Final Blog

Sorry for the late post. I’m back to China now for the summer vacation and have limited access to blogger.com
This is my final blog for this year, I will no longer write blogs and there will be a new Graduate Assistant continues to introduce his/her life here at PennGSE.
Thanks for all of your support of my blog and I really appreciate that. Wish you all a good luck in application!

Why PennGSE?

I have been thinking about writing a blog on why I chose Penn GSE, then I realized I haven't really thought about this question before I accepted. So the better topic is why I like Penn GSE after I came here since I only started thinking about this after I came to Penn GSE.
The thing I like most about GSE is the accessibility of professors and advisors. I care about if the professors are approachable a lot since it's graduate school, unlike the high school or undergraduate, the communication and interaction with professors can enlighten my studies to a great extent. Luckily, the professors in my program are very friendly and approachable, so are my advisor, she's very helpful in my studies and career development. She introduced me many internship opportunities and have helped me with my course selection.

Besides, I really enjoyed the classes here at Penn GSE. Till now, the class that I enjoyed the most is the language and gender class this semester. I feel that I have learned a lot from the class not only in the aspect of research study but also to my personal reflection as a female. I have also improved my English writing skills a lot in this class. I'm really looking forward to the distribution class (which is the class outside my division but within GSE), i chose the data analysis class from Quantitative Methods division and I think it will be a great experience too.
I also enjoyed my program's freedom to focus our study on the topics that we are interested in, we can choose distribution course which i have explained before, we can also choose courses outside GSE so we can have a more comprehensive understanding of the field.
In sum, I really think Penn GSE is a great choice for people who are open minded and curious of researching in various fields!

GAPSA Annual Moonlight Spirit Boat Cruise Celebration!

 

On April 27th, GAPSA has organized an annual party on the cruise. It was a 2 hour on-the-water, 1hour at-the-dockside trip departing from Penn's Landing. It is one of Penn's biggest events for grad students with open bar, food, music, and dancing on the Spirit of Philadelphia cruise ship.

The cruise was pretty cool, there is a dancing area with lights and really good music on the first floor, and open bar and deck to see the night views of Philly on the second floor. The only thing that's not good that day was the weather:( It was pretty cold and windy on 27th and if the weather could be more comforting the party would be really awesome because we could spend more time on the deck.

I went there with my friends and the other two GAs of GSE Admission Office, Kerry and Lisa were there too! It was really exciting to meet them!

How to take a driver's test in Philly for international students

Even though I failed today's driver's test, i thought it might be good to write a procedure about taking a driver's test in Philly if you are an international students, hope this would provide you some information!
-Do I have to get a driver's license?
If you have driving license in China (or many other countries), you can use it to drive, rent a car in United States. So you can choose not to take driver's test without causing any inconvenience. However, there're still many international students who already have the driver's test in their home country choose to take the test because driver's license is like ID in United States, you can use your driver's license at bar, airport so you don't have to carry passport with you all the time.
-How to take the test?
http://www.dot.state.pa.us/
This is the website where you will find many important information.
In order to get a license, you have to take the test for permit (knowledge test). You can find all the questions on the website, the real test will choose 18 questions out of the pool randomly and you have to answer 16 correctly to pass
Once you get the permit, you can driver with a driving license holder beside you. And as long as you practice enough and feel confident about the road test, you can schedule a test online, which is very convenient.
For road test, you have to go there accompanied by a holder of driving license. You can choose to rent a car on site, which is 50 dollars, or you can use your own car (but the car must have insurance and registration certificate).
The test is quite easy but you have to really pay attention to details, especially those regarding safety issues (which i didn't really pay attention to so i failed -_-) Once you pass the test, you can get a temporary license and the formal one will be sent to your home in 2 weeks.

Crazy Spring Fling!

