TRANSCRIPT
You know what time it is? Come on singing it with me. It’s story time a I said it story time. All right, so today’s story is one that is close to my heart. Because it was a very emotional time for me. Now, you know, I lived in South Korea as an English teacher. I stayed there for 10 years Now, during that time, I had the opportunity to study in university, to study and get my graduate degree.
I got a master’s degree in Oriental painting. Now. I’m American. English is my first language, and Korean is my second. And Korean is a very difficult language. Beautiful but difficult. And when I got toward the end of my graduate program, there was an exam that I had to take. The exam was completely in Korean and also included some Chinese characters.
Here’s the thing, even studying in a graduate program in America is difficult. So the fact that I had to do it all in Korean was extremely difficult. I remember the day that I had to take the exam, walked in, and there were so many students in there, all of us nervous because we wanted to pass this exam and graduate.
Well, I didn’t pass the exam the first time, so I went a second time, six months later. And I failed again. Two times I failed. I was sad, I was frustrated. I didn’t know what to do, so I actually made the decision to come back to America for six months. For six months, every day of the week. I studied for about 12 hours for this test because I did not want to fail again.
I failed twice, and now I was preparing to take it a third time Now. When I flew back to Korea after the six month period, I remember the day I walked into the test room again for the third time. My heart was racing because I did not want to fail. I was given the test and it was placed in front of me and I put my name on it and they said, you may begin.
And all of us took out our pens and pencils and started to write on the test. The only problem was I did not understand. The question and I started to sweat, Lord, I cannot fail this test, and I sat there for about a 10 minute period because I did not know what the question was asking. I thought about the six months that I had studied 12 hours a day during the week, and yet, and still.
I felt like I was gonna fail a third time, but then all of a sudden I prayed and, and God helped me to realize what the question was asking, and I started writing really, really fast. And I finished the test. Now, the results for the test weren’t gonna come out until maybe a month or two later. So for about a month or two, I was working at an institute teaching English, but in the back of my head, I was worried about this test.
I said, Lord, I, I studied so hard, I, I wanna pass the test. And then the day came for the results to come out. I was so nervous I was losing sleep over whether or not I passed the test because it was hard and I wasn’t sure if I had studied enough. Then I got the results. I opened it up and it said, Tiffany Claiborne.
Pass. It said it in Korean, but when I say I was overjoyed, I cried tears of joy because I had put so much effort into studying for this exam three times, but the third time, I was able to pass. Now, I wanted to encourage you with this story because sometimes you have to do things, whether it be for your job or for English tests, and sometimes you are worried just like I was worried.
You lose sleep over if you’re going to pass, if you did well enough, and it’s really concerning. It’s really frustrating. I’ve experienced the same thing, so if you failed once, failed twice, don’t give up. Keep moving forward. I kept going and I was so happy that in the end I passed. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve taken a test.
If you failed multiple times, what’s more important is getting up and trying again. So I hope my experience encouraged you. You may lose sleep over these situations, but it’s more important for you to just get up and keep trying. Alright, I love you all. I hope again that you enjoy today’s lesson. Don’t forget to get your copy of 100 English expressions.
The link is in the description, or you can go to www.studywithtiffani.com. I’ll see you next time.