Table of Contents
- – Language and Literacy Narrative Essay First Draft
- – Language and Literacy Narrative Essay Second Draft
- – Failure and Success Essay
LANGUAGE AND LITERACY NARRATIVE ESSAY FIRST DRAFT
My relationship with Bangladesh, a foreign language to me, also my parents’ home country, has shaped my language and literacy in many ways. Most of the time if your parents are immigrants who moved to a country that is totally foreign to their own home country, they tend to adapt to westernized culture. They don’t grow up similar to how their parents grew up. Speaking for the bengali community, it is really common for one who is born here in America to be so westernized that they don’t call their bengali roots their own. They grew up speaking English, which is the reason why they never learned their native language correctly. Automatically, family members in Bangladesh think of all westernized kids of bengali immigrants as kids who cannot fluently speak Bangla. My parents worked hard to make this environment at home in which we only speak Bangla. This shaped my language and literacy because now I am able to understand what someone says to me when I am in Bangladesh, I can adapt easier with relatives, especially my cousins. Because my parents did this, I also fell in love with my culture. They even taught me curse words in our language so that I am not dumbfounded when someone decides to curse me out for any reason. My nephews had visited Bangladesh a few months before we did, and my relatives all realized differences between us, even though we live in America and they live in Canada. They did not receive the language and literacy, or the Bengali culture at home, which is why my relatives in Bangladesh didn’t really adjust to them. For me, it was different. We got along so well. We had a rooftop barbecue at which we sang Bangla songs. They were surprised that I knew the lyrics to most of the songs. We would hang out in the afternoons and go on rickshaw rides with just us 4 cousins, wind brushing past us, going to the riverside, having cultural aesthetic street food, and tea. We woke up one morning, snuck out and rented a few bikes to go for a bike ride and rode out of the city, found a small tea shop on the road side and had tea at 6AM in the morning in the middle of nowhere. We rode next to big trucks carrying building materials, passed cows walking on the road, ambulances zooming passed, and even people with bricks on their head transporting it to the worksite. This experience really only happened to me because of the language and literacy that I received from my parents despite living in America, I was able to adapt to both environments without being westernized.
Most of my life, I did not mind listening to any type of music, as long as it sounded good. But recently I got more into Bengali music, and since I understand and know how to speak, I started to really listen to the lyrics and understand what they mean. Since it was poetic, at first it seemed difficult to understand. The language was very figurative. But sooner or later I understood what it said. It was at that moment where I had noticed how the Bangla language is so sweet. If one were to try and translate it, it wouldn’t be as sweet as it was in Bangla, speaking from experience. There was a time I wanted to tell these lyrics to someone special.
They did not understand Bangla, so I translated the whole song for them. The effects of the lyrics wore off, I tried my best to stick to the songs meaning all while using unique words to make it at least somewhat sweet and slick. But it was nowhere near sweet anymore, maybe to her it was, but to me, knowing how it sounded in Bangla, it was just something normal in English. It made me feel like making this person learn the Bangla language because it was just so upsetting how she didn’t understand how sweet these few lyrics are just by being said in Bangla. This expanded my understanding in language and literacy in Bangla because it just opened my views on how this had been playing in my ear for months, but it took me traveling to Bangladesh and getting to know this song more to figure out the true meaning of the song.
In my childhood I was introduced to the Bangla language and I feel that that has been the most important aspect in my life when it comes to being born in America. This felt like a superpower that I easily attained because none of my peers had been able to speak Bangla as well as me. This benefited me because it made me closer with cousins from Bangladesh. I was able to understand them, and they were able to understand me. This made us closer, we were able to hang out and enjoy our time. Whereas when my nephews went just a few months prior, they were unable to get along and spent their vacation calling friends in America and playing on their phones. People from Bangladesh saw the big difference and realized how culturally diverse we were, and how we like to call our culture as ours, and claim it. Therefore, throughout my childhood I was introduced to the Bangla language, and the Bengali culture which I am still proud of receiving with no hard work to this day.
