An autobiography of a teenage journey. Love, religion, feelings, education, mistakes and so much more I want to share right here.
Wishing to share my memories and experience as a teenager with you.
As mentioned earlier, I moved to Africa to study. Not because I could not study in Asia but because my stay in Asia did not really favor my English skills. Therefore, I began going to middle school/JHS in an African country.
I admit, it was extremely different from my former school in Asia. From how teachers taught to the way students behaved in class and most importantly, the kind of punishments that were given to all students.
It didn't take much effort to make friends in school. I have always been a talkative and the 'first to take action' kind of a girl. I spoke to anyone at all in class, both boys and girls.
I still remember the first day I walked into my class like it was yesterday. A class called "Odum".... A little nervous but full of excitement and optimism. I was ready to make my 3 year stay in JHS a marvelous thing.
The first thing that caught my eyes was the pens used by the students in class, a blue one. Nobody used a black pen and I wondered why. Even till today, I still sit here with no answer to myself for that question.
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My first friend in class was 'Pertral'. If I remember correctly, she sat right next to me, telling me not to decorate my notes with colorful pens.. It was social studies period and the teacher gave notes by dictating. I thought to myself, "wow". There was no way I could survive in that class when I couldn't even write my own notes properly.
Unlucky I was, the teacher asked me what 'environment' was, in front of the entire class, and I froze.
'Environment' was something I had never heard of and no clue of. I tilted my head and smiled. Just a little girl I was, thinking smiles could fix everything.
Clearly, it didn't. The teacher made a funny comment, leading everyone in class to laugh at me. I was ashamed. I didn't even understand the comment he made. That was the level of my English skill.
Nonetheless, most of my classmates were kind. They showed me around the school, complimented me and informed me of some of the scariest teachers in school. I was happy, I had never been a "new girl" anywhere, so I was feeling over the moon.
My closest person during my first year in middle school was my long cousin, 'Rufaila', who also moved from the United States to Africa not so long after I moved. She began attending my middle school about a week after my admission so pretty much the same timing.
We practically hanged out morning to night every single day. She had a very typical African American accent which made a lot of people find her interesting in school. I thought it was better if I spoke the way she did so I tried copying the way she spoke.
Never worked for me, my English accent was already weird and my attempt to add a different one made it more bizarre. So I surrendered by sticking to the normal English accent I heard everyone else speak around me, except Rufaila. That, I could say worked fine for me.