Spring Fling is an annual festival for the students at the end of each Spring semester, usually beginning on the Friday of the second to last week of the semester and continuing until Saturday night. Fling, which began in 1973, is dubbed the largest college party on the East Coast, and is hosted by the university's Social Planning and Events Committee.[8] The event takes place on College Green, Wynn Commons, and The Quadrangle (or Quad) for a student body drenched in alcohol, for the most part. Over the past few years there has been legitimate discussion towards potentially moving the event out of the Quad, but improved behavior has resulted in the carnival aspect of the festival remaining in the Quad. College Green becomes a staging area for carnival games and carnival food. Two stages in the Quad host Penn's performing arts groups. Saturday night, Penn holds a festival on College Green, and Friday night SPEC (The Social Planning and Events Committee [7]) brings in a headlining musical act for a concert. Past guests for this concert have included Wyclef Jean, Busta Rhymes, Sonic Youth, and Of A Revolution.[9] The 2007 concert featured Ben Folds and Third Eye Blind. The 2008 concert was moved to Franklin Field since it featured a triple-bill of Ludacris, Gym Class Heroes, and OK Go.[10] Learning from the 2008 concert, 2009's concert featuring Guster and Akon ran much more smoothly.[11] The 2010 line up was Kid Cudi, Shwayze and Snoop Dogg. The 2011 Fling performers were Ratatat, Flo-Rida, and Lupe Fiasco. The 2012 Fling performers are Tiesto and Passion Pit. （From Wikipedia)

 

I went to this year's concert and It is quite exciting and crazy, DJ Tiesto is said to be the top 3 DJ in US.

Something I did in this week

I can't really think of any important theme to write about so I will just write something about this week since I seem to have a very busy week.
On Wednesday's Marketing Strategy class, we have a guest speaker: Ravi Chaturvedi, the former president of P&G North-East Asia. Ravi is very experienced in marketer and he has shared with us his personal experience in Japan to help P&G compete with KAO as a late entrant.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I have interviewed two company executives in US because of a project that I am working as an intern right now. The interviewees are professional managers and an in-depth interview with them are very thought provoking. One of them have shared all he valued integrity in his company and he defines integrity as "doing the right thing when nobody watches".
On Wednesday night, I watched the Hunger Games. It's a great movie but I felt like the storyline is a little bit cliche even though the settings are quite creative. I enjoyed the movie and really looking forward to watching the next series.
On Thursday's strategic brand management class, we have a guest speaker from reputation.com, he has introduced us the business that reputation.com is doing right now and how to build a strong personal brand through online media.
On Thursday's Language and gender class, we have discussed about the language socialization and its effects on gender. One of the readings have mentioned how teenage gays are socialized through language, which brought me a lot to think about gender construction since the last class's media analysis (Please refer to the last post)
On Thursday night, GAPSA has a great event "Wine Walk" for all the graduate students in the school, it's an awesome event and people get to taste wines and get connected at different schools.
On Friday, I watched the 3D version of Titanic. I can't use words to describe how much I love this movie. I was only a primary school student when the last time I watched it, I barely understood all the lines and scenes. But this time I watched it again with a deeper understanding and I was really moved by it. I think it's not only a movie about love & romance, it's also about the value of life.
On Saturday, I went to Farimount Park to picnic with several friends. We bought food at Chinatown and drove to the park. We ate and read and rested on the grassland, under the great sunshine. It was a wonderful day, I got relaxed and energized.

Well, that's what I did for this week, it's pretty crazy huh? ^^

Media Analysis for Language and Gender class

In this week's Language and Gender class, we were doing media analysis by groups. Our task is to identify language and gender issue in different channels of media. Each of the group has made a poster around the topic. The class was so much fun and I felt it's worth sharing what we did with all of you.

Our group did an analysis on the popular TV series How I Met Your Mother. The show was very hilarious and there are many elements that are very interesting. For example, there are a lot of humor in this show about "sex" and "non-conventional gender behavior". For example, Ted Mosby, who is a male character in the show, is however very "feminine" in his behavior and thoughts about relationship and life. In contrast, Robin Scherbatsky, who is the female character in the show, and was brought up by her dad as a boy because her dad prefers son to daughter. That's why she has a very "masculine" personality, for example she likes shooting gun, hockey, and cigar. The contradictory between Ted and Robin makes the show very funny, and it is contradictory to what we conventionally think about genders. However, is this anti-convention really create new gender categories or essentializing the binary gender system? That's a question that we need to think about the media today.

