Self Discovery

1. One piece of advice that people consistently ask me about is how to study. I have a feeling that people ask me about my study habits because I am Asian. Just because I am Asian does not mean that I know how to study or have good study habits. Sometimes I will not even know the person and they will ask me how to study. I think this is because of the stereotype that “Asians are smart”. People automatically assume that I have good grades or know how to study because I am Asian. Asians are not necessarily smart, but they are book-smart and know how to use resources as well as do research.
2. One thing that I value the most is free time because I get so little of it. I miss my family and friends. Every single time I have free time I am usually spending it with friends. I will only spend time with them after I get my homework done, but due to the increasing workload my time with them has steadily declined. Even though my family lives close by in Sandy, Utah I do not go home as often as I would like because I am involved in clubs and other extracurriculars. My family has done so much for me and I feel as if the only thing that I can do to “pay them back” is to spend time with them.
3. The worst piece of advice that I have ever been given is to cram for a test. As silly as it may sound, I actually believed the person that told me this. I was in ninth grade and I was panicking about a test that I was pretty sure I was going to fail. A friend told me that cramming worked for them so I should try it. I could have chosen not to try it but at that time I did not realize that different things work for different people and that not everyone is the same when it comes to academics. So I crammed for the test and the next day I failed it. I was extremely disappointed but I had learned a lesson and that lesson was to never ever cram for a test ever again.
4. One thing that brings me sheer delight is my dog. My dog is my best friend and as cliché as that may sound, it is the truth. I can tell my dog anything and he just sits there and listens. After a long day I will lie down next to him or use him as a pillow and tell him about my day. He does not say anything back and he does not judge. I love ranting to my dog when I am stressed or upset and that usually makes me feel better. Some days one of my best friends will not be available to hang out or talk to so I will depend on my dog to be there for me.
5. What makes me unique is that I am pretty sure that there is no one else like me. Sometimes we try to be like others and try and all cool or even do certain things just to be called cool, but that is not who I am. I will not become someone else just to be called cool. I am cool and my friends think so as well. I am the type of person who will put my own needs aside for others. No matter what I am doing if my family or friends need me I will be there as quick as possible. I respect people and I know that makes a lot of people unique, but I absolutely cannot stand when someone is disrespectful. No matter who I meet they will always meet the real me and not a fake me. I will not put on a show just to get someone to like me.
6. What I want to set into motion today is to change who I am. I have an image in my mind of who I want to be. In middle school and high school I was not an outgoing person, so this year I wanted to change that. When school started this year I joined a few clubs and asked some friends how to become more involved with my community. I want to do something I love, gain skills and find out more about myself that was previously unknown to me. I wanted to meet new people and make friends. I realized that in college I cannot keep to myself because college is the time to have fun, make memories and connections before I head out into the real world on my own.
7. If I were to fix the economy I would take things one at a time. There are too many things wrong right now to take everything on all at once. One thing we can start with is education. United States test scores have been in decline and that is unacceptable. To resolve this we could start by firing the worst teachers in poorly performing school districts. Another thing is that our current economy has too much regulation and too much litigation. Intellectual property laws often discourages and retards innovation by blocking the right to use new ideas.  It takes too long and costs too much to get a new product to market. New projects and sources have many regulations, environmental impact statements, and delays. We are cutting off innovation rather than encouraging it.
8. One mistake that I repeat is that I do not listen closely. I am not saying that my listening skills are bad, but every now and then my mind wanders for a couple seconds and I will realize that I stopped listening. I will then go back to focusing on what the person is saying but I will have missed a few points of the conversation. I have improved this over the years by joining clubs and becoming more involved with others. Joining clubs has certainly helped. I was elected board member for some clubs and captain of my high school swim team. Being in such positions required me to focus on what members had to say about the club or team in order to improve it for next year. Getting to know the member of the team also helped because I had to get to know each person to make sure that they had a good time on the club or team. If you get to know a person well you can relate to them and in order to relate to them I had to listen closely and remember so that next time I had a conversation with them it would go smoothly.
