来週の月曜日にこの街を出ることになりました。
成績も学校からもらい、結果はA、アメリカのJunior YearをPassすることができました。もっとも留学生なので一年しかいることができませんでしたが、あと１年ぐらいここで過ごせればいいのにと思ったりもしています。苦労した英語のプロジェクトも１００点を取ることができました。その中のエッセイを載せます、英語の先生は感動して泣いてくれました！

　　　Ever since I was a baby girl, I had a dream that I become a fluent English speaker. I always dreamt to be an exchange student in the deep inside of my heart. It did not matter for me what country to go to learn English. I just wanted to get out Japan, only nation where Japanese is spoken in the world.

At the beginning of this year, most of the time, my answer was either “Yes.” or “No.” I did　not put an article before a noun. In my pronunciation, my “TH” sounded like “Z”, my “V” sounded like “B” and “L” sounded like “R”. This is because Japanese do not have those kinds of sounds. The struggle even affected my French. No body in my class could understand me when I had to do a presentation in French class. One time, I was walking around for an hour after the cheerleading practice, because I could not pronounce “Pleasant Avenue” well when I asked someone the direction to get home. For those experiences, I was very frustrated of　my English skill. I decided to stop to make my friends to develop my English skill first.

While I was studying English by my self, I found the interests to read and write in English. It was very hard for me to read Sucker which was the first story I read here, though, as I read a novel, Great Expectations, I could read through the whole story without anyone’s help. It was one of my big accomplishments that I wrote four pages long of the paper for research seminar. I surprised my self, because I have never written a paper before in Japan. So I asked many questions to my teacher to know what the thesis statement, outline, and bibliography are. Even though I failed research seminar once, I did not care at all. I knew that I was learning something new and important. The training made me strong not only my English skill but also my mentality.

It was the end of winter that two-thirds of my school year, I started to make many friends again. It was hard to break people’s image that I was a quiet girl, but I kept talking. One afteranother people started to ask me to hang out. In April, I went to the prom with my date and friends in a limo. The American experience changed people’s view about me a lot. I was not even quiet then. I am sometimes kicked out from the library and fight with my friends. I think it is all right unless it goes over. My writing is getting better, too. I got the highest point on the essay about Supreme Court and foreign policy in the social class. Some people looked at me with their discriminatory eyes and threw bad language at me. I got angry but kept quiet, because I grew up. I am very proud of my self that I can stand such experiences, I am a member of high honor society, and I have many wonderful friends in the United States.

Now that I got used to the American culture, I can laugh at what I have done frantically. The experiences and English skill I learned are the most precious things to take home with me. Even though this summer, my time here will end, I can imagine I will be missing people here forever. If I never had the chance to know them, I would not be the way I am now. However, my dream has not accomplished yet. I will keep dreaming from now on.