The Holidays Are Approaching!

The Holidays Are Approaching!

    Growing up as an American, I was always grateful for the fact that we got to celebrate such awesome holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and ESPECIALLY Halloween. As we get older though, the value and meanings of these holidays change. For instance, when I was a kid I used to love celebrating Thanksgiving because that meant a few days off of school, and all of the bacon-wrapped green beans and ham with pineapples I wanted! Now Thanksgiving means a few days off to spend time with the family. We all can take time out of our crazy busy lives to just enjoy each other’s company.

   Christmas used to mean a day of the year that I got all new toys and clothes (and quite possibly over-fill myself with another huge feast). Now I worry about making sure my little one gets all that she wants for it. I look forward to hearing the same corny jokes from an uncle or being attacked by the little kids. I look forward to feeling like a family.

   Out of all of the holidays though, my favorite by far is Halloween! As a child it was always fun, because Halloween meant that I got to dress up, wear my costume to school, and stay up late so I could roam the streets collecting candy. For most people, this is the holiday that they “grow out of.” They retire the old costumes and just sit at home passing out candy to the new rush of trick-or-treaters. For me though, it has been quite the opposite!

   When I was in high school, I began volunteering at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club Haunted Warehouse. Back then, I worked as an actress in various horror scenes to scare people. I was also assisting in doing the special effects makeup on the volunteers. The next year, I started being a makeup artist, as well as being an actress or tour guide through the haunted house. Volunteering each year with all of these people to help raise money for the Boy’s and Girl’s Club has turned Halloween into a much more special holiday. I love the fact that even though all of the volunteers come from different lives as teachers, students, construction workers, coaches, etc. we can all come together and be whoever we want to be! One day I’m a nurse, the next I’m a clown. It’s almost as though it has turned into self-expression. I absolutely love doing the makeup for everyone, as well. I would post pictures, but I wouldn’t want to scare any of the readers away. ;)

   So this is how holidays have changed for me between then and now. I love all of these just as much as I did when I was a child.. just in a different way. How have the holidays changed for you?

'We are not in Kansas anymore"

"We must be over the rainbow!" Well, not quite, but i'm not in Spain anymore, I am in the USA. And it is pretty cool. Some days ago I was having dinner with some of my new friends here, and looking at my table I realized how lucky I am: girls from the US, Niger, Ivory Coast, Vietnam and Spain sharing their times, their views of the world, their experience at UAFS... their lives. It is a neat picture.

However, I can't help but to notice that some of the exchange students are almost always hanging out with people from their own countries and missing this multinational tables. I get it, though: one can get really homesick being thousands of miles away from home, and it feels good to be around neighbors and speak our own tongue. But, in my opinion, to make the most out of an international experience it is recommendable to mingle with both locals and people from other nationalities.

After all, the aim of an exchange program is to gain multicultural experience, and it is a great opportunity to improve exponentially our English skills. Let's be over the rainbow, guys!

Visit to Mansfield Elementary School

Last Friday the ACE students, Miss Jennifer Jennings from the College of Education and myself went to Mansfield Elementary school to talk, respectively, about Japan, England and Spain.

It was a really nice experience, seeing 8 to 10-year-old kids enthusiasm about other cultures. I wish I could have seen the other presentations to share my impressions with you, but the three of them happened simultaneously, so I can just speak about mine.

I structured my presentation like a TV show, in order to have the children participating as much as possible. I would ask questions about Spanish culture, and then explain the correct answer with pictures, like in this example:

I also left some minutes for them to ask questions, and they came up with pretty funny reactions. For example, when I told them we don't have country music or rodeos in Spain, one girl asked me: "How can you live there???" But they were contented with the idea of flamenco and the running of the bulls as plausible substitutes.

Southern Hospitality also manifested itself, this time when I told them we don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Spain. As soon as one of the little girls heard that, she invited me over to her Thanksgiving Dinner, claiming that you cannot come to the US and miss that celebration.

A lot of their questions were translation questions. "How do you say dog in Spanish?" and "How do you say my name in Spanish?" were the most common questions, but they came up with really interesting terms, such as world, friend, thank you (mundo, amigo, gracias). 

Also, I was surprised that many of them knew the numbers from 1 to 10 (uno, dos tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez) and were already familiar with some cultural stereotypes such as the bullfighting or the sevillanas dancing. 

