution.

Many were confronted with a society

that was less than welcoming,

that was discriminatory,

that did not provide the measure of

security they expected.

Daily Living became very difficult

even without the stress of mass violence.

Those who had family relied on family members,

even when that was not available.

Straussner & Phillips, (2004).

Embarrassingly, it was often theorized that to know a person one had to live with that person. Industriously, people saw but morally few people rarely knew who one really was; others rarely knew one’s genuine personality and those who knew dare not take a stand with those who did not know, for fear of appraisal.

It was amazing how Life’s Wheels were spun. Deceit was practiced in many forms, manipulation was achieved in many modes, and oppression was realized in many ways while the oppressor’s effective energy hid her / his own offenses.

When I was at an undeclared distance, safe in another part of The Universe, my sister had exhausted her attempts to persuade me to move to The United States of America. She pretentiously pressured me to move into her apartment.

My sister had hypocritically reminded me that she was liable for my welfare. She stressed the need to co - habit and to unite to buy a home. I should have taken it as an omen.

I knew my sister was volatile. Notably, one vital character tried to control the lesser, to a false aim. In the past, her role was to kiss and make up only when it netted her interest, financially. Sibilant optimism would have kept me going way into the future but a Judas Kiss, no less, proved my sister to be: Double - Timing. In reality, I was up against a mind that was, by far, much more devious than mine.

Ironically, on the first day of my arrival at her apartment, there was a stunning outpour of outward kindness. Solemnly, I was offered: Two bedspreads and a Television Remote Devise with the ruling, Feel free to watch Television.

Perspicuously, anything that looked too good was likely too good to be true. I had no Trusting Faith in my sister. I reluctantly accepted the two bedspreads. Until then, I had not watch Television in a decade. Thus, I declined the TV remote. No one could claim that I was: A Couch Potato. I did was watch Soap Operas all day, instead of seeking gainful employment.

It was the second week into the official start of winter. In the bargain, I had Unknowingly Sold my Soul. On a grand scale, I stupidly reasoned that discretion was the better part of valor; it was great to find employment, to work for a living.

The next morning, I was delectably surprised when I was offered a cup of warm chocolate. I knew well that my sister was acting too bizarre to be credible. I came equipped with prepared finger - bits and pieces. I valiantly made excuses. For the instant, my social cup was full and ran over.

Circumspectly, I had no daddy or mommy to bankroll my lavish wants or needs but I refused any charity. I knew, from past experience, what came next, the likely outcome. I knew to what level any gratuitous offer insured.

I would regret even the slightest generosities. I knew it would ultimately become a flash flood and my depth of endurance would