Tag Archives: Essay about achievement

My Take on Authority

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            From a very early age, I remember throwing temper tantrums when told to do something that I didn’t want to do. I’ve seen the pictures, with my lips in a pout, my head down turned, my fists pounding my thighs.

            I cried easily. Tears poured out nearly every day for I believed that I was a victim of a great injustice: my siblings were treated better than I.

            Examples:

            My brother could run around without a shirt on. When I tried it (I was about five), I was spanked and punished.

            My sister could do no wrong. While I was expected to keep my side of the room immaculately clean, neat and orderly, my sister’s half was a filthy mess. Around the age of twelve, my mother told me that I was now responsible for the entire room! Grossly unfair.

            No one asked about my sister’s grades while mine were closely monitored. She failed classes while I earned high B’s (which were unacceptable) and mostly A’s.

            My brother could play organized football and baseball while I could do was chase wayward balls even though I was the better athlete.

            One time I got angry with my high school Spanish teacher when he said my spoken language was terrible. In front of the entire class. So I stood up and chewed him out, in perfect Spanish. I was kicked out of class and spent the rest of the week sitting outside of the Assistant Principal’s office.

            When I was allowed back in class, my teacher was much nicer and my grade improved.

            Most of the time I held my feelings in check at home. My parents were strict disciplinarians, quite to use fist or belt. I’d carried my share of bruises, usually over something I hadn’t done. My siblings were quick to blame me for everything wrong.

            I wanted to yell back, to complain about my unjustified treatment, but I never did. I knew that if I spoke up, the retaliation would be swift and painful.

            Yet I watched time after time when my sister yelled and screamed about stupid stuff like not wanting baked beans on her plate, and she’d gone unpunished.

            If my dad was outside the house, my brother could throw things at me, kick me, hit me, slap me around and nothing happened. But, if my dad thought he’d heard my brother complain, the belt would come off and my brother’s behind felt the pain.

            In my junior year of college, I was happily mastering every required math course, even as they grew more and more difficult. Until the Dean of the Math Department called me into his office.

            I’d never met him before. He seemed quite large even as he sat behind his desk. He folded his hands into his lap and leaned forward to address me.

            He asked what I was doing in his department.

            I explained that I hoped to get a job as a statistician.

            He replied that no company would hire a woman as all we’d do was find a man, marry, have kids and quit.

            Well, I told him he was wrong. That I had no intention of getting married any time soon and that kids were off the table.

            He told me to change majors.

I was there thanks to a four-year scholarship from the State of California. I had one year left in which to complete my BA and graduate.

I had tons of math credits, but very little in any other department except for Russian. If I wanted to graduate on time, I’d have to switch my major to Russian Languages and Literature.

I’d had no intention of speaking Russian for a living, but if that was my only choice, I decided maybe I could become a translator for Russian visitors wanting to go to Disneyland (my college was in Southern California).

I wish I had defied the Dean and continued on in Math. I loved numbers. They made sense to me. Calculations came easy for me. In Math, there was a right answer, no matter who worked the problem.

That wasn’t true in other disciplines. Even in Russian, there wasn’t a single correct way to formulate a sentence. After all, there are tenses and verb constructions and varying types of sentence formulation.

My first shock was when I was invited to visit the University of Illinois for graduate work. I entered the office of Russian studies. A professor greeted me in Russian, of course, but my mind went blank. No matter how much he smiled, no Russian words left my mouth.

I finished my tour, loving the campus, all the while knowing that I’d never be accepted into the Russian Department.

After graduation I found an office near my parent’s home that hired translators. I got a ride from my brother (he had first dibs on the car). When I explained why I was there, a translator began speaking to me in every day Russian. I had no clue what she was saying.

You see, I knew literary Russian. I’d translated the works of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Chekov. One of my brother’s friends had taken me to see plays performed by my favorite Russian authors. I understood every word.

I could write perfectly good essays in Russian. My spoke Russian was nearly perfect as well. I aced every class I took, even the hardest ones.

But I couldn’t answer a single question in every day Russian.

