Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

Author:Putsata Reang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

RUNNING

The University of Oregon has one of the greenest, cleanest, prettiest campuses I have ever seen, with five hundred species of trees, many of them rare and majestic, from all over the world. I did not get to sit idly beneath them. Once in a while, I wanted to lounge in the shade of those trees, the way I saw other students do. But I told myself there was no time to rest. I wanted to get my degree and get a job. To my mind, college was a slingshot that would propel me into a journalism career.

I took everything I could from college and gave a little bit back, too. I ate my way through the cafeteria like a termite, stopping for nothing. My friends watched and wondered how it was possible that I ate twice as much as they did—a plate of spaghetti, a salad, and a turkey sandwich and chips, plus the tallest soft-serve I could make without it tipping over—in the same amount of time as they ate their normal human serving size meals, and not gain a single pound. I shrugged my shoulders and dashed off to my next class.

In the adrenaline rush of living on my own, I signed up for every dorm-organized trip—whitewater rafting, mountain biking, bowling. I took karate to learn how to fight and teamed up with Kim Nguyen, a photographer for the Daily Emerald, the campus newspaper, to start the school’s first-ever Southeast Asian Student Association, even though there were only six of us and Chan was one of them. But mostly, I kept my head down and worked.

If college is where one is meant to test the limits of his or her own stamina, I found mine my sophomore year. I majored in journalism then stacked a second major in English literature on top of that. Chan had helped me get a work-study gig at the Office of Academic Advising, and after a few weeks, I realized I could use some advice myself.

Chan was able to get me in to see Bunny, who mostly dealt with older students. I wanted to see her because people in the office said she was the best.

Bunny was thin and lithe and power-walked past her fellow runners at marathons. I often saw her on campus, disappearing in the milliseconds between blinks. That kind of speed appealed to me; this woman had places to go. I felt assured she would understand the reason I was there to see her, the thing I wanted to know:

“Is it possible I can finish early?” I asked.

I had been doing some rudimentary math related to my scholarships and financial aid. I figured if I was able to graduate a year early, I’d save several thousand dollars in tuition and living expenses. I had two goals when I started college: to not ask Ma and Pa for financial help, and to get a degree without going into debt. I thought if I could do this, Ma would be proud.

Bunny pulled out a notepad and scrawled some numbers on it.

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