World-wide poverty, starvation, and lack of clean water sources are, as heartbreaking as it is, very common around the world.

So a human can be in lack of many things; money, food, water, and shelter. That would make said person struggle to survive, right?

What if someone lacks inspiration, hope, genuine love, warmth, comfort, or the will to respect anyone in their life, because no one deserves said respect?

Would this lack of emotional means be the same as lacking the physical means?

being a girl of fifteen and a child of immigrants, i've dealt with many head-aching, heart-breaking situations that no one else around me could related to before. one of them would be difficulties of adapting into a new environment, a completely new country even. and you know what? as depressed and ostracized as i felt...i must admit, on the upside of it, i'm much luckier than many people, even the ones i envied.

the problems i've had before when we first moved to vancouver are rather childish and immature, i must admit. but they weren't unreasonable feelings, because it is perfectly normal for anyone to feel out of place and homesick when they first moved to a new environment.

looking back, i feel foolish for thinking vancouver isn't a great place because i felt lonely. that's basically taking my problems and blaming it as somebody else's fault. it has nothing to do with vancouver itself and its practices; it was just normal, expectable behaviors for someone new in town who was not used to the new places, new people, new ways of living. i felt like this needed to be said because it feels like a progress in my maturing process.

now that i've adjusted much more than the year before...i feel like giving thanks. i'm not sure to who or what, but i just feel like i should put that out there. it actually is a good thing to have the chance to live in different places in the world, especially places that visitors flock to.

again, i make this point because i'm a child of immigrants: i think it's wonderful that my family and i were given a chance by canada to come here and live, under much better conditions than we were in. so i'm quite grateful towards canada. i'm finally understanding what it means to be someone of mixed cultures: i'm proud of my vietnamese ethnicity although i'm also growing up among canadian culture. and it's a special thing, trust me :)