Prescott Student Blog: Brett

Well I haven’t had much time to write lately so I’ll pull you up to speed. The semester started in the end of August. I live on campus and enjoying every minute of school. A great thing about attending ERAU is how the classes are focused intently on your specific major. For example, I am a GSIS major and these are my classes: Chinese 3, Creative Writing, Forensic Science, Forensics Lab, Computer Applications, and Geography. All of these courses will prove their worth in my future career.

Originally I was a Daytona Beach student planning on majoring in Homeland Security. Most people get the idea their head that Daytona is a much more interesting campus. In some ways it might be, but I’ll give you some examples of things I’ve done around Prescott. Prescott is in the mountains so if you plan on going anywhere besides the city you can count on having to drive, it’s just the way it is. Outside of Prescott there are plenty of things to do.

One day my suitemates and I decided we were bored so we headed off to the nearby city of Sedona to go cliff diving. Sedona is a small tourist city situated on a plateau of red cliffs. There were plenty of people from NAU and ASU hanging out and partying at the river where the cliff diving takes place. On another occasion we decided to take the 1 ½ hour drive to go to a Weezer concert down in Phoenix. There are many things that I haven’t listed due to the fact that I have homework and a life to lead, but you get the idea.

In addition to external activities, the school also puts on a lot student functions like dances, concerts and sporting events. These functions are usually top notch and there is a lot of effort put into the planning and executing of the event. Between the occasional school function and outside activity you can definitely find things to do around this area. Well I’m off to forensics now. I’ll be writing more soon.

Brett Watts

Posted by Brett at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

8/01/08-

So the Foreign Language Institute is officially over. I’ll recap on some of the activities we did in the last week. We had an opportunity to spend time with native Chinese speakers while cooking authentic Chinese food. Zhan Lao Shi brought her friends up to the Spruance house and we spent the day cooking, eating and chatting in Chinese. Many of us learned how to cook fried rice (or 炒饭). We also excelled in our ability to speak about or likes and dislikes and also current events.

The last couple days of class were intense to say the least. We went through an entire chapter of work out of the textbook every other day, which means that every other day we had a 100+ point test. Our final consisted of 3 parts, written, listening and an oral presentation. Our written test was at least 4 pages long and was written entirely in characters. The listening section was a dialogue Zhan Lao Shi read about changing subways and using all forms of public transportation. The oral presentation was done in small groups. We had to come up with a dialogue involving all the things we had learned up until then. The presentation had to be technically sound and yet we were encouraged to make it humorous. These tests all proved to be difficult.

In the end I was able to greatly increase my Chinese language abilities and receive a high grade in the class. For anyone who is interested in taking Chinese as a foreign language I would greatly recommend it. Both Chen Lao Shi and Zhan Lao Shi are excellent teachers who want to see their students succeed. For now,

再见，Brett Watts

Posted by Brett at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

7/12/08-

Chinese language is anything but simple. I’m going on my 4th week of the Chinese Foreign Language Institute. As a GSIS major, foreign language plays a large part in my degree. In addition the Graduate program I plan on entering into at George Washington University requires fluency in foreign languages, so here I am. I actually really do enjoy the class. Zhan lao shi (translation- Professor Zhan) is a great teacher who has a strong desire to see us succeed. On Saturday the 19th our class will be going on a trip to the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix. It is a nice break from the monotony of class, day after day.

Professor Zhan and her assistants often plan things like this to keep us interested. We have lessons on Chinese paintings, ordering food and Chinese culture regularly. We only have two weeks left. I’m looking forward to an actual “summer break” but I am glad I am able to be here and be a part of this program.

Posted by Brett at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2008-

You know how occasionally you meet a person who just isn’t happy with doing the normal day to day things. They constantly study to keep that 4.0 and never allow themselves to slack off just a little bit. Well, for one reason or another I turned out to be that kind of person.

I graduated from Norco High School in southern California a semester early, so being my normal self there was no way I was going to just sit back and let that time go by. I signed up for Riddle’s study abroad program in the People’s Republic of China. I spent a month there studying the language and culture of the Chinese people. The trip was a once in a life time experience for me. I was impacted by the amount of knowledge there was right in front of me, at the edge of my finger tips. Unfortunately, as always good things must come to an end. I returned from China on the day my high school graduating class walked to receive their diplomas, so I joined them. I had a single day back at home in the States and then I was off again. This time I found myself in the beautiful but, blistering Prescott, Arizona.

So here I am, once again enrolled in a Chinese course. I am here for the Summer B Intensive Foreign Language Institute. I cannot even begin to describe the amount of information Zhan Lao Shi (Professor Zhan) is shoveling into our heads. Day after day we show up at 9 A.M. for the normal classroom session. We learn all about pronunciation, pin yin, and Chinese characters. In China I picked up a lot of the street language, you know, like the stuff you absolutely need to survive, such as: Zhege shi shenme (what is that?!?!) or Cesuo zai nar? (Where is the bathroom?) But now I find myself deciphering what looks to me like a code, such as this: 你好 我 叫王博。。。我是美国人. All that jibber jabber says is; Hello. My name is Wang Bo. I am an American.

So, as you can probably imagine, each day I leave for lunch with a massive headache. After lunch (once my headache has a chance to subside) we return back to the classroom for lab time. This time usually consists of a game or an interactive lesson on the computer. I must admit that I enjoy this part of the day much more. I get to just sit back and take bite size pieces of information at a much more reasonable pace. Each afternoon at 3:30 we leave with our king size stack of homework for a long evening of study. As I sit here and think about it, I can say that I absolutely enjoy this class. Sure it’s difficult and frustrating, but I wouldn’t be happy if it was any other way because easy is just too…easy.

Posted by Brett at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)