Reading a book on the beach during middle school.

Puja Parekh

April 27, 2006

LR Midterm: Revised

There was once a time when I had a wild imagination. This imaginative time was during my elementary and middle school years in Saudi Arabia, where a lack of good television and a slow internet connection kept my entertainment source limited to paperback literature. In particular, I found solace in fantasy stories because the little worlds they created could transport me away from my own mundane one. I wanted to be a different person every day, depending on the book I was reading at the moment. I remember this period being particularly painful, since books were not readily available and I had to wait to leave the country to buy books of any real literary value.

During these vital years I became an idealist. Spending large amounts of time in escapist literature wreaked havoc on the cynicism my brothers had instilled in me. I began to dream. At first, my dreams weren’t too extravagant. Although the volume of the cynical voice had been turned down, it was still fairly audible. I wanted a few simple things at this point - my greatest wish being to live in the same world as the girls in my books. I became strangely drawn to R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series, because the protagonists were always ‘normal’ high-school females, and they always triumphed over scary evil beings. Don’t get me wrong, I had no intention of fighting trolls or goblins on my own; I just wanted to lead the normal, high-school part of their lives. I remember that I became fixated on going to high school in America, where I could actually talk to boys in public, join organizations like the dance team or the Red Cross, and go to the always-hyped school dances. Looking back now, I find it interesting that I wanted so badly to come to America for more than a summer, especially since I detested it so much for the first year after actually moving here.

My dreams and aspirations for myself have, as expected, also changed drastically since my childhood. My earliest goal was to become neither an astronaut nor a pilot, but a computer engineer. I know that’s a ridiculous dream for a eight-year-old, but my father had just bought a shiny new Gateway 2000 in 1994, and I spent as many hours as I could playing and exploring on the machine. We didn’t even have the internet in Saudi Arabia back then, so I amused myself with the endless supply of information that the Encarta Encyclopedia provided. Like my fantasy and science fiction stories, these articles transported me away from my drab life. This time, however, reality, and not an author’s imagination, surrounded me. The world seemed even more fascinating when I considered that these articles were factual, and I delighted in learning about the metal box that revealed them to me.

This dream was replaced by dreams of fame and popularity with the arrival of my pre-teen and early teenage years. Either Saudi Arabian rules had started getting relaxed, or people were having greater success shirking them. I suddenly found myself with much easier access to Indian (and occasionally American) movies. I yearned to be like the beautiful woman on the big screen, who could be simultaneously brave, intelligent and beautiful in the face of adversity. I wanted to become this actress who had the opportunity to play a variety of characters in different spheres of life. As an actress I could be a teacher, doctor, lawyer or whatever else I wanted, while living a sensational life off-screen. But as I grew older and became more aware of the paparazzi and the tabloids I realized that even this life was not as glamorous as I had originally thought it to be.

I moved to America my sophomore year in high school. I think I had barely been in school a week before the culture shock hit me. Although my freedom in Saudi Arabia had been severely restricted, I had cultivated strong relationships with my friends over twelve years. My classmates had become an extension of my family, and coming to this country where everyone functions according to their own agendas was difficult for me to handle. People would see you only if it fit into their schedule; I felt that no one except my immediate family would go out of their way to help me. At school, I found myself unable to relate to any of my classmates. Everyone simply seemed selfish to me. In fact, Sugar Land was where I first saw what high school drama really was. My friends and I had our fair share of arguments in Saudi Arabia, but we always stuck by each other when an external danger was involved. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw here: lifelong friendships being dissolved upon the word of a jealous firebrand. None of my peers seemed to have much faith in each other, and as a result I found myself unable to trust them in return. While I suffered from a lack of friends in school, my mother went through the same experience at home. The friends she had before leaving America twelve years prior had all changed – deep friendships had become mere acquaintances. The lack of a social circle both in and out of school limited my daily routine to school and home for several months, with a few trips to the mall thrown in between.

Taking the suggestions of my family friends, I tried joining various clubs and quickly became attached to my high school’s chapter of the Red Cross Club. Volunteering meant more to me than the résumé padding my parents intended it to be. As cliché as it sounds, my Saturday mornings were more meaningful when I spent them at the local nursing home. It did not matter

The officers of my high school’s Red Cross Club.

to me that I had no parties to attend or picnics to go to; I was happy being of some help to my community. My parents encouraged volunteering as well, after all, helping fellow beings is one of the central tenants of Jainism. I made a few friends through the volunteering organizations who introduced me to like-minded others. My passion for volunteering and social work stayed with me through the next three years, even when the culture shock had worn off and I had made friends. I had more than two-hundred-and-fifty volunteering hours when I graduated, and I had enjoyed every one.

There were a few positive aspects to not having friends as well. Since my brothers were in Austin, I more or less a single child. My father worked in Victoria, Texas, so he would come home only on the weekends. My mother and I were able to grow closer since neither of us had anyone else to go to. She began to confide in me about things she would sometimes not even tell my father. This is how I came to know the person behind the supermom façade. I learnt about her insecurities and her dreams, and what exactly made her the person she was. My mother told me tales of her aspirations to become a doctor, and how she fell short of her goal because her conservative parents would not let her attend a university outside the city they resided in. I made up my mind to do everything in my power to achieve my goals, and she resolved to do all she could to help me. It was also during our family bonding time that I found the career of my dreams. We often watched television together in the evenings (my father joining us on the

My mother and I on our way to Garba

(an Indian dancing festival).

weekends), and one of our favorite shows was The Practice. The more I watched the show, the more I realized that I wanted to be the one fighting for the rights of the weak. I began to dream of defending the disadvantaged and of preventing large corporations from ruining the lives of the disadvantaged. I do admit that my dreams were slightly more dramatic than normal, but with an imagination such as mine, that is to be expected.

Now that I’m in college, I have settled on a course of action for the upcoming years. My future itself, however, continues to remain a mystery. Surprisingly, I like it that way. My answer to the ever common question “If you could spend a day in either the past or the future, which would you choose?” has always been the past. There are two reasons for this. First, knowing what is to come somehow binds me to that path and makes me feel as though I have no choice in my future. Blame this on the crazy science fiction stories I grew up reading, but my controlling nature cannot accept any insinuation that my fate is out of my hands. The second reason is that I

I love history, as my outfit for

Victorian Day shows.

feel a strong connection to the past. I come from a household that is strongly rooted in tradition, and I think this has become a vital part of me. Looking at the past, whether in class or at home, always teaches me new things both about myself and the world. Great men and women have lived in the past, and I think it would be naïve of us to not try and learn from their experiences. I agree that one has to be unique in order to be great, but even the greatest leaders of this country have learned from example.

My vision for the future stems from all of my earlier dreams; except the computer engineering one, perhaps. That one died when both of my brothers majored in Computer Science here at UT. I have decided to become a lawyer, and work for the entertainment industry. I hope to help prevent artists from being abused by major record labels and maybe even become an agent one day. The rest of my vision was actually inspired by Oprah Winfrey. She does so much for the underprivileged in countries such as Ethiopia and Afghanistan, and her generosity makes her my role model. I can only dream that through my work as a lawyer, I will be able to make enough money to do a fraction of the charity work that she does, yet keep far enough from the spotlight to have anonymity. I feel that philanthropy is the only way for me to be a useful member of society while staying true to my own ideals and goals.

Word count: 1,741

Old Word Count: 1,201

URL: https://webspace.utexas.edu/pp645/LRMidtermRevised.htm