A light trip

       It was Monday, everything is back on its rail way. I felt very tired and nervous when I get to the classroom today. Half is because of the lack of sleep yesterday and half is because of my presentation. However, after the presentation, I was alive and was bursting with energy again. Quickly after my lunch, I asked Ann whether she would like to go to an outlet with me this afternoon. To my surprise, she said yes immediately. It was a really spontaneous trip and risking, because two Asian, visitor liked, traveling in a foreign country. After we consulted with a friend who had been there before, we started our trip. Thanks to his elaborate explanation, we felt safer. We needed to change three transportations in order to get there. Firstly, we got on our free campus bus to Palo Alto Cal train station. Unfortunately, the train had just left while we arrived. We waited for another forty five minutes for the train to come. Arriving on Mountain View station, we had to change train to another light train which was more like a bus in Taiwan. Finally, when we got there two hours has already passed, without a car in America was really like no feet, you cannot go anywhere you want. The good thing is we did a lot of shopping in Great Mall today, but because of the lack of time, we did not have chance to go through every stores. Today’s biggest achievement was that we did it! Go traveling by ourself.

Topic: The Weather in Stanford

     I can’t deny that the weather in Stanford is awesome! Despite, there is a little chill in the morning and the evening; the day is always brightening with lovely sunshine. Unlike, scorching hot sun in Japan, the sun here is much friendlier and there is not even a scratch of cloud on the sky. The sky is so blue that make the red building in Stanford looks like it is floating. However, the weather is a little bit dry for my skin, which makes me itchy and spelling. I think it might take a long time to adapt the humidity in Stanford. Due to the beautiful weather which encourages me to leave the premises and to walk under the sun shine. I walk to the bookstore with a friend today. To my surprise, English books here are much cheaper in Japan. Instead of buying souvenirs that I have planed, I bought three books, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the open boat, and a portrait of the artist as a young man. I will try my best to finish all these books when I get back! When I go back to Japan, I have to do my part-time job and am going to enjoy a trip to Okinawa!

The food in the Dorm

     Usually the food in the dorm is not very testing. In my own college, my classmates even told me the food in the dorm was made for the pigs! In Stanford, we live in Wilbur and the dinner hall in Wilbur are always crowded with people during meal time. People flooding into the dinner hall, grabbing plenty of food on their plate and quickly finish the food with their friends. To be honest, the food in Stanford is not very good as expected. It doesn’t have much change on everyday’s menu; moreover, vegetable is always eaten without cooked which is tasteless. On the other hand, the sweets and beverages are extremely sweet. Whenever I take a bite of the cake or pudding, I can almost feel my teeth complaining about being exposed to calcium carbonate which will decay our teeth. Another shortcoming about cafeteria is that people will unconsciously waste more food than having one’s own portion. And this reminded me of an article that I read years ago. Comparing to Africa and other famines areas, there are places such as England and America wasting plenty of food every year. This is really ironic that one place of the earth, people is suffering for famines but the other places keep wasting enormous of food. I want to solve this food problem from the point of science field in the future. So, I have to work hard and go to the Graduate University of Stanford university.

JACOBS!!!

Journal

Today, after the English class, we went to the SFMOMA museum in the San Francisco!! It was very fun because there were so many kinds of arts, sculptures and pictures. I was so impressed to watch almost all of them. And it was very comfortable to drink coffee- lattee at the top floor. Then, I went to buy goods at the store of MARC BY MARC JACOBS. So I went to the Fishermans whalf by cable car. It was very interesting experience for me because we could go through the city by bus and I had never riden something like that in Japan. So, when I arrived at the destination at the 7:15, the staff said to you that they closed the store at 7pm and we tried so many times but they denied us. 

Presentation!

Journal

       Sorry to be late for the today’s class!! It was because I planned what I should do today at the different building! Sorry, sorry.

Today is the first day of our presentations, so I feel a little excited about that. Today’s presenter was Linda, Kirstin, Zona and Hannah. First, Linda did her presentation about recycling. What was interesting to me were that she had the slide that showed “before” and “after” expectation and that she suggested that we should do recycling more and more by showing “Let’s recycling” on the slide. Because I think it a good idea to let us compare the before and after expectation and by suggesting presentator’s ideas to us, the presentation became more impressive. Second, Kirstin did her presentation about first-food culture in America. It was very attractive because we can watch the video of comments that we have about fast-food at the beginning of her presentation. I thought it very good way to attract audience quickly and deeply, so I want to use some videos in a efficient way. Third, Zona conducted her presentation about fast-food too. Zona’s presentation was a little different from Kirstin’s prese ntation. Because Zona also referred the influence on the environment. I think environmental problem is emergent problem to be needed, so it was good things for Kirstin to think about the influence on the environment. Hannah was the last presentater of today’s. The topic was about “Americans learn the Mandolin”. It was good because we could see the literature review and so simple structure that we can understand easily.

GCP!

JOURNAL                  TAKUYA SHIMIZU

 Today, after the English class, I went to take the lecture at the 250 building. The lecture was about immigration to the U.S. I was very interested in that topic because I studied about the immigration in advance at the TD class. The lecture was very interesting to me and gave me lots of things to think about. It means that I got interested in the topic of immigration. So, I want to research about Japanese immigration to the U.S. when I come back to Japan. What impressed me most was the fact that many other immigrants from another country also tried to live in another country such as America. Because I never think of that and knowing that fact was very valuable experience.

After the lecture, I went to see the venture capital firm named GCP by van from here to the Redwood. I was surprised to see the building , because that building was bigger than I expected. Then I took the lecture of Japanese person who is working there. It was very beneficial to me and may have any influence on my life. Always, I think it important to ask any questions to the presenter, anything you want. So, I listened to the presenters carefully, so that I could ask some questions. Today also, Yayo asked some questions. I think she is very good at questioning. I think to question is some kinds of ability gotten from many cycles of English use. So, I have to practice by trying to ask some questions!!

blog!

Journal

      Today, I woke up at 6:45. morning. This is my earliest record after I came to the U.S.  So I had breakfast at the cafeteria talking to friends of mine.  Then, I attended the English classes, but there were some feelings of wrong. That’s because, you know, Taka didn’t attend the class. Anyway, we took the lecture outside near the coffee shop. It was very new to me to speech outside to others, so I felt nerves. But listening to others eating something was very good. Taka didn’t attend the TD class either.

      After the class, I took a nap from 2pm to 2:30pm. I felt good after a little sleep. So I did my homework to improve my introduction. Today, because I did nothing especially, it’s hard to write the journal, I think. However, I’ll do my best! I write about friends of mine. I made friends with a lot of people, who come from Taiwan, Korea, Japan, China. That means I have chances to talk with people of various kind of backgrounds and communicate with them. This is very valuable experience, I think, so I would like to make use of this chance. I have a friend named Mandy. She is very funny. It means she looks funny and her characteristic is also funny. She is one of the most interesting person I have ever seen. She shouts too loudly. She is best friend of mine.

Tomorrow, at the class, I have to do my best and keep awake!!!!