GaoJunlin@VCU

Life in VCU, life in Richmond, Life in Virginia is really colorful, but we also attend lots of lectures here. I didn’t mention a word about them in my former blogs, but it doesn’t mean that they are not interesting at all.

Well, firstly I have to say that some of the professors are boring and easily make us sleepy, maybe because they are not very good at expression and teaching. Nevertheless, most of the lectures are useful and interesting. I learned a lot about American history and American culture, and what’s more important is American way of thinking here.

Also, we can’t forget that three Chinese lecturers gave classes to us last week. As far as I’m concerned, the Fudan alumni, Yang Weiyong, talked in a Chinese logic and thinking, with some simple sentences. But the concepts and content were new. The Taiwan banker was okay, but he was just beat the bush, maybe there’re something related to Trade secrets. What the third Taiwan businessman said was also very good and useful, but I can’t understand why he said all his content in Chinese!

Maybe I love the lectures taught by local professors more, and that was what I really want here.

I’ve never thought that canoing could be such tiring. It was said that canoing can be in the evening that we can watch the stars in the sky. That’s so romantic~~ but actually we went there in the afternoon. The sun was shining last afternoon, and I had only applied sun-cream once in the dorm at noon because I thought I would get wet through! However, not got burned was really good~

Dongyu, Ting and I were on the same canoe. The whole distance was about 4 miles and we felt really tired on the half way. All of us are very small girls that we tried our best, but we were still the last to arrive. Anyhow, we didn’t ask anyone for help, and we finished~~

I don’t know whether the river is a branch of the James River but the water was really dirty. There were all kinds of insect around the river and reeds below the surface. Sight viewing on the river could also be interesting, but it seemed hardly changed in the 4-mile distance!

Maybe I can’t tell whether I love canoing here or not, but it did cost me a whole afternoon, and I got the memory there. That’s enough~

Erik is a very kind guy that he is always willing to take us out as long as he has time and energy. He paid us ice-cream in Cary town, invited us for peach-picking, and took us to the BW3 for cheap chicken wings on Tuesdays. With great intern as he is, our activities here are really colorful!

The environment in the BW3 was typical American, with crowds and lots of TV sets. The chicken wings there on Tuesdays are really cheap, $4 for 10! He told us that he usually orders more than he could have and pack the remaining home, and we did so as he told. Chicken wings are great mainly because all kinds of sauce there. As I can’t stand spicy food, Honey BBQ is the limit. All kinds of BBQ sauce are really cool. The remaining 5 or 6 wings that we packed home can be three days’ breakfast for me. Baking with butter, they are still delicious~~ Maybe I’m doomed to remember the wings here after going back to Shanghai.

We were so lucky that we finally went to Dan’s house for home visiting. Dan’s arrangement was excellent! Firstly, he drove us to the Hollywood and told us some of the history of the cemetery, especially those related to the Civil War. Afterwards, he showed us around the Richmond city of the University of Richmond and the neighborhoods of every class. What a wide gap between the rich and the poor!

After visiting the James River Park, we arrived his house for dinner. All his family members are very kind and we chatted with lots fun. His 17-year old son, Paul, is learning Chinese now! And I have to mention their lovely dog, Carolina, who was named after the state where his wife came from. The dinner was great! All of us loved all of the course and the cheery wine as well as their self-made mango ice-cream.

The only regret was that it rained hard after dinner that we cannot take a walk in his neighborhood. But the pleasant talk about U.S. and China made up for it exactly.

We were accidentally announced that our home visit was arranged on Sunday afternoon, so we cannot join the hiking on Sunday, nor we had anything to do on Saturday. But Jay was such a kind guy that he drove us to meet Erik’s group on Saturday morning and we did peach picking and visited UVA together. I know it could be very tiring and kind of boring to him since he grew up here, but he just drove us five here and there and offered us chips on the way back! Thanks to Jay, we had an excellent Saturday!

The peach picking was a lot of fun. And I think it was strange that American peaches are yellow inside, and tastes good of course. We probably ate more than we bought. And I cannot imagine that I’ve eaten two peaches in the orchard without washing! Well, every kind of fruit in the U.S. doesn’t need be washed before eating since they are clean and no insecticides applied. The village view was also beautiful~~

The main campus of UVA and Darden were two exciting places because of the fame, the facilities and the environment there. The main campus was designed by Thomas Jefferson and the buildings and lawns were really magnificent. Darden was rich, was so outstanding that we can only respect. And it was really well decorated and comfortable inside. What a pity that Erik didn’t come with us to Darden~~

It’s Friday today and we continue to have lectures since Tuesday. However, everyone is sleepy these days, because we were so tired last weekend and didn’t have enough rest after coming back. Four days passed by and we are still tired. Maybe we shouldn’t attend the evening activities every night, but we really do not want to miss anything that might be fun in the U.S. So day after day, without enough rest at night, everyone gets sleepy in the class, you can see at least one person closes his eyes in lecture time, especially when what the professor said is not that attractive. I know it is not good, and I tried to not sleep and listen to the lecturer carefully, but having an English class for two hours only is rather tiring. Coffee might be efficient, but I cannot have that much. It’s late again now, I’d better go to bed early this night.