Things I do with my free time

Today's topic is "my hobbies".
Well... let me start with dancing. When I was a child, I was very shy and never thought I could would like dancing, but somehow I got into it when I came across Samba. I started samba with no intension  intention of continuing as I was invited to try it out just for a month with a friend of mine. Then I met this lady, my samba teacher. Unlike the other dance classes I had seen, she started the class just putting the music on and telling us to close our eyes and move our bodies freely to get oninto the rhythm, no instruction, no choreography. This groundbreaking method of teaching just grabbed my heart and helped me break my shell and throw myself into the rhythm. After moving to Spain, I have tried given flamenco a go for 2 years as I could not find samba class and now I am dancinglearning (or) doing belly dance. (as it has dance in the name the dancing is implied.)

Another thing I enjoy is swimming. Unfortunately I can't swim often anymore as I now live in a small town and we don't have a heated pool here. However whenever I go to Granada I take my swim suit and go to the public pool near the place I usually stay. I started swimming when I was a child and since then I have been swimming for entire my life. (Staying you started as a child implies you've been doing it since. I think that's why. I'm just pretending to know what I'm talking about... So great to be a native speaker:P)

These days I have been enjoying making some origami earrings. It can be frustrating sometimes as it requires a lot of patience, working with small pieces of paper but somehow it relaxes my mind and makes me feel good when I finish making them. Right now I am thinking about selling them on the Internet as they are just sitting on my desk.

Although I have never tried, I am also interested in scuba diving. I would love to try that when I go to Australia :)

Once again you did really awesome. There's a place near here that does 2 for 1 scuba lessons or at least they used to. We have too much to fit in! I'm really enjoying the experience of writing on here. Plus, I'm really enjoying your entries.

Living in a foreign country

Today's topic of my essay is "living in a foreign country".
While some say that living overseas gives you opportunities to communicate with people from other cultures and can broaden your horizons, I personally have mixed feelings about this experience.

Today's essay is about or Today's topic.

As those who support this idea claim, one of the advantages of living abroad is that, in a way, you are forced to meet new people and experience different lifestyles, which helps you learn about other cultures. I myself have learnt learned some individualist attitudes while I was in New Zealand, which I was not used to due to my original cultural background, a collectivist mindset. This definitely allowed me to take advantage of the situation by assimilating benefits from both sides.

I took on some individualist attitudes might be better wording here too.

On the other hand, I have struggled and I still am struggling with language and cultural barriers, which are inevitable when relocating in another country. As I currently live in a small town in southern Spain, I often get frustrated and feel homesick for New Zealand, being isolated from the local communities as they always treat me as an outsider due to the language barrier. Lifestyle difference is another issue that has been putting me off. Here in Spain, people eat much later compared to universal eating time and stay up so late to socialise with others, to which I still struggle adjusting myself.

On balance the other hand, although there are some significant gains in life abroad, experiencing a new environment and learning another language, there are difficulties people often need to overcome to be able to gain comfortable life in a foreign country due to some cultural barriers or differences in customs and behaviours.

You could also use To balance it out.

I am so jealous of your command of English! I could never write something like this in Japanese. You did really well. I look forward to this weeks!