Author’s Note: Hello there. I’m an EOP (Educational Opportunity Program) student at CSU, Chico. As an EOP student, I was given an opportunity to go live in the dorms at CSU, Chico with my other EOP peers in my incoming class for two weeks during the summer. We were given some homework assignments before coming to the dorms. I wanted to get it done quickly so I sent my assignment in two days early before the program started. Surprisingly, my professor, Kim emailed me and said that I was the first person to send my assignment to her. If you’ve read my paper; High School Journey. I reused a portion of it in this paper because the topic we were given to write about is related to each other. Enjoy!
5 Minutes Read
Manting Xiong
EOP Summer Bridge
13 June 2017
Who is Manting Xiong?
Hi, I’m Manting Xiong! If you don’t know me that’s unfortunate. If you do know me I’m sorry. I’m sorry if I ever hurt you in the past, present, or future. And if you haven’t met me, well I’m a very generous, loving, caring, understanding, and genuine person. Of course, there are my flaws; like my stuttering and other things that I won’t mention for now. Most of the time I’m an easy-going person. That’s probably why sometimes people don’t take me seriously.
I believe that I really am a selfless person, ninety-five percent of the time I would prioritize another person’s wellbeing instead of mine. Now you are probably asking why? What benefits do you get from that? Doesn’t that leave you able to be used and harmed? I do it because that’s just the type of person I am. This is ironic considering my father isn’t the greatest of people and practically grew up without one even though he was around the house. My mother, well my first time ever getting to see her in person was during the summer after my freshmen year.
What little information I could gather after visiting her, made the idea of me being nice, a little less ironic. To answer the second question above, yes it did leave me in a vulnerable place to be used and potentially be harmed, you may think that I am lying but I couldn’t care less. Of course, I won’t help you anymore if you break my trust or did something that I didn’t like and I won’t be someone who you could rely on. But I said that I couldn’t care less because there once comes a point when you’ve been hurt so many times that it sorts of becomes normal. You may be thinking, what in the heck are you talking about? Trust me on this, I’m going to turn nineteen in less than twenty days. During these short eighteen years that I’ve lived through, I experienced things that would make a person kill themselves to stop the pain and end the struggle that they must deal with constantly.
Now I understand that everybody has a different type of struggle that they must go through and that’s reasonable. You may be thinking, what in the heck are you talking about? Trust me on this, I’m going to turn nineteen in less than twenty days. During these short eighteen years that I’ve lived through, I experienced things that would make a person kill themselves to stop the pain and end the struggle that they must deal with constantly. Now I understand that everybody has a different type of struggle that they must go through and that’s reasonable.
I too, like many others when believing that their own struggle was unique and different. Having experienced many negative things at an earlier age, it really made my mind mature faster than my body, age, and the people around me. Those negative experiences took me to a very dark place that no one should ever go to. This is what you don’t see when you first look at me. But enough of this, the mood is starting to get too sulky and unwanted.
How will I impact Chico State? I don’t believe that I’ll do anything that will impact Chico State. Or this is just me being humble but I honestly won’t do anything special. I plan to go study abroad but that’s been done before at Chico State. I do plan to graduate in four years but that’s not special. At Chico High, I was picked as one of the students to receive an award for who teachers have recommended students that they deem have been a positive impact on the staff or the school.
And I am very grateful for that, never thought that I would receive an award for being nice. But I don’t think that what I did in high school will translate to Chico State in any significant way because they are thousands of students here, and the biggest difference between this and high school is that we are in college, now think about it and really let that set in. Here at Chico State, I won’t be the most artistic person, won’t be the best player on the court, nor will I be the best singer, not to mention not even one of the smartest students in my incoming class. I will just be a “regular” student who didn’t want to disappoint himself, his peers, or his teachers. What I would consider someone as an impactful individual is someone who will be remembered for a very long time. Most students will be forgotten by their teachers, I’m just like them, after a short period of time everyone will be forgotten, and the only ones who will be remembered are the impactful ones.
How will Chico State impact me? The one thing I do know is that coming here will help me find out more about myself that I don’t currently know, and help me in my pursuit of my goals. So that’s Manting Xiong, a Hmong-American boy born in Concord, North Carolina but raised in Chico, California.
Hello, I would appreciate it if you would give me feedback on what you enjoyed and what you didn’t. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment or email me too! Thank you.
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