I felt appreciate when I finally succeed in the application for the global professional program organized by MPI to visit Monash College in Melbourne, Australia. I have applied for a similar program in my first year but failed, and I missed the application for the following year. However, I still view myself as a lucky person since we had a one-week longer program this time, thanks to the effort made by Macao Polytechnic Institute.

The period before departing was the most stressful. I was wondering, for instance, if I could build a good rapport with other students in this program as we mostly did not know each other. I was also worried about the life that awaited me in Melbourne, as if I could get along well with the lifestyle there. However, as soon as the tour started, I found myself confident in communicating with my program mates and felt the others were trustworthy and could be depended on, and it seemed that no problem would be a problem as long as we worked together as a group.

We had an approximately nine-hour flight to Melbourne, Australia. I was glad that I had long-period-flight experience before so I did not suffer so much. We arrived at the Clayton campus of Monash College the next day and were welcomed by the program coordinators, after which we met our host members and went to their houses. I was picked up by a family living near my family as my host mother was busy working, and we spent some time visiting the beautiful beaches before I met my host mother.

According to my point of view, people in Melbourne were friendly and kind enough. I shall owe all my praise to my host mother Janice, who was an extremely nice lady. She cared about me, for instance, by asking if I was warm enough at home and purchasing a hot water bottle for me as I mentioned once that I would like to have on with me to school. We would share our days with each other during dinner, and she made plenty of different types of food for me at lunch. Apart from that, she would take me to places of interest as long as she was available. We visited Queen Victoria Market, Dandenong Market, Coolart Wetland and Homestead, Royal Botanic Garden of Cranbourne, and beautiful wedding shows in Rippon Lea House and Gardens. I was so lucky to meet Janice and to spend three weeks together with her. By the way, the relationship between us was special since I was her first host student.

The course we attended in Melbourne was more like a foundation course in business. However, it did not mean it had no use for me as a business student. After the course, I found myself more knowledgeable about business e-mail writing and survey conduction. During the class, we were pushed to do tasks such as small talks and role plays, which helped us understanding what we were learning in depth. Since I have been pushed that much, I am now more willing to do time scheduling and goal setting, which I thought to be embarrassing and unhelpful in the past. Our trainers were nice to us and created a good learning atmosphere. We were also taken to visit local companies so that we got further knowledge about how business were done in real companies. One of the company we visited, Dairy Innovation, responsible for milk analysis and research, contained various kind of special equipment that we had never seen, and probably would not see in the future. It was really interesting to look at these machines.

Regarding the city, it was not as cold as I expected, and my coat became slightly too heavy for me so I borrowed one from a kind program mate. Living in Melbourne was kind of expensive, but that was probably because of my frequent calculation of the currency difference. The truth was that public transportation really cost too much. After all, I still bought many goods for my family, and it was important to manage my spending. Thank my host mother again as I did not have to spend extra money on food since she provided so much.