Yalan
Dec 1, 2009
Undergraduate / What Can and Cannot Be Changed- Essay [4]
Hi, this is my admissions essay for college. The prompt is "Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it."
I'd like help editing it and improving its content/diction. Does it address the prompt? How do I make it better?
The first inquiry made upon meeting someone and the first thing colleges will learn about me is my name; a five letter first name and two letter last name that contains no meaning at first glance. So what about a name, which ought to be the first defining characteristic of an individual, makes it so impersonal? It's too short. There is no room for the story behind it. So who could fathom that it would take a name change to realize I had no power over my environment, but complete control over my perspective?
On the first day of kindergarten, I came to school as Chau Thy Nguyen Vu. I had anxiously prepared myself with my Barney backpack and Little Mermaid folder in my arsenal, and I skinned both my knees out of excitement for my first few hours away from my mundane life at home. I was excited to be with other kids my age I could be friends with, but I didn't expect attendance to reveal that my name was "different" from everyone else's. When the teacher finally got to my name, I was confounded at how she pronounced it and how funny everyone thought it was. From there, I came to school expecting people to ask if they could call me something else or avoid speaking to me completely. After all, how do we address someone as friend whose name is too hard to remember? After a year, my parents realized that the problem wasn't going to go away on its own, and I legally became Yalan Nguyen Vu before entering first grade. From there, I thought my problems were solved, only to discover that people still couldn't pronounce my name. They continued to alter it for their own benefit, and when Disney came out with Mulan, I was done for.
Although I had considered evasion of humiliation the reason for my name change, I soon discovered that my father was actually not related to me at all, and my original surname Vu had been changed from Chu before I was old enough to comprehend. Both of my original first and last names were derived from the father who was physically abusive toward my mother and unwilling to take care of me. When he left, my new father was willing to take his dropped responsibility, but unwilling to tell me about our lack of blood relations.
Looking back, I wonder why I had stopped caring so much about those who made fun of or ignorantly mispronounced my name, and why I forgave my father figures who, if analyzed pessimistically, were irresponsible or dishonest. I discovered that my change in perspective, not my change in name, was the root cause of both my self-acceptance and the acceptance of both my fathers. I didn't ask for this ethnic name or soap opera life story to be bestowed upon me. It happened, it wasn't going to change, and all I could do was change my response. With my reformed outlook, I see that: my biological father was unfortunately unprepared to step up when necessary, but deserving of a second chance, and my step or adoptive father was a man merely afraid of rejection. His choice to derive my name from his was a transient token of his self-instated responsibility as my father, and today I wear it with pride to tacitly thank him. But most of all, I understand my name is weird, but unique; I have yet to meet someone who shares the same name, even in the Vietnamese community. I know I'll never be able to change people's inability to pronounce or remember my name on the first attempt, so I say, "You say it like this: 'Hey, I wanna mow yuh lawn.'"
Hi, this is my admissions essay for college. The prompt is "Tell us a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it."
I'd like help editing it and improving its content/diction. Does it address the prompt? How do I make it better?
The first inquiry made upon meeting someone and the first thing colleges will learn about me is my name; a five letter first name and two letter last name that contains no meaning at first glance. So what about a name, which ought to be the first defining characteristic of an individual, makes it so impersonal? It's too short. There is no room for the story behind it. So who could fathom that it would take a name change to realize I had no power over my environment, but complete control over my perspective?
On the first day of kindergarten, I came to school as Chau Thy Nguyen Vu. I had anxiously prepared myself with my Barney backpack and Little Mermaid folder in my arsenal, and I skinned both my knees out of excitement for my first few hours away from my mundane life at home. I was excited to be with other kids my age I could be friends with, but I didn't expect attendance to reveal that my name was "different" from everyone else's. When the teacher finally got to my name, I was confounded at how she pronounced it and how funny everyone thought it was. From there, I came to school expecting people to ask if they could call me something else or avoid speaking to me completely. After all, how do we address someone as friend whose name is too hard to remember? After a year, my parents realized that the problem wasn't going to go away on its own, and I legally became Yalan Nguyen Vu before entering first grade. From there, I thought my problems were solved, only to discover that people still couldn't pronounce my name. They continued to alter it for their own benefit, and when Disney came out with Mulan, I was done for.
Although I had considered evasion of humiliation the reason for my name change, I soon discovered that my father was actually not related to me at all, and my original surname Vu had been changed from Chu before I was old enough to comprehend. Both of my original first and last names were derived from the father who was physically abusive toward my mother and unwilling to take care of me. When he left, my new father was willing to take his dropped responsibility, but unwilling to tell me about our lack of blood relations.
Looking back, I wonder why I had stopped caring so much about those who made fun of or ignorantly mispronounced my name, and why I forgave my father figures who, if analyzed pessimistically, were irresponsible or dishonest. I discovered that my change in perspective, not my change in name, was the root cause of both my self-acceptance and the acceptance of both my fathers. I didn't ask for this ethnic name or soap opera life story to be bestowed upon me. It happened, it wasn't going to change, and all I could do was change my response. With my reformed outlook, I see that: my biological father was unfortunately unprepared to step up when necessary, but deserving of a second chance, and my step or adoptive father was a man merely afraid of rejection. His choice to derive my name from his was a transient token of his self-instated responsibility as my father, and today I wear it with pride to tacitly thank him. But most of all, I understand my name is weird, but unique; I have yet to meet someone who shares the same name, even in the Vietnamese community. I know I'll never be able to change people's inability to pronounce or remember my name on the first attempt, so I say, "You say it like this: 'Hey, I wanna mow yuh lawn.'"