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