Finals and preparation for Holiday

Here is the time of the semester when all the assignments, essays and exams are catching up on us.  Different people have their own way to stay awake and stay alert, and stay focused or stay on top of everything (hopefully). 

Personally, I study better at the library where there are no distractions. When I study at home, the bed is always tempting because of deprivation of sleep during finals or preparation for finals. Second floor of the library is usually my first option to go to. However, if it gets too loud, I will move up to third floor even though I tend to get too cold on the third floor. During my study, I tend to use a large amount of sketch paper but it is not really environmentally friendly. Fortunately, the library usually has standing whiteboards on the first and second floors, and for the third floor, most of the study rooms are equipped with whiteboards and computers. In addition, we can borrow markers from the library front desk. 

For efficient study, I am going to list some of the places that you can consider:

1.  Library

Dead Week hours:
December 4th (Monday) December 5th (Tuesday) December 6th (Wednesday) December 7th (Thursday) December 8th (Friday) December 9th (Saturday)	Open at 7am Open 24 hours Open 24 hours Open 24 hours Close at 10:00pm 10:00am-10:00pm

Final Week hours:

December 10th (Sunday) December 11th (Monday) December 12th (Tuesday) December 13th (Wednesday) December 14th (Thursday) December 15th (Friday)

Open at 10:00am Open 24 hours Open 24 hours Open 24 hours Close at 8:00pm 7:00am-6:00pm

2. Kreidler Lounge

Dead Week: Monday to Friday (From 8:00am to 5:00pm)

                    Sunday (From 9:00am to 3:00pm)

                    (PS: FOOD in Kreidler lounge on SUNDAY, 12/10/2017)

                   

3. The Cave:

Dead Week: Monday to Friday (From 8:00am- 5:00pm)

                    Saturday (From 9:00 to 3:00pm)

                     (PS: FOOD in The Cave on SATURDAY, 12/9/2017)

  4. Morken

Comment down below if you have a favorite place to study on campus! 

FINALS WEEK and Post-Finals

• ON-CAMPUS EVENTS:

End of semester celebration - Wednesday, Dec 13th from 12-2pm in the dCenter

• TRAVELING PREPARATION:

Lots of students have planned for their winter break travels even before the finals are over. Some students might go back to their home countries to spend new year with their family and friends. Some students might decide to go to other countries, or travel around the U.S. ANYWAY, prior to your traveling, please make sure to check your passport, U.S. visa expiration date, and check whether or not you need a new travel signature on your I-20 (Yes, if your I-20 was signed almost a year or more than a year ago). If you are leaving during winter break, make sure to check before the office is closed (From December 22nd to January 2nd)

Go here to  Request Travel Signature

If you have any questions in regards to your I-20, you can make an appointment with Heather Jacobson. https://hjacobson.youcanbook.me/

Good luck with finals, everyone!

~Camille

Vietnamese Thanksgiving version 🍂 🍂 🍂

Hello everyone~✌

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving break. 😌  This semester has been really busy for me since it’s my junior year. It’s probably gonna get busier later on too 😥 😭 BUT, i did have some fun during those stress hours! I got to help out with Around the World this year again and it was super fun. 😆  We have 17 countries represented this year and many people came to learn about different cultures and try all different kind of traditional food! It was a lot of work to prep with my people in the ISC office but it was worth it, i think the event turned out good~

Since I have so many assignments this semester, I didn’t get to go to Oregon with my roomie, Michelle. 😔  However, I had a great time eating out in a Korean Chinese restaurant with my other roomie, Camille, got to try jjamppong and sweet and sour pork Korean version! They were super yummy!

 

Jjamppong😋

Sweet and sour pork👌

On Thanksgiving day, I made this rice noodle soup that I have been craving so bad in Vietnam. It turned out really good too! (Camille approved~ 😂 🙈) I forgot to take a picture but I found one online haha 😂 😆 

Thanksgiving dinner🙈

Got to watch two movies in some free time, Midnight Runners (Korean movie) and Bad Genius (Thai movie), they were both so good 💣 💣 💣 😍 

So that’s my Vietnamese Thanksgiving version. 😋  We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Vietnam so every year my Thanksgiving is a different version. I normally spent time with my friends’ family but this year I got to make my own.   I do need this relax time though. 😆

Chấm dứt ở đây thôi nhỉ? 😏

Feature my little brother, Ace😹

See ya~~~

☁

~Cloud~

An Eventful Fall thus far!

Hi again,

It's Joel here and this week I'm back with another blog post!

