Genre number 5 - a diary entry

Dear Diary,

It's another difficult day in the United States. I miss my home, but at least I feel safer here. School here in the United States is a lot of fun, but I'm really having problems reading and writing. I often feel like other people are judging me and that I need to do better. It's sooooo hard though, English is so much different than Arabic. The letters are really different and the whole writing style just makes me mad.
The teachers here ask me to write the letters several times so that they look just right, but I hate writing letters in English - can't they read them the way they are? Why do I have to write them again and again?
The teachers are nice though, but I often feel like they are giving me too much praise for my poor school work. In my culture teachers are harder on the students and this makes me work harder and understand what I need to work on. Here in the United States the teachers tell me I'm doing a good job and then I get my paper back and it's all covered in red because of all the mistakes I've made. I'm starting to resent the corrections that the teachers are giving me and I feel like a failure. I just don't know what to do to improve my English writing skills.
I think I just need to change my learning style. I cannot use the same strategies that I used when I learned my first language. I must develop new ways to learn English effectively. I think I also most learn to adapt to American culture better. I know that my teachers mean well and just want to help me, I shouldn't resent them and their corrections.
Tomorrow I will start to try and look at English from a cultural perspective and value what the Americans value. Perhaps my English will improve and my attitude will change, I'm just tired of being judged and feeling like a failure.

Talk to you tomorrow!

This diary entry was adapted from the study done by:
Sinclair, J.B. (1995). The relationship between L1 and L2 literacy: Some complicated factors. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 687-704. Retrieved September 18, 2007, from JSTOR database.