I didn't know why those guys just all came to fight me. My throat felt so bad tonight. But it was fun. My mom told me if they think I'm boring, they won't fight me. I am so tired and hungry today. It's like my body hurts everywhere. But I really had fun today.

        There was a game called "Albatross game". It's about going into another country's culture. We were trying to tell the students how to solve culture shock and the difference of cultures. Sometimes what we thought is not true. In the game, a couple in the room, the man first guide the guys in the group to sit down on the chair. And then the woman guide the girls in the group to kneel down by the guides side. Grils have to take off their shoes and guys don't have to. Men says hi by touching the visitor's legs by their legs, and women touches by hands. When they eat, the woman first let every man in the room wash hands by touching water. And woman will feed the man some food, (men are not allowed to eat by themselves). Girls in the room don't have to touch the water and they can eat by themselves. After all of that, men will help women to bow by pushing their heads. The whole game nobody can talk. They say "Em..." means yes. Everybody I know that played or watched this game thought it's descrimination towards girls. Cuz girls can't sit down, girls have to eat by themselves and can't wash their hands. And girls have to bow. That was what everybody thought at first. Because we are influenced by our Chinese culture. But you have to know, there is culture differences between countries. It's different. In fact, the truth is in that country, that culture it's descrimination towards men. First, men don't have to take off their shoes because they can't touch the land straightly. Land is sacred. Then men have to wash their hands and can't touch the food. Because in their culture they think men should be checking if the food is poisonous or if their hands are dirty. At last men should be helping women to bow because women are important.

        I learnt a lot from last three days, even though I was pretty tired to get up early and go to bed late. But that made my days full. My teachers were appreciated about all our works. And I hope the students will have a great year.

        When I was in America, I feel my body is just fine. I wear size six. That's normal. Besides nobody cares about that. But when I came back, I started to feel weird. Comparing to other people here, I'm kind of big. A friend of my parents saw me one time and said, "You are a lot fatter..." That's not rude here. But that was enough to make me feel weird. I didn't even care about that. Why do people care so much? I know it's better to be skinny. But for people like me, I can't be skinny unless I do a lot of sports, which is hard. Why won't some people not get fat? No matter how much they eat. That's unfair...  I go ride the bicycles with my dad every afternoon if possible. We go out for about an hour. I hope I can be skinnier. My dad didn't eat so much and he rode his bike. Now he's a lot skinnier. But I need a lot of food. I still can grow a little bit. I should eat. But how am I going to be skinnier? I can already imagine what my friends will said when they see me. I can also imagine what the students will think when school starts. I'm doing some sports now and I really hope I can be skinnier. I don't know if that will work on me... Well, people say if I don't even care, people won't have any idea. I know it too. But that's hard. Even though I tell people I don't care, but I still do. Who don't? Who don't want to have a perfect body? I heard a question before from a station: What will %47 people say if they have $1,000,000? The answer is to get a perfect body. Wow, sounds impossible for me. I konw the only way to keep fit is sporting. But it's hard!!$%$&(*&%^&*(*     I hope I can get over it...

        I'm afraid my English will be worse in a few months. Well, that's normal any way. I couldn't get a lot of chances to speak English. My parents are going to get some English channels for me to watch. They like the way I speak English. I know it's different. They even cover the subtitle on the TV with a piece of newspaper! That's really "great!" It helps. But sometimes I couldn't even see Chinese subtitle. I know I don't really need it...    

        I miss everything back in America. My host family, my friends, my school, even that small tinny town. I like to live in a small town. But my mom wants me to live in a big city. Saying it's easier to do everything. I don't really care. Maybe I will move to a small town when I'm old like a grandma. Huh, that will still be a few years later. 

        It's kind of like a dream. How come it only took sixteen hours to come back? Yesterday morning I woke up and I thought I was still in the bed in America. Even though that sixteen hours on the plane is pretty hard. But it's fast. Now my life seems becomes real. My life is in front of me and there are so many things waiting for me to do. I'm going to be busy now. But there are so many memories left behind. I couldn't forget them all. It'd been so great...

        My time is still American time now. It's different you know. I still sleep at night here. But I got very tired at about nine or even earlier. And I got up very early in the morning. That's normal. After a few days, I will be just fine.

