Interview with Justin Wong
After talking to Jacob about how we both felt our personality changed due to moving to new environments, I realized that I forgot to talk about academic difficulty. I personally felt that my new school in Seattle, Newport High School was much harder than my old school in Canada. Therefore, I wanted to talk about this academic difficulty with my interviewees who also attended 2 different high schools. Thus, I decided to interview one of my best high school friends Justin Wong who also moved to Seattle, Washington from California during his freshman year in high school. Unfortunately because Justin attends school in Seattle, I used Skype to interview one of my best friends. As Justin appeared on my computer screen, I could see that he had been exhausted due to assignments and tests in his college. "Hey, Jay what's up?" Justin asked expecting to talk casually as usual. "Nothing much haha. Dude you remember that I would interview you about your experience of moving to a different high school? Let's do that right now." " Alright I remember that. Okay you can borrow me for 30 minutes. I need to finish my essay," Justin hesitatingly replied. "Where did you move from Justin and why did you move to Seattle?" I started with a simple question. "I moved to Washington from California when I was a freshman in high school due to my dad's business," Justin answered. "Alright then how was your high school before coming to Newport?" " I loved my old high school , because I had so many friends that I had grown up with since elementary school. I knew everyone there and I knew everything there." At that moment I realized that Justin also didn't want to leave his old school like me. His face was so retrospective when he talked about "elementary school" part. Honestly, I moved from Korea to Canada, so I didn't have friends who I grew up since elementary school in my old high school. I could imagine how close he were with those friends. "I see I see I understand you, because I also had so many friends and knew many places in my old place," I replied. "Yeah I know. You also moved here in your freshman year to Newport. That's why we became best buddies. " "That's right you were my first friend in Newport, Justin. How did you feel about academics in Newport compared to your school in California? Were they similar or different?" I asked. "Jay you know that Newport is ranked in top 80 public high schools in America. I was so surprised when I first entered this school. All the students were so stressed about their grades," Justin answered. I didn't know when I first moved into Newport that the ranking was a big matter. My mom warned me that Newport would be harder than my previous school, but I didn't really think mere school ranking would be a big deal. However Newport certainly was a difficult school. "Right I felt exactly same as you too. Like most of the students were so attentive during classes which also made me focus. In my old school, most of the students, except the hard working ones, didn't pay attention during classes. We had no motivation in terms of academics." Yeah exactly! That was the same story for my old school too. Like I never was academically motivated in my old school. But I realized that I had to at least do something to catch up with these hard working kids in my new school," Justin answered. "Do you remember the first math homework we had in our Geometry class? " I asked while remembering the night I struggled alone in my room until 2 am. " Yeah actually that was not supposed to be that difficult, but at the time I was surprised due to the amount of work we had to do for just a daily homework. I swear that I had never stayed up that late because of homework before that day," Justin replied. |
I shook my head thinking about that first night after school when I sat in front of my desk. I struggled so much and couldn't ask anyone for help due to not knowing anyone yet. I struggled with my dad who had not touched any math material since his college.
"Like I felt my first few months of Newport life was just continuous struggles. In school, it was difficult to make new friends due to myself becoming timid in front of new people. When I came back from the school, I struggled so much because of the incomparable amount of homework. Like I couldn't make that many friends in the beginning, so I couldn't even ask others for help," As I mentioned this Justin seemed to have something to say. "Wow Jay that's exactly how my beginning of Newport life was. Like you know I only talked to you in the beginning, because I knew you also just moved at that time. I don't know why, but my personality totally changed when I moved here. Like the active part of my personality disappeared when I realized that others might judge me for acting too loudly." "Yup I totally understand that. I think we talked about this already like 2 years ago," I nodded. "While having a trouble with my social difficulty, I felt so exhausted with the academic difficulty. Like I wanted to at least finish my homework to prove to other kids that I am a normal student, but every night was so painful. Like to the people who had been doing this much work, the homework was like a casual thing. However, to me, every night was suffering," Justin frowned while describing how he felt. The word "suffering" really made me nod and nod. I think I really did suffer in the first few weeks. Suffering in the school due to not having true friends and suffering outside of the school due to difficult homework. I really did suffer. " Yeah, like the other students would never understand why we felt the freshman year in Newport was so exhausting. Both socially and academically, we had to adapt ourselves into the new systems. Alright, oops hey we have been talking more than 30 minutes. Sorry dude, but I have one more question." "Alright what is it?" " What do you think we benefited from us moving to the different high school?" I asked. "Well I benefited both socially and academically even though I struggled in both at that time. Socially, I realized that the best way to be social is just to be who you actually are. Like it is stupid to think that showing yourself would make others judge you. If you are active than you should be active in front of the others to prove that you are that kind of person. You will earn true friends when you really show who you are." I was glad to hear this, because I already made this conclusion with Jacob in the previous interview. The best way to make others know about you is to show yourself. "That's right. Like if you hide yourself, there is no way others would know about you. You need to show yourself. Then what is your conclusion in terms of academics?" I urged Justin because of realizing that I also had a web assign to finish. "I really appreciate the struggle I had due to academics when I first moved into Newport, because I learned that I can overcome difficulty if I actually try. Like even in college today, I have this mindset. No matter how tough college is, I believe that I can overcome it with diligence and persistence. That is what I learned from the struggle in every night in Newport," Justin concluded. I agreed with this statement. Like Justin, I still believe that effort always pays off though college is more difficult than high school. "Alright thank you so much Justin. I really appreciate your help," I concluded our long interview and seriously thanked him for opening up himself. |