To sum up, I really enjoyed all the curiosity and cuteness elementary students give off. And all the hugs! i would do it again in a heartbeat :)

The importance of a rainbow

A couple of days ago, in my way to class I saw a double rainbow in the sky. I thought "Oh, man, I don't have my camera with me and I have to go all the way up to the third floor to get it... bah! I don't feel like it." But then I looked at the sky again and realized this view was worth a few steps, for it would dissipate in some minutes forevermore. Now I can show you this wonderful image thanks to that second thought.

But, what is so important about having the picture of a rainbow? It is simple a symbol of us being here now. A rainbow is the "carpe diem" of the skies, seize the moment! 

I was an exchange student like you are in the United States three years ago, at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania. I was 22 when I first got there, I had one year ahead of me, everything was possible… but, you know what? At the end of the year I realized I hadn’t done half of the things I wanted to experience with the excuse of having so much time left. Some days I was just tired, others I was homesick, most of them I was shy. Mere pretexts!

I have been given another opportunity to come to the US and redeem myself, but that might not always be the case. You are here now; you have to take a picture of that rainbow.

Be responsible, be prudent, but do not be afraid of trying new things. Even if it is… 

Experience Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, everything that you can! Ride a mechanical bull! Travel around! Enjoy the present!

And when you are feeling down, remember, in order to have a rainbow in the sky… it has to rain sometimes.

----- o -----

Hace un par de días, de camino a clase vi un arcoíris doble. Pensé “Vaya, no tengo la cámara encima, y tengo que subir tres pisos para cogerla… ¡bah! No me apetece”. Pero entonces mire al cielo de nuevo  y me di cuenta de que ese espectáculo merecía el subir unos cuantos peldaños, dado que se disiparía para siempre en unos pocos minutos. Ahora os puedo mostrar esta maravillosa imagen, gracias a haber recapacitado.

Pero, ¿por qué es tan importante tener una foto de un arcoíris? Simplemente, porque es un símbolo de nuestra estancia aquí y ahora. Un arcoíris es el “carpe diem” de los cielos, ¡aprovecha el momento!

Como vosotros, yo fui una estudiante de intercambio hace tres años, en la Universidad de East Stroudsburg en Pensilvania. Tenía 22 años cuando llegue, tenía todo el curso por delante, todo era posible… pero, ¿sabéis que? Al final del curso me di cuenta de que no había hecho ni la mitad de cosas que me había propuesto, con la excusa de que me quedaba mucho tiempo. Algunos días porque estaba cansada, otros porque echaba de menos mi casa, la mayoría por timidez. ¡Meros pretextos!

Tengo la suerte de haber tenido otra oportunidad de venir a Estados Unidos y redimirme, pero ese no siempre será el caso. Estáis aquí ahora, tenéis que sacarle una foto a ese arcoíris.

Sé responsable, sé prudente, pero no tengas miedo de probar cosas nuevas. Incluso si se trata de… 

Caimán

Vive la experiencia de Halloween, Acción de Gracias, Navidad, ¡todo lo que puedas! ¡Móntate en un toro mecánico! ¡Viaja! ¡Disfruta del momento presente!

Y, cuando no te sientas bien, recuerda, para que haya un arcoíris en el cielo… tiene que llover de vez en cuando.

Another Graphic Design day

Today is October, 23, and my day started at 12:00 with some kind of feeling: angry, annoyed, tired and pleased. It's so confused, isn't it? I will give you some clues.

• 12:30 yesterday, came to 3D class in Ballman Spear, took the midterm exam. 

Imaging if you had to learn more 50 terms in art, 50 artists and their artworks to take the exam, how would you feel? Yesterday was my worst day because I stayed up really late, around 4 am, to study it. The exam was not bad, I just missed some questions. Felt a little pleased when I have it done. Then the instructor said:

       - You can make up your midterm! then :)

Wait, really, oh my god, nah, haizz. She is really annoying, isn't she. If i had known it in advance, I would not have stayed up late for studying.  

       My day was not end here, I came to subway, bought a one-foot-long Italian bread, ready for another crazy project that was given on Mon and dues on Wed. 

• Around 6 pm, came to Baldor, room 206, did the "Letter to Logo" project.

This project is to make 20 logos from two letters. That is not funny at all when you think about the due day. Here is the process of thoughts while I was doing it. 

