As the end of year rolls around, many are excited for their summer vacation. The weather is becoming much warmer with more days of clear blue skies and gentle swishes of verdant leaves. It’s the perfect season to take a jog, go to the beach, eat ice cream, fire up the barbeque, and fulfill many more activities on our summer bucket lists.
Reflectively, this year, I have learned a lot of things in all of my eight classes. Being a transfer student, my transition to Tenafly High School was a challenge, especially getting used to my different schedule every day in a week. There was a lot more freedom given, such as IDT. When I first heard about it, I remember thinking, You can leave the building without going to the main office and signing out? That’s crazy! There also definitely were days I felt overwhelmed with schoolwork and academic life in general. However, I tried to do my best every day, and I’m proud of that.
One of the chapters of my story begins when I was 10 years old. I moved from Chigasaki, Japan to Tenafly, New Jersey with my sisters and my parents. For my whole life, I lived in a small town about one hour from Tokyo. It had everything that a person would ever need: from the ocean, parks, supermarkets, schools, malls, bakeries, restaurants, buses, train stations and my grandparents’ houses. Since where I lived was relatively close to the ocean, I would often go down to the shore and spend the day barbecuing with my family and family friends in the summer. After school, I would go down to play with kids that also lived in my apartment. On the long weekends, I remember often visiting my grandparents who lived in the next town over. We would go to a mall to watch a movie or to a local water park. Since everything we needed was there, there was no reason to leave Chigasaki. It felt like the best place in the whole world.
One year prior to me moving temporarily to the US, my father was already in New York, since his company had assigned him to come. Back then, I never thought that I, too, would be living in the US the following year. When I first arrived in Manhattan, I remember going to Central Park every now and then and being astonished every time I saw squirrels. I even took photos and videos of them. Now, it has become part of my life that I see them every day.
Fast forward to the first day of school in 5th grade. Despite not knowing any words in English, I was very excited. However, being in an English-speaking classroom was not easy. I would read off of a piece of paper the pronunciation of how to say “Can I go to the bathroom?” whenever I wanted to use the bathroom, and when my classmates read books filled with tiny words, I read picture books. Even worse, I would always be placed last in all the math games in class. I felt that I’d fallen into a deep hole.
Thankfully, I soon enrolled in ELL (English Language Learner), where I refined most of my English. Even though I didn’t understand what my teacher and my classmates were saying and doing in my 5th grade class, ELL gave me a way to escape from the uncertainty of not being able to communicate with others and simply spend time with peers that were going through the same things that I was.
Throughout my middle school years, I significantly improved on my English skills, and I soon graduated from ELL. This meant that I would be treated the same as people who spoke English for their whole life. Sometimes, I felt a sense of unease and I beat myself up for it because I felt as though I was always down the step compared to others. Even now, there are days when I self-deprecate and think that I wasn’t smart, social, or fun enough. Especially when I started high school, I felt like everyone had already figured out what they are good at, while I didn’t have an idea about what my future would hold.
Today, I try to trust myself for who I am and tell myself that it’s okay, since there is plenty of time for me to discover new things about myself. In adolescent years, it is easy to feel lost and anxious about the future. During these time, I try to tell myself to do my best and work hard in school but, at the same time, take some time for myself to just be. As important as effort is, self-care and doing things that you like are important too. For me, since I love spending time with little kids, I joined the Tutoring Club this year to help a few kids with schoolwork. I also try to walk every day to simply get my mind off of things and shift my focus on what’s happening around me.
Last week, as my mother and I were chatting about each other’s day, she told me an interesting phrase that her yoga teacher had said—“trust the process.” At first, I didn’t quite understand what it meant, but my mother explained that it means having faith in what you are doing now even if it seems that the future is uncertain. This made my mind feel more relieved somehow because, in truth, I don’t fully know what is ahead of me, but I want to be fully invested in the present, no matter how hard it is. There may be days when things are not going as you want them to, but believing in the work you are putting in every day even if it’s small can make all the difference there is.
Last but not least, whether you are reading this at school or at home, congratulations for getting through this year with diligence. As you go through your daily life, always know that it’s okay if things are not exactly as you may want them to be. What matters is that you are making progress each day and that you are open to try new things and discover more about yourself. I truly hope, with all my heart, that you will enjoy the ride of small moments in life and valiantly get through life’s ups and downs along the way.
