Who are you?

I have the most impossible English assignment.

I have to write about myself.

Now, I can clearly do this, since I do it all the time. However, this has to be deep. That is where the problem lies. I don't know if there's much of a difference between how I see myself and how others see me. I don't know if I keep aspects of myself hidden; certainly not consciously, so obviously I can't write about that. I don't know how I will change as I grow. I don't know how I would describe myself to someone who has never met me in a way that I can actually hand in to be marked by my English teacher.

That's the easy part, really. I also had to write about how culture and my location have affected my identity. I don't have a definable culture. I am a boring North American. There is nothing cultural that has defined me. Religion has not changed my life or shaped my personality. My country doesn't really affect who I am other than the obvious "yeah, I live in a multicultural city and I accept everyone and eat lots of different food".

This assignment, besides making me whine a lot¹ and wasting a lot of my time, has really made me realise that I don't know who I am. I am a girl. I am a teenager. I like a lot of stuff. I have brown hair. I talk a lot. I live in Canada. None of that is anything out of the ordinary, and none of it tells you who I really am.

Do you think you really know who you are? More importantly, would you be able to get a passing grade on this assignment?

1. which is usual anyway [↩]