I will be better

By Amy

(lin Min)

I don’t want to treat myself too tough, so I hope I’ll be better rather than best and I believe this is possible.

After 13 hours of flight, I arrived in Tacoma, Washington, USA which I had been dreaming about for a long time. It was a good opportunity for further education; meanwhile, it was full of challenges, for everything was new for me---new culture, new friends, and new environment.

When I first came to America, I suffered from culture shock and I couldn’t get used to the food here. One day I didn’t eat anything for the whole day, I felt hungry and homesick, but fortunately, my host mother was very kind and cooked some Chinese food for me. Most of the time, she cooked American food. Gradually, I could enjoy it, especially pizza and cookies.

There are many chances for me to meet new people at the bus station, Tacoma Mall, Embassy classes, and PLU classes. My classmates are from China, South Korea, Japan, America, Vietnam, etc. But I find it’s easier to communicate with Asians than native speakers. No matter what languages they speak or what cultures they are familiar with, it seems there’s a gap between native people and myself. Regardless of this gap, I try to make friends with them. Most of them are kind and help me a lot. I am still on the way. There’s no short-cut, but I believe it will get better.

I take Embassy and PLU classes at the same time. On the one hand, I learn my English skills; on the other hand, I practice English more in the PLU classes. I take three courses; PE 100, Math, and Volleyball. For PE 100, I always need to do many exercises. For instance, one mile walks, two mile runs, push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping. Sometimes the teacher speaks too fast and I can’t even follow her, but luckily, some kind classmates help me to understand, so I feel I am the part of them and enjoy the participation very much. The same case happens to other subjects. I feel better than my first time in the class.

I like this sentence from “This I Belief” on NPR, “I believe that if you can laugh at yourself, it probably means you like yourself, deep down inside, and you know that you’re no better and no worse than anybody else. The beginning is always hard, but compared with the past, if you do better job, you’re the winner. So take action, don’t make your dream be dream.”