The Making of an American

[knloregon]

Wonderful ~ what small percentage of native speakers could have done as well? YOU should be so proud, TL, and Cici is bound to do great things, and expand on her (already) stellar example at graduation ~!

[Back Again]

This morning when I read Randy's post on my There was a Time thread, this thread about Angela's high school graduation appeared beneath the other thread. I was able to go back in time and relive her graduation from high school because I had inserted a link in her graduation thread that took me to the video of her graduation speech that a Chinese friend put together following her graduation. It brought tears to my eyes, just as it did when I watched her give that speech on her graduation day. It also reinforced my belief that she is a very beautiful young lady, and I was reminded again how lucky I am to be her father.

 

I could never have imagined on her graduation day, however, that she would excel as she did in college and graduate school.

 

Sure, during high school we talked about one of her goals in life, which was to get her bachelors and masters degrees and end up working for one of the Big Four accounting firms.

 

I have to admit I seriously doubted that she could achieve that goal, but now I am happy to admit how wrong I was to doubt her. She graduated with honors from Texas A&M with her bachelors and masters degrees, just as she had dreamed of doing. And she ended up being hired by the biggest accounting firm of all, Deloitte, where she now works on one of its audit teams.

 

And she did that while enjoying her college experience, playing the flute in the Concert Band, going to football games in cowboy boots, founding a new student organization at Texas A&M that she named "Beyond English" because its purpose was to encourage and help students become multi-lingual. She is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, plus English, and took 3 years of Spanish and a year of Japanese so she is conversant in those two languages. She also learned some Korean from some of her high school friends and she taught them some Chinese. She even studied abroad in Japan one semester to use her Japanese language skills.

 

So while I am proud of my son who was high school valedictorian and became an investment banker with UBS, and who is now attending Harvard Law School, and who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, I am even more proud of Angela, because English is her third language, and English is his first language.

 

In any event, I am glad this thread still exists with the link to her high school graduation salutatorian speech. It helped me relive those memories.

Edited December 9, 2017 by Back Again (see edit history)

[Dennis143]

This morning when I read Randy's post on my There was a Time thread, this thread about Angela's high school graduation appeared beneath the other thread. I was able to go back in time and relive her graduation from high school because I had inserted a link in her graduation thread that took me to the video of her graduation speech that a Chinese friend put together following her graduation. It brought tears to my eyes, just as it did when I watched her give that speech on her graduation day. It also reinforced my belief that she is a very beautiful young lady, and I was reminded again how lucky I am to be her father.

 

I could never have imagined on her graduation day, however, that she would excel as she did in college and graduate school.

 

Sure, during high school we talked about one of her goals in life, which was to get her bachelors and masters degrees and end up working for one of the Big Four accounting firms.

 

I have to admit I seriously doubted that she could achieve that goal, but now I am happy to admit how wrong I was to doubt her. She graduated with honors from Texas A&M with her bachelors and masters degrees, just as she had dreamed of doing. And she ended up being hired by the biggest accounting firm of all, Deloitte, where she now works on one of its audit teams.

 

And she did that while enjoying her college experience, playing the flute in the Concert Band, going to football games in cowboy boots, founding a new student organization at Texas A&M that she named "Beyond English" because its purpose was to encourage and help students become multi-lingual. She is fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese, plus English, and took 3 years of Spanish and a year of Japanese so she is conversant in those two languages. She also learned some Korean from some of her high school friends and she taught them some Chinese. She even studied abroad in Japan one semester to use her Japanese language skills.

 

So while I am proud of my son who was high school valedictorian and became an investment banker with UBS, and who is now attending Harvard Law School, and who is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, I am even more proud of Angela, because English is her third language, and English is his first language.

 

In any event, I am glad this thread still exists with the link to her high school graduation salutatorian speech. It helped me relive those memories.

Our company is contiually audited by various banks and govenment financial institutions and it always interests me that the majority of those auditors are young, single Asian women. Of course, I pretend not to notice lest I get caught gawking and end up on one of those #metoo lists.

 

I doubt that you doubted for a moment that Angela wouldn't reach her goals. Congratulations to her. And, congratulations to you for being a good influence and role model.

[Back Again]

Thanks Dennis. Seeing you and the other Old-Timers on this forum also brings back a lot of memories. The ups and downs of the immigration process and the wonder of a new relationship with a Chinese lady coupled with the fear that it would not last. We walked some lonely roads and some crowded streets together during those tumultuous times, but it all paid off in the end.