from Stanislaw Warda: Still the Same

Still the same, I thought after visiting my tutoring center.  “You are still using sentence structures in your native language style, you not using the right tenses, articles, verb agreement, you did not do this and that, etc.” I know their comments by heart. I sat for a moment in the crowded university library and thought about my stupid stubbornness. “Probably everyone’s right,” I thought. It is pointless; this is taking up your whole life.  Perhaps people are right, I should quit my dream of being fluent in English. I was about to leave the library, when a woman in a wheelchair rolled up.  She simply passed my table and disappeared through the door to her classroom. It was just a moment but enough to notice that she was the kind of person that people want to meet, talk to, and it was hard not to gaze at her. Her hair was very elegantly done, a bit like a girl from the twenties, her make-up impeccable, her appearance clean and bold.

Stop thinking like that, I told myself, keep trying.