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.

The idea of flying has terrified me since a youthful age. Being in a metal bird, thousands of feet above the ground, that consumes me from one location to the next safely, doesn’t sound appealing. A pilot, who I could only hope knows exactly what he is doing, has my life in his hands. When I found out that I would be taking a helicopter to prom instead of a nice car, I honestly believed I was having a nightmare. The one entity in the entire world that scares me the most will be my transportation of choice for the ultimate night of my adolescent years.

Volunteering is an important part of my life, so Tulane’s emphasis on community engagement is one reason we’re a good fit. I actually had the opportunity to travel to New Orleans in the summer of 2016 through the Rustic Pathways organization to help rebuild the city from Hurricane Katrina. Even though I technically spent two weeks aiding others, the experience helped me more than I ever imagined it would. Not only did I immerse myself in the vibrant culture of New Orleans, but I learned firsthand about other lifestyles by meeting new people from all around the globe. We celebrated Bastille Day with Romane from Paris, and comforted her and Thomas when the Nice attack shook their nation. As we mudded the walls of ‘our house’ in the Lower 9th Ward, I shared stories about celebrity sightings with Emma from Rochester, and learned from Aidan that the stereotype of rain in Seattle is true. I’m so grateful that I had the opportunity to meet people who would become some of my closest friends while helping those that have been displaced. I was moved by the sense of connectedness that has emerged in New Orleans since the natural disaster. We worked with the Saint Bernard’s Project to bring families back home after ten years. The organization holds welcome home parties for the families once their house is finished, and our group attended the festivities for an older couple that had been living with their adult children since the disaster. Enjoying cake and conversing with the

I have only one life and I will use every opportunity to be successful and accomplished anything that comes my way. Because in reality no one is actually perfect to begin with.

I am ordinary. I have lived in amongst poverty and on the edges of war, but I am ordinary. But let me sit you down and share some extraordinary things that I feel have happened in my life.

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.

Throughout a person’s life, there can be many things, such as friends and family, education, or sports, that help them develop skills to turn them into the person they are today. Without these different skills, it can possibly lead to a lower standard of living, which is not what we strive for. The thing that helped me develop my unique skill set that I can use through the rest of my life, which is also my cultural artifact, is a football. Football has taught many different things that I am able to use during the rest of my college experience, and after that during my professional career. The different skills football has taught me is the value of friendship, self-motivation, and time management skills.

Ten years ago, I was officially a college dropout; leaving Wiley College after only two years was the biggest mistake of my life. Ten years ago, I created a narrative about the type of people who went to college. I made myself believe that college was a place exclusively for extremely smart people who came from nice middle-class families. College was not a place where an African American who lived in subsidized housing went. Although I was enrolled in college and doing quite well, I fell victim to self-doubt and ultimately believed that I did not have the ability to graduate. Consequently, after only two years, I dropped out of college.

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 summer after freshman year, I went on a journey that completely changed my life forever and opened a whole new door to my life. My four weeks in Grenada, Nicaragua, put me in situations that not many freshmen get to experience at home. During this experience, I was able to do lots of community service, visit students at their school, play games with kids, and of course, study Spanish.

I moved around quite a bit as a child and one move my family and I made was to Federalsburg, Maryland. We lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t much for me to do. I joined the towns swim team to keep myself entertained and while there, I met a lady and her husband, both of whom are neurologists. I sat and talked with them every chance I could get; I was utterly intrigued by how fascinating the kind of work they did was. The lady, Gina, explained to me that being a neurologist isn’t easy, but satisfaction fills the soul when helping treat a patient. Moreover, she explained how interesting the brain is, “It’s a puzzle waiting to be put together.” I knew then that I wanted to be a neurologist and help put the puzzle pieces together.

My life is a sailboat sailing through the sea. It is a sailboat because sometimes life can be an easy breeze and it feels like you have no worries and nothing else matters except the moment you are currently in. Although sometimes life can almost feel like you’re in the middle of a terrible storm in the ocean ; everything seems to be going wrong in every way. Once you finally get out of the storm, the sun starts peeking through the clouds; the waves become calm again and the cooling sea breeze hits your face ever so softly. Knowing that everything is going to be okay.

There was a time when i was a little boy, only 6 years old and i had a big fear of being alone or being in the dark which wasn't unusual for a kid that age. I was a happy kid and had no problems in life i just had a normal life. One day my mom came in my room when i was listening to music and said “hey honey, the house is kinda boring why don't we go on a vacation for a day or two” i smiled and said sure why not. I didn't get to explore a lot in the world and it i thought it would be a great experience and have a little fun. There wasn't any problem about going on a vacation right? Me and my mom started packing our stuff up and put everything in the car like snacks, drinks, anything you would need for a trip then we hit the road. We were heading to california up by ocean side so we could go to the beach. I would of been my first time going to the beach because i lived in yuma which is a really deserted place, there's nothing there but little water parks and pools so i was very excited to go to a beach. The ride was gonna take about 2 or 3 hours my mom said which kinda disappointed me but i didn't care i was a happy kid. It was about 10 a.m and i was pretty tired, we had 3 hours to go and i thought i could get some sleep to make the time pass.

I woke up to the smell of crispy bacon and eggs racing through the house. I went to the kitchen to find a small white paper next to 2 bacon-egg cheese burritos and orange juice. I read the note and it said “ DEAR JONATHON , i am currently at the store getting stuff for the house ill see you later, LOVE MOM!!!” When i read it at first i kind of cringed but i just sat down and ate my burritos and they tasted so cheesey and crunchy it was awesome . Once i finished i went into the living room to listen to the radio. We live in a shaft in the middle of the forest and its never light because the trees but that doesn’t stop me from doing what i want to do, so I decided to go outside and play soccer by myself to waste some time. But out of the corner of my eye i saw a tall old creature with a long beard and a robe, he looked very warned out and tired. He walked over to me as slow as a slug, then i ran into my house because i got scared. Suddenly my face was inside a bag and i was being carried, so i screamed for my life “HEEEEEEEELLLLLLPPPPP!!!!IM BEING KIDNAPED HHEEELLLPPP!!” No one heard me because the nearest road is about 2 hours away. I woke up in a cave and saw a man mixing something in a huge pot over a fire , it smelt like dead rats piled up in a hole.