As a full-time student, ROTC cadet, International Student Services Intern, a National Guardsman and a Computer Science department grader, I have my hands constantly full. I also dedicate about 90 - 120 minutes to working out daily so there's never a dull moment in life. With that said however, this is the kind of life I enjoy!

Another benefit of being so busy is that I get to talk about things I've done over the past couple months, which is a long list. This week, I'm going to highlight the month of October, as it was by far the most hectic month.

A great thing about being in the Army is that I constantly get to do cool stuff. And that's what I did October 13th - 15th. I had my National Guard drill weekend then, and that weekend was individual weapons qualification time, which meant I got to shoot a M4 rifle with over a couple hundred rounds. Best part was it was all paid for by the government, talk about a gun-lovers' paradise!

We also did movement to contact drills as squads, and we have patrol base operations. I did not take pictures then as it isn't very appropriate with military personnel all around, but I can describe what we did. Movement to contact is essentially the methods and procedures a squad will take when enemy contact is imminent. There is a certain way we move and communicate, in order to minimize noise and light, but still effectively communicate before engaging the enemy. Once the firefight begins however, noise and light discipline just goes out the window!

A patrol base looks just like the image below:

It's basically an area that a platoon would occupy, in order to bed down for the night and to conduct weapon maintenance and personal hygiene. It is usually placed in areas that are nasty, just so it would be less likely for the enemy to want to come across that area. We set up patrol bases every night when I was out in the field at Fort Knox, KY over the summer so this was a great refresher!

2 weekends later, I had to go out to the field again, this time however, with PLU ROTC. We had Lute Forge, which is our field training exercise in the Fall. I was a lane walker with a squad, which meant I was the primary advisor attached to a squad and followed them wherever they went.

Here's a picture of me at Forge demonstrating clearing a weapon:

We also spent a night in the field at Lute Forge in a patrol base.

On October 31st, Halloween, PLU ROTC had a battalion fun run and I came in a sumo costume and ran 2 miles with everyone else! It was very challenging but definitely a fun experience.

The next weekend, I had drill weekend again for the month of November. This was a 3 day event, and this time we did medical readiness stuff, more patrol bases and more movement to contact. We also had our M320 qualification range, which is essentially a grenade launcher that looks just like this:

As you can see, most of my weekends are occupied with the Army, and it is sometimes a struggle to find time in order to complete huge assignments and to study for exams. However, I'm doing well this semester and am enjoying myself.

Take care for now!

Joel Goh

Intramural Sports at PLU!

Hello again! We're back this week with another edition of Guest Blog Posts! This time, we'll introduce a fellow Lute, Tiffany, who just recently came to PLU in Fall 2017. Tiffany talks about her experience playing intramural sports here at PLU as a new international student:

Hi, everyone!

I am Tiffany Huang. I am an international student from China. I spent all my past years in China. This is my first time to come to America and to study abroad. I am still trying to get used to my new school life at PLU.

Life here is totally different from the life that I had in China. I am experiencing a lot of new things here and having a lot of fun. I would like to share my story of participating in the intramural sports games at PLU.

PLU Intramurals!

My friends created a team for the intramural soccer league. When they invited me to join the team, I accepted it. After that I also joined their badminton and the basketball intramural teams. I am never good at sports. I only played badminton,when I was in China. I have never played soccer and basketball. When I told my Chinese friends I am in a soccer and basketball team now, they all laughed at me. They couldn’t imagine that I would ever play soccer.

Intramural Soccer on Foss Field!

Our team name is The Vegetables, which means we don’t really care about the result of the game, and we just want to enjoy the game and be happy, just like vegetables. As I don’t know how to play soccer, I didn’t help a lot for our soccer games, but I really enjoy every game with our team members. My job mostly is the cheerleader. I was there to support our team every game, although I didn’t play. I met a lot of wonderful friends from our Vegetables team. It is a really happy thing to see us making progress, and experiencing wins and losses with my friends. We made it way farther than we expected to. We almost became the champions, but lost the championship games at the end. I still think the Vegetables are all champions.

Now we have also created our basketball team. We won the first game on Tuesday. This is also my first time playing basketball. I think it is super interesting and fun. I can’t wait for the next game. Now my Japanese friend, Yohei, is my basketball teacher. He teaches me to play basketball every week. I hope we can become the champions this time for the basketball intramural league.

Basketball's an intense sport!

Don’t just study at university. Come to join us! Intramural sports are a great chance for students to do some sports, make more friends and have a lot of fun.
 

Mid-Semester Campus Life - Happiness is a choice

Hello friends! I hope that you are enjoying fall weather whether it is rainy, cloudy, or sunny day. Please stay positive and active during depressing rainy season and stressful school by participating in campus events, hanging out with your friends, and having time for yourself.

