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What My Accent
Doesn't Tell You
When I was in my country and I was eight years
old, my mom and I used to watch a TV program every Saturday night.
This program was about suspense. My father was living here in
New York, so sometimes my mother went out with her friends on
Saturday and she couldn't watch "our" program. Then
on Sunday, I told my mom, "you couldn't watch our program
so I am going to tell you what happened" and I told my mom
a suspense story that I just invented. This way I could know if
my story was good or not without fear of being embarrassed. I
used to tell my mom "stories" while she was cooking
or cleaning. I really enjoyed telling my mother about stories
about my friends, about anything because I felt I had all her
attention.
I remember those years when I came back home
from school and my mom asked me, "how was school" and
I began to tell her what exciting thing happened to me. If I didn't
have anything interesting to tell, I just invented it.
After two years when I was ten years old,
one day my mom was cooking her favorite food, yellow rice with
chicken and vegetables. While she was listening to Salsa, I said,
"Mom, I invent stories about everything and I really like
to do it. My mother turned her head and looking at me, she said,
"You are just like your father. He is always inventing stories.
But you know the difference?" said my mom. " I believe
your stories because they are good." And she laughed and
told me that I had to work hard to improve my talent. When she
said that, I felt proud about myself.
I still write about everything. I stopped
doing it when my mother came here to New York with my father when
I was twelve. I felt that nobody was interested to hear my stories.
Now I am 23 and I want my talent back. The
difference now is that I want to tell my stories and my thoughts
to anybody who wants to hear them.
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