About the place I lived:

I was so surprised when it started snowing at the end of April and got a SNOW DAY!! Snow day is one of the seasonal things in Canada, mostly the northern part of Canada though, on this day, we do not have school because of the weather conditions causing slipping roads or breazerd which makes it dangerous to drive the school buses. It also happens when the temperature is below the negative 30, but this year was quite warm and it did not happen on the day that we had the school. I really loved snow days because I can simply sleep longer, and I could have got more time to be working on my assignment that I needed to finish. However it was sometimes depressing me because it happened on the day that we had the band practice which I will mention later as a thing that made my life in Canada so so so so so much better.

School life in Canada

The biggest thing for studying abroad is school life. I technically attended two types of schools, first is the type of language school to have the orientation. As I mentioned earlier, I stayed in Barrie for a month and took the orientation program. I attended the program which took the place of Georgian College in Barrie. It was the first time I visited the college in a foreign country and I was so excited to go look around. The location of the college was quite close to my host family’s house and it was 40 minutes by walking but I was basically taking the bus. By taking this program, I could get used to the lifestyle of Canada, and could learn several things which strongly are related to Canada such as the money, structures of the government, holidays, and the national anthem song of Canada. I found that one month of orientation was really helpful for my life which still had ten more months until I leave, because I could make new friends who are having the same or similar goals and wills for this exchange program, and I am still keeping in touch with them. Also the place I stayed for that month was a different place to the one I stayed for ten months. This means I could find another bestest part of Canada that I swore to visit again.

The high school in North bay was a catholic school. Now the school, St.Joseph Scollard Hall catholic secondary school in nipissing parry sounds district school board is one of my home schools!! I was in grade 11 and was having 4 periods of classes in a day. Each class had 75 minutes and the lunch time was separated into two groups: A lunch has grade 9 and 12, and B lunch has grade 10 and 11 due to the number of the students having 1000 ish.

The school starts at 8:50 with the announcement of O Canada, and it finishes at 3:00 which I liked the most because I basically hate school anywhere in the world. I just want to go home pls. I hardly remember the moment I went to the school for the first time and I was so nervous because firstly I could not find my classroom. There are so many classrooms since they do not have the functions of the homeroom class. Each student transports to take the next class during 5 minutes of the break time between each class.

In Canada, there are many exchange students who are coming from other countries and there are also so many immigrant students who moved to Canada. This means I was not the rare and special person in the school. And even if people care about the exchange students, no one knows if I am an exchange student or not. So it was really important to explain to people what situation I was in and what I needed for myself. The thing I found difficult was not about the aspect of studying. I found the education in Canada is much easier and not so strict as long as you do not take the AP class which demonstrates the university level of education. So as long as you know the vocabulary, the class will be just understandable and easy. However I was struggling with the complex and specific vocabulary of each class and the speed of conversations that teachers do in the class in the first few months.

In the first semester, I took marketing, world religion, english, and hairstyling. In Canada, there are so many unique classes which follow the contents of normally in the college in Japan. I really like that system that most Canadian schools are having because the classes which strongly are related to students’ interests just make them easier to understand and focus on the classes. Students can actively get to achieve their dreams by going to high school and each of those classes is following really professional topics which I could haven’t ever never thought that we could learn in high school. Of course classes are adjusted to the high school levels though I was just so attracted to the condition of classes being so helpful to students’ career and they are willingly having fun taking the classes.

In the second semester, I took a hospitality and tourism class which demonstrated the college preparation level of cooking technique and safety parts which are necessary in the restaurant’s workspace. This is the class which I liked the most throughout the year because I am really interested in cooking and have been cooking since I was really young, and the contents of the class were really professionally made and I had simply never imagined that I could take such a nice and fun course in high school.

Personally, I think Japanese schools tend to educate students to win on the entrance exam of university or college and I always felt that only the goal that I am studying is for the entrance exam.

