Growing up, I have had many experiences in my life that have shaped who I am. These influences have given me qualities that I consider both good and bad. Each of these chapters in my life have given form to the values that I hold as well as my selfidentity. There are five main chapters of my life that influenced whol am today, and those chapters are elementary/middle school, Boy Scouts, High School, college, and lastly my parents. The first chapter that made me who I am today is my elementary and middle school life. Elementary school was the time when I was young and was free to do whatever I wanted to.
I was very involved at this phase of my life as I did Basketball, Cub Scouts, Taiko, and Baseball. Although I was very involved in a lot of activities, I didn’t really enjoy going out and being with friends that much. Most of the time after my extracurricular activities, I would go straight home and either watch television or go on the computer. I did have a best friend names Stacy who I would sometimes visit his house, and every morning he would be dropped off at my house to carpool to school. The elementary school I went to was called El Marino Language School, and it was a school that had a Japanese immersion program.
How the Japanese immersion program worked was the teachers teach you and speak mostly in Japanese. This definitely had an impact on my development because although I am a fourth generation Japanese, I still know a bit about Japanese culture, and have experienced some of it. Moving on to middle school, I still took Japanese classes, but | took it much less seriously as I knew most of what was being taught. The class was especially relaxed because the class was all students from my Elementary school, so we knew each other 11:08 Personal Narrative: My Influences In My L… x. for years.
Although I socialized a bit in middle school, it was only during school, and also only to put up a front that I was not a loner. I ate with my group of friends from elementary school, but I rarely said anything, I was only there because I am selfconscious of eating alone. Watching television and movies about “losers” who eat alone made me very self-conscious of eating alone, and that has stayed with me today. Even now if I have no one to eat with, I will most likely not go out to eat, and possibly just skip the meal in general. Hanging out with my elementary school friends, I met many new people.
As I was a very short kid, I was always made fun of for being small. Although I was made fun of, I have never and still do not considered myself bullied because ultimately they were my friends and were joking around. But even still, the fact that they made fun of me, and stated things like “what can you do about it? You are so small” has given me a very short temper towards people who condescend me. If someone is acting like they are either better than me, or if they think they can push me around because my physical stature is not very big, I will very quickly become extremely irritated at them.
At these times, there is little I will not do to make them stop, and see that I am a force to be reckoned with. Luckily it was mostly friends who would belittle me so I never ended up in an actual fight with someone. I do not like having a short temper with things like that, but after years of the belittlement being engraved in me, I cannot control the anger that forms. Outside of school I was involved in Boy Scouts. The second chapter of my life that shaped me into who I am today is from Boy Scouts.
Boy Scouts starts from when you enter 6th grade to the day you turn 18. Since I started since | was a Cub Scout, which starts in elementary school, this has been a huge part of my life. Apart from how it helped me grow socially, it also taught me a set of skills that I take great pride in. In Boy Scouts there are almost an endless amount of merit badges you can obtain. They have merit badges for almost anything, ranging from practical things like personal management, to things like chess, and as long as someone is willing to teach it, you can obtain it.
Although there are so many different merit badges, the Boy Scouts of America has required merit badges for you to advance to the next scouting rank. In Boy Scouts the scouting rank goes: New Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star Scout, Life Scout, and then Eagle Scout. The essential merit badges teach you things like first aid, swimming, lifesaving, knot tying etc. They say that once you become a First Class scout, you have a greater knowledge of first aid than the average person. I take great pride in the fact that I know a lot about saving people’s lives in emergency situations.
Knowing first aid I feel like if a situation does go bad, I can always do at least something to better the situation. I feel that Boy Scouts was an influence in my desire to go into a medical profession. It also helped me see that I cannot handle bloody situations so that I cannot become a doctor. This was helpful in my choice of being a Pharmacist where I was told by a Pharmacy technician that Pharmacy is the most medical help you can give someone with the least physical contact. My discovery of not liking bloody situations came from first aid day.
This was a day where the older scouts would test our knowledge of first aid. There would be scenarios set up where someone would have “injuries” and we must analyze the situation and perform first aid. I remember walking into a scenario where the problem was severe bleeding and seeing the puddle of blood beneath their body. The feeling of knowing that in a situation where someone is severely bleeding you have about one to two minutes to save their life. It was crushing to hear after that if the situation were real our mistakes would have led to the person dying.
Eventually we got better and was able to adequately treat the person and “save” them. Although I felt confident that I knew first aid, I always had the fear that if the situation ever actually happened, if I would be able to actually save their life. Although it seems like a fear that can be overcome, I prefer to be in a less stressful environment where situations like that do not arise. On top of knowing first aid, whenever I go camping with friends, as a camping veteran, I know a lot about what to do, and it gives me a sense of leadership and responsibility.
Other than practical skills, Boy Scouts has helped me come out of my shell. Being in Boy Scouts, you go through a lot of leadership positions, and as you get older, you hold a lot more responsibility. This really helped me learn how to lead a group of people, but unfortunately I was still a very quiet person and was extremely shy. Outside of extracurricular activities, I did not go out with friends until high school. The time in Boy Scouts that really brought me out of my shell was when I had to do my Eagle Scout project.
To become the rank of Eagle Scout, not only do you have to complete all the required merit badges, as well as some other tasks, you must conduct a community service project all on your own. The project that I chose to do was at the Madrona Marsh and it was to weed out the non-native plants from an area, and to plant new native plants in their place. Going through this whole process, I had to do a lot of public speaking to make announcements, as well as leading and directive a large group of people. From that experience, I feel like I am less scared about public speaking than I would be without it.
Also, from that experience, I feel like I learned a lot about leadership, and what it truly means. For many people, when you hear someone is a good leader, you think that they are great at commanding people what to do and having their respect. Although this is true, I feel like it is not the only thing that makes a great leader. Not everyone will be in the position to direct people, and I learned that a great leader is also a great follower. Someone who leads by example, and performs the tasks assigned diligently. This person is a great leader because they can inspire others to work hard as well.
Another thing I learned that I think about when watching other people lead is the difference between leadership and management. Great leadership is not shown when everything goes as planned, that is good management and planning. Great leadership is shown when things go wrong and you show your ability to adapt to the situation and take care of the problem. Leading many events it is almost guaranteed that something will go wrong and I believe true leadership is shown in how people react when things go wrong. Although Boy Scouts was a great influence in getting me out of my shell, the biggest change happened when I started attending high school.
The third chapter of my life that made me who I am today was from high school. All throughout middle school I always kept to myself and only interacted with people when I needed to. Once Tentered 9th grade, a friend that I knew since elementary school, Jeffrey, had a locker right next to mine, as well as a very similar class schedule. Due to this we started to hang out more often and I started to talk to him a lot more. He was a part of the friend group that I always ate lunch with, so that also brought me closer to them.
This was a very pivotal point in my life because this is what changed me from a recluse who preferred being alone to a more social person. Having no experience at all on socializing I learned everything from Jeffrey and slowly became less and less socially awkward. It was because of this that over the course of high school I became more and more social to the point of being considered an extrovert. By the time I was a senior, I was comfortable talking to people, but I still had trouble making new friends since I only really talked to people I already knew. This was a big worry for me as I entered college.
