Wel­come to Cor­rer Es Mi Des­tino! I hope you enjoy read­ing, brows­ing and com­ment­ing. Get your­self a cup of tea (or cof­fee) and let me tell you who I am. I promise, I’ll keep it short.

I’m Juli­ette, aka Zhu. Yes, I’m aware of the fact that I’m not even remotely Chi­nese. I do speak Man­darin though, but it’s a long story.

I’m French and I have been liv­ing full time in Canada’s national cap­i­tal, Ottawa, since 2004. I first came in 2002 and lived between France and the other side of the Atlantic Ocean for a cou­ple of years. In 2004, I got a Work­ing Hol­i­day Visa, and I applied for per­ma­nent res­i­dence in Canada in 2005… and it took only five months! I became a Cana­dian cit­i­zen on July 3^rd, 2009 and now have both pass­ports, French and Cana­dian. You can read my full immi­gra­tion story here.

Immi­grat­ing to Canada has been a very good expe­ri­ence so far. I expe­ri­enced cul­ture shock for the first few months but recov­ered quickly enough. Although I still don’t get how Cana­di­ans can walk around wear­ing only shorts and tee-shirts when it’s barely above 0ºC.

I first worked as a French teacher in Ottawa for almost four years and I always found it ironic I ended up teach­ing French after learn­ing Chi­nese for 12 years. I am now an Eng­lish to French trans­la­tor, a job I also enjoy very much (but on Mon­day morn­ings, like every­body else).

I love travel and street pho­tog­ra­phy. And I keep on think­ing I should do some­thing with my real pas­sions, writ­ing and pho­tog­ra­phy… and trav­el­ing. I’m also a back­packer: once in a while, I just pack and go travel the world.

I chose to set­tle in Canada because I love this mul­ti­cul­tural coun­try, and because I wanted to belong somewhere—I had never felt I was meant to stay in France. Yet, I still have the urge to travel and dis­cover the world. Was I made to set­tle some­where? A part of me enjoy “nor­mal life”: a job, a place to live, I city I now know well, friends, lan­guages I mas­ter and a rel­a­tively steady income. But the other side of my brain just want to blow it all and pack. Pack and travel other con­ti­nents, other oceans, sleep in long dis­tance buses and trains and walk in a new city everyday.

Yeah, I’m not the eas­i­est per­son to live with. I know.

Cor­rer Es Mi Des­tino… isn’t it?

Zhu (珠）