在三十的前一天生病了,又凑巧是在美国.....很想家的说,不过好在我的HOST FAMILY非常NICE,还有我可爱的ROOM MATE,虽然这几天 没有去参加CAST的活动,但是能够随心所欲的睡上一天一夜,也是难得的.自从开始了一周一个城市的schedule,真的是明显感觉到lack of sleep,当然也是学到了很多很多东西的.很想念好朋友们,希望大家在新的一年里快乐吉祥,天天送福的金猪陪伴着.....

6^th -8^th  Jan ,2007

This is my first time to travel in the US. I am very excited to experience this program in the next half of the year. On the 6^th of Jan( Jan 6^th) I left for the US on UA888. The Flight is from beijing to San Francisco. I am lucky that during the whole journey I am not alone since Yulin is travelling with me. The most unforgettable thing that happened so far (has happened) is the airsickness due tothe cyclonic storm when we were flying over Japan. It is really much stronger than the forecast said. Therefore I vomited three times before we reached Denver. After a really long distance flight ,we successfully arrivedin San Francisco airport. We waited for about 1 hour to catch UA862 to Denver. As you know, there are no meals on flights in the US, so I ate my first American Lunch in the airport,(therefore I ate my …).  The restaurant’s name is Buger King; it’s sort of like M or KFC. (, sort of like M or KFC) Also, I saw the “Collegiate” which is a shop to sell Stanford and Berkley’s souvenirs…..

 

At 3:00pm.I arrived in Denver Airport which is one of the largest in US. It is divided into three parts, arranged from Concourse A-Concourse C. It seems fantastic that the airport will take the passengers to get their luggage by train . We had a little trouble finding our luggage. .We found the Up with People staff.(we met a staff member ) Well, I am so lucky that there was an American Guy who gave me a gift when I first arrived in the US.( coming is till in the flight, arrived means  have already in the place) . The gift was a baggage carrierJ,which saved me $3.00. It wasn’t much money value, but it meant much to me. I felt I was treated very kindly.(I felt that (the) American people are very friendly)

 

Then we took the shuttle bus to the Montbello recreation center ,to register and get to know each other. It was a fabulous time meeting all the new friends from 19 countries.

 

Denver is so beautiful, heavy snow and bright sunshine

 

Since then I started my new adventure.

 

At about/around 8:30pm.my host family picked me up, mother, father and a daughter age 12. They live in the suburb of Lonetree. In their home I will stay in the basement, which includes bedroom. ,bathroom , restroom and a recreation room (bar corner and TV).That night I had an excellent sleep and felt well rested.

 

On Sunday they took me to the “Target”, a chain supermarket, to buy prepaid-cards, phones and a pair of sun-glasses because the snow is too bright under the sun. Then they showed me around the downtown and the way I would use transportation every day(to school). They are very considerate. Later, they took me to watch a hockey game which was played by my host-father’s team. He is an amateur coach for some teenagers. This is my first time to watch a hockey game in the ice arena. I noticed that the game was held in “family sports center” which is for children and families to have fun. Here I must mention the dinner,  I am amazed that they cooked rice for me, also chicken and vegetables……

 

Jan 8^th was the first day of this program . In the morning my host-mother took me to the school, and joined our opening session .Everything went very well. Later we introduced ourselves one by one. Well, it is hard to remember all the names in a short time. Everyone seems to be friendlyJ. Then we played three games for fun; those were very relaxed and fun games.(interesting is something I learned a lot from it; funny ,sb makes others laugh) I am on “Home Team One” which consists of 11 people, a big family. After lunch they taught us about the US, and we wrote letters to ourselves, put them in envelopes and sealed them. We hope we can accomplish all these goals when the program finished.

The most challenging thing today was that I would take the bus and train to my home, but to my surprise it wasn’t that hard. I managed it fine.

