I want to share my three years of experience living aboard apart from family. Living aboard have taught me to be responsible and open-minded
2001/2002:
I arrived to Ottawa- the capital city of Canada- on September 6th with bunch of Omani guys. People from the Canadian International Burbreu Education (CIBE) welcomed us and drove us to a nice hotel where we can rest after this tiring flight, it's almost 18 hours on the plane plus the jet lag, we went to bed . The next day all the students were assigned home stays -Canadian families- and that was a requirement. Personally, I think it is a great idea to live with native English speakers so you could practice English all the time with them. Five of the guys were sent to London City and I was one of them :). Since this was the first time Omani students going to London city, we were accompanied with people from CIBE and the Cultural division of Oman. When I left with my home stay , I felt so lonely since I'm with strangers speaking a language which I wasn't fluent in. The next day I went to my ESL called CutltureWorks where we were tested on our reading, writing , and grammar skills. Back at that time the ESL was going on a trip every Thursday and I will list some of the trips which I can remember :
1) Skiing and snow tubing at Boler Mountain ski resort
2) Artificial mountains climbing.
3) Lacrosse
4) Fanshawe dam
5) CN Tower in Toronto: One of Canada's wonders and it is the tallest building in the world. Its height is 553.33m(1,815 ft., 5 inches)
I have been on a lot more trips , if I remember anything important I will add to the list.
At the ESL, we had classes for Grammar, Reading, Writing , Canadian culture, and Pronunciation , plus an optional class which was conducted twice a week to give students to talk in a friendly manner to all the students in all the levels.
Besides school, first year pretty nice , exploring the city, meeting new people , watching movies, and so on. London doesn't have a lot of attractions. It's a quite environment and it is perfect to study for your degree.
Months passed and I'm moving from level to another intermediate level in English . Meanwhile , I had to study for TOEFL exam - Test Of English as a Foreign Language- individually. After I took the TOEFL exam, I applied to four universities: Queen's University at Kingston, Waterloo at Waterloo City, University of Western Ontario in London, and McMaster University in Hamilton. I got accepted in Western and McMaster and I decided to enroll into the Engineering program at Western.
2002/2003
After a lovely pleasant summer in Oman, I went back to Canada to arrange moving to a new place. I decided to live in an apartment. Cooking, cleaning and washing everything by myself . I have been living in an apartment with a roommate for two years and I love being independent. It's kind of tiring to maintain social life and school work while taking care of the house but I learned a lot and that's what is important.
First year of Engineering was kind of a disaster to me since it is my first time enrolling into university. I could not manage my time and it wasn't a pleasant year . However, first year gave me strength and confidence that I can manage my time efficiently and effectively for my second year of Engineering. I decided to enroll into the Electrical and Engineering Department because this is the field I'm most interested in.
2003/2004
Here my second year of Engineering over and it went much better than the first year. I moved to a new place; closer to the university but I still have to take the bus to get to university. Fast food restaurants and supermarkets are around here, so it is easy to buy anything anytime. It's 20 minutes ride from the downtown area so it is pretty much a safe area.
I chose to enroll into the Electrical Engineering program . So far we took subjects like Electronics and Electric circuits and we will have more applications next year.
2004 Summer:
I'm taking a food and nutrition course as my first year elective. Even though it is totally different than what I'm used to , it is very interesting to know about good and healthy food habits.
I'm leaving to Oman on July