The Value of Family

     As I stood on top of the Eiffel Tower looking over at the unbelievably beautiful landscape of the city Paris, the sunlight hugged me with warmth and the breeze tickled comfortably in my face. Beside me there was a baby cuddling up in her mother’s arms, and behind me a little boy relishing his lollipop while holding hands with his mommy and daddy. Happy families were taking pictures of the gorgeous view while they glued their bodies to each other with huge smiles and cheerful laughter. I took out my journal in my bag and wrote my last entry: Mom, Dad, Brothers, I miss you.

     Thinking back, I thought going to France and Italy would be a new experience for me because I have never travelled without my family before. I did not expect much difference except that mom and dad would not be constantly asking me to pose for pictures and that mom would not be advising me on bringing the unnecessary things, such as fifteen pairs of socks, medicines for all types of incidents, and an iron for my jacket. I would be fine, I thought to myself. An exciting adventure was yet to begin.

     Nevertheless, what I anticipated before the trip was different from how I actually felt. I knew I would miss my family, but was only a secondary thought. I was more excited about going to Europe and seeing all the gorgeous views and enjoying the delicious food. I could not wait to stand on top of the Eiffel Tower because it was a dream of mine since I was a child. Yet when my dream had finally come true, a chill of loneliness rushed over me. This time I could not feel the warm hands, hear the soothing voices and be assured of the support from the most familiar people in my life. I suddenly felt a burden within me because I had to be much more responsible and extremely careful of my actions. There was no one to provide me with coats when it was cold, no one to buy me food when I was hungry, and surprisingly, no one to take endless pictures of me at the most opportune and desired times. I caught a cold because I did not wear proper clothing and I missed the snacks that reminded me of home. When I was getting on a train from Nimes to Paris, I had trouble lifting my suitcase and I was almost at risk of being left behind. This was an obstacle I had never encountered because my dad or brothers would always carry the suitcases for me and my mom. It was then that I realized what I truly fear is to be away from my family because they are always the ones to provide me with comfort and make me feel more relaxed so I can enjoy the experience of being abroad. Without my family, I felt insecure and horrified, because everything suddenly seemed to be so unpredictable.

     The fear of being away from my family was something that I never contemplated. Always having travelled with my family, I did not realize that going on a trip alone would be more difficult and that I would miss them so much. This trip definitely helped me develop more independence and responsibility, but I also found out a deeper significance in my life: the value of family. I did not understand how much my family has contributed when they went out of their way to do the favours for me because their efforts seemed perfectly natural to me before. Nonetheless, after this trip I discovered the people who brought me into this world and gave me confidence to conquer my fear are my family. I realized how much they really mean to me and how fortunate I was to be able to travel with them. As I gazed over at the delighted families on the top of the Eiffel Tower, I wished I could share the fabulous scenery with my mom, dad, and brothers at this moment.

English Death Knell

With the advancement of technology in modern society, computer language and text messaging have intruded their way into the everyday life of adolescents, causing extremely negative impacts on the literacy skills of young people. The use of computer language and text messaging has developed so rapidly that they have become the “essential” forms of communication for many teenagers.  Text messaging and computer language are  known to be anecdotal, more relaxed, shorter, and quicker to be expressed. However, the colloquialisms of the context, the grammatical errors of the language, and the increased use of abbreviations such as “omg” and “lol”, and misspelled words are the most savage ways to the degradation of English literature. The texting generation has been referred to as the “vandals who are doing to our language what Genghis Khan did to his neighbours eight hundred years ago…; pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences; and raping our vocabulary (Humphreys, 2007). The question whether teenagers should be allowed to incorporate textism into academic writing should not be of a question at all. It should be a direct statement that textism and computer language will only cause our literacy skills to deteriorate and that more people will become ignorant to the appropriateness of the language and lose their ability to construct proper English. Although some might argue that textism and computer language are inevitable to the natural evolution of the language, the fundamental structure of English should still be preserved and practiced in the “correct” way. By doing so, we can prevent the risk of losing the significance of education as well as the definition of education. Textism and the use of computer language have received strong, violent protests from parents and teachers because they believe that these forms are the modern scourge that would continue to assault the appropriate use of language. With the influence of electronic devices, students now learn and do their homework without a dictionary but with the use of improper capitalization and punctuation, shortened words, and perplexing characters on academic paper. When students use computer language or textism frequently, they will reach a saturation point where they no longer realize their mistakes and will eventually adopt these errors as standard English. The effect of textism and computer language have permeated through adolescents’ lives and caused serious impacts on formal writing to a point that they are considered to be the “evolution of modern English”. Nevertheless, these methods will only result in devastating consequence of our literacy skills, and to accept them as ways to compose academic writings is preposterous and calamitous. As part of the young generation in which the issue of textism and computer language is most closely related to, we should be concerned about the increased prevalence of the usage instead of embracing and allowing it to decline our ability to write properly.