my biggest question. does it get across enough/anything about me? and any possible ways to shorten it would be great!
It's a common question: your house is burning down, what things would you take with you? Picking what to take is a conflict between what is practical, valuable and sentimental. What is chosen is a reflection of interests, background and priorities. The items I would pick to take with me would be my laptop, my Winnie the Pooh blanket, and a letter from a young orphan in India. My reason for choosing these items is my emotional attachment to what they represent and their testament to who I am and who I should be.
My laptop means more to me than a means of checking email, going on Facebook, and browsing away on Tumblr. It holds the timeline of my life. Every big moment in my life and many, many small moments have been captured in photographs on my laptop. Photographs are a reflection and definition of self. My family, my achievements, my good fortune. These are the things that matter to me the most. Pictures of my entire extended family in India, my parents proudly standing next to me as I excitedly clutched my 8th grade diploma remind me of my joy. In times of difficulty, happiness is something that can be difficult to remember. But, through photographs on my laptop, I can look back on some of the greatest moments of my life and feel joy as those feelings of elation come back to me once again.
My now torn and fluffed out Winnie the Pooh blanket always had a place on my bed as a child; As a teenager who is growing up, it still does. The blue blanket could pass for a salty ocean for the number of my tears that it has absorbed. It is a symbol of the progress I have made from the young girl I was and the lessons I have learned from my simple growing pains. My most vivid memories of the blanket are the aftermaths of arguments with my parents. As a member of the fifteen year old club, my tongue was always quick to lash out. I was a teenager in high school, it was time for the greatest days of my life and I refused to let my parents take that away from me. It didn't matter that they could possibly be right. They didn't grow up in America. They were wrong. That was that. Naturally, this made for arguments and tears that Pooh and Piglet gladly took in. However, when I look back on our quarrels over curfews and boys, I have realized that it was me who was stubborn. Though we never really found a solution for our culture gap, we learned to respect one another and value the insight that our different upbringing has equipped us with. It's ok to disagree. As a high school senior, I find myself looking back on my blanket as a symbol of my steps forward and my positive relationship with my parents. The blanket reminds me that I have grown up, I have learned to pick my fights, and I have learned to listen, not hear, the ideas of those who are different from me.
My last item is a letter that I received from a young girl in an orphanage that I frequented in my last visit to India in 2010. My interest in making myself more aware of the actual social conditions that existed in places for the less fortunate and affinity for young children prompted me to visit an orphanage several times during my visit to India. During these visits, I noticed one young girl named Latha. She was quiet and reserved, and at eleven years old, older than everyone else at the orphanage. Unlike all of the other children who came running up to me, she stood on the side and not once spoke or smiled. My efforts to engage her were futile. I wondered if she had simply turned bitter with the cold fact that at her age, no one would come to adopt her any more. After my last visit to the orphanage, I had still not talked to her. But, the day before I left to America, I received a letter from her in the mail with a few sentences written in our native language, Telugu. "I didn't want you to feel bad for me" she wrote. I didn't want you to laugh at me because I want to be just like you one day." "I want to command the attention of those in the room, I want to be smart, and proud of being a girl. It is not like that here. I am a girl, so I should be quiet." That is all she wrote, yet those words spoke volumes to me. Her letter reminds me to be brave, and in times of fear, reading it reminds me to always be confident and to be proud, not just for myself, but for the millions of girls in my own country that cannot. So many people in the world do not get the chances I have to simply speak. When I walk into a room and am afraid that I may not be the most intelligent or the most articulate one there, I think of her letter and remember to speak my mind, because I can.
It's a common question: your house is burning down, what things would you take with you? Picking what to take is a conflict between what is practical, valuable and sentimental. What is chosen is a reflection of interests, background and priorities. The items I would pick to take with me would be my laptop, my Winnie the Pooh blanket, and a letter from a young orphan in India. My reason for choosing these items is my emotional attachment to what they represent and their testament to who I am and who I should be.
My laptop means more to me than a means of checking email, going on Facebook, and browsing away on Tumblr. It holds the timeline of my life. Every big moment in my life and many, many small moments have been captured in photographs on my laptop. Photographs are a reflection and definition of self. My family, my achievements, my good fortune. These are the things that matter to me the most. Pictures of my entire extended family in India, my parents proudly standing next to me as I excitedly clutched my 8th grade diploma remind me of my joy. In times of difficulty, happiness is something that can be difficult to remember. But, through photographs on my laptop, I can look back on some of the greatest moments of my life and feel joy as those feelings of elation come back to me once again.
My now torn and fluffed out Winnie the Pooh blanket always had a place on my bed as a child; As a teenager who is growing up, it still does. The blue blanket could pass for a salty ocean for the number of my tears that it has absorbed. It is a symbol of the progress I have made from the young girl I was and the lessons I have learned from my simple growing pains. My most vivid memories of the blanket are the aftermaths of arguments with my parents. As a member of the fifteen year old club, my tongue was always quick to lash out. I was a teenager in high school, it was time for the greatest days of my life and I refused to let my parents take that away from me. It didn't matter that they could possibly be right. They didn't grow up in America. They were wrong. That was that. Naturally, this made for arguments and tears that Pooh and Piglet gladly took in. However, when I look back on our quarrels over curfews and boys, I have realized that it was me who was stubborn. Though we never really found a solution for our culture gap, we learned to respect one another and value the insight that our different upbringing has equipped us with. It's ok to disagree. As a high school senior, I find myself looking back on my blanket as a symbol of my steps forward and my positive relationship with my parents. The blanket reminds me that I have grown up, I have learned to pick my fights, and I have learned to listen, not hear, the ideas of those who are different from me.
My last item is a letter that I received from a young girl in an orphanage that I frequented in my last visit to India in 2010. My interest in making myself more aware of the actual social conditions that existed in places for the less fortunate and affinity for young children prompted me to visit an orphanage several times during my visit to India. During these visits, I noticed one young girl named Latha. She was quiet and reserved, and at eleven years old, older than everyone else at the orphanage. Unlike all of the other children who came running up to me, she stood on the side and not once spoke or smiled. My efforts to engage her were futile. I wondered if she had simply turned bitter with the cold fact that at her age, no one would come to adopt her any more. After my last visit to the orphanage, I had still not talked to her. But, the day before I left to America, I received a letter from her in the mail with a few sentences written in our native language, Telugu. "I didn't want you to feel bad for me" she wrote. I didn't want you to laugh at me because I want to be just like you one day." "I want to command the attention of those in the room, I want to be smart, and proud of being a girl. It is not like that here. I am a girl, so I should be quiet." That is all she wrote, yet those words spoke volumes to me. Her letter reminds me to be brave, and in times of fear, reading it reminds me to always be confident and to be proud, not just for myself, but for the millions of girls in my own country that cannot. So many people in the world do not get the chances I have to simply speak. When I walk into a room and am afraid that I may not be the most intelligent or the most articulate one there, I think of her letter and remember to speak my mind, because I can.