Blog for luoz

All good things come to an end. No matter how much I don't want to say goodbye, I have to now. I like the peaceful and beautiful campus here, and the kind and friendly interns, who have given great help to me during my stay in VCU. I think I'll tru to keep in touch with some of them after I go back to China, but now it still makes me don't feel good, for the coming departurer from lovely VCU campus and GRC.
Although I also miss my family very much, I think I'm missing Richmond and Virginia now. Well, see you, VCU, I'll miss you.

I think it makes sense to summarize some differences between U.S. and China, because the two countries and cultures do differ greatly in many aspects. Since I don't think I can tell the political, or economic, or cultral differences between the two professionally enough, so I just say something about the daily life.
Commonly, American car drivers obey the traffic regulations more strictly than most Chinese car drivers do, which may due to the more perfect laws and regulations in U.S. That cars let the pedestrians go first can be usually seen here, while now in China, cars are much stronger and more powerful than pedestrians.
Here, all the fundamental facilities in public places are designed quite consideratly, especially for the disabled, the old, the pregnant women, and the children. It seems to me that there are some sub-rules which people here all abey automatically, although I cannot tell all of them clearly.
Most American people are more open-minded than most Chinese peoplel. Teenagers here are more free and independent than Chinese young people. The media here has more freedom, and people can get many controversial information in various fields, which is much less possible in China.
The average American people's living standard is much higher than that of China, but for the poor people, situations are always more or less similar, no matter which country they belong to.
According to the current prevail saying, the U.S. is developed, while China is developing. Indeed, U.S. does better in many aspects than China, especially for the political and social system. However, I believe that for both of them, improvement is always needed.

Until tomorrow, I have spent three weeks here in Virginia. Three weeks can be long, or can be short. The feeling I have deep in my heart now is that I love this place. Many memorable experiences have been gained--the barbecue, Butsh Garden, Virginia Beach, home visit...needless to say the visits to the Capitol Building, Williamsburg, Montecello, shopping malls and theatres. I used to dislike the American food, but when we had dinner in Connie's house (where I go for home visit), I found that the food American peopel have at home were delicious! Maybe it's just the fast food, which usually has a huge size, that is not for me.
Though many differences in various aspects exist between the United States and China, there are also many similarities between the two. Most American people are as kind and friendly as most Chinese people are. The trees and flowers I saw here can also be found in China. Traffic here sometimes can be terrible, so are in big cities of China.
......
Now, I think three weeks here is a really short time. Hope I'll visit here again some day. Maybe at that time, there will be more similarities between U.S. and China, with the internationalization of cities in China and the Globalization trend.

Yesterday evening, we had a lecture on jazz, and it's wonderful. The lecturers let us enjoyed a mini live jazz "concert", and I found that I loved jazz more after that.
Jazz is an excellent kind of music to express people's feelings and emotion. It can be casual, and it can be noble. The players just play at their pleasure, and then the effect come out is quite natural. The listeners emotion will be influenced by the music easily. Jazz is also suitable for dancing, so people usually choose to play it on get-togethers.
In one piece of jazz music, I appreciate the solo section very much. During the solo section, it needs not only remarkable individual skill of playing a certain instrument, but also perfect coordination and cooperation.
I think I'll listen to more jazz music in the future, and try to understand them better, not just thinking they are good. Enjoy life with JAZZ! haha

Yesterday afternoon, the activity of home visit finally came. We were dued to meet Ms Diane Versfelt at 1:00pm, who has adopted a Chinese girl as her daughter. Later, it turned out that three ladies who all adopted Chinese girls, including Diane, was going to be hosts together of Pu Ying and I, as well as other students. After a little shopping, we were driven to Joan's house, where we would have dinner. We arrived there at about 5:00pm, and it was really a lovely house, both outside and inside. We all thought that such a house could be called a splendid house in China, but here maybe it's just an ordinary house for middle-class Americans. The two rooms for children were very lovely, so were all the toys they had. All the food we had there was delicious, especially the self-made chocolate cake and the ice-cream, haha.
The five adopted Chinese girls were very lovely, and the way they talk and behave were just like native American children. I think it's lucky for them, who were orphans before, to be adopted by kind American ladies and have a warm family. They are actually a kind of friendship bridge between U.S. and China. Wish them all the best in the future. I hope they can make contributions to the exchange of cultures between U.S. and China some day.
I enjoyed the home visit very much, and it's one of the most pleasant and memorable experience I've had during my stay here in Virginia.

Today we had great lectures, and one of them was about "adapting to a new culture". The lecturer was humorous and wise, and one sentence in his PPT impressed me greatly, that was, keep going until nobody can ignore you.
We all know that to be successful, we must be persistent and do things with great determination, but the reality is always that we experience much more failures than success. Under this circumstances, it's easy for people to turn sour and bitter, and try to find some excuses, like blaming on discrimination.
It really takes courage to carry on doing something when nobody support or trust you. If you've failed for many times or have made few achievements and been obscure for a long time, people may doubt your capability, do not think you can make any achievements, then ignore you. Since not everyone can be a shiner while people all want their capability to be affirmed, it's quite distressed when most of the time what you get from others is just ignorance.
At this time, please remember to throw away your depression, and keep going until nobody can ignore you. The process may be painful, but once you've gone through it, you win. And your success will be the most meaningful, for you'll also gain a huge treasure from experiences of failure and all the ups and downs in life.
All the words above is for myself first, and I'll always bear them in mind.