SAtiSFacTOry suNDaY

Basically, I had my Sunday with great satisfaction. It's mainly because of the meals I had today. Starting from the morning, I made myself half a tsuna-mayo (tuna with mayonnaise) sandwich, a Bacon sandwich along with the chicken corn soup left from yesterday's supper. For my lunch, I went to the cafeteria. The food was ok, but at least I didn't have to spend time cooking and washing dishes (although I love to do those things). Among all the food I had for lunch today, I love the pancake/waffle with syrup and chocolate milk. I always feel content whenever I'm having pancakes/waffles or chocolate milk. As to my dinner, I made myself the Taiwan beef soup with noodles. Thanks to my dad, I have the spices and noodles shipped to me this week. You have no idea how it feels to have beef soup with noodles made in Taiwan in another country. Although it took time to stew the soup, it's all worthwhile when I had the first taste of the meal. Geeeeeee, I'm getting hungry now.

The weather is getting colder here, and it's also getting really dry. It was already drier than it is in Taiwan in summer, now I always have to put on cream or body lotion to make myself feel comfortable. I brought a bottle of body lotion with me from Taiwan; now, only one forth of it left. I've got to go to one of the malls downtown to get some more, otherwise I won't be able to survive through winter. And I think I'll need to have lots of things prepared before winter comes, such as snow coat, leather gloves, earmuffs and many other stuffs that might keep myself warm in winter. But, I'm already warned that no matter how much cloths and stuffs I wear on, I'm still going to feel freezing outdoor. Is that so? Let's wait and see...

I'm working on my eight bibliographies these days, summarizing the journals that are 14 pages on average. It's a little bit of hard work, but I really enjoyed the writing. Still hanging in here and keeping on going.

thE liFE heRe iN ISU

Before I share my life in Indiana State University, I'd like to continue my updates.

Sunday, October 23

For this weekend, I promised an American classmate to babysit his three years old son. My classmate had to go to work every other weekends, so he asked me if IThat was going to be the second time I see his son. The first time I saw his son, he was shy that he kept following his dad, grabbing his dad's pants. And whenever he noticed that someone was watching him, he would lower his face and avoid to have any eye contact. He was that shy.

Saturday was the first day I babysit the child. Starting from 7 in the morning, and my job ended until 3 in the afternoon when my classmate came back to his house. Basically, me and the little fellow went along pretty well these two days. Before I babysit him, my classmate told me that he is definitely going to cry when he and his wife leave the house. So I asked him how long would he be crying? And he said to me " there was one time he cried up to an hour". "Maybe I'll break the records" I replied to him.

Well, when the time came for his dad and mom to leave, he had already been crying for a few minutes. I tried my best to talk to him and to calm him down. And when I said "I missed my dad and mom, too", he just stopped. So I kept on telling him the story. Amazingly, it took me two minutes to stop him from crying.

We had every meal together, and I walked around the neighborhood for the first day. I dragged him in his little wagon.

This picture was taken when we were having our breakfast-- yummy cereal

His mother is from Thailand, so he has a very good looking face. We did lots of things together those two days, watching Winnie the Pooh and Simpson, playing ball and his toys and lots of stuffs. It was a very nice experience, and I did it for free. I might consider to charge some amount next time. Discount will be offered though.

Now, I shall share the life I have so far in ISU. I live in one of the best dormitory on campus. It's air-conditioned, it has a bathroom in every room. Different from others, we won't have to share the bathroom and restroom with other people on the same floor. One of the best part is that we will have someone to come and clean our bathroom every once in a week.

I haven't had a roommate though. She hasn't showed up since the beginning of this semester. So I get to have a single room, and I only had to pay for the money for double beds. Is it perfect or what?!

