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Student Union
Mazie Tsang |
Hardship breeds desire
to help others in needSome say my goals are a direct result of the life I have lived for the past 17 years, and I have no reason to doubt their wisdom. Even before I could walk, my family worried about enormous debt from a small business bankruptcy and my father's extreme physical disability resulting from a brutal attack on him in Waikiki.
Yet on May 29, I will be graduating from a high school where teachers mentored and inspired me, friends encouraged and supported me and God has given me courage to do my best.
I realized early on that life was hard, but it taught me to be independent at a young age. My mom proudly says I took care of Dad, cleaned the house, cooked the meals and tried to be a good student. Mom worked 15-hour days driving a taxi to support us. My father's care became so great that we finally had to send him to California to live with his parents. It broke our hearts!
Although I am not a track star or an athlete of any sort, I have trained myself to focus, persevere and work toward goals. I try to find ways to make things possible, including a private school education. I was willing to work cleaning offices and classrooms after school to make a good education possible. And thanks to that education, I will be going to the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., in the fall.
That, however, is not my final goal. I want to continue to work hard to make good grades so that I can become a doctor, a pediatrician. I know the challenges ahead of me, especially the financial ones.
I want to help other people who are in situations just like mine. I want to help even the homeless and the hungry have decent medical care. I want to take care of little children whose families do not have medical coverage. I do not have dreams of becoming a millionaire; I dream of working to better the lives of others. I know their situation; I was there.
And there is my mother. I want to earn enough money to free her from her long work days. She has worked so hard and so long to see me through these difficult years.
My mother has taught me by her example never to believe that anything is impossible. She has helped me become a compassionate and optimistic person. She has shown me that even as adults, people can be flexible and change.
My dad has taught me that miracles can occur. I can empathize with people who suffer. Through service to others, I hope they see that good things can happen for them.
If my dreams come true and I become a doctor, I would like to buy my parents a house with an ocean view here in Hawaii. Once that is settled, I would like to help others who need the skills of a doctor. One day with my mother I would like to open a home in China for children who need medical care; that is our ultimate goal.
Mazie Tsang is a senior at Sacred Hearts Academy.
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Student Union is a forum for Hawaii's teenagers to tell the community what's on their minds and in their hearts. It appears every Thursday, starting today. We welcome opinions of no more than 700 words on any topic. Please include your name, address and phone number. E-mail to letters@starbulletin.com, fax to 529-4750 or mail to Student Union, Editorial Page, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu, HI 96813. For more information, contact Jeff Finney at 529-4735 or jfinney@starbulletin.com.
