I don't know how to start with this post. Just write as my mind goes.
       First of all, I know it is not goodbye for forever. However, complicated feelings are at the bottom of my heart, thankfulness and missing. I just want to write it down.
       I moved out of my host family's house today. I have been living with them since January 15th, 2011. I know you can do the math, but I still want to say it has been one year and eight months. I am just so so blessed that I met them in my life. They are such a wonderful, sweet, thoughtful, and awesome family.
       Tess, their daughter, asked me where I would live when she knew I decided to stay here two years ago. I said I didn't know. She said,"Oh, you can live with my family!" Well, she doubled check that with her parents after the words slipped through her mouth. First day of coming back to U.S., Buzz and Sal came to pick me up at the airport. It was so nice to see them. Our stories began with the warm hug in the winter at the airport.
        The first semester, Tess and I drove together a lot when she had classes. She is a really sweet girl. She brought so many new friends to me. Maybe that's why almost half of my facebook friends are our common friends. She always took me to her girls night, worship night, hangout night, and Blend night (Blend is the only coffee shop in Washington.) She taught me so much English. On the way to school, she helped me pronounce "walmart","L" and so many other words. Thanks to her, one day at the Blend, her coworker asked me to pronounce "walmart" and I got it right! He said he teased his friends with that because most of Chinese can't pronounce it right. She is also a very fun girl! We watched movie together, we had a tent set up at the living room with many many blankets, we had snow sledding, and we had all kinds of talks. How blessing I am to have her as my host sister!
       The second semester and now, she isgone for ISU, but I began to visit there quite often. We were still very close. She is the one who always, really always, listen to what I say and complain. She is a friend and a sister. :) I love her so much.
       Since Tess was gone and I still didn't have a car, Buzz and Sal took care of me so well. Buzz gave me a ride to school every day. They never complained. Buzz stayed up late a lot, so did I. So whenever I had English questions, I just burst out my Chinglish and he usually asked me to spell it. :P Well, it was quite often for me to ask him to spell words too because too much fancy words is not in the dictionary of my brain. He encouraged me to go for hard classes and challenges. He gave me advice of insurance. He is just a patient, smart, and funny host dad.
       My host mom, Sal, looooves coffee. She is the sweetiest host mom. She treated me like her daughter. Every once a while, we talked, humm, about many things. She is really smart too. Well, it is a smart family. :) She loves knowing international people and helping them. she revised my papers a lot. She gave me good suggestions. When I hung out with people, she was very happy because she didn't want me to be bored. Once a while, she put some good books and articles on my table. She was just so wonderful and thoughtful.
       When I was an exchange student with either other Chinese students, Sal always planned for us. She took us to the mall, grocery, coffee shop, antiques, and even her house and the farm! :) Every time she picked us up at school, I always jumped into the back seat, which is the reason that she didn't really remember me by that time. :P It was because I was so afraid to talk to people in English in front of all my Chinese friends. I was afraid of mistaks and unperfect English. Thanks to Sal mom, I have practiced the language I am writing in a lot and a lot. Compared to millions of Chinese students in this country, I lived with an good Christian American family, having good host parents, nice host sister, good food, good chance to practice language, good church to go to, and so many things so many other Chinese students can never expect. How blessed I am!
        Even though thery are not my real parents, they are my true parents in this country. My mom doens't worry about me at all because she thinks I have a mom here too, and yes I do. My host parents have been so good so so good to me. I still can't belive how people can be as nice and unselfish as them. Thanks God, who is the one made all of these happened.
        It is not forever goodbye. Well, I live in Peoria now...Maybe I will break into their house once a while.....:P
        Thank you, my dear American family. Wish you the best.

                         The way from city to a quiet wonderful paradise.
             So now I am back to be a city girl? :P even though compared to Shenzhen, China, Peoria is still tiny.

Different perspective of Chinese

           It was my second time to help my friend, Hannah's family's restaurant. It is a little restaurant in a little place.
          Looking at Hannah's mom, (I called her aunt, in China, it is common to address those who are moms ayi=aunt) I felt like I was completely in a comfort zone for my whole life. Ayi and Mr. Zhang (Hannah's dad) are really hard-working Chinese. Their family immigrated here about eight years ago except Mr. Zhang came here first to work for some other Chinese restaurants for many years before he owned one. From them, I got to know more immigrant history than the raical and ethnic groups of sociology I studied in the summer. They are living examples.

