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-Once upon a time
-Young life in the
old world
-The big change
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The big change
Uncle Sam
In the summer of 1995, our family decided to leave the country and come to America with only one purpose in our minds, and that is to let me and my sister get a higher education.
The vision
Having to leave everything behind was not easy: all my friends, my relatives, my house that was just rebuilt, and my lovely girlfriend. What always made me feel better is my thought, "I, as one who has only seen the world for 16 years, have to suffer this much of a pain of having to leave things behind. But what about mom and dad who have spent their lives in this country for more than 40 years? Wouldn't they have a suffer more? But why........? They do everything just for me and my sister, because they have the vision of knowing what is best for our future. That is what makes worth it doing my best in things, just like how they wish me to be."
The travel
I spent my first day in America in L.A., the city of angel. We stayed there for a couple of days just to look around, then we took a long road trip from there to Virginia, where 4 of my cousins are. Of course, we stopped by places- Universal Studios, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon...etc. Since touring wasn't the only purpose of all this, we also stopped by many cities and towns, just to see where we would like to spend our life..
The discover
The decision was hard to make, so after we went to my cousin's graduation in Virginia, we took another trip to New York, then went South to Ford. On a rainy night during our trip, we designed to end the day travel and spend the night somewhere. Fortunately, that somewhere happened to be Harrisonburg. At first, we did not know what Harrisonburg was like, since the night was dark and rainy. But then we were told from the waiter from the restaurant we had dinner that there are 4 high schools and a couple of college around Harrisonburg. The next morning, we went to look around the city. There we saw lots of old buildings which I thought looked pretty cool. The picture on top of this page is the court house building in downtown Harrisonburg. After we saw the High School and college, we then put Harrisonburg in our "To return" list, then moved on to Florida.
Land mark
Finally, we decided that we like Harrisonburg the best, so we came back, found more information about the city, then got an apartment to stay. Harrisonburg is a small city in Virginia, that's only about a 2-hour drive from D.C. There are 4 colleges total in Harrisonburg; 2 public, 1 private, and another community college. Because of the motto "The friendly city," the size, the education environment, and other nice facts of Harrisonburg, it is one of the best cities you will ever find.
6-strings and swing music
After we took care all the paper and got into Harrisonburg High School, we went to talk to the band director and see if he teaches a guitar class. Guitar was one of the things I interested of, and is very popular in schools in Thailand. "We have a jazz band that I we can put you in," the director said. Jazz, I hardly know anything about it, I highly doubt myself to be able to perform in an actual band. With a help from the director, I later on took jazz guitar lessons from one of the best jazz guitarist in town, who enlighten me of the beauty of the music.
"Excuse me. Do we only sing in this class?"
I wasn't exactly sure how this really happened, but when I first got my
classes schedule done for the first time, I was registered to be in a class called,
"Mixed ensemble." I was told from a school office lady, who has a limited brain
power and memory grand that the what we do learn and play music instruments in the class.
When the orientation day came, I was interfere by the words, "choir" and
"singing," as the teacher explained to us about the class. Before I walked out
of the class at the end of the orientation, I stepped up and asked the director,
"Excuse me. Do we only sing in this class? No music instruments or anything
like that?"
"No, sir." he replied. That night, my parents and I went into the guidance
office searching for the brainless lady. She wasn't there. We then were introduced
to this smiley and friendly lady, my REAL advisor. She took care of the situation by
informing me that singing would help me with English pronouncing, and if I found I didn't
like the class, she would switch me to something else. "But I can't sing," I
told her. She then told me that that is what the director is for. "Just give it a
try," That was the decision that changed my life.
The awards
At the end of my first school year in America, it was quite a shock when I found out that I received The Most Improved Choir Award, The Most Improved Band Member 10th grader Award, and was invited as a part of the excellence banquet students. I didn't think I deserved those, but I didn't mind receiving them. In my 11th grade school year, our bands and choirs went to compete at the North America Music Festival at Myrtle beach. That was a great time, especially when I got the outstanding Jazz Soloist Award, which is the only individual award that one can get from the entire competition. At the end of the year, I again received an outstanding jazz soloist award, and also the Green Hornet award which was made from cymbals that year. It was explained to me from experts that basically the award was to say that I suck at cymbals. In my senior year, I was a part of the National Honor Society, and once again, I got the outstanding jazz soloist award. That seems to be the last music award I will ever get.