~Shilu G.Neupane~
I used to give lectures in my class about America and Americans before I came to America in real. I used to teach English in the government college of Nepal, an Asian country, and while teaching about American writers or to say Americans, I always used to write the word “American” in the blackboard and attempt to show my students splitting the word into pieces, Amer-I-Can, how the word “I Can” inside the American is so powerful to make their nation the top of the world. How every American is so confident in him/herself- presenting ‘I Can’ in everything he/she does! The optimistic attitude of life, the power, the confidence and strong will I used to give them in my lectures!
I used to teach English to undergraduate and graduate both levels. We have many American writers work prescribed for the text and every time my students have to read any work of America and American, they remembered my first description of American and started liking it… started to like the word “American itself”.
It has been two months since I came here….for the first time in my life. I used to like this country even before I came. I used to love this nation even before I really have seen it, touched it and be in it and the same attitudes, its best points I used to tell my students. No doubt, being a teacher is taking very great responsibility. Because when a single person speaks- he speaks to himself or his company but if a teacher speaks, he/she speaks to several minds and hearts at once. Teacher can mould student’s attitude and the way of thinking. Teacher can make generation and have the power to spoil it as well. So every time I used to stand in class in front of sixty seventy girls boys and more; I used to feel the same responsibility. I used to try my best to give my students best out of the things that can be given, to make their ideas and attitudes unbiased, unprejudiced but having ability of distinguishing what is wrong and what is right. I never spoon fed my ideas to my students but ever encouraged them to present confidently being what they really are!
Coming here I became a student. I am taking classes in Human Services and enjoying being a student one more time. Everyday I see, I meet and talk with people here I learn more…. I feel I really like America. Yes, we have heard this nation as land of plenty and land of opportunities, it is! And every time I see behind the success of America- It is American, but even more than that- the confidence, the power and the strong will of people to do something good for the nation. Yes, if there is a will there is a way! “ I Can” can make you do anything… coz there is nothing impossible in the world if human being tries.
It makes man be hopeful, the optimist, the enthusiast to do something. It helps man to look inside his/her own heart and find out the strength… the power… the will that he/she never realized before. Not only Americans but also each and every people should have that I can inside his/her heart. America- the land of diversity…. Of many people should make all of them realize of their power and strong will.
Coming here, I too want to be American in a sense that I too want to know, and feel that “ I Can,” even if I am a proud Nepali women. I wish America be more blossomed having many such AmeriICAN sources. All my wishes to this land of glitter, glory and success!!!
Shilu G.Neupane
Bellevue, Nebraska, USA
Volume V:: May, 2002
(Source : Pardesh.com)
