James @ Edmonton Study Life: 1st week(10/12-10/17)

1st week(10/12-10/17) Temperature 16~0℃

On October 12, 2010, I departed from Taiwan for pursuing master degree in Canada. It is my first time to leave Taiwan for such long, because the next time I plan to come back would be six months later, and I can not see my family, friends, and girl-friend in the following six months. In this morning, Dad and Mom took me to Kaohsiung International Airport. On the way to the airport, they kept talking to me things that I need to remember for living in Canada, even they had talked thousands of times. I knew that is because they worry about me so much and love me very much. We waited for Chris in the airport, because he was also going to Canada on that day. I was so lucky that I was not alone in this trip.

Due to I am living at Taichung, the itinerary to Canada for me is complicate. I need to go to Kaohsiung first, then fly to Hong-Kong, continue heading to Vancouver from there, and finally get on a national flight to Edmonton where is I supposed to live for the next fourteen months. The total time I am going to spend for ground transportaion is 3 hours, in the air is 16 hours, and on the ground for the transit is 4 hours. After 23 hours not sleep and eat well, I finally have arrived Edmonton.

I planed to stay at Chris' place for couple of days until I found a home-stay family. There are three people currently live in Chris' one-bedroom apartment, they are Ting, Will, and of course, Chris, himself. Ting is a PhD student and he is doing a research project in Athabasca University; Will and Chris are Master students of Athabasca University, we are classmates in Taiwan, but they came here one year earlier than me.

Ting came to the airport in order to pick us up and Will was preparing surprised welcome party for me at home. Will shared his room with me and it is really a nice place, so I had a good dream at that night.

On Wednesday, Chris and Ting took me to a lot of places (e.g. Costco, Save On Foods, Dollarama, and Future Shop). The most important thing to me is that Chris took me to CIBC (i.e. a bank) to open student banking account. Having a banking account allows my family to transfer money to me.

On Thursday, I and Chris had a meeting with Dr. Chang. Chris took me to the Edmonton Learning Centre (ELC), Athabasca University (AU). The learning centre locates inside a building and has three floors for staffs working and researchers doing research. Dr. Chang taught me a lot of skills about presentation in the meeting and that’s very useful to me. He also told me the research plan that I am going to do for graduating from AU, which let me know what I should do in the following two months before I start my first semester next January.

On the weekend, Juliette invited me to go to watch a show. Juliette is a Dutch, has been here for long time. I met her on the Vancouver-to-Edmonton airplane. The show's name is "improv night." It is improvised performance, the performance is very funny and the laughs started from the beginning and couldn't stop until the end of the show. I had never seen any performance like this one before, it is interesting and unforgettable.