Author Archives: Suiru Lei

Study Group portfolio presentation

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Last Thursday, I attended the portfolio presentation, which is one of the requirements in order to matriculate into James Madison University from Study Group. All of my classmates were there. We all dressed up formally, hoping to look professional.

In order to make it look organized, I prepared my presentation trifold simply, just some pictures and some basic information of mine; something about the past, present and my goal in the future. I think an attention-catching trifold is essential, but more focus should be put on my speech and communication with audiences.

With everything ready, I started my day by going to a class, which is two hours ahead of the presentation. Then I hurried back to warren hall, where we would have presentation, with all my classmates from east campus. The presentation started at 1:30pm. At first, without any ideas who would come, I was a little bit nervous. But then time flied. Friends came and supported me; other International Study Center students, mostly new students, visited; and, of course, some professors came to grade our presentations. The whole presentation went very well. I presented my portfolio to professors and staff from Study Group as well as did some chatting with friends who I had not seen for quite a while. Also, I got to know some new friends and professors. It was a great experience.

After that, I hurried to an economic exam. Yes, this is college life, busy but fulfilled. Cannot believe my freshman year is getting over. Even though I cannot wait to go back home for summer vacation, I do not want to get through my freshman year. I can see myself missing it already……

Farewell party

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I can not believe it is almost the end of my Freshman year, it has been so fast! And it is so sad that since my class is graduating this semester, one of my good friends Riho is going back home.

On Friday night, I went to a farewell party for Riho, who is now in Study Group as an one year exchange student from Japan. Spending almost a whole year with her in JMU, I found it so sad that I will not see her next school year in Harrisonburg. She is such a nice friend. She is always polite, generous and thoughtful. We all love her so much. I remember that she was one of the first friends that I met when I was picked up from the hotel by International Study Center staff. And I am so glad that I was assigned into the 2 semesters program with her. With the same schedule, we always have lunches and dinners together, which is so much fun. We always go to D-hall, which is buffet kind of dinning hall that close to most of our classes location. Every time we go to D-hall, the very first thing that we check is whether it has cheesecake or not. Both me and Riho are very obsessed of cheesecake! So our diet plans are always ruined by cheesecakes. Besides that, we also share lots of our experiences. We talked about things from school to life back home. We even planed trips to visit each others in the future. I, just like my other classmates, love Riho.

Before the party, we took some videos individually and secretly, then combined them into one video. On the party, we showed it to Riho and she could not help crying! It is such a touchy moment when all of us hugged together and said something from our heart. Most of us have tears in eyes, trying so hard not letting them out. It is always sad to be apart. But it is amazing that I get to know such a great person and grow with her! … I miss Riho already……

Nobel Peace Prize winner’s inspiring speech

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This Saturday morning, I went to the International Student Leadership Conference, which was held by Office of International Programs of James Madison University. Within the conference, a keynote speech was given by Leymah Roberta Gbowee. She is a Liberian peace activist. Leading the woman’s peace movement, Leymah sought peace in a mild way. She gathered women praying and singing in a fish market, protesting, and sieging some men in a hotel. With the the movement she leads, Liberia elected their first female president, who is also the first female African president, in 2005 after the dictator Charles Taylor resigned from the office. And in 2011, she won the Nobel Peace Prize, which she had never dream of before.

 

After watching her bibliography movie “Pray the Devil Back to hell”, I am so impressed how brave and motivated she is. She said at first, she got angry, then she followed her passion and did it selflessly. It seems to be some simple steps of achieving goals. But it actually is so hard to finish.

I got mad of myself sometimes, but never did anything to it. I set up some rules and schedules for myself and sticked it on the wall in my dorm, but they just become some other decorating part of the wallpaper. Also, Leymah mentioned that selfless was the keyword to be a leader. She put her fellows first, actually she called them her “family”. It is definitely one of the the greatest but hardest personalities. And she said that the different between she and Charles Taylor was either being selfless to work with the fellows or being selfish to lead them toward for your own benefits.

