Going to school on your first day can be really tough and nerve racking. Meeting new friends, teachers, trying to find your classes is pretty stressful, don't you think? Imagine how many students from all over the world are in one place all at the same time. They all may have very unique and different names and also speak other languages other than English. My name is Kanykei Apsalbekova and I am from Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek.
My first day of school this year as a freshman in college was okay. Everyone was so focused on finding their classes, not getting lost, being on time, making new friends, and lastly liking their teachers. Since the day is already nerve racking nobody wants to worry about a teacher or someone else mispronouncing your name because that is just a joke to have struggles with and also it just adds another stress on students like me have to go through. .
I walked into class and sat down when the teacher told me to do so. Once everyone walked in, the teacher talked a little bit about herself. She told us one of her biggest pet peeves in life which was mispronouncing her last name. After that she announced that she wanted to be able to recognize us with our names and help her memorize. Therefore she was going to call out names and see if students wanted to be called anything different. Once I heard that, I was just like, "Wow really please not right now." I knew I was going to get called first because my last name starts with the letter A and my full name is on the list and it was obvious that she wouldn't pronounce it correctly. When she called out my name "Kanykei Apsalbekova" the class did not think it was me with a weird name. They kind of just laughed or at least looked like they really wanted to. I understand that it was the teachers first time seeing this name and that I had to let that pass but days went on and she still to this day can't say my name the right way I would like it to be, that is all as if she is doing that on purpose.
