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.

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.

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.

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

請參觀我的部落格

Since Kerry was in the hospital because she didn’t feel good with her foot, it is kind of quiet in the house. I am not going to talk all the time, anyway. So Larry decided to hold a Welcome BBQ for me. We went to the hospital and told Kerry about this and then we went to the grocery store to get some food. We had some BBQ chickens and corns. I think it was quite good. I actually felt the warmth from him.

08/12/08- Home meeting

This is the first Wednesday meeting I have since I came here. I met Joe Gould, who is the principal of the Christian Academy. Also, I met Ryan’s (許元愷) host parents-Yorks.  The church would have a meeting every week on Wednesdays. Because I was so displeasing about the school and I wanted someone that could tell me more information about it. Kerry called Joe and see if he could tell me more because he is the principal. He did come and tell me a lot. I felt safer and more stable after the conversation. I was thinking about transforming to public school. But after I went through with Joe, I think I might try at least a semester.

08/14/08-Tanking I got up early today because I’m going to hang out with Goulds today. I went into town with Larry and ate my breakfast at KC’s. Later, Mr. Gould and his youngest son-Phil came and picked me up. We went to the daunt shop first because they haven’t ate breakfast yet. We went back to the Gould’s house after that. Mr. Gould took me to the academy because he wanted meet to meet one of my teacher. The one that I have met is Jay Hale. He has served in the U.S. Army for 28 years. I had a great but short conversation. He said that I speak really good English. I was glad that he said that. Phil came and picked me up because we are heading one of Mr. Gould’s sons’ house. He is Matthew. He used to serve in the U.S. Air Force. I talked to him about my dad’s job a little bit. After I return to Mr. Gould’s house, Joe asked me to come and get some shelf to the academy. I went tanking with Phil and Lydia-Joe’s youngest daughter. It’s a special activity here in U.S. We put a water tank on the water then set chairs and drinks in it. We set in the tank and chatted. It took a couple hours to complete the short but fun trip. I really had a good time. I ate supper in Mr. Gould’s house. He later took me home. I had a great day, an interesting day.    

08/15/08-Visit Wichita

We got up early because we were going to visit my host mom’s sister who lives in Wichita. It took about 6 hours to get there. We went to Ulysses first to pick up grandpa and switched the vehicle. We stopped and buy some peaches, apples and corns for grandma. She has been living in the hospital since Feb. We also went to pick her up in the hospital. We stayed in Kerry’s sister’s house for a while. I had supper there. And I also met her daughter. Unfortunately, we needed to leave pretty early because if we don’t, we might not be able to sleep any. However, it was a nice trip.

              

08/16/08-Dorine’s arrival

  

My host sister-Dorine, a beautifal young lady from Netherland is going to arrive today. Larry and I went the laundry this morning for her bed sheet. Kerry stay at home to clean the house. We  were a little bit late when we got to the airport. But the flight had also delayed. So I guess I could say that we made there just on time. Dorine was tired and hungry after the flights. She came all the way from New York. We went to ate lunch and had a nice chat. She went to bed early because she was kind of exhausted. 

08/20/08-Home meeting 

 

Today is Wednesday again. And we are going to the York this evening. Tom and Carty York are Ryan’s host parents. They still didn’t have any news from Ryan or even from AYUSA then. I talked to them and told them that I think it’s because Ryan has some problem of his visa. But I think that Ryan would definitely make it here. At least I think so. Tom work in a milk factory. He has about 5500 cows that produce milk. We visited the factory. It was kind of amazing how they get things worked out. It was an interesting evening. 

08/22/08-School service

Dorine and I went to the academy with Larry this morning. We cleaned doors and put wax on them. It was kind of tough job because all doors were terriblely dirty. I printed  walls in the gym with Mr. Gould after that. Then I went out and started to mow around the academy. I was exhausted  but glad because I think have done something for the school. There was another thing that made me quite happy- I ‘ll get my new lap-top tomorrow. I chatted with Dorine at that night. It was good and I actually felt I am no longer in the bad mood that I got since I arrived here.  But there was also a bad news. Dorine was actually going to leave us tomorrow because what she really want id the experience of American high school. And the academy couldn’t fit her expectation. I weren’t so happy about the education part, either. What I were worrying about was that we got few students in the school and I didn’t think the academy would be able to give me a fine education. But after I talked to Joe about that, I think there is a chance for me to stay there. But since Dorine wanted the experience of the real American high school. There’s nothing we could do to change the fact that she is going to leave. I was kind of upset about that because it really could get boring without her. However, that was her decision and we definitely don’t have any right to refuse that. She is going to Denver tomorrow with Yorks because there are going to pick Ryan up there. I’m going, too. I know Ryan will definitely be shock when he knows the truth of the academy. I have no idea if he will decide to leave or not.

Volunteer hours: 6 hours              Total hours: 6 hours

Dorine and me

08/24/08-Taiwanese approaching         

We left Syracuse somewhere around 9 A.M. Dorine left right after she checked her luggages. We had lunch at the airport. Then Tom and I went  to get security pass from the airline. We didn’t wait for a long time in frount of the gate. Ryan was surprise that I was there. I talked to him about the situation. Like I thought, he was so pleased about the school. But I told him that I’m going to stay and try for a least one semaster. He was hard concedering if he’s hoing to stay or not. I suggested him wait till the school start. “At least try even you don’t like how does it looks like” I said.