Another group did an analysis on the Disney Princess series, which has all these "princess" figures together. They have done a survey about how people think about these princess and what characteristics should a princess/female role model should have.

This group has focused on an ad campaign of Special K's "What do you gain when you lose?" There are a lot of creative gender issue going on and throughout the time there are certain dimension of gender that has changed and has not changed. It's very interesting to see this campaign as a breakthrough but somehow the underlying ideology about gender is still binary.

These are done by a group of Chinese students. They compared how big international brands translate their names into Chinese and how the choice of the characters  affect the gender ideology. There are several interesting examples like Maybelline, in Chinese it's 美宝莲, where 美 means beautiful, specifically to describe women, 宝 means precious and 莲 means lotus, which is an indication of purity in Chinese and it's usually related to girls.

The last group did an analysis around a movie Gran Torino, where a very typical male image is constructed. There are many interesting discourse in the movie that has conveyed gender ideology in it.

The media analysis was really thought-provoking because we really went deep into those topics in the modern media today and there can be so many controversial things about language and gender going on.

Spring Break in Puerto Rico (2)

Castillo San Felipe del Morro also known as Fort San Felipe del Morro or Morro Castle, is a 16th-century citadel located in San Juan.
It lies on the northwestern-most point of the islet of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Named in honor of King Philip II of Spain, the fortification, also referred to as el Morro or promontory, was designed to guard the entrance to the San Juan Bay, and defend the city of Old San Juan from seaborne enemies. In 1983, during the Reagan Administration, the castillo was declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in conjunction with the San Juan National Historic Site. Over two million visitors a year explore the windswept ramparts and passageways making the castillo one of Puerto Rico's main visitor attractions. Facing the structure, on the opposite side of the bay, a smaller fortification known as El Cañuelo complemented the castillo's defense of the entrance to the bay. (from Wikipedia)

Old San Juan is a very beautiful place where you can't miss if you visit Puerto Rico.
Located on a small and narrow island which lies in the north coast, about 35 miles (56 km) from the east end of Puerto Rico, and is united to the mainland of Puerto Rico by the three bridges. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and to the south by San Juan Bay or "Bahia de San Juan" which lies between the city and the mainland. On a bluff about 100 feet (30 m) high at the west end of the island and commanding the entrance to the harbor rise the battlements of Fort San Felipe del Morro, in which there is a lighthouse.(from Wikipedia)
There are many good restaurants in Old San Juan, with various seafood and Puerto Rican style food which are fresh and delicious. There are many bars in the district too. It's better to take a walk both during the day and during the night. It gives your two different taste of Old San Juan.

Puerto Rico is also known as the factory for Bacardi. You can visit the Bacardi factory where you can get two free drinks and a tour around the factory. It's a lot of fun. You can also buy various products related to rum, like a rum cake, which by the way, is sooo yummy.

Spring Break in Puerto Rico (1)

I went to Puerto Rico this spring break and it was an awesome experience. I will share some picture with all of you in the following 2 posts and hope you will like them!

 This is Mofongo, a type of food that's common in Puerto Rico. It tastes like meshed potatoes. I personally don't really like it but many people are very fond of it. If you guys have any chance to go to Puerto Rico, you should try, after all it's very "Puerto Rican".

 The color of the sky is so beautiful, especially with the clouds.

 Near the beach

On the street of San Juan

The beaches in Puerto Rico is so beautiful, but pay attention to the sun or you will end up being burned, yes, not tanned, burned!

Flamenco Beach, Culebra
We have to take a ferry to go there. It is considered the second most beautiful beach in the world by Discover Channel and by far the most popular beach in Culebra. Its white sandy beach stretches along the entire bay.

