Separate ... and secure

Jessica Garrison

COSTA MESA -- Diana Girgis has logged hundreds of miles this summer,

pedaling her bicycle around the streets of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

She’s taking summer school classes, and she has her first real job

working as an assistant in a doctor’s office.

This summer, as in much of the rest of her life, Diana sees herself as a

solitary rider, backed up by loving family and friends from church, but

separate from the rest of her high school.

“I don’t spend a lot of time with people from school,” she said.

Even though she loves Newport Harbor High School, she feels she does not

entirely fit in.

Maybe it’s because she spent her childhood in another culture, another

world, in Cairo, Egypt. This sometimes makes it hard for her to get

excited about who got drunk with whom when, and what they did; or why

someone’s haircut is the most crushing matter of the day.

“I just don’t care,” she said.

Or it could be because her religion -- Coptic Orthodox -- sets her apart

from her Catholic, Protestant or nonpracticing classmates.

Her close-knit family -- her mother runs a day care center, her father

works in electronics, her younger sister Sara is one of her best friends

-- leaves her little time for the frenetic social pace kept up by many of

her classmates.

Her best friends, she said, are drawn from her church or her extended

family. An older cousin, who just graduated from UCI, is her current

favorite partner for movies and shopping expeditions.

Or maybe, she says, she feels apart just because she’s shy.

“That’s something I want to work on,” she said, adding that in some

situations, her face reddens against her will, and the power of speech

deserts her.

But whatever it is, Diana said that after seven years in the United

States, she continues to view the world of Newport Harbor through a

different lens.

Not necessarily a sadder one, though.

“I’m happy,” she said. “I like my job. I like summer school.”

Her past -- and future

Just about the only place Diana doesn’t bike is her church, the Archangel

Michael Coptic Orthodox Church in Santa Ana.

It is, however, a central part of her life. Not only is it where she

celebrates her faith, it is also her connection to the Egyptian community

she left behind when she and her family immigrated.

Since leaving, she said, she has never been back to visit her home

country.

“It’s too expensive,” she said, adding that she would like to return

someday.

But for now, her thoughts are on the more immediate future: In three

weeks, she, like the rest of the class of 2000, will enter her senior

year.

And before too long, she will be out in the world.

Two years ago, Diana talked of going to UCLA to become a pediatrician.

But her goals have changed.

Now she wants to jump into what she and her family see as the field of

the future: computers.

She is considering UCI but says it may be too expensive. Other options

are OCC and ITT Technical Institute.

She’s also just looking forward to the end of high school and the

beginning of real life.

Her parents second that opinion.

“Graduation is the first step of her future,” said her mother, Samia

Girgis. “She’s actually going to face the world.”

Her mother added that she was very excited about her daughter’s new job

“because it’s in a good spot, and she’s learning new things,” and she is

not a bit worried about Diana’s ability to face the challenges of the

future, just as she has handled the challenges of the past.