My Experience In My Life

As I grow older and live new experiences, I realize how my childhood and God led me to the circumstance I am now, which is my last semester of nursing school. I come to appreciate my mother’s hard work to get me through school as well as through life. Growing up in a low-income family in Los Angeles, California with a dad who was a full-time alcoholic and drug addict, was not a good circumstance to grow up. My mother did not speak English or had a job and believed that a married woman is to fully depend on her husband. There were times when my 2 siblings and I had nothing to eat since my dad barely came home with money after spending it all on alcohol and drugs. Due to this living situation and the fact that I was the oldest child, I felt the strong responsibility to drop out of school once I was old enough to work. Education was not an option in my future. Since we didn’t have much money, my mom signed my siblings and me to free afterschool programs at my local Catholic church, so we could learn more about our religion and the importance of God in our lives. I remember my excitement to wake up early Sunday mornings to get ready for mass, even though it took 2 bus routes to get to church. I learned from nuns and priests the importance of caring for others as if they were my own family because everyone deserves the same type of care. Caring was something I learned through religion, and not something I was born knowing. As a way to start fresh, my dad decided to move us to

During the years I was in college I did not attend organized religion unless I was home or visiting my grandparents. I did continue to talk to God and pray however. I was exposed to people of many different cultures and religions and was fascinated by their differences. This was a part of life that I did not have many opinions of my own and I think I just went along with which ever friend I was with at the time or whatever was popular. I attended Florida State University, which even then was big, and there was no shortage of cultural events, lectures and camaraderie among the students. The experience I had at this school was an awesome eye opener and did help me to begin to begin to consider what I wanted to be as a unique individual and the direction I desired my life to proceed from here. I met my husband and after I graduated we were married.

Every moment of accomplishment is success and there is one event in my life that stands out above the rest. I stood waiting in the psychiatric ward of the hospital, awaiting my father’s embrace. I was eager, but not ready to see him after months of waiting and wondering. Nevertheless, my palms were sweaty, arms crossed, unwelcoming to the unknown. This was the first hospital that allowed me to visit my father as a 12 year old because of safety regulations. My heart sunk as I walked into this unfamiliar place. I immediately noticed the eerie aura of the place. The walls were lifeless with no sign of photographs or memories--just a blank canvas of gray. It saddened me that this is where he was staying everyday without an escape. I saw people struggling with serious mental illness: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and clinical depression. It was a shock to see my father amongst patients who were clearly mentally ill. Despite my unrest with this new reality, I have found an undeniable interest in medicine and health after seeing my dad be prescribed many combinations of medicine trying to find the one that would counteract his mental illness.

Aurora, Illinois, a suburb near Chicago with many hills, big and small, and many lakes, rivers, and ponds. The townhouse I lived in was quite noisy at times, thanks to mom and dad. Aside from all the parental chaos, home was home, purple chicken noodle soup and bike rides were what I looked forward to. I loved the landscape and how much of it there was, the sky was always so colorful, the fireflies lit up the city parks making the city seem magical in a way. Aurora was a city that was all about unity, everyone came together for events, clubs, and during tragedies. You would always see a group of people running the hills in matching shirts or a whole neighborhood celebrating someone's birthday.

Starting in my eleventh-grade year of high school, I never knew all the changes I would experience. I attended Chickasaw High School in Chickasaw, AL. It was a little school, which had about five hundred students in total. I did not live in Chickasaw like all the other kids. I lived about twenty minutes away in Mobile, AL with my dad and stepmom. I went to this school because my stepmom (LaRae) was a teacher there. Also, I was like most girls in high school, I had a high school sweetheart named Michael Matthews. I thought my eleventh-grade year of high school was going to be a great and memorable experience until I found out some horrible news.

“Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you”. That is what my dad was saying in the big screen in front of me, quoting Aldous Huxley, next to my mom, both smiling widely and a bit dewy-eyed. It was a video they recorded unbeknownst to me that was being shown at the Jenkins Foundation scholarship awards ceremony; a night that will last in my memory for the rest of my life. An acknowledgment that came almost as unexpected as the realization that I would study in one of the best universities in Mexico. And, at the same time, a recognition that seemed to be just an obvious next step, the natural consequence of all that I had done and worked for up to that moment.

I started this experience in this class with my luggage which was empty of experience, but now, when this journey is almost close to an end, I am thankful for having had the chance of being part of such amazing class and course. I considered every single class as a “stop” where I had the chance to visit something new and get something which could remain in my memories and could be useful for my personal life. From the very first class I realized that this could have been a different experience. I agree when Lily, in the first class told us that using slides and books cannot be considered an experience from which you can take something to grow as a person. Therefore, from the beginning of this journey I took the opportunity to challenge myself and to especially defeat my fears. In fact, throughout my entire life I have been very emotional and rarely I was taking an initiative when I have to speak in public. When first I candidate for the CFO role, I was afraid of talking in front of everyone, but then I took this occasion to give a turnaround to this experience and in the end, I managed also to be elected. During my speech, I used a particular sentence “life is no made of grades, but of experiences” and I guess this class reflected perfectly what I was expecting. I was not expecting a grade from it, but rather to get something which possibly could help me throughout all my experience here in San Diego, but also for my life and working career. Working in the board was an

As an artist would create a new piece, multiple events have shaped me into the person I am today. My life is a mixture of inspirational highs and heavy lows. However, despite my misfortunes and amidst my revelations, one moment of immense personal growth stands above them all - and in fact, it wasn’t a moment, it was a process. My grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s when I was eight, and since I was in middle school, lived with my family and I. She passed away last March, and through her memory loss she reminded me to cherish life and work hard; in dying, she reminded me to live.

