【English】
September is the beginning month for school in United State, but in Japan, it is April. So the graduation from High school was March in my country, and I had a few months until the entrance of University in USA.
I did part-time job for about a month as I waited my flight day! Then I finally reached to the land of the United State on the end of April. My first stop was the little town near SanFrancisco. I stayed 3 months at the college there to learn in the English classes for international students.
I clearly remember the beautiful sunny weather at the day I just arrived and everything like buses, buildings, and even stop signs looked so awesome for me and made me excited so much! I felt thrilled of whatever coming up to my life in the near future, and there were only excitements in my mind!
However, as my classes had started, I encountered how bad I was learning the language! Ha! Ha! As soon, my life got the struggles to catch up with all other students and difficult tasks!
Well, otherwise of such struggles, my life was definitely filled with a lot of fun! As a student without a car, going to supermarket took about 40 mins for walk was even precious memory! Oh, my!
Some older students who already owned a car helped me afterward to take me to the town and introduce so many good restaurants! Beijing Duck, Vietnamese, Mexican, Indian Curry, and so on! Since I was the child who hadn’t enjoy eating so much as I grew up, it was such sensational experiences of varieties of foods! Well, my weight gained so bad, as you can tell!
Rollerblading was also my new experience I had during those days. It felt so refreshing to rollerblade in the downtown SanFrancisco with ocean view!
One of the most exciting experiences was to see real American guys were playing basketball right in front of me! I played in a basketball team in my high school, so I knew how people in USA were so good at it. The real ones were more than I’d imagined! So powerful!
My height is only 150 cm, so everybody didn’t believe I was already 18 years old! Can you imagine how I felt so good when I successfully shot 3 points?! Ha! Ha! It is really so good memory.
More to rethink about that particular memory, playing basketball with all students from all over the world was the one I want to specially note. We had different languages, colors of skins and eyes and hairs! But we played a sport, enjoyed each other, and smiled together!
I felt we were free! We all have an infinite of possibilities in each ourselves with “wings of freedom”. I mean, we all are free from all boundaries between us and social whatever!
Those experiences were many years ago, and I usually don’t recall them that frequently. But suddenly something has brought all rushing back to me. I hear the voice, “Hey, you seem to forget about wings of freedom on your back! Hey, you should remember those memories again so that you wake up again!”
Continues to the next issue→
「「留学での体験が何を教えてくれたか①」“Things that experiences of study-abroad taught me. Part 1”」への2件のフィードバック