9. If I could enroll in a PhD program I would get a PhD in medicine. It is extremely difficult to obtain a PhD but if it is all to be paid for then I will take my time to achieve it. Classes will for sure be difficult to pass so I may have to take the same class a couple times. I do not care how long it will take because in the end I hope that it will be worth it and after all, it is all paid for. Once I obtain my PhD I will make every effort to find the person who donated the money and pay them back.
10. One dream that I have tucked away for the moment is traveling the world. Right now I would just like to focus on my academics. My parents do support me in travelling the world someday but I would like to use my own money to do so because they have done enough for me already. Once I obtain my bachelors degree I plan on getting a good job to save up for the trip. I have always wanted to travel the world because every single place in the world is different. There is so much to see and so many people to meet. I want to experience different cultures and see places that will take my breath away.

Miscellaneous responses

1. I have not been able to keep a New Year’s Resolution. It is extremely difficult to break old habits and that is exactly what happened to me. My New Year’s Resolution this year that I was supposed to follow through with was to drink a glass of water each day. I hate water and I will avoid it if I can. If I am at a party and there is water or another drink I will always choose the other drink. I know water is good for the body but I just do not like it because there is no taste. I am also a sweet tooth so I love sugar. I kept this resolution for a little bit but I fell back to not drinking water within a couple weeks because of how boring and tasteless it got. Even though I know that it is good for my body I will not do it because of the taste.
2. My morning ritual varies day by day but for the most part I wake up at 6:10am on weekdays. After my alarm goes off I lay in bed for a little bit just thinking about how my day will go. After that I climb down from the bed since it is lofted and I will go use the restroom. I then head to the sink to wash my hands, face, and brush my teeth. Once I finish all of that I brush my hair and go pick out what I want to wear for the day. Then I will wait for my roommate to get ready as well and we will head down to the Heritage Center to eat breakfast. It takes us about fifteen to twenty minutes to eat breakfast and once we are finished we take the blue shuttle down to the Union and head to our 7:30am classes.
3. The last time I astonished myself was when I was in Moab, Utah a week before fall semester started. I have a fear of heights but I love hiking southern Utah. A few years ago my family and I hiked a trail called Devil’s Garden but we never got to the end of it because the wind was too strong and I could not get over my fear of heights. But this time I was determined to. We got to the trailhead and started up the trail. The trail has narrow rock formations that you have to cross, called fins and they drop straight off into the canyon if you are not careful, and this stretches for about half a mile. I froze up, my palms started getting sweaty, and I started feeling tingly which is what happens when I get extremely scared. But I told myself that this is most likely my last chance to do this with my family since family vacations will become more and more rare as I go through college. I had to crawl most of the half mile on all fours, which was embarrassing, but I did it. I had never hiked a trail so high up in the canyons before. It was extremely difficult to ignore the tingly feeling and the sweaty palms. But since I was so determined, I finished the trail there and back.
4. My most urgent priority of this year is to keep my GPA high. Academics are extremely important to me right now because how I perform right now in college will determine how well my future goes. As much as I love being with my friends I cannot always be around them. Once I my major related courses begin I will not see them as often because to me my future job is more important. With academics you are spending money right now for your classes in order to do well later in life. Friends can always wait because it is not difficult to make friends and you do not have to pay for them.
5. Fear is one of the worst things that I feel. When I experience fear I cannot bring myself to do anything. An example for me is a fear of heights. When I am someplace high my palms will start to sweat, my body starts to feel all tingly, and I will not want to move from the position I am in. Even if there are railings along the sides I still will not be able to get near the edge. Hiking in southern Utah (as mentioned in miscellaneous response number three) is a big problem. My parents get frustrated because they drove all the way down to southern Utah to hike new trails and enjoy the beautiful views. But in order to get to all the beautiful views we have to hike some trails that involve heights. They also get frustrated because my fear of heights means that we will be spending more time than we need to on the trails and more than half of that time is me trying to mentally prepare myself to start the hike, which after about thirty minutes to an hour usually works. But even then I will take time on the trail to calm myself down in order to keep moving forward.
