Scholastic Award Winner: New Beginnings in Third Grade New Beginnings in Third Grade Scholastic Honorable Mention in Personal Essay & Memoir By VSA 7th Grader Sitting in the back of the car, looking straight ahead nervously, I was on my way to school. I found myself breathing heavily. I asked, “Do you know anything about what this school’s like?” hoping my mom knew the answer. “I don’t know,” my mom shook her head slowly. I was very disappointed. What is this school going to be like? Are the teachers going to be nice? Are my classmates going to me nice? Are the classes going to be boring? A ton of questions filled my brain. I knew I’d find out the answers soon, but I didn’t like surprises that can be unpleasant. “What if no one likes me?” I feared. “Someone will like you eventually. That’s just nature,” my mother tried to calm me down, but it didn’t work so well. I started to feel a little bit chilly from time to time even though it was only the middle of September. We drove past the sign that said “James Madison Intermediate.” We’re here. “Are you sure this is going to work out for me?” I asked my mom anxiously. “Yes,” my mother answered, “I don’t believe there is any reason something horrible will happen.” Impossible. I said inside my head. I was incompetent to speak English because it was my first day of school in the United States. How can I even understand a word those eloquent speakers are saying? This can definitely lead to the horrible thing that my mother doesn’t believe will happen. I shivered with this worrying thought in my mind. As I got out of the car, I couldn’t imagine how different this school would be from my old school on the other side of the Earth. The school building itself was already different enough. Instead of a six story high building, it was a one story building. After I walked into the school, my mom filled out some paper. Just as she finished, two of my classmates came to guide me into our classroom. Shortly after, mom left the building, and I was now on my own. Anything can happen now. Let’s just hope everything will be okay. I took a deep breath and followed them. Upon arrival at the classroom, I was enthralled by how different the classrooms would be from the ones in China. I stood there looking like an alien on Earth. What I was wearing, from my light blue long sleeve to my dark green pants to my bright red sneakers had either Chinese letters or Chinese company logos on it. A Bonnie Bears backpack was on my back. Bonnie Bears was my favorite show in China. My classmates, though, were wearing clothing with English on them. They also varied from very light to very dark skin. I probably looked very different to them. I didn’t make a move, and I scanned the classroom. Instead of having desks of two, the desks were split into five groups, with each group having five desks. There was no blackboard in the front of the classroom but instead a smartboard with whiteboards on the sides. The classroom was pretty loud. Keyboard sounds were echoing all throughout the classroom. Every student had a computer, which I thought was very weird for a school. There were a lot of students chatting, and I also found that odd because in China, students rarely ever talked to each other. Even if we did talk, it was normally one person answering a question. Just when I found everything in my eyes so surprising, a young teacher came up to me. She had a big, warm smile on her face, which seemed very friendly and enthusiastic. I read a card hung around her neck, and it said “Ms.Most” on it. She had blond hair, tied into a bun. And she looked full of energy with a cyan T-shirt and black pants over her white skin. Then Ms.Most tried to ask me something, but I didn’t get it. She saw me standing still, so she started making guesses to the answer of her question. When she got to “China,” I nodded. At least I speak some English, I thought, impressed by myself. Ms.Most probably asked who here was Chinese and could help me because a few seconds later, one of my classmates who introduced himself as Luka came up to me. He was a bit shorter than me, had clear skin, and straight black hair. He was wearing Nike shoes, navy blue pants, and a light green shirt with some Chinese on it, saying “Live a happy life.” My savior? I hoped. But it turned out he didn’t speak Chinese which made me feel a bit disappointed. The next thing he said was in English: Put the backpack in the cubbie. What does the word cubbie mean? He probably grew up here and never learned Chinese. I just stood there doing nothing, looking like an idiot. He kept motioning his arms from himself to a place where a lot of backpacks were, but I still didn’t know what he meant. A million hours later, I finally figured out what he wanted me to do after realizing why those backpacks were there and put my backpack in the cubbie. Great, the rest of the day is going to be me being bewildered and not knowing what I should do, I thought. However, the ESL teacher came about an hour later to save me, phew. ESL was in a classroom in a relatively small school house near the woods on the left side of the school. Other students going to ESL include Vansh, Aayush, and Olivia. Vansh and Aayush talked to each other frequently. Olivia had dark hair that went down to her shoulders and was wearing a white shirt. After learning that I speak Chinese, the ESL teacher, Mrs.Zambrano, said that Olivia spoke Chinese. My savior? I hoped again. There were four relatively small and round tables in the ESL classroom. Knowing that my English needed help, the teacher put Olivia and I at a table together. The table was round, plastic, and as smooth as a pebble. Together, the ESL teacher and Olivia guided me through everything in ESL. One of the interesting activities we did in ESL on the first day was two truths and a lie. My ESL teacher did her best to help me, “In two truths and a lie, you make three statements about yourself. Two are true, and one is not true.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she continued by asking me if I had a dog, and I said no. At least I could understand that, I thought, once again being proud of myself. “So you having a dog will be a lie; now you have to think of two truths,” she said. I had no idea what she was talking about now. However, just as I thought I wouldn’t be able to answer, the ultimate human translator, Olivia, translated everything I didn’t understand to me. Maybe this isn’t as bad as I thought. Time passed; I was now in recess. Recess wasn’t a thing to me before, and I was very confused by this situation because in China, we had to sleep instead. I could never sleep and I often got in trouble for talking when I got bored. At this moment, I was standing on an open field near a playground, a hill, and a black top doing nothing like an idiot. Kids were wild buffalos, roaming the area. This new confusing view suddenly appearing in my eyes agitated me a little, but then I realized another huge dilemma: Ms.Most wasn’t anywhere in sight. This was the first time in my life that a teacher left me during school hours. Plus Ms.Most was mainly the one who guided me through the morning. Without her, I might not even make it through recess! I was very worried until I suddenly saw a classmate, the same person who told me to put my backpack in the cubbie, Luka. My eyes started glowing as if I saw a lifesaver. He was alone probably because he couldn’t find other people to play with or talk to. He definitely knows what’s going on. I approached him, and we just walked and talked. We didn’t chat too much though since I didn’t speak English. I still, however, had a million questions and he seemed to be the only one who would answer them right now. One of the first questions I asked with my severely limited English was where the teacher was because I was confused on why Ms.Most wasn’t here with us. “In the classroom,” he casually answered. I asked him some other questions, and later I got all the satisfying answers I needed. He’s a very nice person. Maybe we can be friends in the future. After recess, I’d only have about two hours to go to survive this unfamiliar environment. Two hours later, I made it out alive. When I saw my mom waiting for me outside of the school with a smile on her face, this uncertain day finally abated to calmness. Even though there would be more agitating days to go, each and every one of them would get better and better. Sometimes, despite uncertainty, you just have to dive into it and see first. Not doing it will prevent you from knowing what is ahead of you and what you might achieve. If you are too afraid to dive in, you will never have a chance to succeed. With this thought in mind, I went back to school the next day with my head held high.
