Undergraduate / "Gurvinder Kaur Uppal living in a white community" -UC app, world you came from [7]

Personal Statement #1- Describe the world you come from- for example, your family, community or school- and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

I know that my essay isn't that good, some parts are pretty cheesy. It's just a first rough draft. I lost my train of thought half way through, and i don't think that i fully answered the prompt very well either. Any advice or feedback is greatly appreciated! Thanks.

It's 7:50am, and I'm late. The tardy bell calls out its last warning as I burst through the classroom door. All eyes snap up to stare at the tall brown-skinned girl as she walks unabashedly to her seat. There's a substitute today. He stands by the whiteboard, indicating that the name scrawled on the board is in fact his own, Mr. Alexander J. Smith. Mr. Smith takes out the roll sheet, and so begins the butchering of names. "Lauren Anderson, Brittany Atkins, Bryan Bullard..." I lounge in my seat. "Frank Rogers, Alisha Sanders, Bethany Stanton..." My expression becomes impassive and aloof. "Doug Tinley, Anne Travers, Michael Uhler..." I bait my breath and wait for the show. Mr. Smith stops reading and does a double take. I can see his forehead crease and his mouth turn downwards into a frown as he struggles to determine the pronunciation of the foreign name written on his roster. "Gerr, Gur, Gurveendaar? Opul, Oopaall?" I wince inwardly at the verbal torture that my name is put through. Not bothering to raise my hand, I cut off the substitute before he can make another assassination attempt against my name. I tell him to just call me Gabby. He asks me how to properly pronounce my name, so I humor him. He asks of my descent, so I oblige once more, and then at last the class moves on.

Living in a predominantly white community my entire life, and with a name like Gurvinder Kaur Uppal, this sort of strange ritual isn't something that I am entirely unused to. So it would not seem unlikely that as a foreigner coming to this country, I didn't quite fit in with all of the other kids as well as I would have liked. I was the brown girl with the funny name and the odd English accent; that was my defining mark. Always the odd one out, I got tired of being the unfitting puzzle piece. But stuck in a small town surrounded by that small town mentality, the realization dawned on me that this wasn't the jigsaw I was destined to fit into.

To travel the globe, experience new cultures, and meet the other Gurvinder Kaur Uppal's of the world; why would I ever think of conforming to mainstream society when I could forge my own tributary instead? My current life in the limited perspective of Loomis makes me that much more inclined to visit the tsunami ravaged coasts of Singapore, the historic battle grounds of what remains of the once-almighty Roman Empire, the tombs of the Pharaohs, and perhaps one day the land of my heritage, the northwestern reaches of India. If only to go, at last to embrace the cultural differences that which birthed my name.

Already have I come to terms with the understanding of who I am and with the knowledge that my name is nothing to be embarrassed of; but such a journey, especially that of one which would so deeply delve into my personal history, cannot but solidify what I have already accepted about myself. True, I still sometimes feel out of place compared to everyone around me, and my name doesn't exactly help me to blend in, but then again, life isn't about blending in either. And if I'm going to see the world for what it really is, without the hindrance of my once inner uncertainty, then perhaps, dare I say it, being the only tropical fish in a sea of tuna isn't such a bad thing after all.

Besides, if the world is full of Smiths and Johnsons and Jones', a traveler by the name of Gurvinder Kaur Uppal would be a nice change of scenery indeed.