UC Prompt #2: Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
In the past, the attitude of being pessimistic led me to give less than my best effort in solving problems in my life. During high school, before asking questions to my teacher about the lectures that I don't understand, I immediately see myself in the situation where my classmates would laugh out loud towards the question that I asked or in another situation where my teacher would make comment sarcastically for coming up with questions that only a slow learner would ask. That prevents me from putting additional effort to find ways to solve my problem of not understanding the class materials. Since I went through my high school years with this immature and childish attitude, I had to pay a price of not qualified to be accepted in four years universities. But, after the experience of confronting my mom about the issues between my dad and her as a married couple, I was transformed into a whole new person who solves all problems in optimistic way.
Like every married couples, my parents have their ups and downs throughout their 26 years of marriage. But, the frequency of my parents' arguments increased daily especially during the time period when my dad was laid of from his job and my mom became the only source of financial support for our family of four. The intensity of my parents' arguments was too much that the unpleasant loud voices of my parents' yelling from the night before made me loose focus on my studies. I occasionally thought of talking to my parents individually about how their relationship is not helping our family to get stronger in any way. But, once again as a pessimistic person at that time, I saw the outcome of my involvement in my parents' marriage issue as useless where I would be simply acting as a little girl who is interfering the issue of two married adults.
My strong will power of living as one happy family of four came to a test when my parents no longer want to live the way they were living and the option of ending their marriage was brought up. At that moment, I told myself that I no longer can be an ignorant person and finally decided to talk to my mom about how she should act towards my dad in order to save their marriage. During the conversation with my mom alone at the kitchen table, I explained to her the main reason why my dad gets easily irritated by her simple instructions on helping out with house chores is because he is in the transition of no longer being our family breadwinner after 26 years of holding that particular title. Just like I expected our conversation only lasted less than 5 minutes because my mom does not want to listen to what I have to say anymore. She yelled at me and said she was disappointed that I was not being considerate of her situation well enough as her daughter. She angrily left the kitchen table and headed to the bathroom.
A few days after the conversation with my mom, my dad received a call for a job interview. As the family was having dinner in the kitchen, my mom told my dad to reconsider taking that job. Her reason was - it is happened to be a graveyard shift which means it is too dangerous for my dad's age to be driving three hours long on the road five days a week. She also reminded my dad that it is okay to take some time to get a job nearby where we are living instead of driving a long drive at night because his safety is very important to all of our family members. From that night on, I noticed big changes in my parents' relationship. I noticed my dad would always make sure he takes out the trash at night before he goes to sleep. Also, he would put back his clothes in the closes on is own after finishing the family laundry every weekend.
This particular experience of confronting my mom about the issues of my parents' marriage made me proud because I accomplished in making my parents realize how important it is to continue giving each other moral support during our family hardships. The result of this experience motivates me to put my best effort in any situation which can be as simple as raising my hands to ask questions in my classes or dropping by my instructors' office hours during my lunch break to ask for extra help in my courses without the fear of humiliation.
...immediately see saw myself in the situation where my classmates would laugh out loud towards the...
...pay a price of not when I found that I was qualified to...
Like every married couples couple, my parents have experienced their ups and downs throughout
Just like I expected our conversation only lasted less than 5 five minutes because my mom does did not want to listen to what I have had to say. anymore .
Her reason was that it happened to be a graveyard shift, which means it is too dangerous for my dad's age to be ...
... because I accomplished something significant by making my parents realize how important it is to continue giving each other moral support during our family hardships. ---That is excellent, but they still might get divorced. If that happens, don't blame yourself and don't worry, because EVERYONE I know is divorced... it is pretty normal these days! :-) I think the theme of the essay is very impressive.
