This is my answer for a short question, and I think it's my worst piece of writing so far (I may write something even worse later). I need your comments and criticizes...from content to voice to structure to word choice to sentence variety to grammar. Please help and thank you.
11. Jot a note to your future roommate relating a personal experience that reveals something about you.
“Are you Viet…err…Viet Cong?” asked new roommate first tentatively, then boldly: “Do you still live in the tropical forest, I mean, like guerillas?” I was then too shocked to answer. To our nation, Viet Cong had long become just a historical term relating to a war that ended 30 years ago, yet I didn’t feel much offended by the first question even noticing that my English friend said the word with a touch of enmity and apprehension. The second one, however, struck my pride and left me speechless. That moment, I realized the war that we longed to forget had never stopped haunting our present. But the friendship between us, 15 year old girls who cared more about the latest fashion than the long-passed war, could not be hampered by divergences and misconceptions. At least, a girl who knew about both Rolling Stones and Britney Spear didn’t seem to them like a guerilla living in the forest. And through my stories of the country’s old-age culture and fascinating legends, Vietnam was no longer a land of gruesome fighters in the eyes of my English friends. That summer I learned how much I valued the beauty of a Vietnam where people are striving to heal the wounds of war, which beauty I had not fully recognized and truly appreciated before. One year later, on my first day at Valley, an American friend was about to ask me the same questions. This time, I knew I was ready to answer.
