Life's Good

I came to the United States when I was sixteen. Coming to America was the biggest decision I’ve ever made in my life so far. It was hard for my parents since I’m the only child in my family. But my parents were really supportive because they wanted me to live my own life rather than live the life they had already planned for me. I have to say that my life has been changing a lot in the past two years and I really enjoy my life here.
I’ve been starting to love and enjoy different activities. In the first year, I was in North California with a family who loves being outdoors. They would take me to do different things almost every week. We went to lots of places such as Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Lake Tahoe, Monterey Bay, San Francisco, Berkeley, the Redwood National Park and so on. They took me to Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. They often took me to do bike rides, the longest I’ve ever done was a 15-mile bike ride. They took me to rafting or kayaking on the American River where gold was found in 1848, leading into the California Gold Rush. My host mother used to take me with her to do community services with her club. I collected volunteer T-shirts for all the events I had done in the year and found out that I had about 30 T-shirts in my closet. The family also took me to hiking and skiing. I went on a trip with school’s Choir to Hawaii and learned surfing. I fell in love with drama and watched about 10 plays in one year such as “Noise’s Off”, ”Hairspray”, ”Lion King”, etc. And I was in one of the musical production in my school. New activities I did, new places I visited and new friends I made brought me a beginning of a new life.
Every country has its own specialized food. But in America, we can’t really tell what is “American food”. America has lots of cultures, in an other word, it has lots of different kinds of food. I hated cooking before I came to America until I took a cooking class in school. I learned to cook different kinds of food that are common in American family. My host family loved to cook, so I also learned a lot from them. I started to learn how to cook not only for pleasing my boyfriend and my parents but also accepting different cultures.
The life in America has changed me into a better person. I have to be able to develop myself in unknown conditions since I’m living in a place with different characteristics and traditions from mine. This means meeting new people, learning other cultures, accepting different opinions and values and listening to other points of views. First I thought some people are ridiculous, I still do, but I start to understand why they were thinking in a such way which was so different from what I used to think. I’ve been more open-minded, patience and calm. I’m more independent and responsible than before. For it’s up to me and no one else to clean my room, wash my clothes, tell me to do well in school, and organize my money, it depends on me to take the responsibilities and take care of myself. The changes had made in my life let me believe that my decision was right.
America is a country that the more you get to know it, the more you will love it. I love to be here.




p.s. sorry for the late posting:)