常春藤盟校 ( Ivy League ) 是由美国的8所综合大学组成的一个高校联盟,它们都是美国首屈一指的大学,分别为:哈佛大学、耶鲁大学、哥伦比亚大学、普林斯顿大学、布朗大学、康奈尔大学、宾夕法尼亚大学、达特茅斯学院。在美国,常春藤院校已被作为顶尖名校的代名词。
谈到自己目前收到的offer,萧靖彤仍然激动得不行:
I'm still processing it. It's not something you expect when you open these college messages on your portal. I saw a yes and a yes, a congratulations after a congratulations. It's totally surreal. I'm still sinking in. I had a moment to myself yesterday where I was just sobbing.
In our house, English is not English. Not in the phonetic sense, like short a is for apple, but rather in the pronunciation – in our house, snake is snack. Words do not roll off our tongues correctly – yet I, who was pulled out of class to meet with language specialists, and my mother from Malaysia, who pronounces film as flim, understand each other perfectly.
In our house, there is no difference between cast and cash, which was why at a church retreat, people made fun of me for “cashing out demons.” I did not realize the glaring difference between the two Englishes until my teacher corrected my pronunciations of hammock, ladle, and siphon. Classmates laughed because I pronounce accept as except, success as sussess. I was in the Creative Writing conservatory, and yet words failed me when I needed them most.
在我们家,“cast”(抛掷)和“cash”(现金)没有分别,这就是为什么在教会退休会,人们常常取笑我说的“cashing out demons”(本应为“casting out demons”,赶鬼)。我一直没有意识到这两个英语单词之间的差异,直到老师纠正了我的hammock、ladle、和siphon的发音,才恍然大悟。同学们笑我,因为我将accept(接受)读成except(除外),将success读成sussess。尽管我参加了创意写作,但常常词不达意。
Suddenly, understanding flower is flour wasn’t enough. I rejected the English that had never seemed broken before, a language that had raised me and taught me everything I knew. Everybody else’s parents spoke with accents smarting of Ph.D.s and university teaching positions. So why couldn’t mine?
My mother spread her sunbaked hands and said, “This is where I came from,” spinning a tale with the English she had taught herself.
我的母亲摊开她那双饱经日晒的双手说:“我就是从这儿来的”,接着用自学的英语讲了一个故事。
When my mother moved from her village to a town in Malaysia, she had to learn a brand new language in middle school: English. In a time when humiliation was encouraged, my mother was defenseless against the cruel words spewing from the teacher, who criticized her paper in front of the class. When she began to cry, the class president stood up and said, “That’s enough.”
“Be like that class president,” my mother said with tears in her eyes. The class president took her under her wing and patiently mended my mother’s strands of language. “She stood up for the weak and used her words to fight back.”
We were both crying now. My mother asked me to teach her proper English so old white ladies at Target wouldn’t laugh at her pronunciation. It has not been easy. There is a measure of guilt when I sew her letters together. Long vowels, double consonants — I am still learning myself. Sometimes I let the brokenness slide to spare her pride but perhaps I have hurt her more to spare mine.
As my mother’s vocabulary began to grow, I mended my own English. Through performing poetry in front of 3000 at my school’s Season Finale event, interviewing people from all walks of life, and writing stories for the stage, I stand against ignorance and become a voice for the homeless, the refugees, the ignored.
With my words I fight against jeers pelted at an old Asian street performer on a New York subway. My mother’s eyes are reflected in underprivileged ESL children who have so many stories to tell but do not know how. I fill them with words as they take needle and thread to make a tapestry.
In our house, there is beauty in the way we speak to each other. In our house, language is not broken but rather bursting with emotion. We have built a house out of words. There are friendly snakes in the cupboard and snacks in the tank. It is a crooked house. It is a little messy. But this is where we have made our home.
Identity and the desire to belong are two of the most relatable struggles that people face. I wanted to share a slice of our home life, my relationship with my mother and both of our stories.
"My mother is my role model. She keeps me grounded and inspires me not only to dream big but to take action to make those dreams come true. I love her passion for life, her boldness, her compassion and her honesty."
"Getting accepted into all eight Ivy League schools is amazing and after reading your essay, I can't think of anyone who deserves it more than you do."
被所有8所常春藤学校录取真的是不可思议,但看过你的文章以后,我觉得没有人比你更值得这样的成就。
但萧靖彤的成功可不单是依靠这篇作文。在日常学习中,她也是个实打实的大学霸!
萧靖彤目前就读于橙县艺术学校(Orange County School of the Arts),她的GPA高达4.67,SAT成绩更是高达1540。
“I’m an entertainment journalist. Some may see it as a lower form of journalism, but I think it should be held up to all other types of journalists. We can frame celebrities in a light that will inspire followers to follow their dreams.”
I miss Malaysia and think about my home country quite often. Growing up, I loved flying kites, going to markets and setting off firecrackers. I spent my childhood babbling in a mixture of Chinese, Malay and English.
In the next couple of weeks, I will be visiting certain schools and exploring their programmes, learning from professors and talking with students to find a place that will be a comfortable, lovely and supportive home for the next four years.