Ever since I was born, I have been told that English is an important language to master. Unfortunately, being young and careless, I did not register the importance of it right away. When I was in middle school, my parents would drop me off for an extra English tuition after classes, or they thought they did. I was quite rebellious and most of the times I would simply pretend to go up the stairs and then snick to a nearby arcade with friends once our family car drove out of sight. I was perfectly content with the way things were going on and never thought it necessary to reconsider my attitude.
Everything changed drastically when I decided to study in the United States, more than nine thousands miles away from home. With the admission minimum TOEFL English requirement in mind, I began to regret my carelessness in the past. I remember sitting in the school hall and blaming my irresponsible self for arranging what seemed to be an inevitable failure. Suddenly, a big “Emergency exit” sign caught my eye and I realized that there was always a chance to fix everything. That was the exact moment when I declared war to English and started my battle against the language.
I soon realized that the struggles we have to overcome in our reality are a lot like playing adventure video games. In game, everyone chooses a character that best reflects their personality and plays within the rules set by game creators. Starting off the game, or beginning to study English, I was a mere novice playing under the rigorous grammar rules. Rather than just pressing buttons on Sony controller, the adventure game requires me to power up my brain for decent amount of analytical skills to connect the dots given by the narrated storyline. In the beginning, basic instructions pop up on the screen, which help to understand the primary games rules. Same to those pop ups, gurus at school guided me through basic moves which were quite simple and rather boring, starting with short sentences as building block. Gradually, I leveled-up my basic moves and acquired new skills, which reflected in me pushing the boundaries of grammar rules and understand them better. The battle became more challenging with time, but I felt that I grew stronger and stronger. The game against my opponent became absorbing and involving, and apart from realizing the actual importance of studying English, I also was really interested in challenging my own limits and checking how far I would be able to go without giving up. I remember memorizing the table of irregular words one evening: there were a hundred and something of them, and I thought I would learn twenty and then go to bed. Halfway through that it occurred to me that I should not slack my work, so I end up not going to bed that night until I had perfectly memorized all list.
It was neither the first nor the last time I struggled against my laziness and my secret desire to choose the easiest way. I once heard that it is not about choosing between what is difficult and what is not, it is about choosing what is right and what is easy. Studying English, working on my communicative skills, perfecting my writing skills and improving my overall knowledge was the only right thing to do, that is why I had no other option but to continue my battle. I chose not to have any other option.
I carefully observed and investigated my adversary. As said in famous ancient Chinese military tactics, one must understand his opponent and one’s own limits entirely in order to optimize chances and increase the probability of wining every battle. When I faced certain difficulties to knock down my rival or accomplish my mission in games, I would pay close attention to the hints and subtleties. Observing the geological surroundings and making the battle as if it were a home game was very essential for the mood and motivation. I would look for opponent’s weaknesses and my strength, aim for it and build my way around it. After many practices, the algorithms in my mind though acquired the hard way were nevertheless able to decipher opponent’s tones, moves and emotions in our interactions. The algorithms embedded in my mind that built upon each combat became better and better in recognizing patterns and countering the moves. I read in between the lines of my opponent. This is extremely useful when it comes to close critical reading, because the long-developed algorithm in my head has enabled me to think critically and logically, as well as incorporate argument in argumentative essay. It is also important to be able to put yourself in your opponent’s place and see certain things from his perspective. The understanding that your opinion might not be essentially the only right one, as well as your tactic might not be the one to lead to resounding victory, is very substantial.
There were times when I did not understand some grammar structures and they did not make sense in analogy with my native language. I then tried to imagine how some sentences or phrases would sound in my language, if the person who studied it chose not to cooperate with its rules but instead bring it closer to their mother tongue. It did not make sense at all, and I learnt to respect my adversary and started walking in its shoes every once in a while just to take a look at my progress from a different stand point and check on my weak and strong sides.
