Name: Sharon Peng
School: Bournemouth University
Course: Television and Video Producion

"When I went for a pony, I fell down on apple and pears!!" one of my classmates said. "What????" I am not sure if I am idiot or what, but execuse me, I really don't understand what he just said, does he mean that when he went to have a horse riding that he fell down at the apple and pears tree? Then it reminded me again I am away from home, studying in England, living alone.

It's almost like a dream to me, because it seemed that everything was happened all of the sudden that I didn't even have time to check if it is real of not then I took the flight from Taiwan to London Heathrow Airport on 22nd, Sep,2000, starting to experience the brand new page of my life. It took me another 2 hours from London to Bournemouth, the place with the most beautiful sea coast of England and also the place I am going to spend whole year to take my MA degree of television and video production.

Frankly speaking, I had never thought that being a student again would be that difficult for me. Being a 26 years-old student is not a big problem, but trying to speak the language which I thought I could handle very well has turned out to be an endless nightmare for me.

My- self-confidence has been nearly totally crushed. I mean, when you got an average score 7 in IELTS and was categorized as a good uses of English, you would never think you were going to have any problems surviving in England. But all the time, while sitting within the group, though I was there with everyone, somehow I just felt myself invisible , someone whose existence people didn't notice. (Please don't categorized this situation as discrimination, cause I had not been through any race discrimination so far. what I mean is though I was there, hearing them talking about everything, but just if I was hearing nothing simply because I didn't understand a word they were saying. There are just 18 people in my class, but how lucky I am, they came from different places around England, Irland, Scotland, Wales, and others from Russia, Norway(I am the only one from Asia) that's why I had been through a hard time to understand what they are saying because all of them have different accent and slang. Of course the more you talk to them the more you pick up those accent. But to be honest, I still had a hard time to communicate with them simply because that sometimes I just can't find the right word to express myself or that sometimes you just can't understand the joke they are laughing about. Although one of my classmates said that "Please don't feel bad about it, cause you miss nothing!!" But you still desperately want to know the reason why they laughed about certain thing, because you want to be a part of them. (But believe me, The English humor is not something you can get it within couple days) Other than that, I think I adjusted to the new life in England pretty well at this moment.

But of course I did have the so called culture shock the first couple weeks when I just got here. Other than the language problem, if you are from the buzzy city like Taipei which you can go shopping or singing with your friends in the Cashbox, you might find the night life in Bourenmouth(or wherever in England) quite boring. Cause most of the shop closed at 5:30, and the only thing people can do at night is go clubbing and drinking, it means that if you are the person who doesn't like to drink, then your social life is dead if you can't find something else to do. (Thank god that I do love to go to club or pub, but I don't drink that much though) and speaking of drinking, I was very surprised by those student who almost got drunk every day. We have student bar in the campus where you can get all kinds of drink, and most of the time the bar is packed with drunk students during day time. I am so curious how can they just get drunk in the morning but still go to the class later in the afternoon. To me, it's really amazing because I can't and will never try that!!!

Though there were so many difficulties and challenge I had been through since I got here, but I don't feel regret at all that I made the decision to study here.

Oh, by the way,do you know what's happening to my classmate when he said "when I went for a pony, I fell down on apple and pears?" Probably you will never believe me, but what he means is "when he went to the toilet, he fell down on the stairs."

Do you get it ? If not, don't worry about it, because I don't think I will ever get it!!!