A Story Behind First-Day Phobia

        If someone was to ask when the worst day in my life was, in that case I will hesitantly answer that it was the first day of school. Actually, there were few of them: my first day of elementary school in Korea, primary school in Malaysia, and junior high school in Canada. To spoil the story that I'm going to recall, I will tell you that all of those days have been bitter nightmares. 

I was born in South Korea, where it only took two hours of easygoing driving to the city of wailess: Seoul. When my family moved to Seoul, I was sent to an elementary school where I could breathe in the sand from the impressive area of the school field. My first day of school was fresh to me because, I had never seen that magnitude of people in one place. Kids and parents and the staff were everywhere, chatting about how good their kids were. If I closed my eyes, then I could hear footsteps, unclear conversations, and high-pitched laughter that I thought I was in the chicken farm for a moment. Yet, I was fading away into my own world. However my grandmother would wake me up from the fantasy where I wished my parents could get a day-off from their work. I sat down quietly because I knew no one. I kept searching through the crowd to see if there was any familiar face, and then school was finally over. 

        A day before starting Grade 6 was a turning point of my life: my mom, my sister and I were sent to Ampang, Malaysia. The new tropical weather was sweaty. Moreover, the school I was going to go had sweat-unproved uniforms. Everything was good except the language; it was like talking to monkeys which would shout out for something. Every textbook was in English, they were talking in Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, English and you name it. Of course I had no idea what they were saying, although they were speaking awfully slowly with body motions for me. I spent the whole day thinking about how many more languages are there on earth.
         As I was fitting in eventually, my family moved to Halifax, Canada. I was confidence like a swan among ducks that I would do well. Whereas I had a hard time understanding people here because of the speed in which they talked. I thought they were rapping! Besides I was sure that they were also suffering from my wild accent. I had myself occupied with a dictionary wondering how one's oral anatomy is different from one another. 
         Now I think about how intensive things used to get in those past first days of schools. My first day at Citadel High School was comparably fantastic; I was with my dear friends for the whole time. When all sparkling Grade 10s formed a lengthy galaxy facing the entrance, we had some meaningful chitchat. Once we entered the school, we actually entered a dungeon. Let say if our requests were to take a picture, pay student fee and get the schedule, our reward was getting out of the school without losing anyone. It  was still sunny when we got out at 3 o'clock. I will never forget that jiff of the sunshine which seemed to be healing my first-day phobia.

photo: http://petapixel.com/2012/05/10/growing-up-in-photos-thirteen-first-days-of-school/