Exchange Diary (CityU Students)

There are any exchange students in University of Oklahoma and all of us like to hang out together. Today is one of our friends’ birthday and his flat mate held a birthday party for him. During the party, both of us shared something special from our country. After that, I knew more about different cultures. Some of the exchange students made some traditional food from their countries which were delectable.

Today I went to Wal-Mart(a super enormous supermarket in US) to get some food. Normally, we would buy as much as we can each time, because we do not have a car here and Wal-Mart is really far away from where we live! But shopping in Wal-Mart is fun. The food in US is relatively cheaper than Hong Kong and we could find many interesting snack here. After the crazy shopping, both of us were so exhausted.

February 1, 2012 ( Wednesday )

University of Oklahoma offers countless activities or events for exchange students. Today is a resources fair which we may know more about different societies in OU. During the fair, we played bango and the prize of this game was really attractive! We all had fun from this.

People in OU are nice to everyone and they always willing to give us a hand for everything. After the fair, I got lost because I still cannot remember the way back home. Suddenly, one local student just stepped forward and showed me the way. This was really warm and touching.

February 2, 2012 ( Thursday )

My host university is located in a small town which takes us 40 minutes to the city. Today, my friends and I went to the Oklahoma City to have some sightseeing and visit around. In there, I could finally find some tall buildings, as Normal, where I am living in, does not have. In the city, there are so many different kinds of museums. It was a pity that we did not visit any one of them, since we only had limited time. The shopping mall there is extremely big and the goods there are cheap! Both of us did a little shopping there.

February 3, 2012 ( Friday )

Today was so excited as my friends and I went for the NBA game. Oklahoma City has a NBA team called Thunder and they are quite famous here. When I went to the arena, there was full of people. Everyone was wearing a T-shirt with Thunder logo on it. Throughout the whole game, the atmosphere was great! Everybody shouted for Thunder. ”Let’s go Thunder!” That’s what we usually say during the game. And this time, Thunder won again!

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

# posted by Exchange Team Administrator @ 10:37 PM 0 Comments

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

# posted by Exchange Team Administrator @ 10:37 PM 0 Comments

Today, I finally get some cooking utensils. Thanks very much for CityU students who studied here exchange last semester. They left the utensils to their friends and passed them to me. It’s my first time to eat some hot food here. Really the best meal I have had here.

January 11, 2012 ( Wednesday )

My host university hold an activity to all exchange students today. We gather in a classroom and 5 in a group. We get into a train and go to play bowling together. There are almost a hundred students so we need a long time to wait for changing shoes. Drinks is also offered for us, what a warm welcome to exchange students.

January 12, 2012 ( Thursday )

We have a Facebook group for winter semester intake students. Today, we have dinner with around 30 students. They took us to a traditional French food restaurant. Actually, I think the dishes like the American one rather than the French one. Anyway, it’s really a good opportunity to meet friends from different countries.

January 13, 2012 ( Friday )

There is no class in this week. I and few of my friends from Canada go out and have a dinner in a really tasty restaurant. It is useless to give any signals to waitresses in France. They will serve you when they think it is a suitable time. So what you should do is being patient. Normally, we need 2-3hours to finish a dinner. That’s French style! For the dessert, I order the most original French one. French people drink coffee even at night. Coffee in France is served in a tiny cup. For HongKongers who used to drink grande coffee in Starbucks or Pacific Coffee Company, you can definitely finish it in a minute. French coffee is one of the best coffee in the world, for coffee lovers, you must try when you come to France!

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

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Today is the first day of my “Northern Night Trip”. I am going this trip with my CityU friends. In our planning, we would go Tromsø,Norway, then to Abisko,Sweden and to Kiruna,Sweden finally. In the first day of Tromsø, we went to a museum called Polaria. In the museum, we could learn the formation of northern light and see the feeding process of the sea lion. However, the museum had no fun at all and it seemed that the Ocean Park in Hong Kong is more interesting because the museum was small and had less interesting things. However, what make me feel stunning is that Tromsø was a beautiful city. It is located near a huge iceberg, together with the sea view scenery. It left a good impression to me.

