Notes

Portfolio Element Two Assignment – Option B – Personal Essay
• For international students: describe your experience living in Canada. Explain ways in which this experience has changed the way you think about yourself and/or your native country and/or the world

Living in a different country is totally not easy, but really interesting. To me, 5 months in Canada is not too long for experience all of the new things here, but it is not too short to recognize the enormous changes in my normal life as well. My experience with daily activities and weather are two things which are changing day by day in my life. Somethings are positive, the others are negative, but they all excite me to enjoin my life.
In the morning of the day 5 months ago, I opened my eyes and recognized that around me is not my family anymore, instead of that is someone that I did not know before, my householder. I came here without relations and friends. It was hard to me in some initial weeks, because I did not know how to use the money, how to buy anything, how to take a bus, how to use some strange machines in the kitchen and I even did not know how to use the washing machine. That is so funny but it was true. I have to learn to do everything. I recognized that Canadian people are so friendly. Whenever someone sees me do somethings embarrassedly, they always ready guide me to do it conscientiously. Furthermore, I can not imagine how Canadian people are so kind to help newcomers like me. For example, I bought an used office desk at Kijiji, the price is really cheap, $20. But the seller is an old couple, they delivered the desk to my home and they also gifted to me a big cuddly pet. I will never get the same thing in my country. I adapted with everything quite fast and realize that I was mature too much.
Allow me to say that the weather here is so crazy. The first day I came here was one day in the middle of winter. Snow was in everywhere, on road, on the roofs of every house, on your head, your shoulder and even inside your insufficient shoes. Is that enough crazy? Absolutely not. The most horrible thing is when you go out under the freezing rain. I became a skater even I did not want to move like that, but I had no choice. I never imagined that I can survive under -30 degree outside. Just only 10 minutes walk from my accommodation to the bus station, but I feel that I walked half of perimeter of the world. Luckily, I just suffered this situation for 5 months. The period after that was much better, and the summer was so amazing. I love summer here with a lot of outside activities. I did cycling, running, and football. I went out more frequently and had more friends.
I do not know how different I was, but I assure that I changed too much to adapt to the life here. More mature, more independent, and more positive. I think every international student has to experience something like what I experienced, but everything will be fine, right?