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Name: Nickey Huang
School: University of Nottingham
Course: MA in ELT
After many long months of anticipation, I finally arrived
at Heathrow Airport on September 19th, 2000. It was exciting
and intimidating at the same time. Exciting, because it was
my first time in the United Kingdom and intimidating, because
I was unsure what would happen and what would be expected
of me as an international student. Nevertheless, this was
it, this was my dream come true. This is the country of Wimbledon,
ever-falling rain and all those famous places that I read
about in history class, and here I was, ready to seize the
day or so I thought.
I never expected to have trouble with adapting to life in
England. I thought it would be as easy as life in Taiwan.
Of course, I was grossly mistaken . Life is not supposed to
be easy, having problems is what makes life so exciting!!!!!
The pace of living in England is really much slower than in
Taiwan. People here are not actually geared to getting the
job done as quickly and effectively as possible. Some of my
friends who have had a few more problems than me, tend to
disagree with me, they say that people here are not geared
to getting the job done, at all. I think that in general English
people are kind, friendly and helpful, but when it comes to
getting things done, they want to do them by the book, even
though "the book" is usually totally outdated!! This causes
a great deal of frustration for impatient people, like me,
who are used to getting things done "yesterday already"! I
recall having problems with opening a new bank account, getting
a mobile phone, getting conn! >ected to the Internet, getting
to see a doctor, receiving mail and the list, alas, goes on
and on and on... But as it is so aptly put on a notice in
the bank "patience is a virtue", I have to admit that I am
now in the process of becoming a VERY virtuous person.
One cannot write about life in England and neglect to mention
its most endearing feature: the weather. I have been here
for just over two months and I wholeheartedly agree that the
only adjective that can adequately describe typical English
weather is "UNPREDICTABLE". There have been sunny days, rainy
days, windy days, misty days, warm days, cold days, freezing
days and, not surprisingly, this list, also goes on and on
and on... To top it all, there have been FLOODS. Luckily our
university and flats have been spared any damage, but a few
late-comers to class could at least blame it on the traffic
problems caused by the floods. Life in England is never boring,
well on second thoughts maybe on Sundays: TV programs here
can really not hold a candle to those in Taiwan. Honestly!!!
Another thing that takes getting used to is the frequent,
and I mean weekly, fire drills. The combined total of bomb
and fire drills (up to my arrival in England) that I have
experienced in my life was, at the most, three. I am now proud
to announce that I am a pro at evacuating buildings, because
in the two months that I𠐔e spent here I have "survived" four
fire drills and two evacuations. Putting up with these fire
drills and evacuations is not easy, especially when I have
to admit that the cause of one evacuation was not a life-threatening
fire, but actually, when an over-ambitious cook (in our flat)
forgot about the chicken in the oven!!! Early morning fire
drills are the worst, because you have to leave your warm
and cozy bedroom to stand for endless minutes in the cold
morning mist listening to the whine of the fire alarm until
some kind person decides to save our eardrums and turn off
the noise!!
Despite these seemingly negative experiences, life in England
is not ALL bad. I think these are really what makes living
in England an adventure. We have many good things happening
to us also, the university is great, our lecturers are fantastic,
we have many opportunities to meet new people from all around
the world, we have link-families and we can travel. Yes, those
places we read about in history class, we are now only a stone𠏋
throw away from them, London, Cambridge, Oxford, Scotland,
France and, not surprisingly, this list also goes on and on
and on...
We can also experience some culture: "CATS", "The Phantom
of the Opera" and "Les Miserables" are there for us to see
as often as our culture-starved hearts desire. I have to admit
that a Japanese friend has been to see "The Phantom", yes,
you guessed it, eight times already.
Slowly but surely I am getting used to life in England and
who knows, maybe one day I might even get used to the weather!!
Honestly!!!!
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