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– A COMPILATION OF A CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT’S JOURNAL EXCERPTS

OFF THE BOAT

2016 (15 years old)

– the year my life changed 

January 

I was crying on the backseat of the car because I screwed up the final exams so badly. Then my mom told me about the plan of studying abroad that she and my dad had been discussing for a long time. “Me and your dad thought you’re now old enough and capable of handling to study abroad. Where to, we haven’t decided yet. Might be Singapore, Canada, England, or Australia” This short notice made my heart pound so hard. As far as I know, I’m not going back to school for the next semester so I can prepare my English for the high school.

Finally. My dream. I can see a little bit of it now. 

April 12^th

After staying at home and preparing for IELTS™ [the English exam for international students] for three months, I felt lost. My three years of middle school, should I really run away in the end and give up the last semester like a deserter? What about my friends? They are all studying hard for the last exam but I’m here staying at home? No, I want to go back to school and take that final final exam to end my middle school journey nicely without any regrets.

So, I went back. 

It’s my birthday today. Sihong [my best friend in middle school] literally gave me a whole box of birthday gifts with a bunch of letters and cards. She said she cried when she knew that I wasn’t going back and she started to write me letters every day. Taking an initiative to befriend with her was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

June 14^th

I made it. I finished. Like my teachers joked:” She’s not taking the exam to get into a prominent high school, but for fun.” It feels nice to put three years of hard work in this one exam. BTW, the decision has been made, I’m going to Vancouver for high school. (followup: the marks turned out to be unexpectedly high. I was at the very top in the whole class of 2016, 1700 students, on my big three subjects – Chinese, Math, and English. Yes, the last exam, I made my teachers proud. I made my parents proud. I made myself proud.) 

August 13^th

I took the second and last IELTS™ exam today. My parents threatened me that if I can’t get a score of 6.5, they are going to un-allow me to go to Canada. I knew that they didn’t mean it because the result won’t come out till the day I arrive in Canada. But I don’t know why I still feel anxious about it. What if they’re going to throw me back to China when they find out that I didn’t make it to the mark they asked for? 

August 22^nd

OMG NORTH AMERICA!!! It’s my first time stepping my foot onto this new continent. It feels so odd. It used to seem so far from my life but I’m standing here right now. I’m breathing this North American air, nothing different from that of China’s, maybe a bit chiller. Never realized my English was this clumsy though. I got a 6 on IELTS™, my speaking part didn’t turn out great. I think I’m safe, they’re not going to throw me back haha. 

I had a funny thought: I left China on 22^nd at 5pm but arrived Vancouver on 22^nd at 2pm. Does that mean I just saved time? My mom is calling me to take a shower now, I’ll just end here. 

September 6^th

I was so excited but nervous for the first day of the school. I had no problems understanding what teachers were saying in class (IELTS™ sufferings paid off.) The whole school system is so different. We never had homerooms back in China and we didn’t have to move from one classroom to another. (Alright, I’m exaggerating this. I knew the system a long time ago. But you know, when people are moving into a new environment, the emotions are different. So I gotta express my excitement.)

December 12^th

I’ve been feeling lonely recently. I don’t think I can fit into those local’s groups. Why are they sitting on the floor by their lockers during the lunch break? Why do they send Snapchat streaks? Why do they look asian but don’t behave like one? Why do they speak English in that way? I have so many why’s and I can’t really answer them. I miss my friends back in China. (My English is no longer my strongest subject, probably even the worst. This frustrates me a lot. I’m still good at math though. The math here is way too easy like they’re still solving equations in grade 10. Getting 100% is nice but I want more challenges.)

2017 (16 years old)

– the year of reaching my childhood dream

January 10^th

I got accepted to the Stanford high school college! I applied to this summer program in the last December and I wasn’t expecting too much because I thought I screwed up the personal statement part in the application. But I made it with my high average, with my principal as the referee, and with some luck. STANFORD! I feel like I’m even closer to my dream. I can literally touch it. 