        My parents were so happy to see me. I almost cried when I saw my mom at the airport. There were seven of us came back together. On the 26th, there are more, the left of us. My parents thought I will be fatter. But unfortunately they thought I'm darker. Well, I don't really think I'm pretty dark. But compare to my dad, I am darker than before. I don't know if I can be lighter a few months later. I don't really care so it doesn't really matter for me. But that's one of the things my dad complains about now.

        Last night, in fact yesterday afternoon, Calie and I called Ryan about going out at night. That was what we planned before but I thought I couldn't go. I went to Lawrence with my host family yesterday and I didn't know I could get home that early. For some reasons, Ryan didn't pick up the phone. We waited for him the whole afternoon. At about six something he called me and asked me the reason I called him. And then, we went out. Ryan is a kind of person who always waits until the last minute. At elevent at night, he was going to go home. But then they decided to go to Wal-Mart. I really didn't agree. But what else could I do? I felt so bad. Why didn't they be at least a little be respect to be and ask me why? I knew it's coming. I knew we would spend a while at Wal-Mart. At about eleven thirty, they finally decided to go. Well, Ryan drove Calie home and then drove me home. He thought it would be faster to go to Pomona first and then Williamsburg. I still couldn't understand that. It's not like he's never drove from Ottawa to Willamsburg?! Well, I was four minutes late. So I got my punishment and I couldn't go out today... He's done this before. He's got me guarded for fourteen days before. I tried to tell him it's not good to wait until the last minute to drive me home. He drove me out and he should at least be responsible to drive me home in time. I tried to tell my host mom it was not my fault. But she wouldn't understand me. She told me she didn't know what to tell me that I picked my friends wisely. That's not true. I didn't get to pick my friends wisely. I wasn't very open for friends at first I came and no body helped me. Why didn't she understand me? This had been so horrible for me.

        I felt like my year was wonderful. But there's so many difficulties, even until the end of the year. Sometimes I feel helpless. It's like even my host family didn't help me. It's like everybody's being against me. Why was that happening? Well this is the negative side of my exchange year. I didn't get to do a lot of things that their kids could do. Because I was not part of their family. And I feel like I'm out of this. But sometimes when I was thinking, "It's ok, they are a family and I'm not. It's normal. That's the way they get me out of it." It would make me feel better. It really did. I didn't even know why. I'm glad I get to go home tomorrow. This is over.   

        I got most of my things packed. I will have to pay some extra weight for my guitar. I can't take it with me on the airplane cuz the size will be too big. I have to pay, maybe a lot since my guitar is kinda heavy. I didn't know about guitar at first, I bought a big one. I should buy a smaller acoustic guitar, I could get a case that I could put it on my back. God...

        Finally, I got my year report done today. Kind of, cuz I still need to fix it. At least I got the ruft draft done. I'll work on it more.

        It's so exciting to see my classmates' messages for me. I thought I won't be able to contact with them any more until I got back. Well, there are three more days and my year's done. Sounds simple, huh? I don't know why, these days I just think a lot about that. Maybe cuz I am working on my year report. I can always be quiet and just sit there to think.

        There's a dog fight around the house today. Ozzy, the dog in the house, vs Carper, Jessica's dog. Carper is a little bit bigger and stronger than Ozzy. So it's kind of unfair. That's what I think. But well, they were fighting for the toys, we couldn't stop it. Ozzy has a bouncing ball, Carper has a squirrel. But Carper wanted both, when he tried to play with the ball, Ozzy went play with the squirrel. Then Carper got mad and grabbed the squirrel and left the ball. Ozzy wasn't strong enough to grabbed the squirrel back so he went play with the ball. And guess what, Carper dropped the squirrel and went grab the ball. A few times later, Ozzy got mad and they started to fight. Carper didn't drop the squirrel and Ozzy wouldn't leave him alone. When they got tired of fighting for the toy, Ozzy was ready to take a nap. Of course, Carper wanted to take a nap too, but he was afraid Ozzy would took his squirrel. And when he was trying to dig a hold on the blanket (of course he couldn't do that, he was trying pretty hard though), Ozzy was trying to pull the blanket away. It's pretty funny to watch two smart dogs fighting around the toy. Well, Carper fell asleep with the squirrel in his mouth at last...  I love those three dogs. They are so cute.

