Muhammad Raihan
ENG 1121
Prof. Scanlan
09/28/22

Something to Look Forward to

            While I like Jenny Liao’s, Salvator Scibona and Howard Gardner’s essays, I believe that I can relate more with the rebellious attitude of teenage Salvator Scibona. To prove this, I must first reveal a bit of my personality which will also explain my home and Intellectual home. Next, I will compare my perspective towards the process of studying with teenage Scibona and how my unspoken promise to meet the expectations of my parents relates to Liao losing her first language. Lastly, Gardner’s Synthesizing mind will help me to create an improved intellectual home so I can be successful as a future construction manager.
             I am incredibly lazy. I keep extra pencils and pens on my side table just so I don’t have to get off my memory foam bed to find another one. I keep everything related to school in my line of sight, I hang my book bag on the wall in front of me and keep a fat binder full of loose-leaf paper on my side table. This table, placed next to my bed, is big enough to always be in my peripheral vision. I always have my phone and laptop with me, and since most of my work is online I am only a few clicks away from initiating my AutoCad drawings, assignments on blackboard or typed lab reports. I also have my parents to think about, everytime the semester starts and my parents have to help pay my tuition. I have to make sure not to let them down or make the money go to waste. This is my intellectual home, the process of giving myself easy access and the people reminding me of my responsibilities so I am forced to complete them.
              I love to sleep or rather, I hate to lose it over something as frivolous as homework. Same thing with when I watch Netflix, I can’t enjoy what I’m into if I have this looming thought that my assignments are due next week. In this way I can say that I’m similar to how Scibona was in the beginning of his essay, I can empathize with how he wouldn’t read books that people would assign him and would watch TV all day. Where he states “The television stayed on day and night, singing like a Siren in the crowded house. ‘Come sit by me and die a little,’ it said.” While he says that the television would make him die a little, I infer that he still enjoyed the TV a lot more than studying. But he knew that like a Siren, the tube was leading him astray from his real destination. The whole day Scibona is tempted towards watching TV which is also something that I think about all the time whenever I’m in class or when I come home and have to do my assignments. Therefore, when it comes to procrastinating I am losing my way and I only feel short term relief. So, I think of watching Netflix and sleeping as a reward after having completed my work and this process of having something to look forward to helps me work my best.
              I often ask myself, why am I not getting started on my assignment? Or when will I be free? Questions like these arise whenever I’m trying to do something fun like playing video games. I can identify with Scibona’s self reflection when he asks himself in the second paragraph of his essay “wasn’t it far-fetched, this notion of a future, when I could hardly get through eleventh grade? I always showed up at that job; why couldn’t I show up at the desk in my room and write a C-minus summary of the life of Woodrow Wilson?” Although Scibona did not like his job very much and was still trying to save money from it, I think that deep down he knew that only education would help him save for his future and that is why he would ask these questions to himself out of regret. Similarly, I try to be honest to myself so that I don’t make up any fake excuses and lose focus towards my goals of completing my responsibilities. That is why I am thankful that these questions pop up in my head because then I am forced to address them just like Scibona was trying to look for a way to answer his questions.
              I truly love my parents, they have always encouraged me to keep moving forward even If I failed. In Jenny Liao’s personal narrative, she feels heartbroken every time she can’t communicate with her parents, because she knows that they are the ones who raised her to be successful in life. It says “my parents believed that a mastery of English would promise a good, stable job in the future. This missing piece in my parents’ lives would propel me forward for the rest of mine.” This displays that Liao knew her parents sacrificed their own ambitions and wanted to see their dreams come true by allowing their children to receive an excellent education. That is why Liao feels responsible for losing her language and breaking their hearts everytime they converse. Just like her I recognize my parents’ sacrifice for working all day and paying for my tuition. Therefore, I have to fulfill my right as their son to live up to their expectations and not let their sacrifice go in vain.
             For me to build a better intellectual home I have to hopefully start liking the career that I have chosen for myself. So far I can see how being a construction manager would be a challenging job for a lazy person like myself. However, the Synthesizing mind from Gardner’s essay gives me hope that I can improve my intellectual home since I can work better with a team. He says “ the various workers on hand, their current assignments and skills, and how best to execute the current priority and move on to the next one…As she begins to develop new visions, communicate them to associates.” Here Gardner expresses the importance of combining different types of information and experiences together in order for the manager to make the best decision and move forward. I too like to make sure that the decisions I make are swift and follow a clear step by step plan to get my work done efficiently. And this can be done best with a team where individuals who are skilled at their respective craft combine their teamwork and help each other so they can perform a task to perfection.