Celine Lang

Mr. Sanchez

English SL

24 August 2022

Rebellious or Tranquil ? ; My Personality and Believes Reveal

​ In my early childhood, I was a very rebellious; aggressive child. I remembered my first

day going to kindergarten, and I already caused trouble. But the one thing that calmed me

down was knowing that I will go home after school. One of my beliefs is about home. Home

is where personalities myself come together. I hated school, but love the feeling of being

home after it. It makes home feel like a paradise, more than ever. Home is where I want to

be, but sometimes I need an escape from it. My mom is the reason why I stay, and my dad is

the reason why I want to leave. My dad and I aren’t always too compatible, and we often

fight. I learned through hardships, from many trips he left our family falling apart. I still

remember clearly the day he told me that I was a “chain'' to his hope and dream of having

freedom. It was my first truth in reality, that things won’t stay the same as time continues to

go on. My mother would always teach me to be myself more than what society wanted me

to be, while my father would teach me to fight for success; and that no one matters. As a

child, I took what seemed like the best option for me, wanting to win, and be successful later

on. I have caused great trouble for everyone, but I am grateful for being alive, and living in a

home where I could grow stronger. Home is where it all starts out my journey of finding

myself once again.

California for a better life, since my education was not great at the time. I start out fresh, like

newborn babies that have to learn everything once again. I was unable to express my need

at the time, and it was quite frustrating. It was a challenge to be in control of my emotions,

and so I try to put up with a smile whenever I feel alone, lost in life. Growing up, I had to

always protect my mom and I, standing up against the harsh reality, even in my own home.

What seems natural, trying to show everyone my “smile” in order to assure myself everything

would be fine at one point. But I realized that a true smile won’t appear, unless you truly

experience being honest with it. A smile won’t show any significance, unless the energy that

is given is what we truly feel on the inside. We humans have great senses, which is why

many people could feel the genuineness of someone’s positivity. I truly believe that a smile is

my motivation to go through life. It is what my loved ones see, and I learned to express the

truth, rather than “trying to”. From my smiles I see in my friend’s phone, albums, it helps me

to reflect the true meaning of happiness furthermore in life.

Another belief I have for myself is having a zone for ourselves. I believe that we all

have an environment for ourselves, where we truly appreciate being loved, and have comfort.

I remember watching a Pixar movie called “ Soul ”, and it truly enlightened me about our

different perspectives in life. For mine, I find joy in reading and creating poems. I read books

and create poems mostly in Vietnamese, even though I also love doing it in English as well.

The language of my people helps me to express more than English ever can, and I find

comfort in my own language, in which I am truly grateful for it. I love how I have two

different personalities in two languages. For English, my personality leans to a more calm,
introvert, and shy person, while for Vietnamese, I have myself as a more expressive,

rebellious, and chaotic person. It is almost as if I have the opportunity to live in a two

dimension, and version of myself. I also enjoy painting, even though sometimes my

paintings come out to be very sentimental. But I appreciate it, because my paintings provide

me a place to be able to express myself. The world is full of judgments, sorrows and I feel like

we won’t ever be able to complete the “ Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial ” statue. It is reality, I

have learned to always accept the problems that will remain for generations. So, it is also the

reason why I always live to my fullest, like there would be no tomorrow. I feel satisfied with

what I have, and the moment I am in at this current moment. I learned that not everything

has to be perfect to make us happy, it is the acceptings, willingness to continue going that

makes us truly happy.

DIRECTIONS: Reflect on influential people in your life and significant experiences you
have had with those people. Select one person and experience with them and write a
detailed narrative essay (a story) about how that person and experience changed your
perspective in some way and therefore shaped your identity. Your response needs to be
a minimum of 500 words, but you are welcome to write more. Begin your response
below the line.

Throughout my life, my father wasn’t really involved in my life, even though he said would

always be there for me. I would spend my childhood alone with a lot of abusive memories. He's the

kind of person who always lies, thinking that he could trick my mom, older brother, and I of him being

perfect. He always lied about being the best father, and always there for us, but it’s the opposite.

Growing up, I always had to learn everything on my own, even when we immigrated to California.

Learning English was challenging for me, and I used to hate it. But thanks to his neglect, I developed

many life lessons on my own.

One is about being cold-hearted. It’s the only way you can survive in this reality, but it

gave me lots of pain and sacrifice. I had to grow up faster than any child, so that I could protect my

mom and I. Growing up, I would always see my mom cry when dinner was finished. She felt lonely,

and painful as she washed the dishes by herself in the kitchen, while my dad went out to a nightclub,

lying that he’s going to work. He would always come home with strong smells of girl’s perfume, lip

kisses on his neck. But I was blinded by his sweet talk. I really loved him, he was my hero. I kept on

perspecsaiting myself that he was truly a great father to me. But it all changed when I turned 9. My

mom, dad and I moved to California during January of 2014. He abandoned us ever since we came

here. He went back to Vietnam and married another woman, leaving us wondering if we could survive
to see the sunrise. No one helped us when we first came to America. For “good” people we’ve met,

they all are fakers in my opinion. No one helps us without praying for a return. There’s just no way.

They all turned their back on us when we needed them the most. This was another lesson that was

taught by my dad when he promised to be a good dad and husband to my mom.

Being strong is the key to everything. I hate crying, in which I never share any of my

feelings to my family. Because I didn’t want my problems to bother them as well. On March 30th, I

decided I want to end all of this pain I have throughout my life. It was too much to handle, so I

committed suicide. In reality, I did tried to committed suicide but fail. In spiritually, it was a successful

process in my opinion. My old self died when I saw other teenagers in the hospital, being way more

depressed than I am. That’s when I realized I took my life for granted, and wanted to change from now

on.

Because of my father’s neglect, it helps me find myself, my identity. Only if you’ve been

there, you can understand others better. Without pain, and mistakes, there’s no way someone would

gain experiences and life lessons from it. It’s all fake, even this world, you and I are fake. Nothing is

permanent. We will return to the ground once we die. All good things must come to an end and we

soon had to return home from our holiday. We all must appreciate each moment we have. My father

shaped my identity in a very harsh way, and that I don’t think anyone would be able to make it. Those

lessons are very important to me, it helps me a lot to be honest. Even though it was a very tough

lesson I’ve learned, I really do appreciate my dad for letting me learn from my own mistakes, in which I

will remember it for the rest of my life. Thanks to him, I now truly know my identity, and realized how

strong I really am.