Level B2 General English

Lesson 7

Growing Old
年を取ること

My friend left school at 16 not because she found school difficult, but because she was desperate to be out of school. While she was in school, she did not do any school work, she did not attend any study groups and she did not bother turning up for half of our exams.

She could not find a good job, so she had to take a position in the factory which turned into working full time hours for the meager sum of 100php a week.

She then found herself pregnant. She discovered that although she is literate and numerate, with no qualifications she struggled to even get a job as a cleaner or any job with a higher wage for her child. She ended up spending five years in college just to catch up with people who had finished school. It's so much harder now to find work than it was back then, especially for someone with kids. Without qualifications in this day and age - you're unemployable.