        That's a differences between American kids and us. Maybe they don't study as hard as us. Maybe they don't care it as much as we do. But for some reasons, they just give me a feeling that they can carry more responsibilities. Not all of American kids have to go to college. Not all of them get as much education as we do. But in a way, they are more mature. It's different in America, that can be one of the reasons. Kids can have jobs in high school, even in middle school. And most of them do. Not all of their families have a lot of money. And it's not very good to always take money from parents in a poor family. A lot of them work in summer, even in the school years. And America is vihecle country. Most of the kids can drive since they are sophomores. It's not like a game to drive a car. We can learn a lot of things by doing things like that. And we carry more responsibilities than just study at school. It's different from being a monitor at school.

        I don't konw what to say. Because that makes me think of education in China. We have a lot of people, there are competitions every where, between every one, and at any time. It gets so hard for kids to actually pay any attention to other things. It's like we try our best to be the best, and that's the only way out. I don't like this at all. Our students' opinions are arrested in a small cage. We don't get to do other things. That really change our personalities. How are we going to get on with foreigners very well? There's a very simple example. I have a friends who asked me what's the difference between "have been to" and "have gone to". I asked my host sister about that, she said there's no difference. If you have been to, you have gone to. But my friend said there's a little bit different. Yes there is, for Chinese teachers, schools, and education. We are forced to focus on such a simple phrase. It actually doesn't matter at all. Who cares when you are actually speaking to a foreigner? We lean English just to say it, just to understand it. I don't see why they have to do that. And they make English very hard for students to learn. All my Chinese friends don't have much confidence for their English. They are afraid to make mistakes. And if they make any mistake, they are not going to get a good score on their tests. And how is it going to teach them to learn English well? I'm so glad this kind of things don't happen a lot at some elementry schools. For me, that's very wrong. And I'm afraid that will hurt some kids if it happens at elementry schools. It will leave a mard in their childhood and they will never be able to speak English confidently. I feel so bad for the students.

        After all that, we went to Wal-Mart with my host mom. There was a storm coming from Topeka. We got a little bit hurt, we lost TV service. That sucks.

        This a normal day. Aven got his teeth pulled. He lost twelve teeth today. And he couldn't eat hot things for two days. He was bleeding pretty bad. He slept all day after that. Poor boy, the dentist has to wait until his adult teeth grow back up so that he can put on braces. I really don't know what his mouth is like now...   

        Today my host mom and sister came back. Aven went to his grandma's. So I stayed at home by myself half of the day. There's not much things to do. And I just kind of felt lazy today. Not even want to go outside for a walk.

        Let's see, I need to finish my year report. I told my host mom that I have to write year report, she's not very happy about that. She doesn't like my program at all. She thinks my program doesn't take care of our exchange students. She doesn't like some other exchange programs either. My representative quited when I first moved in with them. There's another one now but she never call me and check everything. They suppose to call every month to check to see if we are doing ok. But that representative never called. I'm pretty mad at that too. My host mom keeps asking me what if I don't write that year report. I don't know what to say. In China, teachers tell us to do things and what we think is just do it. I have never thought of not to write it. Well, I'm a good exchange student, in my parents hearts, I am a good daughter and in my representative in China's heart, I am a successful exchange student. I'm sure I will write my year report. And I want to buy some gifts for my relatives and friends in China. I am still thinking what to buy for them. I kind of have some ideas already. But I still need to figure out some more. I need to go to another town to a church. I took part in a church bean dinner before. That's a volunteer work and I wanted them to sign a prescription for me. That will help me in high school and collage. So it's very important.  I really want to get my ears pearced here. But this Saturday my host sister has a volleyball camp in Manhattan. So... They don't have big plans for Sunday. But Sunday is always clean-up day. I am not sure if my host mom will talk me out for my ears. She's not in a good move today either. I asked her about that. She said she was not sure if she can do that. She needs to sign a paper for those people to get my ears pearced. But she's not my real mom, we don't have the same last name. She was not sure if I can do that here. Damn...  That really get my emotion better...

        Well I guess this is for today. I don't even feel like typing.