"Chaos is considered pieces waiting to come together (Korsomo, 2014)."
butterfly effects
"...small changes in the initial conditions lead to drastic changes in the results (What is Chaos Theory?, 2011)."
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There are probably millions of tiny butterfly effects that have influenced my life, but I can personally think of two specific examples that have significancy changed my life. The first is the story of how my adoptive mom came into my life. While I was in foster care, my biological father moved to Seattle because of a job opportunity. He met my future adoptive mother at a company Christmas party where she knew a lot of the people that worked for the company. They started dating and as soon as she found out he had a child in foster care, she vowed to help me reunite with my dad. Eventually her, my dad and I formed a family. However, my dad still struggled with alcoholism and drug abuse and she formally took full custody of me about 3 years after I was released from foster care.
The second butterfly effect that has changed my life is how I met my biological half-brother. When I was around 15, I posted a youtube video of me singing a Radiohead song in my ukelele. My dad, whom I had not had contact with in several years found the video and sent it to everyone he knew, one of those people being my half-brother Nick. Nick reached out to me because he had grown up with another half-sister that he was very close with and felt that we should be able to have the same opportunity. We started keeping in touch and having spent time with each other several times since we first met. I grew up an only child, so discovering I had a sibling changed my family dynamic and added another positive relationship to my life. |
Bifurcation points
"Bifurcation is a scientific way of saying something splits or branches off (Korsomo, 2014)."
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Many of the bifurcation points in my life revolve around my experience in the foster care system. Going into foster care was an abrupt and unexplained change in my life. Since I was so young, I had no way of conceptualizing how another peoples choices could change the direction of my life. Transitioning into the foster care system was a turbulent time because I was unsure of how to react to being uprooted from everything I had ever known. When I was released out of state custody, I moved to Seattle from Tennessee. I likely would have been a very different person if I had grown up in the south as opposed to the northwest. When my fathers behavior made it clear that he should not have legal guardianship of me, my dads girlfriend (whom I already considered my mom) fought to adopt me. After she was granted sole custody of me, I slowly ceased all contact with my biological father and family. Transitioning in and out of the foster care system and my adoption changed the entire trajectory of my life.
One more recent bifurcation point in my life is moving into my current house. This marked my first time living outside my childhood home or a dorm. I would consider moving into my current living situation my transition point from teenager to young adult. I was suddenly forced to understand the reality of adulthood. From paying bills and rent on time, to remembering to buy toilet paper and dish soap. Although I am not completely financially independent, I am still responsible for a large portion of my living costs, which has been a huge transition over the last year. |
self organization
"The inherit tendency for systems in a chaotic state to form a new coherent pattern (Korsomo, 2014)."
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My journey through the educational system has required several moments of self organization. When I was 16, I dropped out of high school because of ongoing issues of severe anxiety and depression. I worked for a couple of months and later decided that it was very important to me to graduate high school. I reenrolled in school and started the running start program, which is a program in Washington that allows juniors and seniors to attend community college while still in high school. Initially it was hard for me to adjust to the community college setting. However once I started to adapt to the college setting, I soon started to excel in my classes. My high school did not do very much to support full time running start students, so I was entirely in charge of managing my classes in order meet the graduation requirements. When I made the decision to apply for college, I managed the entire college application and acceptance process by myself, from writing essays, to taking the SAT and sending transcripts. Although my mom played a huge role as far as moral and financial support, I have always been the sole person in charge of my education. I have never been more proud of myself than when I was accepted into Western and graduated from high school since it was the result of my own self-determination.
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