‘Living the Life That You Are: Finding Wholeness When You Feel Lost, Isolated, and Afraid

Fact-based disciplines such as natural sciences have less potential for deeply linked, atomic zettel notes than arts and humanities. There is not much to discuss about or 'generate insight' on photosynthesis, algebra or network protocols if you are not a scientist.

In his delightful autobiography, Memories Migrating, the late John Burrow records his perplexities when this injunction was conveyed to him by his graduate supervisor, George Kitson Clark: ‘I brooded on this. What was a fact? And what made it one fact? Surely most facts were compound. How would I know when I had reached bedrock, the ultimate, unsplittable atomic fact?’

Even thoughelaboration works verifiably well for deep understanding, it might notbe the best choice if you just want to learn isolated encyclopaedicfacts (Rivard 1994).

Isabel: What did you have to learn? What was picking up the different cultural experiences like?Angelo: The main thing was learning how to interact with others, because it was very hard. I feel like an outsider so I wouldn't really go up to people, I wouldn't go up to any other races. So it was very hard, I would really stay to myself and to that just one friend. Even sports, I couldn't do sports because I didn't feel like I fit in. I never felt like I fitted it in. And throughout all my school experiences, I never felt like that belong to me because there was many times where I had opportunities for my academics to get awards or be presented with some stuff, but I was always told "No, you're not American so you can’t do that. And there's no way that you're going to go to another state they're going deport you on the way there, we're going to get pulled over.” And so, I really didn't see a future there for me.Isabel: Where was that message coming from? Is it just your day to day interaction with people—like the way you felt othered—or did people explicitly say, “You have no opportunity here?”Angelo: Mainly it was my parents. My parents wanted us to keep to ourselves. My parents just raised us with that mentality that we're here, we're your family, there's nobody else. So you go to school you come home and that's it. So, any other projects, and the after-school activities, didn't even come to mind because I didn't see it for myself. I couldn't seem to picture myself having fun in after-school activities. It was just that mindset that, "Okay, I got to go home because we're not from here and something bad might happen."

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