I have been to 6 schools in Hong Kong, 2 in USA and 1 in Singapore. As a child, I switched into and out of many schools because my parents were trying to put me into the best learning environment possible. I switched from local/public schools to international/private schools, from Chinese based to English based schools. Some schools I have only been to for half a year while others 5 years. I was often the transfer student of the class. When I enter a new school, people have already developed friendship and would have groups while it was difficult to keep in contact with old friends as they are in a different school. Partly due to that, I, as a child, developed a slightly introvert characteristics, was not as sociable as other kids and worried a lot. However as I grew up and began making some friends and felt more secure, I learnt to stop worrying as much because it doesn’t do any good and it simply causes unnecessary stress without solving the problem, and to open up to people more, to have the confidence that people would like you once they understand you more. I learnt to welcome, embrace, and enjoy changes in life because changes make life interesting and adventurous and exciting. Changes in life allow you to learn from that experience. Changes allow growth that makes you an even more unique person than what you already are. We only get to live life once, so I believe in maximizing our experience, while not losing balance in our lives. This is why I chose to study abroad in America even though I can actually get into just as elite schools in Hong Kong, my home town, without having to pay for the expensive international fees. Studying in America allowed me to experience a different culture, different people, different practices, being out of my comfort zone, and experience loneliness and homesick. This is also why I didn’t join the Hong Kong society when I came to the states because in some ways I feel like doing that would lose the purpose of me being here. Instead I joined a co-ed fraternity, Alpha Phi Omega, which I am really glad I did. These are experiences that I would not have been able to encounter if I hadn’t chosen this path. I try to color my life with as many and as diverse experiences as possible. Even though I am already studying abroad, I am considering to do exchange program in my third year, to embrace even greater and more changes and to be influence or even change by these changes.
This may sound idealistic to you, and i may not be as outgoing, and adventurous as i made myself sound, and you could still see that to some extent i m actually still that quiet girl within. But sometimes the power of believing, believing yourself that you will become the person that you want yourself to be and believing that you can reach where you want to be, can get you very far.
I do what I do because: we only get to live once, so we should make it as colorful as possible and leave no regrets.
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