Yongwei liu

English 1121-D465

Personal narrative essay -Draft# 2

Change Myself and Make Me Stronger

I am a very quiet person. I really do not know why I am so. Perhaps it is genetic, or perhaps it is from the way I was brought up. When I was nine or ten, my parents divorced and then I lived with my mother. My mother was a quiet person too, and my mother often spent a whole day without saying a word to me. So the two of us could spend days under the same roof together without anyone saying a word to the other, and I was getting quite used to that eventually. When I was fifteen, my mother wanted me to have a better education, so she sent me to reunite with my father, who had immigrated to the United States years earlier. I am currently living with my father, but he is very different from my mom. He is a bon vivant. He immediately saw my problem, and tried every possible way to open me up, making me more and more talkative every day. Once I left my cocoon, I made many friends, and became more and more out-going. However, it is difficult for me because I was a new immigrant and I just knew 26 words. I didn’t know how to speak English, and I didn’t know what people were saying in front of me. Personality changing is not always easy, but I have to change that, because quiet person   fear to face with people and quiet person so hard to learn another language, as well as quiet person live so lonely every day, he need some friend to talk.

A quiet person doesn’t know how to talk to people, and he doesn’t know how to speak his mind. He fears that if he says something people don’t like, he will be even more alienated. A quiet person does not have any security. It means he just wants to stay with himself in his space, and he doesn’t want to talk to the others, just like me. I am a quiet man, but I don’t think I have any problem mentally. I just don’t want to talk to everyone, because I don’t know how to talk with them, or know what I should talk about. I really don’t have any idea. I like to play computer games, because the games can make me feel happy and excited. It also allows me have to have more security. I don’t know why I am so, but I am living in a small room, an enclosed space in Brooklyn. And I like night, because night is dark, and people can not see each other clearly in the street. So when I am walking in the street, people will just hurry away to their home, and no one will want to see me and no one will care about who I am. In contrast, when I am walking on the street in broad daylight, people may see me and approach me, and I will be afraid and scared. I don’t know what will happen to me, It’s crazy to believe, right? But it’s real.

Learning English is hard for a quiet person, because if I want to learn English well, I must talk to someone, and a quiet person doesn’t know how to talk to people. So it is always a challenge to me. When I first arrived here, I didn’t know how to speak English and I was living in Tennessee with my father. The first day when I went to a high school, I was scared; the school did not have any Chinese and no one could speak Chinese so I was lost. I was like a fool in the school, because I didn’t understand what people were saying, and someone made fun of me or even laughed at me. I always just smiled, and then an angel came to help me – a teacher. She could speak English and Spanish well but no Chinese. But she tried to teach me English and never gave up on me. I was hard to teach, but I was young. Although I was learning English but I also played a lot of game in my free time every day. But without knowing why, my speaking improved much within the first few months, and I did some progress with English. Although my speaking and grammar is still not very good, but I can speak a little English now, and I am happy and proud about myself, so I am very thankful to her.

A quiet person has a lot of weaknesses, like having no friends, being lonely, and maybe even having autism. I don’t know whether I am autistic or not, but I am sure I don’t have any friend and I am lonely. My father always tells me if I want to learn English, I should have more friends, become more talkative, and don’t be shy and scared whether I am saying anything wrong; I should just say it, and don’t care about when people laugh at me when I am wrong, be myself and do what I want. But I know that, and understand what my father is saying, but I just can’t. I don’t know why; maybe it is my problem. I must be by myself, and I tried to make some friends in my high school days or hope someone could be my best friend in my life. It is my first priority in life; I need to do it, I hope I can get what I want, and I thank my old friends for not leaving me alone.

Personality changing is difficult, but if I want to have a great future and life, I must be willing to change my weakness. Although my weaknesses are still here, but I am changing; I am now better than the old me. I have friends when I need them, and we talk a lot of interesting things and I am still learning English. Because it’s the U.S., and if I want to live here, I must know English. I am still shy with my new classmates, but I am trying to make them know more about me.