As Time Goes By, by Suzhen Gong

I came into this world for no reason at all. I was born in Burma in 1928. I have one elder brother and one younger brother .I was the middle born. In1940 my parents sent my big brother and me to Hong Kong, because Hong Kong’s middle school education is better than Burma. I lived in Hong Kong for about one a half years. World War II broke out. We didn’t have school any more. My brother and I followed my uncle’s family back to our country China in 1942. Then I lived in China for fifty years.

Here is a tick-tack of my life. I graduated from college in 1953 in China. After I graduated from college I got a job teaching Chinese in a high school in 1953. I got married in 1956. My husband was my schoolmate. Two years later. In 1958 my first daughter was born. She was not strong and always got sick. And the next year my son was born. It made troubles for me. I could not get to class on time. So I quit the job and got another job in an office. I worked in this office for about 15 years. In 1973 one of my friends and also my former schoolmate worked in a magazine society. She wanted me to help her. So from 1973 to 1988, I worked for this magazine society until I retired.

Beginning of ‘’zero’’. In 2001 I came over to America. At the beginning I did not feel well in living here because I did not understand English wherever I went I needed to speak English , so I went to John Adams campus from the beginning of level 1. But unfortunately I got high blood pressure in 2006. I had to stop studying English for three years. This semester my blood pressure is getting lower, so I decided to continue my English studies.

I dream my wishes will come true. Our teacher ---Denise always told us ‘’something is better than nothing.’’ This is very realistic and it encourages me there is nothing to be afraid of. If I stay at home and do nothing. My mind will go empty. I will not communicate with people. I will not understand America’s cultures and customs. I will not understand English languages. Although I can use gestures, the gestures in Chinese are not all the same in America. It will have different meaning. So I am going to make a plan. My goal is in the next two or three years. I will continue to study English in City College till I can speak, listen and write in English. My plans will be including to read some story book every day for 2 paragraphs and to write some sentence. Of course I will not know if my sentences are correct or not. But I will keep it out and review it again. I thing I will find many mistakes in it, that proves I will have a little bit of progress in writing and I will feel very pleasant about it,

To be successful depend on oneself. But until now my listening, speaking, and reading are still no good. I know it is very hard for me, but I will keep going, I will not give up and I will try my best.