LANGUAGE AND LITERACY
NARRATIVE ESSAY SECOND DRAFT
My relationship with Bangladesh, a foreign language to me, also my parents’ home country, has shaped my language and literacy in many ways. Most of the time if your parents are immigrants who moved to a country that is totally foreign to their own home country, they tend to adapt to westernized culture. Ora oder maa babar moto boro hoina. (They don’t grow up similar to how their parents grew up.) Speaking for the bengali community, it is really common for one who is born here in America to be so westernized that they don’t call their bengali roots their own. They grew up speaking English, which is the reason why they never learned their native language correctly. Automatically, family members in Bangladesh think of all westernized kids of bengali immigrants as kids who cannot fluently speak Bangla. My parents worked hard to make this environment at home in which we only speak Bangla. This shaped my language and literacy because now I am able to understand what someone says to me when I am in Bangladesh, I can adapt easier with relatives, especially my cousins. Ami bhalobashte perechi, maa babar karone. (Because my parents did this, I also fell in love with my culture.) They even taught me curse words in our language so that I am not dumbfounded when someone decides to curse me out for any reason. My nephews had visited Bangladesh a few months before we did, and my relatives all realized differences between us, even though we live in America and they live in Canada. They did not receive the language and literacy, or the Bengali culture at home, which is why my relatives in Bangladesh didn’t really adjust to them. For me, it was different. We got along so well. We had a rooftop barbecue at which we sang Bangla songs. They were surprised that I knew the lyrics to most of the songs. Amra dupure rickshaw te ghurtam, shudhu amra char bhai bon, batash ashche amader pashdiye jacche, nodhir dhare, bangladesher rastar khabar, ar cha. (We would hang out in the afternoons and go on rickshaw rides with just us 4 cousins, wind brushing past us, going to the riverside, having cultural aesthetic street food, and tea.) We woke up one morning, snuck out and rented a few bikes to go for a bike ride and rode out of the city, found a small tea shop on the road side and had tea at 6AM in the morning in the middle of nowhere. We rode next to big trucks carrying building materials, passed cows walking on the road, ambulances zooming passed, and even people with bricks on their head transporting it to the worksite. This experience really only happened to me because of the language and literacy that I received from my parents despite living in America, I was able to adapt to both environments without being westernized.
Most of my life, I did not mind listening to any type of music, as long as it sounded good. But recently I got more into Bengali music, and since I understand and know how to speak, I started to really listen to the lyrics and understand what they mean. Since it was poetic, at first it seemed difficult to understand. The language was very figurative. But sooner or later I understood what it said. Thokhoni jokhon ami bujlam je bangla bhasha ta khub mishti. (It was at that moment where I had noticed how the Bangla language is so sweet.) If one were to try and translate it, it wouldn’t be as sweet as it was in Bangla, speaking from experience. There was a time I wanted to tell these lyrics to someone special. They did not understand Bangla, so I translated the whole song for them. The effects of the lyrics wore off, I tried my best to stick to the songs meaning all while using unique words to make it at least somewhat sweet and slick. But it was nowhere near sweet anymore, maybe to her it was, but to me, knowing how it sounded in Bangla, it was just something normal in English. It made me feel like making this person learn the Bangla language because it was just so upsetting how she didn’t understand how sweet these few lyrics are just by being said in Bangla. This expanded my understanding in language and literacy in Bangla because it just opened my views on how this had been playing in my ear for months, but it took me traveling to Bangladesh and getting to know this song more to figure out the true meaning of the song.
In my childhood I was introduced to the Bangla language and I feel that that has been the most important aspect in my life when it comes to being born in America. ( Eta monehochilo akta onorokum shokti, jeta ami khub easy te peyechi, amar bondhu bandhobi ra kew pareni amar moto Bangla bolte. (This felt like a superpower that I easily attained because none of my peers had been able to speak Bangla as well as me.) This benefited me because it made me closer with cousins from Bangladesh. I was able to understand them, and they were able to understand me. This made us closer, we were able to hang out and enjoy our time. Whereas when my nephews went just a few months prior, they were unable to get along and spent their vacation calling friends in America and playing on their phones. People from Bangladesh saw the big difference and realized how culturally diverse we were, and how we like to call our culture as ours, and claim it. Therefore, throughout my childhood I was introduced to the Bangla language, and the Bengali culture which I am still proud of receiving with no hard work to this day.