May 13^th

I finished the last AP exam today. The US history a few days ago was okay but I was definitely bullshitting in the last essay section. Today’s Microeconomics, meh, I wasn’t too sure about the last few written questions. I compared my answers with Alex (a friend I met in the Stanford group chat who’s also in Vancouver Coquitlam and taking Microeconomics today), and I think I got some of them wrong. I don’t know what has gotten into my head for choosing APUSH the first year I’m here without any knowledge in history. But at least, it’s done.

June 22^nd 

We are off to Palo Alto!!! My parents are driving me to Stanford from Vancouver. Isn’t that the coolest road trip ever? One advantage of having a car is that I can take my bike with me. You know, Stanford, you can’t live without a bike there. Driving on California 1 was one of my dad’s dreams, and I’m cool with it. 

June 24^th

OMG OMG I’M STANDING ON STANFORD CAMPUS RIGHT NOW. It has been my dream since 7. After 9 years, I finally got a chance to actually experience it. I’m grateful. And excited! Go Cardinal!

Do you know what’s the best thing? Me and Alex got into the same dorm Gavilan! TJ [another friend I met in the group chat before the summer started] got into Alondra. My room key had some problem, I couldn’t open the door. So, me and this LA girl, Rachel [my roommate] waited in the lounge until it got fixed. 

July 5^th

Today’s the AP score release day. I’m in California right now which means I’ll have to wait till July 9^th for the result. Who’s gonna wait for that though. So I used VPN to change my location to New York. I woke up at 5 am (8 am ET) because I was too nervous.

• Macroeconomics: 5
• Microeconomics: 5
• United States History: 3

The result of self-studying and “I love challenges.” A three, very nice. One of my friends who scored a 5 on APUSH comforted me by saying: “Three is not too bad.” Bruh, thank you, that’s really comforting.

July 8^th

CS106A is the very first CS class I have. I really think it’s destroying my interests in CS. I thought I might be good at coding but it turned out nope. PSYC111S is going well for now except the reading work is a little bit too much. I spent hours on the textbook but I feel like I can’t understand much after reading once only. 

Me and Alex automatically became best friends because we’ve known each other since March and we’ve been talking a lot before we even arrived here. Then, Richard joined us later. Like during the first day of Gavilan bonding, Richard came to me and asked my name or something. Later when we threw back to how we met, he told me: “So there was a morning I was eating breakfast alone and you suddenly appeared in front of me with that bossy look ‘can I sit next to you?’ and then we became good friends.” I don’t know why but Alex and Richard’s rooms are SO MUCH cooler than mine. Mine is like a stove in the afternoon (no AC in the dorm btw). So, I often go to theirs to study. We hang out with Chenqi and his roommate Gage sometimes too. Oh, and Daemon from Mirlo who brought me SIM cards all the way from China. (I owe him a big one.)

August 9^th

I heard that people have been seeing Connor from CiC [A friend of a Stanford YouTuber] around on campus and Chenqi later told me that Connor is in his electrical engineering class. WOWW, he’s an upper year student and taking the summer class with us?! I sneaked into the class with Chenqi, hoping to see Connor but he wasn’t there. (As Chenqi said:” he ditched from time to time.”) So I went again today, and oh my gosh, he was literally sitting right next to me. It felt like meeting your idol in person but closer and more real. I even got his phone number from a friend of Chenqi’s. He never added me back on Snapchat though lol.

August 20^th

How can two months be so short? I left the last when it was all empty in Gavilan. I couldn’t stop crying when I was sending off my last friends onto the Uber. One student’s mom noticed me and said to me: ” I know it’s pretty hard to say goodbye, it’ll be alright.”

I met some of the best people in my life here at Stanford with some bestest memories. Laughing at 2am and staying up all night to get assignments done. Rushing back to the dorm before the 12am curfew. Sneaking into the cafeteria at night and stealing cereals. Talking about futures under the stars on Meyer Green and getting soaked by an unexpected irrigation sprinkler. Supporting each other when someone was mentally unstable…

They taught me so much that I realized that the world I’m living in right now has potentials that I’ve been neglecting. When they had 6 or 7 AP exam scores, me only having three made me feel bad (but of course it’s because they’re older than me). Their intelligence, creativity, and passion towards everything are truly inspiring. We’re from different places but in this group, I feel home. We’re a group of people with similar values. We are dreamers, doers, and achievers. I don’t know when we’re going to meet again. For one thing I’m sure of is that we are all going to do great things. 

