Narrative Essay:

           One semester after 

I never imagined that I would one day be studying my degree in the United States. I always have seen this possibility as a dream or even something impossible. When I heard from my parents that there was the chance to make it real, I was excited but mostly afraid. Afraid not because of the difference of language, but because of the difference of everything. Leaving my country and having far my family and also friends was a sacrifice, but it worth it.  More than just a semester in college, being in St. Norbert is one of the most significant steps I did in my life. It made me learn many things I didn’t know, from learning how to wash my clothes to realizing how important is to materialize my goals. This learning did not happen since the beginning, I had to deal with a difficult and large process. The process of adaptation in a college for the first time fits in well with Andy Rooney’s saying “Hoping and praying are easier but do not produce as good results as hard work.”

Firstly, the phrase fits in my experience because it talks about dealing with a problem. In the beginning of the semester, I was more confident than I should have been. Because many people told me that the freshman year was the most relaxing of all, I was convinced that all my classes would be easy and that I would get a high grade in all of them. As a consequence of this, I did not take much care of my grades. I focused more on my social life. I preferred many times to go out with friends rather than doing homework or studying. I did not realize the seriousness of this until this lack of importance was reflected in my midterm’s grades. After seeing them much lower than I expected, I felt guilty and, even worst, hopeless.

As the phrase says, “[h]oping and praying are easier;” I started regretting the way I was spending my time doing other activities instead of studying. Seeing myself unable to come back and change the way I took classes, I felt myself without any motivations and possibilities to recover my studies. Thinking about what my parents would think if they could see how I wasted this chance, made me even more worried and sadder.

As when a person falls and finds the way to stand up, I had to react and see how can I solve this problem instead of feeling sad and demotivate myself. As well as how Andy Rooney thinks, the only person that can change things, is oneself. I realized this at the right moment. So I started to look for ways that could make my grades get better, such as asking for extra credit projects and re-writings; this helped me a lot. In addition to this, I changed the way I was taking classes; I started being more attentive in the lectures, more thoughtful in the papers, and also more active in oral interventions. Now that the semester is ending, I am able to see how I have improved and I feel very proud of it.

In summary, I think Andy Rooney says a truthful phrase because it happened to me. A person can’t just be sad and wait for something to happen that magically could solve his or her problem. Someone had to take the initiative, and that is oneself. There are always falls and downs in one’s life, this helps the human person to learn not to fall again in this errors, and also he or she learns how to solve them.

See ya!