I had only left the United States once before in my life. It was a small trip to London with my mother to visit a distant relative. It was a quick trip, maybe 3 or 4 days and I could hardly remember it because it was 12 years ago. I didn’t have much motivation to leave home again except for university. Until I got a call. On Wednesday, April 24th at exactly 3:37 pm I got a call from my aunt Kaasni. This was no ordinary phone call, as we normally had pre-organized phone calls every other Sunday evening and she hardly talked to me when I had school work. That was the deal with my parents after my father left – I could speak to my aunt who he lived with every other Sunday and on certain holidays. I picked up the phone and my father, drunk and hazy spoke. “Sasha my dear ba-ba-baby how are you,” he slurred “you know what, I think you should come spend some time with me, here in Calcutta, get a different taste of what life is like for your old man.” It took a moment for me to process what he had said – he wanted me to see him, after 15 years, he wanted me in his life again. Then I heard my auntie on the phone “Sasha? I am so sorry, your father drank a little too much. We are on holiday here and I hope he hasn’t disturbed you,” she said. “Oh no Auntie Kay, its fine,” I replied, still deep in thought. The line went silent for a moment as I heard her shush my intoxicated father while she held her palm to the phone. She picked up once again and continued apologizing until I

When I was seven years of age my family and I lived in Los Angeles, California, approximately thirty-five miles from the city of Reseda, the epicenter of the now infamous 1994 Northridge earthquake. Many memories from my childhood are a blur, but the morning of January seventeenth is crystal clear. I recall being awakened roughly at 4:30 in the morning when my bed began trembling uncontrollably beneath me. An unexplainable fear took over me, which kept me from jumping out of my bed and running out of my room, so I laid on my bed, paralyzed, waiting for my father to save me. However, before my father was able to find his way to my room, the shaking stopped.

When I look at how different our lives were five months ago so many things run through my mind, “What could we have done differently?” “What could I have done differently?” The week of finals before the end of my junior year I wondered if bad things really do happen to good people, or if good people do bad things that put them into bad places.

Imagine your story becoming the forerunner of someone else’s. Someone you have never met, yet because of one story, he or she found the strength and courage to become a person far greater than ever imagined. A story of unimaginable adventures, lessons, and hardships, this is the story I, Thu Dang, will create for myself and others.

The time was coming near, before I pass I must pass my medicine bag onto my great grandson. I started my journey leaving my home in the reservation where I live. I put on a big black hat with my long black coat, over my bright red satin shirt. I wore my beaded bolo tie under my collar as a formal accent. I had stuffed my boots with money that my family would need to provide for my funeral. Knowing I would not come back I waved to all my friends on the reservation as I boarded the bus to take me to my only living descendents house, which I have been longing to see, and now will get to before I die. The bus ride from South Dakota to Iowa lastest nearly two and a half days. On the bus I mostly tried to sleep or muttered songs to myself, nobody sat near me which didn’t bother me at all. When I arrived I was tired and stiff from sitting for so long, but I was determined to make it to my family’s house. After wandering around the city for a while I had stopped to rest at a large building, nothing here was familiar to me. Suddenly, a large man who had many weapons around his waist come over to talk to me. He was very nice and guided me to the nearest bus stop and told me how to get to Bellview Drive, a street i’ve have been saying over and over again in my mind. I had took the bus that the man had instructed and got off at Bell View Drive. I had been searching for their household by number but when I walked on the sidewalks it was hard to see the other side of the street. So I started walking in the middle of the street looking on both sides as I walked. As I kept walking wolf-like creatures started following me attacking at my feet but I had to find the house so I brushed it aside. Then children started to congregate behind me. I kept walking till Martin had found me and shued my parade away.

It's hard living alone, in a jungle, and your only resources are what you can find. Being a nomad is definitely not easy, especially when you live in a place like Nicaragua. I have no friends, no family, no home, no entertainment, and the only things I have is a compass, a tent, a water bottle, a knife, and a bag. Almost everything I once had, is now lost. More specifically, taken. Taken by the almighty ruler, petar. He and his slovakian army killed each and every single person in Nicaragua, including my family. I'm the only survivor, and if there are other people who are still alive, they’re probably in prison, getting ready to enter the gas chamber. I have never been so sad in my life, and petar is probably feeling the exact opposite. All the Slovakian wanted was power. I’m only sixteen years old, and I decided not to continue on in the pool of sadness that I'm in.

My first semester as a college student is coming to an end. I remember moving in, scared of making friends and starting a new adventure. I remember wandering around like a lost sheep attempting to find the classrooms I would spend the next few months in. All this seems like it happened forever ago, but in reality, it was just three short months ago. Mid-semester, I recall beginning to countdown the weeks left. And now here I am. I made it.