I had my last interview and received my visa with hope and joy. I came to the United States when I was fifteen years old. I stayed home for three months before I started high school and became interested in American tv shows like high school musical,Camp Rock and Victorious. I thought high school was going to be just like what I saw on TV but I was wrong. My first day was horrible and devastating. I was bullied because of how I spoke. People started staring at me in a very shady way. I even thought I was going to get jumped. My thought was to either stay home or transfer to a different school. My parents motivated me and I went back to school the following day.
Luckily one of the students approached me. His name was siddiq and he volunteered to show me around campus. We became fast friends. We scheduled classes together and walked around the school. Siddiq helped me connect with his friends and I gradually befriended them. We were seven in total,four boys and three girls. One girl was from nigeria , the other girl was from Belize and one boy was from Yemen. The rest were Spanish . We organized a group chat to keep in touch with each other. We talked about our family and personal problems. The group became tighter and tighter knit because we knew each other’s stories and constantly advised each other when we were going through rough times. We even told each other secrets. We were so close that I considered them as family. It felt good to be part of a group.
Meeting siddiq and becoming friends with everyone changed my attitude towards high school and education. Before , when I lacked a support group, I was withdrawn and unmotivated to go to school. But after I became part of a group, I grew excited about school again. My grades increased, and I developed a better relationship with my teachers. I didn’t worry anymore about the people who weren’t supportive. I felt safe because I had a group of friends who would go to any extent to help me. Overtime I was able to concentrate even more and became enthused about expressing my thoughts in class.
I wasn’t interested in reading and writing till my junior year in high school. My English teacher gave us a book to summarize at the end of the week. It was a struggle for me because I have always seen reading as boring. I later found out that our summarized results will count as fifty percent of our final grade, so I had no choice but to read. I had the same experience as Malcolm x. I felt connected to the book and visualize myself in many places. I also used my resource which is the dictionary to define some of the words and to break the text down. I also noticed an improvement in my vocabulary. My essays were structured properly and I started to receive positive feedbacks from my teachers. Overall I started excelling in English and writing and in all my classes that requires essay.
