Introduction
Hi, my name is Elaine Thai and I'm Teochew Chinese and Vietnamese. My full "name" is Elaine Tran Thai. But Thai is a Vietnamese last name my Chinese father never changed back to his Chinese last name, "Choy". So my full Chinese name, starting with my last name is: Choi Su Yi. And that is only the start of the confusing life that I will now enrich the internet with.
I went through some struggles with my literacy as student - mostly from a cultural standpoint. However, literacy is, literally, what we make it! Just because other students may have had more of an advantage over me, I did not let that make me quit. Throughout this course I learned that literacy does not only apply to reading and writing and nothing in life is ever what we perceive as "fair" and "equal". Literacy can be many things as we apply it to our discourse communities. There are downs to life but we can lift it up. Education in general is a privilege that we do not necessarily appreciate enough. This is an advantage for mostly all American citizens compared to countries where children cannot receive an education. Focusing on the negatives in life, and consistently comparing myself to others has crippled my mindset of how brilliant I am, and how much of an advantage I actually do possess.
One advantage of mine is that I am in a University! Not everyone can attend a University so that alone is an advantage that I am truly proud of. I am a pre-nursing major with the goals of becoming a Geriatric Nurse Practitioner. This has influenced my decision on the choice of my Extended Inquiry Project in this class. I chose to do my project on Ebola because I did not know how much of a threat it was to our country - especially our healthcare workers. Many of my assignments and responses in this class are based on my thoughts through my background, careers goals, and personality. I hope through this brief introduction of myself, that you will be able to understand my perspective from my writing.