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I choose leaving homeas my biggest challenge in making transition to college. Leaving home for me does not only mean move from a country to another country, but also means being more mature and introspective than most of my peers. Since my parents re far way in China, and they are not familiar with systems here in America, the help that can get from them is very limited. I stepped into a new world which I only have myself to rely on—I must make decisions and cope with everything by myself.  Looking back the past three months, I feel that I experienced the stages that Karen Russell wrote in her book St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. When I just arrived in America, everything was new and interesting for me. For the first time, strangers on the street smiled to me! It was interesting to start my new life in a totally different country. Then things became harder as I realized that I must work to adjust the new culture. Life was stressful a strong sense of dislocation took over me. Though now I’ve become more comfortable for my new environment, whenever I think about the fact that there are only several days left for going back home, I still get so excited.  I gradually realize that my home is always where my root is.

To tell the truth, before I really came to the States, living in a country that thousands of miles away from home, I never knew the taste of homesickness. I spent all of my past eighteen years in one city-- I am so familiar with everything in the city that I was almost tired of it. I determined to go to a different place that far away from home to get some fresh air and to explore the world.  But now, when I’m really in a foreign country that truly far away from home, I finally realize how much my home means to me. Jinan, is not only the name of a city, it is also a place that witnesses how all the things that make me who I am now happened. It’s where I can take a walk without worrying about getting lost; it’s where I’m not afraid of walking alone on empty streets at night; it’s where I can have a sense of belonging and secure. Through my experience in the past three months, I realize that how challenging living far away from home and how strong the connection between me and my home.