What do you want to be?

      Dear Mom and Dad,   

  “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From a WNBA basketball star to a heart surgeon, I’ve thought about it all. I changed what occupation I wanted to pursue as often as I changed clothes, and being pressured at a young age to know exactly what I wanted to be didn’t help. My parents have always expected me to get the best grades in class. “Why did you get a 95 instead of a 100?” “I’m not raising any idiots.” I’d often find myself hearing those words come out of my parents’ mouths. And having a younger sister who had better grades didn’t help. That just gave them one more reason to nag. I often found myself alone in my room—it was during these times I was away from all the ridicule—writing short stories.

The stories were fun to make up, but only for a while. It wasn’t until the fourth grade that I took up the hobby of drawing. I soon fell in love with visual arts because it was the one thing that my parents would praise me for. They couldn’t compare me to my younger sister or my cousins. They bragged to coworkers and family members about my raggedy composition notebook that I filled with drawings.

I was on the top of the world up until the middle of fifth grade. My friend and I decided to have a drawing contest to see who was the better artist. I was certain that I’d win because of the compliments my family had given me. My friend and I drew our pictures and passed them around class. I remember I drew a young girl holding up the peace sign with a huge smile on her face. Our classmates voted and soon I got mine back. “You suck!” “Stop drawing.” “You’re just wasting paper.” Someone even had the audacity to stick cheese on my drawing.

I was utterly shocked, but laughed it off. I was hurt and angry. But due to my competitive nature, I decided not to take my classmates’ advice. I made the decision that day to prove all of them wrong. I threw away my composition notebook and got some printer paper and started to watch drawing tutorials on YouTube. In the seventh grade I finally convinced my parents to buy me my first sketchbook. I drew in it every day, watching tutorial after tutorial.

During the eighth grade I got my first set of Prismacolor colored pencils and drawing pencils. I started to draw realistically and from real life. I came to New Manchester High School—even though I didn’t join until junior year due to my lack of self-confidence—with the sole purpose of joining the visual arts discipline in the FAME program. Classmates now compliment my artwork and ask me to draw for them, some of them being the same people who told me to quit back in the fifth grade. Now that I am a senior it’s a critical moment in my life. Some people are still hesitant about their future; however, if you ask me “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I can confidently say that I would love to be a successful freelance illustrator based in South Korea.

Sincerely, 

Your artistic daughter