I am going to share with you how I stayed positive during nursing school, specifically during and after Mid-term. 

1. Global Campus Connection game night & Around the World preparation

Planning an event can be stressful with all the preparation, and advertising, and concerns about if there is anybody coming to my event. However, I believe that short-term stress can serve as a motivation for learning. It helps me to form more effective time management strategy, and helps me to expand my consideration while planning events, and it helps me to improve and modify my stress coping mechanisms. Instead of perceiving event planning as a job obligation, I tend to consider it a time to have fun.

During one-hour Game night, we played Pictionary and paper telephone. We had so much guessing what other people have drawn. As the game proceeded, I also noticed that students with different background would have different perspectives or interpretations of a specific word or phase.

( * Global Campus Connection is an ISS program that provides platform for mutual learning experience and cultural exchange between international students and current students. ) 

 

 -------------------------------------------------------

We are busy preparing for Around the World!  If you are hosting a table, it is time to start thinking about the materials you need. A reminder for Around the World:  Wednesday, Nov 15th

I had some fun with the photobooth props --->

2.  Halloween entertainment-- Stay positive by laughing

 

 3. Acknowledging your stress, and appreciating things around you.

When people tell me, “Camille, you shouldn’t be stressing too much! It is really bad for you.”  I know I should reduce my stress but how do I not stress out when there are so many assignments and exams coming at me? Then I realize that it is impossible to reduce stress but what I can do is to increase my positivity while dealing with stress.

• Same Amount of Stress with Increase level of positivity and happiness

• Same amount of stress is due to unchanged course load despite your stress level

• How do I increase my positivity and happiness?

• Try to appreciate things around me by focusing on positive aspect of life.

• Example of things that I appreciate:

• My mom and sister care so much about me, and we talk every night
• I have two awesome roommates, and we support each other
• Beautiful fall weather
• more……..

~Camille

Respond to Your Opportunity!

For those who work hard would deserve successful career path, I am writing this. I do not mean that I am on successful career path, but I would still like to share what happened to me for the last few days. Last week, I set up my Career Connections Opportunity Board and updated the necessary documents to apply for an internship I was interested in, and I got the opportunity!

You may have some friends around you who are doing internships or working, or you may be the one who is doing so now. It often sounds challenging for International Students to get an internship or work offer due to foreign status. However, there are still many opportunities around you. Regardless of the firm size or renown, I would like to recommend you to challenge the internship if it is related to your career path because there are a lot of things to learn at a real firm.

To make these things happen, you will want to search Career Connections Opportunity Board. You can use search bar to find the webpage below, and click the black box with the Career Connections sign to go onto the next picture 



 

You will be able to see this page now if you have clicked the Career Connections Opportunity Board box. If it is the first time that you are trying, you would see 0% profile complete (mine shows 83%). Click the %, then it will navigate you to what needs to be done. Here is another amazing thing I would like to share.  I updated my resume and cover letter a few weeks ago, and Career Connections gave me advice via email after looking it over. I can revise it either by myself at home or with an adviser at the office. I think this system is efficient in that it does not bother my time but helps a lot.  

Once you are done with creating your profile, click Jobs and see what are the opened opportunities for internship and work.



If you do part-time CPT (Curricular Practical Training), it will not affect your OPT (Optional Practical Training). If you can do CPT while you are studying at PLU, I believe you can build more experience and enrich your skills for your  next career path.

Shivani's Exciting Summer Travels!

Hello again! We're back this week with another edition of Guest Blog Posts! This time, we'll introduce a fellow Lute, Shivani, who just returned from her Summer break back home in India. Shivani recalls her experiences below:

Hi everyone, I am Shivani Muthyam. I am currently a senior at PLU. I am majoring in Business administration with a focus in finance and I am from India. I came to the United States in the year 2014 and I have been living in Washington State for the last three years now.

In the summer of 2017, I had to visit India for family reasons. It has been a very long time since I last visited home. Staying abroad for a considerable amount of time made me see my home in a very different perspective. I was perplexed, as I was subconsciously juxtaposing everyday norms, practices, and expressions of the two different cultures. When I reached India, I still remember how excited I was to meet my family at the airport. I stepped out the airport and gazed the city and realized that the city I grew up has been extremely changed. I saw what I didn't see before; Huge buildings, more automobiles, and people glued to smartphones, but it was reassuring to see the heart and spirit of the city remain the same.

