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Julia Nguyen |
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R/ST 320I |
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�12:00 - 2:45 F |
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AutoBiography |
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| ���������Sometimes I find myself confused with the true nature of my religion basically because of how little of it is practiced. Am I truly a believer of Buddhism, an Atheist, or a true converter of Baptism?� It seems to me that our practicing of Buddhism only becomes evident with the celebration of Asian holidays such as Lunar New Year and the anniversary of my grandfather's, and my grandmother's death. My mother claims the hectic and fast paced lifestyle in America has given us little time to practice to our religious roots.� Much of what she said is actually true as we soon headed and eventually to California. |
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| My name is Julia Nguyen, I am a junior at CSULB majoring in Computer Engineering. I was born in SaiGon Vietnam. My value system is just like a normal person loving shopping, watching movie on free time. Love and peace is what I believe in, and happiness is success and success is happiness which is my motto. |
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| I came to the United States in 1995 with my parents. We went to live in Los Angeles because there is my mother's family. At LAX airport, the first time I met my uncles and aunts because they left Vietnam when I was a little girl, so that's made me feel a little better because I was missing my country, my family and all my friends. After few months, my family and I moved to Westminster - Orange County, which we are still living right now. Then my brother and I attended to private college in which we learned English is a second language. After living in California one year, we attended to communicate college to continue our education. |
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| I am married, and my husband and I are living with my parents. There are five people in my family. I am the only girl, and I have an older brother. My father's name is Hang, and my mother's name is Snow-White. And age difference of five years between my father and mother. Growing up I attended elementary school, Junior high school, and college in Vietnam until the age of 24 I came to the United States. On my free time I always spend time with my family and my friends. I always love to go out with my husband on the weekend. Since I have five classes for this semester, I have to spend my time to study on the weekend more often than to go out with my husband. |
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| When the United States was occupied of South Vietnam, my father was a solder for American army at that time. He had worked until April 30th, 1975, which a lot of Vietnamese people tried to escape from the communist. From that day our family have oportunity to come to the United States by immigrant. Furthermore, times eventually became difficult as each day passed by into the Reagan decade under the newly communist rule. A decision gradually became into existence after it had been hovering around the minds of my parents like a bad shadow. It was decided upon by my father that if his family were to have an opportunity to survive and prosper on, a drastic but inevitable resolution had to be made on the condition of our uprising. My father concluded that our chance for survival would increase if we fled the country in seek of better resources, an idea similar to primitive man, and be claimed as political refugees. |
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| After I came to United States, my views regarding things have changed over the years. One of the biggest ones was my religious preference. I used to be a straight up Buddhist, prayed daily to Buddha, and sometimes went to temples and gave my blessings, same with Christianity. I had some sort of belief in God. I am thankful my parents are very open-minded to the point that they let me try out other religions. I read some Buddhist texts and came to a conclusion that it was more of a philosophy than a religion, as well as the fact that Siddartha (aka Buddha) did not want to be worshipped, that I stopped becoming a Buddhist. I found it to be unbelievable. Because, it was hard to accept the answers form the fellowship leader gave me when questions were asked, because they did not sound like answers at all. As a result, I am now an atheist. I do not believe that I need religion just for now. I get though my days by putting faith into myself. I seem unhappy, but I am pretty satisfied with the life I currently live. It is not that I do not respect other religions - I still love to learn about them, their ideals, what they teach, etc. Religions like Buddhism, or Christianity defines positive morals, values, and always has those unanswerable questions - questions I love to think about. |
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| I changed to Christian religion since I got married. With me both religions give me only one purpose which believes in God. In life, everything happens for a reason. God plans everything, from the day we are born, all the way until we die. God decides how, when, and where we die. I'm not too sure where I got that idea from, but that's what I believe. |
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| �����������Religion has played a major role in my own life views. I found a lot of strength during hard times by believing in God and knowing that he will accept me regardless of my actions. I was taught that Jesus died on the cross for my sins; in turn I know that I will be forgiven for all of my sins. I have found great strength in knowing this. In addition to this I was taught that when I died my soul would go to heaven where I would be with God. I have also found strength and happiness knowing that when it is my time to do go I will be with God |
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I can still remember the dark hallways that defined the spookiness of the church from doorway to doorway every time I was forced to walk alone in that building in search of a bathroom. One thing I do not remember recalling was the day that I was baptized by the priest, perhaps I unintentionally blocked that somewhat eventful day from my memory.� I gradually became fearful of my new found religion as I learned more and more about it each week from Sunday school. For some reason the images and ideas portrayed in that class did not sit very well with me.� Whenever I am surrounded by Christian related symbols such as a picture of Jesus Christ or the cross, I tend to react negatively for some odd reason that has yet been answered. As of this day however, much of the influence has gone away and our previous roots have returned. My home is now more Asian oriented with statues of our version of Buddha as well as other oriental religious figures. The early years spent in school learning and accepting Jesus as our savior was merely a means to an end. I was not aware of this incident not until recently as of two years ago which then came to me as a big surprise. Of course without asking my parents for their reasons behind their decision, I can easily understand why such a thing occurred at the time. I now live a life that has very few reflections of those times but yet they were very meaningful nonetheless.� |
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| In my future I do not know what is going to happen. Regarding that, my plans for life are very fuzzy. I am still contemplating to get a Bachelor degree of computer engineering. I view my future job as ever changing, very irregular, constantly moving from one job to another, probably due to dissatisfaction. I don't care about the money. I just want a job that makes me happy, and pays enough that I can still live a normal life, for happiness is success and success is happiness. |
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