Ayusa 國際愛優生文化交流協會

04/09/09-Annual board meeting of the museum

I was invited to the annual board meeting of Syracuse Historical Museum. The lady that invited me told me that they would have a very interesting presentation. I was there for receiving the honor of being a volunteer in the museum. The presentation was fun and exciting. The guy had a lot of old stuff with him.
He had a couple rifles, clothes, etc. He actually shot a couple shots with his old rifles. I was really fun.

When I went home, I saw this magazine lying on the table. I found an article that I thought was pretty good. It’s an article for volunteers:

Valuable is the work you do.
Outstanding is how you always come through.
Loyal, sincere and full of good cheer,
Untiring in your efforts throughout the year.
Notable are the contributions you make.
Trustworthy in every project you take.
Eager to reach every goal.
Effective in the way you fulfill your role.
Ready with a smile like a shining star,
Special and wonderful, that’s what you are.

04/17/09-The School Spring Concert     

The school’s spring concert was held at the school building this time, rather than the First Christian Church. The band didn’t perform because Mrs. Frazer thought the band wasn’t good enough to perform any of the songs. She had students did their instrumental solo since that’s what we have been practicing for Fine Arts Festival for a months. The school choir sang several songs. We used to have kids from Johnson, KS and another home schooler group in the concert. Neither of them came, so the concert was kind of short. I did my violin solo. I think that was the best time I have performed so far. It was raining and thundering outside. But the concert went well.

 04/21/09-Emergency Evacuation from the First Host Family

It has been around 8 months since I got to Syracuse, Kansas. So far my exchange student year has been wonderful. I’ve been giving speeches to groups in town, volunteering in several places, and so on. However, for the recent couple months, there’s one thing that bothers a lot-my host mother. She has been suffering a mental depression. She wouldn’t tell me about the reason why sometimes she got so upset, or I didn’t really try to find out. I didn’t ask about it for two reasons. First of all, it didn’t sound like I was involved. Second, I was concerning if that was too personal to ask.

She has been acting weird and being irritating by doing actions that don’t make much sense, and by using sarcastic language. We had had a couple discussions between us. At first, I was trying to improve the situation just between my host family and me. I didn’t bring it to AYUSA’s attention until a week before I left my host family. The reason I didn’t do it in this way was because: first, involving more people means more communication, and also mean more miscommunication. Second, I take that AYUSA would spend a month on this, by then, it would be even more difficult for me to stay in my original host family. For these two reasons, I decided that I wouldn’t get AYUSA involved in this until I am sure I don’t have the ability to work this out myself, and until the situation is crucial enough for AYUSA to react quickly and efficiently after I report the problem. Unfortunately, the situation didn’t significantly improve. So I talked to CR about the circumstances and the idea of changing the place to stay. I also talked to my principal about the idea of changing the place to stay for the next couple months. Amazingly, my principal told me that they already thought about that, and one of the teachers was willing to host me. The teacher is my teacher for Communication Arts class- Jay Hale. I called my CR and told her that I already found a place where I can stay, meanwhile, I told Charles about the situation.

On the 20th of April, my CR went to Mr. Hale’s house to have an interview with him. Mr. Hale told me to call my CR the next day at school. At the beginning, I thought I was just going to stay at Mr. Hale’s house for a little while. But my CR told me that AYUSA was trying to make the Hales a host family. Then, my CR talked to my host mother. She went very upset after the call. During the dinner, she exploded shouting, and yelling. She went furious, and talked about leaving the house. She even had a sack of apple right in front of my face as a gift, saying that she was just trying to be nice, and hope I will have a good time with the gift. This was an offensive action to me, and certainly off the limitation. It was surely unacceptable, and I knew I couldn’t stay there anymore. I have been trying to improve the situation as long as there’s still space, but once the limit was broken, I had to react immediately, and strongly. I called my CR right away, and told her the situation, meanwhile, requested to leave. I contacted my principal, asking for staying in his house and transportation to town with both RD and CR’s permission.
I cleared out my room in one and a half hour. I called it emergency evacuation.

I was glad that I could evacuate from there smoothly. My principle was: Try to improve if possible, react efficiently and firmly once the situation goes out of control.

 04/22/09-Clean the highway

My school is in a kind of State Highway Cleaning program. The goal is to keep Kansas highway clean.
The school adopted a section of highway close to the school building. What we do is picking up trashes along the highway on both sides of the pavement. We leave bags full of trashes beside the road, and the highway department will pick them up. Today was the first day doing this. The weather was really hot. The good part is that we had about five bags full of trashes. I was glad that the school is in this program. I think we will continue doing this to make Kansas clean.

