Letter

There often have been times when I ask myself the question, "What did I just do?" or "Why did I just say that?". I can honestly say that I don't know to those questions, but that I have been asking those same questions over and over again. Lately I have come up with a few reasons why I can act like a real asshole to you. Let me rewind back to when I was a child.

Ever since I started school, grades have been extremely important. I remember that grades weren't for myself, and they were for my mom and my step-dad. Being raised in dominant asian family with core asian values is, I think, extremely tough. I remember I would also work my butt of for every single homework assignment, study for all tests for that A. The great thing was that it was all doable and achievable. I remember I used to cry if I got a B or lower. Even B+ were just marginally acceptable by my parents at the time. I mean all I was doing was simple math, a few long divisions, multiplication and subtraction all throughout grade school. It was never hard, but it was just tedious. I believe that having something that is just tedious in the way of getting an A shows that I was just lazy or careless in my mistakes. However, a difficult subject was a different matter, but for the time being everything was within my abilities to accomplish and pass with flying colors with a stamp of approval that was an A. And the sad part is, I don't even remember my parents ever telling me that I was doing super well or awesome for fear that I would start slacking off. I remember that the only one time my parents I did extremely well in school was when I studied very hard and I didn't take care of myself and I ended up getting sick with a flu, and to make me feel better they said I was doing a fantastic job in school and it made me really happy. Getting an A back then, was nothing more than a smile and a simple good job, or keep it up. Getting a B+ was a, "I know you can do better than this" even though the reason why I didn't get that A was because of a hard problem that I didn't quite understand or that I had forgot how to spell a word or I forgot the capital of a certain state. Anything under a B and I knew I would get a huge lecture and I was so so scared of getting anything lower than a B. Literally, that fear drove me to always get A's and to never give up.

Fast forward to Junior high school. Things start to get a little bit harder with things I don't exactly know. Still, getting an A in everything was still my parents goal and I desperately wanted to achieve it. As work piled and took longer to finish, I upped my intensity to finish it. I was more determined than ever to finish any homework assignment, to get the highest score on any test. I remember in 7th grade I got the highest score consistently next to my Japanese friend, Tatsuya. He and I were competing with each other to get the highest overall grade in the class. At the end of the year he beat me, sadly only on extra credit and those problems were just really hard. Still there was one memorable moment that I remember. The teacher announced the results of the past exam and said the highest score of this test was 109.5 and it was Steven Fong. Congratulations Steven Fong. Tatsuya got a 108, missed it by that much. I ended the class with a 104.5 or something, definitely an A+ in the class. There was actually one class in 8th grade that gave me much difficulty. US History taught by Mr. Hayman. This class was especially tough because the tests were just so incredibly hard. It was a multiple-multiple choice test. Meaning it was a multiple choice problem, A, B, C, D, E and in addition, there was usually more than one answer to the question. And the answers were phrased so tricky that reading the book wouldn't give you all the answers. Reading your notes wouldn't have given you all the anwers. It was more like an SAT test with questions like, What would Madison do if this happened... It was crazy. It was the first time that my overall grade was a C. I didn't cry, but I was extremely upset and bitter. Even my step-dad helped me and when we did our test together, when we weren't supposed to we still ended up with a C on the test. It was ridiculous.

Fast forward to high school. During this time, I finally realized that I would get the grade for myself, and not for my parents anymore. I knew that however hard I worked, the results would show and I continued to believe that through out high school. STill, my grades stayed consistently high and I never really did get a C in any class again; I only got B's and A's, mainly A's.

Now that you're caught up with my academic life, heres the thing. You and I both value that if we say we would do something we would do it because we gave our word and we are both men of our words. The problem is that I don't like hypocrites and I'm sure you don't like them either. If I ever was a hypocrite and I'm sure I was many times, you can or rather you should call me out on it. Although I may be upset, I would realize later that it's better to know then to be ignorant. Anyway I dont like hypocrites. Another big reason, what I thought of was related to how I was raised, hence why I told you my academic history. See my mom never really congratulated me on my academic achievements very much. I knew she was proud of me, but she was very scared that once she told me I was doing awesome, I would start to slack off and lose it. And so for many cases a B+ was never good enough although I would try with every ounce of my strength to get that A, it just wasn't good enough and it shattered me knowing that I wasn't good enough and I would be sad for a bit, but I would always bounce back and just try harder. See, I'm applying the same theory that my mom did to me to you, subconsciously. Although it doesn't work, I do it anyway because it's really how I was raised as a kid. If I tell you that you didn't finish this or something and I remind you that you did poorly on something, it's not that I want to belittle you, but to make you remember that awful feeling of failure so you can rise up, prove me wrong and get that A. See my logic, or just the logic in general that is instilled in many asian families is that if you get put down, it's really saying do better. And that's really what my whole life was about, never settling for that B+ and getting that A no matter what. I put you down because I want you to do better. I'm sorry that it's been doing the reverse effect. You really have been trying really hard this quarter and I respect that. Really, why I wrote you this long letter was because I wanted you to know honestly why I'm being an asshole, and putting you down to make you feel bad isn't my intention, but for you to try even harder to make sure it just never happens again.