English Lesson for Bi-Rain (Pt 2)

One day I discovered that I had a hidden talent

It was during school recces, a girl approached me and asked if I want to play 'one leg'. It's a game where you chase one another using just one leg. I often see the girls playing but nobody ever asked me to play wt them before. Being small and very thin, the game became a breeze for me. I was unbeatable. Instead of hopping like the rest on one leg, I literally flew.

The news of my flying talent (hopping wt one leg) was spreading like wild fire. Within overnite I became an instant school star. Everybody wants to be in 'my' team. One day, I received an invitation to play wt the more 'popular' group of girls (being labelled weirdo before, I kept myself company with the 'normal' group of girls). While I was contemplating whether to accept or not, I saw fear in my friends eyes..not that they were afraid I will lose and make a fool of myself but they feared I will not return to them again. So I made a deal, I will only play wt the popular girls if they allow my friends to be in my team.

So my nightmare finally stops...

Although I 've been accepted in my new school but I still felt inferior. Especially when it comes to English. I cant make myself to speak or utter English words to my friends for fear it might sound funny or wrong. I desperately wanted to become like the rest of the girls. In my school back then, the popular girls which I mentioned before were comprised of a group of girls who came from a rich family whereby their parents are either doctors or lawyers or high ranking civil servants, and they speak fluent English. Two girls really stood up fr. the rest. Anna and Angelina. They both looked like twins. Pretty with doll like face and bob hairdo (althou' i don't recall that both of them came fr the said background but they always hang out together).
My English teacher always called either one of them to read out passage in the text book because they read it effortlessly. How I envy both of them and secretly wish i could become like them.

Lucky me, i fell in love wt poems. The teacher whom taught us will explain what each poem meant to her and i really felt drawn to every poem. I would read and reread them in my own quiet time until I memorise each word and in the process learn to pronounce and understand its meaning. One hot afternoon, our class was being held up so we ended in the school hall instead. To pass the time, the teacher start asking every pupil to recite or read out loud one poem each. So everybody started to read out from their copy of poems from the exercise books. I suddenly realised that I don't have to read from the book bcos I've already memorised everything by heart. The question is which poem should i recite. My heart was beating so loud that I feared somebody could actually hear it. There is one poem which i love very much and it's a 2 page long. The words are difficult and it has deep meaning. It's called My World. Across the room I heard Anna is reading the same poem so did Angelina. Both were reading it out from the pages nevertheless got a loud appreciation from the class. Who am i trying to kid? Trying to recite the most difficult poems ever taught by our teacher. Only girls like A n A would be able to pull something like this..even they read it from the book! I could hear the teacher calling out my name. With cold sweat I stood and clasped my hand together ...and begin ..My World

I was transformed back to my room where each nite I said out loud each word by looking at myself in the mirror imagining I'm saying it to someone else other than myself.

And the rest as they said is history.

I conquered my fear of English. In the same year, I auditioned and acted in an English school play. Years later, I got 2nd highest mark among 240 students in the English acceptance test in my boarding school and the girl who got the highest mark is my best friend of 20+ years (she's now residing in LA). Together we represented our boarding school as English debaters.

So if I can do it, Jeong-ssi will definitely can! His talent is much greater then my 'one leg hopping'. I found my inkling in poems while he can find it in the English lyrics of the songs he sings. My ambition was only to become one of the girls while he's is to conquer the world's entertainment industry. He must overcome this small hurdle by practising often enough (i talked to myself in the mirror remembering words of poems) ..like his dance steps. Practice makes perfect.

If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort - Dave Weinbaum

To me Jeong-ssi aka Bi-Rain has both.