We had to buy meal plans if we want to apply for the dormitory on campus. We eat at the cafeteria almost every meal. It's open during dining time every weekday, and is only open for brunch on weekends. That's the reason why I would cook on my own very once in a while. "All you can eat" is one of the best part I love about it. There's a variety of choices to choose from in the cafeteria, but the food there usually lack vegetable in it. so I always had to eat salad without dressing. Otherwise, no one's going to recognize me after a year.

We can also have ice cream with ice cream corns after each meal. And we get to do it ourselves. Just like the ones they sell in Taiwan's night market. And it's really fun to do it yourself. Although I don't eat food that's too cold, I would try ice cream once in a while. And I was wondering if I'm going to be an expert putting ice cream with the corns.

Recently I started to bring everything I can take with me in the cafeteria, such as tea bags, sugar, a kind of fruit like a banana or an apple and also a sandwich (very secretly).

If there's anything I want to add about my dormitory or my meals I have here, I'll post on my blog.

i dIDn'T ABanDOn mY BloG!!

It's been a long while since the last time I edited my blog. Actually, some of my due days for a Langauage Acquisition presentation and for EIGHT bibliographies were postponed to next week. So, I could finally be able to take a break to catch up with my breath and to update my status on my blog.

Although I haven't written my blog for a long while, I always kept in mind that I have to remember everything special that had happened to me. Since the last time I posted an article is on Oct. 12, I shall start from the day of Thursday, Oct. 13. Before that, I want to share a very cheerful news. That is, I got an A Plus for my first presentation as a graduate student in the United States. At the same time, I received another A Plus for my Summary and Response article. :)

Thursday, October 13

Usually I would go to a supermarket called "Walmart" downtown to buy stuffs for daily use on Thursdays, because it's the only day I have in a week that is ok for me to go there. Since I couldn't afford a car here, I always take the bus to get there. The picture below is the transfer bus.

I also took the picture inside the transfer bus.

We will have to transfer with this bus after taking the bus for the main streets. It's 75 cents for each ride (transfer buses are for free as long as you take the buses for the main streets) and it takes about 30 minutes to get to Walmart. In the beginning of this month, I got a great news from one of the bus drivers on fall break. He told me that they will offer everyone free rides on every first Friday of a month. So I was always thinking that I should make use of it if I have time on the first Fridays of the month.

Friday, October 14

We had a project for the class Language Acquisition. Me and other three second-year students were in the same group. We decided to do some experiments on preschool children who are around three years old. It was the place I mentioned before in other articles. But the only pity thing was that the 16- month- old child who I called angel didn't show up that day, because he was sick. I'm so sorry that I wasn't able to take his picture and show it to you. But I still took other picture to show you.

He seems to be thinking something seriously.

Aren't her blue eyes beautiful?

Me, Tama and Yoshiki

After we came back from the private day- care institute this day, me and other two Japanese friends cooked together for dinner. Tama and Yoshiki are both second-year students and we all have the same major. Me and Yoshiki treated Tama for dinner that night because Tama was going to drive us to Indianapolis for a TESOL conference that I'll mention later.

Wednesday, October 19

Another cheerful thing happened today. That was, one of our Midterm Exams were postponed!! You have no idea how happy I was when I saw the bulletin posted on the classroom door. Plus, our class for that day was canceled.

And in fact, almost everyone in the class was as happy as I was. Although the picture is fuzzy, you can still tell that everyone's smiling happily.

Thursday, October 20

Me and my group members for the Language Acquisition project had to do more experiment and had to have more subjects to do it. So we went to the day-care-center near family housing on campus. The children were only toddlers, that is, they are only around 16- 23 months old. The experiment turned out to be a totally a disaster because young children at that age have no patience. They would run away whenever they feel like doing so.

Do not be deceived by their cute and little figures, they were devils that couldn't cooperate with our experiment.

Friday, October 21

It's the day that I went to the TESOL conference in Indidanapolis. We had to pay for 35 dollars for the 8 hours conference. But since we were required to go by the department, we get to have a 25 dollar refund. That means, we would only have to pay for 10 dollars. It was a great deal. But instead we would have to hand in a 750 words report in one of our required classes.

