Goodbye GELC

So after a long and hectic semester, here I am writing my last blog entry for English 106. Since it is my last blog entry for this semester, I feel it would be appropriate for me to “evaluate” (this word has been haunting me ever since I had to complete those long and boring evaluations for each of the courses that we took) this entire semester. Initially, Purdue scared me. I still remember my first day at Purdue. Coming from a small private school in the Middle-East to a school which is as reputed, renowned and big as Purdue was no joke. But now, when I look back to my first day, I feel like all the worries turned out to be a waste of time and unnecessary. The reason why this school scared me before (the fact that it is SO big) has transformed into the reason behind me loving this school! Living on a campus that is as big as Purdue has greatly appreciated my communication and understanding skills. I have matured into a person that is more open to different cultures and mindsets. No longer do I scorn at someone when they have views, morals or ideals that are different to mine. Instead, I strive to understand the scenario from their point of view and try to justify their thinking in some way or another. Going further, I would like to go ahead and say that the English 106 course has greatly benefitted me and has not only helped me sharpen my writing skills but it has also got me into the habit of blogging. I am actually contemplating on having a personal blog where I voice my opinion on the day-to-day happenings that take place throughout this world. Work on that should hopefully commence this winter break J Last but not the least, I would like to thank Mr. Reimer for being such a great mentor. He not only tolerated us being our sleepy and dead selves (read: it was at 8:30 am), he also worked towards bringing us out of our shells and making us feel more comfortable in class. Hope all of you have a great winter break and good luck on your finals!

NFL and NBA Seasons

This season of NFL football has been a very odd season in that teams that have usually have successful seasons are not doing too well and teams that usually have unsuccessful records are doing better than usual. One of the biggest examples of this is the Indianapolis Colts who are currently 0-12. I think that since they lost Peyton Manning, the Colts have not been able to pull themselves together and have a successful season. I am a New England Patriots fan and I was happy to see them play and defeat the Colts today. On the other hand, the Green Bay Packers are undefeated with a record of 12-0. They just beat the Ney York Giants earlier today in a very close game. Mason Crosby, the kicker for the Packers, had to make the game winning field goal to secure the win for Green Bay. I really hope that the Packers do not have a perfect season because I really do not like them, and I actually think that the San Francisco 49ers is one of the few teams that can beat them in the regular season. There are other teams like the Oakland Raiders, the Detroit Lions, and the Houston Texans who are near the top of their divisions. I think that this year of football is going to be an abnormal year as many teams that will probably go to the playoffs will be going for the first time for a while. In other news, the NBA lockout is finally over and the season should be getting back on schedule during Christmas season. This year’s basketball season should also be a good one as there are many teams with new faces and many teams with star players. No matter what happens during the seasons I am sure that the playoffs and Finals/Super Bowl will be better than usual because of all of the upsets and controversies that have happened during the offseason in basketball and during the season in football.

Scared of Winters?

As my screen name suggests, before coming to Purdue, I was truly afraid of facing the winters that head towards West Lafayette on a yearly basis. Now I know it is far too early to state an opinion but I do not think that the cold isn’t un-bearable. In spite of the fact that I have either a 7:30 or an 8:30 class everyday of the week, I feel like with proper winter clothing, you could actually walk through the winters with ease. My biggest worry was waking up. It tends to be extremely difficult to get out of your warm and cozy blanket when your surroundings and exteriors are so cold. However, because of having the luxuries of an indoor heating system and an alarm clock with a snooze option, I got my way around that problem as well. Although, I have to admit that I had some luck on my side too! All my classes on the first day of snow were somehow, magically cancelled for one reason or another. Hence I had the liberty of cuddling up under my blanket and sip on some hot French Vanilla Mocha while the others we forced to bear the cold and walk to all their classes. If I got bored, I would just stand near my window and observe little humans (Keep in mind that I live on the eighth floor, hence everything and everyone seems little) being all bundled up and ready to face the winter! What took me by shock was how often people tend to fall or slip when it snows. A good 7 to 8 people tripped in half an hour. Even though I laughed as they fell, I felt extremely sorry for them as Finals were soon approaching and it sucks to give an exam with a broken arm or leg. Moreover, deep inside, I knew I was next! I hope it doesn’t get too bad in the coming few days so we have a smooth finals week. It would be awful if we had to make our way through piles of snow in order to get to our exams!