After my defeat on TOEFL, there was some time when I thought that everything had been over and done with; however I soon realized that it was only a beginning. I had performed well, but I raised the bar for myself and it would have been very disappointing to lower it now that I had achieved something and proved that I could overcome all the difficulties if I really wanted to. Of course, finding motivation is not always that easy. There are times when all you want is to quit the struggle and admit your defeat. I have always wondered, whether calling those who give up weak and hopeless is explicitly fair and just. After all, it does take a great courage to admit that you cannot possible perform better than you already have and leave the battle field. It means to accept your own weaknesses and confess to not having any strength to continue the struggle, and, what is more, not having any idea of where to gain that strength from. I cannot call myself a quitter, not because I think it low and embarrassing, but because I have always been lucky in finding motivation. I have come to conclusion, that my main motivation has always been my intense curiosity: how far I can go? How far can I push my own limits? What more am I capable of? What other skills do I possess which I do not know about and am yet to discover? Am I strong enough to keep going?
In the end, there is a great difference between quitting and knowing that you might have just made a big mistake and missed all the opportunities helplessly crawling downslide back to your comfort level, which does not necessarily make you feel comfortable, but which at least does not require any complicated actions from your side; and leaving the stage of the battle with head erect and the heart proud of the valuable experience you have gained and though knowing that it had been your own choice to give up, still being strong and invulnerable enough to take the ultimate responsibility of it and never shutter a single word of regret ever after. Still, even though I have not given up, I think it is very important to consider both possibilities of the march.
I’m no longer a newbie who needs guidance. I know all the opponents and I am ready to deal with them. I think of some new challenges that English still presents me with as of the monsters I have to beat in the game, and the most important thing is that I am no longer afraid of them. The controller reaches its full scale of vibration in my hand, indicates my critical situation and my mind races at its full speed to navigate me through all the possible ways to defeat those deadly creatures. Gurus in the West taught me to imitate a skill; which is the fastest way to bridge the enormous gap level between me and the ruthless beasts. I still need to learn to be more creative with my writing, but I feel like I have been rather imaginative when it comes to my studying, and it helped me enormously in reducing the level of boredom and routine, which are yet another beasts, and becoming more curious and inquisitive in broadening my horizons and coming to a whole new level. With time, I developed graphic memory that captures dynamic movements of my opponents. As they belong to higher level creatures, their fighting skills are much more sophisticated and exciting. Instead of trying to defeat them as a whole, I have found it helpful to dissect their skills into many smaller pieces and study them carefully. Organizing and pondering over executing these super power moves, I started to appreciate their existence and understand the beauty of it. This brought my own skills to another level. Of course, instead of being a pure copy ninja, I did not only study the move, but incorporated newly invented elements and made it more invincible. Western guru pushed me to my limits and ignited creativities that lay in me.
Clearly, creative thinking does not always result in creative writing, as the last implies certain skills that are only available at the higher level: the ability to express one’s thoughts and pour them out on the paper means being spectacularly good at constructing sentences, something I still have to work on. Still, I find it easier now that I am more confident in my general knowledge of English, which is yet another victory of my battle. I believe that it all works as a complex mechanism, where each and every component should be oriented towards the same goal: knowing basic grammar rules helps us to construct sentences, expanding our vocabulary helps us to express our ideas more clearly, expressing our ideas to someone who listens and agrees with them makes us more confident, on the other hand, those who disagree help us to develop some counterarguments and think critically. Moreover, reading different articles and books helps us to use analogy and scenarios when writing our own essays, and writing our own essays in its turn help us to be more profound and strive for more information, which once again leads us to being more literature-oriented. I know I should be reading more and develop my reading skills, and I am of the opinion that admitting your weaknesses is the first and the most crucial step in overcoming them.
At this point, I’m still not good enough to be an expert. An expert synchronizes every single attack with breathing, incorporate human senses into fighting. He could punctuate at the moment when opponent is not noticing and attack at an unexpected moment. Twisting the fighting outcome and making the fight a living piece of art, I look forward to the moment when I can achieve the guru standard and become invincible. My goal is to continue on my adventure and continue searching for hidden guru to enlighten me. I thought that TOEFL was the beast I had to fight with. However, I know understand that my only enemy has always been my own self. I did not overcome my struggle with English, which would be only dealing with it up to the point when my language skills were acceptable and giving up the idea of going further. Instead, I have acknowledged it to be an important part of my life, something which I owe my multi-leveled and broad personality to, something which has been my motivation and a great companion on my way to self-acceptance and confidence, something which I do not plan on settling down with, but which I am determined to keep up, perfect and achieve yet better results, because it has become something I do not imagine my life at its comfort level without.
