The Pieces of My Life

My name is Yun Mariana. I was born in Surabaya, Indonesia at 1982. I am the first child of the three. I was so exciting when I talked about going to school. In fact, I started earlier for kinder garden school. I was three when I started kinder garden school. It is a catholic school. My mother always sent me to a catholic school. My parents are Buddhist, but they trust a catholic school for my sister, my brother, and me as our education. My parents believe that in catholic school, we can get a good education and we can grow up in a strong character. Even thou I grew up in a catholic school, but I get baptism as a Christian on August, 26 2000 which is exactly on my birthday.

There are five members in my family: my dad, my mom, my younger sister, my younger brother and me. My Father runs a small business; a machine shop in a cross of our house. My mother is just a house wife. She helps my father when the shop is busy. I love the moment when I was in the kinder garden. I remember that my mom sends me to the school and picks me up at noon. It makes me secure that my mom always watch over me, that my mother loves me. But everything change, when I start elementary school and when my sister was two years old, my mom never sends me to the school and she almost never picks me up after school. Instead, my father was the one who is sent me to school and picks me up afterward. My dad is kind of an old fashion parent. He is a pretty strict person. For instance, I have to be home before nine, dress nicely, and talk politely. But my mom is a kind easy-going person, with a warm heart, and patience. She is an understanding person; she’s not easy to upset with something; instead she listens to the explanations from my sister and me. She’s doing a great job as a house wife, and as a mother. My sister is totally different from me. She’s pretty, tall, skinny, with a curly hair, and have a big eyes. She is lovely. And my brother is kind of a tough person with a warm-hearted. His personality is a bit different from two of us. He is an independent person but at the same time he needs my mom to help him to lend him some money. He doesn’t like to study; instead he’s good with computers. In fact, he owns the computer store in Bandung city; it is about six and half hours by a car. And he decided to settle in Bandung.

I am pretty close to my mom’s family but not my dad’s family because they live in different province, in west Kalimantan. Most of the events such as birthday, Christmas, and New Year, my family gather with my mom’s families. The most even that I liked to do with my families are going out for dinner. I love that we talk, laugh, and share about what we have done. Before my grandmother passed away, every Sunday my mom’s families and my family are gathering together in my grandmother house, it’s takes about forty five minutes by the car from my house. My grandmother cooks a lot of delicious Chinese food for us. We always stay until dinner. My grandmother is very happy at that time when our big families gathering. My grandmother passed away in 1998. Since then, my mom’s families and my family only gather together when we have big holidays.

Nothing is special about my house. My house is in the central of the business area. And my houses are a combination the store and house. It has three floors. The first floor is my parents business; we have a small machine shop that sells also part of motorcycle. The second floor is our home. It has three bedrooms and one bathroom. My sister room is next to my room. And the top floor it’s a storage, where my sister, my brother, and I keep the books that no longer used and the laundry room. I feel happy to live in that house. First, I have my family with me. Second, my house is convenient. It’s very closes with a market, a shopping center, and a restaurant. Finally, that is a new brand house. It’s a clean, nice, and organizes. It’s a simple house with a basic color, white. It’s a combination wood and stone material. The wall made from a stone and we used the wood for each of the room doors. There are not much picture hanging on the wall, it’s just three pictures; one is my sister, one is my brother, and one is my picture. Those pictures had taken when we were a little kids and it was funny pictures.

I moved to New York in 2004 to continue my study, but my family stayed in Indonesia. I was very struggle in my first year at New York. Speaking in different language, meet so many different people. Obviously, many times I feel home sick, I just want to give up and go back to Indonesia. Again, my mum console me, gives me an advice to be a strong, and she cheers me up. And because of my difficult time that I have to face it, it makes my spiritual live grow stronger than before. I make a new friend in my new community and I start to do a spiritual activity weekly. Actually, it’s Indonesia church community. When a feel weak, I share with my friends in community and I get a new power, it’s like a battery. A battery gets more power after they get charge. I feel good and in fact, I find my purpose of live when I was living in New York. I am so grateful with my live and with people surround me.

I took Engineering major in Indonesia but I didn’t finish it. That is my last semester, and that becomes my regretless. I thought it was easy to transfer my credits to college in New York, but my dream to study in New York as high as a kite. Study in foreign country wasn’t easy since it’s a new world for me, different culture, different language and different college system. Students who are from outside the U.S, who don’t have SAT scores, have to take the ACT English test and also ACT Mathematic as a requirement. I have been accepted in Borough of Manhattan College University of New York. I passed for the ACT Math but not for ACT English. My English ability is inadequate to be a freshmen student. I am back at square one; I must take ESL courses before I go to a credit classes. So here I am. I am taking a CLIP program to get me ready to take the next ACT test. I know that I have a long way to go, but I will accomplish my study.

My mom is the most important person in my life. I shared everything with my mom. My love story, my friend, my schools problems, my job, and so many things that I couldn’t describe the detail, but that are most of what I used to share together. She’s the one I trusted. She kept the secret from my father and my sister and from anyone. Therefore I admired her. She has my respect after all.