Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

fi fth 
grader
, um, and that—I think, I’m not sure, but I think 
my dad had to go into the offi
ce and-and push a little bit 
to get me in, uh, but he did—and that school was down-
town, uh, so again I’m taking the bus and the subway to 
school every day, uh, from age ten, um. And I went there 

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Edu
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through junior high and then went to, uh, again a mag-
net school, so it wasn’t my local high school, um, uh, 
High School of Engineering and Science, um, which was 
a couple blocks, about three or four blocks off campus 
from Temple University. And there they had a program 
where you did, uh, tenth, you did, uh, two years of Eng-
lish in eleventh grade, and English was the only class 
you needed four years of, which is why you did both 
years of it in the one year, and then, uh, and this was 
for the top sixty-some kids out of maybe a hundred and 
fi fty, uh, they took those kids, gave them two years of 
English, and then you were done your high school ed—, 
you know, requirements, uh, and they waived a year of 
gym
, I think, of 
phys ed
and sent you to Temple Uni-
versity for a year instead of twelfth grade. Uh, so that’s 
what I did.
2. GETTING RECRUITED
WOMAN:
Um, I 
ran track
—well, I-I played volleyball, bas-
ketball, and track in high school, but, um, I was recruited 
to run track for the Brown University track team. And 
um, like I said, I didn’t, I was, little 
hick town
, you know, 
farm girl. 
Ivy League
, East Coast, what is all that? I 
didn’t know. And I had gotten this information from this 
university, and I was reading it, and reading about the 
university in general, not only the track team but the uni-
versity in general, and I said, “
Gosh
, this has, like, all the 
characteristics that I would dream up in an ideal school.” 
And they have a track team and, that seems somewhat 
interested, and so I said, “Well, I’ll check it out.” And so 
they