My Second Day in New York
I woke up at 5 a.m. and got up at 6 this morning. It seemed that I was an early bird when compared with New Yorkers. In Shanghai, I used to get up at 7o’clock. It was raining hard outside. We waited and waited and hoped that the rain would stop soon, but it seemed that the God had no intention to stop the rain. Schnell went to buy our breakfast since we had only one umbrella. I made a phone call to my former college roommate. He is now in Utah and was still sleeping at that time. I failed to notice that Utah is two hours late than New York. I tried to make a phone call to my family but the operator said that the deposit in the card was not enough for the call.
We had writing class at 8:15 this morning but we had to give up because we would check out and move into the studio today. Kai had promised to help us with the two large heavy suitcases the night before. While waiting, we watched the TV. It was a live broadcasting of the ceremony of the 6th anniversary of 9·11. The rain had stopped; I made another phone call to Kai and at 9:30, he pulled off his car in front of the hotel. 10 minutes later we were found outside the house. With Kai’s help, we soon put everything in place.
We went to the QueensCollege in Kai’s car. To his frustration, Kai could not find a parking place. We toured around the college, and then he had to stop and let us get off his car first since we had to meet Dr. Kleinmann at about ten. We told Dr. Kleinmann that we had settled down and left our landlord’s telephone number and address in case they want us.
It is scheduled for us to meet Patrick O’Neal ---- the acting director of the International Student Office at 12 o’clock; he would sign on our DS2019 form. We still had some time so we went the library. At twelve, we met Patrick in his office. He was an efficient friendly nice person; he expressed his welcome to us and then signed on our J-1 forms. After that Schnell and I went to the student dining hall for lunch.
The dining hall is large and there are several small halls which sell different food, such as Chinese cuisine hall, Indian cuisine hall. We wanted to have rice so we went the Chinese cuisine hall. There was a long queue. What impressed me most was that the students were waiting patiently and quietly, no one jumped into the queue. There was only one Chinese lady busy serving the students. You ordered your dishes and paid at the cashier’s. Kai said told us the day before that the food at the dining hall in the QueensCollege was very expensive. When I paid for my meal, I experienced how expensive it was. Just one dish, that is, beef fried with onions cost $6.25. But in a downtown Chinese restaurant in Flushing, a meal with 4 dishes costs only $4.75. In China it is different. Generally speaking, food in Chinese university canteen is relatively cheaper. That is why people in the neighborhood of a university want to have lunch at the university canteen.
At 6:30p.m. I attended my first class in the QueensCollege ---- Introduction to Linguistics lectured by Prof. Dejong. The classroom was in Kissena Hall, the opposite side of Kissena Boulevard. In the QueensCollege, all the postgraduate courses are conducted in the evening, each time lasting 3 periods from 6:30 to 9:20. The students feel free to ask questions, they can ask the teacher to slow down, to repeat or to explain a certain point.
As I was a new comer, I didn’t have the textbook. A female student with Hispanic background sat next to me, she was very helpful and let me share her textbook.
After class I met Schnell at the main entrance of the QueensCollege, we walked towards our studio. That ended my second day in New York.