English 111, 200
28, January 2014
Adeleena, the Opposite of Me
The first time I met Adeleena I was rushing through traffic to get to my English class so that I wouldn’t be late. I notice her sitting a seat away from me and I thought great, she’s probably one those shy, leave me alone type of girls. The kind that doesn’t want to be bothered. Then as I got to know her I found out that she is the eldest of three children (she is so lucky) in a single parenting home, she loves cats (eewww! Why?), and she wants to be a graphic designer.
Teamed up to do an autobiography on each other, she shared with me some very personal information. Her father left them when she and her siblings were still very young. Her mother, forced to take on the role of both parents raised them up to be very well mannered, polite and respectful. She shared that her mom sheltered her, her brother, and her sister from friends and families due to some bad influences. She had never been to a Hmong festival or even a family gathering and she doesn’t know many Hmong words to even speak the language. Being Hmong myself and growing up in a family of eleven children where there was no such thing as privacy, I pitied her. However, I see that because of her life situations, it has shaped her to be a strong and responsible person. She works part time in the early morning hours, and attends school part time in the evenings. She doesn’t rely on her mom to wake her up for work or remind her to study for school. Most young adult these days can’t do that, heck, I’m thirty three and I still need my husband to wake me up nicely or else the whole day will be ruined. Although she is only nineteen years old she is someone I wish I would have been when I was her age.
Now, to her cats. She told me that she is a cat-lover. She had so many pets growing up as a child that she couldn’t remember all their names. I, on the other hand, think that all cats are demons, and would prefer dogs because I...