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
Finally I arrived home after two long weeks. I attempted to return to normalcy without my nurses at my bedside. But I couldn’t. At the age of 7, I was confronted with the biggest decision I would ever make in life. I had to determine if I would adapt to this physical change or let it plague me for the rest of my life. But how and where would I begin?
One thing I've quickly examined from life is that everyone shares at least one experience from life. We share experiences all the time even when we don't know one another.
For most of my life I had not put much effort into my looks or health. I prided myself with my intelligence but was unhappy with how my body looked. I thought it was silly to be so concerned with my mental strength but not my physical. Until my sophomore year I was overweight and did not have much of a social life.
“Still there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have travelled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I’ve slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.”
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.
My life is full of adventures here in El Paso, where I was born and raised. A city like this is unique and different from many other cities because our city is right next to the border to Juarez Mexico, meaning the culture here can differ greatly. The city is unique and special, mainly because of the very Hispanic culture here that has taught me to love my family. The environment here that I have been raised in is based on a great deal of religion, family, and challenging work. I believe the environment I was raised in has matured me to be a hard-working brother and a student.
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.
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.
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.
One hour later, and my life became changed forever. My loving and caring family I bonded with would no longer be the same. The long walks with my mom in the evening would soon become a distant memory. Decorating for the holidays was just around the corner and I would have to hang up the stocking on the chimney without her. The sweet, rich, chocolate brownies she made every Friday night would leave my taste buds empty. Her hugs that made me feel loved when I was sad would now be a thought in my head, and our long talks about growing up and finding my way would be cut short.
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.