This Country of Migrants

It's Saturday and so I decided to give myself a break from all the reading and searching that I've been so religiously doing for four five whole days. Each day, I could feel the tension brewing inside me. I have a personal deadline to my supervisors to turn in the first section of my proposal by the first of July and over the past two weeks, I've been struggling with the matter of my research focus, trying to figure out what really it should be. I had an initial topic in my mind which I wrote my supervisors and then as I read new interesting stuff, I felt the itch of going to other directions--not unrelated but a broader one. Then, towards the end of the week, it dawned upon me that I'm slowing losing my focus so I returned to the original one hoping that it would become clearer in the coming days.

Anyway, as I was saying a while ago, today was some sort of a self-imposed holiday for me. I did not read any stuff related to my research and instead, picked out a romantic novel when I was a library and spent my time there reading it. By the time the library was about to close (at 4 pm), I had finished three-fourths of the book and eager to get home to know the ending.

Observing the people of various nationalities who were in and out of the library cemented my initial impression on New Zealand being a country of migrants. Back there in the library, it was the picture of a multicultural environment. Well, apart from the locals (Kiwis), there were Asians, Americans, British, Europeans, Africans, and Middle Eastern people. And you see more of them arriving into New Zealand as they come to the library to apply for membership. I was seated close to the membership section and so I could hear each new applicant presenting his/her passport to apply for a library card.

Even in the university, one would easily see the diversity of cultures, but of course, the Chinese is hard to beat when it comes to numbers! I think they have the biggest foreign population in the university and perhaps, the whole of New Zealand. Many young people come to New Zealand to study--not on scholarship, I tell you--but out of their own pockets. Why NZ? Well, it's cheaper to get an education here rather than go to the United States. There are many Chinese, too, who come here to work or to open a business. Oh yes, the Chinese indeed have lots of money!

Tomorrow is Sunday, and then, it will be Monday again. It will be a busy week for me what with three sessions that I have to attend and then the meeting with my supervisor in the middle of the week. At least, I'm occupied. It's better this way so I won't miss home too much. By next week, I'd turn one month here in NZ--in this country of migrants!