Undergraduate /
Personal Statements: "A new journey" and "My chilhood tree" -> which to choose? [2]
Hi guys, this this my two personal essays and I don't know which one to submit. Actually I spent more time for the first one, but because I think the first one's story is quite boring and exceeds the word limit too much (well, it is about 780 words) , I started writing the second one a week before my first RD deadline - Jan 1.
Please comment and tell me which one do you prefer and why. I'll try to shorten my first one if I have to, but please read both of them. Thank you so so much!!!!!
A NEW JOURNEYLast 2010, the ambitious part of me decided to study English to apply for an American college. "Are you crazy?" The practical part of me spurted out. "You've been studying French for 10 years. Imagine how far English major students have gone in those same 10 years." But the passionate and ambitious in me felt I wanted to study English not to compete with others, but to explore a whole new world.
Having majored in French for years, I know reading is the fastest way to approach a foreign language. So to acquaint myself with English, I started to read popular romances by Nicholas Sparks such as Dear John, The Notebook and A Walk to Remember. Then, one day, an idea came to me, "Why don't I translate a Sparks' novel? It would be both fun and useful." I was carried away with this brilliant idea to the point of stumbling upon another brilliant idea: Wait, why wouldn't I also submit my translation to a publisher to introduce myself?
After two hours of research, I decided to translate The Lucky One. First, it was written in 2008, so perhaps it hadn't been translated into Vietnamese yet. Second, all Sparksromances that were already published in Vietnam were best sellers. Third, Warner Bros would release the movie version of The Lucky One at the end of 2011 with teenagers' heartthrob Zac Efron of High School Musical playing the hero, Logan Thibault. How could a keen publisher refuse to read it? They would if my translation wasn't good enough, since I had only learned English for a year. But Corneille said, "To win without risk is to triumph without glory." Alright then!
For the following 130 hours, or 10 days of the New Year holiday, I had to say NO to beautiful Ha Long Bay, NO to big and yummy sea crabs. I just translated, ate and slept. Reading and feeling the novel was one thing. Capturing it in Vietnamese without losing the author's subtle meanings was another. Personal pronouns were a big problem here. An English personal pronoun such as "he" or "she" can be translated into one of a dozen Vietnamese pronouns, depending on the author's attitude toward the character, the character's personality, the relationship between the characters, and so forth. Vietnamese is a tonal language while English is not, so it was also challenging to find the Vietnamese words that carry the exact meanings of the English words but at the same time, must retain the tonal or musical quality of the Vietnamese language. After spending a great deal of time researching and translating and revising, I finished translating the first few chapters and gave my sample to my Literature teacher for comments. "I love it," she said. "I can't believe it's your first translation work."
February 9th, 2011 - the first day after the holiday and I was holding my sample with my Literature teacher's comments in my heart and sitting in front of the Head of the Planning & Copyright Department of Nha Nam Publishing House, the exclusive publisher of Nicholas Sparks' novels in Vietnam. The weather was cold but I felt hot. The lady knitted her eye brows and my heart stopped. Had she already contracted another translator for this novel? Was my language not good enough? My head was still swirling around with questions when the lady looked up and said, "We'll contact you soon. We've been trying to get the copyright for this very one."
I received her email 4 days after. "Congratulations," it said. "Nha Nam would like to use your Vietnamese translation of The Lucky One..." I felt too full to continue reading. I went on to finish the whole novel and revised my translation countless times in the following 3 months. As I'm writing this essay, the book is yet to be published in Vietnamese but I've been offered a freelancing post at Nha Nam. I've translated What Katy Did At School for them and this book will soon be published. At the moment, I'm working on my second project for Nha Nam, Rainbow Valley. The more I translate, the more clearly I realize I love words and literature and the human experience that they show me. Now I know my passion for French, English, translating, and literature is one and the same. I love to learn and discover and feel that I have the heart to risk all I have for my love.
MY CHILDHOOD TREEWhen I was very little, my parents, my younger brother, and I lived with my grandparents. Eventually, my grandparents' two-room house became too cramped for three generations, so we moved out. This was the first of many relocations for my family. At first, I loved moving, as a new home often meant new friends, new neighbors, and new activities. Like most children, I was always eager to make discoveries.
As I grew older, I began having an ineffable feeling whenever I had to leave friends to whom I had just become close. I recall mourning our departure from a young custard-apple tree that my brother and I had planted. Our pattern of packing and moving had begun to feel tiresome. The Vietnamese have a proverb: "Moving three times is as bad as a fire." Each time we left for a new place, my parents had to discard some of our belongings, including our toys. Although a new house would often come with new toys, my excitement about change dwindled.
When I was eleven, I was on the way to a classmate's house to borrow a book when I stopped in my tracks in front of a house. I saw before me the very custard-apple tree that my brother and I had grown. I had lived in that house. The tree was much taller. Under a light breeze, the leaves were quivering. I remembered the days when my brother Minh and I would compete to water the tree. We would even argue about who owned the new leaves. During one of our fights, I fell on the young tree. Minh burst out crying, not because he wanted to share my pain, but because he was afraid of losing the sapling. We became closer after that day, which greatly surprised our mother. We had a secret that we shared only with the tree.
One night, I asked mother why we had to rent houses instead of owning one. Holding me tight, she told me about Vietnam's subsidized economy period, when most people, including my parents, had been happy with frugal lives, making light of wealth. "We had the wrong point of view," she said sadly. I thought about the nights my parents spent at their part-time jobs and their exhausted faces. I realized that they had been trying their best to improve our lives. Hugging her, I cried in silence. Change began to take root in me.
After this conversation, I frequently stayed up late to assist my parents with their part time jobs at home. I later found a part-time job for myself, tutoring French for a 5th grade boy once per week. I gave all of my tutoring money to my mom. We eventually bought our dream house-not with my tutoring money, of course, but with my parents' savings.
I no longer dream of living in a big house. Today, my dream is to start my own business enterprise, the enterprise I clearly imagined on the night my mother told me about her modest life. My itinerant childhood has proven invaluable to me, as it taught me to value what I have, to understand and appreciate my parents' efforts, and to seek change for myself and those I love.
