If I had to make a list of all the things I hate, waking up at 6AM to go to work would be in the top five. All I ask is for a peaceful train ride but on one cold Saturday morning, a homeless man decided to urinate on the train. I was sitting next to where the man was standing and if I had turned my head slightly, no doubt I would have seen an unpleasant sight. I noticed people moving away from where I was sitting and my sister, who was sitting next to me, told me that we needed to move and that I shouldn’t turn around. I asked my sister why and she said because someone was peeing next to me and so we moved to the other side of the car. I was so stunned by what had happened, (it doesn’t take much to set me off), that it took me a while to register that a fight had broken out. A large man with black hair, very gothic looking clothes, and long fingernails (whom I had seen on previous train rides) was trying to tell the homeless man to get off the train because he did not belong on it. Naturally, the homeless man remained in the car and when the doors opened to the 145^th Street station, the man with the long fingernails tried and failed to physically force the homeless man off the train. The doors closed, we were on our way to 125^th Street, and the yelling continued. We were held on 125 and then told to get out of the car and move to a different car. I don’t remember what happened to the homeless man but I do remember feeling a little heavier that day. While I understand that it was nasty and inappropriate, part of me wonders whether the man was aware of these legal, but more importantly social restrictions. Was he purposefully trying to disrupt the morning commute to get a car to himself or was unaware that what he did wasn’t appropriate? The homeless are the pariah of society and are often treated as less than human. What people tend to forget is that it could very easily be their family member or even them in their place; it can happen to anyone. This is not to say that I do not avoid getting into cars with homeless people sleeping on them (because I’m very sensitive to smells), but I will never see them as anything but humans who have somehow found themselves with no home in one of the most expensive cities in the US. If they cannot find or afford a home, if they do not belong on public transportation, and if they do not belong in the streets (often being told to move by authorities), then where do they belong in the meantime?

There is no denying that there is an issue with corruption in police forces throughout the United States. Police officers are often targeting innocent, unarmed people from minority groups which creates and maintains tension between the community and the uniformed officials. The basis of identifying someone as a minority is based on stereotypical appearance; it’s based on a generalized idea of what a person from that race looks like. I have been told on various occasions that I do not look Hispanic, which makes me lucky. While I am proud of my heritage and will flaunt it whenever given the opportunity, I do not deny that I am privileged in not looking like the typical Dominican adolescent. My hazel eyes, light skin, and easily straightened hair heavily contrast the frizzy curls, tanned/dark skin, and brown eyes that are “typical” for Dominicans and other Afro-Latinos. In fact, my parents told me that on a trip back from the Dominican Republic, they were stopped and questioned by officials at the airport because they were travelling with a child that had blonde hair and green eyes, which did not correlate with my parents’ features. When I tell people where I’m from, they say, “Oh, I sort of see it now…” But they didn’t see it before, apparently. While this makes me wonder what they did see, it also means that a random police officer also will not see “it”. I am lucky because the probability of me being on the nasty end of an encounter with a police officer is no where near that of my obviously Hispanic-looking family… and that only serves to make me worry more.

The date was Tuesday June 14^th / Wednesday June 15^th, 2016. I had dragged my friend along with me to see my favorite group, Florence and the Machine, live at Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn. It was either the concert or the train ride after it, but I can’t forget that night. Since the MTA likes to mess with my emotions, I had to take a different route home from the one that I had planned. All was well because the trains were packed with people who shared my love for Florence Welch. Being out late at night was already making me uneasy, so the last thing I needed was a drunk man shouting on the train. He fell asleep quickly but dropped his drink which went into where the conductor was. This contributed to what ended up making this night memorable.

I have an inexplicable fear of vomiting. Of course, luck would have it that some man, who was under the influence of who knows what substances, emptied the contents of his stomach on the same train car I was on, only a few seats behind mine. I only realized what had happened when my friend told me not to turn around so I naturally decided to turn around. We were one stop away from our transfer station when this happened. When the train pulled up to 59^th street, the doors were not opening. We heard the conductor reporting some sort of unidentified liquid in the cabin and a sanitary condition in the car. We were there for what seemed like ages but was probably just a few minutes. When the conductor decided to let us out, she came out of the cabin and walked to the other end of the car to open one half of the last door. We had to walk over this man’s vomit and I had the privilege of standing behind him as we waited to exit. Moral of the story is don’t take the D train late at night.

My name, for the intents and purposes of this class, is Michelle Hernandez. I am a Dominican-born, United States citizen. I grew up in Washington Heights in the building right next to my elementary school and I made sure all of my friends knew it. I am interested in studying biology and tutor students at my old high school Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics. I like to think that I got my passion for science from my father, as he studied forestry in Honduras and is the only family member who understands what I am saying when I talk about my science classes. I’m not quite sure what I want to do for the rest of my life and I’ve been trying (and failing) to convince myself that this is normal for someone my age. However, my fear of ending up with a career that does not fascinate me outweighs my fear of not knowing so I would rather take my time to figure it out. I also realize that I’ve been using ‘I’ a lot in this response, so I apologize.

There are many things in that keep me up at night. One of those things is not knowing what exactly my future holds, as stated above. Another is how in the name of apple pie an uninformed celebrity won one the presidential election. But above all, what troubles me is how researchers can narrow down their interest to such specific parameters. I volunteer in a research lab and every second I spend there, I wonder why my mentor has decided to work with this specific strain of strep. My dream is to reach that level of passion for something. Oh! Another thing that keeps me up at night is how people can eat green apple Jolly Ranchers. They’re just wrong.