Mengting Gao
ENG 101
12/08/2014

How I Became “A Four Eyes Frog”
Most college students wear glasses today, but can you remember feeling special the first time that you wore glasses? I felt cool and excited the first time I wore glasses, because under the influence of a girl’s vanity, I thought that I had succeeded in escaping the control of my mom and could make decisions for myself. But after wearing glasses for a month, I found that it wasn’t actually cool and caused a lot of trouble. I then realized the importance of listening to my mum and I started to get advice from her from this point on.
I can clearly remember in my primary school, people who wore glasses were called “four eyes frogs” because the two pieces of glasses seemed to add two eyes to the people with poor vision, and if one is to wear glasses for a long period of time, his eyes bulge more than before like a frog’s eyes. As a matter of fact, it was not a good name to be called as “four eyes frogs”, because it meant that people who wore glasses weren’t normal like the other children anymore; they couldn’t see things in the distance clearly as before and had to wear glasses every day. Some people thought it was also ugly to wear glasses like a frog. But the fact that only a few people wore glasses in my childhood made me excited, I would attract others and people would pay more attention on me, which felt good because every girl likes to be the center of attention once in a while.
With the hope in my mind of attracting through wearing glasses, I started to ruin my perfect eyesight. I didn’t have a personal computer, smart phone or iPad in fifth grade when I started wearing glasses. The only way to damage my eyesight was to watch TV as much as possible. I had made the decision to wear glasses, so from that day on, I sat very close to the TV and watched TV as long as I was free. I started the event secretly with excitement, because I knew my mother would blame me, she thought I should do homework and revise for my exams like math and Chinese, and that watching TV was helpless to my studies. However, I had made my decision to damage my eyesight so that I would be allowed to get glasses. Every day I had to listen carefully in case my mom happened to come upstairs and catch me in the spot, and the minute I heard her steps, I would rush to turn the TV down really quickly. Everything went the way it should at first; when my mom came to the living room, I just pretended I was playing with my plush toys or reading books, and if she left, I would sit close to the TV again. Unfortunately, my mum found out what I was up to eventually; instead of asking me why I wanted to watch TV all the time, she just criticized me and said that I was badly behaved, and I didn’t tell her my reason, either. I was too stubborn to change my mind. In my colorful memory, this is one of the few gray ones, and I have to admit it was the first time my mom had blamed me with bitter hatred, and it was the last time so far. My mum always told me what I should do, but she never listened to my wishes. She also decided when I should get up and even when to drink milk, so I became a rebel to fight against her authority. Under the driving of vanity and the hormones of puberty, I was fond of acting contrary to the adults, including my mom. The more she required me to stay away from the harmful screen, the more I liked to sit in front of it. Mom educated me patiently about how important my eyes are and my chief task was to study. She just told me what I shouldn’t do and forced me to behave as she wanted, ignoring what I wanted to do and never listening to my ideas. The rebellion in my heart was too strong to beat. I longed to wear glasses to attract others’ attention, and I wanted to escape from the control of my parents, so I was persistent like a young cow that couldn’t be drawn back.
I became a “four eyes frog” half a year later, but after a week’s excitement, I found that I was in trouble. The