for the last few weeks, I did not really do anything special, just studying and hanging out with friends. we have gone and watched a  few movies, and partied for a  little bit. The recent movie which is called ” the invention of lying” is funny and deep at the same time.  it basically tells a story how people’s life would like in a total honest society, and how the idea of lying helped a man become sucessful. It just makes me think more about the art of those necessary lyings in our life. for the party, I went to a few fraternity parties and most fun one is last weekend’s ATO Dukes party: Good music, drinks and dancing of course. I foget that i have seen the all sing, I would say the performance is very creative and energetic. other than that, studying is the biggest part in my life.

Sophomore year so far is going well. Recently, I have been to the Tibet art performance. the art performance is the actually the sand paiting, which requires a lot of time, patience and energy ( probably takes days to finish a sand painting). However, what’s fascinating about the sand painting is that right after the monks finshed the painting , they would destroy it. I went to see the paiting on saturday afternoon and on sunday afternoon I went to the destroying ceremony. during the destroying ceremony, I felt so sad that the beautiful painting is gone in a few seconds. Nothing, including the beautiful things is everlasting might be the explanation for that, I guess.

Last, hope my sophomore year would be as wonderful as my freshman year!

This summer I’m working in the Buckman center (study abroad). I really enjoy my work! To be perfectly honest, I have learned a lot about Rhodes study abroad programs, Which I knew nothing about before I start working there. now I can say I am an expert on that, haha! OK, I bet you want to know more about my summer than just working!

Let’s start with the biggest thing: Rhodes has been out of power for two days because of the storm! Well, I have never realized how important electricity  had meant to us until we lost it. No light at night, No Internet, No Microwave for food and the worst is that we need to worry about the food in the fridge (without the frozen air they will go bad quickly). Without electricity,I and my roommate Brittney just sat on the beds chatting and then both falling asleep fast in the dark. One thing I learned when out of power is that saving your sleep until night or you will be very painful stay awake in the hot dark room.

Other than out of electricity, another thing bothers me is my eyes. Yesterday morning, my eyes hurt so bad. I even  couldn’t open my eyes!  Tears all over my eyes and I even couldn’t stop them. I went to the doctor’s office and it turned out my eyes have medical issues (but they’re not serious, If i didn’t go to the doctor in time, I might lose my sight). the good news is that my eyes are much better now with the eye drops the doctor gave me.

Don’t get a wrong sense that my summer is full of terrible things. I actually had a lot of fun during the summer! Some nice barbecue and pool parties, hanging out with friends and got a new pair of sunglasses!

 Another surprise was on my math class. on Friday, as soon as I entered my applied calculas class, I found there were cute cakes with colorful candles on my desk (it’s so romantic!). Everyone entered the classroom said” happy birthday” to me and I felt so special with those cakes in front of me during the math class!

On my real birthday night, though it is raining, I still went out to dinner with my friend for my real birthday night! All I remember is that the food is indeed yummy!

Birthday is over, but happiness is still going on with my friends birthday wishes! All I want to say is that my life in US would suck without my sweet US friends!!

My first impression about New Orleans is the rain, the first two day, it is raining all the time in New Orleans. There’s one thing makes me so exciting about New Orleans is the St.Patrick’s day parade. To be honest, I have never watched a parade other than milatary parade in China before. The St. Patrick’s day parade is very Irish, there are Irish dance, Irish kiss and Irish flower. my friends joked with me when I was wearing an Irish hat, they said I was a Irish-American-Chinese now. The parade was so exciting, people threw beads, cups, vegetables and toys all over you!

another impressive thing is the food, oh, my god! I can’t forget all the fancy food I ate in New orleans! I would say, I almost fell in love with American food while in New Orleans! the best meal is the crawfish dinner. the familiy cooked a lot of crawfish and pull them on the table. I never saw so many alive crawfish in my life, not mention those delicious already cooked crawfish which are ready for you to eat!

the last exciting thing that I must mention is Bourbon Street, which makes New Orleans more like a party city. It’s so exciting walking on the Bourbon street, hearing people shouting for Beads, seeing people going crazy in different pubs and enjoying the party atomosphere. I and some friends even went to dance in the French corner, a pub called “crazy party corner” on Bourbon street.

apparently, I had a good time in New Orleans for my spring break!

the whole math equation thing is like this: on Thursday night, after my Karate class, I went back to my room and felt so exhausting, so I decided to take a nap. During my nap, one friend called me for math homework help. since I have already finished my math homework, so I thougt it would be easy for me to help her with the math homework. so I went to the liberary, to my surprise, there were five of my classmates there waiting for my help. I have no problem helping them until the last supplemental problem. I suddenly found that I had made a mistake there, so I told them to wait for me to correct the mistake. after correcting the mistake I got an equation 5x*sin(5x)=cos(5x) and I need to solve the x in order to go the next step. I have stucked in this equation for at least 3 hours. at last, I decied to give up and turned to others for help.

 It was 12:30 am at that time, I walked around the whole liberary and middleground and asked anyone if they had calculus before. fortunately, I found one guy in Calculus three class, but after he had tried every method he came up in mind for an hour, he gave up as well. it was 1:30 am at that time, and I had used mathamatica, calculator , graph and my hand to solve the problem until then.

my friend called all the people she thought who had calculus before, and woke up those who even had already gone to sleep to help me solve the equation. the result was disappointing, no one could solve it!

the next day, I went to my math class, everyone was complaining the equation. they asked the professor to solve the equation, but it turned out that the professor was not able to solve the equation as well. the professor’s comment on the equation was ” it is obivious a challenging problem, even if you have learned all the methods later, you still are not able to solve it.”  ” why do you give us such a difficult equation if you know we are not able to solve it, and we asked the whole liberary and all the friends for help last night until 2 am!” my friend who called me for help complained loudly to the professor. the professor replied:” can any of them solve the equation?  ” no.”  ” then, it proved that the equation is challenging and even the whole liberary and all your friends can’t solve it.” our professor answered with a smile. ” what? ” this is the answer the professor gave for the equation that i have struggled for the whole night?!! I felt so ridiculus and so mad at that moment!!

my life was totally ruined by a math equation! seriously !!

