The Neighbors

Who am I? That’s an easy one. My name is Rita , but most people call me Nicole. I live in California. I have a Filipino background in which I speak and understand the language fluently. My hobbies include dancing, which I’ve done for nine years and of course, shopping, which I’ve done all my life. But this essay isn’t supposed to be a typical autobiography; it’s supposed to define myself, define who I am, define who and what has made me into who I am today. But to completely define myself is impossible. I could only give you a few adjectives of what I am today, and leave you with empty pages of who I will be in the future. But I could give you novels on who in my past has made me into what I am today. When I think of the past, the first thing that comes to my mind is Marbella Avenue Carson, CA, where I met my best friends at the age of three and how they’ve contributed to who I am.

“Would you like some ice cream?” I asked her. She replied “No thanks, I’m allergic.” That’s when I first my Angeline, one of my three best friends. Her family came to greet my family since we just moved into the neighborhood. And no, she’s not allergic to ice cream; she just lied to me because she didn’t like the flavor I was offering her. Angeline was the first of my best friends that I met. After only a couple of days of knowing each other, Angeline and I were the first two members of the forming group called “The Neighbors”. As we grew up together, Angeline has greatly impacted my life. She taught me patience, kindness and reliability. Her friendship has contributed to my life in so many great ways. Angeline is truly a great friend.

I remember riding my bike with the training wheels still attached as I thought to myself, “I need to learn how to bike without training wheels. Training wheels are for babies.” As I continued my bike ride, I saw a boy also riding his bike, but without training wheels. I wondered who he and if maybe he could teach me how to bike without training wheels. When he was taking his helmet off, my jaw dropped. It was a girl. Angeline walked up to her and I biked towards them. That’s when I first met Rhyna, another one of my three best friends. At a young age, Rhyna was a tomboy, always doing what the boys do. Although Rhyna was a tomboy, she always pushed me and helped me overcome many fears. Rhyna taught me how to ride a bike without training wheels, how to rollerblade, and how to skateboard. She’s contributed both athletic and mental things to my life today. Without her, “The Neighbors” would be incomplete.

The last of the neighbors is Lorraine. She’s the youngest out of all of us by one year. She’s also the smallest of us at four feet and nine inches. When we were younger, Angeline, Rhyna, and I absolutely despised Lorraine. Since Lorraine was so little compared to us, she felt that she had to be arrogant and bossy to us so that we wouldn’t walk all over her. Lorraine and I would fight over almost everything. But today, Lorraine has grown into my best friend. Lorraine has taught me loyalty, honesty, trust, and many more. She’s impacted my life more than any friend ever has.

“The Neighbors” have been my best friend before I even knew what a best friend was. They are all responsible for helping to shape me into who I am today. In our fifteen years of friendship, we’ve shared many tears, laughter, and sorrow. I cannot define myself by just throwing out a couple of adjectives that describe the way I act, talk, or dress. But I can define my past and how it is defining me today.

Pain and Pleasure

There are many things in the world that are pleasurable, yet painful. Reasons why some things are pleasurable and painful are because you are doing something you don't want to do, but it will benefit you in the future. One of those things for me is dorming at school.

Dorming is pleasurable because it's the first time I get to be away from my parents and have freedom. I am an only child, and my parents are very over protective. I have lived at home with them until this year. I have a driving curfew and a curfew with friends. My parents always nag at me to clean my room, wash the dishes, and set the table. But now since I dorm, I have a lot more freedom and time on my hands. No one tells me to fix my bed or clean my room. I can go wherever I want to, whenever I want to, with whomever I want to and my parents don't have to know about it. I can do almost anything in my dorms.

But dorming also has its down sides. Dorming can be painful because I miss home a lot of the time. Since I am an only child, I am always used to seeing my mom and dad around. But now that I dorm, I only get to see them on weekends. My mom also travels a lot because of her job, so I only get to see her about once or twice a month sometimes. Another painful thing about dorming are your roommates. That was my biggest concern about living at the dorms because I have always had my own bedroom, my own bathroom, and I've never had to share anything.

Although dorming is pleasurable and painful, I believe that I am going to learn a lot from it. I will have a better idea on how it is when I decide that I want to live in an apartment and what responsibilities lay ahead. Dorming taught me that I eventually have to live on my own and that I can't always rely on mommy and daddy.

Plaits

In the story Plaits, from the book, The Mee Street Chronicles, by Frankie Lennon, the idea of beauty is brought to my mind. In the story, the narrarator discusses how she doesn't like her hair and how she wants hair like Shirley Temple's beautiful blonde curly hair. One night, Frankie, the narrator, gets so fed up with her plaits that she decided to cut her hair. But in a matter of time, Frankie realized that she made a mistake and that her hair turned out looking worse than it was to begin with.

After reading Plaits, I am now more aware how much media is affecting our society. The media gives us images of beautiful girls that we all want to look like and many girls suffer to try and look like them. But it shouldn't matter because beauty comes from within a person. I would much rather be ugly on the outside and pretty on the inside than vice versa.

The "Perfect Body"

In Susan Bordo's essay, "Never Just Pictures", Bordo explains how the media affects today's society. The media is throwing out images that skinny girls are beautiful and fat people are ugly. This issue affects many people with their weight and the way that they feel. The media is influencing many people and are causing some to become sick and even some deaths. But if people were able to accept and love their bodies, then I believe that the "perfect body" image would not exist anymore.

This issue of image perfection is important to me because I believe that the "perfect body" image starts at a young age. The media is affecting innocent children, who are the easiest to manipulate. A lot of younger children are affected by Barbies and GI Joe dolls that make them think that those dolls are what they're supposed to look like. Some kids are even affected by their favorite actors and actresses, for example, Mary-Kate Olsen who was diagnosed as anorexic. Children are also easliy lured in by fast food. A lot of fast food places, like McDonalds, are blamed for the obesity of children. Since the media affects people at such a young age, it has become a huge issue that is important to discuss.

