10 things no one told you about moving overseas

Posted on Posted in Home, Writing
  1. You won’t be the friend someone has known for ages, for literally ages. And until you are, you’ll be an outsider. But one day, all of a sudden, you won’t be new anymore.
  2. You’ll meet some wonderful people
  3. You will be forced into independence
  4. You’ll need to do the hard yards when it comes to entering a foreign workforce, especially as a graduate. But it will become a lot easier when you’ve had the chance to prove yourself
  5. You will be doing most of the ringing and texting friends and arranging to go back home a great deal more than you’ll be welcoming visitors, until after about 15 years, even going back won’t necessarily guarantee that childhood friends remember you’re coming (I can say that because we’re friends that have known each other for ages and it is what it is).
  6. You’ll be using different terms for everyday things, e.g. safety belts become seatbelts overnight (but not in your head), circles: roundabouts, green peppers: capsicums and the one that gets the most looks – robots, which you know as traffic lights. See, told you… looks.
  7. You won’t be able to get the same stuff in the new country and substitutes will have to do, until you find a store that charges double or triple for something that had to be imported
  8. If you grew up with more than one language, you’ll start to think in the main language of the country you’re living in and when this happens, your native language will start to suffer. However, you’ll forever be translating maths into your native language first before making the calculation and appear to have stage fright when this occurs (with your university math major and all)
  9. You’ll still discover that there’s a different way of doing something (the way everyone else is doing it), years later
  10. You’ll come out the other end and be stronger for it