Look, people tell me I’m high-maintenance, but that’s really not the case. When it comes down to it, the only two things I want out of life are a career in something English-related and at least ten hours of sleep a night. You young little boys and gurlz of today’s generation have what, twenty million things on your wishlist? You’re asking for an iPhone here, a webcam there, and oh! maybe a pair of Nudies (or was it True Religions?) somewhere, and you’re telling me that I’m asking for too much? C’mon now, let’s get real. An iPhone is a only a debit card away, but to pursue a career in English, now that’s something only a true student could go for. And what’s more, only the truest of brave students would be able to come up with reasons why (s)he’d be so determined to spend his/her life on something all Asian parents of the Bay Area tell her is a waste of time. So, Moms and Dads, Mamas and Babas, Ummas and Appas and anyone else whom I’ve forgotten, this one is for you.
Dear parents, I am writing this letter to inform you that a child, Gloria M. Lin, would like to pursue a career in a field which none of you seem to give a crap about. Your extent of passion for this field goes about as far as making sure that your own children breeze by all related classes with an A, and…well, that’s about it. Most of you have told Miss Lin to her face that she’ll be teaching little kids where to put their commas and semi-colons in grammatically awkward phrases and reciting “i before e except after c” to ESL students for the rest of her life. Thanks for your input, but I would have to disagree. Without children like Gloria here, we’d all be labeling certain human body parts as “tung” and “yeer” and of course, the almighty “filltrum” in your physiology classes. Without English experts (in training!), no one would be around to decipher the Scarlet Letter for you or tell you that there’s a deeper meaning to be found in Lord of the Flies – not that either (or any) of these books would be around in the first place, but then what would you be doing when your parents ground you from all forms of technology? SAT class homework? God, no! You’d read a book, and without the assistance of dear Mr. Kindle, thank you very much!
See here, English is important to me because it allows me to think and express those thoughts to everyone around me. Nearly seven billion people inhabit this planet, and I’m willing to bet that at least a couple million know of or are fluent in English. I swear if you’d give me some more goshdarn time, I’d be able to pull out a few statistics for you and show you just how powerful this language is, but you’re so busy telling your kids off for getting an 89% on a Calculus test that I really don’t know how I’m supposed to interrupt you and tell you that the missing 11% may have come from a lack of skill in reading comprehension. Calc is difficult, I know, and physicists make more than $100,000 a year (compared to the measly $30,000 I’ll earn if I’m lucky), but a scientist familiar only with the official language of Yugoslavia will be carrying nothing but air in his wallets if he’s trying to make a living in the US of A with his knowledge.
You’re probably all extremely busy trying to figure out why your eldest son didn’t get into Harvard, and how your other kid can learn from that mistake, so I’ll sum this up nice and fast. Mom and Dad, money doesn’t matter to me, and neither does glamour. I’d rather teach a couple of kids to read and have them only remember me as the “lady who taught me how to read” than find the cure for cancer, because what good does a life-saving theory do if no one can read the directions? Someone’s gotta be the one to teach you how to earn a million bucks from a textbook before you go out and attempt to blindly stick a finger into a bottle of Hydrochloric acid. There is a use for us potential English majors, and though you take us for granted, you know we affect everyone’s lives. C’mon, just admit it now. You know you want to.
With all due respect,
Gloria M. Lin
Writer, Academic Failure, and Sleeping Extraordinaire
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