• Made 10 logos, then looked at the time, it was almost 10 pm. "I need 10 more; I still have time" (talk to myself). 
• Made the 13rd logo, then looked the time, omg 12am, stared thinking offensively about it.
• Finished the15th logo, tired, run out of idea, no care, and "làm đại." I am sorry for using Vietnamese word, but there is no word that can describes as good as this one. It means doing something cursively without worrying about the result.
• Finished the19th logo, looked at the time, around 2 am, talked to myself, "just need one more, Phuc, let finish it."
• Finished the 20th logo. So pleased!!!!! don't care about the time, looked at these logos again and again.
• Around 3 am, left the room.

This is a normal day of a Graphic design student. Really, It is not a funny story, but pleasure will come at the end. I do appreciated these moment of time The more time you spent on your artwork, the better. It does not like the time you was in high school, when you have to study the subjects that you don't like. In college, you do it voluntarily. you choose the major because you love it, and you have the advantages; more importantly, you have a passion in it. Let these love, advantages and passion lead the way of your future.   

An ocean apart

The university education system in Spain is literally and figuratively an ocean apart from the one in the United States. For starters, mid-terms? What is a mid-term?

Usually in Spain you have two types of courses: one-semester courses, and one-year courses. School year starts at the end of September and, although you may have papers and presentations during some courses, normally classes consist only on lectures given by the professor. Nine months of long talks during which students take notes, that is pretty much it. Then, if you had a one-semester course, you will take an exam on all those notes in December or January, and for one-year courses you'll take also just one exam in May or June. That's right:

Aaaaall of the notes you took, they will be all tested in a sole huge exam for each course. Usually you take five or six courses a semester, and all their five or six exams will be packed in a couple of weeks.

You have two opportunities to take those exams, and if you fail, you have to retake the course. And it is easy to fail. First, because it is too much information, and it can be in any of the test formats: multiple-choice (where they take points out if you have answers wrong), short answers, long essay questions... anything. Secondly, because without quizzes, smaller tests and mid-terms, it is really easy to procrastinate. You think you have time until finals, and then...

We have international students from Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Brazil, etc. How is the college educational system in your countries? I think it is really interesting to figure out all the differences :)

My Schedule in UAFS

When I was a high school student in Japan, I had class from 8:00 to until 16:00. Also, I did not have to move a lot from my home room class. I had many friends that have exactly same schedule as me. However, in college everything was different.

It was difficult for me to understand the system of college. The most difficult thing for me to understand was my schedule. First of all, I have to take at least 12 credits to be a full time student. I can choose whatever classes I want but there are requirements for the major. For example, I am a Business Administration major. I have to complete a minimum of 45 credit hours, earn a GPA of 2.50 or better overall and a grade of "C" or better in all COB (College of Business) courses and complete 9 required courses. I must do these things before my junior year to enter College of Business. Also, I cannot take any upper-level business courses before finishing these things. Like this, each student have their own schedules and have to manage their schedule by their selves.

I took 6 courses for a total of 16 credits in this semester. Moreover, I took two 8 weeks courses and four 16 weeks courses. So my first 8 weeks' schedule looked like this.

8/19/2013-10/11/2013
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:00	Composition I 9:00-9:50	Intermediate Algebra 9:30-10:45	Composition I 9:00-9:50	Intermediate Algebra 9:30-10:45	Composition I 9:00-9:50
10:00	Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50		Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50		Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50
11:00	Critical Thinking and Reading 11:00-11:50	Critical Thinking and Reading 11:00-12:15	Critical Thinking and Reading 11:00-11:50	Critical Thinking and Reading 11:00-12:15	Critical Thinking and Reading 11:00-11:50
12:00
13:00
14:00		Introduction to Speech Communication 14:00-15:15		Introduction to Speech Communication 14:00-15:15
15:00
16:00		Planning for Success 16:00:16:50		Planning for Success 16:00:16:50
17:00

After 8 weeks, my schedule changed. This was little bit confusing for me because we in high school we never had schedule change in middle of the semester. However, it changed and now it looks like this.

10/14/2013-12/3/2013
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
9:00	Composition I 9:00-9:50	Intermediate Algebra 9:30-10:45	Composition I 9:00-9:50	Intermediate Algebra 9:30-10:45	Composition I 9:00-9:50
10:00	Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50		Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50		Music Appreciation 10:00-10:50
11:00		Internship at International Office 11:00-14:00		SGA Office Hour 11:30-12:30
12:00
13:00
14:00		Introduction to Speech Communication 14:00-15:15		Introduction to Speech Communication 14:00-15:15
15:00
16:00	SGA Meeting 16:30-17:30
17:00

There are many free time. I have to manage my schedule by myself and it is not easy thing to do. I learned how important it is to manage my schedule.

