This What College Has Taught Me

By Marie Dioneda, Class of 2024

Author Introduction

Marie Dioneda (she/her/hers) is a fifth year Literature student, graduating in May of 2024. This is her second and final semester with CTRL as a Student Partner. In her essay below, titled “This is what college has taught me:,” she shares what these past five years at American University have taught her and the important lessons she’s learned while attending this school—not just as a student, but as a person, as well. Rooted in raw, honest, and personal experiences, this essay aims to act as a reflection on her undergraduate career and, more importantly, how it shaped her own definition of who ‘Marie Dioneda’ is today.

Preface

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this essay. As I’m nearing the end of my undergraduate career, I’ve been drawn to the idea of writing a “final” reflection on my experience as an undergraduate student. Of course, there is no such thing as finality in ideas, thoughts, and beliefs since they’re constantly changing (hence the quotations); however, my intention with this essay is to capture my thoughts on schooling—specifically higher education—when the memories are fresh and the emotions still cling onto its edges.

I understand that this is a bit of an… unconventional resource for those who want to further develop their pedagogical practices. Truthfully, throughout this essay, I try to refrain from commands or suggestions in education, rooting the focus in my experiences, instead. These are real works I’ve written from high school and college. These are real notes I’ve written to myself and questionnaires I take yearly. I refuse to tell anyone what they should deliberately take away from this work if they choose to read it, but if you’re interested in pedagogy, education, and widening your understanding of students’ perspectives, then my only wish is that this essay will help you think about what it means to be a student today—even if the thought only lasts a second. That’s all I ask for.

I’d also like to take this time to thank Hannah, Gavin, and CTRL for giving space to this essay where it can exist freely. Writing and sharing stories, retelling personal experiences, and giving voice to those often dismissed are some of the ways we, as students and as people, consent to the world. I thank you all again for bestowing me this opportunity.

Marie

1. I have killed my parents’ dreams.

Their dreams for me died when I was in high school, when they revealed themselves as expectations and those expectations became a burden, and I chose to preserve my American-ness at the expense of my family’s culture. There are names for this experience: intergenerational trauma, cultural differences, the American immigrant archetype and cliché.

Perhaps that’s why the severance between me and my parents felt natural; perhaps that’s why the severance felt inevitable. I remember being 16 and my father telling me that he wished he was back in the Philippines and had a Filipina daughter. I remember being 17 and my mother sitting silently at the dinner table when I was only capable of screaming instead of speaking—my frustrations at a perpetual boil. I remember being 18 and my sister telling my parents that she never wanted to come home, witnessing raw, tangible heartbreak for the first time as it overcame my parents’ faces.

I remember when my relationship with my parents deteriorated, and so did I.

But with death, comes a birth.

It was only until I got older, when I often found myself alone at college, that my body ached for the familiarity of my family. I was forced to face all of me—even the parts I suppressed. No, especially those ones. I grew up in a household where the groceries, chores, fears, successes, hopes, dreams and failures are shared at the dinner table; my failures were my sister’s and my mother’s and my father’s as much as it was mine–I was a Dioneda before I was Marie. That was the truth; that is still the truth. And the truth only stopped hurting when I stopped running away from it.

My family tree sits heavy inside my American-made body. At times, it feels too big for me to carry, skin-itching and aching. I expect a similar pain exists within my parents, as well. However, the dreams that once revealed themselves as a burden soon revealed themselves as a kind of power. It led to this realization: Why is the trauma of American immigrants ubiquitous? Why is the severance between my family a cliché?

I have swallowed my parents’ dreams, let them die inside of me, but I wouldn’t let them go in vain.

Their dreams feed the beast inside me that hunts for a new dream.

An incomplete to-do list from my notes app. October 11, 2022.

  • Clubs that I can join:
    • Amlit
    • The Eagle
    • University magazines
  • complete handshake profile
    • put N/A for anything you don’t have
  • email the contact attached to the job
  • write cover letter (found on American University website
  • find

  1. Failure and success beat me the same way.

I know what it’s like for school to dig its claws into my flesh until I’m bleeding and can’t breathe. I know what my face looks like after staring at a computer screen and crinkled notebook pages for hours–sunken, gray, and withering. I know what it’s like to let my stomach concave, ignoring the violent growling and emptiness for the sake of finishing an assignment. Success and failure are almost indiscernible when my eyes are closed; they both feel like exhaustion seeping into my bones and desperation.

But it’s only when the red-hot shame flares inside my lungs that I feel it. That difference.

On particularly bad days, a terrifying thought passes through me: There isn’t shame in beating yourself if it’s for something worthy and good. There isn’t shame in working until your body forces itself to shut down if there’s a use for it. If there’s a purpose behind it.