Living at Sansom Place

Since lot of accepted students are asking about live at Sansom Place (the school apartment for graduate students), and since I happen to live at Sansom Place East, so I would like to write something I know about Sansom and hope it can provide some information for you.
What I like about Sansom is that it's quite convenient in many ways. Sansom Place East is at 3600 Chestnut Street and Sansom Place West is at 3650 Chestnut Street, both of the buildings are about 3 minutes' walk from GSE building, so it's really convenient to go to school everyday if you live at Sansom. And it's near the blue line (34th market, about 2 blocks away), which can take you to center city and Chinatown and many other major places in the city. There are WAWA and couple of restaurants downstairs and it's very near the food trucks, so it's easy to get various kinds of meals near Sansom. The rooms and beds in Sansom are small compared to rental houses and apartments, but it's quite convenient since the facilities are very complete and accessible.
I really enjoyed living at Sansom so far but i'm also willing to try off-campus housing since it will be quite different and I will have more freedom about the rooms.
Here are some basic facts about Sansom from the website:
Sansom Place East and Sansom Place West house graduate students (65%), undergraduates interested in a more independent lifestyle (30%), and special programs and University guests (5%). There are numerous opportunities to meet other residents through informal get-togethers, study breaks, and other activities. The diversity of residents, including many international students, creates an active and stimulating environment. These residences are convenient, private, and serve as an enhancement to your academic pursuits. For additional information about Sansom Place East and West, please see the Sansom Place Website. To see photos of sample rooms in Sansom Place East and West, please visit our Sansom Photo Gallery. Please note, these rooms are samples, and not all rooms in Sansom Place are exactly the same.

Style of Housing

Apartment-style housing
All units have private bath
Seasonally air-conditioned
Smoke-free
Pets not allowed
Primarily graduate student housing
Also houses approximately 300 undergraduates

Number of Residents (excluding staff)

592 Sansom East, 553 Sansom West

Room Types

Room types in Sansom Place East and West include single rooms, one- and two-bedroom apartments. Room diagrams can be found here. Standard furnishings are provided as listed below.

One-bedroom apartments

One Bedroom apartments accommodate one single student. A few are available to families without children, and these apartments have two twin, extra long beds. They include a kitchenette with breakfast bar, living area, and bathroom. A sofa is provided in addition to furnishings listed below.

Two-bedroom apartments

Two-bedroom apartments accommodate two single students. These units have a small kitchenette, dining area, and bathroom. A dining table and chairs are provided in addition to furnishings listed below. Note that there is no living room.

Single Rooms

Single rooms share a bathroom with one or two other rooms. These rooms do not have kitchenettes; however, residents may bring or rent small refrigerators. All appliances must comply with the specifications outlined in the Residential Handbook.

Sansom Facilities

All units in Sansom Place East and West are furnished and seasonally air-conditioned. Each occupant is provided with a twin, extra-long (36" x 80") bed, desk and chair, one chest of drawers, and wall-mounted bookshelves. Some lighting is provided, but residents may want to bring extra lamps. Walls are painted off-white. Residents are strongly discouraged from bringing their own furniture since the University-provided furnishings can not be stored or removed.
Public space is available for use by residents. In Sansom Place East there is an ATM for banking in the main lobby, a common area on the ground floor, and a lounge on floor 11. The common area provides study space, a social room, and a recreation room. In Sansom Place West, there are lounges on floors 3, 6, 11, 14 and in the basement, and a television in the main lobby and 14th floor.
Vending and change machines are located in the main lobby area of each building and on the ground floor of Sansom Place East. A laundry room is on the lower level of each building.

Number of each room type (excluding staff)

Type	Sansom East	Sansom West
Single	194	168
Single Apartment (1BR/LR/Kit)	128	53
Double (2BR/Kit)	116	82
Double (1BR/LR/Kit)	0	62 (Undergraduates Only)
Triple (3BR)	0	33

Room Furnishings

Furnishing Type	Available
Bed (twin extra-long 36x80x6)	Yes
Desk & Chair	Yes
Dresser	Yes
Sofa	Some units
Table & Chairs	Some units
Carpeting	Yes
Hardwood Floors	-
Tile Floors	-
Blinds	No
Curtains	Yes
Window screens	-

House Facilities

Room	Quantity
Common Kitchen	0
Laundry Room	2
Lounge	10
Piano Room	1

Linsanity!