     04/24/09-The Track MeetThe SCA host an annual track meet in Garden City. There were about 300 students participated this year. I was in the 100 meter dash, and long (broad) jump. I tried something new for me. I sign up 200 meter dash. I was also in the 400 meter relay because Mr. Gould wanted to have a school relay team. I went to Garden City with Mr. Gould’s two kids the night before. We stayed in their sister’s place. We didn’t have to get up early since we were already in Garden City. I don’t know if I placed in long jump, but I know that I got the first place in both 100 and 200 meter dash. The relay team got the second place. The day was intensely hot. It went all the way up to 90 degree. I was about to get burned. It was also a long day for me. I didn’t eat lunch till about 2 o’clock.      04/27/09- The Fine Art Festival

This activity was originally in March. But here were two delays both because of snow storms. The school has been preparing for it for nearly a month. I sang in the Syracuse Christian Academy choir. There were just about half as many students as they would usually have because of the changed date. We were the only choir that performed that day. The Yorks were late for 20 minutes, including Ryan. (Since e lives with the Yorks) Although they have the tendency to be late, this was a little bit off the limit. So I was one of the only two guys that sang. Quite impressive, the voice was nice. We had a beautiful bass throughout the performance. The instrumental solos and singing events were right after the choir. There were several little mistakes at the beginning, but it went through smoothly for the rest of the contest. The score system was unique. Performer would get a blue ribbon if he/she scored from 95 to 100, red ribbon for 89-94, and a white ribbon for 80-88. I performed Concerto in A minor- 1st movement with my violin. I got a blue ribbon, but I knew my skill needs lots of improvement, still. The festival ended significantly early because of the reduction of participants. Some of the SCA students went to lunch together after the festival. Nothing special to talk about, to me, it’s just a musical event.

04/30/09-The School’s Honor Roll Field Trip

This field trip was held for honoring the students that worked hard on school works. There were supposed to be three honor roll field trips. Because the school didn’t have time to arrange the trip at the end of the first semester, the school combined the second and the third honor roll field trip together. We went to Garden City. The first stop in the morning was the Sandsage Bison Range Wildlife Area. The students got on a trailer and the manager of the wildlife area gave us a tour. There are dears, buffalos, and some cows in that area. The only animal that we saw was buffalo. I think there are 66 buffalos in that protected area. It was kind of chilly, but the tour was very interesting for me. We went to the Garden City Zoo during the period between the first stop and lunch. We went a home school mom’s garden in the afternoon. She is exceptionally knowledgeable on gardening. I am not crazy about Gardening, so I didn’t really learn a lot. We will have an end of year field trip. I wonder where we will go.

12/2/08-Distribute the Syracuse Christian Academy’s (SCA) Newsletter

This would be the second newsletter for the academy. I sure worked hard on my articles. I was required to write at least two articles. The topics are SCA’s Band and SCA’s Christmas Program. I wrote another one for personal addition. It was about Taiwan’s aborigine-Ami. I met the requirement that my teacher gave me, and also met the requirement that I gave myself. I think the life here has been more and more interesting.

12/07/08-Weslyan Church Concert

The concert was on December 17th at Wesleyan Church, Johnson. I am not a formal member of the church band. But the director said that he thought it would be beautiful if they added violin into their songs. I was willing to help, so I took the violin position. In fact, I was a little surprised because I didn’t know the concert was on Sunday. I only got one chance to practice with the band before the concert.
It was kind of tired for me because I practiced a whole Saturday afternoon. However, that was the only way I could do to make sure I would be able to play with them on the next day. I also had a solo of my violin. It had been a little while since I played a solo next time, so I brought my paper music and iPod with me in order to guarantee the quality of the performance. Fortunately, it was better than I thought I would be. I tried my best to make sure the violin would come out smoothly and reasonably. Actually, the director thought that is came out pretty good with the violin. I think that indirectly prove that my practice was useful. Other parts of the concert also went out without any problem. The director told me that he was going to have a CD for the concert. Well, I have to say that I am looking forward the CD because that will be the first CD that has my violin in it. The other interesting thing is that I met another exchange student from Japan. We talked a little about how Taiwanese think about Japan and how Chinese think about Japan. I enjoyed the conversation. Hayden (the director’s son) took me to the basement to see the place that their band practices at. I was interesting in the electric guitar, so picked up one of them and tried to pretend like I am actually playing it. I think it was 『One Wild Night』 for me and it was a good experience.

              Tonight is the Christian Academy’s Christmas program. We really got a very nice program. Lots of people came and performances are successfully done. We also had several home school students joined the program. They also had performances and speeches. Ryan and I had a good talk with those home school students. I am sure we will invite them to our spring concert, too. And I heard something about having a basketball game with them in January. Anyway, we had a good program and everyone was happy with that. 12/23/08-The Taiwanese T-shirt I got the order of Taiwanese T-shirt from Garden City today. I was kind of exciting because I have been waiting for this moment for quite a while. I am going to sale it in Sherry’s shop, just for a little finance support. By the end of the program, I am going to give every student in the school a special Taiwanese T-shirt. (If I still have enough money to do that then.) Anyway, I am glad that I can finally start my business. I suppose that the following five months are going to be very busy. The Taiwanese Fair has to be successful. I am preparing a speech that will ask for supports for exchange student programs. I want people in town to know that exchange students have dreams and desires to achieve their goals. I will be proud as an exchange student and also as a Taiwanese. Since Ryan stays very close to me, I am going to ask if he wants to do this. I hope that he can make some Taiwanese desserts. I’ve already book the local fairground building for four days. There are going to be series of presentations about the Chinese New Year in January and February. (I hope I can make those presentations work because the timing is a little bit tight.) My goal of this year is to make it one of the most unforgettable periods of time in my life. The thing that I have to do now is to reach my goal.