The conference was really nice. They offered breakfast, very delicious lunch as well as a cookie break. But that wasn't the main reason why I liked the conference of course. The 25 minutes presentations were awesome. We get to choose which presentation we want to go to, and the presenters would try to cover every information about their research.

Another bonus for the conference was that they had lots of publishers, such as Longman and Cambridge, over there that day. They all offered a discount that day. The publisher Longman even offered anyone who's interested three free copies. That is, if you fill out the form they gave you, they will ship you three books that you've chosen, and they will charge you nothing. All the books in the catalogue were at least 20 dollars. How exciting! I can't wait to receive mine.

Under Construction...

I'm so sorry that I couldn't update my status these days. I'll make it up to you this week. And prepare yourselves, coz you're going to have lots to read.

MEanINgfUL tuESdaY

Since the time I woke up early in this morning, which is half past 5 a.m., everything I do was all about my studies.

After the class Language Acquisition, I started to prepare for the e-journals that were necessary for the first language acquisition project group meeting. E-journals are indeed very handy to graduate students. It's just that you'll have to spend lots of time searching for the information you needed. Then I had my lunch, and took my nap that could only last for 40 minutes max. It wasn't enough for me. I usually take more than an hour, around one and a half hours. We had our group meeting and decided to visit our subjects and their supervisor first.

So, we went to the day care center downtown. There were eight children, and the rang of their age was from 24 months to 36 months. It was the cutest age one has in their whole life. They were the embodiment of ANGELS! There was this one little boy who didn't talked at all, but he was approaching us several times. It was a little distracting when we had to gain information and to pay attention to what the supervisor said. When we left, the little boy was willing to give me a hug. How sweet!! You can imagine a little boy opening his arms waiting for your big hug. I'll take some pictures next time, and you shall know how adorable the children there are.

As yesterday, I did lots of readings today. Still have more to catch up with though. Somebody please give me strength. :)

StReSsFuL mOnDaY

I only have two classes on Mondays, but I can already feel the pressure of midterm examinations. Both my classes today are instructed by the same professor. He was reminding and pushing us the papers we'll have to hand in and the time we're going to take the midterm exam. hoooooo... what a nice beginning of the week. :(

Under the pressure, I forced myself to catch up with the readings I supposed to do. I've finished a chapter for my Sociolinguistic class, and another ten pages for my Language Acquisition class. I'm still a little bit lag behind, but I'm sure I'm going to be right back to the schedule.

When I was taking a rest during my readings tonight, I suddenly realized that I'm taking five classes for TWELVE credits this semester. It's not that bad though. So far I'm doing pretty well on my lessons.

Can't spend too much time on my blog these days. But I shall be updating it regularly everyday. Maybe a day off during weekends.

tHe LaSt DaY oF fAll BreAk

It's the end of our fall break. "Time flies" isn't fast enough to describe the time now. Never have enough time to slow down and really enjoy and never have enough time to read all the required readings.

Today me and other three classmates(I'm the only first year student in the group) had a meeting for our first project of Language Acquisition. It has to be related to first language acquisition. After one and a half hours of "argument", we decided to do four different kinds of experiment on preschool children. We might go to either day care center or kindergarten to look for the age of children we needed for the project. Basically, I'm in charge of searching for the documents that are related to our experiment. I think I'll find them with the data base we have on our library's website. And I'm going to read through the relative topics of the e-journals. Hope everything goes well.

There's a Japanese TV series that I've been waiting for my Dad to send me, it's called "世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ" in Japanese and "在世界中心呼喊愛" in mandarin. I think my dad is going to send it on Tuesday, because we have this national holiday, Double Tenth Day, in Taiwan on Monday, Oct. 10th. The TV series are not the only thing that's going to be in the package of course. But it's really important to me. I've already seen it twice, and I can't wait to watch it for the third time. Hopefully, the package will be here after Midterm, otherwise I'm going to go crazy for the TV series.

