Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Welcome to America !

My christmas break assignment during 9th grade was the following, "pick a 200-250 page book from this rack, read it, and fill out this one page report on it". Here's what I heard, "pick a book and fill out a 250 page report on it". I had only been in the US for 3 weeks. My english was pretty good, or at least I thought. Did I think the assignment was a little too much? Maybe a little but I didn't question the teacher. Over the next two weeks, I sat and paraphrased the entire 250 page book. My dad asked me if this what the teacher really wanted. I replied, "Dad, this is how things are in America". When it was time to hand in our assignment I finally realized what had happened. I couldn't believe it. Mrs. Reger felt so bad for me that she said she would give me some extra credit. I went to the bathroom and cried for half an hour. I was 12. I was homesick already. I felt so out of place. I thought to myself what am I doing here - a question I would soon ask myself again and again.....

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