It’s that time of the year again for me to sit down and reflect. I sat in room on my red moon chair, turned off all the lights and I sat in complete silence. It’s to help me relax and concentrate on my thoughts. For hours, I replayed in chronological order the images and lessons I’ve acquired throughout this semester.

Social Change Leadership retreat kicked off my semester, teaching me the art of listening. We as humans love to give advice and to help another when we hear a heartfelt story, but we need to stop and take a step back. Does that person want us to help? Sometime they just want us to listen—to really listen without comments and advices. It’s that simple.

The Wall of Oppression, simple black boards hung up on campus during Coming Out week, showed us that oppression affects everyone. Throughout the week, the boards have acquired numerous cases of oppression in student’s everyday life. As hard as it is to confront it—but it’s the first step in the healing process.

Tent City proved that if students come together to make a difference—they could make a tremendous impact in their community. Over a week long, Champlain students raised an estimated of $4000 for the homeless shelter in Burlington.

Amadou Sow, a painter that taught us to stop trying to create an “image" when composing a piece of art. Just let the brush flow—stop restraining your mind. “3 Innocents and a Spirit" play forced people to confront discrimination in order to heal and learn from it. Janice Perry pushed people to explored performing art in a variety of different mediums and how to express oneself creatively.

Ending the semester with Festivals of Light, a night of performing art that showcased traditions, cultures and holidays by various diverse Champlain students and community performers. A night celebrating our differences and inspire people to embrace who they are.

Maria and I at Festivals of Light, we performed a skit about the Vietnamese's New Year.

This semester, my tears have fallen, my pains were healed, my frowns were conquered by smiles, my heart touched by fellow students, my voice heard by others, and my life has been given a meaning. Boundless possibilities…there is truly no better way to describe Champlain College.

Posted by Hau Le at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last week was horrible, mainly because I was bombarded with last minute assignments and final projects. I have one major project for each of my classes and they’re all due on the last week of the semester. To be specific, that’s five projects total. A final theme photography project, 10 pages essay, final 3-D composition, a product design, and a company website. I’m torn; I don’t know which one to do first. They all take about the same time, and they’re all important. It’s horrible that all of these projects are due all at once because that means I can’t afford to spend more time on one specific project and get all the details down. I can’t blow these projects; they’re each worth 30% of my semester grade. I have to keep a certain GPA for my New American Scholarship. On top of that, I’m going to have to study for final exams soon. I missed being a kid. I missed sitting in my first grade classroom drawing and learn ABC’s. I didn’t have to worry about deadlines or exams. All I had to worry about was what snack I wanted to bring to class. I guess it’s no use complaining, it’s college. I’ll just get right to work.

Posted by Hau Le at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)