Final Essay - Socializing and Learning English

Final Essay

What Is It Like For Me to Learn and Socialize in English

     For me, I had a fairly easy time in school. For a bilingual school, my school concentrated a lot on English. I am a quick learner and I do socialize very well. Socializing and learning in English was never a problem for me as my first language is English. Today, to me English plays an important part of my life as I use it every day to do many things.

     I always found it easy to socialize in English. I am actually better at it than when I do it in Thai and this is due to the years I had, spending a lots of time practicing and developing my English skills. It was ever hard for me to make new friends using the English language, I don’t have much trouble doing this as I do in Thai. There’s no misunderstanding or awkward moments when I try to say things and it is great. Today, I have friends from all over the globe on the internet and using English is just a bliss as we could share fun stories and chat to our hearts content.

     It’s very easy for me to learn just about anything in English. I have my parents and my teachers to thank for my knowledge and understanding of the language today, because of them I just take English like a duck takes to water. It was when my school turned full on international was when things got real and English became a big priority of the school.  I do however sometimes struggle a little bit with spelling mistakes and the occasional usage of wrong grammar and tenses and back in the day I was a very slow reader, I could see the words and read them in my head but it used to take me twice as long to pronounce the words.

     Using English is usually a doddle to me. I can speak and write whatever I want without having to put too much thought into what I’m going to say and that’s just great. However, sometimes mishaps do happen. I may say something the wrong way or something that just didn’t make any sense or just plain and simply sound very silly of me. This is more often or not the case of me saying or writing something too fast for me to fully comprehend the information. It’s a good thing that this happens rarely, no one is perfect after all.

     It was never difficult for me to either learn or socialize using the English language. In point of fact I am very thankful for it. It’s my first language and I’ve had all the practice since when I first learned how to speak and thanks to the exposure to the language on a daily basis both at home and t school it all had a positive effect on my development on the language. I was always pushed hard in learning English to get as good as I possibly could, even if it meant that I had to spend multiple hours of the week in a special class just so that I could develop the skill to read out loud faster in English. I’m very grateful for all the hard work that many people had put into me to get me to the skill level that I am at today just so that I’ll never have any language barrier in the English language and so that many opportunities could be open to me and I can comfortably and confidentially take them.

Movie Review - Star Trek (week 13+14)

     In 2009 a new Star Trek movies stormed into theaters across the world. This movies provided a fresh new take on the series. The movie was a remake that introduced whole new timeline with a whole set of new possibilities for the future to explore. This move was indeed a bald move to try and produce as many beforehand have tried the same stunt and failed with other franchises. However, due to the credibility of this massive franchise fans were left in no doubt that everything will be handled properly. Star Trek is currently one of my newest favourite movies yet and it still excites me whenever I put it on television to watch.

     These are the reasons to why I said that making this movie was actually a bald move in the first place. The newest addition to the series is both a tribute to the original series and is an introduction of the franchise to our younger generation. To start it off, the idea of actually remaking what was considered already to be very good did bother a lot of people. The whole announcement was unexpected and surprising to the Star Trek fandom. We still have our favourite characters but they are now all much younger versions of themselves and they all have new backstories ad this does very much affect their characters. Most people don’t like seeing this kind of change to their personal favourite characters but because this was all tied down so well that it was accepted by fans. The fans of the series were worried on how the producers were going to handle the story and its characters as they weren’t part of the original crew who produced all the movies and episodes. In conclusion, fans were having mixed emotions about this decision to remake the series. They were all in no doubt excited but at the same time they were plagued with worry. Their fears were finally put to rest when they saw the movie and were very pleased with it.

     Being one of my favourite movie so far I quickly fell in love with it and I was very glad to hear such positive reviews about the movie. The story has now changed, it has a whole new look and feel to it and it is for everyone to enjoy. The producers may have had their fans worried for a while, wondering how this all will come out as a final product and were set to ease when it was released. The movie was very entertaining and the special effects were just eye catching. I do recommend this movie for you to watch.

