Being Raymond...

I was given an assignment by my latest Literary Journalism professor to write an autobiography about myself..I figured most of you guys know me, but might not really know me so here is my word in 1000 words or less...

Ray Chen Chen 1

Literary Journalism 101BW

4 October 2007

Autobiography

My life as Ray Chong Chen began on a bright June 24^th morning in the year 1984. I was the first American born child of two Chinese immigrants who came to the United States via Taiwan. My father had served for the army of the Kuomintang which was repelled from China and fled to Taiwan in defeat. In his thirty odd years that he spent at the People’s Republic of China, he came to have three marriages, the first two which failed. The final one, which stands to this day, was to the woman who would be my mother.

Seeing their options in Taiwan rapidly fading away, my father, using his dwindling influence from his position as a Taiwanese television broadcasting station program director and a friendship with the CEO of the newly formed China Airlines, was able to fool a US Immigration officer to allow entry visas into America for him, his wife, and his five children, the progeny of his previous unions. Once they reached US Soil, they never looked back.

By some cruel twist of fate, the Chen family ended up in Modesto, CA. I was born there after the family had spent a year becoming Americans. Modesto is the place that I considered my home for my first eighteen years of life. I went to school there, I played there, I’ve lived in its slums, I’ve moved on up in Modesto. It is where I learned

Chen 2

to drive, it’s where I had my first kiss. Its dusty borders are what kept me lulled into a sense of security before the topic of college was brought up.

When it came time to make the fateful decision on where to apply and where to accept, I honestly can say that I had my sights set somewhere other than UC Irvine. In fact, UC Irvine was my consolation school. I had my sights set on the Biomedical Engineering program at UC Davis, but alas, I didn’t get their attention. So, of all things, I came to UC Irvine to major in Physics. Somewhere along the line, I realized that I hated it. It must have been the beginning of the line, because my academic career was plagued by failure and just over sufficient grades. I jumped in and out of academic probation.

It wasn’t until I took my first Literary Journalism course that I actually felt that I discovered my “calling,” as it were. It’s unfortunate that I had waited till the last quarter of my junior year to declare it as my major. Over the course of my senior year, I fell into decline. I was overweight, anti-social and apathetic towards everything in my life. I was at an all time low, personally, academically and financially. I ended the 2005-06 academic year with a GPA of 1.0. Then, it finally happened…the School of Humanities had enough of me.

I received the letter from the Associate Dean informing me of my termination as a UCI student some random night in the middle of July. It didn’t come as a surprise to me, yet I was still shocked. My ears rang and my lip quivered as I read the email. “What do I tell my parents?!” I yelled to myself in my own mind. I realized that my life as I knew it was over. Suicide had even crossed my mind.

Chen 3

Ironically, getting expelled from UC Irvine was possibly the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It lit the proverbial “fire under my ass.” I realized that the way I was living my life wasn’t how I wanted it to be, and I could no longer place the blame on anyone other than Ray Chong Chen. I could have easily accepted my fate, and ended up serving fry’s at a burger joint for minimum wage, but when the School of Humanities found me unfit to continue in their program without ascribing to their readmittance program, they awoke a tiger in hiding. Not only did I complete the required 36 units of study at a recognized community college, I did so with flair. I left Irvine Valley College on the Dean’s Honor List. I returned to UC Irvine in June of this year 65 pounds lighter, another testament to exactly how great of an impact expulsion had made in my life, from top to bottom. I realized that if I could conquer the body, the mind and soul would follow…the fruits of my year-long sabbatical are a living example.

So now, I come before you, a new Ray Chong Chen. Though at times vain and petty, a Ray Chong Chen that is ferociously ambitious, confident and driven. A humbled Ray Chong Chen that is eager to lie prostrate before any man, in search of knowledge.

I gotta say....it feels good to be writing again. It's much more therapeutic than i gave it credit for. You guys can fill in the gaps, but that's the long and short of it.

Ray