Also I hardly remember one of my English teachers once saying that the reason why we learn English at school is because we need that for the entrance exams and it’s not even for the tools of communicating with people all over the world. I was so mad and disappointed when I heard that and was actively losing my mind to study English.

The positive aspect of Canadian education I felt is that the entrance exam is not the goal of studying. By all means it is easy to say the reason we are studying in Japan is not only for the exams and the knowledge we got through the school years would be valuable things, but I at least feel I am only studying for the exams. In Canada, you do not basically have the entrance exams for the University , and the only thing that you need to do is getting good marks in each class and applying for the university that you want to go to. This gives the motivation to keep a good mark in each class and also you can choose the subject which is necessary for the university and career that you are planning. However this sometimes gives negative aspects as I consider. The negative aspect is that students do not study or even have to study as hard as we do in Japan. This means they can find their career in Canada but in other countries. However, as they have that kind of education system I mentioned, they can have so much private free time to work or enjoy their hobbies. So what I felt is that Japanese students are studying too much and Canadians should study more.

I also took Canadian law class and biology class in the second semester. I would just like to say, the Canadian law class was super boring because I was not interested in the law at all. This class gave me so many essays and presentation slide assignments which are both common ways of the homework that students work on. But that class helped me to not go to choose the law program in the university to just want to have a high salary career;))) Biology class was quite interesting due to the fact that I am having huge interests in the agriculture biology world and sea animals. In that class, we followed the very basic level of high school biology but sometimes we had a very high quality of the class by doing a lot of labs. We once dissected a pig, it was so shocking and interesting. So this means the key to enjoying studying abroad is taking the class which has your interests the most or at least to taking the class you found fun and new.

Band kid for my life

Now to talk about the BAND!!!!!! The band has been my No.1 activity that I have felt so best since the beginning of my studying abroad and I cannot even present about my life in Canada without it.

Since I am taking a piano lesson since I was little, I really love playing music and especially I have been fallen in love with playing the instruments with someone together. But I am also a lazy person and did not want to join the brass band in Japan which I need to join the practice everyday even on the weekends. However, because the school ends at 3pm and there is only 10 months to stay, and also the practice is once per a week, I had decided to join the band before I left for North bay. And it critically hit me!

As I joined the band, I heard that they are welcoming beginners to play the new instruments so I planned to play the clarinet which I had never played before, but in reality, there were no rectures for the new instruments to play. Realizing they welcome beginners but means they do not care about someone who cannot play the instruments. So I ended up playing the bell which is a similar instrument to the piano basically but it is the mallet percussion instrument. BUT I was right. Now I love bells so much.

However even though I spoke only a few words in the band at the beginning, they were really nice and helped me a lot. As I started my band kid life as the quiet personality, I almost gave up on making close friends in the band but I was wrong. Now my best friend in Canada is from the band playing the same instrument. I had never imagined that we could be this close at the end and not only her, I made so many friends or kind of hallway friends from the band.

I think the occasion I became more social by making a lot of friends is when I moved to the city of North bay from Callander. In February, I needed to move to a different family than originally because of my host father’s job. As I moved to the city, my life became more convenient and I got some neighbor friends near my house, and got nice access to the mall. After I moved, I started spending more time with my friends after school or on weekends, and this made me so confident in speaking in English, even though my English was being pretty good at that point so it also helped me I guess.

So going back to the topic of the band, the moment I felt I got close with my friends is after the christmas concert. That concert was super exciting because the songs we played were really famous. I had so much fun at the concert, not only the christmas one but also Insights and Sounds which is an all gathering of arts programs and was also following the band. Even though I really enjoyed the concert and it was the last concert in a year then I cried, I realized I like the marching band better because I was not talkative at that time when we did the marching band tho I loved the atmosphere that it was giving me and felt I really want to be back to that moment. Fortunately, the last band activity was the marching band at Canada’s Wonderland! I could not imagine playing music in the amusement park before I came to Canada, so it had been my best moment as I was hoping to visit Canada’s Wonderland once before I leave too.