          Well, I already have Hannah's permission to write about her family. She said I should be a good reporter. :P Hope so.

           Hannah's family is one of typical immigrants from China, espcailly from her hometown, Fuzhou, Fujian. There are tons of people from there in the Chinatown of New York City. They also spread out around little towns, just not as many as big cities. Fuzhou people usually run their own family restaurant. Kids from their family either go to school for higher education so that they can escape restaurant life forever after graduation or still work for restaurants.

           Two years ago, I met a Chinese guy from Fuzhou in NYC. He didn't say very much English after being there seven years! He also dropped school because of some reasons I forgot. @.@  According to him, many kids immigrated from Fuzhou with their family don't go for more education. They are just under the fake-good-looking Chinatown. To be honese, the Chinatown in NYC is the worst one I have ever ever seen! Other than nasty street, people are keeping old old old old old habit instead of learning new things. I mean not following others blindly but they are worse than people from 1950s (about that time, i guess) in China.. humm..maybe 30s? Anyway, old! Fuzhou people who want to keep their old fashion stay at their own world. However, there are always exceptions, such as Hannah's family.


           Hannah has been working for her family's restaurant for over six years. When I first knew her, it was almost 1.5 years ago. After I learned she came here seven years ago, the first question I asked her was where she visited in this country. Guess how many? None. Hannah became one of my very good Chinese friends after we have been hanging out for a long time in the past. I learned more about her. Why she said none? She doesn't have time, neither does her family. Their restaurant opens 7 seven days a week and closes after 9:30p.m. Basically, their life is in the restaurant. Hannah always goes back to restaurant to work after school.
           Before I worked for them, I completely didn't know how her life was. In the summer, I asked her to hang out. She always said no. Couple times, I was a little upset about being rejected. I thought I was nice to ask. Now I know I was totally a brat. I didn't put myselt into her shoes at all. It is not easy to live in a foreign country. It is even harder to run a restaurant and keep family in this country. Sometimes, people think Chinese are rich. Try to think about this, they work 12 hours every single day. They do not have vacation, no, not even family vacation.

          I just worked twice so far. Today, when I felt tired after almost 5 hours, I saw ayi still busy with this and that. She had worked since 9:30 this morning and didn't say anything tiring thing. Earning bread is difficult. Ayi and Mr.Zhang don't really speak much English except basic English. Ayi said, "If I know more English, I could talk to customers better and maybe we could make friends."

          However, they are one of the sweetest families I have ever seen! They treat people very well, even new employers, such as me. Watching Mr. Zhang mopping the floor, I felt like I saw my dad. Both of them are hard worker, honest, and humble. They are quiet but they are influential. Ayi and Mr.Zhang always make me food before I take off. Who on earth will care about your meal when you are off work? But ayi and Mr.Zhang really do. My heart just got melted. I just can't stop saying thank you when they treat me like a realitive. Maybe they don't realize that, but I will never forget my first restaurant experience.

          Both of them care about their two daughters' education. In China, well, in my generation, not many parents pay attention to their girls but boys. Ayi was surprised that my two older sister graduated from university. Because of our society, I totally understand why she was surprised. None of my relitives at my sisters' age graduate from college. Thanks to my parents who raise all of us and support us without any selfishness.

          They are just very very simple, honest, and hard-working people, but I feel so proud of them and thank them.


To those who are simple but brighten others' day and warm them up, like sunrise.