Furthermore, I was able to relinquish the homemade Indian cuisines. I had a chance to travel Kerala. It is a state which located in southern part of the India and it is three hours away from my hometown. Kerala is also known as Devakulam, which means “God's own place”. It is the home of ancient Temples and scenic beauty. I had a chance to explore few of them. It is strange that I never actually traveled most of the India yet I traveled countries outside the Indian subcontinent. When I traveled to Munnar a city in Kerala I was flabbergasted by the effortless scenic beauty of the hill stations. The palm trees and the backwater boat rides added allure to the city’s grandiosity!

Moreover, the place is known for its historic splendor and traditions. It was amazing to see dancers perform an ancient dance form called "Kathakali" originating some 1500 years ago. It is also believed that the world's oldest martial art known as “kalaripayattu” is widely practiced in this place.

Finally, I had a chance to visit a coastal town called Kanya Kumari which is located on southern tip of peninsular India. In KanyaKumari, there is a place known as Triveni sangamam where the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean meet together. The transparent and clear water, surrounded by the ocean breeze was the ultimate moment of the trip.

I have to admit it, even now when I close my eyes, the nostalgic scent of the tepid raindrops and the sound of the water diverging front the shores of the Kanyakumari still haunts me.

In conclusion, although it was just a short trip it was an experience to cherish. Experiencing the vibrant culture and the misty hazy hilltop view of the hill station was best. The trip was a huge stress breaker, and a perfect trip to rejuvenate my mind.

Soon after, this wonderful trip I returned back to Washington for fall semester feeling better than ever.

Moon Festival in Kreidler Lounge

Hello everyone!  Long time no see since last Winter break if anyone cares.  I am back to the US in the summer and now on campus again after a life changing study away experience. 

This year I’m back to the Moon Festival again, yayyy~ So Kreidler Community had an event in Kreidler lounge on October 4th this year to celebrate Moon Festival.  It’s actually an idea by one student staff in our office, Camille.  (She is also my roomie ) And so to complete a part of me being away from home and my tradition, I came to support her and had a great time making a lantern and eating moon cake~

Here is my lantern haha..

 It's not the best lantern but I tried guys.  We have it in the office too so swing by to see the prettier versions of my boss Heather and Camille. 


Me trying to have a cool picture with Cheong Wun and Yohei. 

 If you missed the event, Camille is holding again in Kreidler lounge on Oct 6 from 5.30PM to 7.30PM! Come, have fun, and celebrate a little late Moon Festival (but it's the celebration that counts!). 

Best,
~Cloud~

Joel's Summer Training + Back to School!

Hello again!

I had a bit to say last week, when I introduced my good friend and ex-staff member, Harald Overa's guest blog post. We actually also celebrated Harald's 22nd birthday on Saturday, so the past week was definitely an eventful week for him!

A happy bunch celebrating Harald's 22nd!

Anyways, let's rewind back to this Summer. This Summer was really eventful for me, I attended Cadet Summer Training 2017 (Advanced Camp), visited Los Angeles, CA, Vancouver, BC and also Tanzania on a Cadet Training Deployment.

Advanced Camp is a commissioning requirement for all MSIII Cadets. It is held annually at Ft. Knox, Kentucky, and cadets have to endure the summer heat as well. In other words, it was a big deal. We had to endure a month of physical, tactical and mental challenges in order to graduate and pass camp. As a MSIV Cadet this year, I am also tasked with managing the PLU ROTC Battalion and Advanced Camp has allowed me to hone my skills and apply things I've learned here. I have less than 8 months before graduating from PLU and commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army so I can't wait for that!

Graduation March - Cadet Summer Training 2nd Regiment Graduation

After Advanced Camp, I got to return to WA for 11 days and relax. During that time, I visited Vancouver, BC and Los Angeles, CA with buddies! It was a great time to just recuperate and chill as my body was not only physically exhausted, but mentally tired as well.

11 days later, I returned back to Ft. Knox, Kentucky in order to prepare for my training deployment to Tanzania. I was in Tanzania for about 3 weeks, and it was an amazing experience. My team mainly taught English to students in a local school, but we did get to meet Tanzanian military personnel and also had the American Chargé d’Affaires, Inmi Patterson come visit.

Not only did we immerse ourselves in the culture, we also learned Ki-Swahili for an hour every workday. We spoke basic Ki-Swahili by the time we were done with our mission.

Soccer with the local teachers in Tanzania!

 

Tanzania Team 7!

After all my experiences and travels during the Summer, it was eventually time to return to PLU! I was involved in the New International Student Orientation and the New Cadet Orientation Program at PLU during orientation week, so that was a busy time. I am now about a month into school, and everything's going great. I'm busy with school work and ROTC, but every day's a great day!

Take care for now!

Joel Goh