Significant Changes

I never thought about that I would have such changes in my lifetime. On November 19, 2010, I left my family, my friends, and all the things that I was familiar with. I left them and came to the U.S, a country in which I totally felt strange. That meant I had to re-adapt to everything. Sometimes I was afraid that I could not deal with some problems, but what I really excepted was that I would have more and more growth after these conversions. Now, I have been here for almost one year. For me, this year was a year for changing. Since coming to the U.S, everything for me had changed a lot, especially my lifestyle.

One of the changes that have made me grow is the communicating with my family. This the hardest part for me because I do not live with my parents. In the first few months, I had a hard time to adapt to life without my parents at my side. Since I was born, I never left my parents for so long time. To tell the truth, I was not an independent child. I was very relied on my parents because they always helped me to arrange everything, so I did not need to worry about things except study. When I lived with my family, we could see each other every day. My mother’s nagging always made me tired. Once I moved to Chicago, we only could to see each other through the computer screen. Each conversation was very short because of the time difference, and even if I wanted to listen to my mother’s nagging was impossible. Without their help, I had to do all the things by myself, like doing housework, buying groceries and cooking food for myself.

In order to reduce the fears of my parents, I decided to go to work in order to earn money to help pay the cost of living. In my hometown, just a few students have a part-time jobs before they graduate from the university, and of course I am not an exception. Before I came to the U.S, I just graduated from high school; therefore, I did not have any work experiences when I was in China. After coming to America, I knew that many students had a job, so I decided to follow the culture over here. As a result of having no experience, I needed to learn everything from zero just like a baby had to learn how to walk. It was difficult but I thought this would be good for me. I could prove to my parents that I could be independent to reduce their fears. On the other hand, this was a good chance to improve my communication skills. Now that I have work for almost six months, I can work well.

Since I started working, I understand what the hard-earned money is and I have a new concept of money. Recalling my previous, I always asked parents for money to buy something which I did not really need . I thought that earning money was so hard until I got a job. It made me feel ashamed of the behavior in the past. Now, every time before I purchasing of goods , I will consider carefully whether I need it. I do not want to waste money. Also, I have the ability to support myself, so I asked my parents to stop sending money to me from China. I am a twenty-year-old girl, and I do not want to use the money from my family anymore.

Although I left my parents, I can still feel their support for me. Although sometime I would be criticized at work, it have made me become independent. Although making money was hard, I had a new concept of money. Maybe some people would say toady’s life is more difficult than before. Can you resist it? My answer is no. On the contrary, I want to thank these changes because they made me stronger. I hope in the next years, I can see more and more good changes by myself because all of these are good opportunity for me to grow.