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Self Reflections on where I’m not belong

The human brain is designed in such a way that it always functions to protect us. In doing so, the brain always ensures that we are in a state of comfort by structuring our mindset and thought processes to things and surroundings that are familiar to us. The moment the brain detects that it is in an unfamiliar environment, it always works to revert to familiarity. However, sometimes we have no choice but to be in unfamiliar spaces. In this case, the brain cells release chemicals that communicate to the body and mind that we are in trouble, leading to a massive release of adrenaline. It is the reason why many of us are likely to become anxious, stressed, and depressed when they are in unfamiliar spaces.

As a human being who is in the development process of life, I must admit that I have been in an unfamiliar space. Here, we are going to major on personal experiences of research based on me. I am going to position myself in an unwelcoming or unfamiliar space and aim to analyze and reflect on my sense of non-belonging.

When one starts to feel that he or she does not belong in a particular environment, it becomes an unwelcoming space. It is as a result of being in a place where you find the environment being contrary to the one you are used to. For instance, in the university, when you do not do parties, drinking or never smoke. You are allocated to a hostel that your roommates have no problem in smoking in the room or bringing their friends overdo drink and play loud music. These can often get uncomfortable to one who does not do these things and is often overpowered with his or her opinion since the majority is comfortable with the situation. Hence the environment becomes unwelcoming to the person or feels you do not belong to that place.

In my experience, the place I felt I never belonged to was my high school.

My high school named Zhengzhou Foreign Language School, and it ranks third among all senior high schools in China. When I first visited this high school, I was a junior high school student, and I was very much looking forward to it. Because everyone knows that the students who attend here are among the best, the student who comes out of this high school can go to a first-rate university. Not only do students like me look forward to this school, but also parents. In order to give their children a chance to enter this high school, many parents arrange a lot of homework for their children when their kids just a junior high school student. What's more, some parents have spent a lot of money to buy the house near the school when their children are in primary school, and they are very strict with their children since they are young, all in the hope that their children can get the admission letter from the school.

It can be said both lucky and unlucky, after I finishes the high School entrance examination in my last year of my junior high school, I received the admission letter from the Zhengzhou Foreign Language School by virtue of my excellent test scores.

When the way of things one is used to sudden changes, not to your favour, one feels like a piece of a puzzle that does not fit in that position. It is either you work to adapt and overcome or be left out. Before my senior high school, I attended my junior high school at Xuchang Middle School, located in a small city named XvChang. At the time, my grade always ranked top ten. In China, each junior high school has three levels include the seventh grade, the eighth grade, the ninth grade, and each grade have around twenty classes. I was proud at that time because I could get the first place in academic examination of two thousand people in one grade. These great results and rankings also inspire me. So, in my last year of my junior high school , I did a good job in the senior high school entrance examination: I got the 7th place in my hometown city. I can’t believe that I can got the 7th place in thirty thousand students. Because of my excellent performance, I received more applause and encouragement from my teachers and friends. The head teacher and principal are also proud that I can be admitted to Zhengzhou Foreign Language School.

I still remember the first time I entered the Zhengzhou Foreign Language School as a freshman. The school's square is very elegant, and each teaching building is solemn and enthusiastic brick red, the students and teachers here to this iconic colour named "Harvard Red.". Compared with other high schools, its facilities and laboratories are the most advanced with the best environment. I like the study room in the school, and the study room is surrounded by transparent glass, where you can see the flowers and scenery near the school, all of these always inexplicable let a person's mood is bright. From the first day of school, it brought me too much expectation. I also think this is going to be a new beginning in my life.

But what I never expected was that this was where my nightmare began.

Zhengzhou Foreign Language School was a school that had pride in producing top-performing students (?)Those that managed to secure their position there had one of the best grades in the province. It was a battlefield for top performances in the province. Smart students, in terms of intellect, battled each other in exams across the years in the school. That was the purpose of Zhengzhou Senior High School. Bring out the best in our province. This was high pressure as it gave them a conducive competitive field for them to be the best in the province. I was not left out. It was either you work hard to sail with the top or fail at exams n sink with those at the bottom. Though in my previous school, （conjunction）I had never experienced this before, ass I had achieved good grade with ease. This was a different environment. A change to what I was used to before. I was ranked from the first monthly high school entrance exam to the middle and back of the class.

