I remember my first winter in New York. 

I enrolled NYU School of Continuing that winter to study art management. I was really excited to learn professional studies with other native English speakers. However, at the very first class in the semester, I realized my English was not at all enough to catch up with the course. People (well, New Yorkers) spoke really fast. They all seemed to have much more experiences or knowledge than I did. I realized there are certain rules in making presentations or doing researches which I have never been taught in school back in Japan. In short, I needed to study really hard.

Writing essay was even harder. I haven’t taken any proper English academic writing course in the university, so I had to learn how to structure an essay from scratch. At the writing center in NYU, the tutor told me she can’t even start to help me until I hire a private proofreader because my essay had too many corrections.

Each week there was an assignment. I had to read two or three chapters to prepare for the class. Back then I was reading so slow that it took me 30 minutes to finish a page. Because I had to look up the meanings of jargons and references at every few sentences.

Unfortunately, wifi in my apartment was very poor. So I usually walked 15 minutes to the nearest Starbucks to get a secure wifi. 

10 p.m. was the closing time of Starbucks. I often walked back home finding myself weeping as I was so disappointed and ashamed of my language skill.

After 10 years, I began to feel less pressured to write in English. There is still a lot to learn writing in the second language, but I find myself enjoying using English as a tool to express my thoughts and feelings.

I sometimes remember those nights in Starbucks. It was the most hard-working days in my life so far. And I’m grateful that it trained me hard. 

“Am I doing enough?” I would often ask to myself to remember those nights. Then I would say, “Nah, not enough”.  

I can do more. And I need coffee.