When I was four years old, my mom put me in Kumon. I had to read, analyze and explain various forms of literature. I remember going from reading simple stories, to reading and answering questions about Macbeth and Midsummer’s Night Dream. It was extremely difficult. I remember sitting at the centre for hours trying to complete one booklet of Kumon.

Sparknotes became my best friend during those dark times.

I eventually did finish the English Program when I was thirteen, but I ended up forgetting most of it. Most of the stories were boring however, there was one story I fell in love with. It’s one of my favourite stories till this day.

The story was horrifyingly beautiful.

It was called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. The story was about a young girl who had leukemia from the nuclear bomb The United States dropped on Japan. She was making 1000 cranes, so she could make a wish that her disease would go away. It warmed my heart reading about a girl who never lost hope, despite having such a deadly illness.

Sadako unfortunately died, but her story lived on. An author came across her story and decided to write about it. It was published into a book and children all over the world could now learn about Sadako and her struggles.

Till this day, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes has been one of my favorite books.

Her story exposed me to the reality of the world too. I was surprised when I read that America dropped two nuclear bombs that killed so many people. I read the story when I was only nine years old.

It changed my perspective moving forward.

I wrote short stories with happy endings. I was naive. I didn’t fully grasp the concept of death. I didn’t know humans could be so awful or what the world really was like. It opened my mind a bit and helped me understand what people were going through around the world.

I slowly started to write stories with more complex plots, and that were slightly more realistic. I wanted my writing to reflect the reality of the world a bit more. Life isn’t always sunshine and rainbows.