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.
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