TALES BY PICTURES

It is a common saying that a thousand words could be said from just a picture. An example is the picture above which could be taken as a random picture taken after a volleyball or basketball game. It could also be taken as a group of tourist who came to see the largest statue of a leaping lion in the world and I bet there are a whole lot of other stories that can be fabricated but this picture was taken during the unveiling of Numa.


Here are some pictures taken on campus tell me a story from a picture.

FAVORITE CAMPUS ACTIVITY

Since the beginning of the semester there have been a lot of fun activities and being a freshman, I can only select from a list of activities that occurred this semester such as 1,2,3.. *counting fingers* 11,12,13..*counting toes*. Well I give up, so many activities have taken place in such a short time such as the moonlight madness, howdy dance, casino night, bowling night e.t.c, but my favorite is the very first activity i experienced when i arrived. The very first social activity no freshman should ever miss, the one and only CUB CAMP.

Everybody liked the different camps dance, but everybody LOVED ORANGE CAMP DANCE
ORANGE CAMP IS THE BEST!!!!!

Mid term - amazing college experience!

Hello guys, my name is Jack. I am one of the bloggers for this UAFS international students' blog, but the thing that makes me different is I'm the most handsome one (\^^/). I was supposed to publish some posts the last few weeks but I didn't because of mid-term exam. Therefore, embrace yourself because you will see a lot of my posts in this coming up weeks. Since I have mentioned the exam topic, perhaps I will go ahead and show you what I think of the mid-term exams. Let's get going! :))

I found this on the internet, it seems like a good way to start the topic:

In America, and yes, America because I don't know about other countries, mid term is similar to second test or third test. It is a way to tell the students that half of the semester has already gone, they should stop "clubbing" and focus on studying to raise their grades up. Well, may be not all students go to club and fail class, but in general speaking, mid-term is pretty cool. It shows the students how they are doing, where they are at comparing to the class. 

This is how I usually react about test.

Exams are really fun, if you study for it. Of course I don't usually consider it as my priority, but you will have an exams sometimes in your life anyway. Therefore, I manage to find the best way to enjoy it, especially mid-term exams. I love when we study in group together, very effective and easy to understand. In my opinion, the best feeling is after you I finish the test. You all know what I'm talking about. :))   

On my frantic campus life

I like to stay busy. I get bored pretty easily, so I try to keep active by doing a number of different activities during the day. And here at UAFS it is something pretty easy to achieve.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, my busiest days, I wake up around 7, since I have class at 8. I take my shower, I check my social networks and e-mail (there is a seven hours difference with Spain, and I don't want to miss what my friends have been up to while I was sound asleep!) while I have breakfast, and off I go. Living on campus is really convenient, because I am a two-minute walk away from my classes :)

Then I usually go for another coffee, because I must confess I am a caffeine addict! Sometimes I stay at the Campus Center, sometimes I go to the library, and sometimes I go back to the apartment to prepare for my next class. I can either prepare a Power Point for my 12 o'clock Spanish course, where I am a teaching assistant, or read the assigned chapters of my Literature class at 1, where I go back to being a student.

After that I go grub a lite lunch (yes, lunch at 2 pm, remember I am from Spain!) and go to the international Relations Office. My job there consists on preparing presentations about Spain for different local institutions (high schools, elementary schools...), different international events or other Spanish courses at UAFS; writing for this blog; meeting with my students if they have questions or assignments I can help with; and my favorite part: planning the Spanish Language Table!

The Spanish Language Table takes place on Fridays at 2 pm, in Vines 227. We discuss different topics related to the Spanish pop-culture and traditions. It is really interesting to realize how different some aspects of our culture are, even when American TV and cinema are so spread in my country and make American culture look really familiar to us.

Typically, I go to the gym around 4:30. Well... ok, not typically, I just started going a week ago. But I intend to keep on with it! Afterwards, I take my shower and go for dinner.

Often, the university has some event such as a concert, a movie night, a festival, a game or a play. I try to go to as many activities as my schedule allows me. In this post you can read about some of these events.

I usually do my homework at night, because it is the time I can concentrate the most. I don't have just UAFS homework, but also my master's thesis from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in Spain. It is great to have the opportunity of writing it here, since it is about the translation of American TV shows. Finally, I go to bed around 11 pm. 

And that's how my days usually end: writing about my favorite TV shows after a day of hundreds of different activities. How cool is that?