My Experience In My Life

Sixteen years old can be a very confusing age in any person’s life. We’re expected to act like adults but get treated like children, the age we begin to prepare ourselves for our last year of high school, the year we start to look into colleges we want to attend and what it is we want to do with our lives. But for me it was the age when my parents thought they would lead separate lives.

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

“Tough times don’t last, tough people do” - Julian Edelman. Throughout life I have overcome obstacles that seemed almost impossible to conquer. Crying, fighting, searching for a way out of my life that has haunted me for eighteen years. I thought I would never live to see this age, but here I am today, standing tall and proud amongst others everyday. The lessons I have learned and experiences I have gone through have built my character, gave meaning to my visits back home, and have helped me find ways to keep myself busy with free time.

The story began about a year and some months ago. Early in the Fall 2016 semester, I met a girl named Ann through a friend of mine. My first impression of Ann was that she was very pretty, but she talked a lot. I mean a lot! After I met her, the three of us began to hangout a couple of times each week. Even though she talked a lot it was fun having her around because of the energy she brought to any situation. At first, I felt that being around her drained my energy, but I eventually got accustomed to it, and grew to feed off it.

On August 2, 1999, I was born on a Monday afternoon, at 2:30 p.m, in Hospital Conde De S. Januario. My family resided with my grandmother at Rua Formosa, Apartment 7 on the first floor. She lived behind the Cathedral of Macau, which is a famous landmark and tourist attraction. While my brother, Salman, and I were growing up, we attended the same pre-schools. One of the schools was called Seng Kung Wui. In the morning, all the grades would line up and wait for the teacher to come escort them upstairs to the classroom. I could barely last an hour without being with my brother, and I would cry if he didn't stand in my grade’s line. As a result, Sal started waiting in my line with me, until my teacher came to get my class. After I went upstairs, he would run back to his line to be with his friends. Almost everyday we wore matching outfits, and he would hold my hand while we walked inside because I did not want to be alone. After school, our Avo (grandma in Cantonese), would take us to play in the Sao Francisco Park, get ice cream, or walk through the markets to get our daily groceries. I can still remember walking through the streets and taking in all of the sights, smells, and sounds. I loved the strong aroma of spicy fish ball soup or the overwhelming scent of cigarette smoke that filled the air. The markets were filled with countless friendly faces and a wide variety of merchandise waiting to be sold.The voices of locals bartering over prices and motorcycles racing down the

"Take a moment to think of just flexibility, love, and trust," has been my mantra for this whole senior year. It’s something I try to think about when I decide anything important in my life. Rather it’s setting goals for myself, procuring different interests, or choosing in right college, thinking about flexibility, love, and trust is how I try to keep my mind straight for the next couple of years.

Suddenly, I was awakened and violently thrown towards the front of the airplane. My eyes shot open and I blinked three or four times to adjust my dry, out of place contact lenses. The light bothered my sensitive eyes but I was too nervous to even think about shutting them. I spread my arms and legs creating a human starfish, contracted my stiff muscles, and let out a tiny grunt. I stood up from the same seat I was acquainted with for nine hours. When I rose to my feet, something felt strange, something felt different, something felt out of the ordinary. I quickly realized, I was standing at the London Heathrow Airport about to embark on, what I originally thought would be, the most miserable trip of my life.

As I boarded the charter bus to my second year of Unidiversity (an annual summer youth trip in Tennessee), I could not begin to imagine the person I would become as a result of this trip. As a teenager going into my last year of middle school, I was determined to have the time of my life. I wanted to have fun, make a better connection with friends, play games, laugh, and really enjoy the time with my leaders and friends. At this point in my life, I was hiding a dark secret that only two other people in my life knew about; I was bisexual. As an almost eighth grader, I was comfortable with my sexuality, but I didn’t know how to explain it to others, and although I knew my friends would accept me for who I was, something was holding me back. I would walk around hiding behind I mask that I thought was permanent, a mask that told everyone that I was one thing, when I was really another. Little did I know that I was about to rip off the mask, and show my true self for the first time in my life.

It is not too long ago that I decided to become a pharmacist. I lived in South Korea most of my life. Back then, I had no idea what I wanted to be other than thinking about immigrate to the United States. I had chance to visit my uncle’s college graduation when I was a little boy and I only dreamed about living in the U.S ever afterward. For example, I decided to go to nursing school simply because there are more chances to move to the U.S as a nurse. The problem was I did not do well in terms of academic performance because I only thought about how to move to the U.S. Additionally, I admitted to hospital couple of times because of a pneumothorax so my gpa bottomed out.

Have you ever wondered why amazing things happen to you? I have. To have something happen to you in a way that you cannot explain is kind of like a miracle. During my childhood, I experienced a series of events that really marked my life completely. Have I spoken to anyone about them? Yes, but I have not gone into details of these happenstances. The details, which I have not told anyone before, are the most important parts of this narrative since you will understand the significance of their correlations. They marked me completely and forever made me strong.

Maya Angelou once said, “What is the fear of living? It’s being preeminently of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility of yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don’t know what you’re here to do, then just do some good.” Everyday I think about everything I went through while growing up and forming into the person I am today. Going through all the experiences I have gone through, I didn’t realize how much they would impact me today and serve as lessons. Today I am a freshman in college. I did not think I would make it this far. The precious gift of life is to enjoy every moment as if it is your last.

My life, or perhaps in the manner that I perceive it, has been overwhelmingly filled with enlightening and repressive circumstances that could have been averted, but all in all, makes up one's destiny. These events intricately tailored me into a young man that grew conscientious of the detrimental behavior of “acting before thinking” and into the realm of “thinking before acting". What I would soon come to understand was that through sheer patience, and trial-and-error it instilled within me new insights to learn from and that the most triumphant moments in my life began at the crossroads of unknowingness, a decision to stay in mediocrity, or the pursuit towards personal greatness- thus the decision had to be met.

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 never ending days of summer were quickly winding down. It was that time of year again. That time where every kid dreads waking up early every day. Where we have to sit on hard as rock chairs for hours. Eat foods that look and taste like a mixture of foreign cuisines together in a bowl. My fulfilled summer adventures were now just a mere distant memory like that old shirt tucked away at the bottom of a drawer to be never seen again. Now I have to face reality; it was my final year as a high schooler.