4. Continuing My Life in Mississippi College and Mississippi

This is the fourth week since I've been here at MC. As Dr. Miller wrote in his blog, both students and faculties are getting tired and starting to complaint about how busy, boring and struggling they are. I do feel tired as well, but I think this is a natural process that all of us have to get through. I got tons of homework from each courses to finish, and tests are coming on the way as well. Now, I noticed that study is not always as fun as the first three weeks, and in most cases, study is very tough to deal with.

I spent lots of time on finish reading Holmes' article and tried my best to figure out his conceptions and perspectives on Christian education according to Dr. Miller's requirment. Holmes' article made me understand deeper on how important to creat a freedom learning environment for students to approach every possible knowledge following by God's purpose.

However, last week, I went to Natchez city where the old Indian tribe lived but extinct now,

and it is always good to have some recreation time in order to recover from one week's study pressure and learning both American and Mississippi cultures. I love the small and clean streets in Natchez city, especially in the twilight time, I felt that the whole city was belonging to me. Mississippi river is always the best part of Mississippi, the running river let me know that we have to keep life going go, and no one can stop things happen---sometimes, things happen on the possitive way, but sometimes, they happen on the negative way. Well, the key is how you think and how you determine them.

Again, I took some picturs, and I am going to send it back to China, to all my Chinese friends and my parents. I hope they can come to here to visit me in the future and also, I would like to share my Mississippi life to them. I know next week will be very tough since I've got so many homework to do and tests to review. I am trying and hopefully I will work them out!

3. My hometown---Tianjin, China

This week was a very busy week. And I know there are more busy weeks coming on the way. In the last English Composition class, we shared the responses of discussing Idea of a Christian College with each other. Through reading this book, it lets me getting a deeper understanding of what Christian College is. I very much agree with the idea of academic freedom. It can inspire the intellectual development of the students of the Christian College. This is what we want, isn’t it?

As an international students at Mississippi College, I do feel the multicultural atmosphere spreading everywhere in every corner of the campus. Some people of my American friends want to know something about my hometown---Tianjin, China. Well, China is totally a different country from American. We have different cultures, foods, and nationalities, but, I am so fortunate to be here to share our oriental traditions to you all. Well, let me introduce my hometown to you.

Tianjin has already over 600 years old. And it is the hometown of Xiangsheng, also a kind os Chinese opera, sometimes translated as cross-talk, is a traditional Chinese comedic performance in the form of a dialogue. The language, rich in puns and allusions, is used in a rapid, bantering style. Xiangsheng is one of China's foremost performing arts. Also, Xiangsheng is a kind of Chinese opera. In the past, if one cross-talk player expected to make fame, he must first be appreciated and judged by Tianjin people.

The climate in Tianjin is not very pleasant. Although Tian jin is a seaside city, it is not that humid. And the four seasons here are sharply different from each other. Tianjin people are very kind-hearted, and they are always glad to help others. Family in Tianjin are typical modern Chinese family. We are nuclear family. In our family we have only parents and children, there are no grandparents or other relatives involved. In the past, we used to have extended families with four generations living together. The local snack of Tianjin is baozi (looks like dumpling), which is a type of steamed, filled bun or bread-like item in various Chinese cuisines. It can be filled with meat or vegetarian fillings; Mahua (fried dough twist) and chestnut which are a kind of sweet nuts. In most cases, tourists buy them as gifts to their friends or relatives.
Mahua ~~~Fried Lizi~~~ Baozi



With my dog Duoduo

By the way, my father likes baozi, my mother likes chestnut, duoduo (the name of my dog) likes all of them.

2. A day of Mississippi

Time goes by fast, the weekend comes again. Last week in English composition class, we talked about a book named The Idea of a Christian College. Through reading it, I got the ideas that what is a Christian College and why a Christian College. In my opinion, the Christian College is a college based on a Christian environment. It encourages students here to improve their skills, enriching their knowledge, pushing toward their goals, improving their religious understanding and deepening their faith. By this way, we could got incentive and positive encouragements to do our best in the future.

Today is Friday, I have some free time and I thought about that why not taking up some outdoor trip as a relaxation after this one week’s study? Therefore, I invited my friends to go out and tried to find some wild alligators since Clinton has so many natural forests, wild grass and rivers. I have some American friends used keeping talk to me that they met wild alligators in their backyard of the house before, so, today, I did hope that I could meet wild alligators as well. I was not crazy, actually, I intended to meet them not only because I like wild animals but also my major was Hydrobiology before when I was in China, and I have seen nearly all kinds of aquatic animals except the wild alligators. Also, human nature drives me to be curious about this most dangerous animal, and also, this “top chain monster”. What a pity of that!

We drove from MC to some rural areas in Clinton, and kept seeing lots of beautiful and peaceful countrysides. However, I didn’t see any real alligators. Maybe they did not like me or they were not hungry at all. But it' was lucky that I saw a lizard sitting in a green leaf. I was so surprised that the natural environment here protected so good, because in China, you can never see a wild lizard! And this would be a compensation. That is great! I always feel good at weekend especially this weekend. I learned something from nature that the lizard has to protect itself by foliage. So it evolved a long time to get the protective coloration. So am I. If I want to advance my knowledge or my skill, I must adapt to new environment first.

1. Nice to meet you

This is my first blog entry for English composition 101 class at Mississippi College. I have been here in Mississippi just a few days but I spent more than half year in New York city. Here, in Mississippi, everything is so different from New York city, no subways, no terrible traffics, no street basketball anymore, which I often go to play at weekend, and no huge skyscrapers as well. Everything here is peaceful and quite. This is a right place I want to stay and study.

Although I stayed in New York from this winter until I got to MC, I still know little American culture. I am freshman here at Mississippi College, and here is also a "freshman" to me. The style of building is different, the food is different, and the environment is different. All of them are fresh but friendly. I am expecting know MC better and deeper, and also, I hope I could share Chinese culture with everyone here at campus.

I know MC is a long history co-educational university, and there is no doubt that MC is a good place to study, not only for the high standard of education, but also for committing to excellence and innovation in teaching and learning. My goal in education is to get the good and professional ones and I trust MC will help me to achieve my goal. I believe I can learn the advanced knowledge from here, and they are creative. I visited several universities before, but everytime when I came back to MC campus, I always feel like coming back home. MC is unique, because here has so many interesting characters and professors; MC is beautilful because I love the the southern style red brick buildings; Also, sometimes, MC is "tough", because I know I will take the challenges which I never took before. Well, I am ready for the coming life at Mississippi College.

Last class, Professor Miller helped us to get our blogs setting up. So I started to use this blog just now. I hope that the blogs will help all of us to know each other better, and especially it may help you know me better.

Nice to meet you, everybody.