I guess it was inevitable that I’d be on hockey skates at some point in my life, but I did not expect that I’d become one of a rare group of female ice hockey officials before I even reached high school. Being born into a family of hockey players and figure skaters, it seemed that my destiny had already been decided.
Right from the beginning, my two older brothers and my father strapped me up and threw me onto the ice. I loved it and, in my mind, I was on my way to becoming a female Gretzky! But my mom had to think of something fast to drag her little girl away from this sport of ruffians. Enter my first hot pink figure skating dress! That was all it took to launch fifteen years of competitive figure skating. Even though figure skating soon became my passion, I always had an unsatisfied yearning for ice hockey. It took a great deal of convincing from my parents that competitive figure skating and ice hockey didn’t mix. My compromise became refereeing ice hockey; little did I know that I was beginning an activity that would influence my character and who I am today. When I began, I would only work with my dad and brothers. Everyone was friendly and accepting because I had just started. I soon realized though that to get better I needed to start refereeing with people I wasn’t related to, and that’s when my experience drastically changed. An apologetic smile and an “I’m sorry” wasn’t going to
get me through games now. As I began officiating higher-level games and dealing with more arrogant coaches, I suddenly entered a new male-dominated world, a world I had never experienced before. My confidence was shot, and all I wanted to do was get through each game and be able to leave. Sometimes I was even too scared to skate along the teams’ benches because I would get upset by what the coaches would yell to me. “Do you have a hot date tonight, ref?” was a tyhttps://p.9136.com/1lment that coaches would spit at me during the course of a game. In their eyes, I did not belong on that ice, and they were going to do whatever they could do to make sure no women wanted to officiate their games. I was determined not to let them chase me off the ice.
I made the decision to stand up for myself. I never responded rudely to the coaches, but I did not let them walk all over me and destroy my confidence anymore. I started to act and feel more like the 4-year certified Atlantic District Official that I am. There were still a few situations that scared me. One time I called a penalty in a championship game during the third overtime and the team I penalized ended up losing because they got scored on. I knew I had made the right call, even though I was unnerved when I saw the losing teams’ parents waiting for me at my locker room; for the moment I wished I hadn’t called that penalty. Although it was scary at the time, I stood my ground and overcame my fears. That was an important
stepping-stone in my officiating career and in my life.
After four years of refereeing, I still can’t say it’s easy. Every game hands me something new and I never know what to expect. Now I have the confidence and preparation to deal with the unexpected, on and off the ice. I now also know take everything with a grain of salt and not let it get to me. I have learned that life is just like being out on the ice; if I am prepared and act with confidence, I will be perceived as confident. These are the little lessons that I’m grateful to have learned as a woman referee.
Things to Notice About This Essay
1. The author tells an interesting story about her experiences as a referee.
2. A sense of her personality—determination, flexibility, good humor—comes through in the narration.
3. Details like “Do you have a hot date tonight, ref?” make the narration memorable (we’d love to hear more of these kinds of details).
4. The essay needs a faster start. The first paragraph (three sentences) says the same thing in both the first and third sentences—and gives away the essay’s surprise in the second! A good revision would all of paragraph one and start at paragraph two.
5. There’s too much frame here and not enough picture. The essay needs further development, especially about the difficulties of
becoming and being a ref, to keep it vivid.
6. The author should “dwell” in the meaning of the experience a little more at the end—“I wonder about…I also think…Sometimes I believe….” Significant experiences like this one, woven through many years of the author’s life, don’t mean just one thing—there are more insights and lessons to explore here.
In my mother’s more angry and disillusioned moods, she often declares that my sisters and I are “smarter than is good” for us, by which she means we are too ambitious, too independent-minded, and somehow, subtly un-Chinese. At such times, I do not argue, for I realize how difficult it must be for her and my father—having to deal with children who reject their simple idea of life and threaten to drag them into a future they do not understand.
For my parents, plans for our futures were very simple. We were to get good grades, go to good colleges, and become good scientists,
mathematicians, or engineers. It had to do with being Chinese. But my sisters and I rejected that future, and the year I came home with Honors in English, History and Debate was a year of disillusion for my parents. It was not that they weren’t proud of my accomplishments, but merely that they had certain ideas of what was safe and solid, what we did in life. Physics, math, turning in homework, and crossing the street when Hare Krishnas were on our side—those things were safe. But the Humanities we left for Pure Americans.
Unfortunately for my parents, however, the security of that world is simply not enough for me, and I have scared them more than once with what they call my “wild” treks into unfamiliar areas. I spent one afternoon interviewing the Hare Krishnas for our school newspaper—and they nearly called the police. Then, to make things worse, I decided to enter the Crystal Springs Drama contest. For my parents, acting was something Chinese girls did not do. It smacked of the bohemian, and was but a short step to drugs, debauchery, and all the dark, illicit facets of life. They never did approve of the experience—even despite my second place at Crystal Springs and my assurances that acting was, after all, no more than a whim.
What I was doing when was moving away from the security my parents prescribed. I was motivated by my own desire to see more of what life had to offer, and by ideas I’d picked up at my Curriculum Committee meetings. This committee consisted of teachers who felt that students should learn to understand life, not memorize formulas; that somehow our college preparatory curriculum had to be made less rigid. There were English teachers who wanted to integrate Math into other more “important” science courses, and Math teachers who wanted to abolish English entirely.
There were even some teachers who suggested making Transcendental Meditation a requirement. But the common denominator behind these
slightly eccentric ideas was a feeling that the school should produce more thoughtful individuals, for whom life meant more than good grades and Ivy League futures. Their values were precisely the opposite of those my parents had instilled in me.
It has been a difficult task indeed for me to reconcile these two opposing impulses. It would be simple enough just to rebel against all my parents expect. But I cannot afford to rebel. There is too much that is
fragile—the world my parents have worked so hard to build, the security that comes with it, and a fading Chinese heritage. I realize it must be immensely frustrating for my parents, with children who are persistently “too smart” for them and their simple idea of life, living in a land they have come to consider home, and yet can never fully understand. In a way, they have stopped trying to understand it, content with their own little microcosms. It is my burden now build my own, new world without shattering theirs; to plunge into the future without completely letting go of the past. And that is a challenge I am not at all certain I can meet. 点评Comments:
1.This is a good strong statement about the dilemma of being a part of two different cultures. The theme is backed by excellent examples of the conflict and the writing is clear, clean, and crisp. The essay then concludes with a compelling summary of the dilemma and the challenge it presents to the student.
2.A masterful job of explaining the conflict of being a child of two cultures. The writer feels strongly about the burden of being a first generation American, but struggles to understand her parents’ perspective. Ultimately she confesses implicitly that she cannot