Undergraduate / "social upbringing in Dubai" - UTA Prompt A. Influences [2]

Need urgent help :)
Prompt-- Write about someone who has impacted your life and explain how and why this person is imprtant to you.

i know i have gramatical errors. PLEASE BE BRUTAL. :)))) any and all help is greatly appreciated.

I was ten, I was short and worst of all, I was the new girl. There were a lot of setbacks to moving to a new country, a new school, and the hardest of them all was making new friends. Every morning I loathed the school bus a little more for taking me to that merciless institution. Every afternoon as I ate my lunch alone I wondered if the other kids even knew I existed.

To my surprise however, this gloomy routine abruptly ended one day when one of my teachers quietly approached me. Strangely dressed and full of warmth, my English teacher, Mrs. Ainsworth, curiously asked me about my day. Taken aback at first, I quickly concluded that she must have noticed the drop of water that just slid across my cheek, and went on the converse with her until recess came to a close. I figured she rushed over to check on me, bound by her duty as a teacher, not out of genuine concern or will. But I was wrong.

My social upbringing in Dubai always taught me to think of teacher as the parents outside the home. It was because of this that I wondered why day after day, this woman would become my friend for thirty minutes. Of course, it was not that I had a problem with this odd, yet exciting situation. Gradually, our discussions grew into more meaningful and didactic conversations. Mrs. Ainsworth's voice seemed to reach out and touch me to the point where I was both amazed and intrigued by her. She looked past the clashing pigments of our skin, past the immense age difference, and even smiled at the insensible comments I threw out every so often. She told me about her day, and I went on and on about mine, just as friends do.

I was riddled with joy when my young mind realized that I had finally made a real friend, someone who loved and accepted me for being myself. It was a feeling that I could never really bind into the shackles of words, no matter how hard I tried. I came out of my shell rather quickly to find that all my feelings of fear had dissipated. An ordinary English teacher turned out to be the person that completely altered my personality forever. By the year's end, I learned of the great power that resided in simple compassion and kindness. They were powerful weapons that can entirely transform lives. Whatever Mrs. Ainsworth did, it saved me.

Fast forward two years, and I am in a middle school in a totally new city. Placed in the same painful situation, I would have returned to my old, miserable self had I not remembered what Mrs. Ainsworth had done for me. Following in my teacher's footsteps led me to another revelation. I was baffled at what potential I had as a human being to just get up and make a new friend, to prevent myself, and possibly someone else from being alone. All it cost me was the energy to walk up and introduce myself, which I easily replenished later that day at lunch, with six of my new friends. This experiment also showed me that i can never expect others to know who I am if all I do is sit alone and twiddle my thumbs crying. I got lucky two years ago, but I believe it was high time for me to let my burdening shell go forever.

The last stop was high school, the feared four years. Contrary to my worries however, these past few years have undoubtedly been the finest years of my life. Powered by the ideals of my former teacher, I found myself relatively free of the common problems most people my age had during these cruel years. Peer pressure, popularity, grades, stress, I always found a pragmatic solution to my problems, and I would not be wrong if I credited this evolution to Mrs. Ainsworth. In the measly thirty minutes we spent together every day, she given me the support I needed to live the rest of my life with. And every so often the memories do come flooding back, and I remember the words, the topics and the jokes we once shared. But it is these very memories that enable me to continue moving forward in life and embrace every joy, every trouble and every challenge. They gave the strength me never give up and more importantly, the will to share my compassion with others.

In two months it will be the eighth year we have been living in the United States, but today I cannot wait to get on that bus. My face lights up when I enter the cafeteria, peppered with people I am privileged to call my friends. And as I take a moment to look at all the treasures I have now, I cannot but to imagine where I would be today if Mrs. Ainsworth had not come to ask me about my day all those years ago.