dear diary, // minsung

three,

10/29/20

Dear diary,

I'm sure I've mentioned it a lot already, even though this is my third entry, but I absolutely love to read. And I seriously can't express my love for it.

Of course as children, your teachers encourage you to read so much, it might become unbearable to hear. But you always listened, right? They had you pick a book floating around somewhere in the classroom and you always read it. Even if it might've just been from the pretty cover. Isn't it how all people start their love for reading?

As a kid, I looked at my peers and they had found love in something. I saw some kids who liked to dance, maybe scribble away on some printer paper, design their outfits, build things out of legos, and the list goes on. Everyone had something special they loved to do and they pinpointed it early into life, but I hadn't. At the mere age of 5, I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't exactly pinpoint what my special thing was.

It also ties into the question "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

The typical answers you got were "superstar, artist, dancer, singer, astronaut," but there wasn't a single time where I didn't say "I don't know." Because I really didn't know. What was my passion? What did I want to continue doing for the rest of my life?

So I remember my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Kim, picked up the book "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." Yeah, typical for a young group of kids, right?

She read the book aloud to us and I just felt so immersed into that story, it was such an exciting feeling, even though it was just talking about what would happen if you give a mouse a cookie.

Over time, Mrs. Kim kept reading us books out loud, but this time, I was so desperate to read the words myself. One time, while she wasn't looking, I stole the book off her desk while she was teaching us numbers and I hid in the corner to crack open the book for myself. But of course, young me who had no clue how to read, got frustrated.

All I could see were lines and circles that I couldn't understand. How was Mrs. Kim seeing these words and reading so effortlessly but I couldn't make out a single syllable? I began to cry not knowing how to see what she saw. And yes, Mrs. Kim caught me under her desk crying trying to read a book.

Minho chuckled to himself. How cute.

Should I have gotten in trouble? Probably. Instead she hugged me and asked me if I wanted to learn how to read (since you don't start learning how to read until next year.) I wiped my tears and sniffled a lot and just nodded my head. Mrs. Kim then had me stay after school every day to teach me how to read, with parental permission of course. She was such a kind woman for doing these things when she wasn't forced to.

Every day, she taught me letters and how to read them. Of course I struggled at first. She had me write these letters on paper too, and the scratchy attempts I had made were hard to read. But Mrs. Kim continued to encourage me. Eventually letters became syllables, and syllables became words. After I started to understand, she placed If You Give a Mouse a Cookie in front of me. I opened the book and started to cry (yet again) but this time I cried over finally understanding what was in front of me.

This automatically set me ahead of the rest of my classmates. After every book she read to the class, Mrs. Kim lent me the book so I could practice my reading. Ever since then, my love grew stronger for the art of reading. I even learned most of the English language so I could start reading those books as well.