I know it is extremely hard to do so, but Leymah has been doing great job on that! It is so amazing of her to accomplish all those so well. And I do believe that she has come along with a lot of difficulties that I could never image, so I have no reasons not to work through some hardness and make some changes. I am so glad that I attend her speech. It is such an inspiration that she gave. Thanks to the Office of International Programs at James Madison University for bringing up such a great program.

Seeing the doctor in America

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For the last couple days, I have been suffering from toothache. It is the first time that I have such a serious toothache since I came to United States. However, from that I learned the medical system is quite different from where I am from, China.

I have very bad toothache on my left-side gum since last week. Sometimes, I could not even fully open my mouth. As I remember, I do not have these kind of toothache before. So I am quite worry about what exactly is going on with me. So I schedule an appointment with the doctor of James Madison University Health Center on Monday. Finally, I figure out that it is my coming-out wisdom tooth that causes an infection, which has been bringing me pain not only on my gum but also my throat. I thought I would get some medicine instantly and my pain would be released, but I did not; I got a prescription instead. I got confused. In my home country, if I am sick and I go to the hospital. I get in line to see the doctor first, then I can get the prescription from the doctor before I head to the medicine department, which is within the hospital. But in here, the doctor pointed me to get some medicine in pharmacy with her prescription, which is totally different from what I have experienced before. Then as directed by the doctor, I went to CVS convenience store and got some medicine there.

For me personally, I prefer how it works in my home country. Maybe it is because I am accustomed to it, but I think it is more convenience. Because I will not see a doctor if it is not very serious problem. And I would like to have pills as soon as possible after that, instead of heading to other places, especially I have no car, which is very important in a college town like Harrisonburg.

Spring break in Los Angeles

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Finally, Spring Break is here. I could not wait to see one of my best friends, who went to school in California. Since my regular classes ends at Thursday, I booked my flight at 12pm on Friday. I set off with my friend Jelly Zhou, whose flight was on 9am. However, our plan was a little messed up. We had a little party the night right before the flight, because some of us was going to New York, while some of us was going to California for Spring Break. The party went so late and well that Jelly and I could not hear our alarm clock at all. And by the time we got up it was 7 already. Jelly totally missed her flight, but luckily she caught up with the one later on that with seats available.

After an approximately six hours flight, I got to Los Angeles at around 7pm. When I first stepped out of the airport, I immediately felt the summer. I had been waiting for summer for so long. It was so cold in James Madison University, Harrisonburg and here in Los Angeles, I welcomed my summer, 2012, which was extremely excited.

This trip, I came to visit my friend, Ariel, who I met and got close to when I was in American high school. I was so looking forward to see her. She knows me so well that she brought me to karaoke the night I landed in LA. The Asian karaoke is totally different from that of American. It is for a group of people, who stay in a private room, to sing, which means we will not sing in front of strangers. It was the best welcome I have ever had. I enjoyed it so much. Ariel is such a attentive person that she brought me to the best shopping place in town, since I once complained about how bad shopping life was in Harrisonburg. We spent the whole night in the shopping mall. And I brought so many things, from shirts to socks. Perhaps it was Saturday night, it was so crowed that sometimes it was hard to get serviced. In here, I feel much more that I am in America, because there are all different kinds of people. I could even hear people walk by speaking Chinese, which is so different from my college.

On Sunday, I pretty much stayed at my friend’s apartment. We went to a Japanese supermarket for some food after eating sushi. On the way there, we went to a little store for bubble tea. It is flavored milk tea with some black bubbles. Bubble tea is very popular among asian teenagers. The only time I had it since college was during the Lantern Festival Dinner, which was hosted by Chinese Students and Scholars Association. And this time is the best ever! It tastes the same as that back home. That night, Ariel cooked some really good authentic Chinese food. She was not good at cooking at all. Once she even burned a hamburger while microwaving it. But now, she is like a whole different person. I suddenly realize that sometimes we need to give ourselves some push to discover our potential. She did not find out she was such a good cook until she lived alone in an apartment. Hopefully, I will do good in my apartment life next school year.

