I realize that the last blog I wrote here is the new year's day of 2010, when I was just starting my life as a master student. With time flies, this is already the second year for me as a Ph.D candidate. It seems that I forget the DioEnglish when getting busy, but I know that's an excuse. The only thing is that I gave up the initial passion of learning English. I was glad that I still remember my ID and password in DioEnglish, and what shock me most was that many of my friends were always here, sharing their happiness and thinking in English.

 

It happens a lot during these two years. After three semesters' study as a master student, there was a defence which decided you wether you could turn from a two-year master student to a five-year Ph.D student or just graduate with a Master's degree. I chose to continue my study as a Ph.D student and passed the defence, cause I want to be a teacher in the college, and it seems that a Doctor's degree is a must. After that, I applied for the "joint Ph.D student programme", funded by China Scholorship Council (CSC), and will be going to study in Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) in Belgium as an one-yerar international scholor. Recently, I just got the visa and will be there just after the new year's day in 2013,  only two months left.

 

The Kingdom of Belgium is a federal state in Western Europe. Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. The capital of Brussels is bilingual. The most important thing I worry about is the laguage surroundings, though I was told that they all can speak good English. However, I joint several QQ groups, the members of which are students who want to study in Belgium. Most of them have been already there, and from their feeding back, I know that the situation is not so positive. Although most of the citizens there can speak English, but they usually speak their mother language in their daily life and their spoken English is also full of accents. Sometimes, you could find several kinds of languages of the instructions for the products in the supermarket, but just no English or Chinese! One of my initial goals of study abroad for a short period is to practise my oral English, but it seems that it's not practical now.

 

Anyhow, it can not change now and what I can do is to enjoy it. At least, the beautiful views in Europe may enable me a happy stay there. I will share my experiences in Belgium and other Schengen countries here with you!