Before I lived in Georgia, I lived in Vietnam. My life there was going swell for me at the time. Then out of nowhere I hear that my mom’s dad is dead, I didn’t really know anything about him since I had only seen him once or twice before mostly because he lived in the U.S., so you can probably guess that I wasn’t too distraught. At first I thought only my mom was going to the funeral, and I was fine with that, but then my dad told me that all of us were going and were only going to be there for about a week so I thought, “Oh crap.”

The thing I didn’t know that changed before we left was that we were going to move to the U.S. I only found out after a few days of being in Georgia. We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s house and lived there for a few years. My parents at first thought it would be fun for me to live with my cousins because then I would have someone at home to play with, but the reality was the total opposite. At that point I didn’t know any English at all, I spent most of the day in my room because I had no one to talk to, my cousins didn’t try to communicate with me and I didn’t try to talk to them. When the summer before Kindergarten came, my parents made me start learning English so I could start school the next school year. Learning English was the most excruciating thing ever. When Kindergarten started, it was not fun for me since I didn’t know anyone and at least half of the kids in my class knew each other. I didn’t have anyone to talk to because at the time I barely knew any English, so during recess I was one of the kids that played alone. I remember that the whole school year was extremely hard for me mainly because I didn’t know much English at the time which made the stuff that we were forced to learn even harder. My Kindergarten teacher didn’t really help much, although she was nice, she didn’t put much effort into helping me understand the material. By the time first grade came around, I had a good grasp of English by then and I also made one or two friends, so that year was not so hard.

Another major change came around second grade when my parents made another choice, which I now look back on and see that it was another bad move. The dreaded event that I now realize was when my little brother was born. At that time I thought it was the best thing ever, because we had also moved out into our own house for the first time in the United States, so I desperately needed someone to play with at home. As the years went by, I discovered my “brotherly” hate for him while also loving him because I can get him to do all sorts of things for me. Of course, now I have to sometimes blackmail him since he knows that he doesn’t have to do my chores. Now, looking back at all of these things, I don’t really care about us moving anymore; I actually love where I am now.