Goodbye Gavilan. Goodbye Stanford. Goodbye summer 2017.

October 20^th

I suddenly found out that I’ve been taking too many online classes and AP classes (thanks to those Stanford peeps inspo, I’m taking 7 this year) on my own that I don’t have any classes left for my grade 12 except gr.12 English. So, I decided to skip gr. 11. The school principal arranged a few meetings with my mom. (Yeah, I had to be there too to translate for my mom.) I was then moved to gr.12. One problem of moving into a different grade: the friends I just made last year are now in the different year than me which means I’m graduating with a bunch of new people. 

To be honest, the reason why I wanted to skip a year was that all my Stanford high friends were a year ahead of me, and I didn’t want to be left behind.

December

I’ve been mainly working on my college applications recently. I mean since I only applied to U of T and McGill, I’m not stressed by the amount of work as my friends. They have so many essays to write because most of them applied to the states. I skipped a year so I haven’t had a chance to take my SAT yet. But anyway, I’m applying to those two to take my chance. You know, what if? Why not UBC? I didn’t want to write essays and I wanted to move to somewhere else after being in Vancouver for two years.

2018 (17 years old)

– the year I got into the college, accidentally

March 28^th

U of T rejected me because I didn’t have English 12. I sent them an email beforehand explaining that I’ll be taking it this summer but they never replied or they never seen it. I guess that was indeed some U of T pride. 

My Stanford high friends are starting to receive their college decisions now as well.  When I saw them posting their offers from Ivy Leagues, I was so happy for them because they really deserved it. My current situation here makes me a bit sad. Now I just have to wait for McGill’s decision. My mom is more prone to McGill so she didn’t really care that I got rejected. Personally, the fact that it’s in the French speaking province concerns me. Should I take SAT and wait for another year?

April 12^th

It’s my birthday today. I received an email from the McGill admission office, asking for my English 12. What’s the chance, receiving the email right on my birthday? I told them the reason why it’s missing and I explained my “special” situation. The rest is up to McGill, whether they are going to accept me or not, which doesn’t matter anymore, a gap year is always nice to have.

April 16^th

I received the offer from McGill right after the weekend. During the first block of biology class around 8:30 ish, I was a bit bored so I started to check my mailbox. Then I got a reply from McGill admission team right at the time when I was checking it. Wow, two sentences, just like that. I was expecting some thrilling moment of opening admission decision email like those “college decision reactions” videos I saw on YouTube. McGill, I’ve never taken a serious thought about it. Montreal, sounds so exotic to me. Quebec, I don’t even know how to pronounce it in the right way… 

Not going to lie, I still don’t know what’s the difference between B.Sc life science and B.Arts&Sc life science. So, I clicked both when I was applying, just in case. I guess I’ll have to figure it out before making the decision between the two.

June 13^th

After I received the offer from McGill, I was like “why not go check if there’re any other colleges left that are still available?” I checked Cambridge and Oxford, but unfortunately, I passed the deadlines. Then I saw UCL education admission was still opened. I’ve never thought about majoring in education either. So, I went for it. I mean what if I’m going to like it, it’s a great school. UCL was weird. They sent me an email later saying that my personal statement wasn’t good enough and asked me to rewrite it. “Can it work like that???” I did what they told me and I got the offer today. 

July

Everyone has graduated except me. The graduation ceremony was two months ago and I’m still sitting here for the English 12 summer class. It makes me feel REALLY special.

