one sister writes about the other two

Jasmine El-Jourbagy
ENGL 1101
September 17, 2007
Essay 2 Draft 1

Influence in human lives is everywhere from a leader showing a group how to be an efficient in a task, or to a child wanting to be like their parent. Comparing two individuals is only natural for humans; this can be similar in the way that we like to compare which pair of jeans is better to buy. My two older sisters are both influential in my life, but I do seem to compare them both when asking for advice from either of them. They both have different views on many things such as life, work, and even something as typical as today’s trends and style but that is what makes my sisters original.

Both of my older sisters were born in Canada, but they only lived there for an early portion of their lives. They both look nothing alike; the older of the two, Natalie, has gorgeous blue/grey eyes and is the only one in the family with this fair feature; she also has a lighter hair color than the rest of us, for she takes after our mother. The younger of the two, Jehan is the shortest sibling in our family and has beautiful long brown hair and dark brown eyes. Both have opposite personalities and they both cannot compare to each other. They are both very strong-minded and have always told me what is right and what is wrong in life.

They are both very successful in their job fields. My eldest sister is thirty-three and is now working for Hilton Hotels in Portland, Oregon, as a Senior Sales Manager. She recently moved to Portland, Oregon, after living in Dunwoody, Georgia, for about seven years; she also worked for different hotels when she still lived in Georgia. Jehan is just twenty-nine and has a job that is quite interesting; she is a local lawyer and practices all types of law. She recently graduated from Georgia’s law program in the spring of 2003, but she also studied at The University of Oregon and at The American University in Cairo, Egypt. My sister, Natalie, went to a private college in Atlanta and graduated in 1993. She has a degree in chemistry and is well educated in math.

My earliest memories of my sisters are during family holidays. They always seemed to be there either playing with me and my brother, Rami, or just talking to us even though we were so much younger then both of them. My sisters always tell my brother and I that they always recall us running around or being inside a playpen in the living room of our house or managing to escape the wrath of bed time and running all around the house at certain hours. They always tell us stories about how we had always watched certain movies every day for certain periods of time, such as Peter Pan for this seemed to grate at their sanity.

Natalie was in college before I even started to go to kindergarten, and I vaguely remember her being around or involved with the family when she did come home. I do remember having this matching dress with her though and taking a picture in the yard one day. Our dog then, Chester, who would be jumping all over me, but my sister always kept him away from me, because at that age, I was afraid of anything that was bigger than me.

Jehan on the other hand was in high school still while I went to school and always seemed to be around helping me and my brother or taking care of us while our parents went out for a night. Though that was not often because she was involved in school activities and preparing herself for high school. I also remember her being a camp counselor at Rock Eagle. This was prominent because I remember going to visit her and seeing her perform random skits and songs and thinking my sister is the coolest.

While I was in elementary school, I remember going to visit both sisters at their respective locations. Natalie was working as a chemist at some company in Atlanta if I remember correctly. But I always remember going swimming at her apartment whenever my family would visit that location. The summer was always the time that we would often visit her down in Atlanta, and the time spent there was always enjoyable. Jehan was still in college during this time, so my family would always go visit her at the dorms or go to see her at a football game since she was in Georgia’s Redcoat Marching Band. This was something that was memorable to me and made me enjoy being part of a marching band and one of the main reasons of why I am still part of one today.

My two sisters always get into arguments because they both do not have the same personalities. While Jehan is opinionated and a leader Natalie is a follower and carefree so naturally they both seem to argue of over silly simple little matters. The older that they have gotten though, the less they have both argued. This is because they are both able to understand each other’s points of view better.

The age difference between us does not make a difference even today we all still talk at least once a month, or even every six months because we all know siblings have those crazy arguments. When we all get together during the holidays, we end up all having a great time talking and laughing about stupid things that may have happened in our lives. Sometimes though during the holidays when we are all at home two of us will ganging up against the other and we will have an all out argument like war which will cause us to be laughing by the end of the day because of how odd our arguments can turn out when we gang up together. Recently I have been able to have better conversations with both of my sisters. This is because we are starting to have more shared experiences and I am able to understand more of what I may talk about with them because I am older and have more insight into what I am able to understand.