“Ladies and Gentlemen, our plane is going to be landing in 15 minutes at the Kennedy International Airport, please buckle your seat belt…” The captain’s announcement woke me up right away.  I sit straight and murmured to myself,“ here I am,” United States of America, the beautiful place I haven’t seen for so long.  I moved closer to the window and stared at the skyscrapers underneath through white cloud, the city has been covered by golden warm morning sunlight and the empty street with a few cars on the road showed the city had been still in sleep. Hudson River was liked blue ribbon had surrounded the city, Everything looked so beautiful and peaceful. There, I saw the Lady of Liberty, and that is the world trading center, and empire state building was like a sword has stabbed into blue sky.  I was completely attracted to the landmark of New York City with excitement. Oh! I am sorry I almost forgot to introduce myself! 

Hi, my name is Angela, I am a girl came from Shanghai, China with sixteen hours airtime. I had moved to China with my family when I was five because my father had landed a job there. I had enjoyed my life in Shanghai for a quite bit time. I am portrayed by my friends as a charming girl with cheerful, nice, trustful and responsible personality.  I can easily get along with people around me.

I have stayed in Shanghai for about six years.  With the time passed by, my parents started to worry me because I was depressed by the China culture and society.  I had started my kindergarten at one-year old in US.  The teacher in kindergarten let us grow up in free environment with a few rules.   Even though I was so little then, the freedom thought has embedded in my mind and I basically did everything I could on my own. I grew up with an open, free, fair, kind personality that is very treasure to my friends.  However, the Chinese culture system give so many unreasonable rules around individual daily life. The Chinese society has had called the collection thinking that everyone is an unnamed unit in the group.  In school, for example, I can not that every question has only one right answer without allowing me has second thought. Just for this point, I have conflict with my teachers so many times.  That’s why my parents worried me about my growing experience in China.  They want me and my sister to get a more humanized and personalized education and culture.  They also wanted me to get familiar to my own homeland country, the United States of America. One day, my family made an immediate decision that it was time to move back.  Just two month later, the quick action brought me back here, town of West Windsor, the place I was born.

But my first day in  THomas Grover Middle School... was not so good.  Since I am a stranger to the school, when I stepped into the cafeteria, there were not much empty seats for me.  Everyone was chatting to their friends but me, I was an outsider. Then my ESL teacher, Ms. Gill (Hill) took me to a girl who was very nice to me.  She gave a brief introduction to our school.  We exchanged a few words and the waiting time was over.We needed to go to our class.  After a long day, it was my ESL class finally. In that class I met my first friend, Fiona. She was also a Chinese girl who arrived to US one year earlier than me.  We found so many alike between us such as we like spicy food, we both spoke Chinese, we like watch Japanese cartoon and etc.

As the school year went on, every thing was getting better and better, I adjusted quickly to the new school. My academic performance got better.  I made more friends. Everything was on the right track.  By the end of semester, I overcame so many impediments to get my first straight “A” on every subject, even on my incompetent subject, Social Study.  Besides that, by our hard work, Fiona and I had jumped out ESL program earlier than the required time.  “Thank you, Angela.  Without your help and encouragement, I would stay in ESL for at least another year!” said Fiona.

During the winter vacation, as usual, I sat down and carefully summarized and analyzed my good/bad in past semester.  This time, I specially compared the school in US and China.  I still remembered when I felt so stressed about the learning activities in China. By rule, our homework was not counted into final grade so everything was depends on tests and quizzes.  Most of the test questions were use to trick students into logic traps which I was horrible at. My outstanding capability at sports was admired by my peers but not recognized by school. Everybody was ranked and awarded purely by their required academic performance.  But things were different in US, homework counts, test and quizzes were not meant to trick student but as a tool to guide student to master the knowledge and develop their personality and skills. This idea fascinated me on my study and gives me more confidence towards my personal life. To help student use our energy and time in more efficient way, our school set up a system called the Infinite Campus. We checked it every day, just like my mom checks the stock market. This encouraged and reminded me to do better at school.

The “MOVE” back to US was a great opportunity and challenge to me.  Even though the school district of West Windsor was famous for its intense competition among students in New Jersey, I can now comfortably say that I achieved the goal I set it up for myself. I am so proud of having overcome so many difficulties to achieve it.
I believe Life lies in change just like water will be soiled soon while it did not flow.  Now I face another moved.  I will get into nine Grade very soon, to get better sound education, I have to initiate another move.  I would like to apply for private school because it can provides me a more individual attention and more sports clubs. I am confident that my learning skills, my enriched culture background, and my great personality all make me an excellent student at school. Give me an opportunity, I will show how I will be a good asset to the campus.  Thank you for your time and consideration to read this essay.
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