What is an academic experience, project, class or book that has influenced or inspired you?
Have you ever wondered? Have you ever wondered if you are walking on the right path of your life? If the path you set your foot on is really "it"? Frankly, I have not thought about my identity until I was confronted with The Pickup in my junior year at high school.
It was not love at first sight. As I generally dislike the required readings at the school, I recall contemptuously opening the drab and tasteless front cover. However, as the saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover" I soon fell in love with the novel. An aficionado of romance, I remember having butterflies in my stomach as I flipped through the pages. The story of a rich, white South African woman, Julie, falling in love with an illegal immigrant, Abdu, presented a scope of issues at hand from the culture to wealth vs. poverty.
Yet, as there always exists a bickering between two lovers, I could not understand why the author had to separate Julie and Abdu at the end of the novel, Julie in an unknown, foreign country with Abdu's family and Abdu in America. It was not until the third time I picked up this book last summer in a coffee shop waiting for my friend that I finally understood the hidden intentions behind their separation: the search for their identities.
As lovers make up after a trivial dispute, The Pickup soothed my anger by enabling me to comprehend the reasons behind Julie staying in a foreign country and Abdu departing for America. No matter how much they loved each other, the love could not be complete if they didn't know who they were, without the sense of identity.
As relationships allow each partner to evaluate himself in order to become a better individual, I took this opportunity to further reflect upon myself, upon my own identity. Like any other child under the influence of parents, I remember having wanted to become a dentist for most of my childhood without a definite reason. Now coming to think of it, I cannot believe how juvenile I was in thinking that the wealth and the material goods I attain from a solid occupation would ultimately lead to my happiness? At this very moment, I realized how fortunate I am to have found my identity, the aim which is to become a human rights activist by studying the health conditions of homeless. By putting down my avarice and facing the world as my vulnerable self, I picked up my identity.
Have you ever picked up? Have you ever picked up a novel that ever questioned your identity? A novel that you fell in love with, had a quarrel with, and made up with?
I did. I picked up The Pickup that gave me a sense of satisfaction, no, a sense of achievement, in assuring me that I am indeed walking on the right path of my life.
thanks
Have you ever wondered? Have you ever wondered if you are walking on the right path of your life? If the path you set your foot on is really "it"? Frankly, I have not thought about my identity until I was confronted with The Pickup in my junior year at high school.
It was not love at first sight. As I generally dislike the required readings at the school, I recall contemptuously opening the drab and tasteless front cover. However, as the saying goes "don't judge a book by its cover" I soon fell in love with the novel. An aficionado of romance, I remember having butterflies in my stomach as I flipped through the pages. The story of a rich, white South African woman, Julie, falling in love with an illegal immigrant, Abdu, presented a scope of issues at hand from the culture to wealth vs. poverty.
Yet, as there always exists a bickering between two lovers, I could not understand why the author had to separate Julie and Abdu at the end of the novel, Julie in an unknown, foreign country with Abdu's family and Abdu in America. It was not until the third time I picked up this book last summer in a coffee shop waiting for my friend that I finally understood the hidden intentions behind their separation: the search for their identities.
As lovers make up after a trivial dispute, The Pickup soothed my anger by enabling me to comprehend the reasons behind Julie staying in a foreign country and Abdu departing for America. No matter how much they loved each other, the love could not be complete if they didn't know who they were, without the sense of identity.
As relationships allow each partner to evaluate himself in order to become a better individual, I took this opportunity to further reflect upon myself, upon my own identity. Like any other child under the influence of parents, I remember having wanted to become a dentist for most of my childhood without a definite reason. Now coming to think of it, I cannot believe how juvenile I was in thinking that the wealth and the material goods I attain from a solid occupation would ultimately lead to my happiness? At this very moment, I realized how fortunate I am to have found my identity, the aim which is to become a human rights activist by studying the health conditions of homeless. By putting down my avarice and facing the world as my vulnerable self, I picked up my identity.
Have you ever picked up? Have you ever picked up a novel that ever questioned your identity? A novel that you fell in love with, had a quarrel with, and made up with?
I did. I picked up The Pickup that gave me a sense of satisfaction, no, a sense of achievement, in assuring me that I am indeed walking on the right path of my life.
thanks