跟贴summytone, 我们也终于缓过神来了

Iamadreamer

Finally we settled down physically and mentally in Canada, after 30 days living in this country.

I experienced the following:
1) -18 degrees when just arriving at Pearson Airport, Toronto;
2) Frozen Niagara Falls;
3) Tasty fresh Hotdog and French Fries at COSTCO;
4) Getting unbelievable nervous when a COSTCO staff who is a white Canadian asked me something in English;
5) Answering my first phone call in Canada, not knowing what to reply;
6) What to eat and where to buy;
7) So shy to start any conversation with my colleagues in the office that I just hided behind my desk for whole first week;
8) Taking me 4-5 seconds to understand "oh...that's a joke" and then reacting to it.

and my daughter experienced:
1) So much snow outside that she just wanted to stay outside and play;
2) Tasty fresh Hotdog and French Fries at COSTCO;
3) Visiting two schools and being interviewed by one school principle;
4) Starting her school life in a French Immersion school at the end;
5) She made 2 friends on the first day of school, and she could communicate freely with other kids in the school, which amazed me big time.
6) No homework. All the teachers and schoolmates are nice, especially the boys don't bully.
7) No guilty feeling even though she couldn't understand anything in the class;
8) Surprisingly, She just wants to go to school everyday.

......

Last week, I applied OHIP card and SIN, which I myself participated in the whole conversation with the staff. And today, I came out of my desk and had about 15 minutes chatting with my colleagues about weather in China and Canada, schooling and air pollution in China......the conversation was great, no problem at all! Happily, I can tell that my confidence is back little by little.
And for my daughter, starting from today, she goes to school with school bus, and soon she will have a tutor for her English and French. To her, everything is just getting more and more beautiful.

That is all of our sharing -- 我们也终于缓过神来了.

PS: As Chinese language keyboard has not been installed yet in this computer, English is all I can type right now.

闲云

Great, welcome to Toronto

青山绿水家

Congratulations!
It's not easy to find a job in Canada at the first arrival here.!
So , I guess that you've got a job offer  before you received a Canadian visa.

Iamadreamer

To 青山绿水家:
Yes, I simply moved from our China office to Canada office.

maggiedxf

5) She made 2 friends on the first day of school, and she could communicate freely with other kids in the school, which amazed me big time.

Your daughter's English is so so good.

流星蝴蝶

Congratulations!
Lucky you could transfer internally from China to Canada!!!

Iamadreamer

To maggiedef:

Thanks Maggie, my kid can understand English little here and there, but not to the level of "so so good" yet. Actually the communication between kids is much simpler than what we thought. The first morning my daughter got to school was a bit early, only one classmate who's a boy was playing on the playground. So the teacher introduced my daughter to the boy, and she went to the playground and joined him. After a while when more kids got to the playground, the boy introduced my kid to the others, and then they shared some game and movie which brought them the mutual language. That's it, that's how she started making friends there.

Actually the thing that I learned from this little girl is that she is not afraid of speaking poor English, losing face or any other things. She told me that if she just stood there without any involving with others, then she wouldn't have any friends for whole day which was not fun at all. That made her step out.

tulip_purple

Congratulation!

闲云

great

FCH

How old is your daughter? Did you apply/register for French Immersion program before landing?

Thanks for sharing with us!

jason5460

We do have a similar experience, transferring from China to Canada, landing in toronto in Jan, 47 days till today; physically & metentally settled, kinds of

Differences are:
- My son is still at home, babysitting by his mother; JK registered, starts in Sep
- We didn't have time to visit Niagara yet

蓝色薄荷

Finally we settled down physically and mentally in Canada, after 30 days living in this country.

I experienced the following:
1) -18 degrees when just arriving at Pearson Airport, Toronto;
2) Frozen  ...
Iamadreamer 发表于 2014-2-27 01:52

                               
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精品文章！

life007

Totally Positive Energy.

Iamadreamer

To FCH:

Hi there! My daughter just turned 7-year-old one month ago. And no, we didn't apply any school before landing.

About choosing a proper school, I have to say that I got great help from my Canadian colleague.
We understood that currently the most important thing for my kid was to get involved into this society and to learn the language, so we decided to attend the public school. There's one Catholic school around here, but the school refused accepting my kid at the very beginning as we're not Christian. My colleague talked to the school and asked them "aren't you getting money from government to run this public school? They're tax-payers in this country, and living in this area as well, why can't they apply for your school", at the end the school accepted my kid.
A few days later, my colleague took me to the bank where our company has business account to open my personal account. We picked up the topic of good schools in this area with the lady bank manager, and she introduced that French Immersion school from where her son graduated. Also she shared that she got a tutor in French for the boy to cope with the language as he had no French background, and it worked.
So my colleague helped talk to that school and convinced the principle to set up an interview for my daughter. Meanwhile, I prepared some documents like school rewards, score records, class teacher's reference letter and some pictures for the interview. At the end, it went well and my daughter enrolled.

Iamadreamer

To 闲云:

You are the first one who replied this post, which encouraged me a lot of sharing.
Thank you!

Iamadreamer

To jason5460:

加油!

Iamadreamer

To 蓝色薄荷:

Thanks!

Iamadreamer

To life007:

Thank you for your comments!

Iamadreamer

Just before leaving for Canada, I told my colleagues in China that I got worried little by little as I didn't know what was waiting for me over there. And they tried to comfort me with "oh no, not a big deal for you, as you have no problem with the language", etc. But deeply down, I knew it would be much more complicated at the very beginning than what they thought.

I had been in Canada before, but living here is totally different from being a visitor. Even though mentally I had prepared for this challenge, still I had struggles and felt frustrated and isolated during the first three weeks living here.

Things started changing to be positive, since I stepped out. Yes, I was my only enemy indeed.

Problems are always there, no matter what. Do your best to face them, till you have no fear. At the end, you will stand tall, as you did in China.

沙漏