留學生預科小essay：講述自己學習感悟
 

我一直把我自己當做二十多歲的年輕女人，并總是取笑我三十出頭“年長的”丈夫，但一直想努力記得我是怎樣學習讀和寫的讓我感覺比他還老似的，因為將注意力集中在一件事情上是很難的，改變了我對讀和寫的看法。第一次我想到我是怎樣練習讀的，映入我腦海的是我的祖母和媽媽在我入睡之前給我講的睡前故事的畫面。我對書籍和有趣雜志的愛好都來自于我祖母講的故事，還有來自我媽媽的鼓勵讓我去讀來充實自己。

回顧這些年，我對祖母家里的我的臥室有著生動的記憶，那是一個很大的房間，從天花板到地板都是又大又陳舊的窗戶。全部被小花邊制作成的窗簾蓋住了。我們不需要用風扇來給房間降溫，因為它在炎熱潮濕的夏天夜晚本來就很涼快。我喜歡和祖母呆在一起，一個嬌小有著黑頭發的女人，因為在我上學的時候我的媽媽不得不去外面，每晚當我準備睡覺的時候，我就從生銹的舊書架上挑一本書，我的祖母以前住在客人的臥室，我記得挑書只是看書脊上的數字，當我翻開一本每一本書都有它們獨特的味道，就像涼爽的春天里的一顆新樹。由于過了很多年頭，書頁不白，有著輕微的泛黃。

 

Learning From Two Women
 

I consider myself as a young woman on my late 20’s and always making fun of my “old” husband who is in his early 30’s. But trying to remember how I learned to read and write makes me feel older than him, because it is hard to focus on a single event that could have changed my perspective about reading and writing. The first time that I thought about how I learn to read, it came to my mind images of my grandmother and my mother reading me bedtime stories before I fell asleep. My passion about books and interesting magazines came from my grandmother stories and was reinforced by my mother’s encourage to read. 
 

Looking back through the years I have a vivid memory of my bedroom at my grandmother’s house, it was a big bedroom with big and old windows from ceiling to floor, just covered with curtains made of small laces. We did not need to use a fan to cool the room, because it was cool enough in a hot and humid summer night. I used to stay with my grandmother, a petite and dark hair woman, because my mother had to travel when I was at school. Every night while I was ready to go to bed I had to choose a book from an old and rusty bookcase that my grandmother used to have outside the guest’s bedroom. I remember choosing a book just by its number on the spine, when I opened one and each of these books they had a particular smell like a fresh tree in the cool spring and the pages were not white but light yellow due to the pass of years. These books were part of my grandmother’s collection of Aesop fables. #p#分頁標題#e#

I wasn’t able to read at that time, and my grandmother used to read to herself like 5 minutes the book that I chose and then she started reading it to me. I really enjoyed those stories with great endings and fun topics to learn about.
 

As time passed by I learn to read at school and as soon as I realized that I was able to read more than one page, I went to my grandmother’s house and look for those Aesop fables that she read me every night that I spent with her. Sadly I found out that those stories that I used to love and enjoy were just boring and hard to read. 
 

“Mama, what happened to those funny and interesting stories that you used to told me every night? Did you change the books?” I asked my grandmother. 
 

“My little Yaya, those books are hard to read and understand, aren’t they?” she replied. 
 

“Yes Mama. Those books are nothing related to those stories that I was hoping to read when I grow up” I said. 
 

“Well my little kid, those books are the same that I used to read to you, but I had to change the words so you can understand them and you can enjoy the story and don’t get bored. I used my imagination too so I was able to adapt the fable to some situations that you could had at school or with your little friends.” my grandmother said. 
 

Since that day I learned from my grandmother, who was an older woman in age but not in spirit, that everyone can read any type of books, you just need to understand the words and change them until you get the message of the reading. 
 

My mother also helped me to develop my love and passion to books but in a different way, because she preferred to drive me each Sunday afternoon to a newsstand so I can bought two or three comic books like Little Lulu, Archie, Casper, Salt and Pepper, or Barbie magazines. My mother, a petite and light brown hair woman, who was raising a child by herself, taught me the importance to read every night before I went to bed. Thanks to this daily activity I enjoyed those comic books because they were full of words and situations that I was able to understand because of my young age. Those comic books were my treasure and my company during many years. 
 

As I was growing up my reading necessities were growing up too and I needed a higher level of reading. So I turned my attention to magazines, but not those classic teen magazines full of dumb and love topics, I was now reading magazines about interesting topics of other cultures, scientific discoveries, and other interesting topics that none of my friends were interested on. I remember every month I was rushed to the newsstand to bought magazines like “Conozca Mas”, “Muy Interesante”, and “Selecciones”, and heading back to my house to read them from cover to cover in just a few days. Those days I was feeling like a thirsty reader that was in need for more and more magazines to read. Thanks to the topics and articles that I read I was able to talk with my uncles, teachers, and other adults about actual topics and news that were taking place on those years. Thanks to my love to read these type of magazines my writing skills also improve because I was learning new words, new forms of expression that helped me through my High school years. #p#分頁標題#e#
 

Being raised by two wonderful women gave me the tools to read and really enjoy different topics from different type of books and magazines. As a teenager I was able to start interesting and controversial conversations. Reading and writing are two powerful tools that I started learning on my early years and more than 22 years ago I can not stop enjoying it, because the more I read, the more I want to know.