The Week that Flew By

These pictures encapsulate not the whole week, but the three hours spent at the church preparing for tomorrow's VIP Sabbath. First up is Daniel Kopp, a German friend whom I haven't seen for quite some time (as in the whole week). I was glad to see him. He has a new hairdo. Where did he get this new hairdo from? From the same barber/salon where the two of us got our hair trimmed, he got compliments, while I got told that helicopters will be able to land on my bald head in ten years time. Next is a picture of the church's good ol' piano. Love the touch. But wish someone could tune it. I wasn't playing it the time the picture was taken. I did manage to sneak my foot in. Third is the ancient bass guitar that has been around since I got here 6 years ago. A red Yamaha with slightly rusted strings, amplified by a recently purchased Shure wireless !@##$%@ -> I don't know what they call those things. After practice, we walked back. "We" = Deanna, Ivonne, and I. Played around with our shadows. Always good to see your shadow. Would be strange if we didn't have any. Then played around with the shutter and the lights. Took a few glamor shots of my baby (second last). Finally, laid on the couch and snapping away at the fan. Really nice and useful fan, I must admit.

Comments

What Exactly is ICC?

Arasaratnam and Doerfel's (2005) study on defining intercultural communicative competence (ICC) may be dated, but I believe their discussions are very relevant to the current situation of ICC. Their study aimed to define ICC from a grounded exploratory approach. Their reasoning behind this is because of the subjective understanding of what intercultural is, and what competence is. Communication, from an intercultural perspective, is typified as spoken discourse. To come to a definition of ICC, the study interviewed a group of international and local students studying in an American university. The students were asked what they thought ICC is, and what they thought are key components of a person who is interculturally competent. Though responses were diverse, a common thread was induced. But would this common thread still be applicable to different cultural contexts? Probably from a qualitative perspective it would be, but perhaps not if viewed wit...

Unwelcomed

Picture taken from the bus stop I was waiting at. The structure with the curved roof is the bigger bus stop. Since arriving here, I’ve heard a lot of stories about International Students getting beaten up or mugged or both. At times I was skeptical when I was told about stories like this, but I believed it, most of the time. We can’t deny that word of mouth is sometimes sensationalized. On Thursday nights, shops all over Newcastle will open longer than usual. This is to give students as well as other people the chance to do some late night shopping or simply hang around. Last Thursday night, Bill, Jen, and myself were at the bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to come. It was half past eight and we were at a bus stop waiting for Bill’s bus to arrive. We talked for a bit, and realized that we were supposed to wait at the smaller bus stop facing the larger one. We crossed the road and walked towards the bus stop. There were on...

now i know how it feels

to be the one standing near escalators, or on the side walk, trying to grab people's attention. Today I was promoting the International Students Volunteer at the orientation program the uni had for the new students. I volunteered to run around the courtyard and wait at the entrance for people who were passing by. I did manage to get quite a number of flyers out. However, I had many futile attempts in getting people to grab a flyer. A girl literally ran when she saw me extending my hand out to her; a guy said his hands were full; another guy took the flyer and left it at the table behind me; another guy (who was from the goon society) came up to me and started dancing... I asked him, why are you dancing, and he said: why not? then it dawned on me...yes, it's the goon society, all they do is drink and be merry (they did drink a lot, i saw them going back and forth refilling their table with booze from the godfrey tanner bar right behind the expo room where we were - and th...

daronloo

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