Assignment # 14: Write your life story in less than a day

It was a Friday night during November in a year of the 1980s, I entered to the world. At that time, in my country, the war just had finished around six years ago; thus, every one lived in a very hard condition. I grew up with no toys, with no milk for baby; and my mother could not nurse me because she had not enough nutrition to eat. I was feed by the broth from rice and vegetables which were steamed almost four hours per day by my mom.
Time goes by, when I was six-month old; I was sent to a kindergarten which is closed to my house because if my mom had stayed at home longer, she would have been fired. At that time, the salary of my dad could not afford the whole family; therefore, my mom had no choice. Coming to kindergarten, I was terribly sick. Almost every month, I had to stay in hospital for a week and my parents took turn to take care of me. Of course, the threats of being lay-off were always hanging over our lives. Thankfully, I was better when I became six years old. I could eat much more than I had done before and had a better health. Consequently, my parents could concentrate into their works and had some promotions during that time.
Since then, I started my premier school where I was being a monitor from grade one to grade five. I was a leader in activities and always tried to be on the list of the top-ten pupils. My mom taught me everyday night from seven to nine o’clock to make sure that I understood everything I had learned from school, so I would get good marks. However, one day, I remember, I lied to her that I got ten marks in Mathematic but actually I just got four, later on she fingered out that I lied to her. She beat me that I could not forget until now. She, then, taught me that marks did not the goal in studying; it should be the reflection of my understanding. I was so ashamed about what I had done. When I went to my secondary school, I still kept my position as a monitor generation. I became the center in the class and famous in the school because of my top grades. I studied all the time that I could because I needed to pass the exam to enter into the best high school in my town. At the end, I got it. My high school time was the time that I remember most. I started having dating with two or three boys in the school. Our relationship were too pure to remember clearly; our conversations just were about the study and chit-chatted about our friends. That was all we did.
Afterwards, at the end of 2001, I went to Sweden with my father, who worked for Vietnamese government. I learned Swedish in three years but I did not have certificate in English to be able to enter into university there. Therefore, I came here, Canada, where I met one man who is a student from my country and understand me most; he afterwards is my husband. Now, he is sitting beside me and reading this story as one way of rehearing my life. Thank God that let he comes to my life and share the life with me.
At first, I want to thank to Miranda, who creates this website and gives the idea of retelling the life story. It gives me a chance to share my life with some one else, who would never image how I could be like I am now. When I wrote this story as an assignment, I followed the direction in Miranda July’s website. First, I wrote down what I remember into a piece of paper. Then, I formatted it in full sentences and organized it for the readers able to follow it easily. At the beginning, I thought it would be less than two hours but it was not. It actually took me almost four hours to write, organize, and type it up. Doing these, I feel like I am a “real professional writer.”
Moreover, the website of the introduction to the book “No one belongs here rather than you” of Miranda July makes me feel that she is using the postmodern term to apply to the art. At the beginning, she uses the top of her refrigerator as a dry-erase board, and then the face of the fireplace to write down the information. Miranda is using the technoculture and pastiche as the characteristics of postmodern to make the readers feel very friendly. The two materials that she uses in this website symbolize for the preparation of a food, which is a “spiritual food”. Then, through this, we can say that art depends on the way you look at something else’s not from their own physicals.