May: 22nd English Cafe

 May 22nd, My day started at 7:00am with me getting breakfast from the family mart. This trip so far has been hard for me to wake up and feel awake. I took the metro to campus after getting breakfast, and I felt that it was tranquil even though it was busy. With everyone being quiet on the train it can be easy to fall asleep which is something I almost did.

After arriving to campus we started our day with the separated group lectures. Being in Com we started our day learning about the descriptions in writing sets, which is different from instructions. In this class time a lot of us felt out of it or tired because the trip so far has been going to many places and hanging out with our OMU buddies after the class days. The lectures on doing descriptions had us looking at past works of students and critique those works for our perspective to get an understanding on what revising a work can look like.

Lunch was good, I tired a new dish from the cafeteria. It was a noodle dish with some kind of meat or seasoned vegetable with very little broth. I think I like some parts of the meal (mainly the noodles and side dishes like the chocolate cupcake) but the meat or seasoned vegetables could be substituted for something else or even taken out of the dish and it would still be fine. After that meal Sam and I went to the bakery next door and got some pastries that I saved for later.

After our lunch break, we started our group presentations. The first group was two OMU students (Hono and Nene) and they explained their lives here at OMU which seems very different from our lives in the US. I liked learning about what happens at OMU from the perspective of the students. Following that presentation were two separate presentations from ERAU students. I was surprised to see their views of schooling in the US because for the most part I felt like it wasn’t really the same. There were some parts that I agreed on like driving cars and being a melting pot, but most of the time I was learning a slightly different experience from the presenters view point.

  At the end of the day we went to and participated in an English café, where OMU students had the opportunity to practice their English with us. It was so weird to talk to people about anything and learn things like slang and what places to stay away from but also having to teach them our phrases that we use everyday. I was able to learn so much from this experience.