My Personal 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

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.

My heart trickled down to one beat per minute. I slowly realized the different types of people surrounding me on a day to day basis. I asked myself the following question: “Alex, why have you molded yourself into a new person?” Realizing the pace and discomfort my life was going towards, I sought to answer the question. I had lost a genuine friendship built over several years. This loss had affected me very deeply to the point I did not recognize the myself in the mirror anymore. Entering freshmen year, I was unable to enjoy the social interaction which took place around me. Trusting new people became nearly impossible. I punished those who had my best interest at heart, because I assumed they would betray me like my previous friendship. I had also assumed that every new friendship I built had an immediate expiration date. This means I chose to purposefully distance myself in order to not get hurt. The Alex Curry people became acquainted to was a falsified character of my true self. My pain developed my character into a overly trusting person to a person who could not even trust their family anymore.

August of 2013, I made one of the best decisions of my life. Starting college, being broke and alone, I was nervous to see where this path was going to take me. It only took one block for me to realize that I had made the greatest decision I possibly could have at the young age of nineteen. This process has taught me many lessons. I have grown into an educator with a rare look on the world. As I reflect on my experience, I look to the outcomes for the bachelor's degree and I cannot be more excited about my experience.

Despite how average my life has been thus far, especially compared to others, I have learned so much. Whether I was faced with minor complications or major decisions, I had much knowledge to gain. Regardless of the outcome of my actions, I simply reflected on what I had to learn and carried on. Because, regardless of whether I like it or not, time will continue forward, even if I’m not. If not my age, then it’s my experiences that define who I’ve grown to become.

It has been an eventful four years here at Christopher Dock. I went through a lot and I am proud of who I am becoming. I am not the shy, quiet and awkward kid that I was coming here but instead, I grew into a kind, confident and selfless individual ready to take on the world. Thanks to the adversity that I went through, I was rewarded with what I desire the most in this life: God, Friends and Family. The adversity that I had go through was letting go of my past, restoring my lost faith to God and stop being dependent onto my brother Tyler. Without doing those three things, I would not be where I am today. Now I would like to reflect on my growth throughout all of these four years.

It was the beginning of summer after my seventh grade year. The sun was blazing, the birds were chirping, and I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom. Life seemed great, until the next day when I was bored out of my mind and had nothing to do. During middle school, I followed my brother, Isaac, around like a mime. Whatever he did I would aspire to do the same. This was no different when, bored out of my mind, I found out my brother was going to go disc golfing with the neighbor friends. When Isaac asked me if I wanted to come with, I jumped up, ran to my bike, and told him I was ready whenever he was. I had never heard of what “disc golf” was, but I knew that since my brother was doing it, it was cool! So I followed Isaac and the neighbor friends all the way to Northside Park, sweating immensely from the summer heat and from how quickly I was biking. On the first hole, Isaac gave me my own disc to borrow for the round. This sport was completely foreign to me, so I threw my disc as hard as I possibly could, in an attempt to impress Isaac and his friends. Not only did the disc go absolutely nowhere, but I threw it so high that the wind actually pushed it backwards. I felt humiliated as everybody laughed at me. Isaac, however, came up to me and explained to me how discs fly and the proper way to throw. Each hole, I could visibly see my disc traveling further than the previous hole. Every time Isaac saw me doing something improperly, he would correct me and tell me how to fix

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

Have you ever felt like life is difficult? Or not to your expectations? Chances are that we all have to deal with some difficult situations at times. When I was in Middle School I struggled to fit in with my classmates. I have always been quiet and just listened to their conversations. They always had so much to talk about and plans to see movies and other plans such as going to parties and other social gatherings. But I was never included or invited. I remember one day I came home and went straight to my room, laid down on my bed and cried. My mom came into my room and asked what was wrong. I told her what happened that made me feel very sad and cry. A girl in my group passed out invitations for her birthday party to everyone but me. My mother told me that if I had received the invitation for the birthday party I would probably be ignored and they would act like as if I wasn’t there. And she also said “this is a life lesson that I want you to remember, when you invite someone make sure you include the whole group or invite privately. Then she told her story about not having time to be with friends.

My mother perpetually advises me by stating “সর্বদা আপনার সেরা করা,” which translates from Bengali to English as “always do your best.” Taking heed of my mother’s advice has led me to always try to be the best possible version of myself, in school and outside of it. Knowing myself, junior year was going to be arduous as is; I would be studying profusely for my SATs and ACTs, going nights with minimal sleep as I would be taking nine total classes, eight of which were Advanced Placement classes, and further pursuing ways to aid others through my will to volunteer. None of this was going to be facilitated by the added stress of finding out my father had just been diagnosed with having an “enlarged prostate,” meaning less and less time would

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.

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.

Want to know what I did this summer that is different than yours? Well you’re going to hear a lot about it from me in this writing. Traveling in a long hot car ride down to Panama City, Florida is one heck of a ride let me tell you. The hot air on your face as you’re just trying to relax in the back seat of a crammed SUV. The air is so hot that it’s way to hard to fall asleep in the fifteen hour long car ride to your destination. So then you're forced to actually communicate with the people in the car with you, which than you figure out isn’t so bad after all. Laughing the whole way down and jamming out made our whole trip down so much better than it originally was going to be. And than when you finally pull into the driveway of your new

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.

Through my entire life, I have been through difficult times that made me reflected on it and depressed. Situations that make your days hard and always they have a big impact on your life. Probably never forget them. I was not born in this country, I have over three years living in Hollister. During the first two years, my life was not easy, especially the first year in town. I was born in Guatemala, a country in Central America. That’s where my life began. Been in a different country is hard, learn its language is difficult, its culture and try to belong to it.