Recently an Asian boy has come to the spotlight of attention and became the most popular topic among both Asians and Americans. His name is Jeremy Lin.

Jeremy Shu-How Lin (born August 23, 1988) is an American professional basketball player with the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After receiving no athletic scholarship offers out of high school and being undrafted out of college, the 2010 Harvard University graduate reached a partially guaranteed contract deal later that year with his hometown Golden State Warriors. In February 2012, he unexpectedly led a winning streak by New York while being promoted to the starting lineup. Lin is one of the few Asian Americans in NBA history, and the first American player in the league to be of Chinese or Taiwanese descent. (from Wikipedia).

From a Chinese perspective, Lin is the perfect example of outstanding and successful. He's smart, hardworking, and humble. He went to Harvard, which is the dream school for almost every one of Chinese students. He plays in NBA and had such a legendary performance. And yet, he's very low-key person, he never show off or be very satisfied with what he has achieved. He's also a very humorous guy. This video of him "how to get into Harvard" is viewed by thousands of people online.

I hope that he can keep playing well and create more legends as a Asian NBA player! I believe he will make us very proud!!! Go Lin!!!!

The Vagina Monologues

I went to watch the Vagina Monologues presented by Penn students at the Irvine Auditorium on Feb.10th and it was awesome. I have heard about this play for so many times and finally I got the chance to watch it myself.
The play was very thought-provoking, especially for me since I am taking the "language and gender" course this semester and I found so many connections between the scripts and what I have learned in the class. The play made me re-think about lots of issues in gender and enhanced my understanding towards topics regarding feminism, gender, and equality etc.
After watching the play, I began to notice a lot of ideologies underlying the gender issue. As I have learned from the class, gender is a social constructed attribute of a person. People do not behave in a certain way because of their biological gender, instead, people are shaped as certain identity because of their being. Therefore, how the society treats the issue of gender, especially women, in this case, can to a great extent reinforce the ideology and as a result, put women or other gender identities is a very vulnerable position.
I believe that the Vagina Monologues is a very innovative and brave action to advocate the equality of different gendered groups and it aroused awareness among people, no matter regarding males, females or other gender identities. It's a clever way to provoke reactions.
Some information about the Vagina Monologues from Wikipedia:
The Vagina Monologues is made up of a varying number of monologues read by a varying number of women (initially, Eve Ensler performed every monologue herself, with subsequent performances featuring three actresses, and more recent versions featuring a different actress for every role). Every monologue somehow relates to the vagina, be it through sex, love, rape, menstruation, female genital mutilation, masturbation, birth, orgasm, the variety of names for the vagina, or simply as a physical aspect of the body. A recurring theme throughout the piece is the vagina as a tool of female empowerment, and the ultimate embodiment of individuality. Some monologues include:

• I Was Twelve, My Mother Slapped Me: a chorus describing many young women's and girls' first menstrual period.
• My Angry Vagina, in which a woman humorously rants about injustices wrought against the vagina, such as tampons, douches, and the tools used by OB/GYNs.
• My Vagina Was My Village, a monologue compiled from the testimonies of Bosnian women subjected to rape camps.
• The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could, in which a woman recalls memories of traumatic sexual experiences in her childhood and a self-described "positive healing" sexual experience in her adolescent years with an older woman. In the original version, she is 13, but later versions would change her age to 16. It also originally included the line, "If it was rape, it was a good rape." This particular skit has sparked numerous controversies and criticisms due to its content (see below).
• Reclaiming Cunt, a piece narrated by a woman who illustrates that the word "cunt" itself is a lovely word despite its disconcerting connotations.
• The Woman Who Loved to Make Vaginas Happy, in which a sex worker for women discusses the intriguing details of her career and her love of giving women pleasure. In several performances it often comes at the end of the play, literally climaxing with a vocal demonstration of a "triple orgasm."
• Because He Liked to Look At It, in which a woman describes how she had thought her vagina was ugly and had been embarrassed to even think about it, but changed her mind because of a sexual experience with a man named Bob who liked to spend hours looking at it.
• I Was There In The Room, a monologue in which Eve Ensler describes the birth of her granddaughter.

