My Fast Food History

Ban Xeo

From when I was a little girl, my mom would always cook home cooked meals. She would always cook mainly fish, rice and vegetables. She would only cook breakfast on Sunday mornings. On school days, we would basically make cereal for ourselves, and she would give us lunch money. The only time we had fast food was when my mom would be too busy to cook that night. She would make this one special dish that was my favorite dish of all (Ban Xeo). It’s sort of like a Vietnamese quesadilla, except it doesn’t involve cheese. It is a corn meal texture, crepe like outer core, and it is filled with pieces of pork, shrimp, and bean sprouts. You eat it with like a fish/chili sauce and I used to be so excited when I would see her preparing it.

 

I used to be afraid of eating fish and rice because of an incident that happened. One night, I was eating fish and I didn’t take out all of the fish bones, so I ended up swallowing a big fish bone. I guess I swallowed it horizontally so it ended up being stuck in my throat and it hurt every time I swallowed. So I was scared but my mom and dad knew what to do. I see my dad walking over to me with a big ball of rice, he told me to swallow it without chewing it, and I was thinking to myself “ How am I supposed to swallow this big thing?”, but then I tried and the next thing I know, the fish bone is gone. I was so amazed but now I still am hesitant to eat fish.

I can look back and see when we began to eat fast food almost daily. It was when my dad first left. Once he left, my mom was left to raise me, my sister, and two brothers by herself, so she was tired a lot. My brothers and I would mostly just go to McDonalds or Del Taco because it was close to my house. From then on, I would eat fast for a couple of days out of the week. One I was in Jr. High, I would most likely get fast food after school, that is until I saw this documentary about fast food and the bad things that go into the food. I can say I was pretty naïve because I would say “How can something that tastes so good be so bad.”

Now that I’m basically on my own, I’ve been eating fast food like the first week of college, but now I’m trying to eat a lot healthier. My friend would always nag me and say that it’s not good and she would always say that I’m getting fat, even though I’m not! :( I’m tired of her nagging me all the time so I’m trying to eat healthier foods now. Instead of going to fast food restaurants, I would just go to Subway and buy a foot long. Although I’m trying to eat healthy at Subway, I still prefer my mom’s cooking because I am beginning to miss a home cooked meal.

My Past, Present, & Future

Ever since I was a little kid, I loved animals. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a dog in my house. Growing up, I realized two things: one, I was a pretty good student in school, and two, I loved animals, mainly cats and dogs. When I was small, I wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer just like every other kid of my age. I was about 6 when I first moved to Oxnard, and about 13 or 14 when I saved my first animal. At the time, I already owned a dog, but one day I saw a cat wandering around, so I took her in. She ended up being pregnant and soon had a litter of 7 kittens, one sadly didn’t make it, but the other 6 were fine. That was when I knew that I was going to change careers and want to become a vet. The main reason why i wanted to become a veterinarian was because I loved being around animals.

This is Rickii pregnant <3

Today, I still look back on that day when I saved that cat. There’s not a day that goes by that makes me regret what I did. I am doing what I can to get me that much closer to my goal. I recently saved another animal. He was a dog, whom I named Lucky. I was walking my girl dog, and he just came and followed us home, so I’ve kept him ever since. I just recently lost my girl dog; Rickii, after being together for 6 years. Lucky had gotten pregnant, and she couldn’t take it anymore. I had just been with her, and I left for about 45 minutes, then I got a phone call saying that she died. My heart sank. I rushed home, hoping it wasn’t true, but there she was. I sat next to her for hours, just hoping that she would come back, but it never happened. I feel so guilty for not being near her when she needed me most. She was always there when i came home, and when she ran away those couple of times, she always came back. So from then on, I didn’t want another owner to go through what I went through, so now I am more determined than ever to become a veterinarian.

This is Lucky :)

Now that I’m in college, everything is coming and going by so fast. I know that I need to really be focused now. I am going to try and transfer to UC Davis in 2 years. Once I finish at UC Davis. I will be entering into a veterinary program also at UC Davis. I’m excited for going all the way up to UC Davis, but also nervous. I just hope that my roommate(s) is/are normal. I might end up just having my friend be my roomate because I' m not too fond of having to look for strangers to be the people I'll be living with. Overall, I hope that my whole college experience is a great one. All I need now is to get a job.

tina.tran339@gmail.com