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My Intercultural Lives

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     In this year, I've experienced the life and culture of Australia last New Year season, the U.S. last spring, my home country in Japan in June and July, and about two weeks at the end of August in lovely Australia. Now, I've been stayed in the U.S. again this semester. As you can see, this year has been offered me a lot of places to live. Today, I'd love to tell you how I've changed and what I've noticed about myself.

     First of all, through my tough life last February to May in the highest section where classes were way more academic and had tons of assignments that I had to challenge myself and suffered every day, but I noticed that everything is a state of mind. So if I think I can do it, I can do whatever I want. For example, I did all of the homework in a day. Sometimes it was so hard to accomplish because I barely slept plus I wanted to participate in classes enthusiastically. But that experience made me stronger than ever and gave me a lot of confidence to know that I'm capable of anything.  I contend one of the reasons that I was able to do that are many teachers encouraged me by saying, "it's up to you!" Also when I dropped by Kathy's office, she always encouraged me by saying "You can do it!" not only for many assignments but for everything. To me, it affects me a lot to be told inspirational things such as "it's up to you" and "you can do it" in English. So I assert that changing culture from Japan to a English speaking country is always a good idea. It may sound crazy; however, I rather enjoyed challenging myself every day because my only competitor is my past self. But I studied hard so I played hard, too. For instance, I shared the funniest laughter with my crazy friends; we enjoyed water balloon fights and dyed our hair green. Living my life to the fullest is so much fun. By accomplishing that hard life, I've become stronger mentally and have earned more confidence.

     Second, I learned "life's better when I'm laughing" from my British friend who I met at a hostel during New Year’s Eve in Australia. She's the most inspirational lady I've ever met because she's always positive and radiates her stunning smile like sunbeams all the time. By meeting her, I've noticed that I've turned out into a completely happy person and it's still not clear but I think my desire to live in Australia someday becomes stronger. Since I wanted my spare time a lot, I finished my homework in a day. What I was doing during my free time were reading positive books, affirmations and being happy. I used to be negative and say negative things with friends such as "There are too many assignments." And I used to think that I had nothing and others had a lot of things. I was jealous of others. But by reading books and exploring positive pages on Facebook and Instagram, my way of thinking and life have been changed for the better. Now, I always try to have gratitude to everything, be kind, love my surroundings and enjoy everything. I'm satisfied with and happy to be myself and I think I have enough. To me, it seems like there are so many happy people in English speaking countries than in Japan. One statistic says that Japan has the most number of people who commit suicide in the world. I feel negative vibes whenever I'm in Japan. Actually, I'm sick and tired of living in Japan because of the dark atmosphere. Maybe it's a value difference that in the U.S., the value seems to be friendly. That is comfortable to me.; however, in Japan, being polite seems one of the values and it's uncomfortable for me. Whenever I'm in Australia, I'm so happy because I'm fascinated by an Australian English accent, climate, and people who are always smiling. It seems people are enjoying their lives to the fullest and the biggest reason is it happened only by my savings. I worked insanely hard at McDonald's, earned a fortune and went on vacation. Plus, since I've been strongly interested in their indigenous culture and going to Uluru has been my lifelong dream, visiting Ayers Rock made me feel that I'm the happiest person in the world. That was my four times going to Australia. The more I go there, the more my inner thoughts that I’m keen on living there become more powerful. Through my life in the U.S. last spring, I became more active and started to want to try everything. So I'm going to try to live in Australia and hopefully get a permanent resident visa.
  
     In conclusion, changing culture with an English speaking country such as America or Australia, I've earned a lot of confidence, have become a totally happy person and my dream has gradually become clearer than ever.



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