08/09/08- Welcome BBQ

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

11/06/08-The speech

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.