Exchange Diary (CityU Students)

A tough week begins! It’s already Week 5 and my first Mid-term exam will be held on tomorrow. But I have only two classes today, one from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm and another from 7:00 pm to 9:30 pm. So I can spend several hours in the library reading my Principles of Marketing and preparing for tonight’s Management class.

When everything seems going smooth, unfortunate thing happens. At 6:45 pm, when I walk into the lecture theater, I find my name plate placed on the second row. This means I am chosen to answer the instructor’s questions and would be rewarded by participation points today. Participation counts half of the total points and are all judged by how well you answer the questions of the instructor when he picks you. All questions are related to management in US companies and are all real life examples chosen by him. Luckily, I did some revisions and spent my weekend doing the Google case study he told us to do, so I am able to manage his two questions. Anyway, I've survived from the class today and as usual, I learn a lot about business in USA.

This morning is quite interesting. Oly and Apollo, the two big dogs in my host family, shove my bedroom door open and get in my room when I am still sleeping. Oly jumps onto my bed and licks my toes while Apollo sits beside my bed looking at me. I guess it is around 7:00am since Libby, my landlady and Cecilia, another tenant, are about to leave the house. Two dogs look at me as if to ask: Libby and Cecilia are leaving, why don’t you get up? But I stayed up too late last night trying to finish reading the Marketing textbook and I am still unconscious; I have to ask them to leave. Oh, the lovely dogs!I have three classes today and one exam in the evening. So today is really stressful. Whenever I have time, I will take out Principles of Marketing and read a few lines. Luckily, there are 50 MC questions and takes 50 minutes. Then our group holds a meeting for the project. We divide our tasks and the guys share their experience of driving the Lamborghini car since our topic is the marketing strategy of this luxury car company. Everyone is very excited about it.

Exams come one by one, another one comes tomorrow. What a busy week! Then, today my main task is to read my Law book. So I go home early after class and cook the rice in the microwave oven and mix it with sausage and kimchi— that becomes my dinners for the next two days. After my “dinner”, I have to go back to the book. It is the most confusing book I have ever read, the sentence structures are so complicated that I need to read them again and again. Though not much to read compared with Tuesday’s Marketing, but remember the difference between liability and property and which one is more efficient under which conditions is quite challenge. Due to the revision, I cannot go swimming with Libby today, what a pity!

I wake up quite early today at 5:50am, still worry about the exam. I still not yet finished the last chapter. So I need to make use of the last 4 hours to prepare for it. Oly comes in, jumps onto my bed and lies next to me quietly. I read through the night until the sun comes out. At 8:30am, I go to school in California’s beautiful sunshine. Today is a bit hotter than the usual cool weather here, although I just hear from my classmate in Michigan that they have only 8 degrees. But it is still cold inside the buildings.

Now the Law exam is over but there is still another one coming next Tuesday. In addition to Monday’s Management class, God knows whether I will be chosen again. So I cannot relax and lie on the oily green grass, I still have work to do on weekends. But I will go to Chinatown in LA this Saturday with my friends from the Study Abroad Club, so Saturday will be the real exchange life—each week, you can go to a party or visit another place.