Time really flies, and I have been in Sydney for nearly 10 weeks. My new Chinese diary entitled “Pursuing dream across the Ocean” has almost come to an end, since I’ve been keeping very long records of all that I see, hear and feel almost everyday. Life here, as I believe, is by no means easy, likewise what most of my Chinese classmates think. It’s generally accepted by us that overseas study is very much “paying great deal of money for sufferings”. Most of us do find we are caught in the middle of the violent clash between our previous anticipation and reality. For one thing, many of us find it hard to get used to both the academic and social environment.
Take myself for example, generally I’m very quite in class, I can contribute few ideas to the group discussion. I feel under great pressure, especially in the class of a linguistic course called “Language for Specific purpose”, because the professor doesn’t start her lecture before the end of the group discussion on the questions listed in a paper concerning the reading materials. As a matter of fact, most of the time, I really want to join the discussion, but unfortunately I have almost nothing to say. I probably get so used to the traditional way of Chinese education, say, the teacher give you a lecture, and all that you need to do is to sit there, listen carefully and take some notes instead of the involvement of active or critical thinking, let alone questioning or challenging the professor as those local students. I must say it's really very hard to change from passive learner into active participant.
The education system here and in China varies, resulting in different ways of teaching. As English is not my mother tongue, I do find it difficult to understand the reading materials handed out before each class. Maybe just to finish reading is not so hard, as I can read them through, however, when it comes to group discussion in the next class on the questions, I could hardly find the answers. I used to read and keep in mind the questions before reading, but now they are given after reading, so I have to think very hard to recall what exactly I’ve read. Furthermore, as the questions are more complicated and extract, the answers can no longer be easily found in the original text. I have to read between lines to get the implied meanings. It's exactly the main distinction between my former and present class that the Drs. here in Australia do not merely talk about what's written in textbook, whereas great deal of extensive knowledge is introduced. Suppose you fail to understand what you're required to read thoroughly, how can you take in extending information? What's most difficult, as I suppose is to give you my own opinion or understanding, say, give specific example to these theories.
I’m truly worried about this course, so when I was required to talk with the professor about the topic of my oral presentation in her office, I spoke out everything. I told her that I had serious language problem, as no matter how hard I tried to read the handout materials, I may still feel at a loss in her class. She seemed to disagree with me, and emphasized that all students in this university must had passed IELTS at a relatively high band score; so poor English was only an unacceptable excuse. As for my big concern, she would keep an eye on me in the following classes, and I was expected to bring questions to ask her in her office. Actually this professor from South Africa was so nice that I dared to exchange what’s on me with her. I went on with my obsession that whether to be young means disaster due to lack of experience. “Nonsense! To be young means you have much more precious time to read more books.” The professor stared at me; obviously, she didn’t want her students so indifferent and gave up so easily. Thanks to this interaction I first attempted to make with the professor, I was inspired by her encouragements, and come to realize that to be young also means you have much more time to take good use of. The learning difficulties remain, however, I can now think positively about them, as I know most of the professors are willing to help (since then, I constantly send E-mails to other professors about other subjects for counseling, and basically I get their detailed reply in time). Now, I simply feel less stressful, as I’m looking forward to the progress that I’m likely to make under their guidelines.
For the other thing, as the currency rate of Australian dollar has reached its climax in history, most of us even have to think twice before each purchase. We do think scenery spots in Sydney are picturesque, but few of us can really travel around to our heart’s content. I even found I had mood to travel, since the train tickets are costly. Money is not everything, but it does talk when you are abroad. Everything is 2-6 times more expensive; this fact is almost like a shadow, especially for those who are now with the financial support from their parents, such as me. The fact is that we feel sort of ashamed, especially after we find we actually have great difficulties in study, as we simply don’t want our parents’ investment unworthy, more precisely fail. I got a part-time job as a cashier, but now I only need to work less than 8 hours each week (the salary is far from enough as compared with the overall accommodations). Even in this case, many of my classmates still admire me so much. They used to think they could take part-time job after class before going abroad, only to find it’s extremely hard to get part-time job for first-year student. Thinking of the high expense here, my heart can never take a good rest. Anyway, like the other side of the coin, I have to convince myself that the time saved from the previous part-time job can be used to study, and I can get a good job, if I perform very well in my study.
Sometimes, I really cannot imagine how awful life might has been, if I haven’t got something there to look forward to. This afternoon, I went to the chat room English-corner in this forum with depression at first, as I was left alone at home, and was really fed up with reading (since I’ve been doing so all the time this week), but after sharing my dreams like to be an excellent journalist in the not distant future with a lady, I turned out to be happy. This is exactly the power of looking ahead, as I believe, and we should get something that we can look forward to, especially when we feel a little bit down.
Suddenly one of the lines of an old movie came to my mind, “There will be bread tomorrow, and so will be the butter.” I do believe everybody gets his or her own dreams (if it cannot be called dream, at least aim, long-term or short-term), it may as simple as some food if you are right now suffering from starvation, it can also be as complicated as great achievement in study or more opportunities in future career (I’d like say this is the mutual dream of all the International students, like me). In whatever circumstances, the dreams are there, like the sunshine high above the sky, we should stand on our tiptoe to get closer to it, embrace it tightly, if we managed to reach it.
It seems that I’m daydreaming, but actually not, as I mentioned above, life abroad is full of difficulties, challenges, and pressure, the only weapon I can use is to review and look forward to my dreams…
PS:
Well, I do find this article is bad organized in structure when I finish it. Actually, I keep diary in this way, I mean, not to outline the structure in advance, but come to write directly and put down everything coming into mind in the course of writing. This writing style makes me feel very cozy, but when it comes to news or feature writing, or any of my writing assignments, I have to outline the structure at first, sort of headache to change my habit, but I have to…I don’t know whether the lady I talked with this afternoon could see this article of mine, I wanted to apologize to her, for I got disconnected this afternoon, and I also wanted to owe my thanks to her, because I felt very happy to share with her my dreams. Ok, I have to stop my nonsense; your comments are always welcomed. Wish all of you in china a happy labor’s holiday!
4/30/2004
