Prewriting and Introductory paragraph

Shaji Mitchell

Rising in Every fall

According to Confucius, your greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time you fall. My mother held this quote, and every time we felt lost, in despair, and disappointed for failing to achieve our goals, she always reminded us of this. I lived by it because she was always my pillar. She believed that we had the power to do anything we wanted irrespective of the forces that pulled us down. I think that is why she failed to be around every time since she knew I would always have the solution. When my mother was asked about me, she used three words, “strong, determined, and brave.” I never believed it at first but thinking about the failures; I was able to turn to successes; I had more hope in myself. When the going gets tough, I would look myself in the mirror and communicate to the person deep within, “I am strong, focused, and I’ll manage.” The words are always magical because they helped pull me through the difficulties. My strength lies in critical thinking, hard work, and determination to get what I want.

My community values education advocates for a learned community for both boys and girls. However, the education part is not worth reflecting on. The astonishing thing is that some subjects are considered masculine. The community instead dismisses female students to pursue science and mathematics courses as it is considered masculine. I remember in high school, mathematics was a challenge to me and my family saw this as a normal fact. To them, ladies were considered linguistics and not scientists. Each time I got my results back, the question would be, “What did you score in mathematics?” It is like the community wanted to prove their concept every time I failed and were contended that it was true and no one could do anything about it. I was convinced and was comfortable with my scores. After all, it was not a problem for anyone. Why should it be to me? It was until I moved to a new city that I realized I was blinded. Yes, I had fallen, but now I had to make a change.

My new challenge was to disapprove of my society and family by showing them that women also had that strength they considered masculine. The negative comments were very many. “The performances will not improve,” “She cannot achieve those targets,” “mathematics is not a lady’s ‘thing,’” and “she should stop.” I heard them all. However, I had decided to open their eyes and to see the positivity in one hard work. As each of the propagandas arose, a positive response proved them wrong. My mother was the only one who believed in me. She knew my determination made me achieve my goals. My last grade in high school was high; no one believed it.

The situation seemed to reoccur. This was my calling in my community; to ensure that both male and female individuals get the required equality, especially in education. I had a role in showing positivity and the abilities of the females in the science and mathematics sector. After high school, I volunteered in one of the community schools as a science and mathematics teacher. During the first month, all my activities, classes, and work was closely monitored due to the failure to believe in a female mathematics teacher. As they worked to identify my failures, the performance of the students was improving. I supported the students to get better results each time assessments were made. I had more roles within the same department, working with science projects and mathematics contests to improve the students’ performances. “Teaching is a calling,” They said, “it requires passion and willingness to perform and impart knowledge to learners, which a female cannot have.” My passion for learning and teaching mathematics was without training, but the learners could get the concepts and perform better. The expertise arose from reading books and gaining knowledge, which gave them confidence in the subjects and the inner ability to tackle the challenges that came with it. At one time, I was sitting in one of the tea rooms, studying a science book while preparing for the next sessions with students. A male English teacher gets in the room and shouts at me, claiming that I am trying to demean them. According to their perception, my indulgence in science and mathematics departments is a form of activity that demeans men’s ability to associate with greater things. However, I used the knowledge I had to train them to become better. The trainer training other trainer programs started within the community school. My goal had been achieved. This was just the first experience which was the realization of my capabilities.

Since I was 15, I had one friend that everyone knew about her. She was with me in most of my experiences and helped me get solutions that we encountered in life. We had dreams, and each day we reminded ourselves of those dreams and swore to help each other achieve them. She had a sibling and was raised by a single mum. Since the sibling was younger, her dream was to educate the sibling through high school and campus and succeed. We worked hard for this. I remember on one Saturday, she complained of a headache and was rushed to hospital. By evening she was better though still held in the hospital for more checkups. That evening I wanted to stay with her, but she insisted that I should go and have a rest since I had to go to church early the next day. I agreed since she was feeling better, and his mother had decided to stay over the night. The next day, I received a call that she was no more. IT was shocking. How did that even happen!? She was better, but such is life. It took a long to accept and get over it, but from that moment, I knew that I had to help accomplish her goals—the goals we set together, specifically on educating her sibling. My family advised me against promising her mum since I may fail to accomplish it. Being the stubborn and determined lady, I made a promise I had to fulfill, and most of all, it was to honor my best friend.

The new experience was not easy. I did not have a well-paying job nor running any business that provided income, but deep within, I knew I could help my friend keep her goal as she had made earlier. I wrote a list of everything I could do to raise money that paid her fees fr high school and college studies. I thought of getting several jobs to maximize my income, start a business, run it solely to reduce expenses, maximize profits, and apply for scholarships from various sources. I decided to focus on getting sponsorship from an institution that provided a full scholarship to ensure that she could finish as she started college. I walked into different offices, checked various scholarship sites, and sent applications to individual and institution sponsors. I made calls and waited for feedback, but almost every day received the message, “I regret to inform you that you were not selected to receive this award this year. Please try again next year.” I got used to this message, and everyone was blaming me for promising something I knew I could not achieve. One day I received a message to go to one of the sponsor’s offices. “Your passion has been commended, and we are happy to award your applicant a full sponsorship for her undergraduate program.” I couldn’t nor hide my joy. I did it again, achieved the ‘impossible.’

I believe that it does not matter how many times we fail to achieve our goals. What matters is the number of times we are willing to get back the strength to focus more on achieving than the best than being stuck n the failures. My mum’s belief in me was based on an inner ability she seemed to have identified. Achieving the goals that help change the opinions of society and help another person depicted my strength and determination to be better each day. My desire to be better and achieve goals irrespective of the negativities within the society proved my determination to succeed.