Selfishly, I’m not terrified for society, and what this says about what we value as human—even though I know I should be. What terrifies me is the way red-hot shame from past failures consumes me when I’m on the brink of giving up. I’m terrified of how quickly I excuse my actions at the thought of my parents, the sacrifices they made for me, and their hopes that I embody. I’m terrified of how I preen under outward praise, blooming and immediately forgetting how I haven’t eaten dinner in the past three days.

I know what failure and success feel like, and most days I think it feels the exact same. I still don’t know how to comprehend this. At times, I wonder if my habits are even worth changing. I see the job market; I’m living through the U.S.’s neoliberal Capitalist paradigm; I’ve observed what society rewards and makes a person remarkable; most importantly, I’ve felt the red-hot shame of failure.

The lesson has been beaten into me, and I have the bruises to prove it. I can’t afford to ignore the truth; not anymore:

Success is demanded of me. Not my well-being.

Untitled essay for a creative nonfiction class [never submitted]. October 8, 2020.

The beginning of 2020 went something like this:

Therapy sessions every Monday and Wednesday, work every Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Fit in schoolwork when possible and try not to fail classes. Fail classes anyway, but at least make some money. Feel free to have a crush on a girl, but try not to worry about it too much. Feel fine—just fine—and accept that it’s okay to just feel fine. Fine is better than December, remember? Piece parts of the body back together again as if this was merely a game of Humpty Dumpty. Fail at that. Try again. Try again some more.

But still.

There were still those nights when it felt as if I was clawing my way out of my throat, stretching my skin, screaming I’m here, I’m here, let me out, please, let me out—

3. Writing requires divulgence as much as it requires an audience.

Or at least, the writing I choose to do.

I’d like to think that it started at the age of five, when I learned how to string my thoughts together and put it on a page, and my parents hung up my printed, stapled stories above their work computers. Or maybe it started in the seventh grade, when I won my first writing competition and won fifty dollars that I spent on a large cup of frozen yoghurt. Maybe it was in high school, when my English teacher asked me to dig deeper into myself—to write something I thought that mattered—and I could only keep digging because no one ever taught me how to stop.

It was clear that my success was in writing; it was clear that writing was what I was deemed to be good at. Studying literature and declaring an English major in college seemed obvious. I love writing. I love telling stories. I love how people applauded my candor.

There is no experience I refuse to unpack; there is no shame I wish to keep hidden; there is no thought too violent, too painful, too traumatic, that I could never expose. I hand my thoughts to others, willingly, on a silver platter. To garner empathy, to build community, to show others that they’re not alone—sure. Those are some reasons. But I know the truth of my insatiable greed, and I yearn for an audience. I’ve learned that my audience wants honesty, raw and bloody, freshly carved from my body.

But I often question myself: why do I give my mind and body away in my writing so willingly? Why do I not feel empty? How much of my mind and body do I have left to give?

I still don’t understand the consequences of being a writer. Truthfully, I don’t understand what being a writer means, either. On good days, I write to free myself from the bounds of my own body; I write to understand who I am, and the worlds I build are for my eyes alone. Other days, it feels like the only thing that can ever keep me going is other people’s encouragement.

And then there’s the weekdays, when I’m sitting in a classroom, and my professor pulls up a list of job openings, an article on what to do with an English major, or a PowerPoint on how we can make our interests productive. I don’t take pride in naivete for the sake of preserving what once was sacred; I understand the relationship between capitalism in human expression, and I’m not ignorant enough to assume that I’m special.

But I can’t help but think of me at five, who just wanted to tell stories.

At school, at work, and in the pursuit of being a writer, the articulation of my traumas is graded and judged. It’s a strange feeling when people ask if I can give them more.

It feels even stranger when I do.

Proust questionnaire. October 20, 2021.

  1. What is your idea of perfect happiness?

I’m 25, at my prime. I’m teaching English abroad and have a lot of money saved. I love my job and my life, and maybe a person.

  1. What is your greatest fear?

I’m holding myself back from my own potential.

  1. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Procrastination, laziness, sometimes hypocrisy.

  1. What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Ignorance and a lack of awareness.

  1. Which living person do you most admire?

Rosa, the woman that I speak to on the phone sometimes to practice Spanish. Also Kristine.

  1. What is your greatest extravagance?

Going to American University.

  1. What is your current state of mind?

Tired and overwhelmed.

  1. These days, I find more peace in questions rather than answers.

I remember when uncertainty was the monster under my bed—the thing that haunted me when my eyes were closed. I’d cling to the things I knew and refused to look elsewhere. I couldn’t stand the “what if’s?” of life; I couldn’t stand possibilities, even if they had a chance of being good. I avoided the unknown like the plague, and the unknown was everything. I didn’t know what my friends truly thought of me, what my grade on an essay would be, if I’d win the tennis match I had after school, if people thought my outfit was stupid, or if my parents were proud of me.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know.

