I was wrong when I said there would be no turkey meal for me.
Just to make a point, I did took mom's advice to add a clock of my local time on the blog.
The turkey meal made me through the day without a second meal!
So, my friend Motema from Lesotho met a nurse practitioner, Betsy when she was in her PE class. They got along pretty well and Betsy invited her over for a Thanksgiving meal. Of course, being her buddy, I tagged along. It was the best decision ever despite I have never met Betsy before.
Predictably, I woke up late at noon and started to walk over to Betsy's house, which is a 20 minutes walk off the campus, up the hills. Those houses were so pretty, almost like Norwegian wooden houses. It was the furthest distance I have ever walk in Hanover, yeah, everywhere is nearer than this! :P
The exercise was worth it, If not I will not be able to move for the rest of the day! We were greeted warmly by Betsy and her whole family- daughters, parents and siblings! Most of them are graduated from Dartmouth!
Grandpa Harry was a 44 ( it means he graduated at 1944) before he joint the navy and met his wife, Mary , who's a physical theraphist and become a MD, he is 86 years old now and still remember clearly about his life back then. Both Betsy and her husband Richard are 77s and they met with each other on a study abroad program of Dartmouth in Russia! Betsy is the second batch of Dartmouth girls in college. Dartmouth only started to recruit women in 1973. Both of them, like Harry also ended up in the medical field where Betsy's a nurse and Richard a 'mcdreamy'- pediatric neurologist( brain doctor specialized in children). Lastly, their oldest son too went to Dartmouth. The rest of the family didn't want to go to Dartmouth, basically they lived too near . haha.
It was altogether Grandma Mary, Grandpa Harry, Betsy's family with Rachel and Alex, and Richard's brother, Rob's family with his wife and children, Elisa, Evan and Ashley, two guests, Hue Min and Andy where Hue min is a Dartmouth graduate from Korea and now studies PHD in Space Science and was their host son, with me and motema on the long dining table. Champagne, white wine, red wine were served along with the Big turkey and other dressing- cranberry , gravy, sweet potatos, etc ( they are sophisticaly made and dilicious!!!)
In the midst of the meal, we took turn around the table and said things that we are thankful for in Thanksgiving. Most of them said the most wonderful things I have heard: Some thankful for the recovery from sicknest, Hue Min is thankful for being lucky and alive after hearing his classmate genocide story from Rwanda, Andy is finally going home to South Korea after 4 years, Grandma is thankful for peace and me thankful for my incredible journey of self discovery and change with acceptance and understanding from my family!
The meal ended with Grandma Mary reading poems of " Keep it goin" , " If", and " the Highway Man" , all meaningful fit to our day's context.
When Betsy, Rachel and Elisa were walking us back to the campus for our next Thanksgiving meal ( no, we didn't continue eating then) , we realized how relevant their Dartmouth experience is to our video project of Dartmouth History that we decided to hold an interview with them the very next morning. Last but not least, Betsy warmly welcome us to be their host daughters.
Though strong and independant that I like to think of myself, sometimes it is good to 'melt' and admit once in a while the need to be in the family atmosphere. Glad that the opportunity came by and I took it!
So my first Thanksgiving in USA, I got my first turkey and a host family!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Thanksgiving break
Dartmouth is very busy these few days. Students are busy packing and moving between bus stations to get to airport. Most of them are flying home for thanksgiving.
I was planning to go to New York but realized I need some air to just do my homework in a less time restricted atmosphere. My political anthropology paper and spanish exam will be due after this week, not to mentioned my 5 minutes movie is gonna be due next Monday. Yeah, Me and my groupmates are filming and editing a movie about history of Dartmouth and we chose the "Native American mascot"as our topic. Spent 4 hours just to edit the first 30 seconds, imagine the time need to be spent for the rest of the film.
Tonight will be another big night of performance. I , as usually will be drumming, but this time we have a more dramatic plot for the lion dance. ( it's gonna be drunk!!) ahaha. MTV dancers are coming in to lead audience to climax, not to mentioned there are other dance troups in dartmouth that will be performing.
Meanwhile, enjoyed winter shopping online and in second hand store. abit guilty of the money spent but it is necessary!! No turkey eating, but there are plenty of dinners for international student in thanksgiving, so no, I won't be lonely!!!