I should have defied authority way back then. If I had, I would have been a high school Math teacher. Imagine the joy of teaching how to solve algebraic equations, explaining calculus to students who might need the class to get into the college of their choice. Day after day, year after year, I’d teach the same lessons.

On the other hand, I’m glad I wasn’t a Math teacher.

Even though English was my weakest subject, it turned out that I was the perfect teacher for my disadvantaged students.

I’d struggled in every English class I took. My first college level course made no sense to me. I wrote essays not understanding what the professor expected. My grades reflected my lack of comprehension. I dropped the course.

The next time I took an English course, my grades were better. One time the professor returned my paper with a note to come see him. I hesitated, but complied.

He gave me a chance to improve my grade. I didn’t tell him I was satisfied with a B. I should have. Once I rewrote the paper making all his suggested changes, my grade dropped. I was furious.

I stormed into his office, demanding answers. He just smiled.

From then on I never rewrote a paper.

The only authority that I defied on a regular basis was that of my parents. They didn’t want me to go to college: they saw me married and with kids at the age of sixteen. But I had the grades and had been accepted to several colleges, so my dad filled out the financial aide forms and let me go off, but only to the same college my brother had chosen.

I wasn’t engaged when I graduated. I also had no job so had to move back home. I was now under constant supervision, but I formulated an escape plan.

I saved money until I could afford to buy a car. That gave me an ability to go where I wanted to go without asking permission.

Next was getting my own apartment. I scoured the area until I found a studio apartment in a nice-looking building. My parents didn’t give me permission, but I was an adult. I signed the contract and happily moved in. I was now free of their constant supervision, of their constant denigration.

Yes, I had defied their authority, but I didn’t care.

Years late when I fell in love, they tried to stop me from marrying my husband. They didn’t like him, but couldn’t elaborate their reasoning.

He’s the kindest, most gentle man I’d ever met, from a family of welcoming and loving people.

I married him despite their protests, another act of defiance.

After our first child was born, a cute, sensitive little boy, they tried to get me to leave my husband and move back in with them. According to them, my husband wasn’t “manly” enough to raise a son, that my son was “feminine.”

Another act of defiance.

The stronger I grew as a person, the easier it became to speak up, ask questions and demand answers.

I still sit silent at times when I’m intimidated or overwhelmed, but I am much more likely to question authority.

It takes strength to speak up. It takes internal fortitude to question authority. It takes confidence to defy that same authority.

My advice is to never give up, to believe in yourself no matter what others say.

Defying Expectations

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            From the time I was quite small, my mother made it perfectly clear that her main goal for me was to be her caretaker later on in life. I found this odd, since she insisted that my older brother would graduate from high school and go to college.

            Why the difference? Well, for one, she believed that he was much smarter than I was.

            There was some justification behind her belief. He taught himself how to read, so when he entered first grade, he was reading above grade level. Me, on the other hand, still couldn’t identify all the letters of the alphabet by name or by sound.

            He was doing basic math, which, again, he’d taught himself. I was the dunce who didn’t understand numbers.

            He was placed in the advanced groups in elementary school, without first attending kindergarten, which wasn’t mandatory back then. I was driven to kindergarten, where I was the lowest of the low. By the time the year was over, I knew the letters by name and sound, but couldn’t formulate words. I understood how numbers worked, but still couldn’t add or subtract, and got confused with time and money.

            When I entered first grade, I was immediately assigned to the nonreaders group. These kids were odd. Weird. None had friends. In fact, they weren’t even friends with each other. You’d think odd would bond with odd, but it was more like a magnetic pull in the opposite direction.

            Back then IQ tests were given every year. My brother had scored very high in first grade. No one expected me to be anywhere near his IQ. Imagine everyone’s surprise when my IQ turned out to be high, not as high as my brother’s, but higher than many of my classmates.

            I loved those IQ tests. My favorites were any having to do with manipulation of objects in space. I could see three-dimensional objects even on a flat piece of paper. When shapes had to be flipped or turned to fit a puzzle, I never got one wrong.

