Blog Post #3

    During July 4th, as it is a holiday. Everybody in our dorm went to Boston by car and visit the two most famous miracles: Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Some people in our group visited there before but most of us did not. During July 4th, there would be some big activities in this two places. The campus in MIT looks like a factory and workstation, it seems that all of the buildings in this school is developed with advanced technology. When we were walking around the in the campus, we felt that we are fell into the whole academic atmosphere in MIT. As bodies in this particular space, we could easily see that we were so small and could be easily ignored by everyone in this campus. We can felt a kind of pressure which we could hardly describe. All of people were standing around the oval palace of the campus, dressed like presenting a very important meeting. Several hours later, we entered Harvard and received a totally different kind of feeling. It seemed like all of the building structure in Harvard campus were visitor-friendly. The campus in Harvard looks like a beautiful park which everyone can fall in love with it. We as bodies in the space of the Harvard campus, felt ourselves standing in the center of the oval, like a big star and we were proud of that. Comparing to the celebration inMIT, the celebration in Harvard is much more interesting and everyone standing around us seemed very happy and relax. I think maybe that’s the differences between the two cultures of the two universities.

    We also went to some other places in Boston and I believe that we had a great time duing this holiday and experienced  some kind of america culture, what is more, I found myself totally fell in love with MIT and Harvard.

Dublin parade

As an international student, it is my first time here to experience the Independence Day. I went to the Dublin parade with my host family and fully experienced how people celebrate this national festival.

For body’s changes, I think the most obvious one was that everyone would wear the clothes or every decoration with the color white, blue and red which represents the flag of America. When you drove around, it was obvious that almost every family hung on a flag in front of their house.

Although, the parade started at 11:00am, the street was full of people around 10:00am. Everyone seemed to be so excited about the parade, especially the little kids, for the reason that they could get some candies from the parade. Therefore, they all fully prepared and occupied the front row which was the best place to get some candies.

In the parade, everyone was representing their own community organizations, so they all dressed differently in order to fit for their group’s theme. For me, one of the band team left me a deep impression. The members in the team were all seniors with the traditional Irish people’s dress. The music they played was amazing and still in my mind until now.

Post #3

I had quite an experience going to this year’s Red White and Boom and one that I wish to never encounter again.  It was the most bizarre crowd that I have seen in quite awhile.  There were smelly drunks, tents popped up with caution tape wrapped around ‘living perimeters’, baby cribs, trampolines, and of course glow sticks.  I just don’t understand how or why these things define Independence Day.  I think that it is interesting how people turn a public space into a camping site in order to watch things blow up in the sky.  People had created washing, cooking, eating quarters, and restrooms in the area surrounding COSI.  As I watched the interaction between campers, it was like they had created their own society in the short days that they had been living in the public space.  Walkways were created for new comers to follow and people went leisurely in and out of their tents or ‘homes.’  I felt like I was intruding or trespassing on private property the entire time I looked, found, and acquired a small space to watch the fireworks.  Happy Birthday America!