Courses for this semester

ALUMNI INTERVIEW PROGRAM:
Before I get to the meat of the blog, just wanted to let everyone know that February is the last month of the Alumni Interview Program.  If you're a prospective masters student and are interested in an alumni interview, fill out the request form and submit your application and we'll try to match you with an alum for an interview.  All your materials must be in by the end of the month to be considered. 

Events for Admitted Students:

Online Events for Admitted Students:

Our current students host a series of themed webchats, speed chats, and a virtual preview event to offer you an inside look into life at Penn GSE. You're welcome to join as many as you like!

More detailed information please go to: http://www.gse.upenn.edu/node/1790



Now comes to the blog of this week. There isn't many exciting news about life so I will just talk about the courses that I have taken this semester.
Language and Gender: This is a very interesting course focused on the linguistic issue of genders. It introduces many important theoretical issues and methodological concerns in the language and gender area. The topic throughout the classes are how gender ideologies shape and are shaped by language use. It's very exciting to look at the gender issue from an academic way and this course allows me to relate my personal real life experience to the academic researches.
Sociolinguistics: It's a required course for Educational Linguistics students. It's mainly designed to provide students with an awareness to sociolinguistics as it pertains to educational issues, and to language teaching and learning more generally. It's a very thought-provoking class, which made me think about many educational issues in sociology contexts.
Apart from the above classes, I also took two marketing courses at Wharton:
Marketing Strategy: It's a case-based course about marketing activities to some of the key strategic decision. As an ICC student, i find a lot of intercultural issues in this class as well. The cases are very helpful to get a sense of marketing and strategic planning.
Strategic Brand Management: It's also a case-based course about marketing, especially the branding issues. It introduces the basic strategies in building a strong brand, and some underlying theories. The course has involved many famous brands that everyone knows, which makes the class very interactive and interesting.

First Super Bowl ever!

Since football is not so popular in China, I haven't got chance to watch any football games before I came to U.S. I am not a sports fan but I feel that Super Bowl is conveyed with more than simply sports to Americans so I decide to watch it to be engaged more with the American culture.
Before the game, I studied a little bit about the rules of the football and the background information about the two teams that's going to compete. It's a little bit hard for me to watch a sports game if I'm not sure which team should I support. So I asked a few friends and searched online. It seems that football is sports game that's requiring a lot about the teamwork and cooperation, a lot more than basketball or soccer. The rules are complicated to me as a newcomer, but it's also fun to learn by watching.
Another thing that i have learned about the Super Bowl is that the Super Bowl is the most watched program in U.S. so the commercial ads during the Super Bowl is a great enjoyment other than the game itself. It's supposed to be the most expensive ads on TV. So I paid a lot of attention to the ads and I really enjoyed some of them, such as the Doritos and the Coke Cola ones and some trailers of the new movies. It's really interesting to look into the commercials because it's quite different from Chinese ones and there are a lot of intercultural issues in it.
The third thing that i really expected a lot before the game is the half-time show by Madonna. I'm not a big fan of her but the performance was awesome. It's hard to imagine a 50-year old woman to be so young and energetic. Also, I enjoyed the dance and performance by Nicki, Cee-lo as well.
It's the first time that I watch Super Bowl and I hope it's a good start to know more about American culture.

