Entry 8: My Time in Louisville by Xu Shengwei

It’s was snowing when I walked out of the Louisville Airport. The white snow in the wind fell on my cheek, but it felt sift and I didn’t feel cold. At that moment, I began my life and study exchange with American students.

As initial visiting the Collegiate School, we found it is not a big one but is fully equipped. Here, there are all kinds of classrooms such as Chinese, physics and even biology with boa constrictor etc. However, in China, our school is very different. It’s amazing! Surprisedly, I found three exchange students from China. They introduced us the Collegiate School in Chinese and communicated with their classmates in fluent English. Sometimes there are some local students talking with us and asking us some questions in Chinese, they can not speak Chinese very well so that we had to answer their questions about China in English, but I thought it was a wonder chance to me. In that case, I forgot to express myself in Chinese. I got used to the life here.

The weather in Louisville varies with days. It was on a rainy day that I took a photography lesson whit a Chinese student, the teacher of which is a kind middle-aged woman. She was surprised and pleased when I took her lesson. During our lesson we stayed in a darkroom which is equipped with advanced facilities for developing films. Of course, all films should be developed by students themselves. We really felt happy when one film after another was developed by us.

Besides photography lessons, I also took three periods of art classes about mask. In class we created a strange and exaggerated mask with a kind of paper board and waste newspaper and then carved it with a kind of mud. Finally we colored it with bright colors. When we did it attentively, the teacher also helped us with it patiently. But in China, we choose to devote our attention to science classes instead of art classes. It is a different way to access to education, so the school lives are different between China and America. I love Chinese school but then I was really moved by the diversified environment, the open attitude and the close relationship between students and teachers. The students here, no matter what race, no matter where they come from, sat together in the same classroom studying actively and enjoyed their favorite lunch together. Here anybody would like to open the door of the teaching building for you no matter what the weather is like.

Ten days’ trip to Louisville was over soon. We said goodbye to them. It was a sad time because I thought it was too hard to say goodbye to Louisville, to the Collegiate School, to my host families, to the teachers and students here. It was not sunny day like California here, sometimes it rained and sometimes it was sunny, sometimes the wind runs behind your eyes and sometimes the snowflakes are sleeping in your hair. There are four seasons obviously here and the weather is changing anytime, what is unbreakable is that the people here are passionate and warmly.

With the time passing by, wish the trip gave us lasting impression forever! I will never forget the short history about my time in Louisville.

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