Mandy Chen

    During the holiday I attended a summer program in the United States. I spent five weeks there, and it was a very precious experience.

    The summer school was very diverse — half the students were international students, and a lot of them came from countries I’d never heard of before. I have made friends with people from all over the world: dancing with Kenyan ladies, picking up Somalian swear words and listening to poetry chanted in German, attempting in vain to capture a few French syllables and not attempting at all to understand those in Spanish, spoken with a vigorous intensity by Venezuelans, Puerto Ricans and Guatemalans. In this (clueless) melting pot of learning we all converged, speaking English.

    Classes here were much different from classes at home: Teachers talked very little and we spent the majority of class time discussing. I tried to challenge myself and talk more than I usually would. We kept the “ball” of voice going without interrupting others, and danced the fine line between disagreement and argument.

    After class we swam in the gym’s 8-feet-deep swimming pool and tried diving (and ended up hurting our bellies). An oversize Oreo cookie ice cream eases all pains, so we paid two dollars for it at the nearby town. Afterwards, we would stroll around. The bookstores were good places to visit and we always seemed to run out of nail polish.

    Only one thing was bad: the food at the cafeteria. Escaping from it, me and my friends took refuge in nearby Chinese and Mexican restaurants. In the course of our rarely serious dinner talks I learned about my friends’ conflict over Christian customs and customary superstitions, the dressing of baby Jesus on Christmas Eve, and the day of the dead which is in fact the week of the dead. I realized vaguely that I was learning something textbooks couldn’t teach me.

    After returning to my dormitory at 8 p.m., I felt the necessity of pulling out my homework. As classes were discussion-based, preparation before class was vital — there were extensive amounts of annotated readings and analytical writing assignments.

    The analytical writing was a pain but the reading part I enjoyed; I finished before eleven, relaxed and got ready to go to bed.

    During weekends we went to nearby malls and water parks. But fun wasn’t the only extraordinary thing about the summer: I have learned to read analytically and voice my opinions with confidence. My horizon has expanded: I became more open to and aware of other cultures and beliefs. I am a more mature person.