            I surprise a lot of people: my teacher, my parents, my brother (who was offended that my score was close to his) and especially me.

            Imagine being six years old, having repeatedly been told how stupid you are, then to find out that all those words were a bunch of lies! My head exploded! Well, not quite, but you get the picture.

            Now that I knew I wasn’t dumb, I concentrated harder and focused on my lessons. I’d take home papers with incorrect answers, erase the mistakes, and teach my stuffed animals the lesson. Then I’d complete the work again, this time every answer correct.

            For years I did this.

            At school, things began to change in terms of where I was seated (no longer in the dunce row at the back of the room), and how my teachers treated me. Before, it was with disdain, as if I didn’t warrant the attention of a slug. Now, however, the teacher dropped by my desk on a regular basis to see how I was doing.

            My paperwork was always returned at the bottom of the pile, meaning my scores were among the lowest. After teaching myself, my papers moved to the top! I was now among the smartest in the class.

            Unfortunately, my school success did not alter my mother’s expectations for me. She made me her housekeeper: every room had to be picked up, dusted and vacuumed every day before I could study. She attempted to make me her cook, but I had no talent or interest. Even easy things, like cornbread, I messed up.

            I was assigned to be her entertainment when she was ill, which was frequent. My mom suffered from “nervous disorders” which I understood to mean she was nuts. While she lay in bed, I was expected to sit in the room with her. I wasn’t allowed to read books or study during those long afternoons. But, there was no prohibition against coloring, drawing or building model cars.

            Because my spatial awareness was quite developed, I loved gluing those tiny pieces in place, using tweezers and toothpicks to get them situated just right. I also loved to paint, applying coat after coat until the model sparkled.

            I asked if I could get a paying job so as to be able to save for college. My brother was working, so I figured I should as well. My mom permitted me to work, as long as I kept the house tidy and never needed the car when my brother had to go to work.

            I tried working in a clothing store, not understanding how commission works. When I shop, I hate it when a storekeeper follows me around. Because I was on commission, I was instructed to tail every customer and show them interesting outfits. I lasted three days.

            My next job was at a deli, an odd choice since I didn’t know how to cook. The boss gave me ten minutes of instruction, then left. Seriously! He walked out the front door just as lunch was beginning. I had no idea what I was doing, even though pictures of finished products hung over the counter.

            I screwed up order after order. When the boss returned, I quit.

            I loved the smell of KFC. They must have blowers that send the aroma into the air, enticing in customers. I applied there. I was to be the counter clerk, no cooking involved. I took orders and made change. Piece of cake.

            When strawberry season arrived, crates of berries needed to be prepared into pies. That was something I knew how to do, for I’d been helping my mom for years. I was assigned that station for the remainder of the season as I was the best! The best! Me.

            The coleslaw back then arrived in giant ceramic tubs. I had to pour in the dressing, then sink my hands deep into the tub (no gloves!) and mix and mix until the dressing was evenly distributed. While it was a simple job, requiring no mental acuity, it froze my arms to the point that they’d turn blue.

            Meanwhile, I was excelling at school. Because of my work at KFC and at home, I couldn’t open the books until after dinner. I’d stay up past midnight, reading and rereading material until I had it memorized.

            My grades, in high school, were practically perfect. Every time I brought home a report card, my parents were shocked. This was not the dumb kid who barely passed elementary school. This was not the stupid girl who wouldn’t even have made a good wife.

            I was somebody. I knew this as I walked the halls, sat in classrooms, ate by myself during lunch. I was incredibly smart, smarter than my brother. Yes, my IQ scores surpassed his.

            There was no denying it: I had the ability to go to college.

            Imagine starting out as an idiot in the eyes of your parents, then seventeen years later being one of the smartest students in school, a scholarship recipient that would pay my entire tuition to any school in the state of California.

            Through my own hard work when I was six, I defied expectations.

            While my mother still halfheartedly said I was to be her caretaker later on in her life, she also understood my desire for a higher education.

            I loved the word grit. Grit is what I employed, grit is what helped me achieve, grit is what assisted in my defying expectations.