The Difficulties I Have Here at UCSB
One twelfth of my college life have passed, but, as an international student coming to UCSB, I still have some problems adapting the new environment here. For example, due to the cultural difference, it is hard for me to understand why Americans don’t dry their cloths by hanging them up. I don’t know, if this is the case, what should I do to dry my quilt here if I wash it, since I think it may be unsafe to put it into the dryer. I had no idea with this until the end of last quarter(actually I still have no idea with this now), so I brought my quilt back to China to clean it during the winter break. It was really inconvenient, but I had to do this since I am allergic to dust mites. It is inevitable that we will have some problems like this, but the greatest difficulty for me is still the English language. It takes time for me to organize my sentences before I speak, and it is still quite hard for me to express myself clearly in English. Then, I find myself starting to avoid all the situations where I need to speak English.
For example, as long as our teacher have not already assigned us into groups, I would choose to have Chinese partners in sessions. Also, I hardly go to the other restaurants at IV or Santa Barbara except Lao Wang and Wok on the Wild Side where I could still speak Mandarin, because I know at other places I have to speak English. The names of foods or dishes are extremely difficult for me. I remember once I went to Subway, where I could design my own sandwich, for lunch. When the waiter asked me what I wanted to add to my sandwich, I could only point to the ingredients and say “i want this, this and this, but I don’t want that one.” Sometimes, they will ask me if I want something specific, I could just smile to them to cover up my embarrassment that I don’t know the word they said. Therefore, I prefer eating at school dining commons where I don’t need to speak lots of words. However, over the last quarter, I did make some progress in this aspect. At the beginning, I would just say “i want this, this, and this” to the waiters at dining commons, but now I would try to pronounce those strange names and say something like “can I have scrambled eggs and potatoes, please?”
Well, for this quarter, I hope I could be more confident and brave to speak English, make American friends, try more American dishes, and learn American culture.