On the 9^th, we just talked about stereotypes and did cross-culture training. Before I came here I didn’t even know that there was a country which is named The Netherlands Antilles. I really learnt many things about the other 18 countries from my castmates. In the afternoon was our performing time; we were dancing and singing .I did a good job and got complements from others. Cheers! We were separated into 8 groups; they were divided by girls and boys. We went to the auditorium and rotunda to test our(to be tested) dancing and singing. I was a bit nervous since I like dancing and I hoped I could be a lead dancer. I had no professional dancing background before I came here. During the whole audition I did my best to follow every step, but it was very hard for me to follow the action(behavior is very abstract) descriptions in English.(step up, turn, crossing, sasha ,side) Then we took a photo at the door of the rotunda, also it was my first time to see a squirrel on a tree. She is so cute. At about 3 o’clock, we kept going on our vocal audition. We learnt an English song which was very popular in UWP named “We’ll Be There”. It was my first time to sing an English song to the public. After all, this experience was not too bad, and Michael praised me a lot which was the biggest encouragement for me. I deeply felt that the American People are always encouraging each other. This may be only one sentence, one word ,or even just one hug.

 

Jan 10^th 2007, Culture Jam

See my blog. I really appreciated Ken ‘s coming. He is a banker, so he is always very busy working(at work). After our Culture Jam he said he enjoyed our show; that made me very happy.

 

Jan 11^th 2007,

“Experience learning Cycle”:I felt that the educational style in western countries is totally different from that in China. I didn’t want to tell which one is better. I just wanted to describe the real event in an objective perspective.

What: In the first step you should know what happens to you at the moment and asked yourself “did you know it well before you met it?” Then make a definition about it in your mind

So what: In the second step you should know how to solve the problem when you meet it again and find the truth from it.（并且从中找到一些规律）

Now what：In the last step you could find a creative way to solve this kind of thing(PROBLEM). You should know what and when this problem will occur again under the same situation.

 

During this activity there were two people sharing their experience in front of all of us. We got a piece of paper which had something written on it.

“learning contract worksheet”

I have signed some kinds of contracts with myself in my mind. Today I need to write them down  and see if they relate to our program in the next 6 months. It was hard for me to consider the goals very quickly in a short time. Due to that I have many goals to be accomplished. This paper helps me to know which goals are urgent and that I hope to accomplish. We need to set the goal for 3 months to 6months.

其实有的时候真的发现，人无远虑必有近忧这句话是那么的贴切。我很希望自己能够找到一个很理想的目标，给自己一个定位，这样就可以更清楚自己的人生，更清楚自己的价值。

 

Jan 12^th 2007,

I am so exhausted; I danced for about 5 hours. We had vocal rehearsal, it was really bad that I couldn’t memorize the lyrics. Since the other two girls were altos, I didn’t do a good job as a soprano. Anyway, I tried my best. Since it was freezing outside, my host family picked me up from my college. Then we went to the restaurant “Chili’s”. This restaurant consists of 2 parts, restaurant and bar. Today is awesome,  I was so excited about tonight’s NBA game, which was between the Denver NUGGETS and the Houston Rockets. I really appreciated my host family arranging this for me, since they knew there is a Chinese guy playing for the Rockets. It was a pity that Yao had an injury last month, but whatever everything is nice enough. IVERSON signed a contract with Denver before Christmas, therefore I enjoyed his play those two hours. It is my first time to experience the NBA live in an arena. The atmosphere was pretty cool there. When the scores were almost the same, the audience will shout “ de-fense” along with the TV. Tonight is amazingly cold, the atmosphere inside is so hot! There also was a man who wanted to take off all his clothes when the video focused on him. Eventually he was arrested by a policeman. At the half of the game( there are 4 periods)Ken and Carrie took me to buy Dippin Dots, which are a kind of ice-cream made of small balls. After entering your mouth it will melt together. I ate the mint and chocolate mixture which Deb think is the best choice.

 

 

 

Jan 13^th ,2007

Homesick

Today I planned to take part in the “pot luck”, but I got my period, it is really painful. Nevertheless I just stayed at home the whole day. I couldn’t help crying about my pain, I indeed missed my boyfriend so much…. I wished he was sitting beside me and I caould lie in his arms. I was determined to finish my final essay, consequently I was content with my work.. I realized that if a person lives abroad, the moment he is sick he would feel very homesick.

Film: “You, Me and Dupree”: find your inner-ness. Everyone should go beyond the good to be the great.其实原本没有想到这个无聊的电影可以给自己一个很强的震撼。每一部电影都是有它的内涵的。虽然这是一部小制作的电影。These years, there were some movies which cost over 3,000,000,000 RMBs, I have no idea how much did this movie cost, but compare to these twos movies ,I knew I learned a lot form the 前者. ( 美国的电影，一般是直接在有线电视频道预定的)

 

Jan 14^th 2007

Hairspray :

Youth group dinner：

We prepared dinner for the youth group at my host family’s church. They were the kids who are from the families that belong to this church. Every week two families provide and cook the meal for them. Then they will participate in the youth group program or go to other churches. I thought it was a good way to let the kids know each other very well, especially becasuse they can feel the love from every family.The family will feel their love not only belong to their own kids, but also belong to the world. I believe love makes the world go around.

I enjoyed the period while we were cooking for the others even though I didn’t know all of them before. This feeling was different from that you gave money to the beggars. Perhaps you paid much more attention to it? Well, don’t think it over, just do it! I realize maybe this is the core of the Christianity, Love each other.

                                                         

Jan 15^th .2007.

Today is a beautiful sunny day, the radiant sun looks like eager to melt everything….. the glare of the sun on the snow almost doesn’t allow us to see anything clearly. Originally we were to have a guest speaker on the topic of global citizenship. He was sick. I guessed it was because of the freezing cold. Therefore we altered our schedule from the speech to a vocal rehearsal. We learned all the songs. I was so sad that I wasn’t chosen to learn some of the special dances since the different style and understanding of the action. Anyway, I will be fine and there will be other things for me to do. As far as I am concerned, I like the “Hot topic” time after the vocals. We discussed what is a hot topic and another three topics in detail.

 

Jan 16^th ,2007

We had a brief introduction about the internship, assistance and advance team work. This  afternoon , we had the show costume fitting. I had a blue t-shirt and a long skirt. They are not too bad, but I was disappointed that I was not allowed to wear what I had prepared .

 

 Jan 17^th 2007

Today we learned something about culture dimension. It was very helpful to my research field. Even though my major is Southeast Asian Culture, I don’t understand what the culture is. It seems  too bad. Hopefully I will learn more from our cast. After the culture dimension speech which delivered by David (professor, from university of Colorado at Denver. )I realized something very important to meJ. Yesterday we played a game named Barnga. Firstly, we have 5 minutes to learn the rules at our table （we are divided into 8 groups, I am in the group 3）and practiced playing the game. I thought it was something like “shnegji”. After we practiced this game in our own table, the rule was taken away. The game started again, but only non-verbal communication was allowed. Eventually the tournament began and we started to keep the score.. The rule of the tournament is :

Game winner: the player taking the most tricks in the game (one “hand”).

  If a game is not complete when the round ends, the player winning the most tricks so far in that game wins that game.

Round winner: the player winning the most games in the Round. (ordinarily ,several games will be played during the round)

 Each round only lasts a few time. players will move nder this rule: the player who has won the most games during a Round moves up to the next highest numbered table. If there are more than four players at a table. The two players who have won the fewest games during a Round move down to the next lowest numbered table. The other players remain at the table. Winning players at the highest table remain at that table, as do losing players at the lowest table. Ties are resolved by alphabetical order.

From that game ,I think I learned something very important that I hadn’t thought of before. All of this will happen to me next month, or even next year and beyond.

I thought the people were dumb because they didn’t know the Ace was the highest one, also they thought I was dumb since they didn’t know which is the highest. At the beginning I felt so helpless, but something came to my mind that is “how to keep the games going on, the key point is going on the game, it doesn’t matter about the rules, really? You can’t expect someone to know what they don’t know especially if they learned it in another way…like in the real life. If we live in different cultures, it is hard for us to tell which is right or wrong.” For example, everyone thought the cleaning women from Venezuela was an idiot because she used a plastic grocery bag to replace the vacuum cleaner bag. She burned out the vacuum cleaners work....A bag is a bag, unless you understand that there are different bags for different jobs.”