Job Hunting at PennGSE

There are many prospective students were asking me about the job prospects after graduation and also the internship during the study. Therefore, I feel it maybe necessary to write a blog about job hunting issues so that you may have a clearer picture about what kind of help you can get from PennGSE for your job hunting.
It's mostly not so hard to find an unpaid internship. Even though the jobs are unpaid, the working experiences are really valuable for both your study and your future job hunting. And for jobs after graduation, it's more difficult but the approaches and resources that might be useful to you are the same.
There are various ways that you can search for potential internships/jobs. GSE has a contact person for career services who's specifically responsible for students from GSE--Jim Alton. He's a really nice and helpful person, who's enthusiastic in helping you to find resources that might help. Always ask help from the career services because they have more resources and information than you do, and they can also provide help on your resume/CV or cover letter. Apart from Jim, you can also ask help from previous students who has graduated or who's in higher grade than you. They have gone through the experience that you are going through right now so they must have a lot to share, not only the experiences but also some possible resources that you can make use of. Some of them can even recommend you to their previous employers directly and it will save you a lot of time and efforts to search for jobs. Besides, advisers, who's assigned to you by GSE, can be really helpful. You can schedule a meeting with your adviser and talk about your concerns and difficulties. And again, as they are more experienced in this than you, they may be able to provide you with a lot of information and suggestions. For example, my adviser referred me to an internship at a small consulting firm, and through interviews, I finally got the job and so far I have learned a lot from the experiences and I really appreciate her help in it. Last, but not least, use all the possible networks that you have here, and ask them for help. You really need to be proactive in job hunting because jobs won't come you, you have to go to them! By possible networks, i mean professors, friends, classmates, relatives, etc.
Many people were asking me about how hard it is for an international students to find jobs in U.S. To be honest, it's not as easy as in China but as long as you make efforts, the results will be satisfactory. I also have some suggestions for international students who wants to work in the U.S. in the future. First of all, think clearly about what you want to do in the future. There are definitely many options available, but try to figure out which one you like and which one might like you as well. It means you have to find out a job that's suitable for your background and you feel passionate about it too. After determining what you want to do in the future, try to accumulate internship experiences in the related industries, especially internships in U.S. One way that your future employer is going to use to evaluate you is your past experience and your academic backgrounds. Working experience is important in job hunting. The third tip is to utilize the school career center. Penn has a very good website PennLink for career services, you can find job listings, trainings and workshops for interviews, personalized services in job hunting, etc. So don't forget to make the full use of the website. The reality is that when international students want to find jobs in U.S., visa is always an issue. Bear in mind that you have to be really outstanding to compete with other competitors and to get the jobs. There were many successful examples so don't worry about the feasibility.

Chinese New Year!!

Even though I have to say it's the loneliest Chinese New Year I have ever had in my life, I still want to write something on the Chinese New year, after all it's the most important and traditional holiday in China.

"Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is known as "Spring Festival," the literal translation of the Chinese name 春節 (Pinyin: Chūn Jié), since the spring season in Chinese calendar starts with lichun, the first solar term in a Chinese calendar year. It marks the end of the winter season, analogous to the Western carnival. The festival begins on the first day of the first month (Chinese: 正月; pinyin: Zhēng Yuè) in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with Lantern Festival which is on the 15th day. Chinese New Year's Eve, a day where Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, is known as Chú Xī (除夕) or "Eve of the Passing Year." Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the "Lunar New Year".

 

Within China, regional customs and traditions concerning the celebration of the Chinese new year vary widely. People will pour out their money to buy presents, decoration, material, food, and clothing. It is also the tradition that every family thoroughly cleans the house to sweep away any ill-fortune in hopes to make way for good incoming luck. Windows and doors will be decorated with red colour paper-cuts and couplets with popular themes of "good fortune" or "happiness", "wealth", and "longevity". On the Eve of Chinese New Year, supper is a feast with families. Food will include such items as pigs, ducks, chicken and sweet delicacies. The family will end the night with firecrackers. Early the next morning, children will greet their parents by wishing them a healthy and happy new year, and receive money in red paper envelopes. The Chinese New Year tradition is to reconcile, forget all grudges and sincerely wish peace and happiness for everyone. " (From Wikipedia)

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The Shēngxiào (Chinese: 生肖), better known in English as the Chinese Zodiac, is a scheme that relates each year to an animal and its reputed attributes, according to a 12-year mathematical cycle. It has wide currency in several East Asian countries such as Korea and Japan.

