One Step at a Time by Yonu Oh (7)
One tear, two countries, three sighs, four tickets, and five schools. That’s how my life worked. Moving from one place to another; there was no stopping. Every year seemed like a blur to me. Every time I got accustomed to a new city to call home, I would find myself on a plane to a whole new world that I didn’t want to go to. There was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. Moving is hard. Everybody knows that. Some people are lucky enough to find themselves in one place for their entire lives. However, that is not my case. During the twelve years of my life, I have been to five schools, never in one school for more than two years. I have lived in North Carolina, Texas, Georgia, South Korea, and California, each place as strange as the other. Nothing was ever easy for me. I wished it was for a long long time. The schools and the students I met were fairly nice; though, not everyone in the school was kind to me. When I lived in San
Antonio, Texas, I was the only Asian kid in the entire school. People didn’t know how to treat a girl with my looks, so they didn’t bother to try. I was the lonely, skinny Asian girl who nobody wanted to talk to. The rejection was a harsh thing for a third grader to handle. However, I would always blink back my tears, sit on the bench, and read my sorrows away. Not only is moving schools hard, but moving to different states or countries is even harder. All the memories I left in the place I lived would vanish and never be thought of again. Although I didn’t have many friends at a young age, I still had some people to call my companions. It was so hard saying goodbye to the only people who were nice to me. We would all shed tears, and they would beg me not to leave. However, what was decided could not be changed. Also, I had moved back and forth between Korea and America. This was difficult for me as a bilingual girl. I always had to