Overcoming Obstacles: A Short Story

August 27th, Sometimes you just to need to know the facts, and at other times, you will need to put on your best act.

In my culture, society looks down at mental illness and when news of mental illness gets out in the society, one’s reputation is pretty much destroyed. My elder brother, Imran, was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was a teenager. My family was still living in Bangladesh at the time and my brother’s illness was treated as a secret by my parents. My parents went above and beyond to hide my brother’s illness because we come from a culture that is quick to condemn parents for their children being abnormal, my family felt very protective of the fact that we had mental illness in our family. Family visitation and guests in our home were strictly monitored by my mother and my siblings and I were coached to make excuses for my brother. My brother’s illness shaped me as a person because I realized that I needed to be able to overcome the obstacles life throws in my way in order to take care of my family.

Starting my second semester in Modern I, I was really excited to see what new things I would learn and what new goals I needed to set for myself. I was definitely ready to push myself and work even harder than the semester before. During my second semester I set only two new goals and kept one from first semester. The two goals that I set included, getting stronger in my inversions and watching the alignment of my hip. The goal that I kept from last semester was making sure that I was coming to class alert and ready to work. After second semester mid-term, I started to work a lot on building strength in my arms. During class, Professor Hapke would always come over to me and fix my arms while I was in downward dog. To make sure I was gliding

One time I had to overcome adversity is when I had an AP bio test. This was the third or fourth big test we had taken in the class and the last test before the second quarter began. The week before the test I procrastinated studying until the very last night. The night before the test I knew I had to buckle down and study for at least a couple of hours.

Booker T. Washington once wrote “Successes isn’t measured by the position you reach in life. It’s measured by the obstacles you overcome” An obstacle I had to face and overcome would be the time I injured my ankle. How did I overcome this obstacle you may ask? I overcame this obstacle by being positive and having a good attitude, almost every step of the way.

Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down And I’d like to take a minute, just sit right there i’ll tell you all about it (Fresh Prince of Bel Air). I’ll be telling you about how I went from not going to school and struggling to going and being involved. On my journey I went through some obstacles just like anyone else. Here’s the story on my journey and obstacles.

My family and I resettled in the U.S when I was 16. Although the migration to U.S ended my childhood memories, it was an opportunity for me to shine and develop the potentials, credibility and expertise to succeed in life. My past life has always been an inspiration to me to excel in any discipline so that, I can surpass the generational dogma and extreme vulnerability my family has experienced back in Vietnam. I am among the first generation in my family to attend university. As a student from an immigrant family with limited education and awareness, things were extremely hard for me at the beginning however, as time passed by, everything started to fall into place and I am enjoying my junior year at college pleasantly so to speak.

He tied his boat off and started to climb the cliffs. He knew that no one had lived to tell what was behind the cloud, but still he climb. He told himself that he was going to climb to the top. And he knows that if he was going to make it to the top he was going to have to push himself to his limits. But as he got higher the cloud got thicker and thicker. When he was about half way up he noticed a ledge, and the first thought that came to him was I can take a breather and sit on that ledge. The only problem with that was that there were tons of spiders covering the little ledge. But those spiders did not scare him so he just brushed them off. After an hour he ran into a chunk of rock that he could sit on. So he did and his arms were so tired.

Out of my 35yrs of life I have ovecame so many obstacles. Being a struggling single parent, and just not satisified with how my life was going there are so many that I can talk about but these three where my biggest obstacles. But with my praying family I was against all odds.

Hey there I’m an oxygen molecule. I am in the air you breathe ,but they are other things beside me in the air. I only make up 21 % of air you breathe. The other things that are in the air you breathe is nitrogen and other small gases like methane carbon dioxide and argon.

It all started when I went back to public school, I knew I was different from all the other kids, no one liked me, I had no friends, everyone made fun of me, and I hated it. It was the first day of sixth grade and I was excited, but I knew that I needed to make new friends because I left all my friends at my other school. I wasn’t smart, so I had to be put in the regular classes with all the bad kids. They weren’t smart and they didn’t care about school, but I just had to deal with it. Almost every day someone asked me why I was in the regular classes, all I said was that I’m not that smart, they made fun of me, and it hurt me. It kept getting worse, I couldn’t make friends because everyone would bully me and call me names.

I am finally a middle schooler! The girls who beat me up in 5th grade, went to Jefferson. And I, went to Syringa. Old customs really changed. I didn’t have any friends. And I was deemed “depressed.” Things weren’t going well at school, I started to fail my classes. I was not very social, and I continued my negative habit of cutting myself. I hid it well, though, because I was embarrassed, I felt weak. I mean, I had people I sat with, and talked with at school. But I had nobody I hung out with or talked to outside of school.

When I was in the third grade I felt as if I didn’t fit in anywhere. During the third grade I always felt very different than the other kids. I remember begging my mom not to make me go to school because I didn’t want to feel out of place. I had gone to three different schools before going to East Somerville Community School. My parents were trying to find the town that had the best education system. I didn’t move for my parents job or anything like that, just simply to go to a better school. I normally didn’t have a problem making new friends, I usually made a bunch of friends just on the first day. I usually adapted to the school easily.

As a child, I had always been the outcast. I would find myself hiding in the bathroom during recess to avoid the embarrassment when kids wouldn’t let me play with them. I sat at a table at lunch with a group of kids who were rejected by the others as well. No one wanted me in their cliques. My peers would make fun of me because I had a speech impediment or because I was a lot taller and chunkier than the average fourth grader. Everyone avoided talking to me, unless it was to make fun of me. Teachers were my only friends which made people hate me even more, calling me the “teacher's pet”. I will admit I was a very awkward child, but regardless I was a child who felt abandoned and worthless. I didn’t look or talk how everyone else did and since I was different, I was rejected.

I Entered the high school for my first day of high school. I looked up to everything and everyone. I was standing just over five feet tall but felt about three feet tall on that day. I felt like I didn’t belong and was completely misplaced. I didn’t belong physically but mentally I fit just fine. I took the ACT that year and managed to pull a 21 which is above national average. My intelligence has never really been a problem at any level. I just never felt like I belonged socially. First off I didn’t even weigh one hundred pounds. I was mentally afraid of other kids who were double my size.