U.S.A, the country of freedom, is where I spent my exchange student year with tons of experiences. I have been to several countries for study abroad programs, but I have never been away from home for this long.  I was hoping that I can go to a place on the west coast, or the east coast of the U.S. such as LA, NYC, etc. However, I ended up in Syracuse, KS. I still remember the first thought that I had when I saw Kansas on the plane was “What kind of trouble did I get myself into?” And the first thought I had when I knew there are only 16 students in my school was “I am so out of here,” But I told myself that I can’t retreat because the environment doesn’t fit me. I came all the way to the U.S. to experience different environments, so what I should do is to let me fit the environment.

Too much expectation often brings students down when they find out that the situation isn’t like they thought. I could barely bear the disappointment when I found the truth that Syracuse, KS is so small (approximately 1800 people). It was a huge shock for a person that has lived in a big city for 15 years. I eventually overcame the difficulty and discovered good things about small towns. I found out that determination and patience are needed to solve every problem, and they sure helped me through any kind of problem while I was in the U.S.  Life in the U.S. is very exciting for me because there were always new challenges. Every day is a whole new experience and every challenge is different from the previous one. I had many precious and unforgettable experiences during the year.

I concluded what I learned into three major points: First, it is very common for Americans to see foreigners. Because of that, exchange students are nothing special but simply people trying to accomplish their own American Dream. Because of that, I focused on conveying the many positive attributes of Taiwan to a people that might not otherwise learn. Second, selfishness and childishness are not going to do any good. Independence, responsibility and respect are required for a remarkable year. Third, but not least, students need humility and confidence at the same time. Be humble to receive, but be confident to give when exchanging cultures. I hope these valuable techniques will help future exchange students with their year in the U.S.

 Exchange students have the responsibility to bring positive influences into the community. I am proud that I tried my best to learn about the U.S. and to introduce Taiwan. I appreciate AYUSA and I am thankful that I had the chance to be an exchange student. Maybe the processes weren’t smooth, but the fruit of achievement will always be the sweetest.

GA Trip 10/03-06/08

10/04/08-The Stone Mountain Park

We went to the Stone Mountain Park today. Carty’s brother in law told me that it has the biggest rock ever found in the world. We went up to the top of the huge rock by telpher. I took several good pictures. We went on a short ride on a train after that. I think one of the most interesting things that we did is that we went rock climbing. In fact, I never tried it before. The other interesting thing is we went to the biggest laser show in the world. The trip was great and exciting.

10/05/08-The Six Flags

We went to Six Flags in GA today. It was fun and fantastic. I took almost all of the rollercoasters.

10/06/08- The GA Aquarium

We went to GA Aquarium today. I think the trip was just fine. The thing that made me surprised is that there was a Taiwan introduction inside the aquarium. I was happy to see that. We also went to the Olympic Park. And the CNN Center. I bought a cup of coffee and sit in the building. That felt relax. I kind of like this trip to GA.

10/09/08-West  Wing Extended Care

We went to the hospital for the academy’s community service program again. I think this time is better because they gather the elders in a room. So we could walk around the room and talk to every people. I think I learn lots of things since I got here. Even if I wanted to go to the public school, I don’t think that is a bad idea to stay in this academy. There are always lots of thing to do and I believe that most of them are nice. For example, the community service program it has is never been seen in the public school. I mean the public school wouldn’t put the service program in one of the regular course. That’s definitely really special. I really like this school so far.

10/10/08- The Taiwanese National Day Video Presentation

Today is Taiwanese National Day. Of course, we are going to give a presentation to the school. We decided to give a presentation with videos. I downloaded the video before I left home this morning. But it wouldn’t work after I got to the academy. So Ryan and I went in town. We spent our lunch time in Dowgs Den because they got the wireless Int. Well, it went quite well, actually. We used two lap-tops to perform it. I think we discovered another good way to introduce Taiwan.

10/10/08- The local newspaper

The lady who works for the local newspaper came and had meeting with us because she need to write about the exchange student. We wore the Taiwanese shirt and gave her a couple reports that we have made already. 

10/13-15/08-The camping trip

The academy has a camping trip program this week. We went to the Lakeside State Park in Scott City. It was humid and cold, but we still had a lot of fun. I went hiking at midnight three times. We have gospel every morning and evening. Believe me, I tried my best to stay awake from that. Well, I think the trip was nice and fun. Although the weather was bad, I still like it. The next camping trip will be one year after. I will not be in the U.S. then. But I have already promised Kerry and Larry that I am going to RETURN here. If I have a chance. I say IF!!!

10/27/08-Culture sharing

  I went to Glinda’s house. They had a small meeting there. Glinda went to Kerry’s shop and asked me if I could give a little speech. I thought that would be a good chance to introduce Taiwan. So I said yes. I brought my violin with me. I played a couple songs before the speech. The speech went out pretty good. It was a good meeting.  

台灣學校：台中北新國中三年級 

美國學校：Syracuse Christian Academy 

在美地區：KS 肯薩斯州

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