In the band, I found so many new sensations to be freely happy, and all the friends I made in the band made my life in Canada so much better, and I really hoped to not leave the band;(  But finding new valuable things in Canada is actually so precious and I am so glad I could be in the band for whole year.

My Host families

To spend such a great time in Canada, my host families supported me a lot through a year of exchange program. The host family for the orientation term was a single lady, and there was a cat in the house across from my family’s house and it was always coming over to us. In the orientation term, students typically had temporal moves sometimes such as a host family going on a trip or something. I had to move to another one because my host family accepted other boys students and I could not be in the same house. I was in the same host family as another Japanese friend who took the orientation together and her family was korean. So I enjoyed the last real asian food after a while. I did not spend so much time with the family of orientations because there were a lot of buses and spent most of the time with friends in the orientation, and also because my host family was working until 5 weekdays, so I spent the time with her on the weekends. Once I went swimming at the lake after school with my host family and it is my best memory with her in those three weeks.

After I moved to North bay from Barrie, I got a very Canadian family having two kids whose ages are 4 and 7, host mom, dad and a dog. It was the first time to be talking with little kids in English so I was really confused at the beginning, and also could not understand what they were saying because of their unique way of speaking as a kid. Of course I got used to the speed and the way to speak so I can understand almost everything right now though… In that family, I spent most of my time with kids in the yard or inside. They were actually the wildlife lovers and the location of the house was almost out of the internet services, and also they did not have the WiFi, so I was struggling with how I am gonna work on the assignment I have got from the school. I could only get a little internet if I put my phone by the window so I was contacting people with those,or sometimes I could get free WiFi rental from the public library.

However putting myself in the situation of NO INTERNET is a super rare case nowadays and I think even I was struggling though was eventually nice opportunity to have,and I learned so many wild things from them and they were all so interesting and attractive because one of the reasons I chose Canada as a country to study abroad is because I love nature and wild animals. I had some chances to see wild animals such as a bear, moose and deer. Deer were visiting our garden(almost the forest) everyday.

Because I needed to move to another family in February because of the job my host father got temporarily, I moved to the city in North bay. It was a bug change to move to the city from the bush and now I got internet connections and WiFi. My second family had two boys who were almost the same age as me and one was going to the same school as me, host mom,dad and two dogs. I also got confused of course because I don’t even know how I should behave in front of unknown teenage boys. But I came over, I was the oldest one. One of the things I was happy with was that my host brother was also in the band and I could get a person whom I could go home with after the band. I was used to going home by myself by taking the school bus. However he quit the band soon after I moved so… but it was like 15 minutes by walking and another Japanese girl who was also in the band was my neighbor so I was sometimes walking home with her and shared funny things in Canada. Also as my second family is from europe, my host mom is german and dad is england, they spoke British English that I was dreaming to speak. But at that point when I moved, I was completely getting used to listening to and speaking Canadian English and it was so confusing to get the British accent.

As you can read, I have got two families having completely different cultures and I was so lucky that I could experience the real Canadian bush life and the city life in Canada. Do not ask me which family was better to stay with. I loved both of them so much and they both gave me super precious memories. If I had not changed my host family I am sure I could eventually have the best time, but I would like to keep saying I was so lucky to be having different styles of life in a year.

Canadian Culture

Have you ever imagined what Canadian culture would be like? Just do not assume everything is the same as the US. I can not describe how it is different from American culture because I have never stayed in the US for a long time as I can find the culture differences there, but Canadian culture is definitely different from it. So I am going to list up what I felt surprised the first time I came to Canada.

First, every single house has a basement, and people actually live there as my bedroom was also in the basement. I really liked that because it’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Next, most of the people do not wash or rinse any vegetables or fruits(better to wash). This was one of the culture shocks that happened to me even though I don’t even care anymore. Also they do not completely rinse the soap on the dishes, and let them dry still. I am also over it now though. And it really depends on the house, basically the bathroom in Canada is not so clean or at least I found not. I think it is because people tend to live in the old house that they bought. So there are no air conditioners, having not so clean and technological bathrooms, but having a big garden. So I realized how great Japanese bathrooms are and I now admire them. Only the reason I wanted to go back to Japan was for the clean and nice bathrooms.

