Letters to Ken - Week #4

Dear Ken, How are you? Thank you very much for the amazing lunch the other day. We had a lot of fun! :) Last week was the first Labor day I've ever experienced. I never celebrate the labor day before, so it was totally new for me. Everything and everyone was about labor day. I heard preach at the church about labor. I see labor day SALE sign everywhere. And I got a bunch of labor day spams in my email! On Monday, which was THE Labor day, we had no class! Yay!! NO labor on labor day! (I love this sentence!) I went to the Dolores Park and hang out with some new friends. It was a perfect day to hang out in the Park. The park was flooded by people. I love to hang out at the Park because it gives me a positive energy. people who are hang out at the Park are almost all happy; and for me,happiness is contagious. I was pretty tired after my first labor day. Fortunately, I have no class on Tuesday! So, I spent all day resting in my home stay. I had my weekly bubble bath and I did my laundry which I haven't done in two weeks! On Wednesday, I had a very long day. I had a morning and evening class. Both of them were not so good. I don't know, maybe because everybody was still lazy to start the week after the long weekend. In the Women Leaders at Work class, we had this argument with a student who was dominating the class room for three hours. Jennifer was not there and the substitute instructor was still adjusting with the class. Anyway, we've dealt with the problem and hope that next week would be different. The next day, on the Organizational Behavior class, we were divided into groups. I got assign with three students from USA and another student from China. I am quite happy with my group and we have been making a good progress on the project we are working on. On Friday, I was invited to come and celebrate Eid Mubarak at the Consulate General of Republic Indonesia. I am really sorry that I could not make it to Castro to celebrate the Eid with you and the gang. I'd really love to be there, but I have promised that I'd come to the consulate. So, I met with a lot of Indonesians and made some new friends too. Afterwards,an Indonesian family invited me to come over their house to celebrate the Eid together. On Saturday, we went to the Golden Gate bridge. We did not cross the bridge this time, but we did take a lot of pictures. I was almost fainted because I was too tired and hungry and I had to climb back to the bus station. We were at the beach and it was COLD as ice. Chandan and Ali had already left me. I was hoping that somebody would offer me a ride. Luckily there was this bus with a "around the park" sign. I jumped in the bus and so happy when I found that it's free! Then the nice bus driver drove me around the park; TWICE! before he realize that I was lost and kindly offer his help to drop me at the nearest bus stop. Thank you very much Mr. Driver! I survived!! On Sunday, I went to church as usual. the service was awesome! The choir, ROCKED! And I met some new friends as well. One of then recommend me the volunteer opportunity at the SF Education Fund, which I applied right after I got home. All in all, last week was awesome. I love San Francisco! Sincerely, Dave

Letters to Ken - Week #3

Hi Ken, How's your long weekend? Mine's okay.. :) It was quite a busy week for me. I had some homeworks and reading assignments which I've never done before (well, in American style). Back in my country, we usually don't discuss what we were asking to read; instead the lecturer will give us a test (without even explain it first from his/her point of view). But here, I found that all teachers really realize what their job is, which is simply to teach us really understand the materials and able to apply it. For instance, my teacher from the women leaders at work asked us to make a short paper and send it to her email. I thought that assignment was something that she would evaluate and kept it to herself. But then, she brought all of our assignments back to the class (just 4 hours after we collected it) and all of the them has some constructive feedbacks on it and we get to discussed it so that the other student get to hear our opinion. Furthermore, she asked us to re-do the homework after we've had some kind of evaluation and send it to her as the final draft. Wow! One thing I realize that night is that the teacher really wants us to success and get good grades too! As for my other classes. I found them really challenging. The different teaching methods used by the teacher have forced me out of my comfort zone cause I had to push some boundaries which I'm more accustomed to before I came here. I love challenges and definitely believe that it will broaden my horizon in facing my future; whatever it might be... :) Last week, I have made some local (native American) friends. I know some of them because one of our house mates who's from San Diego invited us to his birthday party. It was our first night out! Hahahaha.. It was great. We had a lot of fun and I'll never forget it. He introduced me to some of his friends which are also students. Most of them are studying at the SF State. I really wish that I can make more friends, cause sometimes I feel bored when I don't have anything to do at the house. I have also make some new friends through a movie group I joined. Last week, I went with them to the theater to watch movie. Afterwards, we had dinner together and review the movie we just watched. It was so fun, because I really love movies! I even got my thesis on movie theater industry...Hahaha. So far, everything's great. I've gotten more friends. I've met some Indonesians also who turned out to be my best friends here. We hang out a lot. I get to know their families. They even invited me to dinner sometimes. It really helped me coping with the homesick.. :) So, that's it. I wish you had a great weekend and Happy working for tomorrow! Sincerely, Dave