Last blog

I've found this class to be very interesting. I had some idea about the way different cultures have to adjust to interact as a group and function as well as possible, but this class really helped broaden my thought process on those matters. I am very excited to take what we've learned in this class and apply it to many aspects of my future. In the new future I plan to use the skills and knowledge learned in this class and apply it to group work with international students as well as American students who were raised with a different background than me. Its very important to understand how each member works and understand that their work ethic may not be the same as mine. The same goes for any team projects that I may encounter if I have a career with an international business. Other uses for the skills learned in this class are travel abroad programs. All of the speakers have gotten me very excited to dive into more international experiences. I want to travel across Europe, parts of Africa, and South East Asia. For study abroad experience I would like to go to Germany or Italy. Germany is a "hot spot" for engineering, while Italy has a very rich culture and great food. This has been one of my most enjoyable classes because it has focused on things I am interested in, which is international experience and knowledge. I will walk away from this class with a better understanding of the way in which different cultures interact and work together. The main topic I learned most about is how dominant images of a culture affect its people. The dominant images can be good or bad, either way they influence the thought process of the culture they are connected to.

Final Blog Post

I am definitely studying abroad after this. This class has given me ideas on how to approach other cultures countries when we go. I also gained a good group of friends that I will know be able hang out with and get help with for engineering in the future.

We should have the study aboard people come over. They can tell us the deadlines and what we need to do to get on the right track. I wish that what we did learn about other cultures would be more interactive. Like they could bring a dish from what part of the world they were talking about.

After wanting the study abroad people to have talked to us I would also have liked more LC events. They’re were only a couple outside of the study times and I would have liked to had some more events not jus parties, like go to the corn maze when it was around or go paintballing. These other events would have helped us bond more.

Being Back At Purdue

I went back home during the Thanksgiving break and got to spend time with family. I really didn’t have enough time to spend with friends because I was only at home for 4 days. I left Tuesday afternoon because I had to stay here at Purdue until 4:30 pm to take a math quiz that was inconveniently scheduled to stress students out. Anyways, going home was nice and it was good to see family again. Thanksgiving was nice as I pretty much stayed home on Thursday and watched some movies and ate really good home cooked meals. Friday was pretty hectic as I went to a mall nearby at midnight only to find out that Best Buy and pretty much all the stores I wanted to go to all had ridiculously long lines. I ended up going back home and waking up somewhat early to go to Costco and an outlet mall that was about an hour and a half away. I bought a lot of clothes for winter and I think that I should be prepared for the terrible stories of the extreme cold. Leaving home to fly back to Purdue was a bittersweet moment as I definitely already miss my family and home, but I know that I am returning to see friends. I think that these next few weeks left of the semester are going to be very stressful, not only from the finals in three weeks, but also from the final projects we have to do for English class and Engineering 131. I only have two finals to take during finals week (CHM 115 and MA 162) and those two will be a pain to study for but I know that once it is over, I will be able to go back home and hang out with my friends back home, as well as family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today marks the end of our much needed thanksgiving break. While most people decided to get out of campus during the span of this little break, my friend and I chose to stay back and catch up on the innumerable hours of sleep that we missed because of being overloaded with homework, projects and exams. My break started a lot earlier than most because all my classes on Tuesday were cancelled for one reason or another. Now, I was told by my roommate that the campus gets pretty quiet during Thanksgiving Break, but the definition of “quiet” only became clear when I woke up the following day (Wednesday). I have always had this habit of looking out the window as soon as I wake up. Normally I am greeted by a bustling campus with at least 15-20 students walking on a given street. However, on Wednesday, I was greeted with an empty First Street. I could not spot a single soul in the gaze of my eyes. Soon enough I started to wonder whether it was stupid of me to decide to stay back on campus. Since there was nothing I could do about that anyways, I decided to make the most out of my time on campus. I went on long walks along with a couple of friends that decided to stay back as well. These walks made me feel extremely special because since the campus was so empty, I felt like the Purdue campus was a little world by itself, created just for me and my friends. We could sing as loudly as we wanted or act as crazy as we wanted. On Thanksgiving Day, Earhart hall had organized a Thanksgiving dinner for all of the students that decided to stay back. Going to this dinner helped me gain a better understanding of what importance Thanksgiving holds in American culture. Later, my friends and I decided to indulge in some retail therapy, courtesy the Black Friday sales. Needless to say, it did get pretty ugly in most stores. Shoe boxes thrown all over the store floor was a common sight. Now that the break has finally come to an end, I feel like my decision to stay back actually did end up working in my favor. Not only did I get a chance to catch up on my missed hours of sleep, I also got to shop, eat some great food, and catch up on all the recent movie releases!