okay so this is kinda like listening to your parents but yeah i wrote it like a year ago tho just edit it kinda ig sorry if it doesnt work
Explanation:
It was 2012 and my parents were talking about moving to the U.S. We lived in Chile and I didn’t know much about the U.S. other than it’s where Disney’s at.
“Yesss!” I happily answered when they asked us if we wanted to move. I imagined living next to Disney, which I underestimated the size of; we would go there every night after dinner and would be able to go on whichever ride we wanted without paying at all. I remeber my parents telling me to not be as excited and i wish that I wasnt.
A few months later my sister was born and we moved almost a month later on July 19th.
When we arrived we lived at our friend’s house for a month since we weren’t able to move into our new house yet. We had to wait a little bit after 30 days which meant we would be driving to school from Pipestone.
I had to get up at 6 am those mornings to get to school on time. My brother and I fed the dogs and took pictures of them with my red waterproof Kodak. The flash blinded my eyes while the Jack Russel we called ‘tomato’ jumped out of my arms as I struggled to see. I looked back at the pictures on the 1-hour ride to school. This new school was very different the whole school was indoors and it went all the way to fifth grade with all-metal playsets. Our school in Chile was way different, right outside each classroom thed hallways were outdoors with sand on the other side. The sand covered our whole playground, made of wood, with the exception of the slides that were made of metal and would burn us during the summer. There were different sections of the school for each grade and everyone had to wear uniforms. Lastly, our school in Chile also had other extracurricular activities like dance, even in kindergarten.
When we got there we took pictures and waited in our different colored paws until it was time to go inside. In my classroom, we started by doing some word separating pyramids that I couldn’t understand since I could not speak English at the time. I could feel my teacher beginning to get mad at me so I pretended I understood. When she walked away I began to draw on the desk, a football to represent my brother, a--
“Amanda!” My teacher yelled in my ear I felt my body shake in shock and looked up as she yelled at me with words I could not understand. I felt tears building up in my eyes as my nose began to get stuffy but I understood what she meant when she handed me the eraser. I began erasing and when I finished I looked down at the example of the word pyramid she had shown me earlier. I began to notice the pattern and finished the rest of my paper.
At lunchtime, we had some dry chicken that was wet on the outside. Yuck. There were no knives so I had to raise my hand and try and ask a teacher if I could have a knife, using the English that I knew. She explained to me how I could just stick my fork in the middle and chew around it. Ew. I watched in disgust as other kids used this trick and chewed with their mouth open. I figured out a way to eat it and ate like that for the rest of lunch looking at the painted wall to distract myself from the loud sound of the cafeteria.
It was now time for recess and kids began setting their lunch boxes by the wall, confused I handed them back to the people I knew, which was one person. I didn’t understand when he got mad at me when he had to go to the back of the line since he had to go put his lunch box back but just went with it. At recess I thought about how horrible the day had been anf how I wanted my mom so I hid and cried behind the slide. I felt the tears streaming down my face and looked up to see a pair of eyes staring at me. She tried to come to me but her friend was pulling her the other direction.
Back in the classroom a nice teacher, who I the learned was named Ms. Murtha, came in and took me to her room with another group of students. My face brightened when she spoke Spanish, finally something I could understand. She introduced me to Mrs.G who also spoke English. She explained to us about how we would be practicing English in her class for however long we needed to.
When my mom came to pick me up, I cried to her about how horrible my day was. I felt the wet tears streaming down my face again and dripping onto my new dress. I mostly just complained about how horrible people ate at lunch, but I didn’t tell her about how my teacher yelled at me and how I cried during recess.
I made up my mind that everything would be okay and I could continue to learn English.
