When you're five years old and your parents tell you that you're moving to a country you know almost nothing about, you simply go with it. So, at the ripe age of five, I got on a plane and three three airports and two days later I found myself in Salt Lake City, Utah.
I had no idea what we were doing in this strange place with strange people who spoke a really strange language, but in the thirteen years I have lived here I guess I started to figure it out.
Four days after arriving at this strange state called "Utah" we, my siblings and I, were enrolled in school. Kindergarten is supposed to be a safe place for kids to learn and have fun, but when you don't know anyone and when you don't have a clue what anyone is saying to you you end up spending most of your time crying and wishing your mommy was there. This was the beginning of my schooling in the United States.
Thirteen years later I'm graduated from high school, am attending college, and can speak the English language better than most native speakers (at least I like to think I do). The last thing on that list, the English part, I attribute to my immense passion for literature and to my eleventh grade English teacher, Jamie Sadleir.
In the eighth grade I discovered the wonderful world of fiction and I fell in love with it. I made a bet with my English teacher that if I read fifty books in the school year he'd get me any book I wanted. If you didn't already know, reading enhances your vocabulary. With every book I read I became more word smart and ultimately a grammar Nazi. To this day, in every day conversation I can't refrain myself from correcting peoples' speech. You're probably reading this and going "You don't sound very word savvy and your grammar could be better." Well, yes, I agree, but hey no one is perfect.
Anyway, I still have the list of every book I read that year. It suffices me to say that it exceeded fifty. Unfortunately, that teacher was transferred to a different school and I never got the book he promised. But ever since that year, I found it very hard to put down books.Then, just three short years later, as a junior in high school, I discovered my passion for writing.
Miss Jamie Sadleir, my English teacher, will always stick out in my mind. She was one of those professors that would go beyond her duties as an educator to help you. If didn't matter if you wanted to talk to her about English or about the cute boy you saw in the hall the other day, she would talk to you. She really wanted us to succeed. Her entire purpose was to truly prepare us for college writing. Thus, she'd give quite cumbersome writing assignments and grade them not so leniently. What I really liked about her was that she would go through your papers with you and tell you exactly what you did right and what could be better. I probably had her go through each of my papers at least five times. Poor woman, I probably drove her mad. But she never refused! She was always glad to help out. Because of that I like to think I'm actually a decent essay writer today.She taught me that writing could be fun and that analyzing your own writing to make it better is quite an intriguing process. I loved seeing how my papers would go from super crappy to quite good. My progress in writing always surprised me and made me quite proud of myself.
Today, I love to read and to write! I plow through books like lawnmowers plow through lawns. I'm not a HUGE fan of analytic writing but I'm not opposed. I mostly like to write creatively. To all of you who thing the subject of English is evil it's probably because you haven't found a book that intrigues you and you probably haven't found a topic to write on that you are truly passionate about. But hey! It's never too late to get your feet wet! Pick up a book and read. Pick up a pencil and start writing. You might be surprised with what you find.
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