I was planning to go to New York but realized I need some air to just do my homework in a less time restricted atmosphere. My political anthropology paper and spanish exam will be due after this week, not to mentioned my 5 minutes movie is gonna be due next Monday. Yeah, Me and my groupmates are filming and editing a movie about history of Dartmouth and we chose the "Native American mascot"as our topic. Spent 4 hours just to edit the first 30 seconds, imagine the time need to be spent for the rest of the film.
Tonight will be another big night of performance. I , as usually will be drumming, but this time we have a more dramatic plot for the lion dance. ( it's gonna be drunk!!) ahaha. MTV dancers are coming in to lead audience to climax, not to mentioned there are other dance troups in dartmouth that will be performing.
Meanwhile, enjoyed winter shopping online and in second hand store. abit guilty of the money spent but it is necessary!! No turkey eating, but there are plenty of dinners for international student in thanksgiving, so no, I won't be lonely!!!
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Tears and Excitement
That is how I would describe yesterday.
I watched the speech at midnight given by Obama, and saw how my friends in Dartmouth reacted to his speech.
Obama really does move people. All of my friends kept nodding and Oprah is crying amongst the crowd while he spoke about change and . It was really phenomenal.
Later the next day, my writing professor cancel our class about the 'Gospels' and just solely talk about the elections that made history. It brings the people together again, but this time is not through tragedy but National Joy. People are ready to work with their leader instead of cynical towards the powerful authorities . Race is still an issue, but now at least there's no longer segregation and that Race is part of the judgment of choosing a leader. But Obama is only half black, technically he is half white and raised in south east asia. well.
Then in the evening, I had the most interesting conversation with my floormate, who is born in California , raised in a typical Taiwanese family. I confessed to her that I was more nervous talking to her than to other international students because even though we are both chinese, we are born in completely different environment. That really determines whether we clique or not as "chinese" or whether we should find another things to connect both of us.
I guess I have to be openminded not only to people from other culture, but also with people from the same culture. though we hold expectations to one another because we assumed we are taught the same value systems and family values, there are always surprises how things turn out influenced by other factor than our race.
That just means that we are required to talk evenmore to work things out!! yeaah....i love to talk ( sacarsm)
To check out reactions of Dartmouth student of the victory of Obama , please go to the link here:
Tears and Excitement (click)
That is how I would describe yesterday.
I watched the speech at midnight given by Obama, and saw how my friends in Dartmouth reacted to his speech.
Obama really does move people. All of my friends kept nodding and Oprah is crying amongst the crowd while he spoke about change and . It was really phenomenal.
Later the next day, my writing professor cancel our class about the 'Gospels' and just solely talk about the elections that made history. It brings the people together again, but this time is not through tragedy but National Joy. People are ready to work with their leader instead of cynical towards the powerful authorities . Race is still an issue, but now at least there's no longer segregation and that Race is part of the judgment of choosing a leader.
Then in the evening, I had the most interesting conversation with my floormate, who is born in California , raised in a typical Taiwanese family. I confessed to her that I was more nervous talking to her than to other international students because even though we are both chinese, we are born in completely different environment. That really determines whether we clique or not as "chinese" or whether we should find another things to connect both of us.
I guess I have to be openminded not only to people from other culture, but also with people from the same culture. though we hold expectations to one another because we assumed we are taught the same value systems and family values, there are always surprises how things turn out influenced by other factor than our race.
That just means that we are required to talk evenmore to work things out!! yeaah....i love to talk ( sacarsm)
I watched the speech at midnight given by Obama, and saw how my friends in Dartmouth reacted to his speech.
Obama really does move people. All of my friends kept nodding and Oprah is crying amongst the crowd while he spoke about change and . It was really phenomenal.
Later the next day, my writing professor cancel our class about the 'Gospels' and just solely talk about the elections that made history. It brings the people together again, but this time is not through tragedy but National Joy. People are ready to work with their leader instead of cynical towards the powerful authorities . Race is still an issue, but now at least there's no longer segregation and that Race is part of the judgment of choosing a leader.
Then in the evening, I had the most interesting conversation with my floormate, who is born in California , raised in a typical Taiwanese family. I confessed to her that I was more nervous talking to her than to other international students because even though we are both chinese, we are born in completely different environment. That really determines whether we clique or not as "chinese" or whether we should find another things to connect both of us.
I guess I have to be openminded not only to people from other culture, but also with people from the same culture. though we hold expectations to one another because we assumed we are taught the same value systems and family values, there are always surprises how things turn out influenced by other factor than our race.
