One Year Abroad - Australia Edition

by Yi Hong Yu (aka Chun)

It has been over a year since I left Russia and went to the farthest place imaginable… Australia. Honestly, it has been an ‘upside down’ experience. For you to understand what I mean, we need to go back to the beginning of this journey. The flight was a total of 20 hours with one transfer, which was not a fun first impression experience. (P.S. this wasn’t actually my first time visiting Australia, but let’s assume it was). Other than that, it was quite refreshing and exciting, when I realised this was a completely different country and a new home, where I would be staying for at least five years. During the first week, I did what every other tourist would do—sightseeing. The places that I remember going to back then are the Melbourne Zoo (saw kangaroos, sadly no koalas that day) and ‘The City’ (Moscow City equivalent, but better). The next week came and with it came UNIVERSITY (insert scary sounds, ‘dun dun dun’)! I was going to study at Monash University. Monash University is the largest uni in Australia with 5 campuses (4 in Australia and 1 in Malaysia). The uni has been consistently staying as a top 100 university in the world, currently being 58th. Not only that, but Monash is also the 6th best uni in Australia. It has achieved a massive international reputation for research and teaching excellence in the last 50 years!! Also Monash University is the only Group of Eight Universities with triple crown international business accreditation within the faculty of business and economics (https://www.monash.edu). I didn’t really have any expectations going in, I only hoped for something movie and TV show-like (I can tell you now, that didn’t happen). When I arrived, I was quite nervous, what with being in a new environment where I knew no one, and no one knew me. My main goal was to make friends as fast as possible and let everything else just flow by itself. Luckily for me, I found what I was looking for pretty quickly, and as a result, my nervousness magically disappeared.

After my first year of studies, it was time to go back to Russia for a well-deserved break. Even though it was only for 2 weeks, it was awesome seeing all my friends and family again. When I returned to Australia, I thought it would feel the same way as when I flew there for the first time. But that’s where I was proven wrong. The first couple of days I felt extremely homesick, to the point that I wanted to go back. That was not a pleasant experience, but it all turned out fine and I learned that it was just another life obstacle that I had to overcome. Nothing exciting happened until New Years (I celebrate both the Lunar NY and regular NY). Speaking of which, I didn’t get any red envelopes, which was quite a bummer for an Asian boy like me. Anyways, I got used to the local environment, it started feeling like a real home. Other than that, I had a lot of fun with friends, a lot of boredom at home, a lot of freedom and a bit of lockdown, of course #staysafe #stayathome. I guess what I learned from this experience is that change is not that bad, and it just requires patience for it to feel worth it. Well, what can I say, life is a funny thing, innit?