At the end of October 2011 EC San Diego started a new contest: The Story of the Week. Every Wednesday we announce a topic and either individually or together with a group of friends, students can write a creative story using their best English and submit it at the Front Desk by Wednesday of the following week. Every Thursday we award the winner with great prizes such as free activities, or gift certificates for iTunes, movie theaters, restaurants and other fun places. Our students can be creative and have fun improving their English!
Our very first winner was Lora Zeciri, who wrote the best story regarding the topic “My best day in San Diego“. And here is her great essay:
“The time in San Diego was awesome. I almost could not decide which day was the best. But then I remembered when I felt kind of free, like being at the right place on the right time. It was my first day here. Not only the first day, it was the very first minute in San Diego.
I came with two of my friends from Switzerland. We are 18 and 19 years old so it was the first time that we travelled without parents and so far away. We all can imagine how they felt when they had to let us 3 “babies” go. We flew to Atlanta where we had to change the plane. It was a disaster. We had to take the luggage by ourselves to the luggage claim. It wasn’t written anywhere where we had to put it exactly for our flight, there were only some numbers like “1-5” or “6-10” to give it in. In this disaster where staff shouted at us to go faster and where we lost the view over all we felt completely lost. We were tired because of the sleepless night, the first time travelling alone and there were people shouting at us. I mean who is getting paid for shouting at other people?
At this moment I preferred to go straight the way back home. When we got to the next plane there was another drama arriving. A luggage
transporter crashed the wing of our plane that meant that there was another one and a half hour waiting time. The flight felt as horrible as the whole day was.
But when we flew over San Diego there was a feeling that I will never forget. This feeling when you look out of the window and you see all
those lights in the dark. Thousands of small lights. I could not believe that I was here now. Finally.
When I got out of the plane everything seemed so different to me. The wind was different, the air, the moon and the stars. It was kind of unfamiliar but also exciting for me. Then there was a man waiting for us ( I bet he had such a horrible waiting time as we had) who brought us to our taxi. We drove over the bridge where we could see San Diego Downtown and then just the way down to our apartments. I was glad the day had found finally an end.
Now the last week here has come and I can not forget this moment. Because like in many situations in life, when you meet people or go somewhere, the first impression is the one which has the biggest meaning. It says more about someone or something than we think. Mostly my first impression was prooved right and so it was this time. San Diego is wonderful!
This week’s winner is Valentin Utech. His topic was “If I had one-million dollars...”. Have fun enjoying his great story in the following:
“If I had one-million dollars, I would change it into Euro. After this I would buy my own notebook so I don’t have to ask anyone for paper anymore. Furthermore I would invest in Swiss cheese and sell it in the USA. With the profit I’ll make I plan to build a Swiss cheese factory in the USA. Then I would be a billionaire. So I would start to support countries like Ethiopia to fight against their poverty and the bad living conditions by building liquid waste processing systems and rebuild their cornfields.
Having spend a lot of money I than would invest in solar-energy and would build solar-cells in Ethiopia. From these cells the Ethiopians would get electricity and I would make more money which I can use to support other countries or to slow down the climate change by planting a lot of tries, produce CO2– filters and so on. When I am 35 I Would buy a solar-car and a house where I would live with my family.”
We thank all of our students for taking the time and submitting so many interesting and exciting stories! We are looking forward to receive more of them during the coming weeks and months!
You want to become our next winner? Then submit this time your story until coming Monday, November 21st, 3pm. Topic: If I was the president of my country, I would…”. Please submit your story at the Front Desk and provide us with your name, age and language level. Good luck and have lots of fun!
And here are pictures of our lucky winners Lora and Valentin: