ALC week3

ALC Day16~22, 8/15~21

Last week was the most terrible week, and this week, was the toughest week.

On one hand was because this week we had to finish almost all the whole paper, on the other hand, was because I got sick this week…

Reading all the articles that I found was very difficult to me. Because when I was searching those articles on the web, I just went through them very fast. But now, I need to read them all the sentences and all the words, otherwise I cannot do the paraphrase.

The other difficult thing is to do the survey. I originally thought that doing the survey should be very easy. But after I decided the survey question, I found that I can only do the survey to students. Surprisingly, all the ALC students did their survey all at the same time. Therefore, lots of the students in Stanford had done the survey for two times even three times more. So it was more difficult to me to find interviewees for me to do the survey. To solve the problem, I went to Palo Alto to do my survey. Unexpectedly, it was more difficult for me to find a student for helping me to do the survey in Palo Alto than in the campus. As a result, it took me almost three days for me to collect 30 samples.

And the most terrible things are the rough draft and the final paper. All the Saturday and Sunday, I was doing my paper. It was maybe only less than 5 hours for me to sleep in the weekend. After all, I finally finished my paper at 7 o’clock in the Monday morning. What a touch week…Oh my goodness.

ALC week2

ALC week2

ALC Day9~15, 8/8~14

This week was a miserable week, because my computer was broken in this week!!

It was so inconvenient to me because I have to borrow computers from other classmates or go to library. It was originally not enough time for me to do the homework, now it was more difficult to me to finish them.

And this week, every day is similar day, the same time getting up, same time going to breakfast, same time going to class, same time lunch & dinner, and endless homework. In EC class, I learned a lot from speaking and listening, but in TD class, it was very tough about the research paper…

From this week, there were three speeches spoken by coordinators, for teaching us how to present in the final presentation. I think the meaning to this activity is good, but because it was mandatory and the speech was just after the lunch, every time I felt very sleepy in the speech. Therefore I think it is a little waste of time and delay my schedule…

On Tuesday, nothing happened. Everyone went to the baseball game, but I can just stay at dorm to do my homework.

On Wednesday, there was a speech about sexual inequity. Everyone thought this topic is not so interesting, and the speaker spoke too fast and there were too many professional words on slides, so the feedback was not so good.

On Thursday, I attended a soccer game. Our team lost tragically because there was only one of our members can play soccer better. Therefore, I regret a little bit to attend the game.

To sum up, except for the Taiwanese night on Friday, this week was totally a terrible week…

ALC Day7, 8/06, Sat

Today is a very special day. We went to San Francisco with the coordinators all day.

Today is the first weekend since I came to America. We took CalTrain from Palo Alto to San Francisco. The CalTrain is very surprising me that there is no two-floor train in Taiwan.

Our first site was de Young museum. The museum’s tower was very impressive me. On the tower, you can see everything in San Francisco. And streets in San Francisco are so organized that I cannot believe what I saw. They were just like paintings. How can be a city so organized! It was so unrealistic.

The next site was Haight Street near Golden Gate Park. There are so many special clothing stores. The second-handed shops there are much cheaper than other places, but there are still full of great stuffs. At the end of Haight Street, there is the Buena Vista Park. After a long time shopping, it was so great to take a rest on the grass ground. How relaxed!

The third site was Pier39. The sour bread soup was so surprising to me because I have never eaten sour bread before. It’s just like the bread you forgot on the table for about couple of weeks! Although I don’t like sour bread, it is interesting.

The last site is Union Square. A shopping heaven to some shopping-holics! There are lots of brand shops there! But after seeing the price, it’s still scared of me…

It was a pity that I didn’t go to Golden Gate Bridge and China Town. Next time I go to San Francisco, those two sites I must go!!

ALC Day6, 8/05, Fri

On Friday, there was the first time presentation in Stanford. Although there was only two minutes for us to present, the speech was about only the taboo, there was not so much interest facts I could say. Therefore, it was a little difficult to me to say many things up to two minutes.

In the afternoon, we were welcome for the waseda university students. And we played lots of interesting tempo games until 5 o’clock. It reminded me of the first day we arrived here, everyone was very enthusiastic to us.

At night, I walked to Palo Alto for a tour, just beside the entrance of Stanford. It is very similar with NTU, just a night market beside the entrance. Consequently, Palo Alto reminds me of my home. But the difference the distance to the entrance of Stanford is three times longer than NTU. So it is very tired for me to walk to Palo Alto.

In Palo Alto, there are lot of different kind of stores, such as Chinese dessert, cheese cake, Japanese sushi, theater, and lots of clothes. But the price there is too expensive, only rich people can live in Palo Alto. At first, we just walked down the street to see whether there is some interesting shop. But the street is too long, however, the time is too short, finally, we gave up going around in the streets. After walking a lot, we find a coffee shop – starbucks, another store that reminded me of Taiwan!! Finally, each of us bought a cup of coffee and then go back to Stanford.

ALC Day5, 8/04, Thu

Things I can write in my journal seem to be fewer and fewer. Everyday’s life from Monday to Friday seems to be almost the same, 7 o’ clock getting up, 8 o’ clock going to breakfast, 8:30 going for the class, 12 o’ clock for lunch, and the other time for homework. Everyday’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner are the same: Eggs, fried potatoes, and cereals in breakfast; rice, pasta, hamburger, hotdog, and French Fries in lunch and dinner. There is almost nothing different in the dining hall. Therefore, if I have a chance to go out to eat, I will definitely go out with my friends!

Until today, I knew that we had to finish the paper in only three weeks! Other classes teaching about the research paper need for at least half of year!! How can we finish a paper in three weeks? No wonder I have to do the homework all day every day…

In the afternoon, there was a very special experience, finding an American and doing an interview. The interview was about the American taboo, and we had to ask the interviewee how they think about some taboos when talking with strangers and friends. It was very lucky to me that I encountered a very kind woman who is a teacher in Stanford.

In the following weeks, it seems that there will be all the similar lives in America and do the homework every day. How is a tough life in section5!

ALC Day4, 8/03, Wed

The second day of class, it was actually almost the same pattern, chatting in EC class and learning hard research paper in TD class. In EC class, it is very hard to me to find an interviewee because it needs lots of bravery, even if in Taiwan… And in TD class, Li-fen told us to read 13 pages article yesterday, but only talked about them a little today… The article took me about over 3 hours yesterday!!

Wednesday is a special day. EC class and TD class are only one hour, and we have a boring speech before lunch and a discussion class afternoon. The topic of today’s speech was about social stratification. I learned that a rich dad is so important otherwise you have only few chances to go to upper class. But the most troublesome thing is that we will have a quiz the day after speech, so sad…

In the discussion class after lunch, we play the monopoly to experience how hard for a lower class to catch up with an upper class. So it tells us again how a rich dad is important.

At about 2 to 3 o’ clock, I went to Cantor Arts Center in Stanford. It was so surprising to me that besides the shopping center, there is even a museum in the campus!

Tonight, I slept very early. I don’t know why I was so tired. I think I should take a nap every afternoon. Otherwise I will fall asleep every night…

ALC Day3, 8/02, Tue

This morning’s class is my first Effective Communication Class and Topic Development Class. I think the EC class is more fun because we can chat a lot in class. However, the TD class is much tougher. The first homework today is to read two long articles about 13 pages. And at that time, I totally didn’t know that I will spend almost all my time after class in the TD class’s homework and have no time to write journals…

After lunch, here came the landmark tour in Stanford campus. Stanford campus is too much bigger than NTU campus so that I walked very tired. And buildings in campus are too similar that I cannot know where I am. I think Stanford campus is very unfriendly to visitors or freshmen here.

At night, we came to Stanford Shopping Center. It is very surprising to me that they have a shopping mall in campus! It is just a campus!! I cannot imagine that if there were a shopping mall in NTU. The price of restaurants in shopping center is almost $10 to $15 every meal. I think that’s why American restaurants in Taiwan are considered very expensive… Same price in Taiwan, you can eat to full in a luxury restaurants. Finally, I found a McDonald. It is the cheapest restaurant in the shopping center but it’s still two times more expensive than Taiwan! Nonetheless, the size of the hamburger is the same as Taiwan’s. I’m curious about how can Americans feel full after eating in McDonald?

ALC Day2, 8/01, part2

After the dorm tour, it was the exciting placement test!

Before the placement test, some professors called us to do the interview. I don’t know whether the interview is related to the placement test. The professor who interviewed me asked me questions about family and university. But actually I don’t know how to reply because my life is very ordinary…

And then, here came to the disastrous placement test.

I was continually thinking about whether I should be serious to the test because I don’t want to be under too much pressure and have one happy month.

Finally, I decided to try seriously just a little bit. I originally thought I would be placed to seciton3 or section4, but finally I’m placed to section5. That is so surprising to me!

I can only answer about 50% to 60% questions in the test. How come could I go to section5…

There must be many students hide their actual strength!

Therefore, I started to think that whether I would have a painful month…

After lunch, students who didn’t set up their internet yesterday went to library to fight with it.

I spent lots of time setting up the internet yesterday, but it is surprising that I can only connect to WIFI but cable.

Stanford’s annoying internet and my strange computer made me give up for the cable connection. It spends 15 minutes every time if we change the settings. Therefore the internet settings made me to spend all my afternoon to deal with the connecting problem…

ALC Day2, 8/01, part1

I experienced too many things today.

8 o’clock in the morning, I ate the first breakfast in Stanford.

There are so many people in the restaurant so that I have to wait for couples of minutes to get the food.

In addition, because the restaurant here is kind of a buffet, so I have to wait every line for a long time. That extremely wastes me lots of time!!

But I was curious about why people in my group can always get the food very soon…

The other thing about the restaurant is that they close the restaurant’s door on time very precisely: 8:30 in morning, 1:00 at noon, and 6:30 at night. I think part of the reason why people in here waste food very much because the open time of the restaurant is too short so that they don’t have enough time to finish the food or they have to get lots of food at first so that they will have enough food to eat before restaurant close.

And no wonder the restaurant is an American style restaurant; every meal has hamburger, French fries, and pizza. Except for breakfast, I think calories in the food are very high. I cannot imagine how heavy I will become after one month American food…

After breakfast, there was the dorm tour in Wilbur Hall. I like the shower room in the dorm. First, the room is wet separated. There is a curtain in every room so that water will not splash out to my clothes. And the laundry room is near our dorm so it is very convenient for us to wash our clothes. To sum up, our dorm is very wonderful to me.

ALC Day1, 7/31, Sun

After fooling around for one month in the summer vacation, I started for something meaningful - the ALC program at the Stanford University.

But the first day on the plane, it was very boring because the traveling time was too long, and the movies presented by the airline were not very popular. So I didn't  know what to do on the plane. I thought I liked to take the plane when I was only about ten years old. But now I think travel by the plane is so boring and the seats on the plane are so small.

It took about 11 hours to go to San Francisco. When we arrived the dormitory, it was about 11’o clock at night. And then I just studied how to set up the internet immediately. I think the Stanford internet is too complicated that I took a long time to set it up. It makes me remind of the internet in NTU that you only have to enter the account number and passwords then you can access the internet.

In the first day I was in America, I think I said the most English that I have ever said in the past 20 years. And I think Americans and Japanese are both easy to get along with. But my vocabularies are too less, so it is difficult to me to express myself clearly. And I’m afraid that my speed of talking is too fast or others speed is too fast so that we cannot communicate with each other.

After all, I hope I can have a wonderful month.