This I Believe Essay
In this unit for English we were tasked with an essay that had has the prompt “This I Believe” and this mean’t that we had to write an essay explaining what I believed and why. With writing out this essay I was able to fully understand what things I was more truly believed in then before when I didn’t write this out. Once I finished writing out the essay I then recorded myself on a recorder and starting editing on a software named After Effects. In After Effects I made a short video with my editing skills.
How Respect Goes a Long Way
There is one rule that I try to live by. I believe that everyone should treat each other with respect in a way that they want to be treated. In 2016, I visited my grandparents in Germany by myself. I was very excited because it was my first trip to Germany alone without my parents. I felt independent. At that time I didn’t realize that I would feel out of place and I would be a target of bullying for the first time in my life. To keep me busy my grandparents enrolled me in a soccer summer academy in the countryside. I was nervous, but excited because I was a big fan of the German soccer team and wanted to improve my skills under a German coach. However, my dream of playing with German players quickly changed from fun to a miserable experience. During lunch time, I noticed that a few German and Dutch kids were looking at me and started to mockme in German, and they had no idea that I could understand what they were saying. That continued for a few days while I struggled to make new friends to sit together at lunch, I found it difficult and I felt completely unwelcomed in the group. It was embarrassing to say the least that my grandparents tried to force me to befriend a Canadian kid who didn’t even speak English but only French. First, I tried to ignore the bullies, but I realized that unless I take action on the problem they would not stop bullying. I also felt angry that their behavior could make me feel this way.
So during one of the days when the usual snickering happened, I told them in German that I could understand what they are saying and they should stop. They were stunned that I stood my ground and this made them more cautious around me and to no longer tease me in my presence.
This experience has made me realize how a small behavior of someone, perhaps without any malicious intent, can affect other people’s experience. I think it is unfair for anyone to have to go through an experience like this. Everyone should put themselves in other people’s shoes to really understand the effect of unkindness because that could change other people’s prospect on life. That is when I’ve decided that my rule in life will be that I will treat others with respect in a way that I want to be treated.
