My grandparents passed away when I was young, so I have been living with my older sister and aunts and uncles. My dad works in another province year round, thus I do not get much attention and care from him. In primary school, because of my poor background, my life was made much tougher: my peers made fun of me, my teachers did not care about me much. I became aloof, unwilling to socialize or play with my classmates. I tried to have fun by myself, but it was hard not to feel lonely without care from teachers, help from classmates, or company from family. I did not know the beauty of life. I only knew my loneliness.
One day, I accidentally bumped into a first-grader; he got a concussion. My homeroom teacher criticised me in his office and asked for my parents. I was resentful at first, as my dad cannot come from far away. What I didn't know at the time was that he had already informed my relatives to pay for the medical expenses. I immediately felt guilty, to bring such unnecessary burden to the family. A semester came and went, and I couldn’t even see my dad when he came back because my home was too far. A week later, I fell seriously ill and had to go to the hospital. To pay for the expenses, my father had to borrow money from others again. While my conditions improved, my family had owed another sizable sum of money.
Now in middle school, I was fortunate to test into an ideal class. However, our managing teacher works long hours and doesn’t have much time to discipline us. We developed a few bad habits as a result. In addition, the living cost is also many times that of primary school, but my family financial status has not improved. I lead an austere lifestyle, afraid to spend one extra penny and burden the family. On rare occasions, I still cannot control myself and spend money on some unnecessary purchase, but I don’t get overly harsh on myself because most of these spendings are aids to my studies. I aspire to overcome my financial challenges eventually. Getting into a college is my dream, and I am willing to put in effort and study hard for it in order to solve my family’s financial problems and improve our lives.