February 11 , 2012 ( Saturday )

Today is a fantastic day because I am sure that I have finished a “must-do” checkpoint in my life. That is to climb to the peak of a snow mountain. This mountain is called Storsteinen Mountain. We first took the 4 minute cable car from the ground to the 421 meters high peak. Once we went to the peak, it really impressed me because we can see the whole view of Tromsø. In the peak, we had a little “Snow war” which we threw the snow ball to each other. I believed that it is a check point of my life since there will be no such opportunity for me to have a relax and fantastic day in my life as a role of student.

February 12, 2012 ( Sunday )

Today we left from Tromso and went to Abisko. Abisko is located between Norway and Sweden and it took almost a half of day to go from Tromso and Abisko. We planned to see the Northern Light in Abisko because it is recommended by our friends who went to Exchange last year. However, today was a cloudy day and it is too difficult for us to see the Northern Light. The conclusion of today is that the preparation work is really important including the booking of the accommodation. Because we booked the hostel very late, we finally booked the hostel in a very far location. Together with Sunday, there were no, if any, activities for us to play. And we had to take 50 minutes train from hostel to the center in order to do the activities we plan to do. So let see whether we can go to center successfully on Monday.

February 13, 2012 ( Monday )

Today is a fantastic day because we can finally see the Aurora (Northern Light) in our exchange life. We went to a place called Abisko Turiststation first. Because there is an Aurora Sky Station which is claimed the best place to see the Aurora. Before we go to the Sky station, we stay in a hotel in the tourist station and wait for the entry of sky station. Suddenly, many people ran out from the hotel and we just follow them. After that, we saw to the sky and finally see the one of the most amazing thing in my life, the northern light. We can see the northern light clearly and watch the light to move. It seemed that the northern light has life that it moved with a pattern. We all felt fantastic and stunning.

February 14, 2012 ( Tuesday )

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

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This is the third week I have come to Leeds but I still feel excited about everything surrounding me! Today is my day off. In other words, I have time to go to Global Café which is organized by Leeds University Union. I can meet students around the world every Monday! Students there are also served with drinks and some refreshments. It is really a nice place to meet friends.

I meet 2 girls there, one is from France and the other is from India. It is very funny to talk the girl from France. Since she cannot hear clearly my ascent, we talk to each other via our iphones (type in what we want to say). Nice talking to them!

February 7, 2012 ( Tuesday )

Busy day! I have 3 lectures back to back from 10 a.m. After the end of the add-drop period, lecturers start to assign us into a group and tell us what we need to do in our group projects. Lucky! My group members are nice to me and are willing to participate during the class and the project discussion.

I find that there is a difference about teaching style between Hong Kong and UK. In Hong Kong, we are stuffed with many teaching materials every day and the teaching is very intensive. Many of us do not have time to reflect our needs of personal and professional development and not to say developing our hobbies. In contrast, the teaching here is much more interactive and relaxed. We have lots of group exercise during the classes. We can even learn the difference between large company and small company by playing an online innovation game. Moreover, we do not need to memorize the teaching stuff for the exams. We just need to write an essay for each module. It seems that lecturers want to encourage us to read as many as possible we can. The teaching style here really impresses me!

February 8, 2012 ( Wednesday )

After finishing one lecture, I go to the Emmanuel Centre at 4 p.m. I attend the free English class there from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. It is helpful of the tutor to rectify my pronunciation and improve my verbal English skills.

There is a weekly international student event every Wednesday at 6 p.m. I go there after the English class and meet other international students. Maybe the theme today is about Chinese New Year Celebration. I meet many students from China and Japan while enjoying the Chinese food like fried egg rice, soft noodles and dumplings.

February 9, 2012 ( Thursday )

Had my favorite class-Principle of Corporate Strategy today. After that, I walk around the city center of Leeds and go to the Leeds City Museum. Being able to be immersed in a culture is an amazing experience so different from just seeing it on the TV.

At Leeds City Museum, I can see the world of discovery. There are four floors of interactive and exciting galleries. I can even come face to face with the Leeds tiger, step back into ancient worlds, read the history of Leeds and see the final resting place of the Leeds mummy!

