RANDOM WEEKEND POST 2: My autobiography?

BELOW IS MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY UP UNTIL MY JUNIOR YEAR, APRIL 2017. I FOUND IT IN MY GOOGLE DRIVE. NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN SEVEN MONTHS AGO.

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My name is Kim. That is my first name, not last, not middle. I have a three letter name, yet I have heard it through over 50 unique times, by the voices of the people I’ve met of course. I grew up in many places. I was born in Torrance; I was raised in Garden Grove; I was raised in El Monte; I currently reside in Rosemead with my father and mother. There are not many amazing things that go on in my life, but there are multiple factors of my life in which makes things amazing every single day. I was born on October 16, 2000. Yes, the year 2000, I cannot believe it myself. The year of the beginning of the 21st century, the year of the dragon, the day my father and mother met me; Kim says both of them in Vietnamese. My background is Asian, my background is Vietnamese, it was my first spoken language. I attended preschool for some reason; frankly, I don’t comprehend the purpose of preschool. I settled down in first grade. I went to the same school as my peers from elementary to intermediate to high school. Kim. Kim. Kim. By the age of six, I heard my name over and over and over again; I was acknowledged. There are complex milestones and too many to count on even seven billion hands. Every day is a milestone, yet only the “first word,” “first step,” “first day of school,” “first kiss,” and “first time,” are considered worth the memory. Who cares? Milestones, sh-milestones. I have lived for more than 3,650 days and logically milestones don’t quite add up.

I went through many events in my life to be where I am right now, both physically and mentally. Physically, I had a liver transplant at the age of one, various bruises from tripping, multiple cuts from paper, and a lot of peeled dead skin. Mentally, I was diagnosed with depression; I struggled with suicidal thoughts in my sophomore year; anxiety attacks take over my body occasionally; and I get the typical headaches prior, during, and after tests. I grew up thinking that the only school that existed following my high school years is to apply to the University of California, Los Angeles. I would say that I was extremely close-minded as a child. I don’t blame anything or anyone for this since as a child I thought the floor was lava, I sheltered in pillow forts, I’d play pretend doctor or chef, and I would only read rather than breathe. Then time flew right by me, I became observant; I was observant at a wedding, funeral, hospital, school, public place, and my own home. Ever since the second grade, I would be extremely quiet in class activities and group related ventures. Looking back, I find it difficult to piece together a reason to why I was quiet— near mute even. As a somewhat active kid, I was obedient and gullible and weak and unsure and not aware of the word potential.

When my 10th birthday arrived, I felt no different; I felt like another person to be blowing out the candles on a cake on their birthday. I still had hunched shoulders, a soft voice, a closet filled with uniforms—only navy, white, and black colors were visible. After six years at Arlene Bitely Elementary School, I promoted to middle school. What was strange was the fact that I was more anxious to attend middle school for two years rather than being anxious about attending four years of high school afterward. So then it began, the seventh grade, prior to this, I watched the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, it was clear that the series had set fears to be feared in middle school. As middle school progressed, my friends and I lost track of the great elementary school game called “Foursquare.” I still miss it, along with the friends in which attended a different middle school than me. But as for me, I began to let go of my past experiences with oral presentations, group projects, and tests. I came face to face with a bunch of new faces; this was one thing I feared. In the movie series, the main character had conflicts with bullies and weird people and his own old pals from before middle school. This would be something I had to face in the future because I was taught that people will come in and out of my life and it is up to me to react the way I believe I should—thanks to the wisdom I came across the internet. When I came to the complete truth that elementary school is over and it is just a compiled blob of memories, it was already time to move onto to high school. As I said, time flew right by me.

I now understood that Santa Claus was not real and there isn’t lava on my bedroom floor and there is a value to money and superheroes do not exist and growing pains are coming within a month or so. I was 14-year-old. High school had come and I was excited due to the high school films I have come across. Failure to set reality ahead of films, I was slapped with the truth, the truth that people don’t break out in songs and they don’t have a happy ending to a school year where the protagonists get the last laugh. None of that even happened for a second. When I was a freshman, I experienced many things for the first time. I got into pop music more then than the routinely heard Vietnamese music in my home. I discovered the first extended play (EP) of the girl group I heard back in 2012 for a while: Fifth Harmony. They were a huge chunk of my freshmen year. Their music influenced me to become more open-minded as well as sassy. Rediscovering them brought joy to my life and there are still considered my role models. I spent freshmen year watching all their music videos, interviews, social media posts, and television shows/news channel appearances. As academics wise for freshmen year, it was not that great; I got all As and a B, but I failed to challenge myself and join multiple clubs and extracurriculars.

Prior to the 2016-2017 school year, it was my sophomore year. Now, this was the best and worst year of my life so far. I went through a lot and I discovered myself a lot and I gained as well as lost a lot. I decided to apply to become a part of the school newspaper at the end of my freshmen year. Though I knew I was quiet and pondered on how I could be in newspaper, something that uses the freedom of speech. However, I always enjoyed writing. Writing was a hobby ever since the third or fourth grade for me. I applied and I doubted my application of being accepted due to the lengthy wait of being noticed to see whether I made it in or not. I was impatient and it is something I am practicing to not be. Needless to say, I made it in after the application process and through the interview; I also showed up at club meetings of the clubs I found interesting. To be honest, I was only a part of the school newspaper, a chess club, a service club since freshmen year, and a program called Project H.O.P.E.—a place where UCLA students mentored, tutored, and assisted high school students. I began to think about colleges and majors and my grade point average not being high as my peers and my lack of varied clubs and extracurriculars and still being quiet in a classroom environment. Fast forward to around the end of my first semester and beginning of second semester sophomore year, I felt something. I developed an interest in a fellow peer of mine. I mean I developed many interests before ever since the second grade, however, this interest or crush per se was different. By this time, I had been exposed to teen romance storylines of films and television shows. I had been exposed to the concepts of hormones, menstrual cycles, the reproductive system, sex, and relationships. My academics were challenging at this point and I enjoyed the challenge of honor classes. I began exploring my feelings...through writing of course. I wrote out what I felt and I had no clue to which feelings my words associated with. When spring came around, I established several facts: Korean pop music—k-pop— is worth listening to (I discovered k-pop that year), writing has become more than a hobby to me, I am in control of my own life. Before realizing all this, I went through an episode of depression and I did even realize it; this was the worst part of my year. I was out of school for a week and admitted into a hospital for the mentally ill. Nevertheless, I went back to school with a new mindset: life is short; you are valid; be courageous and optimistic. My experience in those six days is another tale to tell separately.

As I still roam around my high school campus— because I can as a current junior, I come to see many things going on in the world. I observe many people from my group of close friends to the stranger sat next to the library during lunch to that teacher who seems boring. I come to see that life is interesting; high school is interesting. Being a 16-year-old right now, I had gone through only a part of a part of my life. I choose to have a positive outlook toward everything that crosses paths with me and keep all the imaginative aspects of my childhood in my 16-year-old heart and discovers myself more each day as I discover more about the others aspects of life. Though I still am gullible, I am expressing and discovering myself more.