September 4^th

Yes, I made the decision to come to McGill, B.Sc in life science btw. It’s not that I didn’t consider about UCL. London is one of the top cities I want to visit. A kingdom with such cultural heritages, the elegant British accent, the origin where so many remarkable works were born, how could I say no to it? Three reasons why I chose to stay in Canada: 1) Chenqi is at U of T (he chose it over Georgia Tech, what???) and Alex is at UBC (he said he wanted to get out of British Columbia too after staying there for 4 years. Now oops, another 4 years for him.) I’ve got companions here in Canada, even though those two are pretty far from Montreal. 2) I spent two years to adapt to Canadian life but I don’t think I’ve really experienced it to the fullest. 3) My childhood dream was always the North America.

I’m going to spend my next four years at McGill now. I’m feeling strange. The US, after all these time and effort, I didn’t make it.

December 26^th

Two years in Canada, now I’m finally back to China. Christmas break is usually only two weeks long, but it’s better than nothing, right? I was surprised by the changes taken place in the past two years. The WeChat pay became a new trend.  The new constructions built. The takeout chain. Everything seemed so new to me.

I met up with Richard today too (yes we’re both in Beijing right now). I really missed him after the Stanford summer.

2019 (18 years old)

– the year with lots of downs

April 12^th

Woohoo! She’s legal now! It’s the first birthday I’m having on my own without my parents. My friends brought me a bottle of wine as a birthday gift. Yes, how could we not celebrate without a glass of wine (the rez cafeteria only had those fast-food chain restaurants plastic cups tho)? I of course have had wine before but a whole bottle was too much. I was still not used to the taste of alcohol, so I only drank a little bit and let my friends to split up the rest. 

May 1^st

My freshmen year just ended like that. The winter semester was really tough for me. I’ve never experienced a winter like this before. I felt depressed most of the time. I didn’t do well. I didn’t know how I passed the time in that little compartment. I think I have eating disorders now. It’s so hard to get over. I’m heading back home soon, so fingers crossed, everything will get better after I’m home. 

June 1^st

Hey, new diary, nice to meet you! Let’s forget about the past and begin our new journey. 

Plans for the Break:

• Be healthy: adjust the mindsets towards food.
• French: basic communication level.
• Read: the booklist.
• Find a job and a volunteer position.
• Get ready for the next school year.

Take a great care of yourself. Look after your parents. Eat less crappy food. And make friends. 

June 12^th

I’ve arrived in Shanghai, the city he grew up. There’s always a bitter feeling accumulating inside. I miss him but that’s it. I’m not going to write a whole paragraph about something I’ve already lost. Shanghai is a beautiful, prosperous city, with the bustling vibe I love. I started working at a lab at ION, CAS two days ago. I’m ready to learn. Get excited!

July 7^th

I did the first complete lab on my own! It was a really basic lab (PCR followed by gel running) but it was something new and I’m proud of it. 

I went to the Disney this Wednesday. By myself. I had a good time in the park, at the same time, I’ve done lots of thinking, friendships, self-independence, commitment, etc. I heard that there was a thing of loneliness levels and going to a theme park alone was at 8/10. I wouldn’t call it lonely, I was just alone. 

July 27^th

I met up with Richard again!! This time was in Shanghai though (yes, we are INTERNATIONAL). He’s definitely looking more robust than he was last year. I have heard about UCLA’s cafeterias are one of the best in the states. By the way he looked, I’m sure that’s true.

I also met up with Joy. The last time was not too long ago when she visited me in Montreal during the spring break. She was one of my best friends back in Vancouver who always stole my food while complaining about her unpalatable sandwich.

*The rest of 2019 I wasn’t in a good shape and there were no journal entries after July 27^th.

2020 (19 years old)

– the year of global pandemics, I grew up

January 1^st

2020!!! 2019 was kinda miserable and a new year I’m up for some changes. 

I got my first tattoo on my right forearm a couple of days ago. My 2019 was a year with complication and it was a perfect time to get it. I told my parents after and they said it looked pretty. What a relief, I thought they were going to get mad at me.

I made dumplings from scratch with my friend today. The best I could do was putting frozen dumplings into boiling water. My dearest friend, a Northeastern Chinese, do be different, like making the dumpling wrapper from flour? That was on a whole different level. We made tomato and egg stir-fry flavour (as a southerner, it was my first time trying this) and beef cabbage flavour. They turned out pretty good. And that’s it for today.

