A Draft for the Rough Draft

What I want this paper to accomplish

• Allow me to examine what I am so far
• Let someone know what I’ve become
• Share my brief history:
  o I was born in the Philippines: a country that consists of different islands which results in the country having multi-languages since there’s a physical barrier that prevents us from learning only one language.
  o I was born in a small village. It was very tropical; our backyard is shaded with a lot of mango trees, coconut trees, jackfruit trees, banana trees, chico trees and mahogany trees.
  o Before I came here, I had a farm I could go to, to play, to bask in the sun, to chase my childhood cousin on.
  o The roads in my village are not as developed here in America. It’s made up of very rough gravel so when you trip on the road, before you could say “ouch,” you’ll be bleeding in ten different places.
  o I used to drink water straight from the sink.
  o I don’t really know how to describe my village’s economy except it was well off. Everyone basically had a house they could live in and money they could use to survive. Cellphones were obtained because of necessity. Although it was hot, there was no air condition. We had no such thing as Brink or other security companies which is why a vehicle was stolen from us.


• List all my sorrows and grief which include:
  o I’ve been best friends with Jenny all through middle-school and she now goes to USC. Just the thought that I probably won’t see her for Christmas prevents me from smiling.
  o I just came from a meeting to study abroad, to BRIGHTON ENGLAND!!!!!
  ~found out that it’s going to cost more than $5,000 and my mom’s probably only going to say yes a hundred years from now, which will naturally prevent me from being accepted to go to ENGLAND (!!!) since the program won’t wait a hundred years for my mother’s “yes.”
  o As someone who has a really close relationship with my cousin, it pains me to see her and my parents at odds with each other.
  o My mom saying that my cousin is a bad influence even when she cares for me.
  o My mom and aunt’s conflicting ideas about how someone should become a proper Christian.
  o Not coming with my aunt’s church, although I really want to, because my mom thinks it’s not our real denomination and she thinks that my aunt is somewhat of a fool for going to her church in the first place.
  o I have a problem with Illinois weather—with the winter season in particular. After seven years, you’d think I’d be used to seeing white on the ground and feel as if my fingers are being eaten by the freezing monster, but no. I want summer 24-7, 365 days a year.
  o I had to adjust to living from one house to another four times
  o To be more honest, the fights I’d had with my parents were one-sided. Basically, when they would get mad at me, they just shouted at me. First, my mom would lecture me, then my dad would follow, or vice versa. I couldn’t even shout back nor answer them since defending myself seems to mean disrespecting them somehow.


• Unusual thing(s) about me:
  · I think a person’s hands are the most important parts anyone could have, other than the eyes. They serve so many purposes. To hold someone, to help someone, to embrace someone, to accomplish a goal, to hurt, to inflict pain, sorrow, touch, caress, lift, enfold—they’re just a trickle of what the hands can do.
  · I can’t sleep without my music on and with the doors of my walk-in closet open.
  · I love the old songs: Hotel California, To Love Somebody, Everything I Do, Making Love Out of Nothing At All, I Swear, Total Eclipse of the Heart, 25 Minutes, Bluer than Blue...


• Passages I thought might be useful:
  · Eagleton: “England is sick, and…English literature must save it. The Churches having failed, and social remedies being slow, English Literature has now a triple function: still, I suppose, to delight and instruct us, but also, and above all, to save our souls and heal the State.”
  · Freire: “The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with students, who in turn while being taught also teach. They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow…authority must be on the side of freedom, not against it.
  · Viswanathan: “Under the circumstances, the educational model of the West was inadequate to deal with the learned classes of India…”
  
• Something that doesn't fit in any of the grouping but I'm planning to use: my native language. I might scatter a few words in Ilocano in my paper. Maybe.
  My Apologies, I just submitted this blog because I had to meet my mentor at 3pm and I didn’t get back until 7pm and I had a meeting at 8pm for that Study Abroad Program, which is currently breaking my heart since I know that I have a 98.9% chance of not going, and that didn’t end until 10pm.

The picture is a chico fruit in case anyone's wondering. I don't know if any other Asian countries has this kind of fruit or it's a native Filipino fruit>.<