Monday, April 25, 2005

Volunteer Journal #2

Well due to the star testing schedule changes, and my inability to wake up, I had to get from my dorm to the school in like 10 minutes!!! i made it just in time. good thing for the practice from biking to orchestra twice a week phew...

today they had grammar practice again.. man i feel bad because I don't know how to explain that stuff.. i just do what sounds right haha.. and sometimes i'm wrong.. sigh.. college student dont know basic grammar. cus Yoong asked me how to tell between has had and have, and most of the time, have and had can be interchangeable! and I never even use 'had' as a helping verb. well i tried my best and i couldnt explain it to Yoong.

It seems the two kids that I talked to from last time are not as shy anymore. ice broken! yea i was surprised that Yoong continued to ask me for help even when i couldn't help him on his helping verbs. so I read his essay, and helped him correct it. overall, it was good, but there were some stuff like verb tense and word choice. heh he kept spelling disasters disater, and i said hah u need a lot more s's in there and went ssss..... and he laughed! man im good.

Justin was very quick with his work, after a little bit he took out a book and started reading, and then he just sat there. i thought: perfect opportunity to learn more about these kids! we were just talking about what he does on his free time. basically what i used to do, sit home on the internet for long periods of time and occasionally go out with friends, but not too far because of no car. He is Korean, and I was wondering if any of his parents were working at UCD. apparently his dad also works at UCD, and it seems like a lot of the kids have a parent or parents working as a professor at UCD. Maybe some have students at UCD. So these kids have similarities in that their parents are in the professional field. Probably part of immigrants who are in the professional/technical/education group.

He continued talking saying that he was born in New York, and i was surprised to hear that because I thought he might have come from Korea or something. but he did go back to korea when he was 3 years old and came back just 3 months ago! wow. he was pretty good at English too, seeing that he finished so quickly and I could carry a conversation with him pretty well. I didn't notice any distinct accent. but the problem he faced was that it was very hard to make friends. i asked him why. one word: language. I guess even if you know english, there are certain cultural terms that might seem like another language. He also told me that he can't find anything in common to talk about. He is going back to Korea for Christmas this year. It seems that he travels a lot, so there is a lot of adjusting to do. I guess the term to explain it is that he is having trouble "assimilating" and that he is a "transnational migrant" basically, or at least he is "transnational" because he was born in the states. It was good talking to him, and I think he opened up more because unlike last time, he asked me questions too. It reminds me of my personality.

In the beginning, the teacher asked if anyone did anything interesting or fun this weekend. One girl said she went shopping! and one korean boy, Jake, said his mom came back! so that his whole family was here, mom, dad, sister and him. she is staying for a week. I believe she travels back and forth from korea. that must suck to have missing parent all the time.

oh! there was also one smart looking kid who always finishes first that was also from korea! i thought he was chinese... well he was talking to this latin? kid sergio about studying. he studied 12 hours in Korea!! well kids exaggerate to brag, cus sergio says he never studies and gets 90-100. but it gives a hint of how life was like in korea.

in conclusion:
it seems there is a majority of korean americans in davis whos parent/parents work at UCD. The problems the kids face is assimilation through language barriers and travelling back and forth. Maybe the parents are able to be there as much because they are working or travelling. The kids are good kids, and they will talk if they are talked to more. I think it takes a while to warm up and build confidence because they are worried about not being able to communicate with others.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well done on a nice blog chadwick. I was searching for information on astronomy for beginners and came across your post Volunteer Journal #2 - not quite what I was looking for related to astronomy for beginners but very interesting all the same!

Well, it's a new year - in fact it's almost the Chinese New Year. I'm still putting together astronomy lesson plans for the first and second semesters. This year the budget allows us to purchase a new telescope for the science group. That's great so we're still juggling the numbers how to get best bang for the buck! Not the 'big bang' you understand LOL. I'm coming down on the side of the Meade LX200GPS 12" Schmidt-Cassegrain. Let's wait and see.

If you do have a moment, please take a look at my new site on: Astronomy for Kids .

A happy new year to everyone!