Personal statement project
Ayaha Ikezawa
When I was 5, without graduating my japanese kindergarten, I moved in France, for multiple reasons. One of them was my education. My parents wanted me to experience different cultures, meet different people before I become an adult. There, I learned French, I met different friends. But in my home, I always spoke Japanese, because my parents worried about me forgetting my mother tongue. Also, because my French elementary school was rather on the international side and suggested kids to be bilingual, we had a choice to learn either German or English. There, I started learning English too.
In my elementary years in France, the first time my dream took shape. Since childhood, books have been my number one toys. My parents have been working in a publishing company, my house was always full of papers and stories and words. My foremost learning material of Japanese were books. I was always fascinated and could not wait for the new books my parents bought back to France, after flying to Japan for work. Naturally, I started to long about the authors, books, and dreamed of someday I will be creating wonderful books as them.
As I grew up, in the same year I turned into a secondary student, I moved back in my home country, with my family. There I practiced English on full-scale; I met there all the new language, new classes, new friends. I had to. When all my classes were taught in English, I had to challenge everyday to keep up with a simple class of 5th grade. Soon, I started to neglect practices of my French, and lost most of it. My Japanese became at a sufficient level to live in Japan, but never was enough to practice in formal places.
Compared to my classmates, I was very behind in all of my three languages. People told me how advantaged I was to be trilingual, when none of the language was as fully useful. I was only a “third” speaker in any of my language. My dream then was to be a writer, when I couldn’t write any kind of creative text correctly in any language. My dream was severe.
Carrying the disadvantageous concerns of my dream, I grew up, and came in high school. My friends started to shape their dreams, training their special abilities, in music, or school work, sports, and showing successes. My sister decided her course in art. In school, we talked about which country, which courses, which school would we be attending. They made me starting to wonder: what can I do?
Searching for universities, I found my answer. In United Kingdom, Norwich, a friend of my parent presented me an option: the University of East Anglia. The University offered me an opportunity to study translation between English, Japanese and French, that perfectly fitted my knowledge. Here, I could practice all my language for all kinds of texts. I could practice all my languages to someday I will be able to use them all creatively. That was definitely what I wanted to study.
My question was, what can I do? Really, I can’t do anything yet. I am a young, inexperienced kid. But if my schoolworks would let me change my disadvantages to advantage, make my path to my dream, I would surely effort to trudge through that path, and achieve my dream. In my international school right now, the studies of AP English Literature and AP French Language and Culture is the current work I’m doing. I sincerely hope all these effort would someday make me become an intellectual, experienced individual, achieving every dream I hope.
599 words
In my elementary years in France, the first time my dream took shape. Since childhood, books have been my number one toys. My parents have been working in a publishing company, my house was always full of papers and stories and words. My foremost learning material of Japanese were books. I was always fascinated and could not wait for the new books my parents bought back to France, after flying to Japan for work. Naturally, I started to long about the authors, books, and dreamed of someday I will be creating wonderful books as them.
As I grew up, in the same year I turned into a secondary student, I moved back in my home country, with my family. There I practiced English on full-scale; I met there all the new language, new classes, new friends. I had to. When all my classes were taught in English, I had to challenge everyday to keep up with a simple class of 5th grade. Soon, I started to neglect practices of my French, and lost most of it. My Japanese became at a sufficient level to live in Japan, but never was enough to practice in formal places.
Compared to my classmates, I was very behind in all of my three languages. People told me how advantaged I was to be trilingual, when none of the language was as fully useful. I was only a “third” speaker in any of my language. My dream then was to be a writer, when I couldn’t write any kind of creative text correctly in any language. My dream was severe.
Carrying the disadvantageous concerns of my dream, I grew up, and came in high school. My friends started to shape their dreams, training their special abilities, in music, or school work, sports, and showing successes. My sister decided her course in art. In school, we talked about which country, which courses, which school would we be attending. They made me starting to wonder: what can I do?
Searching for universities, I found my answer. In United Kingdom, Norwich, a friend of my parent presented me an option: the University of East Anglia. The University offered me an opportunity to study translation between English, Japanese and French, that perfectly fitted my knowledge. Here, I could practice all my language for all kinds of texts. I could practice all my languages to someday I will be able to use them all creatively. That was definitely what I wanted to study.
My question was, what can I do? Really, I can’t do anything yet. I am a young, inexperienced kid. But if my schoolworks would let me change my disadvantages to advantage, make my path to my dream, I would surely effort to trudge through that path, and achieve my dream. In my international school right now, the studies of AP English Literature and AP French Language and Culture is the current work I’m doing. I sincerely hope all these effort would someday make me become an intellectual, experienced individual, achieving every dream I hope.
599 words