I could not accept the reality that I was an ordinary student. Ordinary student here, to me, means that you do not appear among those high scoring grades. Back at junior high school, there were a dozen top students in a class in junior high school, and I could still be ranked first and second. I could also be ranked in the whole students in this level. Failure to me was not an option. I also had pride in excelling, being among the top students and know what it meant being at the top. Now I was ranked thirtieth or fortieth to the class, a total of sixty people. This got me depressed.

After seeing this situation in the first year of high school, I began getting aggressive. I was aggressive to my studies and my study schedules. During these depressing times, I was studying till late in the night. I used to spend most of my time in studies all in the name of having my name ranked among the best. As always with life, there are good times and bad times. But I did not have this understanding at that time. Due to the pressure I had and aggressiveness I took to my studies, I got a lower grade in the second monthly exam than the first one. This got me more depressed than before and more aggressive towards my studies.

I stayed at this status for two and a half years. In the first year of high school, I studied until one o'clock in the evening and on the second year, increases my study hours into the night. I was pressuring myself too much to be able to match my fellow students who rode the top of exam score charts. On the third year of high school, I began studying until four or five o'clock in the morning. By now you can tell this was getting worse and not good for me. I was adopting unhealthy study habits. Then after, sleep for an hour or two before I woke up for classes. Most times, I could sleep for one hour then wake up at six in the morning. I was missing a lot of sleep hours. In turn, instead my grades going up, they deteriorated. My body was getting exhausted because I had pushed it beyond its limits.

When schools closed or went for a break, while other students went for holidays during the school breaks, I did not. I didn't travel for a whole two or three years. I had no vacations or holiday getaways. During these times, I went to the preparatory course or I went to review my past exam results and worked to improve them. As you notice from the beginning of my high school years, I had created an unconducive environment for myself. Not only that, the change in environment that I felt not comfortable with was making me push myself too much. These experiences hit my mind and body very hard. They had deeply affected me not realizing what I was doing to myself. My late-night studies, my less sleeps and no breaks for my body took a great toll of me that I had not realized before. It was coming.

My body began responding to the mistreats I had given it for the past few years. This was in my third senior year at Zhengzhou Senior High School. At this time, my classmates used to take ten minute breaks to make up less sleep every day. But as usual, I never made sleep my agenda. Instead, I kept pushing myself harder. I did not realize I was pulling myself apart. Tearing and wearing-off my body.

I started experiencing some discomfort at the cervical spine area. I ignored it for a while not knowing what was in store for me. Then the discomfort reached for the lumbar vertebrae. This followed with more pain than discomfort. I could feel how exhausted my head was. Sometime, headaches and felt like my brain was burning out. Since I did not pay attention from the beginning, the pain increased compressive to the nerves. My concern rose when pain was intense and kept increasing. This was not over.

My fingers began swelling. Then followed the whole hand. It would swell inexplicably when it was pressed against the nerves. This was my right hand. Though all this had begun to worry me and sought medical attention, I was not yet worried about how I carry out my studies and if it would affect me. This was because I was left-handed. I used my left hand to write. My right hand followed. It started slowly. Writing was slow and painful all through. Then one day I woke up and it was swollen. I could no longer write. I had to cancel my plans to attend class or anything else. I was in much pain to concentrate. It alarmed both my parents and I. I now had realized what I had done to myself.

To how far we are, you can see what kind of state I had put myself into. I was in a new environment brought by my irresponsibility to take care of the situation that I was in previously. I had to be hospitalized for a few days and had some few days to recover at home. I did not go to school for a while. My classmates progressed and gained more mileage with their studies. Everyone at school knew about my condition. Some said I was not ready for this school; I could not match their top performances and I should have quit a long time ago. This got me more depressed during my recovery. There was again, in an environment that was unfamiliar and unwelcoming to me. I felt like an 'alien' to my own school.

My parents realizing how difficult it was for me, they had me transfer and study abroad. Still on recovery, it was hard to carry out some class tests. My hands were not a hundred percent healed. A test consisting of two and a half hours felt really long. I could only do a few questions, get exhausted due to my condition and leave the class. My morale for excellence was completely gone. I felt like the ordinary student stature that I was trying to run from by pushing myself too hard. I felt like a loser for those remaining two and a half years. I felt very inferior to the rest of my school and I didn't care about my appearance at that time. I was avoiding attention. If I wasn't strong general perseverance at that time, my heart was really super nauseous to that environment. That was my problem though.

