Dong Yi Kang/ My Memoir About Writing / Thu(1:00-3:00p.m.)

My memoirs as a writer began a dozen years ago – in 2003 -  in a small classroom in Manhattan, Kansas, the small town dubbed 'the Little Apple'. I had been the bewildered child of a South Korean engineer, suddenly adjusting to the new environment that had been thrusted onto me, the new English-speaking environment, the new people with various eye colors and skin colors, and the new environment in which everyone was overly cheerful and friendly. I had been a small South Korean child enrolled in a class of 30 children like myself, but after several plane flights, a Christmas and moving into a typical Kansas house with a gigantic  yard, I was suddenly introduced into Mrs. Schimidt's fifth grade class as the 'only South Korean girl in the year'. The memory is so vivid. I was able to manage reading sessions with the effort of my mother, who had went through the effort of reading the book beforehand to research all odd words that were unfamiliar, such as 'abdomen', 'buffalo', and 'cool' (the usage of this word in America was different from what I had learned in South Korea).  P.E. and music classes were pleasant, and math classes were a piece of cake, classes that I received A with no effort. However, writing classes were the most fearful, for reading and writing English were totally different dimensions of linguistic abilities. I was afraid that I would flunk the year, and be placed into special classes for students who lacked the academic abilities. I was also fearful that the friendly and overly cheerful students in my class would mock and deride me. However, contrary to my nightmares that bugged me for days, the first writing session was not difficult – it was rather very pleasant. In the 5^th grade classroom operated by Mrs. Schmidt, when the plump, cheery woman with graying hair yelled 'writing time!' everyone ran with their notebook and pencils to where they found the most snug place. I was so confused, but Mrs. Schmidt soon wrapped an arm around my shoulder and told me, 'child, write me something, anything wonderful.' I had no courage to ask what that 'anything wonderful' might be, so I looked around the classroom to take a sneak peek at what the other children were writing. To my surprise, I found them writing various things. Karen, the girl from Kenya was writing about her experience during the holidays, and Alice, a Chinese girl was writing about a Chinese food recipe. Yes, she was literally writing out a recipe! Julian, the boy whom I had played the soccer with was writing about the experience. Everyone was writing out something unique, and I gained confidence. I do not remember what I had written on that day, and I suppose that writing would have been full of grammatical errors and misspellings. However, instead of correcting these errors in red colored pencil(I had been so fearful of these red colored pencils in South Korea, for they assign grades), she put a Scooby-doo sticker on it and sent me a note home, congratulating me for the first English essay. The experience was beyond pleasant, it was enlightening. The first thing that Mr. Johnny Bahk-Halberg had written on the blog was 'something wonderful', and that line resonated within my head to retrieve this memory.