What's in a Name?

Emma Tran

Emma Tran-English/German (mother); Vietnamese (father); Emma is an enthusiastic, optimistic, ambitious, and imaginative girl who is known for her cheerful and high-spirited personality. She tends to serve as the "mom" of her friend group and is generally sweet-tempered, good-natured, bubbly, and idealistic, if a bit sensitive and slightly awkward. She considers her friends to be family and tries her best to keep them together at all times, which makes her unafraid to confront or comfort them with utmost care. Because of her warm and enthusiastic nature, people have come to depend on her for feelings of brightness and a sense of possibility. Emma always has a new project to work on so that she can help, yet her enthusiasm and excitability can get out of hand and cause her to do more harm than good. She has been one of Julia Nichols' closest friends since the third grade and is also good friends with her classmate Chancey Hale, who has an auditory processing disorder. She is sometimes mistaken for being ditzy and a bit unreliable, yet is a straight- A student who plays the oboe for the high school band. She keeps her notes meticulously color-coded and has good time management skills, which makes her surprisingly organized when approaching specific tasks. Despite being communicative, Emma requires a significant amount of personal space and can sometimes grow exhausted and distraught by loud, noisy environments. She wants everyone around her to live up to her expectations, lofty as they may seem at times, and prefers to maintain her own belief in things despite disagreement from others. She considers herself a "shy extrovert", being a self-described people person who enjoys and feels content in the presence of others in smaller doses. 

Having certain things planned out can help give her enough time to focus on what she needs to do in order to pull out her own thoughts. Emma is not always sociable, but is still appreciative of others and will say something nice or make them feel at ease with her smile. She keeps most of her feelings close to her chest, only sharing them with a very trusted few, which can cause her to behave somewhat neurotically in social settings. Her best friends are fellow band geeks, one of whom she lost her virginity to and then dated on and off until high school ended. When she is not in band practice she can be found reading alone in the library, wearing an "I <3 Nerds" t-shirt and eyeing up the hot debater in class. Emma is usually ecstatic and gets distracted easily, making her prone to accidents and mixed information, so she often comes across as naïve. She heavily monitors her actions and worries about her social status, to the extent of freezing up while trying to come up with a response. She tends to wear her heart on her sleeve and has a highly expressive face, as most people can tell what she is thinking or feeling without much effort. She will characteristically use self-deprecating humor to ease up an uncomfortable situation and deflect focus from herself, which often serves as a coping mechanism against her hidden fears and compulsive thinking patterns. Despite her overt enthusiasm and bubbly personality, Emma tends to find herself under-appreciated and disregarded, most notably when she intentionally disappeared to see if her absence would spark concern. Tender and sweet, she appears playful, cute, and even childlike in order to gain security and approval, yet has an underlying fear of abandonment and exclusion beneath her cheerful, warm exterior. She tends to process her emotions by sharing them out loud, and while she doesn't mind brutal honesty, she thinks that people should be firm, but not rude in getting their point across. 

Her intuition is powerful and she can usually intuit when someone has underhanded or ulterior motives, even when they seem nothing but friendly to her face. Emma once ruined her favorite doll, "Fordson-Lafayette", at age 4 after shoving her into an oven in a game of "Hansel and Gretel", causing it to melt due to the heat. Although reprimanded by her mother for her foolish behavior, her family was more concerned with her safety and the fact that she could have easily started a house fire. Various examples of Emma's simple-mindedness can be seen, as she didn't know the rules of the game Marco Polo and was unable to keep herself from spoiling the surprise for her brother's party. She also appears to have a good sense of honor, which was demonstrated when she realized how wrong it was to take advantage of Connor while he was injured and when she discovered an envelope with money and decided to give it back to its rightful owner rather than keep or spend it. Ironically, Emma is said to be unable to keep a secret for a long period of time as well, often accidentally revealing the secrets she has been told out of nervousness or excitement. She tends to become overly talkative when nervous and has a habit of fidgeting with her hair when anxious or deep in thought. She sometimes has trouble paying attention to other people's feelings and tends to listen more with her head than her heart. She likewise has a propensity for being naive, childish and somewhat ignorant of her surroundings, as she has an impressive collection of stickers and love for stuffed animals, and her catchphrase is "sweet baby corn". Emma can also be quite petty, as she becomes a perpetual complainer and reacts exaggeratedly to minor issues when things seem beyond her control.