The first fun thing came to my mind at the beginning of the spring semester is the annal rave party. the party is unique compared to other parties since everyone dressed up in different creative ways. however, for me the more impressing thing is how a small fraternity house contains so many people. it is so crazy that all the people ran into a small party house and no one could move there. I was even trapped by some drunk guy on the floor.

the next fun thing came to my mind is the valentine’s night. I went to the free movie with my friends. we watched the ” he is just not that into you” movie. In fact, I just watched this movie two days before the valentine’s day, but I still enjoyed watching it a second time.

the last thing came to my mind is Chinese food. I finally tasted some real Chinese food ( not Americanized Chinse food) last Friday in Tasty Buffet. When I saw the familier Chinese home cooking in Tasty Buffet, I was pretty excited ! I really get a little tired after tasting American food everyday.

This is how my spring semester so far, I will keep up with life and tell you what happened in my spring semester later.

On Christmas Eve, we had a big dinner , then  went to the church, sang Christmas songs and light candles together. At first, I’m confused when someone talking about Jesus before we start the Christmas ceremony. later, I know because Christmas is originally for Christians to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, it became a tradition to talk about Jesus on Christmas Eve. I like the lighting candle part, everyone lights the candle for the person sit next to him/her, light passed from the first person to the very end, it’s like people are passing blessings and love one by one. I think it’s so romantic! after Church, we drove back home and played a game called ” who know” for a while ( it’s a game for people to figure out what you like best). at about 11pm, we decided to open our gifts under the Christmas tree. I am pretty surprised and excied when found a CD of soundtrack of Pride & Prejudice in my gift bag since I just mentiond once that I love the soundtrack of Pride& Prejudice when we watched the movie two days ago! 

On Christmas day, we got up very early and continued opening the gifts. but this time, we could grab the stocks hung on the fireplace. a lot of gifts inside it!  I really enjoy my first Christmas in Atlanta!

During the homecoming, there was a big off-campus dancing. everyone dressed up at that big party. there were food, drinks and bands. the most interesting thing at that night was that after the party when we wanted to come back to rhodes,60 students  running  to a 20-seat bus at one time. it was so like the scene in China’s bus stop. everyone is so excited on the way back to rhodes: talking, laughing and screaming. you know what, Rhodes is both academic and fun!

Midtown service was the first out of class activity for me. I went to Memphis youth village that day and played kickball and funball with those kids in order to give them some positive influence. Although those kids were with low IQ, they were very passionate and nice. I always couldn’t get the rule of that kickball game, but they always encourage me by saying” at least you tried, Li” . I still can remember their proud facial expression when they introduced their team leader ” Big Joe” to us.

Yesterday, I finally got some Chinse food.  I miss Chinese food so much these days, though I like American food, I still think Chinese food is more delicious.  I also miss the chicken soup made by my mother.

The first couple of weeks of new life is always not easy, however, I’m glad I have come all the way through it and now I feel life is so nice again.

From August 19th to 20th was the international student orientation. For most international students, it was the first time for them to be in US.  we shared our opinions about the difference between the real US we saw in memphis and the one we watch on TV. soon, we became very familiar with each other. OK, Let’s move to new students orientation which started on August 21st.  seeing all students and their parents busy with moving in reminded me of a brand new life here in rhodes college.(those students who wear ” ask me” shirts were so cute! )  I was nervous as well, since I would finally meet my roommate who I have talked with during summer on line. I think everyone may had the same feeling as I did, both excited for the their new journey in college and nervous for the challeges ahead.

then the orientation officially started after new students moved in. Now looking back at my welcome week schedule, my overall feeling is “busy, busy and busy”. busy getting familiar with the new enviroment, busy meeting new people and remembering their names, busy attending different welcome activities. For me,there are two things most impressive: one is PA group, the other one is Memphis connection. Although at first I thought PA meant personal assistant instead of peer assistant, the fact was that PA did give me personal assistance. For my memphis connection, I went hiking in Shelby Forest State Park. I had a lot of fun there.

Now, new students orientation is over and new semester has begun. there are always students walking fast with loads of books in the campus, which often reminds me that I am right now in college instead of high school. I really love the academic atmosphere here in rhodes college. Last, wish myself and all the new students a great year.

The most impressive thing in GYLC was cutural exchange. On the last night in Washington,DC , everyone brought something represent his/her home country to the conference room. There were traditional dancing, different languages and unique gifts. I deeply felt that we could strongly feel our own culture only when we were interacting with people from other cultures.

During GYLC, conference was an important part in my daily life. It was the first time I knew about LGM(Leadership Group Meeting). Everyone would represent a country other than his/her home country. There were about 20 scholars in one country group. During LGMs, scholars in the same country group needed to discuss everything about this country and how to get other countries’ votes on the last day’s Global Summit. It was so exciting to talk about those big country issues, not to mention the fun of negotiating with members representing other countries.

We also did some sightseeings during our stay in Washington.DC and New York City. We visited the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.DC , In New York City we went to see the statue of Liberty and time square. Luckily, we even had a chance to watch the broadway musical” cry baby” .