Unexpected days!

This week is the orientation week and course presentation. I did not know I have additional English writing course until yesterday I received the package. Suddenly I felt so sad. All the course schedule was ruined. Besides that, I have to pay $750 for noncredit course. First time I was sad about it. Now, try to look on the bright side. Academic writing is one of the weakness for me. In each English exam, writing is the worst part of all sections.

MIT ROCSA welcome party

August 30th 6 pm was the time for welcome party for the incoming MIT Taiwanese students. The organization, however, invited non-MIT students to join such an event so that everyone could expand social network and build stronger connection among each other. I was so happy being there. In this party I realized that there are so many Taiwanese students endeavor to pursue highly academic accomplishment. Some of new Harvard grad. students finished their undergraduate study in America. This was a real strength for them in application process, especially for top grad. school. So far, it seems that there is only one Taiwanese student enrolled MIT SMarchS- Design computation program. I thought that he has professional experience for several years(I told it from his appearance). He have already decided his research area in which is related to hardware design(He is a little bit like a geek). In other words that His academic interest has been narrowed. From the conversation, I felt that he would not like to talk more with me, maybe he thought that GSD students have lower level than him! This made me remind one sentence showed on MIT shirt- Students who go to Harvard because they could not enter MIT. Generally, I felt great in the party not only because I knew some new friends but also understand more things beyond my existing knowledge.

Unfortunately, I had to leave the party early, because Matan and I made a deal to watch the movie- Bottle shock. Before seeing the movie, I have less information about it. However, after watching it, I did not feel amazing and motivated. Neither did Matan. The movie is mainly about An California wine maker won the French blind wine contest. I still learned something from the movie, not only English vocabularies, but also wine culture.

After the movie, we tried to find a bar to have a drink. Unfortunately, we could not enter any one of them except John Harvard due to the ID problem(I did not bring passport with me). We had a great talk and great food there. I really loved Mozzarella sticks. This appetizer remind me the popular "Cheese heart" pizza sold by Pizza Hut is not cheese, is Mozzarella.

Digital Media Workshop

New York trip was finished on Aug. 24th. Aug. 25th. was the first day of digital media workshop. When receiving the syllabus, I was wondering that if this was too easy for me. All the softwares or computer skills that will be taught in the workshop are quite basic. Thus, before the beginning of the workshop, I went to the office to see if it was possible for me to withdraw from this workshop, and got $300 fee back. Until now, no response I heard from them.

So I kept participating the course. the one of the few advantages of this workshop was that I met several of my classmates who have the same concentration with me. Matan is from Israel; Holly is an American.

In summer school, all the students I got along with are international students without excellent English ability(That was why we needed IEL class as an requirement to get enrolled in GSD). I did not feel so nervous about my English until now. What the Cho said was right- In summer school, you felt nothing about your language skills until you meet other American students.

This afternoon we three went to Z square, a restaurant in Harvard Square, to have a cup of coffee after class. I found out that about 30-40% of their conversation I could not understand so well. So I became a little bit quiet in the conversation. Although this kind of situation of being a deaf person was improving compared with the initial days I arrived in the U.S. My listening ability now is still insufficient enough to handle the GSD courses in the following semester. However, there is no short cut for me to increase English ability in a very short time. The only way is to keep practicing.

Hope that one year after, I can understand all of daily conversations or academic speech in English. Let's see in the future!!!!

NYC visit 01- 5th avenue and Chinatown

The third day we visited to 5th avenue, which is the center of the borough of Manhattan. Each high rise in the district jostles with each other in order to win the reputation of the tallest building in NYC. It is hard to have a wide view of sky when standing there. We walked in this tall and cool concrete jungle, just like other visitors. It is rare to see natures there except in Central Park. Concrete and glass form the typical image of the city. People from all over the world walked on 5th avenue together to seek for typical and unprecedented New York impression.

New York is also an extreme city. The most luxurious and poorest life can be seen in the same Manhattan borough. New Yorkers live in upper east side (E. 60th street- E.100 th street) resemble the rich and luxurious daily life. In contrast, New Yorkers live near Chinatown of in Flushing(the place in Queens) show much less life quality. The extremely apparent contrast between rich and poor become one of the typical New York figure.

New York visit 01- On the way- Bolt bus

August 15th, the last day of Harvard Summer school, I went to New York for 10-day visiting. I took Bolt bus to New York. I only bought one-way ticket just to NYC because I was not sure when would I came back to Cambridge at that time. Bolt bus is quite a new bus company. They offered free wireless and plug service on journeys. This is an advanced and convenient bus service for travelers.
It usually takes four hours from Boston to New York City. That day, however, it took me almost six and half hours to arrive NYC. Not only because the traffic was terribly heavy, but also rained heavily. He had lost his patience for waiting for more then three hours in front of Penn station.