Autobiography

Before I came to Hanoi, I had a life and a family back in California that I dearly miss. My name is Tracey Xuan Nguyen and I am about twenty years old. I am a third year at University of California, Irvine and I’m working on a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics. I still have no idea what I will be doing after I graduate but I feel like I still have a lot of time to figure that out, but till then I will take classes and internships/jobs in fields that I may be interested in to help along the way. I’m from Hawthorne, California which is in Los Angeles County and I live pretty close to LAX airport. I was born in Gardena, which is the city next over and my family and I have moved around a lot but in the same general area. I live at home with my mom and three sisters. I also have a huge family back home with tons of aunts, uncles, and cousins and I love it! I love my family very much as many people would typically love there’s and I feel I am incredibly close to them. Because of our close relationship, I know I will have some difficulty adjusting in Vietnam while away from them. Being away from my friends will also be difficult for me as I will have to adjust from seeing them everyday to possibly through webcam once every few weeks at best, depending on how much time I have available. I feel like I can adapt pretty well in a new setting if I try hard enough. I am very easy-going person with little to no drama in my life, which is how I like things. Back at school, I like to try out clubs that I may be interested in and go to those meetings. I now have realized that I’m not really into school clubs, but I really much enjoy hanging out with my old hall mates. I have only a few pet peeves like people talking during a movie and those who smoke around me and choose to inflict secondhand smoke on me. I enjoy working out, whether it be running laps or using the elliptical machine, and I love the feeling I get after I finish working out. I never played competitively in school teams because I was never interested, but I enjoy playing sports like volleyball, baseball, and football. I’ve had many jobs in my life so far. I have worked at the FAA, CVS/pharmacy, Chuck E. Cheese, Forever 21, and I am currently a student research assistant for a professor at UCI. I have also done tutoring when I was in high school and I have taught as a youth leader at my community church group. Some of my favorite work has been with kids as has some of my worst experiences, but I do see myself possibly having or adopting kids in the future. In my free time, what I love doing most is basically going out with my sisters. I love shopping with them, we usually never buy much so we love browsing at the mall and going from one Ross Department store to another location, looking for shoes or purses on sale. I love bargain shopping and I hate buying things retail price when I know I can find it somewhere cheaper. I’m a t-shirt and jeans kind of girl and I’m not really into brands. I can be pretty thrifty sometimes, mostly for myself and I love splurging when it comes to buying gifts for friends and family. I have grown accustom to shopping at the local flea market to buy most of bare essentials. Going there every Saturday morning bright and early has become a family ritual that my sisters and I have grown up doing with my mom and I enjoy it. I use to hate it as a little kid because I would have to get up so early on Saturday and miss my cartoons, but I’m over it now. Just this past summer, I have also developed a love for the outdoors. I have gone camping, hiking, and rock climbing. My favorite would have to be hiking because I enjoy the steep walk up the side of a mountain and the phenomenal views. The first time I went rock climbing, I made it all the way up a 5.8 level rock, which is somewhat difficult for a beginner, but before getting all the way up, I fell and scraped up and down my left elbow area. It hurt and stung a lot but once I made it to the top, I felt accomplished and overwhelmed with life to be honest. And the last time I went hiking, I was panting and struggling for the first half hour and immediately after getting use to the elevation, it was a breeze and I had a great time. I feel like the outdoors is a great place to overcome hurtles and exercise your resilience. I’ve also been going with my sisters, so they definitely make it more interesting. What I love most about my sisters is there sense of humor. All of them have a different sense of humor but we are all able to make each sister feel comfortable enough to laugh and I just love the dynamics of it. I feel like I can talk to all of them about anything and I know they would forgive me as easily as I would with any of them. Which I think is the reason why I have better relationships with my sisters than my close friends. I also come from a devout Catholic family and we regularly attend mass every Saturday night. I grew up a very religious little girl believing in everything everyone like the priest, my religion teacher, and my mother, but after a few years I have been a little disconnected with my religion. My beliefs and morals are all generally the same, but there are a few aspects of Catholicism I still have issues with. I try to be as friendly as possible to people I just meet and whenever I come across someone who’s not very nice, I try to give them the benefit of the doubt and I’m usually right. If anyone reading this has met my mother you would understand that I am exactly like my mom, minus the raised voice over the phone. I try to emulate my mother’s greatest traits, like how she can be so content and peaceful. I don’t come from a wealthy family or even a middle-class family but what’ve learned particularly from my mom is that you shouldn’t be greedy and get a well-paying job to buy luxury items, all you really need is to make enough money for security, donate whatever your not using to do something good for your community since you don’t need it, and just be happy since your blessed enough not to be going hungry. I could’ve probably phrased that better, but it sounds better coming out of her. That was just one of the few lessons she’s taught me through the years. She was also very sweet to me when I told her I still didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. She didn’t pressure me to become a doctor or lawyer, but only told me to do anything in this world I wanted to do as long as it didn’t hurt anyone. I talk a lot about my mother because she has really shaped me to become the person I am today. I try very hard to be sweet and polite to people I come across and I know I can sometimes get very emotional as I am pretty sensitive. I cry in sappy movies and when I talk candidly about something I feel very emotional about. I can also be a very indecisive person when it comes to picking a restaurant, movie rental, and also when it comes to career choices. I can get pretty passionate about certain careers I have my eye on for that time period, which may last as little as a week. When I was a kid, I first remember wanting to be a police woman. Then I remember wanting to be a fashion designer, then a artist, then doctor, then photographer, then back to fashion designer. When I began my second year at UCI, I finally decided to major in Business Economics with a Minor in Management. After my first quarter, I remember being inspired by a movie and then wanted to minor in Drama and take Drama classes! It was quite sudden but I felt like it was meant to be so I took a Drama class winter quarter. It didn’t count for much credit but I enjoyed it. And then just this past summer, I wanted to get into the Nursing field. And with all these new career choices arising, I still maintain interest in the prior career choice I was just interested in. And to this day, today, I still have no idea what my future holds for me, but what I do know is that I will be happy with whatever career I choose.