Also, I think some people heard that people in foreign countries do care about the amount of water they use in a day, but I did not find they care that much. In reality I did not have any limited time to take a shower at any houses. Realizing Japanese hygiene conditions are really high level is one of the things I could learn through this studying abroad.

As I felt, I did not feel like am pressured since the new year, so I practically took five months to get used to. It has been said people normally take three months to adjust to a new life so I took a bit longer than the advantage giving me so much pressure.

Before I left Japan, I planned some ways to share Japanese cultures by cooking Japanese food since I love cooking and have been cooking since I was little. I planned to make Japanese style curry, 肉じゃが, or something are usually considered as home food cooking menus. For most of those I planned, it was required to use sliced meat, but in reality I could not get them at the normal grocery stores such as Walmart or Independent. I could find them at the Asian grocery in Barrie but in North Bay. But it was quite fun to figure out how I am going to cook something without particular ingredients. As I cooked sushi occasionally, I explained that we do not eat them daily and often have them at the celebration of something like seasonal things. And then my family questioned me about a lot of seasonal things in Japan.

I regretted that I did not research seasonal things about Japan deeply like what meals we have or something, but I just ended up with my memories and pictures I took before(simply better to know as one Japanese). Then if I try to research them on the internet, there are no internet connections so…

Personal growth

As I consider in what aspects I mentally or even physically(I don’t wanna believe I did) grew up but is actually I do not remember exactly, but have some special thoughts I have gained throughout the year.

As an example, you might have had a moment that you smelled like Autumn. That is a sense that only people who permanently or for a long term period live there can feel. Also, getting real foreign friends whom I will keep in touch with and having a long distance relationship is really impressive and it makes me want to go abroad more. I think this is one of the growths in perspective that I became so positive to have a lot of relationships around many people that even though I was just thinking to have a few friends to talk to and they do not have to be my close friends. However I just realized the importance of having close friends everywhere and they absolutely make my life better.

So what I think is that I love making relationships with a lot of people but only few of them would understand me and get together with. So now you read this and would think the thing I just mentioned about friendship is a normal thing to do and even is not worth writing down in the long essay because it is too simple, but that was actually the big deal for me because I do not basically try to start new relationships with new people. Just remembering the moment I struggled with making close friends at the beginning of middle school:)

I honestly do not know yet how this experience would positively affect my future though the nearest goal to accomplish that I think is going abroad again and having a new, fresh, and impressive life in foreign countries. I had realized that the school is only like a super tiny world and I do not want to assume the school is everything of society. However I consider that as long as we are still in high school, the biggest opportunity to directly connect to society is the school, and I used to tend to end up thinking everything under the situation of school as a student. Or even I sometimes was afraid of graduating from high school because as we mature and graduate from high school, we would be required to get independence. But I now know how it feels to get out of control by the high school and cannot wait to see the new world.

The first moment I started thinking about going abroad was when I was in third year of middle school. There is an official test to check one’s English level called ELTiS and anyone ever who wants to study abroad from this school needs to pass it. There are three chances to take that in a year and honestly I could not pass until the last chance of the test. I was naturally taking this test since I was in first grade because my English teacher told me that I would better take it to simply check where my English level is at. However, as I regularly take that every year, it made me want to pass it and go abroad. So this was the first reason I decided to study abroad, that if I pass the test I naturally need to go abroad.

If I am giving any advice to juniors, I personally want to tell how important respecting your own time and feelings is. You should never feel negative about this experience and everything you do is going to be a great value in your future because you are always doing something by being apart from your home country. No matter how things are going awful or do not feel any growth.

I am thankful you read my essay, and hope you are getting to be more interested in going abroad by yourself!:))