Friday, 10 Feb 2012

The end of a good week! Really experience a lot in this week. In the afternoon, I head over to The Library Pub for a drink with my Exchange Buddy in Leeds. It is really helpful of them to give me so many advice say how to register a doctor here, how to use the gym centre.

We also talk about the difference between Hong Kong and UK. One of the difference I think is the eating habits. People in UK always like to eat fish, chips and salad at lunch and dinner. However, in Hong Kong, most people like to eat something which is cooked and eat rice served with many dishes.

The weekend is coming! I will visit The Black Country Living Museum (at Dudley near Birmingham) with my friends from City University of Hong Kong and University of Waterloo.

Hope that every week gets better and better!

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

# posted by Exchange Team Administrator @ 9:04 PM 0 Comments

After the Kairos Society’s summit in New York, I turned to Oklahoma today.

I missed the flight in this morning due to traffic congestion. I had to re-book the airline ticket and caught a standby plane. This was the first time I have ever experienced problems with missing a flight. I was able to be calm with this accidental situation.York, I returned to Oklahoma today.

Overall, the trip was a great experience to me. I met many new faces from all around the world. And I have learnt a lot through interacting with the young entrepreneurs. The summit helped to promote entrepreneurship, stimulate idea exchange, and increase students’ awareness towards different cultures. After the summit, I had an extension trip to visit a number of well-known university campuses including Yale, Brown, Harvard and Columbia. This 2-week trip left me with a lot of beautiful memories that will never be forgotten.

Back to school tomorrow! Two exams are awaiting me. I got like tones of things to do. …Happy moments are always short-lived.

February 14, 2012 ( Tuesday )

It’s Valentine’s Day today!

I finished two exams in the morning. I had classes until 4:30pm. After class, we went to Walmart to buy the ingredients for the Valentine’s Day dinner.

We had lettuce salad with Thousand Island dressing and shell pasta with chicken and shrimp. A task was assigned to everyone. I was responsible for peeling and deveining shrimp. We cooked together and had a lot of fun doing that! We talked, we laughed. What a wonderful night!

The dessert was the highlight of the dinner. The girls baked some chocolate cupcakes for all of us. It was delicious!

I wish all of you a Happy Valentines’s Day!

February 15, 2012 ( Wednesday )

I have only one class at night every Wednesday. I woke up early in this morning and went to the Huston Huffman Fitness Center for a one and a half hour gym. I love the lifestyle here in Oklahoma. Studying at OU is not as stressful as we do at CityU, and therefore I have more time to do exercises and develop my interests. Having a balanced life can be easily achieved here!

After the workout, I went to the Bizzell Memorial library for revision. I have to catch up with the teaching progress and finish all the assignments. I spent almost 6 hours studying in the library. The learning style in US is quite different from HK. Here, students are required to do a lot of readings by themselves. American students actively participate in every single class. They ask and answer questions enthusiastically. We should learn from them.

16/2/2012 (Thurs)

Tonight, I went to the event “Paradigm- Love, Sex& Marriage” held by the Baptist Student Union (BSU) at OU. BSU is a fellowship for college students. Since I am a Christian, I decided to join a Christina fellowship at OU. My friend, Frederick Wagner from Fencing Club, invited me to join the BSU. I am glad that I took the first step to join a community of American students. They are really kind to me. Whenever they have activities or events, they will send an invitation to me. They are my main group of friends. I have signed up for a mission trip in Colorado organized by BSU during spring break. I hope to develop a deeper relationship with brothers and sisters from BSU! They are true friends of mine and I love hanging out with them.

February 17, 2012 ( Friday )

At OU, we have pretty good sports programs. We call ourselves “Sooners”. Sooner is a unique nickname of OU synonymous with winning.

I watched a lacrosse game (Oklahoma vs. Taxes Tech.) tonight. A lot of sooners showed up to support the team. People shouted and cheered for OU team. The atmosphere was good.

After that, my host family Matt Maddox took me to pool and bowl. This was the first time I met him face to face. He’s very nice! He taught me how to bowl and pool with a good posture. We talked about our backgrounds, our families, our religion views, etc. I look forward to seeing Matt again in the coming weeks!

Labels: 2011/2012 Semester B

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