Life in London

 I used to live in London of U.K. from when I was grade 5 in primary school until grade 3 in secondary school.

 When I first heard that I’m going to move to London, I had mixed feeling of excitement and worries. I was excited because I have a chance to live in abroad again and U.K. was the place I had no knowledge about it. I was imaging new friends, new school and new environment, which excited me so much.

 However in other side of me was worried if I would be able to accustom to the new living and be able to communicate in English with the native people. Though I lived in America for 6 years before I had no confidence in speaking English, as there were 4 years of blank in between it. The feeling, which occupied the most, was sadness. I was able to be so friendly with people in the same class at last, as I had a difficulty in different system in school of America and Japan, but then I was told that I’m going to move. I almost dropped a tear when I announced that I’m going to London in front of the class.

 My first image of London was grayish and has many dead trees. Recalling it now I think I had really dark image. So my first surprise in London was that there were normal green trees. It was in summer when I arrived there so the weather was comfortable. Our new house was not ready yet so we stayed at where my father stayed which was one small room in hotel, which was actually for a person but four of us stayed there for about a week. It was very squashed but most of day we went out and explored London so it was enjoyable week.

 About a month later my first day of school came up. I was year 5 when I entered the Woodridge Primary School so everyone was quite close friend with each other as there was only 1 class in each grade. For me everyone seemed so scary at first but as the times go I realized I’m gifted in friends. When I didn’t understand the exercise we had to do in class, people sitting near me explained using easier words and also when I had something to tell them they listened to me without any rush and say to me kindly “you can speak slowly.” It didn’t take me time to get used to the new school and classmates. I commute there for 2 years and graduated when I was year 6.

  I took the entrance test and luckily passed the secondary school called The Mount School, which was girl’s school. This school had the class called ESOL, which was the class for the foreign students. Most of the students belong to this class were Japanese but there were some other people such as Kenyan and Turkish. In the Mount school I became friend with Ania who was Pakistani. She was sitting next to me in the new class and she talked to me so much even though she knew I couldn’t understand English well. She invited me to have a sleep over and also we studied for test teaching to each other. I believe without Ania my school life wouldn’t be this much enjoyable. Then when I was in year 9 a girl called Rumeysa who was Turkish came to our class. We both couldn’t speak well in English but we took time to understand each other. Before she came I used to go home with Japanese friend and spoke Japanese a lot but since then I tried to be with Rumeysa and spoke English a lot.

  I was gifted in friends and I had 5 years of enjoyable life in London.