Yesterday I went to Ikea with my friends. It was the second time that I went there since I moved to Philly. In my hometown there is an Ikea too, nor far from my home, so I used to visit it a lot, sometimes with my mom and sometimes with my friends. Ikea is such a cosy place that once I entered there I couldn’t get my eyes off the beautiful furnitures and home-decorating goods. Because they are so well designed that I can’t help praising the designers’ wonderful ideas.
It funny to discover that the word “Ikea” looks much like “Idea”, which is also the main point that Ikea represents. I know there are many other places such as Pottery Barn and Metro that also sell home supplies, but I am still fascinated by Ikea. I won’t tell you I am fond of the food there but it is a key point though. Anyway, to me the most fascinating part of Ikea is that I never get bored in it. Every time I walk between the shelves and inside the model houses, I am impressed by the different subtle details. Sometimes it’s just a small cute mirror or a well-designed cup, but I’m still enjoying finding the elements that is not discovered last time. Those products are amazing. You’ll never know them well in Ikea.
Boys seem not so interested in finding those perfect feelings as we girls do. So yesterday the boys just found what they need and checked out far beyond us. But they still had to wait for us to finish our lovely Ikea Trip, that’s the most interesting part of the journey I thought, lol. Maybe next time they could go to the Best Buy to shop electronic things, instead getting bored with the Ikea goods, which I guess will be more appealing to them. But I’ll still stay with Ikea, ’cause my favorite place will never change!
Life in the US
College Students was fined $675,000 for illegal downloadings
I was checking my weibo (a social network like twitter) when I found a piece of news saying that an American college student was fined 675,000 dollars because he downloaded 31 songs from internet illegally. I am so surprised. Not just because of the severe penalty but the fact itself that differs a lot from the situation of my home country.
Actually things are different in different countries. In some countries, it is illicit to download files from the internet without the authorization of the owners holding the copyright. But in China, it is a aquiescent practice to download files without permission or giving credit to the owners. Thousands of Millions internet users download songs, pictures, documents, videos everyday, the majority of whom are college students. Just take me for example. When I was an undergraduate student, I often participated in student activities in which I have to catch different kinds of information from various sources of course including the internet. I sometimes downloaded songs, pictures and videos online and used them to build my own work. Just a few years ago, I never realized it is improper to download from the internet without being authorized. You know, it is something that you often do but don’t know it is wrong. This sucks. I wish I had known that and try not to do that any more. But the more important is, I should ask others to do the same things in order to make a better world without infringment and plagiarism.
Some Experiences about purchases in US
Yesterday I bought a pair of gloves in the college’s bookstore. They felt so great that I decided to buy them. However, when I got back home and tried them in no time, I found a hole on one of the gloves. It seemed only if you strech it, you could see it, otherwise, you won’t be able to notice that. But what if I wore it for a long time and the hole would just keep growing bigger and bigger? So I thought I should bring them back to the store to see if I could get another pair to change for these ones. Then I went back to the store today and soon got a new pair. Things just went smooth which I have not imagined.
This remind me of another story my friend experienced a couple days ago. She got a curtain from Target with one of her roommates who is an American girl. When they went back home, they found that the curtain was too long for the window. Since they have ripped off the wrapping paper and the boxes, my friend thought they would’t be able to return it to the store. But her roommate told her it was alright and helped her return the curtain and get a new one. Before my friends told me about this story, neither of us believe it would be that easy to return a purchase in America.
Buying things in America seems simple and convenient. Also, return and refund are both easy, and safe. For example, I bought some books on Amazon a month ago. When I proceeded to check out, they say I could try a month’s Prime membership so I accepted. However, when I checked my account of bank online, I found there was a charge from Amazon that I have never consumed. I checked all the online and offline consuming records and realized it was the annual fee that the Prime membership charged. It was because it automatically renew my membership while no one informed me. I wrote a complaint to Amazon about this and soon received an email that promised to refund the money. This assured me and left me a really good impression of Amazon.
I am careful with my pocket because life in America is really expensive. Thank god I haven’t met bad sellers or bilks till now but I still told myself to keep an eye when I went shopping.
Only if one lives all by himself can he understand the rigors of life. Just like the lines in Friends say: “Welcome to the real world! It sucks, (but) you’re gonna love it! “
Happy “Full-moon” Day
I can’t believe it has been a whole month when I come to America! I am just like a new-born baby in this new land, so I just call it the “Full-moon Day”.
My friends and I held a not big but sweet party to celebrate this special day. Girls were cooking while some boys were in charge of helping and some played guitar. I could just pick up some pieces of my memory to memorize those lovely moments. Katrina was the chef and she really did a great job. Even her American roommate liked her dishes very much. Ying and Lin came back home late but we saved food for them. The best dish to me is the “stewed Chinese cabbage with fish ball, tofu and silk noodles” because my father loves it a lot and so do I. After the “we are so full” dinner, we sang some Chinese songs together. “Those years”, which is a very popular song in China, reminded me of the last days before the graduation of college when I spent a month with the guys in the choir to make a music video. The song we used was just “Those years”. What an amazing surprise to me! The memories and facts came up together and linked in my mind at the very moment. I was so touched.
It felt so warm to have this little get-together with these young people who came from the same country as I do. To tell the truth, I got a little homesick a couple of days ago. But when I hung out with my friends, all those gloomy feelings flew away and I soon cheered up. It feels like I am not far away from home ’cause those friends are my new family.
Starting to launch this new blog
Something about me, about life in the US as a Chinese girl, some feelings that come up to me.
Just a quick introduction of me. I am a girl, 24 years old, born in China, living in the east US right now,pursuing my master degree in strategic communication. It is just the second time to land on the United States while I am still uncomfortable with it. Not the jet lag, I got confused about many stuff here. I could not understand the whole courses even if I am kind of good in English. For the couple of days I spent living here, I found that the students here are quite lucky to have all kinds of facilities to fulfill his or her academic goals, many of which we didn’t have access to. This doesn’t mean I learn little when I was back in China, but the learning environment is quite much different here and there.
I try very hard to absorb the new things that I have never met with but it seems to need more time for that.
I like singing. I used to be an alto in the chorus of my undergraduate college. But I’ve got no chance to know about the chorus here in this new university. I think this is gonna be my short-term goal next week then. Hope to be lucky. 🙂
Ruby Han 