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Letters to Ken - Week #2

Hi Ken, How are you? Hope you're fine.. :) San Francisco is seriously HOT these days. I'm melting like a burning candle. Last week I had a lot of fun. I went to some new places such as San Jose, Santa Clara and I also hang out in a park and tried to blend with the locals. On my way to a mall near San Jose I saw some big companies such as Yahoo, Google and some other giant companies in internet business. I also saw the Great America theme park. But I didn't get in there cause it's too expensive. Hahahaha.. So, I just saw it from the distance. It's still fun though. I met with an Indonesian lady who turned out to be my friend/ guide here in San Francisco. She showed me some exciting places like some Indonesian restaurants, cheesecake factory, and the Califoria Academy of Science! We went there last Wednesday which is the third Wednesday of the month, which also means the ticket is FREE!!!!! I was very excited and also surprised to see what's inside the building, because I thought all I'll see is gonna be some boring nerdy stuffs. Turns out it was one of the coolest and most visited sites in San Francisco! So, I got the see some amazing animals there like, giant fishes, rain forest, dinosaurs replica (or bones??) and many more! I did some shopping to buy gym attires, because I really want to lose my weight while I'm here. (like that possible.. :D) Anyway, last week has been pretty smooth in general. Now, let's get to the more serious stuff; study. Last week, we had our first class in the fall semester. Though I've studied in an international university before, it was a completely different experiences. My first subject was Supervision Management class. the class is in the morning and divided into thee one hour classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I found the class started too early since it's still super cold at nine o'clock here in San Francisco especially at the Ocean Campus. However, once the class started, there's no room for sleepy head. The teacher's teaching method involves a lot of group activities that require us to move a lot. It actually helped me a bit to gain my concentration. However, I personally think that the class size is too large. there were like 40 students in there. And since one meeting is only last for an hour, most of the discussion went pretty short and some of us didn't get a chance to say our opinion on a certain subjects. The other two classes are conducted at night. I did not have any problems in those classes. Both are very new to me and I've gained many new knowledge from those classes. By the way, the teachers are also amazing! All in all, I am really glad that the semester has finally started and I was able to cope with my nervousness. I have made one American friend and I want to make more friends here. I hope I didn't bore you to death reading this story.. :) Thanks for everything Ken Have a great day!!!

Letters to Ken - Week #1

Horas! :)

Temans...

Sejak aku sampe di SF aku belum sempat ngapdet blog ini. Banyak PR gw! :(

Salah satu PR ku adalah bikin catatan harian alias diary yang kudu dilaporin sama Koordinatorku di sini. Nah, gw pikir, kenapa ga sekalian gw post ajah di sini jadi weekly update gw? Iya kan, iya dong, iya kan???? Hehehe... OK deh! Enjoy!

Week #1

Hi Ken,

This is my first week daily dairy assignment.. :)

I am really sorry to send it now, because I don't have a laptop yet, so I only got this chance when my friend is not using his laptop. :)

So, here it is...

I had a very long and tiring 2 days flight from my country to San Francisco... I was exhausted and HUNGRY!!!! hahahahaha... I stepped my feet on San Francisco soil on August 1st. I couldn't see the view of San Francisco from the plan because I got the worst seat!!! After get off the plane, I ran quickly to avoid the long immigration queue. I thought that the immigration process would run smoothly. There was this nice Chinese officer. He looks really patient and seemed really easy on all passenger he interviewed. Thus, I chose him to interview me. The first question he asked was, "Is this your first time visiting America?" and I answered proudly, "Yes Sir!". Then he continues, "I'm afraid you'll have to go through a serial of procedures for NSEERS process. You may go to our office over there." WHAT????? NO!!!! But, I went there anyway. I got to. Haahahaha.. It took me approximately 1 hor to complete the process. The officers are very kind and nice. However, the process was a bit slow cause one of the officers was still new. I went straight to the baggage claim and found my two giant suitcase laid there. yay! I didn't have to go to the Lost and Found Department to pick them up. As I passing through the exit door, I look around to see anybody who holds a paper with my name on it. I was worried because there was no one there. But when I look to my left, I saw Ken and Chandan and I was so relieved. When I first see the city of San Francisco on my way to our homestay, I found the city surprisingly GREEN!!! The City is very very beautiful. The weather was colder than I imagined, but I like it. The roads are super clean, unlike the streets in my country. Hahahaha... And the houses are very artistic and unique. I arrived home safely and went straight to sleep. I woke up the next day at 9.45 am and we are suppose to have this meeting at school at 10:00!!! I'm Super late!!! hahahaha...

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=523532578&v=app_2392950137#!/video/video.php?v=426302587578

Turned out, my fellow homestay from the same program, Chandan was also overslept! Hahaha.. So we both took a quick bath (of course in different bathroom hahahaha) and went to the school riding a muni. That was my first time riding a hybrid electric bus. We don't have that kind of vehicle back home. :)...

We ran to the room where we suppose to meet. I saw you've been waiting for us. I thought that we were the last students that arrive. Turned out, we were the firsts. The girls were late.

I think the school is pretty large. I saw some new buildings and also some old ones. The people are nice and the classes size was not too big. I like it.

I feel so happy when I finally got to meet the other participants from different countries. They are all great!

We went to the italian part of the town to have some pizza after the meeting. We were celebrating the birthday of two of our friends. The pizza was goooooooooooood. We also had some ice cream and we ate it in our beloved coordinator's apartment Ken... :)

I feel great that day because I was introduced to so many things about the city and I got three free brand new jacket from you!! Yay!!!!

I spent the rest of the week exploring the city with Chandan and Wasim. We went to the GOolden gate park, Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman Wharf, and some parks. We also explore the downtown area. I shopped at Marshall and Ross. We had buffet lunch in Indian restaurants, and I went to church on Sunday in China Town. People there were very welcoming.

All in all, my first week in San Francisco was GREAT! So far, I haven't find any significant difficulties in adapting to the lifestyle here. Ups, other than the foods we have for dinner at our house. Hahahaha... But, I am still tying to love it.