Today, I visited University of California, Los Angeles. It is such a huge school. By just walking by the campus, I did not have a chance to know it better. But I am sure it is an entirely different experience to be a student in UCLA.

Now, still I am in California. I do not have my trip plan fully, because I want to relax from school work and enjoy this spring break. And it is perfect to do so in this warm, comfy weather.

Chinese New Year in the USA

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I spent my New Year Eve with a group of thirty in an apartment of one of them. All of them were the same school year with me. Even though all of us are Chinese, we were from different part of China, spreading out from northest to southest.

We cooked some traditional Chinese food, such as fried meat and potato, shrimp and noodles and spicy Chinese cabbage.  Actually, I was not part of the cooking group. By the time I got there, the food was ready already. It was perfect timing, but I sort of got complaining doing nothing so I washed dishes afterward. Anyway, we found out that the food we cooked was totally not enough for our huge group. So we ended up having Chinese food deliver, such as MaPo tofu, sweet and sour chicken and so on, which is really good as Americanize Chinese food. We were like fighting for the food because the food was so good and we were all very hungry.

 After I was done with all the cleaning, I joined the game group. We called it Pirate Ship, in which we took turn to say a word of a sentence. And by pointing at the next person, the next person needed to do certain movement along with the word they needed to say. Each part had a different movement and the people next to the one who said the last part of the sentence needed to do certain movement as well. It was so funny to see people mess up with their part and sometimes when people just have no concerning about how ridiculous their movement looked, because if they lost, punishment would come up.

After the game, we went to a Vietnamese guy’s apartment for counting down. By the way, I didn’t realize that Vietnam is one of those countries which celebrate Lunar New Year, too. We were all so happy. We counted down out loud; we wished each other the best things; we gave each other big hug. It was so many fun.

We went back to our dorms and apartments pretty early because most of us needed to skype with our families either at that night or early in the next morning. It’s the biggest festival around the whole year in China, when families will gather together regardless where they are. For me, it is hard to be away. I feel bad that as the only child, I absented for this important occasion. However, I wish them the best. And I am so glad that I greeted my new year with my good friends here in Harrisonburg. I wish them the best year in James Madison University as well.

I am so very ready for school

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It is the second day of my second semester here in James Madison University. I have never felt this excited for school before. I have never imagined I would be this excited, either. By the end of my first semester, I was just dying to leave the town and seek something different to do. So I did, I spent my whole break in Washington D.C, visiting those famous attractions. And I was so get ready to be back to school by the end of the break. Even though it was stressed to pack all my stuff and get in the metro to catch the home ride bus, I’ve never felt this eager to get back to my dorm, Rockingham. It is a two-floored co-ed dorm, which used to be a hotel. There are four sections of it and I am in the B section. I think international and transfer students are mainly the residents. I used to complain that it is sort of old, out of campus and not fancy enough like others, but now I am like, finally home! My little sweet warm home. I am so happy to be back HOME, JMU! I feel safe and peace in here. And I realize that rather than notice this important feeling I had and appreciate it, I was focus on those stupid material standards, which is very immature. Maybe, it was because I was too greedy to notice what I had. So, here is one of my goal for 2012: appreciate what I have already.

For the first day of school, I was all exhausted, because I didn’t get back until Sunday and did all those packing and unpacking. However, I was absolutely energetic as well. It felt like I drunk couple cups of coffee after being awake for a whole night. My body felt really tired. I could literally fall asleep once my head hit the pillow but my brain was in extreme excitement, greeting with friends, talking, laughing. I guessed JMU was my coffee, my stimulus. James Madison University covered in snow!It gave me those endless energy and positive feeling. However, sometimes my smiles was sort of forced, I promised, it was just because of the cold weather. It was freezing here. My hometown never had snow, but here in JMU, it’s snowing out there now! Actually, I just got one of my early class canceled this morning because of the snow weather. I think this is the best thing about cold weather!

I am back at my beloved JMU! And I am so glad my semester started so well!