another party at my house - pumpkin carving and apple powder (instead of apple crisp).
Sunday, December 2, 2007
back again
So....the other day I was with Lois and we were looking for a place to have dinner. We walked past a restaurant called "The Blog Restaurant." Thinking I didn't know the meaning of "blog," Lois explained that it was like an online diary that you write in everyday. Oops....and I thought you just had to write in it every three or four months. :)
Yeah, I have obviously not met my hopes of writing more frequently. Oh, so many stories have come and gone. I have to delete old ones in my "inbox" to make room for new ones; therefore, they are gone before they get written.
It seems like this semester just started, and already it is coming to an end. I have found that working with the PhD students is quite different than the undergrads. The biggest difference is in their schedules. Many of them are married, some have children, most are working or teaching, all are doing research - their hectic schedules make it nearly impossible for me to get together with them outside of class. They have been hardworking students, and we have fun in class. We meet together for four hours at a time, once a week.
They are continually asking me to edit their research papers which they intend to publish. I tell them it would be easier for me to understand if it were written in Chinese. For example, a quote from a Material Science PhD candidate's paper: "The reason was that the error was little when it dealt with the crack growth in straight line in the crack checking stage and when it went on growing, the surface of the crack cross-section would become rough and irregular, which demonstrated the fractal effect character." You see what I mean? Ugh.
A few weeks ago in class we were working on reading graphs and charts. I strolled around the room as the students worked in pairs. I spent a little extra time helping one young man who was really struggling with the exercise. As I was closing the class time, I thanked him for his hard work and gave him a thumbs up in front of the class. I few hours later I received this email from him: "Thank you to praise me today in the class,i know my English speaking is vrey bad,thanks your encouragement ." Cool.
I've posted some pictures of my trips to Beijing. I've been to Beijing twice since I've been here. It's like going to New York City - both in distance from home and excitement. The first time I went was for the National Day Holiday in October; Marilyn and I met some friends from Wheaton. Then I had to go back again to renew my passport.
I invited my students over during the Halloween season for pumpkin carving and making apple crisp. Two failed attempts at apple crisp left me a little discouraged. The first time we burned it. It actually didn't taste that bad, but the students thought it was "too sweet." The next week a new group of students came over and the young lady who took charge of the apple crisp making decided that it needed two cups of flour instead of one. So....as you can imagine we were eating baked apples covered in powder. Surprisingly, they ate most of it. Oh, it was awful. With every bite, puffs of white powder came out of our mouths as we talked and laughed.
With the approach of Christmas, Marilyn and I are going to attempt Christmas cookie making parties. Stayed tuned for the results.
Yeah, I have obviously not met my hopes of writing more frequently. Oh, so many stories have come and gone. I have to delete old ones in my "inbox" to make room for new ones; therefore, they are gone before they get written.
It seems like this semester just started, and already it is coming to an end. I have found that working with the PhD students is quite different than the undergrads. The biggest difference is in their schedules. Many of them are married, some have children, most are working or teaching, all are doing research - their hectic schedules make it nearly impossible for me to get together with them outside of class. They have been hardworking students, and we have fun in class. We meet together for four hours at a time, once a week.
They are continually asking me to edit their research papers which they intend to publish. I tell them it would be easier for me to understand if it were written in Chinese. For example, a quote from a Material Science PhD candidate's paper: "The reason was that the error was little when it dealt with the crack growth in straight line in the crack checking stage and when it went on growing, the surface of the crack cross-section would become rough and irregular, which demonstrated the fractal effect character." You see what I mean? Ugh.
A few weeks ago in class we were working on reading graphs and charts. I strolled around the room as the students worked in pairs. I spent a little extra time helping one young man who was really struggling with the exercise. As I was closing the class time, I thanked him for his hard work and gave him a thumbs up in front of the class. I few hours later I received this email from him: "Thank you to praise me today in the class,i know my English speaking is vrey bad,thanks your encouragement ." Cool.
I've posted some pictures of my trips to Beijing. I've been to Beijing twice since I've been here. It's like going to New York City - both in distance from home and excitement. The first time I went was for the National Day Holiday in October; Marilyn and I met some friends from Wheaton. Then I had to go back again to renew my passport.
I invited my students over during the Halloween season for pumpkin carving and making apple crisp. Two failed attempts at apple crisp left me a little discouraged. The first time we burned it. It actually didn't taste that bad, but the students thought it was "too sweet." The next week a new group of students came over and the young lady who took charge of the apple crisp making decided that it needed two cups of flour instead of one. So....as you can imagine we were eating baked apples covered in powder. Surprisingly, they ate most of it. Oh, it was awful. With every bite, puffs of white powder came out of our mouths as we talked and laughed.
With the approach of Christmas, Marilyn and I are going to attempt Christmas cookie making parties. Stayed tuned for the results.
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