Undergraduate / A New Journey - leaving behind the very lax live in Philippines [2]

Q5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family. Max 650 words

A New Journey

Life for me, here in the Philippines is very lax: I have many stay-at-home maids and drivers, who respectively do my chores and bring me around. It's simple: someone wakes me up, cooks my food, cleans my room, brings me around, etc. All I do is live the life I choose to follow: read, gym, study, and watch Tv. Here, I'm treated as a king, as compared to how life would be in America - I would live on my own and do my own laundry, without help from anyone. Additionally, my family here is huge and our bonds our incorruptible. I have about fifty relatives, with reunions every sunday. Who would ever want to leave this all behind?

In the summer of 2013, my mom urged me to attend a summer program at Boston University. It would be my first time to travel alone, thousands of miles, to a place I've never even been to. I took the leap and said yes. When I first arrived I was worried as to whom I would room with, since I've never shared a room with anyone - not even my two younger brothers. But it turned out that he was from California; we got along easily and talked about the life there. I met people from all over the world - Mexico, Guatemala, Italy, India... - in my various classes. I could effortlessly make friends with them since we had so many commonalities, love for music, business-minded, even religion. Who knew, you and someone from the opposite side of the world could click?

A few days after settling in my grandmother unsurprisingly texted me, reminding not to forget to attend mass; Thankfully, I became great friends with a bunch of people one of them being Alvaro Castillo from Guatemala. We began talking about where we would go to mass on Sunday, so I wasn't alone. Not only did we go to mass but we found several others to join us. Even a new friend, a Buddhist, went with us to see what it was like. We were all sharing not only our new relationships but a joint curiosity as we learned more about each other and our backgrounds.

Perhaps I cannot fully say that my trip marked my transition from childhood to adulthood, but it did mark a point in my life when I became more aware. I realised other people had it worse than me, though some had it even better. I found that my newly nourished curiosity helped me to develop new questions about others and myself. I realized that, although initially fearful of travelling alone, I enjoyed the experience if finding my way, of becoming more independent. The experience left me looking more enticingly at the coming year after my high school graduation, when I'll be living away, in college, developing my responsibilities on my continuing journey to maturity.

Critique pls, common app essay, international student