Off the tree

English has frustrated me for a long time, even more in the United States. People generally believe that English is with ease coming to those who are living in English-speaking countries. So did I. However, My belief has proved wrong. We could, of course, benefit from the unlimited Human resources:neighbours, cashers, passersby, faculties, and so on. There is, however, the condition always tagging along;get as many chances as you can to talk to them. Those resources never talk to us first, except for greeting like hello or hi, and they are unluckily no interested in us. It is true.

It is not easy for me to speak to strangers, and that, with terrible English. My tough usually got twisted and I was almost black-out that I did not know what to say. My all senses were forcusing on only escaping from the very moment of embarrassment. Unidentified fear was in my mind. For instance, whenever I ordered to go at the fast food restaurant, I always prayed no more asking from cashers because I was not ready to hear and speak. Even the simple word like "say again, please" did not come out from my mouth. At home, I recalled the talk that I and casher had. No professional words. Srangely speaking, I was able to response without any trouble at home in practicing by myself. Why?

Yes, I found out that the fear I had was that I was truly afraid of being humiliated, which resulted from the lack of confidence. I bet the first thing I had to do was to implant self-confidence with English in my mind. After that, I'd thought over what was going to work.

The another thing that stunned me was "Off the tree", the title of this post. It was from one staff member of YMCA , wherer my son had spent most of summer for camps. At the pick-up time, I went there to pick up my son as usual. As my son' camp were on their way to YMCA from the beach, I just waited them, standing aside by staff in the background. There was a big tree on the center. Many campers climbed up the tree and one of staff wanted them to be away from tree by saying this "Off the tree". It was a kind of shock. That was totally different from those I've learned at school. I realized that people often say something in no accordance with textbooks. Then, what is that? Honestly speaking, I do not still know exactly.

So much for today, isn't it? When it comes to English, I have a lot to say. But, I' ll take my time to proceed. ^^
The book on the picture is the one that I've just started to read. I firmly believe that all of speaking and writing are from reading. Trust me. This book is for youth, still you can learn a lot.