What led me to study in BUUIC (week 11+12)

     What I believe led me to study in BUUIC happened several years ago when I was 10 years old. For the first time I could remember I had to move to Ireland with my family to live with my grandfather. The whole experience was new and nerve wrecking to me, I was so nervous that I didn’t know what to do or say at the time. I was only 10 years old back then and the whole experience, the complete change in life was scary especially for children who are young as I was at the time.

     It was the scariest and the most intense part of my life. I had so many new things to adopt to in a short period of time without any preparation. Our lifestyle over there was very different to over here, we had a much smaller house and I knew nothing about anything. On my first day in my new school I was very nervous and quickly fell victim to a bully who just made things hard for me. When I was learning there the teachers worked very hard on bringing up my level of English to their standard and needless to say, they were very successful when I look at myself today and it only took them a year to do so. To me it was all new and interesting and at the same time, very confusing and scary.

     For a small child all of this was so over whelming. I was young a young kid in a new world and I had to adapt to so many things at once it was unbelievable, but despite of all that had happened I managed to pull though and survived. I pushed through it and took it as an advantage to build my experience and make myself a better and stronger person. This was the start of it all, the road to my development in English really starts here and eventually over the  years it led me here to study in BUUIC

Writing A Letter Giving Directions (Fictional)

     Dear Mum and Dad, I'm about to graduate in a few days and I'd like you two to come over for the day. We're going to have a graduation ceremony in the morning and then we'll be taking some pictures after. I can introduce you to all of my friends when we're taking the photos, I'd love it if you'd meet them! After the photos we can go out for lunch and dinner and then possibly go and see a movies in the theaters.

     I'm sure that you still remember where I m staying at but I'm going to give you the directions again because it has been a while. When you come through the main entrance just go straight down pass the presidential building. Come up to the 3rd roundabout and turn right toward the big library building, it'll be he one with all the water fountains in front of it. On the opposite side to it will be the Faculty of Education, and next to it will be the International College. My dormitory is actually one of the two buildings behind the college. Go up to the pink building and come up to the 3rd floor. My room is at the end of the left corridor, you'll find the room will be to your right.

     It really shouldn't be very hard to find it but because the place may get a bit crowded on that day it could be a little challenge but if you follow my directions correctly you should be fine! If you do happen to have any troubles all you have to do is call my number and I'll come down to get you. It won't be too hard to get here at all, it's just the ink building on the opposite side of the road to the library building, the room on the right at the very end of the left corridor on the 3rd floor. I'm so excited I can't wait to see both of you again! I believe we're all going to have a great time, it's been a while since we last saw each other and I hope that you're just as excited as I am! Hope to see you soon.

Giving Directions

I’m so glad that you can come over, there are so many things that we can do. We can go for a swim at the beach, go down to Nong Nooch, watch some movies and go for a little shopping if you’d like. There are just so many things to do and I think you’ll enjoy your stay here.

Just come down into North Pattaya. Come off Sukhumvitroad and onto Siam Country Club road, there’ll be a huge red overhead sign with the road’s name on it. Drive straight down all the way on till you come up to a 7/11 shop at a cross junction. Turn left towards the lake and drive a little further down. On your right there’ll be a small bent stop sign at the entrance of this small soi. Turn into it. My house would be the big one with tall trees and a brick wall with a mirror hung up on it.

You won’t have much of any problem trying to find my place, it’ll be hard to miss. All you have to do is just drive up Siam Country Club road and turn towards the lake and turn again at the stop sign. I do hope to see you soon. I can’t wait to have you here so we can have some fun!

Traveling

     A few years ago my family and I had a chance to take a spring tour trip to South Korea. The weather there was very cold. It tried to snow twice and one night there was a sudden huge but very brief gust of wind, it was a good thing that we brought our heaviest clothing from Ireland. There were many attractions to visit there, one of them was the amazing Wonderland theme park. Another very famous attraction was the huge park on an island in a lake that was featured in a famous Korean romance movie. Only a handful of people that we met can speak English but we had fun none the less. The there foods were fantastic and the various museums and traditional shops were very educational on their history and culture. Despite the dreadful cold climate, we all had great fun because we got to experience things and their culture that was very different to that in Thailand.