That just means that we are required to talk evenmore to work things out!! yeaah....i love to talk ( sacarsm)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Election heat!
It is a very weird feeling being in the midst of the U.S.A's election. When I was at home, I used to think that US is such a far away place to affect us, besides of course their currency.
On the streets, old people with their walking sticks, stood beside the traffic lights, carrying the large OBAMA cardboard. The way they encourage people to vote is to stand there for the whole day. It looked really funny to me, but it was inspiring too. I got some pins and tags as I walked pass their determined eyes.
In the classrooms, all professors of all three subjects are using election as part of their teaching tool. My Writing class showed the election campaign of 1952 and we discussed about visual argument. Interesting enough, the image that the Republicans and Democrats portrayed 50 something years ago still lasted till today.
My political Anthropology class always offer an inside view of the politics scene in USA. Being such an expert in his field- muslim politics, my prof has been dealing with a lot of 'suspected' icons in the Islamic world thus encountered with CIAs and FBIs. Today we discussed about how the vertical hierachy/beuracracy system in the Intelligence unit made themselves even less efficient than the newspaper in passing out information. Even though the people in the unit has already hold evidence that certain country does not own massive weapons, the 'boss' always use 'prove me otherwise' or ' not enough evidence' to brush them off. I feel that I am in an action movie like Bourne Identity when I heard of all these fascinating inside story. Once, my prof even got questioned by the Intelligence for showing SH's (guess who) video in the class.
The students of course, showed an unusual passion ( in my opinion) towards the whole election. Obama and McCain from their campaigning, sounded like one of their best mates and we should really look out for them. Two of my floormates even bet to shave and dye their hair blonde ( he's a chinese) if their favourite candidate loses. These two days, whole of the campus gone crazy by having students volunteered around the campus shouting " have you voted?" and distributing more and more flyers of the smiling Obama and Palin ( McCain does not really look appealing in flyers) in our resident halls, in the bathrooms, dining hall, restaurants, you name it. Dartmouth Students have a weird advertising method of writing on every single pavement with Chalks to increase publicity. Guess it works, today's world is all about image manipulation, whether or not we truly understand what politics is about.
Having my mom more excited about the election than I do, I seriously hope that I could help witness tonight's historical moment.
On the streets, old people with their walking sticks, stood beside the traffic lights, carrying the large OBAMA cardboard. The way they encourage people to vote is to stand there for the whole day. It looked really funny to me, but it was inspiring too. I got some pins and tags as I walked pass their determined eyes.
In the classrooms, all professors of all three subjects are using election as part of their teaching tool. My Writing class showed the election campaign of 1952 and we discussed about visual argument. Interesting enough, the image that the Republicans and Democrats portrayed 50 something years ago still lasted till today.
My political Anthropology class always offer an inside view of the politics scene in USA. Being such an expert in his field- muslim politics, my prof has been dealing with a lot of 'suspected' icons in the Islamic world thus encountered with CIAs and FBIs. Today we discussed about how the vertical hierachy/beuracracy system in the Intelligence unit made themselves even less efficient than the newspaper in passing out information. Even though the people in the unit has already hold evidence that certain country does not own massive weapons, the 'boss' always use 'prove me otherwise' or ' not enough evidence' to brush them off. I feel that I am in an action movie like Bourne Identity when I heard of all these fascinating inside story. Once, my prof even got questioned by the Intelligence for showing SH's (guess who) video in the class.
The students of course, showed an unusual passion ( in my opinion) towards the whole election. Obama and McCain from their campaigning, sounded like one of their best mates and we should really look out for them. Two of my floormates even bet to shave and dye their hair blonde ( he's a chinese) if their favourite candidate loses. These two days, whole of the campus gone crazy by having students volunteered around the campus shouting " have you voted?" and distributing more and more flyers of the smiling Obama and Palin ( McCain does not really look appealing in flyers) in our resident halls, in the bathrooms, dining hall, restaurants, you name it. Dartmouth Students have a weird advertising method of writing on every single pavement with Chalks to increase publicity. Guess it works, today's world is all about image manipulation, whether or not we truly understand what politics is about.
Having my mom more excited about the election than I do, I seriously hope that I could help witness tonight's historical moment.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Halloween weekend and Jose's visit ( click)
I know I am not doing my job updating.
But these pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!
Si Jie
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