Khanh Mai

Writing 13330
Professor Erin Dietel McLaughlin
Background, identity and ideas
When I receive the prompt, like other students, I did not know how to write. I couldn't think of
any ideas, nor could I relate the prompt to anything. At first I was frustrated, because to be
honest, I had a lot of quizzes that week, and I am quite a well-prepared type. When it comes to
exams and quizzes, I always try my best to receive the best score. In those days, I had to
overcome many other difficulties. I felt completely helpless; I was shocked; I was stressed; I felt
homesick; I just wanted to give up; I wanted to come back to Vietnam. But the images of my
parents haunted me. Just thinking about how they tried to make money to pay for college, I
gained my courage again. I used to be that passionate girl, young but ambitious. I have to
study, and I have to make the most out of my chance. The stresses were mixed with
responsibilities, and then I decided to listen to some relaxing music to refresh my mind, to slowly
think about the prompt again. And the lessons about identify, the readings about multimedia
literacy, especially "Superman and me", which is my favorite essay, have inspired me so
naturally. They seem to have voices, and they somehow speak to me. I tried to think about my
identity, my personality, who I really am, what I really think. And I came up with a story, which
shows deeply who I am. Let me share a bit of my background. I have a wonderful father; he
turned me to a thoughtful person. He is knowledgeable, decisive and forgiving. He is the most
influential person in my life. He teaches me every subject, from politics to science to theology.
He shows me how Vietnamese Communism is bad and how the Vietnamese educational
system is so outdated. He shows me humans' virtues and tells me not to do anything against my
conscience. That's how I came up with my story. During my History class, the teacher gave us a
prompt about Vietnamese-French war. I came home and did my research. Most books I found
told lies; they said French priests were spies and they worked for the French Government. In
fact, only few were spies, and the others were trying to bring Christian beliefs into Vietnam. I
hate lies; I hate how the books distort the truths. So the night of my due date, my two thoughts
conflicted each other: should I write what the books say to get a high score, or should I write the
truth? Remembering what I father taught me, I decided not to write the truth, which is not what
the book said. I wrote how the priests helped Vietnamese people and how they brought
Catholicism into Vietnam. From that day, I decided to read books, not just Vietnamese books,
but also foreign books, for I think all of them would give me about the comprehensive view of
world around me. That is how I came up with the thirst of knowledge; that is how I came up with
reading. After a long time reading, I have become a new person. Indeed, reading shapes my
knowledge and my personality.

The writing process

When I already had my idea, I started to write it. I wrote my first draft, and it came out like a
mess. I wrote many things inside; I wrote whatever popped up in my head; I wrote endlessly.
The paragraphs didn't connect; the sentences were clumsy. It was a total failure. Language
seems to be the biggest barrier. I cannot write like a native American. My writing is like a
translation from Vietnamese to English. I used to be a very good writer in Vietnam. I
remembered when I did the entrance exam to the gifted high school in Vietnam, I was one of the
top scorers in Literature. But when I came here, I am like a child learning how to write. I had to
look up so many words in the dictionary. Sometimes I had to skip an idea because I did not
know how to express it in English. When I did the assignment, I felt angry why I did not study in
Vietnam so that I would not have to reach the high expectations here. But complaining did not
help. I realized I had to try, to stop complaining, and to actually do something. When I decided
to come here, it means that I have to study like an American. I made my decision, and I have to
accept it. Eventually, the second draft came out better, and after many times revising it, I came
out with a complete essay. It is probably not the best, but the combination of ideas, tenacity and
self-motivation.
Recording
When I started my recording, I knew that I was about to fail. In all my life, I have never done
something like this before. "This is not going to be good", I thought. And it actually turned out
really bad. My accent is so strange: I don't know which part to stress, and which part to lower
my voice. The first time I recorded, I read the whole essay at once. And when I almost finished
it, I coughed, and I had to record all over again. Several times after that, when I was recording,
my roommate came back to the room, and she had no idea what I was doing. It was really
embarrassing. Then I went to O'Shaughnessy to record, and I splitted up my story into many
parts, so that if I did something wrong, I would not have to go all over again. After finished every
part, I tried to combine them all. This was when technical difficulties emerged. I couldn't
combine them on Audacity. After searching on the internet, I finally knew how to do it. My
recording is not so good, but still, I am proud of what I have done.