What made me realize that the "perfect body" image is important to me most is when I was a little girl. Ever since I was young, I have been skinny. The main reasons why I stay so thin are because I have a high metabolism and because I took ballet for nin years. My mother was always concerned and would take me to the doctor thinking that I had an eating disorder. The doctor always told my mother, although I am skinny and a little underweight, I am healthy and that is all that matters.

Through this experience, I learned that no matter how big or how skinny you are, it should not matter as long as you are healthy. When heath becomes a problem in someone's life, that is the only time I believe that gaining or losing weight should be taken into consideration.

Different Englishes

There are a lot of ways people change their Englishes. There are common ways people change their English, like the way they speak to adults compared to the way they speak to children. Another way of speaking a different English is when someone is bilingual. I have experienced both growing up. When I was younger, the first language I learned was Tagalog, a language from the Philippines.

I attended a small pre-school in Carson, California. The common race of the town is Filipino. I went to a school were a lot of Filipino children attended. I was one of the few who spoke Tagalog, but I was the one who spoke it most fluently. I got confused about when to speak Tagalog. When was I supposed to speak in Tagalog? When was I supposed to speak in English? At school, I would speak both English and Tagalog since I didn't know which one I was supposed to speak in. I started adapting what some people call "Tagalong" which is the jumbling of words between English and Tagalog. For example I would say something like "Puede ako mag use ng banyo please?" The word I say is "use" and "please" in English instead of saying it in Tagalog, which is now "Tagalong." That was one of the first times I caught myself speaking different Englishes. When I was at home, I would speak strictly Tagalog. At school, I would speak Tagalog and English since I didn't understand English very well.

I also noticed that when I speak Tagalog, I speak it differently to Filipino Americans than to Filipinos who came from the Philippines. When I speak to Filipino Americans, I speak to them like normal, with an American accent and proper English. When I am talking to someone who is from the Philippines, I try to speak in a Filipino Accent. For some reason, if I speak in an accent, I feel like the people from the Philippines will understand me better if I sound more like them, and less American. An example of when I speak in an accent is like when I am speaking about a boy named John. I have to pronounce John as "Jan" because some Filipino's accents are so heavy, that they are unable to pronounce John. So I speak in an accent so that when I am speaking to them, we will sound the same.

But a more common way of changing my English is when I talk to my parents, friends, children, and teachers. I talk to none of them the exact same way. When I speak to my parents, I speak more calmly. When talking to my friends, I talk more loudly and explicitly. When I talk to a child, I have to dumb myself down and remember that some kids might not understand some of the bigger words that I am saying. If I am speaking to a teacher, I try to speak as properly and correctly as I can.

Other than getting confused with English and Tagalog as a child, I am proud that I can speak Tagalog. Not many Filipino Americans my age can speak it. A lot of adults are shocked that I was able to learn and some of my friends ask me to teach them. But now I'm having difficulty speaking Tagalog since I don't speak it as often. Now I can only speak "Tagalong." I don't think I can say a full sentence in Tagalog without using one English word. But the different Englishes I have spoken throughout my eighteen years of life has helped me in many ways.

Although it gets confusing, I learned that not everyone speaks the same way. Not only in different languages, but for someone who is deaf, someone who is blind, and someone who is mute. I love living in a world that is so diverse because we can learn so much from it. As I get older, I plan on learning two or three more languages so that I can travel the world.

"No Escape" from The Mee Street Chronicles

When I was reading “No Escape” from The Mee Street Chronicles, the impression I got from the narrator as she told her story was that she was young, afraid, and creative. I got these impressions because as the narrator tells the story, I can tell she is both young and creative since she imagines monsters and fairy godmothers, and I can tell she is afraid because she is afraid of the shadow monsters and her parents not responding to her calls.

Two character traits I saw in the narrator of “No Escape” were innocent and lonely. The story causes me to see these traits in her because when she was alone in her room, you could see the innocence through the words in the book. She was afraid of the shadow monsters and believed in a fairy godmother. These two characters of imagination show the narrator’s innocence and youth. The narrator was also lonely. In “No Escape” the narrator is frantically calling her parent’s name waiting for a response. She doesn’t get a response for a while, but as she waits, she is afraid and alone.

The story “No Escape” is something that I am able to relate to. When I was younger I was afraid of the dark and believed in ghosts and monsters. I remember when I was around four years old, I would be afraid of the dark. Late at night, my imagination would run wild, and I would scare myself. The first thing I would want to do is run into the safety of my parent’s arms. But in order for me to get to my parent’s room I have to pass by the bathroom. When I was younger, I believed that Ursula, from The Little Mermaid, would hide out in the bathroom and that she wanted to kidnap me so she could steal my voice like how she stole Ariel's. So I would run as fast as I could to my parent’s room. Half of the time I never made it because I was so afraid. If I didn’t make it, I would just run back to my room and cry. Eventually I would call my parent’s names out loud and they would have to come and carry me to their room. Finally, I was safe between the arms of my mom and dad.

"Learning to Read" by Malcolm X

I thought that "Learning to Read" by Malcolm X, was very interesting. I liked how Malcolm explained the history of Africans and his opinions about it. Malcolm’s story was very moving as he explains the struggles he goes through as he learns how to read and write. His story was very important on emphasizing how important it is to read, write, and have a broad vocabulary when learning something new. I now recommend myself and others to always carry a dictionary to strengthen one’s knowledge and vocabulary. By also having a strong knowledge of words, it can give many opportunities to us in the future.