Even with all of this, I didn’t give up my habits. Instead, I chose to destroy everything. I treated my friends poorly, I never submitted my essays, I never fought for the ball playing tennis—I never let myself try because trying meant accepting unknown outcomes.

What if I tried to do something and it didn’t go as expected? What if I failed? What if it causes destruction? I would rather destroy myself before anyone could.

I could destroy myself. That was certain.

In college, I quickly realized that my incessant need for certainty stability is exactly what made me unstable in the first place. There’s only so much self-destruction one can endure before they learn their lesson. Change, uncertainty, and instability are inevitable, and only a fool would fight it. I’d rather be a human who is disappointed in themselves rather than a shell of a human who destroys themselves in fear of life.

Writing this essay now, that statement seems so utterly obvious, but perhaps that’s just my inherent nature—to make everything as black and white as possible. I don’t know why I do it. It’s something I constantly question, but like with everything else these days, I don’t ask questions seeking answers.

I don’t find solace in answers.

Answers suggest finality, and there is nothing final in life other than death.

A cut draft from my project. October 11, 2023

Remember that obnoxious internal conversation I had before? When I said it was ignorant and privileged to use empathy when talking about high-stake failures? This is what I mean: not everyone has the privilege to go through life empathetically. Sometimes, you mess up. BAD. And when people tell you, “It’s okay. Be kind to yourself,” it comes off condescending, privileged and naive. How am I supposed to be kind to myself when my past failures don’t just affect me and my future, but also the people around me? What if my failures blow up so messily and terribly and it ruins everything and everyone around me? Am I supposed to tell myself that it’s okay as long as I clean it up? Are you asking me to lessen the severity of the situation because I should be kind to myself? What kind of logic is that? And what about the people around me? How am I supposed to be kind to myself when they’re so disappointed, and it directly reflects them, as well? Do you think I should just focus on myself and my growth instead because the weight of their disappointment is too heavy and the pressure to be better is literally ruining me? Well, do you understand that as a daughter of immigrant parents, that’s literally impossible?

  1. I know nothing. I know everything. I know nothing and everything at the same time.

I am aware of the limitations that come with my age, with being one person, and with being a human. There are lessons I have yet to learn. There are experiences I have yet to embody. There is a life—completely unknown to me—that I will understand intimately in two, ten, forty years from now.

I do not know what my reflection looks like when my hair turns grey. I do not know what it feels like to look back at my 20s with nostalgia. I do not know what my sister dreamed about last night. I do not know what a couple, somewhere on the other side of the world, talked about over dinner. My thoughts and beliefs change as much as my body does.

However, what I do know is this:

I exist within my own perception of life.

The world does not exist outside of me—the world exists within me. To know everything is to understand that in this present moment, this is what I’m meant to know. I know more today than I did yesterday; I’ll know more tomorrow than I did today, but for right now, I know everything I can possibly know.

 Everything is not a fixed definition of omniscience. Everything is ever-changing, transcending, growing, and looks different to every person. Everything looked different two weeks ago. Everything will look different two days from now. Everything only exists in the present.

Life, experiences, and lessons are not meant to be chased. They arrive when they are meant to arrive. This is where I choose to live. This is how I choose to exist.

The present is finally enough.

My working thesis authorial preface [excerpt]. February 10, 2024.

I know what makes a book good. Well, at least for me.

Simply, a good book doesn’t ask me good questions; a good book makes me question myself. I’m obsessed with the “why?” in literature—the “so what?” if you will—and yes, I recognize this isn’t exclusive to me. However, when I’m reading for pleasure, I seldom ask myself “why did the author write this story?” or even “why is this story important?” Those questions are reserved to academia (which, truthfully, is an arbitrary designation on my part, but it’s a designation I make nonetheless). Instead, a good book makes me ask myself, “What is this work saying about you?”

My favorite books suffocate me. They’re intimate with my mind. They’re invasive to my body. The last sentence feels like a kiss on my neck and a hand shoved down my esophagus as it claws at my intestines. I want to be left reeling, silent, and choking on the deluge of questions that this work has inspired within me. I don’t recognize myself after reading my favorite books; it’s almost ironic, seeing as that my favorite books make me feel the most seen.

There are many reasons—some still unknown—as to why I’m drawn to this type of literature. For your own well-being (and mine), I won’t list all my working theories. However, I will say this: I find an irreplaceable solace in the pursuit of understanding myself. It’s a practice of masochistic honesty for the sake of healing.

My intention with my own work is not to emulate/insight the emotions I feel when reading my favorite books with my prospective audience. Not only is that impossible, but I would also never in my life assume that my work is comparable to these authors’ skillset and stories, either. My intention when writing is the same as my intention when reading (and frankly, whatever I do in life )—to understand who I was, who I am, and who I’m becoming.