Draft 3

Thai Xiong

ENGL1A

February 14th, 2014

Personal Narrative Draft 3

Writing is not something that I would, on a normal day, in a mentally stable state, find too undeniably as such of an imaginary formidable enemy to which I feel I can’t face it. Relax.  No, no that’s not how I really write, but in pseudo-interpretation it just means that I’m confident enough in myself with my current writing ability to not be afraid of writing. But writing never just came easy to me running with open arms, as I’m sure other people can relate to with as well. I’ve come to realize that my overall rhetoric changes with influence of my surroundings, and who the people around me are. Coincidentally, I’ve moved around quite a bit in the United States, from Wisconsin, to Minnesota, to California. Thus, I’ve been influenced by many different people from many different places with their own modality in speaking, writing, and even reading as well.

Growing up in my hometown Wisconsin, I was exposed to three languages at the same time as a sprouting child. English, Hmong, and Gibberish. Okay maybe just two languages, three just sounded so much better. But for the record, my siblings and parents always spoke baby-gibberish to me as a baby and I picked up on the words. That taught my family and me a great lesson. Don’t speak baby-gibberish to a child for too long; speak proper English so that they can pick up on that, and not the baby- gibberish! As a result I learned to talk fairly slow compared to the rest of my brothers and sisters and I developed speech issues and obstacles. I had difficulty pronouncing even the easiest of sounds, particularly the “s” and “th” sounds for some reason. When school season came, life became say…less easy.

I was looked upon differently, when I spoke, I was given a look of disgust, and not many other kids talked to me. I felt so different, different from the rest, like I was the chosen one to do all things known impossible to man, travel to the moon and harness– well as a 4^th grader I did actually think things like that, but I honestly felt more like an outcast than anything. My brothers and sisters weren’t very supportive at the time either; they mocked how I pronounced words and teased me. One memory in particular I have in mind is how I pronounced “French fries” as “peng pie,” once again, having troubles with the “s” sounds. The sounds of their mockery taunted me for days, months, years. I stubbornly told them to “Tut up!” Stuck in my own inability to speak right, yet understanding everything they were saying, I was in endless frustrated cycle.

I still remember her face, my speech teacher. I had speech therapy sessions Monday through Friday. I would never notice her standing by the doorway to our classroom with her hands crossed, waiting for me if it wasn’t for my teacher obnoxiously announcing to the entire class, “Thai, honey dear your speech counselor is here for you.” Each and every time I had to get up and follow the speech counselor to her office, I looked back, the class would still be in session and the students would still be doing their own thing. And that made me feel so different. I dragged my feet out of the class. After a year and a half or so from 4^th grade on, I finally stopped sulking from all the mockery and started moving forward.

Of course I didn’t let these difficulties sink me down the drain; it had given me a motive. To change the way people look at me, to master my English reading, writing, and grammar, and of course, my speech pronunciation. Before I knew it, my grades in English were getting higher and higher. Soon enough my teacher even used my papers as examples of good grammatical structure to other children. (And boy is that a big deal when your nine years old!) My progress was travelling well, upward bound, but then the divorce between my parents took place. My family split in half, all of the sons—except me, my father took, and all of the daughters went with my mother and me. We relocated in Minnesota, the Twin cities, where my literacy skills took a plunge, for better or for worse I wouldn’t be too sure.

Like a scene from a crude comedy movie, the atmosphere I lived in for the next three to four years was a ghetto block, in poor living conditions, and there was always men trying to sell me the newest “candy.” If there wasn’t a shooting at least once a week, then something was definitely wrong. You could only guess how my new school was like. In respect the school that took me in I won’t say names, but I was enrolled in what I remember as one of the lowest rated schools in Minnesota at the time. The students there were so bad that they had control of the teachers, and not the other way around. The teachers I had were just too out of touch with the children and how to approach them, it seems like they had given up. There in Minnesota, I picked up on the ghetto slang talk, and my literacy skills never improved since Wisconsin—if anything, they’ve decayed a bit. My classmates wrote very, very slang, and even read words in ways I didn’t think existed. Slang words aren’t very professional I know, believe me, but it’s still undeniably a huge part of who I am.

Sure enough, there are more ups and downs to my literacy path, but the main idea here is the experience of different cultures, different surroundings and how people interacted. In short I’ve gained a lot of experience with the multi- modality of different areas, and how one has to work around something. One particular language style isn’t going to necessarily cut it. I believe that this is the mistake that some teachers make; they don’t understand that some messages can’t be passed to a group through without a certain modality. Some people understand things in different ways, and not everyone interprets the same thing the same way.  And this is the key, I believe, to my own success.  Back in Minnesota, while being exposed to a harsher environment, gangs, and poverty, I looked to a peaceful outlet; I started write lyrics, both for singing and rapping. Understanding different kinds of lifestyles, my writing more closely related to the ideas of the community, and I grew a deep passion for music. As with writing, music elicits different

interpretations from different audiences, so my lyrics would have to have a certain format and style, slang included. During last year of 2013, I had conducted an interview with one of my old high school math teachers. He told me that one of the most important things that employers will look for in a potential candidate is their experience with the demographic and whether they could adapt to it well.

 I have that experience in different modalities, as I’ve been close to many different cultures. One option that I’ve considered career path in the future is to be an academic adviser or even an influential speaker. I would teach differently or work around difficult situations, rather than relying on the traditional methods to work. The value of understanding one’s audience cannot be more empathized in these kinds of jobs. The roles that I see reading and writing in my life will be standardized in the form of very formal letters, to business, employers. I also definitely see myself creating influential texts for the next and upcoming next generation of students. On another note, pun intended, music is another option for me as well. The experiences of different modalities lead to much more open creativity in my lyric writing. I’m not completely sure of my major and career just yet, but with my experiences of different writing atmospheres I hope to be able to successfully stay in touch with future generations and relay true inspiration.