The Acceptance Letter

My life was settling down. I was making friends in my new school and not getting lost anymore when biking around town. It finally seemed as though I had my life mostly figured out for the next couple years. And then life threw me a curveball.

When I applied to Uni in seventh grade I wanted it so badly. I took multiple SSAT tests and carefully crafted out my application, revising and then editing multiple times. On the day we were expecting the letters to arrive I called my mom as soon as school let out. Less than fifteen minutes later I was starting track practice with tears streaming down my face.

When I was encouraged by my parents to apply again the following year, I was reluctant. I figured there was such a small chance I would get in. And even if I did, I wasn’t sure it would be worth it. After all, what was wrong with the other schools in the area? Nonetheless, I agreed to give it a shot, if only so I wouldn’t be called a quitter.

So I went through with the whole shabang. My mom and I drove the hour to San Francisco so I could take the SSAT. I mustered up some courage and went up to my teachers, smiling face and hopeful eyes, asking for teacher recommendations. I even went an extra step and talked to my creative writing teacher at the time, hoping for advice on writing my application. Still, I did these things doubting whether I’d even want to attend on the slim chance that I made it into the school.

That made the application all the more difficult to write. One of the questions was, “what would you contribute to the Uni community?” I wondered whether I had enough to offer or if I would be happy doing the things that made me unique at Uni. I was confused. My mom had been playing up Urbana High, the school I would attend if I was denied once more, telling me about how many great classes it offered. It all sounded so appealing. But then I thought about how badly I had wanted to get in the year before. What had changed? Maybe it was just my attitude.

Perhaps the only reason I was doubting myself was because I was afraid of being turned down a second time. And so I wrote my applications. But I didn’t write them like I had the year before, trying to play myself up and make sure every sentence was grammatically correct as I wrote. No, this time I just wanted it to be me. I wanted the person who read that application to know me and if they didn’t think I should be at Uni then maybe I just didn’t belong. So I pressed “Ctrl + p”, slid the pristine printed paper into an envelope, and sealed it.

In the months that followed, the application was a constant nagging in the back of my mind. I came home eagerly everyday from school after Uni sent out their responses, anticipating the long awaited letter. When at last it arrived, my parents saw it first and handed it to me. The moment I saw the envelope my heart stopped. Large and white, different from that of last year.

A mixture of what must have been disbelief, shock and ecstasy beyond words flooded over my senses as I cautiously tore open the envelope. I read the first words on the top page. I did it. I really did it. I was afraid to close my eyes, afraid I’d awake from a dream. Everything I had done not just this year but the year before as well came to mind as I thought about my disappointment a year ago. But I had come a long way from then and this letter proved that. And as I finished reading the acceptance letter in my hands, I started a new chapter of my life.

A Kind of Mix

We’ve all seen all those tv shows with the melodramatic family members and their problems that seem a little too ridiculous to be real. Well sometimes I think my family could very well be in one of those shows. Between my mother, father, sister and me, there’s plenty of drama and irrational problems to go around. Firstly there the rational one, my mother. Think the character who’s always kind of banging her head on the table because of what the people around her are up to. Then there’s my father - classic Asian parent with the whole “always get A’s” and “I’m the head of the household” mentality. This, of course, doesn’t usually play well with the rebellious one in the house, my sister, Tiffany. If the family wants spaghetti for dinner you can be sure she’s going to demand Subway instead. And then there’s me - kind of a mix of all of these people.

This fact is particularly obvious in simple everyday issues. See, Tiffany complains that I act like mom sometimes. I try to be the voice of reason when my sister presents me with her “I absolutely NEED a boyfriend” complaints (she just started her freshman year of high school so I guess the boys got cuter). When I try to convince her that she’s a strong independant woman and doesn’t need a man and all those things that basically all Disney princess movies except Frozen go against, I feel like I’m emulating my mother. She would often tell me the same thing growing up, about learning to be independent as an individual. Those teachings have somewhat embedded themselves into my ideology now, making my mother very much a part of who I am.

My father’s ideology, on the other hand, has been translated to me in another way. For as long as I can remember he has always drilled into me that anything I want, I have to work hard for. That means diving head first into whatever I’ve set my sights on and not stopping until I have it within my grasp. As gruelling as it is sometimes, admittedly this frame of mind has helped me to achieve many of my personal goals that I don’t think I would otherwise have achieved. One of such cases was in third and fourth grade when I had to take these timed multiplication math tests every week. It wasn’t long before my father caught wind of the fact that I was struggling and intervened. We made a giant poster board covered in the entire times table with brightly colored post-its sticking everywhere, and for weeks that I practiced with it. By the end of the year I had made a class record for the fastest person to have done 60 questions (my one and only math related accomplishment).

And then there’s my beloved sister. Anyone who knows us both can pretty much vouch for the fact that we’re essentially opposites. She’s pretty outgoing and plays volleyball. I, on the other hand, prefer to stick to a close pod of people and have zero eye-hand coordination whatsoever.  All this means that there isn’t a whole lot of stuff I can do with her anymore, since playing with stuffed animals and barbies isn’t really on either of our agendas anymore. However, on the rare occasions that we decide we would like to congregate peacefully I realize that I can see parts of myself in her as well. She often voices frustration and anger about subjects that matter to her in a manner similar to my wild internal rants to myself. Though I’m more reserved about how I express my opinions, it’s hard to deny that we do have similar opinions on issues such as crazed internet commentators, dad’s cooking, and of course, the struggles of mathematics.

There’s a saying, that goes something like “we’re all a product of our environment”. I am no exception to that. I’m the middle man, the bit of everything, the kind of mix of everyone in my family and that makes my role in the family all the more unique.
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I apologize for the strange spacing. Still trying to fix that!