Reflective essay on my personal life.
The Sculptor of Life
After reading "The Open Boat" and reflecting back on my life, I realized that I am who I am mostly because of the environment I grew up in. Right when I was able to run and jump, I followed my older brother everywhere he went, most of the time unwanted. However, the time I spent with my brother and his friends truly molded my character into part of who I am today. Fishing, playing hockey, and just "chilling" with these older people, I think, enabled me to mature much faster than kids my age. The most I got out of this period of my life, tailing and annoying my brother, is ironically not what to do, but what not to do. Encountering alcohol and drugs at such a young age actually strengthened my abstinence and self-restraint from them. Although my brother really was a good role model, for he did not drink either, watching his friends smoke and drink really disgusted me. Therefore, every time I step into an environment with drugs and alcohol, I either leave or try to avoid it as much as possible. Furthermore, I think my social mindset opened up when I spent two years living in Korea. Living in Korea enabled me to not only experience the Korean culture, but also respect it. Now, I talk to my parents in Korean, and I am thinking about enrolling in a Korean school class. Moreover, before I left to Korea, I never really hung out with an all Asian crowd, but when I came back from Korea and here to Martin High School, I found myself congregating with both the "Asian clique" as well as the "White clique". However, sometimes I wish that the two groups would combine into one so I do not have to constantly choose between one and the other. Many times I find myself trying to decide if I should eat lunch with one group or the other everyday at school. Although this decision may not seem very hard to make, sometime I think about it the whole class period before the lunch break. Additionally, being raised in a church has really controlled my whole life. The
After reading "The Open Boat" and reflecting back on my life, I realized that I am who I am mostly because of the environment I grew up in. Right when I was able to run and jump, I followed my older brother everywhere he went, most of the time unwanted. However, the time I spent with my brother and his friends truly molded my character into part of who I am today. Fishing, playing hockey, and just "chilling" with these older people, I think, enabled me to mature much faster than kids my age. The most I got out of this period of my life, tailing and annoying my brother, is ironically not what to do, but what not to do. Encountering alcohol and drugs at such a young age actually strengthened my abstinence and self-restraint from them. Although my brother really was a good role model, for he did not drink either, watching his friends smoke and drink really disgusted me. Therefore, every time I step into an environment with drugs and alcohol, I either leave or try to avoid it as much as possible. Furthermore, I think my social mindset opened up when I spent two years living in Korea. Living in Korea enabled me to not only experience the Korean culture, but also respect it. Now, I talk to my parents in Korean, and I am thinking about enrolling in a Korean school class. Moreover, before I left to Korea, I never really hung out with an all Asian crowd, but when I came back from Korea and here to Martin High School, I found myself congregating with both the "Asian clique" as well as the "White clique". However, sometimes I wish that the two groups would combine into one so I do not have to constantly choose between one and the other. Many times I find myself trying to decide if I should eat lunch with one group or the other everyday at school. Although this decision may not seem very hard to make, sometime I think about it the whole class period before the lunch break. Additionally, being raised in a church has really controlled my whole life. The