Writing: A New Experience
By Anca Golea

There I was, the shy international student, sitting in the last row, waiting quietly and anxiously for class to start. Ten more minutes of waiting and the summer break would be over. It was the beginning of the fall semester and my new life in the United States. As I sat still, my thoughts were spinning in circles, revealing the fresh sense of my life in the new world, culture and civilization. The buildings, the clothing styles, and the way people carried themselves strengthened my feeling of being a foreigner. I was the new, young, inexperienced, twenty-year old student lost in the crowd.

As I was thinking of my hometown and my loved ones, students started to hasten into class noisily, laughing or just smiling, talking or listening, nodding or greeting their buddies. But nobody seemed to recognize me. Eagerly, I was waiting for a familiar face, though I knew this was impossible. The only thing I recognized was English, the beautiful language of Shakespeare. It was the only familiar “face” to me. My heart jumped at this recognition.

Finally, there we were—all twenty-one students and the instructor, gathered and ready to start. After a few introductions, the English instructor started her speech. As she read the syllabus (which, at first, I thought must have been a sort of definition for syllables), I was imagining myself in an aquarium with twenty-one bright and colorful fish, exchanging bubble-words! I understood the importance of writing essays: rules based on rules, based on rules! In addition to my “foreign anxiety syndrome,” I ended up with a bunch of troubling questions: “How am I supposed to write according to all these rules? Am I capable of fulfilling the requirements? How should I start? Is there any help? Am I ever going to pass this class?” I went on and on, until I finally realized that my fear was actually choking my senses. After all, the professor was not the green witch, and we were not Hansel and Gretel. In fact, she was beautiful. Her gentle look brought me peace: long, blonde hair, blue eyes, average size, gentle voice, cheerful smile and an optimistic attitude. Actually, she was our friend and helping hand in shaping our success.

Time flew and our first major essay was due shortly. Of course, for the past few weeks, I had been worrying and questioning my abilities for writing in English, in spite of her words of encouragement. I fastened upon an excuse to hide my fear: as an international student I might have troubles with English. But to my professor, I was just another Anne of Green Gables to protect, encourage, and teach. “Writing plays with words, as music with sounds, and painting with colors. You have to learn how to play with writing!” she kept saying. But for me, writing was the learned virtue that freed the true self, after hard work, readings, drafts, responsibility, optimism and acceptance of both failure and success. As I wrote my essay, I kept struggling with my inexperienced nature, or the so called “ novice status”. I had it clear in my mind that I was not Shakespeare, Milton, Poe, or Wordsworth, but I was another valuable world ready to be explored. I learned that grades are less important than the lesson itself, and worries are even less helpful. Worries provide impediments, but perseverance opens doors. I also learned that writing and life are similar: the more one writes, the more experienced he/she becomes.

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