The West Coast

Antonia Nguyen

Period 2

October 6^th, 2010

The West Coast

Drake Cowell, a bright and responsible 19-year-old young adult was accepted into Stanford, one of the biggest schools in the world. Drake was a boy who lived in a small town of a state named Tennessee. His family was Jewish, middle class type; they could only afford to send their three children to public schools, where there were a lot of bullying that went out of controlled. With Drake, the eldest son, he figured that the only way he was going to survive throughout middle school and high school was that to study and be the best he could be. Therefore, after a few years of hard work and dedication, Stanford recognized him as an excellent student. Drake accepted Stanford and Stanford accepted him, with all the beautiful climates and great opportunities, Drake could not just say no. Before he left, he actually hesitated about Stanford’s offer because he wondered if studying abroad would be better than to stay within the country’s walls. After days of straining himself with this tough decision, he finally decided that since America was the easiest for him to interact with other people and to work there. He then sent his final decision to Stanford.

Before he left for Stanford, he wrote a letter to his religious grandmother in Germany. In his thoughtful letter, he wrote that he was going to Brown because he liked it there, but Stanford had so many more things to offer for him that he changed his mind right away after he was accepted into the university. Stanford was located a beautiful state, California. With all the beautifully humid weather and all the great courses with doors of opportunities opened, he could not resist. He was also sucked into the writing of how he was going to study hard to try not being as miserable as when he was little. He was also going to try to spend more time with his father’s side of the family in the outskirts of San Palo, and the state of California and Stanford University was going to have to accept another genius to their state. He had determined to make his Tennessee state to be proud of him when he graduated and make the state even more famous than before. Drake was afraid of all the problems he might have faced there, so he jotted them down for his dear grandmother to understand. Since he was Jewish, there might also be persecution between him and other students. Ever since he was little, some of his friends teased him about being an outsider in the classroom, or being Jewish. Now, he was confident enough to stand straight up for himself to say that he was proud to be Jewish, not embarrassed. Security threats were also a problem because Stanford University and California were accepting too many people. With many people, stealing things and other performances of breaking the laws definitely happened. Also, Tennessee was losing an intelligent person and the country was not going to develop as fast as California, since all of the people with great intelligence will move to these big states. However, as a responsible young adult, he promised himself to never forget where he came from and closed the letter that he was writing with lots of thoughts and love.