Identifying this scheme using the term "zodiac" reflects several similarities to the Western zodiac: both have time cycles divided into 12 parts, each labels at least the majority of those parts with names of animals, and each is widely associated with a culture of attributing influence of a person's relationship to the cycle upon their personality and/or events in their life. Nevertheless, there are major differences: the "Chinese" 12-part cycle is divided into years rather than months; contrary to the association with animals implied in the Greek etymology of "zodiac", actually four of the Western "signs" or "houses" are represented by humans (one such sign being the twins "Gemini") and one is the inanimate balance scale "Libra"; the animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations, let alone those spanned by the ecliptic plane."

This year is a dragon year, and it's exactly the same to the year I was born. So it's called my year because my Shengxiao is dragon too!

Every year I would go to my grandparents' place and celebrate the new year with the whole family. We would have a big dinner and watch the program from CCTV, the ceremony for Chinese New Year together. At around midnight, we will have fireworks and firecrackers.

 But this year, since the school has already started, so I cannot go back to China to celebrate the festival with my family. It's a little bit sad to me because it's the first year that I didn't spend Chinese New Year with my family. Also, Spring Festival is a tradition to me for the past 23 years, it's hard to forget the way I used to celebrate.So all I can do is to wish all my family and friends a Happy Dragon Year!

Winter Vacation rocks!

Since it's just the beginning of the semester and i have just came back to school, so I think it might be a good idea to talk about what I did during the winter break.
I didn't go back to China during the break, on one hand it's because I've only been here for around 4 months i don't feel necessary to go back that soon, on the other hand is because I wanna see how Americans celebrate Christmas and new year. So, I stayed in U.S. for my winter break and I had a great time.
I spend my first few days in New York to see how Christmas is going to rock this big city. I watched a broad way show Phantom of the Opera, one of my favorites, and it was awesome, I also went to several traveling spots like the empire state building and the statue of liberty to see the symbols of New York. On Christmas Eve, I walked along the avenue to Times Square and the view on the street is amazing.

The LED screens have lighten the night and crowds of people are on the street celebrating the holiday together.Several shops are open 24 hours during Christmas and their decorations are pretty and funny.

After the new year, I went to Western coast of U.S. with several friends and I really had a great great time there.
My first stop is Las Vegas, where I really enjoyed a lot.
Las Vegas is a very energetic and modern city, and it's similar to New York in some points, and it never sleeps as well. The lights are on for all night and you cannot feel how late it is when you are on the street of Las Vegas at midnight.

The theme of Las Vegas is to gamble, to watch various shows and to relax. The hotels there are relatively cheaper than other cities, I guess it's a way to attract customers to casinos, which you can see it in every single hotel in Las Vegas. And there're various shows available in Vegas. We went to one called "the Mentalist", it's a magician who can read people's mind, it was pretty cool.
After leaving Las Vegas, we drove to Los Angeles. Even though many of my friends who went with me like San Francisco better but I still enjoy LA more. First of all, the weather is AWESOME, it's like summertime in January and the palm trees on the roadside are very beautiful. And I really like the style of the city--Modern, fashion, casual; especially because it has the famous Hollywood. We went on a tour to Hollywood to see superstar's houses and we also went to Madame Tussauds Museum to have a lot of silly but funny pictures.

My last stop for this trip is San Francisco. It's a very cozy and lovely city that's really suitable for living, We took the famous cable car to the Fishermans Whare and have great seafood by the sea.

The winter break is not short but not long either. I felt time passing so quickly that when I came back to school, I suddenly realized that the break is over and the new semester is coming. Well, it feels good to be back to school as well, so I hope I can really learn a lot and have fun during the coming semester.