Yes, understanding differences will happen during our program. We will go to different places, and live in different host families; we will interact with each other. Then we can tell difference between our own culture and theirs. Eventually I will know something about “what is the culture”. Also , prof. David taught us some theories, which are very important:

1.       In-Group Out group.

2.       ETIC & EMIC

3.       four- culture dimension:

Masculinity—Femininity

Individualism—Collectivism

Uncertainty Avoidance

Power Distance

4.       High- Low context communication

5.       three levels of culture; Basic /Primary. Secondary, Tertiary

 

18^th Jan ---regional learning

  Today is our first session of Regional learning .It is incredible to guess what happened to us… The sightseeing in Boulder is extremely beautiful. I was moved by the clear sky and pure Snowy Mountain. On the way from the college to Boulder, I was talking with Matt from Canada. We discussed something about the difference between our own countries and the US,our missions here and the goals in the future. Times goes by so fast or maybe because I was enjoying the conversation..

19^th Jan

These days I found something that made me uncomfortable. Yesterday when I was waiting for the light railway, a guy wearing a blue jacket came to me and asked me for some money for help. I felt strange. I wandered if he was in his fifties, has he got any children? I wandered if he is not  very poor or if he was looking for money for drugs. Also today a guy requesed my cell phone. To be honest, I felt uncomfortable in deed. I don’t know why I felt like this, but the feeling grew even stronger. Providing that I am in china now, I must be helpful to them, whereas I confused….

 

 

 

20^th

Today , the F line doesn’t work, it only works during the weekdays. A bit rush for me when I found there has no F line available. I phoned back to Deb, it was so sorry to interrupt her sleep. Then she helped me to figer out the right way. Fortunately I found a map at the station, and I took another line to the all lines’ connection station. Then I transfer to D line. Though I was late for school for about 15min, I felt very proud of my intelligence and maturity. I trust myself that I can overcome any difficulties with my brave heart.

 Rough blocking our show, not too bad, found much problems ,got many notes .but my shoes cannot work.. I need to buy a new pair because my shoes have a high and thin heal.

Tonight, Ken and Deb had a charity party ,they worn the formal suit and dress. They looks very match and pretty! I was alone at home since Carrie was doing her baby sitting. O, no, I am not alone, I have whim as my partner today.

 

21^st

Snowed again. I love snow very much before I came here, but now I really hope I can enjoy a sunny weekend. Otherwise, I wanna enjoy the warm sun here. But everything has two sides, I stayed at home, finished all my essays and home works for my university., which made me feel very comfortable.

 

22^nd

 

From today on, we have been in the busy prep week for our show. We need to do lots of rehearsal, and clear up all the questions. Of course, we couldn’t dance and sing in the whole week since we also need to learn the new things. The cast arranged a plenty of lessons whose topics are focus on the global culture.

Leaders’ round table discussion:

We invited 8 alumnus and the leader of NGO president, even a doctor who takes main responsible to HIV/AIDS. They had 10 minutes in each group I was interested in some questions as follows:

1.       the US national leadership program: this company duties on finding the outstanding leader in the middle school and high school. According to the activities they hold, assists the student’s leader to develop themselves very well. It touched me a lot. I can tell how deeply the US government and people pay attention to their younger generation. I wish one day I can help the younger generation in china.

2.       what do you think is the most important thing we will learn from UWP?

This answer is from an alumnus who traveled with UWP twice and had ever been the stuff here for 7 years. You know , times goes by quickly, during this 6months we have lots of things to learn, to do. he suggested us that you shouldn’t miss anything including the strange things for you. You only have one opportunity, probably during your whole life. Don’t refuse anything new, maybe you aren’t able to used to them .but remember to have a try. You will have a sweet memory and an unforgettable moment in your future life.

Today ,I was chosen to the Hip-Hop dace workshop, and we were kept learning the new dance from 6—9 o’clock. I was so excited to become the one of them .Originally speaking , hip-hop dance needs feeling and sense. As a Chinese , I must to pay much more attention to find the essence from it than the others. This time wasn’t for fun any more, I am the only Asian person who was chosen to dance in the whole cast. I represented the Asian people here, and I must try my best to be the proud of the Asian guys. This dance was a bit hard to learn because of quick steps. Either the stretch works. Today I nearly forgot, we have another activity, which was named Diversity activity. There is a line in the middle of the classroom. The educational staff asked us many questions; we just listened to the questions, considered them and make decisions by ourselves. If we judged it right, we would cross the line. At the beginning, the questions were very easy to answer, but later the questions became a bit more difficult. Such as gender roles. I knew someone is experiencing a very difficult situation even I couldn’t imagine before. I was thinking about one thing. I really need to understand the people a lot and even more.  