I had lost myself to this unfamiliar and unfriendly environment. Avoiding attention, quiet in class, the fire and passion I had previously burned out. No matter how much I wanted to bring myself to I how I was before, my body did not respond. Everything else felt ordinary. No competition, no more pushing myself to attain that good grade that I once pushed myself for. My teachers and classmates were good to me. It was not like at Zhengzhou Senior High School. But my confidence was long gone and considered myself a poor student in class. I was neither among the top nor those fighting to get there. I felt so low of myself even though my class teacher was very optimistic about me. She could often praise me of my work in class and the assignment I handed out. This did not change the state either.

It felt more off an embarrassment than praise to me. It made more inferior because I was not working hard like I should, but there she was with the praises. This made me draw myself more away from class. My participation which was poor was already deteriorating further. This was not only the case in school but also at home. My parents could see how affected I was. How I was drawn back from everything. Even though now I was free during school breaks for holidays, the holidays and vacations we made never felt like the holidays before. The ones that I could get home with my good grades at junior high, to celebrate with my happy parents with big smiles on their faces. Now I had nothing to give for their smiles. It was what I told myself when I was behind my closed bedroom door. The only people I could confide to be my parents by then, even though I had good friends next to me.

As far as my experience above, you can conclude that when one is an unwelcoming environment, it is what actions you take that will get to help you out. Like the example I gave above, before my narrative experience, he or she who is the only one uncomfortable with the place, should consider reaching the accommodation's office and have the hostel changed to a favorable one. This will help one ease out to the unfamiliar environment without harm. In our case above, I took haste to want to compete with the rest without taking into conscious of my limits. I wanted to work harder, push myself beyond the rest to be among the top, instead of knowing what kind of my environment is and what kind of measures are more efficient.Different kind of environments have different measures.

Why is Ethnography important to us, one would ask. Ethnography offer excellent insight into how social anthropologists undertake their fieldwork. More, so provides insights on different unfamiliar environments of different individuals or groups of people. Helps study their culture, ways, how one reacts to different situations with different people. Where ethnographies focus on particular practice- such as a religious ceremony or culinary ritual- the researcher will place in practice in its full context to give a holistic, rich multi-faceted account.

When I look back on myself at that time, I think I was childish, solid and stubborn. And I don’t allow myself to give up. In fact,this kind of spirit is very good for people, but I was so stubborn at that time. So my stubbornness resulted in both physical and psychological damage. The following are some of the facts that I feel most in need of self-reflection.

First of all, accept the perfect and imperfect self. However, it was hard for me to face my heart in high school. I often hide my inner fragility in that time and imagine that I was Iron Man can overcome everything. I can't accept my imperfection. This feeling like I can separate myself into two parts, one part is a perfect person, and the other part is an imperfect person. I focus on my perfect part and everyday use its energy, however, the imperfect part is always ignored by myself. But what I never thought was that the human being’s heart could not be separated, and the imperfect half of myself which be abandoned by myself has been crying in my heart. If the imperfect half myself is a little child, I would be so sorry for him, and I shouldn't have left him behind no matter what difficulties I met. I should be honest with myself: Yes, I'm not a genius. I'm just an ordinary student. Who cares? I accept all I have, and I can face myself bravely, whether it is perfect or not perfect. I'm the best in my heart, and that's enough.

Moreover, knowing the strengths and be confident. Although my total score in high school did not make me confident, I was always getting a good grade in math and physics. Besides, I love writing novels very much. I often contribute to the school newspaper and the famous fiction company, and my articles are often quoted in the school newspaper. In these respects, I shouldn't have collapsed in that environment. But at that time, I only focused on the grades and the trouble is I only focused on the grades of my weak subjects. I became very self-abased and cared a lot about what others thought of me because I was afraid of being laughed. Later I found that everyone's attention is on their own, few people pay attention to others. In this era, everyone is making full use of their time to improve themselves and take responsibility for themselves. So all we can do is to take responsibility for ourselves, use our strengths properly and try to be a confident person.

Thirdly, let go of the past and learn how to give up something. Whether the past makes you proud or sad, learn to let it go. In high school, I was very stubborn because I was a top student before. I did not take the new place in high school as a new start. I still miss the glorious junior high school days what I could not go back. So in this state, my heart is full, filled with past glory and present vanity. And the real progressives will think of themselves as an empty cup, can be filled with new knowledge. I think that was the biggest failure of my attitude at the time. Also, life must give up somethings, and then people can continue to seek and build their own new life. And more importantly, when the person thinks of himself as an empty cup, he'll have less to be worried and more motivation to go.