Speaker

Speaker 

Couple weeks ago, I was invited to Parkland College as a speaker. The person who invited me was my classmate and current English professor at Parkland. Her name is Nia Klein, I felt flattered when she asked me to come and talk to her students. She knows a lot about my life, my struggles and how I overcame them. The assignment her students were working on was connecting real life issues and the main point was how to find happiness in hard circumstances and that’s why she thought it would be nice for her students to hear my life story from myself. And since I was also a parkland student they would feel more connected. Pretty much all of her students are Americans however most of them had no idea about other cultures, their life styles and everything they go through each day and how they still make the best out of it. For them everything I told them was unreal and shocking.

          This was my very first time talking in front of students and I am not a speaker. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I did prepare myself before I went to Parkland but it’s different when you are standing and everyone’s eyes are on you. When I walked into her classroom I saw most of the students my own daughter’s age. I told myself this was just like talking to my girls at home. I went to their classroom with this mentality; I am going there to help them. Telling my life experience would hopefully make them a better student and human being.

First of all, every single student was very respectful and gave me their full attention. Once I started talking about my life I saw my entire life front of me. There were many experiences I don’t think about it and didn’t think they were still there. I saw my life divided into two parts. The first part was from birth to 18 years, my life in Karachi, Pakistan. And the second part started when I moved in 1990-2014 to the USA. I myself was kind of in shock when I was telling my experiences: where I had started and where I am now. I always had a choice of quitting. The exit door was always in front of me but I always turned my back toward it and chose the hard road knowing it would have lots of struggles and hardships but quitting never suited me. I have gone through all kinds of emotions and experiences but I learned not to just stand there but to accept it and move on. Yes, life isn’t perfect but we can make it as easy as possible as much as we can. 

I don’t know how much I helped them but talking to them about my life made me feel more understanding comfortable about who I am. I’ve heard that when you are helping others you are actually helping yourself and I witnessed this first hand. A huge thank you to Nia Klein who gave me this great opportunity.