The reason why I started learning English was just unusual. I was 18 years old at the time just graduated from high school. I had a dream, so I didn’t continue my studies up to university. Instead, I decided to get a part time job at somewhere I could earn some decent money. I don’t know why, but one day, I felt like going to a book store. When I went there, there were a couple of people at the booth. They were promoting the newly opened English school in Yokohama. One of the ladies at the booth started talking to me and asked me if I was interested in taking the free lesson, and I said “Yes.” Since I am the kind of a person who can’t really say no, I always say yes to any offer. Now of course I can say no to what I don't want. Maybe... When I went to the English school, the sales person who introduced me to the school let me go to take a 10 or 15 minute lesson. It was more like asking a few questions in English. After that the sales lady explained about the lesson plan for 3 year period, which were 300 lesson packages along with the counseling sessions. It was $1 million with interest. I couldn’t imagine how expensive it was at the time. According to the lady, I only needed to pay $300 each month, and I thought I could do it, so I signed the contract which was the loan of the tuition. I was too naive to recognize that I was actually borrowing money from the financial institution with high interest. Then I started going to the school three times a week, and I got to know a lot of people who wanted to learn English, but they disappeared one by one as time went by. I think I was the only one who continued studying there to digest all the lessons in two years. I didn’t know why I could get carried away with learning English so much though my motivation was to live in one of the English speaking countries when I get really old like in my 70's or something.
After the two years, I started working at a bakery, because I had another dream, which was to work as a baker in London. Eventually that dream shattered into pieces since I didn’t have enough money and baking bread wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be. After quitting the bakery, I started going to the church since I had kept the flyer about free English classes from the missionary I met at a station for 4 years, and I could finally go there to get a glimpse of the free lesson. There were some missionaries teaching English. Since their ages were around my age, so we could make friends. They were mostly from Utah, and some were from California. After meeting those American guys there, I decided to study Art in the US. That’s how I ended up staying in America, and now I teach English for a living. Going to the book store changed my life completely. I wonder how my life could have been if I hadn’t gone to the book store at that time…
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