This is a short and entertaining essay about being... an alien. It offers insight into living in a foreign country.
Written by: Karol Flasiński 1pe
What is it like to be different? Well, I’m actually the right person to answer this cliché question. For most of my life (until I moved back to Poland) I had been an outsider – someone different because of their identity. This had led to many experiences which I will surely describe in this essay.
My parents are diplomats, which is not an easy job. We first relocated in 2006. We moved to Slovakia. Both I and my parents liked it there, although I did have some communication problems at first. I joined a public Slovakian kindergarten, in which I was the only Pole. I felt a bit ostracized at first, but I quickly learned their language and managed to integrate into the environment. Thankfully, none of the kids there alienated me because of my nationality. This was my first experience with being different.
Then, we moved to Czechia four years later. This was a huge leap. I joined the school as a second-grader. The school was called Prague British School. It was an international school with lots of students from all over the globe. My first contact with them was not pleasant – mainly because I did not know the language they spoke; English. I remember crying so hard on the first few days, because I was so different from all the other kids that knew English. I was frustrated, but I learned extremely quickly. In the first few months my English was getting better by the day. I learned so quickly that after one year, I was fully able to communicate and make elaborate sentences. I remember making a friend there who was in a similar situation as me – he did not know English and learned at a similar pace to mine. His name stayed in my mind – Honzi.
The next two years of my life after moving away from Czechia were… different. Mainly because they were so ordinary and indifferent – this was due to the fact that I’d moved back to Poland and life was pretty normal. I studied at a public school in Praga.
After spending one and a half year in my homeland, I had to move again – this time I moved to Bulgaria. This was yet a different experience, because I enrolled in a school with an American program instead of a British one. This was much more comfortable for me. I really liked their approach towards education with an emphasis on grammar and spelling from a young age. I felt at home here – everyone was different. We had people on all levels of English and with different personalities. This was a great experience for me and this was also the longest time I have ever spent in one country: four and a half years.
As you could read in this essay, most of my life I’ve been dealing with being an outsider. This was a very formative experience for me and led me to develop my English to a desirable level. This just proves that being different does not have to be something that alienates you or makes you feel lonely. My best advice is that young people should use their differences as positives and personality traits, instead of forcing yourself to fit in with your surroundings. I just hope I won’t have to move again because I don’t think I’m ready to throw away everything I have at the age of sixteen…