My Story

Some of us tell stories, through film, music, books, social media. Most of us consume stories through our legions of smart, connected devices. Gaming consoles, iPhones, smart TVs, iPads, laptops, all windows into our endless media experience. But one thing every person throughout history shares is that we all have a story and this is mine.

I was born in 1998 in Alexandria, Egypt. My name is the Arabic translation for the Joseph, after the Joseph from the Bible. I lived in Alexandria for 12 years then moved to Jamestown, NC.

When I first arrived in the US people always asked how I had a very minimal accent and the answer is Disney Channel. I grew up going to an English school so that's where I probably got the grammar and foundations but Phineas and Ferb, The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, Wizards of Waverley Place and the rest of the Disney suite is what I credit for becoming fluent while growing up.

Anyway, I had a pretty normal childhood, my dad has worked for a company called Ecolab, based in the US, since I was born so I traveled more than the average person. But in 2011 is when my story got interesting.

On January 25th, 2011, the Egyptian people started a revolution that had been planned through Facebook groups. The revolution ousted a 30-year dictator and violent escalations with the police led to hundreds of deaths.

Officially the revolution ended when Mubarak stepped down from office but in reality, the revolution's end started a period of extreme civil unrest. Streets weren't safe, already ineffective governmental agencies were shut down, and on a fateful night it was reported that prisons around the city were stormed and that prisoners were released.

That night was one of the most intense nights of my life. My father along with all the other adult men from my apartment building gathered anything that could be used as a weapon and gathered outside the building to protect all the women and children.

The amount of misinformation was mind-blowing and uncertainty filled the air about the future.

That night my family and I packed our bags and tried to travel to my uncle in Dubai starting the toughest trip of my life. The train to Cairo was plagued with delays caused by burnings of government documents and general chaos. The traffic from the train station to the airport caused us to miss the plane. The entire international terminal of the airport was full of people, shoulder to shoulder, lifting luggage carts above the crowds to free up space inside. And after hours on the waitlist for a flight, we finally got called aboard thus ending over 24 hours of travel.

I remember as soon as we got aboard the gentleman sitting in the aisle to my left offered me a whole fried fish with his bare hands. I was very confused.

On our trip my family decided that maybe it was time to relocate, and on a subsequent visit in July 2011 we started looking at houses and schools. However, in August, my dad received an email that the US Diversity Visa Lottery results from earlier that year were invalid for some reason and upon the redraw my family had won and would get a chance at a green card to move to the US.

This post is getting long so I'm gonna wrap it up. Come to find out that the chance of my family winning the lottery was around 0.6%, we decided to move 6,000 miles away to Jamestown, NC.

What follows is the story of an of a kid who learned to navigate the social and academic intricacies of the American educational system and made it to the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, one of the greatest, if not the greatest, advertising, public relations and journalism programs in the country, and it is where I was assigned to write this bi-weekly blog.

What excites me about my story and the stories of so many of my peers here at UNC is that we've only told the introduction and the rising action of our grand plot. Our grandest days are ahead of us and the story is yet to be told.

To quote the great Robin Williams quoting the great Walt Whitman from the movie Dead Poets' Society, ""The great play goes on and you may contribute a verse." What will your verse be?" I always loved that quote.

Before I sign off I would like to inform the readers that I was watching a Vox+Netflix about the human brain the other day and discovered that human memory is only about 50% accurate, so there's that. That is all.

Until next time.