What Makes Me Different.

GCSE English

Mohamed Abdel Raouf

900-00-1018

Course: ELCT 113

Instructor: Dr. Magda Amin

Section: 02

Paper #2 – Draft #3

What Makes Me Different.

The behavior of a human being varies according to the mental, psychological and social growth. In fact, this behavior varies from nation to nation. Education, family and friends are the major components that affected my life and made me who I am.

What makes an individual different from others

Factors affecting personality
Clothing and eating is not a way of identifying a person.
Identity is build up of many components.

Family and its effect on me.

My dad: his love to organization.
My uncle: sense of humor.
My grad father: patience.
My mother: not to be quick in making decisions.

Education

The wrong way of education at schools.
The education at AUC.

Friends and how they affected my identity.

ECLT 113 Mohamed Abdel Raouf

Paper #2: Egyptian Identity 900-00-1018

What Make Me Different.

The character of any person is the result of his experience, social life and education. In addition, every human being behavior varies according the people that he lives with, because every human being is affected a lot by people, as family, friends and colleagues. On discussing Egyptian identity, we cannot consider the style of clothing or the way of eating is an identity, therefore we can’t find an Egyptian identity. Identity is more complicated issue; it involves the response of each person towards a certain problem that faces him in his life. If we compared one person to another considering a certain problem that faces them in their life, a car accident for example, we may find the first person shy and without any positive attitude towards the problem, while the other is aggressive. These are the components of their identity; the first tends to be shy while the second tends to be aggressive. In another words, his components of identity affected him in taking that attitude towards the problem. Every person has his own character, and this character is made of many components that make a person funnier or more serious than others. Thus, identity of one’s person is what built up of many components, that Amin Maalouf writes of his own identity saying: " I've got just one [identity], made up of many components combined together in a mixture that is unique to every individual" (3). Everyone’s person is made of many components, and as in my case family, education and friends are the major components that build up my identity and made of me who I am.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Family had a great influence on my identity or in other words, my character. From my early beginnings – when I was child – I used to look at my father and learn from him, even if he was not intending to teach me. I learned from my father to be organized as I used to see him organizing his stuff. My mother taught me to be patient and try not to be quick in making decisions, and not to jump to conclusions before thinking and analyzing the problem that faces me. My grandparent is the one who had the greatest influence on me, as I used to go with him fishing when I was a kid, and that taught me to be patient. I gained my sense of humor from my uncle, as he is the funniest person I ever know; he is never sad and always smiles. My uncle is considered a typical Egyptian in this specific character – sense of humor – because this character is one of the characteristics that the Egyptians are well known by. As Egyptians tend to insert jokes in any problem in their life, even the political leaders "take it as compliment to be a subject of a popular joke" ("Walk like an Egyptian" 2).Thus, the family had a great effect on my personality from childhood, as the child learns from the people in his household.

Education is another major component of my identity and his way of education is what makes me different. However education in Egypt had a negative effect on me as the style of education in Egypt entails memorizing without understanding, as the student who memorizes more, gets the higher grades. This style of education is a wrong way of education as one must understand, not memorizes. However I managed to succeed through this way of education but with the cost of losing some of my hobbies like drawing and reading. However, my study at AUC is different, as one must understand what he learns, and as in computer science major, one cannot succeed without understanding.

Friends are another component in identity that affected my character and made of me the person who I am. Friends in the life of the teenager are more important than his family, as he go out with them and spent most of his time with them. Every group of friends affects each other, as every group members is affected by the some of the character of the other members, that after a couple of years of being friends, you may find those friends acting the same and their speaking style is the same. This specific attitude is what happened to me as when I was a teenager, I was highly affected by my friends and their chracters.

Consequently, identity means the factors affecting each person character as education and family and this is reflected in one's way of thinking and language. In general, Egyptians as a whole are very significant people and they appear to be strange. They are full of contrasts and puzzling attitudes. However, they are considered to be kind and generous, so they are loved by most people of the world.

Works Cited

Maalouf, Amin. On identity. London: The Harvill Press.

“Walk Like An Egyptian”. Egyptian Gifts. 6 Oct. 2001. <http://www.theegyptiantreasure.com/walk.asp>