Rules in my home

I don't have a lot of rules at home. My friends can visit my house any time. It is not necessary call me before to go there because if I am not they can wait for me in the living room. Other people different from my friends I prefer they call me before since I don't know whether I feel in a mood to talk to them that day. I expect to receive phone calls on wise hours otherwise I don't take them except for an emergency.

The only places in my house that I consider private are my bedroom and bathroom. I don't like anybody stay there without authorization. I think is a cultural opinion to keep these places as private because in my culture the majority of people don’t like to share their personal stuff and we think these are our own spaces.

The Canadian culture has some different rules than us about welcoming people into their homes. For instance, they have to take off their shoes before to come in to their houses, but in my country it is not necessary. In addition, they receive a previous appointment to meet there; their visits are quite short in contrast to ours. It is common to say “help yourself” to someone who visits a Canadian home however; in my country it sounds not nice because we have to attend our guests in everything.

Canadians as same as us they like to receive phone calls in available hours for them because it is not comfortable to hang up the telephone at 3:00 in the morning for asking to go to our homes. Another similarity it is about to go through bedrooms and bathrooms without any authorization because it is very rude. Everybody is welcome in my home as long as they respect it.

Colors

In my opinion, the colors reflect people's emotions. The colors like blue, yellow and red are very remarkable and they make feel energetic, but at the same time make me headache because these colors are strong to see them. Instead, the colors black, white and green reflect tranquility to me. I prefer to wear clothes with the colors in the last category and using the colors blue, yellow and red for decorating or painting something. The blue color reminds me the sky. The yellow one means hope and the red passion. The black is a mistery or strength. The white is really nice because it gives me tranquility and the green color reminds me the American dollar.

My host mother thinks that the colors white and red are the best because they are on the Canada's flag; they mean the union between France and England when the cross took place. The color yellow is typical for the linseed that grows up in Canada and the blue one means ocean to her. The black color is night and the green is mountain.

I have learned that everyone has different culture; therefore, different thoughts about the meaning of something. Some opinions sound crazy when I don't think the same as other people but the most important is learning by new experiences and different reasons.

EAP

I really want to study English to communicate with other people around the world and to do a master degree at the U of C. I dreamed with being a lawyer since I was a child that is why I majored in law so, I would like to work as an international lawyer and I will need to communicate in English.

I like English as a second language, but it sometimes is difficult to learn because it has some words that they do not make sense to me, especially if I try to translate to my first language. I know it doesn't help me to learn English because I have to think in English. On the other hand, learning the present progressive always result to be easier than any other thing to learn it. Anyway I will keep learning it and trying to get better skills such as listening. I will push myself to watch more TV programs and to read books.

At first I signed up to study English in the ESL program and I made several friends there. I think the most difficult thing while you are studying in a college is making friends but I do not seem to have problems with it. On the contrary I made good friends in my last course and I used to do activities that I enjoy like going out with my friends, dancing, jogging and working out.