The picture above was taken today. I thought you might want to see me once in a while to make sure you can still recognize me. I got a little fatter though. Too young to look like a pregnant woman. haha... I'll watch myself. If only midtern would keep me busy enough to forget eating too much food.

CoLd wEatHeR

It's getting colder these days. The autumn here in Terre Haute is pretty like what we have in Taiwan. Cold in the morning and at night; hot in the day times. No matter how cold the weather is, and I might be wearing the jacket I have for winter, you may still see Americans who are still wearing T-shirts and short paints. Whenever I see those kinds of people on campus, I couldn't help wondering how the cold weather feels like to them.

Also, it's much more dryer here than Taiwan. So I had to use fabric softener every time I wash my clothes. Otherwise, there's going to be static electricity. And I also have to use hair conditioner, and body lotion. These are all due to the dry climate here.

I've just done my laundry. They have a washing machine and two dryers on each floor. And it's 75 cents per time whatever you want to use. It's cheaper than I've paid when I was in college. It's nice that I don't have to pay for the dryer. Because the rooms here in my hall, they're all airconditioned, it's fairly dry in the rooms. I could hang the clothes up and allow them to dry, and it can also make my room moisturous at the same time. Killing two birds with one stone!

I'll have a meeting tomorrow afternoon for a project on first language acquisition. As you can see, it's for my Language Acquisition class. So I'll be back to edit this blog tomorrow.

tHrEe anD a HAlF dAyS OF hOLidaYs

Me and my partner finally presented yesterday. What a relief! Although the sound effects in the classroom was totally out of order, and part of our efforts made for the powerpoint went to waste, at least it's over. The process of tape recording the voices of people from different countries and that of the video taping and editing the two interviews were rather interesting.

Because of the full schedule I had for this week, I was a kind of absent-minded these days. I've done a few stupid things that I've never done before. The stupid thing that I ranked for the third place is I accidentally dropped my delicious sub on the floor while it still had one-third unfinished. I was so hungry at that time! Can't forgive myself for that. Another stupid thing that I ranked for the second place happened when I wanted to know the save balance in my bank account. I wanted to use the ATM to check it, so I stood in the long line to wait for that. When it was my turn, I put my card into the machine, but it just didn't work. I think I tried for three or four times, due to the long line behind me, I just gave up. After that, I was told that I was using my student ID card to check my bank account! At that moment I realized I got the wrong card in the every beginning. The number one stupid thing I've done was also about my student ID card. When having our meals in the cafeteria on campus, since we've bought meal plans, we will have to sweep our ID card. Yesterday, after the presentation, I went for my dinner. And guess what I gave the staff to sweep. My ROOM KEY!! What on earth was I thinking?!

I know I'm a person who do funny things, but this time was a little bit too over. I think I'll have to remind myself to watch out every once in a while.

i nEeD eXtRa 2 HOurS A dAY foR mY BLog!!

It's rather busy these days. I just had my test for the class proseminar( introduction to linguistics). And I will have a paper to hand in and a presentation to do on this Wednesday. Me and my Korean partner, who is a mother of three very young children, have been working on the presentation for almost 10 days. The topic is "teaching World Englishes to Native Speakers in the US". It's about sociolinguistic, and the aim of the project was to make the communication between native and non-native English speakers more smoothly and less misconceived. We had to tape record the different accent of people from different countries, and we had interviewed two native English speakers in the states. They had really distinct opinion on the issue "who should take the responsibility of miscommunication between native and non-native English speakers". The first idea they both came up with was that non-native speakers should work harder on their English and try to get used to their culture. But one of them could accept the idea that native speakers should aisle make some effort to understand other non-native speaker while the other INSISTED that it's the non-native speakers' problem. (note: unbelievable)

Anyway, although I'm working really hard on my presentation these days, I won't forget my blog. I'll try my best to grab the chance to write something on it.