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Tuesday, November 28
by Nguyen Le
 I started writing this week’s blog entry a bit later than usual. There are two experiences I want to share with you.
First, I’ve given some thought to the issue of picking a major and choosing appropriate courses (Laurel mentioned this last week). During international orientation (which took place several days earlier than the all-freshman orientation), I found it so hard to get a hold of the whole time-consuming decision-making process. Most international students coming to Mac have a solid idea of what they want to study. Being a skeptical student, I have to say that I did not find the argument of ‘taking a variety of courses and then choosing a major that you want to study the most’ convincing. Why not just go into the major right away? As it gets closer and closer to the registration deadline to choose a course for next semester, my predetermined concrete course list is on the verge of extinction. I want to try out psychology and music, things that I would never have thought of taking earlier in the year. I have learned to stay open to everything, and I can feel the ‘liberalism’ in me now. I have learned to put myself out of my comfort zone. I’m learning how to learn.
Now comes the really fun one. I had a wonderful time at my roommate’s home at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Some of my friends stayed on campus during Thanksgiving break, and they had a good time too with parties and Hmong New Year celebration. Still, I’m so glad that my roommate invited me to go to his home. They took me to a Middle East restaurant on Wednesday night, the food there was fantastic. I also had the opportunity to experience an American Thanksgiving dinner. We went over to his grandmother’s house. Just like a New Year celebration in Vietnam, all members of the extended family gathered together, ate turkey and talked. I felt so much at home, they welcome me as if I was in their family. We saw three movies in just 2 days, wow, went shopping on the Black Friday (since things are so cheap), then came the most interesting night ever. We went to his friend’s house and played all kinds of games, all of which I had not played before. We started with Cranium. One guy picked a blue creative card that required his partner to use body language to express the word “Cocktail dress”. The partner guy looked totally confused; another guy came up with a suggestion: “Use compound words, decompose the word into parts.” And so that’s what he did. Later we went to another house and played Mario and Smash on Nintendo…8 guys at once. Arriving back at his house completely exhausted, I realized how much I appreciated the experience. I have the coolest roommate ever here at Mac.
That is it for now. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Give thanks, give back.
posted by Nguyen |