6. I would most definitely keep all the life obstacles I have right now. I believe that everything is handed to you for a reason. The events and people in your life are meant to teach you something and help you become a better person. The people that are not in my life right now are gone for a reason because they did not make me happy or become a better person. The obstacles I have been through were not easy to get past but in the end I am glad that I went through the experience of it. I would like to get rid of all the obstacles in my way right now but I know that if I did that I would not learn much about myself and that I would not grow as a person. So I will tough it out till the end when everything that I have done and gone through will be worth it.
7. One habit or quirk that I wish I could erase is my OCD issue when getting a new piece of technology. When I get a new electronic the first thing I have to do before I even touch it is to go out and buy a case and a screen protector. My mother told me that I could just be careful and to get a case later but I cannot do that. I want to preserve the life of this new electronic I got since many electronics are expensive. When I do get a case or screen protector it has to fit perfectly. The edges have to be covered, there can be no chips or scratches on the case, and the screen protector has to be aligned as accurately as possible with no bubbles. If there is a scratch or any bubbles visible I will return it and have them send me a new one or have them apply the screen protector again. If they do not get it the way I want I will have this constant nagging feeling that I will not be able to get rid of. It bothers me that I am like this and I wish that I would not be so OCD when it comes to these things. If I was not like this my life would probably be a lot easier and I would save a lot more money because cases and screen protectors cost a lot.
8.  My very first job was being a lifeguard. I had obtained my lifeguarding certificate the summer of 2012 but I never put it to use. It just sat in my wallet. This summer I decided that I wanted to earn some money because I was headed off to college in a few months. However, I had to recertify as a lifeguard because the certificate only lasts two years. So I got recertified and was hired as a lifeguard. Being a lifeguard is actually quite stressful. You have to watch a large body of water and anyone can slip under at any second. A couple weeks later I decided that I also wanted to teach swimming lessons so I obtained my Water Safety Instructor (WSI) certificate. I know was working two jobs, both in the same facility, and I loved it. Teaching made me enjoy working with children because before becoming a WSI I did not like children that much. I always thought that they were annoying and stubborn but I was proved wrong with this job. Teaching was also less stressful than being a lifeguard because you know how many kids you need to keep an eye on. These two jobs taught me a lot about myself. I learned that I am actually really good at lesson planning and time management because I only have a certain amount of time to teach the kids what they need to know.
9. If I were headed out on a road trip right this minute I would pack one tank top, one shirt, and one sweater. I would bring two pairs of jeans, and one pair of shorts. Along with that I would also bring three pairs of socks and underwear. For hygienic purposes I would bring a portable water filter, a water bottle, a toothbrush, toothpaste and some case. I would also bring a blanket and pillow. I feel like these are the basics of what everyone should bring. I am not a high maintenance person either so packing for a road trip would not be too difficult. I feel like living a high maintenance life would make your life somewhat difficult because of how much it costs to live that lifestyle. For me all I need are the basics and those supplies are usually not too expensive.
10. The last time I saw an animal in the wild would be a few weeks ago when my parents and I were coming back from a dinner with friends. We were on Wasatch Boulevard when we came across some deer. Deer are pretty common creatures but many people stopped their cars alongside the road just to take pictures of them. Deer are not that exciting but it has gotten to the point in society where any animal is considered extremely cool. I am not saying that it was not cool but it saddens me that our world has come to be like this. We are destroying the animals’ habitats and I wish we could stop it but I know that that will never happen because we as humans care too much about ourselves. We used to be able to see animals all over and now it is pretty rare.

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