Author Archives: DEBESH PANT

Debesh Pant

Writing was always an obstacle for me. I hated it for as long as I can remember, hated it even more after I moved to America. You see I wasn’t born here: I came to America 5 years ago, yeah I was able to learn how to speak properly by constantly watching shows or talking to friends, but I couldn’t make my writing better by that. Things are different now, this semester and this class was able to help me find my own style.

I don’t like opening up to people, I don’t like telling people how I feel. This is a habit I have always carried. I also have a bad history related to opening up; I truly and honestly only opened up to one person in my life and that person took advantage of that and used it to hurt me multiple times. You need to let your emotions out if you don’t let your emotions out you will hurt yourself emotionally. This class taught me how to open up through writing.

I’m proud of my first essay. Even though my second and third are better I am proudest of my first essay. I was never able to talk about my past, I wouldn’t even try because I knew I would feel very weak and vulnerable. However, I took a risk while writing the first essay I tried to open up; and I was able to do it, I was able to open up by writing and it didn’t make me feel weak instead it made me feel powerful.

When I write, I write with emotions. When I write I want my readers to understand my story. This is my writing style……….

In Stephanie’s post, she talks about outside countries and their poverty, how tourists think they are helping them by visiting. But, turn out tourists are not helping their economy by visiting. After reading this article it made me think about third world countries. In my experience, American has always looked down on immigrants. Trump is a prime example, many immigrants have been either verbally abused or even physically abused by Americans once in their life. They often hear the words “go back to your country”, “learn English”, “oh no, he has a bomb”, and many more. Now let’s change up the scenario, if an American ever moved to a third world country, do you think they would be treated the same way? The answer is no, its actually the opposite. They are treated with respect, they are perceived as talented and smart, they are given high paying jobs. In my country Nepal there is actually a town made specifically for foreigners, and that town is one of the most advanced towns in the country. There’s always hot water running, no shortage of electricity, the houses are beautiful, the roads are plain and smooth. Knowing this really upsets me because I have seen how Nepali treat Americans in Nepal. And I have also seen how Americans treat Nepali in America.

Its every student-athletes dream to be scouted by a big Division 1 college and receive a full scholarship. And I was so close to achieving that but it was taken away from me because of an injury. Injury is very common in sports, many athletes have had their career ruined because of injuries. Billy Sims a professional football player, Mike Bossy a professional hockey player, Derick Rose a professional basketball player, Fernando Torres a professional soccer player, these are a few famous prodigies whose career ended short because of injuries. My injury wasn’t as serious as theirs nor was I as good as them, but this injury was significant to me.

It was my junior year of High School, “the scouts year” as my coach called it. It was soccer season and I was looking forward to it because I had worked so hard the past previous years and the summer before junior year to be the best I could be. My dream college was Stony Brook and my coach had just told me before the season started that she might be able to contact them, so I was very excited. All my hard work was paying off and I had just started off with the best start possible. In my first two games, I was able to score 4 goals and have 3 assists. Which put me in the #2 seed in the scoring charts and #1 in the assists. The next game was against Cardozo high school and before the game, my coach introduced me to the Stony Brooks scouts and he told me he was looking forward to seeing me play. I was so happy and hearing that made me play better, in the first 20 minutes of the game I was able to score a goal. But soon after while I had the ball in my possession the opposing teams’ defender tried to kick the ball out but kicked my knee cap by accident. I feel to the ground, I tried to get back up but I couldn’t and all I could do was call for help. My team carried me to the side and when the nurse looked at my knees, she told my coach and me that I had sprained my knee and that I was done for the season. Soon after I see my coach talking to the scout, then later the scout came to me and said: “I’m sorry bud”.

Ever since I was little I never wanted to work hard, I never wanted to try, I always would try to find an easy way out. I was like this all throughout elementary school, middle school, and the first three years of High School. All this changed my senior year and it was all because of one thing, wrestling. I started wrestling junior year, and that year I was demolished,  it was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me. Every match I played I lost all of them, what was worse was that these matches were in a tournament where around 200 people are watching you. I couldn’t handle the embarrassment so I left the team after a month. However, even after quitting I still couldn’t get over the losses, I would always think about how embarrassing it was, but this embarrassment turned into motivation. I was so embarrassed that I wanted to get good at it and make a point to everyone. So I started working out I wanted to be prepared for next year and I thought if I packed muscle I would be a better wrestler. A year passed and the wrestling season came back around, I was still the same lazy kid but this time I was motivated. After the start of the season, I just focused on wrestling and nothing else, I would go all out in practice every day I would never miss any practice. At one point I would wake up around 5 in the morning, go for a 3-mile run then do 200 push-ups and 100 situps then go to school. After school, I would have practice until 6:30 then after my practice I would go home and run another 3-miles, 200 push-ups, and 200 sit-ups. But all the hard work was worth it because I was able to place 4th in the city. What suprissed me was that my academic was getting better as well after I started working hard for wrestling it made me work hard at other things too, it was a domino effect. In conclusion, wrestling saved my life.

When people look at this picture, they always think I was happy and excited about getting an award. Little do they know how wrong they are, this picture was taken in an award show for our high school. Every Coach of every sports team would give the MVP trophy to the most valuable player. Senior year, I mostly focused on sports because it was my last year playing sports. I played three different sports, soccer in the fall, wrestling in the winter and tennis in the fall. Senior year was the hardest I ever played in all three sports, therefore, I was expecting to get all three MVPs. Also, I had played these sports all four years of high school. I was awarded MVP for soccer and wrestling but not for tennis. This really upset me because I worked so hard that season and was undefeated and was also the captain and the best player. Till this day I still don’t know why the coach didn’t give me this award. It just very hurtful when you work for something very hard but you don’t get the fruits for your labor. That is why if you look at my face in the picture I look very upset and I still am just as upset. This picture was taken right after the award show ended, I was taking a picture with my wrestling team and I was just not in the mood for it which is why I look unhappy. But im still very grateful for the other awards.