(Sunrise from Grand Teton, Wyoming)

First week of schooooooooooool

On Aug 21st, it was my second anniversary of being in U.S. Starting my third year here, I feel really normal, just can't belive I have been here for that long. That means the exchange students who came with me have been working in China for over one year. Time is crazy.
First week of school was over. I have online medical terminology, online theatre, microbiology, and psychology of adulthood this semester. Microbiology is everyday but Friday, which means the beautiful microbio professor is the one I will see most in this semester. Luckily, she is energetic, helpful, and a little bit funny, which is really good. :P You won't like seeing somebody you don't like everyday.
Online theatre? Yes. Teehee..Taking this online is not because I am too chicken to act in the public. Well, maybe so. Anyway, online theatre is a little bit confusing. @.@ Good thing is I finally figure out how this class goes and what I need to do.
Sometimes, I think people who take online classes are probably smarter. I am not talking about myself, definitely. They need to keep tract on schedule all the time, figure out what they should do, read bunch, and some other things.
I love online classes because my listening English is not as good as my reading skills. 
These days, I have been working on my field trip report and creative project. It takes forever to finish up. I guess I didn't study hard enough when I was on my two-week trip. :P it will be over someday before it due. Definitely not on the due day. I am not that procrastinated, I hope. >.<
It has been raining all day today. I don't know why I like raining so much. Maybe it brings fresh air, fresh smell of the soil and grass, and energy (after nap. :P) Love listening to the radio in the car while it is raining outside. Isn't that a good combination? :)))
I don't think each post has a real conclusion. Neither is this one. :P

One of the highlights of this awesome summer ^.^

6 a.m. July 27-3 p.m. Aug 11
I was with an awesome group of people for more than two weeks in wild west.
Right now, staying at 3030 coffee shop, sorting thousands of pictures from the trip, I just feel like I took too many pictures because many of them are almost the same :P well, fabulous pictures are produced in this way though. :D

I can't believe that I am back to midwest now except the weather here is a little bit like in the Rocky mountains. Two weeks ago, everywhere was yellow because it was too dry. The grass was crispy. I am not sure the cows like crispy grass or not. Maybe the grass can be chips for them.


I am so glad that ICC offers the GEO/BIO field trip class. Last year, I went to Southwest with a bunch of people I didn't know at all and became good friends with them. This year, Rocky Mountains welcomed us. :)
I fell in love with those mountains and hiking which are absolutely breathtaking, even though I always imagined that we could die any second, any minute because of the volcano eruption. Nobody will know when the Yellowsone will erupt. If it did, that would be a huge disaster of the whole world. When the geology instructor said how big the caldera it was, I was shocked. Well, maybe I shouldn't have felt that since the disaster would be huge. Last summer, we climbed SP crater in Arizona, which is a small cinder cone. It was a tough hike.

The instructors said our group was so lucky because when we were on the way to the Yellowstone National Park, we saw an elk with huge antlers!!! Our bio professor Kristen got so excited at the moment because she had never seen one before. (If I remember right.)  We saw tons of bisons later on. "Wow!! Bisons!!" this was how we felt at the first time. "Oh...bisons again." this was what we said on the second day. That was incredible to see bears, wolves, elk, bighorn sheep, mule deer, bison in the wildlife instead of zoo. OH..bears!
On Aug 7, the day we hiked Amphitheater Lake of Grant Teton, we met two black bears. It seemed like I was the only one to meet both of them. Maybe because it was my birthday? I wasted my birthday wish though, it was not getting eaten by a bear. One bear we saw was on the way to the lake. The baby bear was about 30 feet away. A half naked guy stood still on the path and clapping. His partner was taking pictures of the bear. Nobody talked. The bear walked across the path in front of them!!! A few of students and I was behind and realized that there was a bear. I didn't really have time to take out of my camera because it happened so fast! We didn't stay for a long time after the baby bear went up the hill because we didn't really want to meet his mom.
The second big baby bear showed up on our way down to the mountain. This one was just 15 feet away. Literally close enough. I could see his nose, ears, and eyes! I remembered to get picture of this creature this time. There was a family stopped before us and hikers were coming uphills. The bear just crossed the path and looked for food. I just couldn't belive what happened in the same day. Luckily, the bears didn't care about human. :) and their moms didn't show up. :))) which was really good.
The hiking on this trip was tough but the view around was absolutely gorgeous!!
I wish I could go to the field trip with ICC again, again, again, and again. Maybe I should become a professor? :P

School starts tomorrow!!CRAZY! Summer is too good to be wrapped up. To be honese, I am not ready for school, at all. Can I just say I have high altitude reaction and not going to school? :P Just kidding.