Dear Prof,
Sending a revised copy of my Reflection paper #1
Thank you for the the guidance and opportunity to rewrite it.
best regards,
Ivy
Regis Cebu Leadership, Leader Ivy Eleanor U Ko
Reflection Paper #1 -Defining Moments (Revised)
My goal in life is to find happiness and excel in all the things I do. Having studied at a Catholic school all my life, I grew up think that if I do good and follow God's and our parent's commandments, I will receive what I want for to happen. But as I grew up, and had responsibilities, doing good and praying is not enough. It takes skills, planning, leading, organizing, controlling, and ultimately strategizing so that I will achieve what I want to happen. In short, life gets tough as you mature, but things are within your reach is you work hard for it.
Growing Up
As a child, life was quite easy. Papa was a car parts agent and Mama was a housewife and our tutor. Since papa travels almost every week, it was really mama who guided us while growing up. Mama was really strict with us in terms of our studies, and she is happiest when we get honors at the end of every school year. We are a typical Chinese family, Pa and Ma ensures we are well provided for, but we don't talk about feelings and emotions. I would say we grew up in a middle class family. Pa's earnings were enough to raise a family of 6, support my paternal grandmother (we call her Ama), send us to a good school, eat out during special events, go on trips once in a while. My mom was thrifty and we grew up knowing every cent matters.
Summer vacations means trips to visit my mom's parents who were based in Manila. When I turned 7, I had the first real responsibility to be left home and stay with Ama so she would not be alone for two months. Since I am the second amongst four sisters, and the closest to Ama, I volunteered to stay with her. One afternoon, while we were in the temple, she had a slipped through the kneelers and fell. Good thing she only suffered minor bruises and did not affect her so much. That incident really made an impact on me and I took upon the responsibility to look after her and accompany her when there is no school. My Uncle and Aunts called me as Ama's purse as she never leaves home without me. Ama loves to have tea with four of her closest friends, go malling, to the temple, the beauty parlor and most of all Cook! From active, robust, and independent woman, she aged and gradually grew frail. For me, Ama was a superwoman because she can do everything. When she became weak, there were a lot more of falling incidents, bouts of various illness like pneumonia and UTI, making her in and out of hospitals. Thank God she was generally healthy as it was really due to old age that caused her passing. I was already in 2nd year college when she died, I can say who I am today is a huge part due to her.
During one of my trips with Ama to visit my aunt (her daughter) in Iligan, at the age of 8, I had my first summer job - a tindera in a General Merchandise store her family owns. Since I enjoyed Iligan experience so much, I became a tindera for 3 summers. When I was 10, it was back to Manila for me, an being used to having a summer job, I helped my uncle in managing his hardware store in the next 3 summers. My great uncle who owns an electronics store is expanding his business needs assistance on someone they can trust when I was 15. As he is like Papa's second father, he volunteered us to help Uncle. Of course, goodbye to summer vacation again. It was not only during summer breaks that I helped out great uncle, but also semestral breaks and Christmas breaks. This lasted for about 5 years.
The first difficult event in my life was when Papa suffered stroke in 1999 needs to have a triple vein bypass. Seeing him in the hospital with all the wires the CCU was really scary. The thought of losing him was something I could not imagine. Another concern was the financial budget we need to survive the ordeal. With the four of us are still studying, and it was very heavy for the family to fund the operation. Good thing we got some assistance from family and friends. I could remember the family's worried condition back then, but we had to stay really strong to survive this difficulty. Praise God that my hard headed Papa listened to our prayers and agreed to take things slower, had a change of lifestyle and diet so he can enjoy life and reach senior citizenship. Now, he enjoys a healthy lifestyle and exercises everyday.
