Dear Granny,

Hello! How are you? I’m doing very well. I have been doing L.A.M.D.A which stands for London
Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. I got my results from my Grade 2 examination back- and I got
a distinction! I also have been doing lots of tests, because it’s the end of year 8 and despite not having
proper examinations we still have to do some tests. Our Japanese teacher sprung it on us with little
warning, but I still did well, I only dropped one mark in two tests. Japanese isn’t actually that
difficult, once you learn to understand how they write all the symbols it’s quite easy. They only have
two tenses, past and present. I own lots of Japanese magazines which are intended for Japanese
children the same age as me. I can’t understand a lot of it, but some of them wear very unusual
clothes, like the traditional kimonos but different. I am also learning a drawing style that comes from
Japan called manga. They make the eyes of a person really stand out. I can do it quite well but I am
far far away from becoming a proper manga artist.

We are going to have a maths test soon. Our maths teacher likes me; he wants me to take a special
maths course early. He wants the same for two of my friends, Anna and Kate. We are the
mathematicians of the class! I used to not like maths, but I really like it now and it’s one of my
favourite subjects. We are doing algebra at the moment, which is my favourite topic in maths. I find it
easy.

I am also learning to play the piano. I am roughly on Grade 2, same as L.A.M.D.A, but my teacher
thinks I’m really good so she’s giving me Grade 3 or 4 pieces to play. I have a piece called Time
Forgets by a Korean composer called Yiruma. He makes really nice music which sound like ripples
along the keys. It’s really pretty, but really difficult to play. It will be worth all the practice though,
when I finally get it right.

I went to a staged court trial a while ago. It was really interesting, and I saw lots of things like how
forensic teams find evidence. When I am older, I would like to be a lawyer because then I can bring
criminals to justice, and save innocent people. It is a very tricky career path to follow though, maybe I
should stick to wanting to become an interpreter for Japanese and French. I also secretly have a far-
fetched dream of becoming an actress but despite my examination results I don’t think I have ‘the
gift’. I would also like to become a forensic scientist, I have signed up for a forensic science course at
school when there is a week where we don’t have a set time for lessons. Our science teacher, who is
from Australia, says that he used to use this to teach his classes back in Australia, but he isn’t allowed
to do that in England. How disappointing. But I’m really looking forward to it!

I think I am going to see you quite soon, so I’ll see you then!

Love

Jess

XXX