It’s October 20 of 2018, it’s a cold morning in New jersey and the environment feels uncomfortable like it’s the feeling of coldness at 6 am waking up to take a shower, get ready and go to your first day at a place where they don’t speak the same language as you, in my case it was school, I felt nervous and the temperature wasn’t helping. That day me and my mom were going to a school near to the place we were staying at with the purpose of enrolling me there and continuing studying. That was my second day living in this country and of course not knowing how to understand, read or write in english. The enrollment was pretty quick and easy on my eyes. My mom had on black coat,blue jeans, some sneakers, her hair was really short, it looked like a male haircut and she was holding some papers about me, papers the administration might need to enlist me in the school. I was wearing black jeans, a black coat and boots and I had my hair in a bun. I was sit and my mom was stand up in front of me and she was looking at the people around, then they call her to the office and she told “Quedate ahi, vengo ahora” and she left, I was there for a good minute and then she came out and she told me that tomorrow at 8 would be my first day of school then we left.

We got home and my mom started to give me one of these talks about how life was going to change and that I had to be prepared, and I was plain nervous. I was hearing her and that was making me even more nervous. When night arrived and I was in bed just thinking about what was going to happen tomorrow, I couldn’t sleep until 4 in the morning. I started to feel tired. I heard my alarm at 7 am and magically the bed started to feel so comfortable and the blanket, I didn’t want to stand up. I wanted to stay there the rest of my life. I was good there, but my mom woke me up anyway and I couldn’t say no, she had to go to work so while I was getting ready I was getting ready too. She was watching me like an eagle. I had jeans, pink sneakers and a pink hoodie.

My mom had already left the house so I was by myself, it was a rainy day. Luckily, one of my Mom’s old friends decided to take me to school in her car. That morning she was going to drop her daughter (she used to go to a different school and it was further away). She picked me up and I sat in the back seat.. She asked me how I was feeling. I said good, her daughter was quiet the whole time and we did not have any type of relationship because she was older and she already had a grown mentality that my mom WOULD NEVER let me get into. When we got there I opened the car’s door and by accident I stepped on a puddle but I pretended it didn’t happen. I was too nervous. I didn’t want to make it worse.

The school was pretty big it had 4 different entrance but in the mornings they just use one to get in, the one that connect to the auditorium, when i was outside walking to the main door i was looking at the kids waiting for them to opened the door mainly there was black kids and some hispanics, I felt lost i didn’t talk to non of them, it was so cold. When they opened the doors and I was inside they had people in front aking what was your name and looking you up in the system they were white women, all of them needed glasses and there were really kind, when it was my turn to tell them my name I could understand ‘What is your name’ it’s one of the most basic sentence in english. When I was in the auditorium it was full of people, and when I say full it was people everywhere, talking, running, fighting, all kinds of stuff. At 8:30 all the students (including me) were supposed to find a seat and pay attention to what had to be said , it could be new events, new announcements, and also….. That was my first time hearing it. I was so lost because I looked around me and everybody knew it but me. I felt kind of dumb but then stopped caring about it because how was I supposed to know all that?

It was time to leave the auditorium and to go to classes, they used to give the breakfast at the entry of the hallways, I took mine i had my schedule in my hand I started to walk like I had no common sense, I asked a group of students whom were talking spanish to each others and a couple of them where going to the same class as me so they told me to follow them, I did, it was math class and i’m really bad a math and now not knowing what they was talking either was so crazy and I didn’t have a person to explain me and nothing, the room was full of students whom only or second language was Spanish I connect with a couple of them, mainly with one girl she was very social and we started to be friends she was from guatemala, she had long straight hair and she had big cheeks and she had that native american skin color, she was short too, we started a good friendship also because we had the same schedule. That day we had Spanish class in the morning. The class had Hispanic countries’ flags all over the ceiling. That class was the only area I felt in peace and comfortable because the class was full of hispanic students. The professor was the only one who spoke spanish and he was really nice and sociable he used to give us life and school advices, he was so funny, he was kind of old and he was i think from panama so every time he spoke english you could hear his strong accent however he made school feel more warm not in the temperature meaning but in the environmental meaning.

Time passed like a couple of weeks and I was in math class with my friends (I didn’t interact with no one else but people who spoke Spanish so my English progress wasn’t going well). I was doing some problems and one of the boys at the class asked me for my pencil, and my head figured out a question in English out of nowhere. I didn’t even know if it was correct but during Spanish class I was learning the basics in English, I said ‘For what?’ the guy didn’t understand what i said and he had more time than me in the country and school but my friend did and translated to him, that did is stick to my head because I be realizing how smart I am, it don’t matter if it’s other language somehow i’m going to learn, My english isn’t perfect, I still having an accent but spanish is also part of my daily life so yeah i have to keep a balance on both. This moment is so meaningful to me because even though I was around people whose only language was Spanish I could still find my way to learn English, no matter the circumstances and the environment and it makes me feel proud of myself everytime I think about it.

Any moment is a good moment for learning, In school, during work, walking down the street, shopping, even on your bed watching TV, Change the audio and subtitles of the show or movie you are watching to English, start to listen music in English, let your brain do it’s magic, The human body is capable to adapt itself to any environment to put it into. Let yourself go and do not get stressed. It takes time, patience.