January 5^th 

I’m almost 19 and I just done my first ski trip of my life. I mean I wasn’t born in a city where it snows in winters, so it’s understandable. I can’t ski, I can’t ice skate. It might be okay back in Chongqing. But everyone else can here in Canada. So, I need to work on those two sometime in the future. 

The Mont-Tremblant trip was nice. I went with a couple of friends (four McGillans, a U of Ter and a Waterlooer). I not only had many bruises on my legs, I lost my voice too due to excessive screaming. (Shoutout to my girl Rainie for not abandoning me on the cold trails and keeping an eye on me even though I was constantly crying and being dramatic.)

March 16^th

The COVID-19 situation is getting worse in Montreal recently. School was shut down and everyone’s now quarantined at home. McGill is going to resume the classes online the end of this month. I have no idea how it’s going to work but it sounds pretty fun to me. The last party I went to was the one on March 6^th. Thank god that I went before things start deteriorating. 

April 12^th

I’m 19 now. This year’s birthday is a little different. I celebrated without actually celebrating it. Obviously, there’s no going out celebration for me during this corona time.

Recently, my friends are heading back home. My heart feels quite heavy because some of them I might never be able to see again and I don’t get to meet them for one last time before they leave. Our life is a very long journey of meeting people and saying goodbyes. Always cherish the person in front of you because you’ll never know when the next get-together will be. 

Please, corona, just leave us alone. I want my normal life. 

May 31^st

I haven’t been outside since March 12^th. I’m doing my daily home workout but it’s still different from an actual gym workout. I miss my barbell squats. I miss my deadlifts. I miss the gym vibes. 

My productivity has been very low lately because of a lack of motivation. I’ve been procrastinating a lot and that’s not a good thing. Better change it before it’s too late.

June 3^rd

I took a break from social media, not too long, just around 3 days. 

July 18^th

Went to the Beaver’s Lake with my friends today. The weather was so nice. I had such a great time with them. I love my people. 

August 2^nd

I decided to take another social media detox starting today. It’s not that I’m going completely off. I still check messages but much less frequent. I limited my time to the max of 20 minutes per day unless there’s something really important like the frosh leader Facebook group announcements. About that, yes, I’m one of the frosh leaders this year since I missed the previous two years of frosh weeks. And this year it’s going to be online, so I technically missed another year of “normal” frosh. What a life. 

August 16^th

This time I took a longer time off from social media and I feel much more than the one in June. I threw back to my past and did some writings. By looking back and writing down those experiences, I got to know myself better. 

What quitting social media has taught me:

• It’s hard to actually go completely off. There’s no need to do it anyway because the time we’re living in is highly depended on them.
• Time will assure you the quality of your friendships. Do they appreciate you for being “inactive?” If you’ve gone off for some time, do they still need you?
• Catching up becomes much more meaningful when you actually need to catch up with someone.
• It’s more important to form a mindset of not constantly checking messages and free from the obligated feeling for instantaneous replies. 
• Feelings are personal but when you post them on social media for validation, there will be different interpretations from people and they can’t be you.
• Less comparison to other people based on social media in return is a gain of self-confidence and less anxieties. 

August 22^nd (4-year anniversary of studying in Canada)

This will be the final excerpt for this compilation. Time flies. It’s been four years since the time I arrived Canada.

When I was little, I was always wondering what it was like on the other side of the world. I thought about drilling a tunnel right through the core and getting to the USA. I wanted adventures.

Four years ago, I arrived in Vancouver, starting my high school. I went through the culture shock. I got over the lost and confusing times. I tried hard to reach things I wanted. 

With four years of ups and downs, I’m still on my way to pursue dreams. If you ask me what dream is it exactly that makes me nonstop, it’s the dream to always become better, more responsible, and closer to the self-actualization. 

I don’t know where I’m heading. I don’t know where I’m going to be after another four years. But the future is bright and I’m in charge.