Ryan and Tom at Denver

08/27/08-Introduction of the national

With Mrs. Frazer and Mr. Gould Ryan and I had a little presentation of the Taiwanese national flag this morring. We expained the meaning of the color and the item. We also lift up the flag. It was kind of proud to see it was hanging there on the wall. I’m glad that I am able to do that. It really means a lot to me. I bet that students and teachers in the school were interested in it. 

08/28/08-School return picnic

  

『Let problem roll off your back just like water roll off ducks back』

Steven Chung

This is one of the assignments of the Communication class. Every student has to make a 10 minutes speech this month. I thought it would be a good chance for me to introduce something about Taiwan. So I decided that I was going to do that. I wrote my outline, it was about the geography of Taiwan. Meanwhile, I prepared a map of Taiwan and a sweet potato, so I could make people recognize the shape of Taiwan quicker. I practice many times before I went to speak. The speech was on November 7^th. The whole class went to have lunch with the rotary club. I supposed to be the only one who was going to give that speech, but Ryan said it might be better if I speak before he had his because he thought it would be easier for people to follow his points if I give the basic concepts of Taiwan first.  I think people liked the speech. But the most interesting thing is that there was a man, who work in the local hospital told me that his wife is a Taiwanese. That was impressive. Well, he said that his wife will definitely want to meet Ryan and me. I am looking forward that. It might be around Christmas when we will meet. The speech was good. And I am glad that it was.

11/13/08-The Taiwanese Meal

    Actually, we have been talking about to have a Taiwanese meal for a long time. Ryan has a cook book that has recipe for Taiwanese dishes in it. Kerry was interesting in it, so she went to talk to Mrs. Seal about it. After that, they decided to have a Taiwanese meal on Wednesday. Kerry and Mrs. Seal are cooking lunch on Wednesdays for the school. The Taiwanese was supposing to be last week, but both Kerry and Mrs. Seal got things to do. We discussed a lot and at the end, we decided to have fried rice and flat beef cake. (I am not sure what the actual name is.) Anyway, the meal was successfully done. I was happy that I could have some TAIWANESE food.

11/13/08-The community service-band performance

We went to the care center today for academy’s community service program. We made some turkey handcrafts and cards yesterday for the thanksgiving. I made a card and gave to an old man because Mr. Gould wanted us to give our cards and crafts to elders in the care center. We played one song and sang a couple songs. There was another special performance-bell. Although this is a common thing that we play in the Christian band,
we never tried to have a public performance before. Anyway, the performance was fine and everyone was happy. We are definitely going to do other performances like this in the future.

11/14/08-The Fall Program (speech plus performance)

Today was academy’s fall program. It was fall concert for the band. There were students from other place and all of them are attending in home school. They played bell, piano and violin. We sang, played songs and bell. I think the band sounded pretty that night. I gave a speech about Taiwan. I was thinking about to introduce Taiwan to the people in town. Because the presentations that I have done so far are mostly presented to the school, I want to provide information about Taiwan to more people. I thought the fall program is a good chance for me to do that because Mr. Gould told me that some people in town would come. I asked Mr. Gould if I can give a speech about Taiwan. He said he would arrange it for me if possible. So he talked to Mr. Hale (teacher for communication arts) about that he wants me to give a speech in the fall program. He also mentioned that he wondered if Ryan wants to give a speech or not. So Mr. Hale asked Ryan. But Ryan didn’t even think about to give a speech in the fall program before Mr. Hale asked him. He thought that was a good idea, so he said yes. His topic is 』 Why is Taiwan so Important』 and mine is 『The geography of Taiwan and the people live on this beautiful island』. I made a Power Point presentation with the speech since there was a projector available. The speech went smoothly. I really like it myself and I think people like it, too. I also spent some time to answer people’s questions. I am glad that people can know more about Taiwan. This operation will keep going. I will try my best to give more presentations, speeches and performances to Americans.

11/27/08-Thanksgiving Day

Actually, this is a quite small thanksgiving for my host family. They got about 20 people in their house last year. But there were just 6 of us left this year. My host mom’s parents and sister, those are all the visitors we had. However, it wasn’t boring because we got less people. We had a great Thanksgiving lunch. After that, we chatted and played games. We played a game that I have never played before. I was a beginner, but it was still interesting. I played my violin for grandma before they left. I think she liked it. Everything was good enough for a nice Thanksgiving Day. But Kerry was expecting that it would snow. Unfortunately, it didn’t snow before her parents left. Not a really good timing, huh? Anyway, this might be the first Thanksgiving Day I have ever experienced in my life. And it was worth and warm.

11/30/08-Hunting

Larry’s grandson, a little boy-Ben and I went out hunting today. Because the weather was cold outside, there were many animals out in the field. So thought it was just going to be a shooting practice. When went back to my house, they decided went out and shoot Larry’s shot gun. We shot a hare when we were in the back yard. They brought it home for tomorrow’s lunch. Well, I might want to try rabbit meat, but they brought all of meat home. It was a special experience for me, anyway.