FAILURE AND SUCCESS ESSAY
What is life without success and failure? One may say without success there is no happiness. The other may say that without failure there is no success. If looked at both ways, we will open different doors to different views that the 8,045,311,447 and counting have. But what really matters is what success and failure means to yourself. It is a crucial topic that builds one’s characteristics and personality. One may use failure as a push to succeed, the next person may be demotivated by failure. And the next person after that may be going through a bumpy road full of success and failure. To me, I see success as something that if I once already have it, the next time will come to me without many hardships. People may ask what makes me say that, and I would say past experiences have made me say that.
There was a time in my childhood where I did not have a bike. My mom was just on her way home from buying wipes with me. On the third-floor library in front of my door there was this bike with a paper on it saying “FREE”. One of the neighbors must’ve put it somewhere that was inconvenient, and another neighbor must’ve thought it was us who put it there so they put it in front of our door thinking we would deal with it. At the time we were planning on going to buy a bike for me. So my mom took the wipes and cleaned it off, checked it out, it was in great condition. Just needed some air in the tires, so she took it inside. The next day we put some air in the tires and went out. She couldn’t teach me and I wasn’t trying to be reached. I took it upon myself to learn. That very day I, who didn’t know how to ride a bike, learned by myself, no one holding my back. Days go by and I advance and learn how to ride standing up. But one day, about two weeks after learning, I was at the park next to the parkway/highway, and I braked too hard to the point where I left tire marks and my back tire popped. That’s the day I left the bike outside at the trash site. At least the bike had given me two weeks to learn and enjoy riding it. For some reason I can’t keep bikes because last summer I had been working at an elementary school as a camp counselor and I would ride this bike when I got to work and back. It got stolen a month after owning it. So at least I got to rejuvenate my childhood self and ride a bike again after years.
There were two times where I have dealt with failure. They can be categorized in the same section. The SAT and SHSAT. Every brown mom and dads dream, for their son or daughter to pass the SHSAT and SAT to go into a good specialized high school or a good college. During the SHSAT I had been really into games, and I never understood the math they would teach. I know I could have if I didn’t prioritize playing games over studying. I could just never focus when I had my own goals in game rather than in real life. Towards the end I failed my parents, I had to apply for a second round, and got into this high school I don’t regret applying to, it really improved me. The SAT was something I didn’t try in, more because because of COVID no college took SAT scores seriously. That is why I took that into advantage and applied to every school. I got into all the schools that I have been wanting to get into, but I chose City College in the end because its just a more convenient option and I already like it, to have the college campus feel. These two times in my life were difficult because I knew I wanted to succeed but the energy in me decided to die down every time I tried to sit there with a textbook. The reading, day by day since the SHSAT I would ignore totally because I knew that reading was something I am strong in. But that changed when we got closer to the test date, it turned out I was doing better in Math than in English, but I was still not doing as good as expected in Math, or at least not enough to pass. This impacted my life in ways because now I realized that those two failures did not affect me, because I now go to a college with students who went to specialized high schools, it doesn’t make a difference in what High School you go to, or what teacher, or how good they are at teaching, I feel like learning is up to one’s self. And that’s exactly how I am able to reach the place I am here in my life, even after failing the SAT and SHSAT.
In conclusion, failure can sometimes affect you, and sometimes not, but it won’t stop you from succeeding. As long as you have the strength in you to strive for success, there should be nothing stopping you. Anything stopping you is just something you can move over and keep going forward towards the success that you want. If someone were to ask me about a time where success and failure did not exist. I would say I would push my limits if there was no success or failure. I would say this because I feel like aiming towards success and avoiding failure makes you miss many meaningful and fun moments in life. I would like to take a week-long vacation with my friends to somewhere in Sri-Lanka, like maybe the Maldives, somewhere big. I would want to keep the memories and use it to keep pushing me to enjoy life. I feel like we would all enjoy life just so much more if there was no pressure in having to deal with aiming for success and avoiding failure. Therefore, success and failure is something that we try to aim and avoid. But sometimes failure is good because it causes success in the future.