23^rd

Today we had a guest speaker, John Bulter. He did a lot volunteer works. But I was sorry to say that I was so tired since I danced too much last night, I nearly fell asleep during the video time. I hope I can keep touch with him and exchange our ideas about volunteer works. Especially do preparations and contributions to the 2008 Olympic Games.

24^th

World vision—The very first time community service

Today is my first time to do the professional community service. I choose the world vision. I love it so much, even though the works we did are the dirtiest and the most tiredness. But we had a lot of fun from it. The most important influence for me is we know how happiness we are. We must cherish all the things we own and appreciate all we have. Life is short , we should do more to the others , “ we’ll be there , even though the road is long”. See back to china, it is easy to tell we lack of community services from the younger generation. All of their time are donated to the scholl studies. Also during the day, I met a big problem, because I was in the group which cleaned up all the medical equipments into categories. To be honest I have no idea about the name of most of the equipments. It is hard to me to understand. I felt helpless since others can finish the work by themselves. At lunch time, I couldn’t help crying, and I told the feeling to Jonas, he explained a lot to make me feel better. I realize the strong support from him. Later, we continued to do our work, I start to know what is the team work, the first thing is you should engage yourself into the team. Do the work as much as you can. Rather than you do everything by yourself.

25^th

Culture shock, “ honey moon”—“crisis”—“adjustment”—“acceptable”

I am not agree to the end, because I thought it is unnecessary for us to accept all the things from another culture. We should keep the essence of our own and absorb the essence from the others . the most meaningful thing is to integrate them. Then you can be the global citizen.

26^th

Fishbowl…hehe, sounds very funny, today we learned a lot about how to be interviewed by the media. That’s right the media always like the conflict rather than harmonious. also they taught us some tricky.

27^th Jan

Global grab bag

We are divided into 8 groups, each group has a stuff, such as toy, rice…and so on. . and we express our feeling about the stuff which we have. Everyone has his own opinion. We can tell the difference about different culture.

Successful blocking w/ costume.

28^th Jan( pictures is the best speaker to my sightseeing, I don’t know how to describe the beauty of the garden….it moves me…)

Colorado Spring

Garden of God roads

Air force academy

U.S.A Olympic training center

Cooked a table of Chinese food

Today is my first time to cook for my host family. After the whole day tour ,everyone is tired and a bit hungry. I was looking forward to cooking a delicious meal to them . at the beginning I felt a bit nervous, I am afraid I can’t cook them very well. I told myself you can do the best. You have all the ingredients you want.

29th-31^st show prep week

We have a three long days for preparing our show. And we moved to another places named teikyo lotte university. as far ad I am concerned, this university is a church university. On the top of the building, there has a crossing . and also on the above of the gate, there is a  statue of  holymum maria. We spent three days there, most of our time is running blocking. Everyday is too tired to wrote my diary ,to be honest a bit boring.

1^st  Show day

It is an unforgettable night, we have all of our host families as our audiences. It is a big encouragement to us. We prepared the show for about 3 weeks. We really hope we can show our best to them, as the thanks to them. I saw Ken, Deb and Carrie during our show. I was so excited. In the whole show, we paid a lot to it, we were working hard, practicing again and again….! eventually we got it! We played an fabulous show to our host families. After the show, I couldn’t help crying in front of my host family, I know there is nothing more than saying thank you to them. The sole thing we need to do is using our action to thanks to them. Hope I can finish my school as quick as possible. Then I can find job, get a good salary ,treat them better than nowJ I met meg’s host family. They are so kind, and they told me 

 

2nd watch the video show

Be trained about the interview

Play our on road organization

 

3^rd

Shopping mall

Mexican restaurant

Carrie’s show

Watch movie “ step up”