The Memorial long weekend

For the long weekend, I did lots of things. I did volunteer work with an American friend who is a Cascadia student, too. She is called Crystal. We went to a homeless center in downtown Seattle named “New Horizons Ministries.” It is a center for homeless street youth from 13- 24 years old.

It is the front side of the center.

It is the wall side of the center. It is the art work of the homeless youth. I was so impressed by their great job. In fact, everyone, even homeless people, has specific great talents deep inside. Yet, they just haven’t discovered it. Or, they don’t have a chance to show and foster their talents. Or, they might just be used to being looked down on, and don’t believe in their talents. Once you believe, amazing things can happen.

It is their kitchen and bathrooms. The first time being in a homeless center, I was surprised by that clean, hygienic and well organized place.

It is the pray room, a place where homeless youth can release their sadness and loneliness. They know that God is always by their side to protect them.

It is the “Wailing Wall.” The kids can write down their prayers on the bulletin wall. Everyone deserves to have hopes, even people who don’t have a home. They are not bad. They are just lost and strayed from their “homes” for a while.

They don’t want to be homeless.

This Saturday, I joined volunteer work for my College 101 assignment. It was the first volunteer work in the US, and I had fun with this activity. The title of the work was ''NWIC-Tulalip Beach Clean Up Day.'' Tulalip is a Native American Indian Tribe. We went to their reservation to pick up trash on the road and beach. Before all, I just knew the reservation is a place that Native Indians live in. By joining this activity, I could enter a real  reservation and take a look on a reservation. The beach of the reservation is quite small, yet it is really a nice and comfortable place. I would really like to live in the houses along the coast. It is very nice to sit on the balcony watching the sunrise, sunset and the mysterious dark sky scattering with stars. It is a dream place for me for a relaxing, long vacation. By the way, it was a pity that I didn't take any photos because our hands were too dirty to hold a camera during clean up.

Anyway, after one and a half hours clean- up, we went back to the office and had a big lunch. I really appreciated the staff on the preparation of the meal. There were a lot of snacks, Subway sandwiches and salmon. At the end, every person was given a gift. Even more, I had taken a bunch of Subway sandwiches. It is pretty cool because it can save me a whole week of lunches.

Glow Dance

Last Friday, I joined the Glow Dance Night held on our campus. I was interested in it because I wanted to try something different at the school. Also, I hoped I could meet some new friends there to enlarge my social network. I was looking forward to the night at first. I made up and dressed nicely. However, at the end of the night, out of my expectation, I hadn't gotten any new pals. Instead, I knew more than the language, cultural and national barriers does exist between the Americans and me. These make it difficult to get into the life of the school.
On that night, I didn't feel nervous in the hall at first. Yet, when I stepped inside the dance floor, I saw people around me in groups or pairs, dancing with the pace of  rock heavy music, regardless of people around. Since I was there by myself, it seemed that no one noticed me. I was totally freak- out because of  being alone. Anyway, I tried to enjoy dancing by myself. No girl had intentions to be friend with me. A few boys tried to talk with me. Yet, they spoke a bit fast, mixing lots of slang. They found no fun talking with me, and they were just gone! So, I was quite embarrassed and felt uneasy that night.
It was an unforgottable night for me. I felt like I have to improve my English as fast as possible, so that I can get into the life in the U.S. and no longer like living on the lonely planet alone.

Trip in Vancouver

In this weekend, I went to Vancouver with my uncle and his family. It was because his cousin was back from New Zealand and got the job in Canada. We all together went to visit him and celebrated for his new job. Seattle is very close to Vancouver, so our trip was one day. We went to Richmond where is like a society of Asian because I seldom saw a Western people. All people around me speaking Chinese, I felt like I was in Hong Kong,  At the end, we had a big and delicious dinner. It was the best meal I have had since I left Hong Kong!