Category: College

For our kids and others away at college

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Update from the Chinese Front

Dear Family and Friends,

Whew, what a week! I am definitely glad that I am more than halfway done. I have loved it and hated it. I really love learning, I really really do. But I also love doing other things: reading, karate, hiking, playing games. I hate the fact that while I’m doing this Chinese, I can do nothing else. Learning has its price. So, I am glad I’m learning, and I’m glad I’ll be done in four weeks. Then I’ll have four weeks to catch up on all the other things I love, and then back to studying my rear off. And it will go on like that for four years (yikes!). Anyway, I really don’t even mind studying for hours and hours, its just I can’t do anything else, and I really miss all the anything-elses.

We are getting Continue reading “Update from the Chinese Front”

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Ok, this is going to be hard, but you all have to hear it.

Ok, this is going to be hard, but you all have to hear it. For all you wonderful people who are reading our post PLEASE COMMENT!!!! I keep hearing that this person and that person is following my updates, but no one ever says anything to me. They don’t e-mail me or post comments on our blog. I can’t stand in front of you all and carry out a wonderful conversation on how my life is going, I can only do one side of the story, so I need you all to comment and start up the other half.

Some of you have e-mailed me, and believe me, I really apreciate that and love hearing from you. I doesn’t take much to comment, just register, not a complicated process. If you have any trouble, remember my dad is a computer genius.

I am glad that people are reading posts on our blog, but I’ll be gladder when people start commenting.

Love you all, can’t wait to hear from you.

Lydia

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Halfway done

Well, I’m two and a half days away from being halfway done with the college quarter. It definitely seems weird. It is cliche to say “how the time has flown by”, or “it seems just like yesterday” so I’ll just say that each day has seemed to last forever, but when stacked in the past, makes but a small pile of time gone by. I believe that Continue reading “Halfway done”

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Week Three

I met a man sitting on a bus stop bench on the street this past Thursday. His name was Mike and he was begging for money. I stopped and talked to him. He claimed that he had mental problems and couldn’t work, and got social security every month but it wasn’t enough. I tried to talk to him and encourage him. I shared Jesus with him. He claimed to know Jesus, not as one of his children, but he believed he existed. I tried to encourage him to pray and rely on the Lord for salvation. But Mike said he was afraid to pray, because he believed that every time he prayed, God punished him. In the end, Continue reading “Week Three”

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Pics of My Room

Here’s my room. A bit messy, but I wanted to show you how it really is. At the moment, with all I have to do, keeping my room clean is at the absolute bottom of my priority list. Though I do more or less pick up every evening so I’m not tripping over stuff, my room is by no means a model of cleanliness. Don’t feel bad about me only having a mattress and box-springs for a bed. I actually like it much better than a bed, and it is very comfortable. I like being near the floor. Well, enjoy.
sarah-pic1.jpgsarah-pic2.jpg

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My name in Chinese Characters

Tong Lei

Here is my assigned Chinese name in Chinese characters. It is To2ng Le3i. Those numbers right after the “o” and the “e” indicate a tone mark. Since you probably have no idea what those are, don’t worry about it. Tong Lei is Pinyin, the romanization of the pronunciation of the Chinese characters. Tong is just a family surname, no meaning. Lei means high as in social status, honor etc, and big as in great person/influential people. Not much correlation to me, but thats ok. Later, I think, after I am well into Chinese and really have a good grip on the language and culture, I can change my name. Many people do that. By the way, I wrote that vertically, but more and more Chinese people write horizontally, from left to write, just like us. Often if something is written vertically it is for traditional, artistic, or literature reasons.

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Week two (hi y’all!)

Dear Family and Friends,

Week Two,

Well, I’m still alive, and that’s something. Actually it’s considerably better than that. I am alive and kicking, if a bit tired, and still loving every minute of it. Chinese continues to be hard, and there are definitely fleeting moments when I’d like to chuck it out the window. But those moments are rare and pass quickly. They usually come on after I have been studying for hours and it is late. For the most part it is very interesting, and I am definitely learning Chinese fast. There are now only five of us, and I believe nobody else is going to leave. We have passed the winnowing period and now the only people in class are those who are really serious and have put aside other things so they will have time to do Chinese. Continue reading “Week two (hi y’all!)”

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Dear Friends and Family,

Dear Friends and Family,

Whew, what a week. I feel like I’ve been here for a year, not a week. Chinese is much harder than I imagined, and I’m glad I’m learning it the way I am, intensively and all day. I feel like if I just had an hour class a few times a week, I would forget it as fast as I learned it. However, I love it to death, and I am getting the hang of it. Like all languages, you have to get into the groove, and then from there its just more hard study and work. In some ways, Chinese in infinitely more complicated than English, in other ways it is wonderfully simple and makes perfect sense.
I have four hours of classes each day, Continue reading “Dear Friends and Family,”

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Ha! Old School vs. New…

Sun Microsystems was around when I was in college… how long ago was that??? 🙂  Here’s an exchange between their CEO and a new hire:

Jonathan Schwartz, the pony-tailed chief executive of Sun Microsystems (nasdaq: SUNW – news – people ), got his five minutes of stage time too. He described how he had recently asked a fresh-faced new hire at Sun what he thought of the company.

“Well, it’s kind of an old-fashioned company,” the 20-something conceded.

“Old-fashioned?” fumed Schwartz. “In what way?”

“You use e-mail,” replied the younger man.

“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Schwartz.

“My parents send me e-mail,” he answered.

So uncool, so 1990s.

Oh boy… e-mail will soon be for little old ladies and old men wearing hats!  (HT: Elizabeth Corcoran at Forbes.com)

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Lydia at OSU

Dear Family and Friends,

Yesterday was probably the most exciting, scary, and unique day of my life. I, a newly minted 18-year-old, loaded up most of my worldly possessions in my very own car and drove three hours to a city I’ve only been to twice in my life to move into a house I have never seen and have rented with my own money, leased by a man I have never met, and occupied by two 23 year-old girls and a grey and white cat named Nora.
Fun, fun, fun!
I have moved in to my room, Continue reading “Lydia at OSU”