8th and 9th March

FIRST blog, 8^th March

It had been two day since I reach China, TianJin. A lot of things had happened during these two days             – waiting at airport, boarding plane and first time at TianJin – Watching the scenery on the plane for the first time is quite exciting to me. But it cannot compare to the excitement from the time when we almost miss our flight from Guan Zhou to TianJin. We went to the basement boarding area to wait for our plane. We are not sure whether we were at the correct place, but we just make do with our assumption and decided to wait at the basement. We felt something is amiss when we spent over 40 minutes waiting at the basement. Gary and Dean took the initiative to ask the people at the reception counter and found out that we were at the wrong boarding gate, it is at the 3^rd floor. We were late, time is pressing! We ran like our lives depend on it. We were lucky as when we reach the right boarding area, it was still in the last call for people that are late.  

Two things can be learned from this experience. Firstly, every decision that we make is important, we need to clarify our doubts before making a decision, not hastily. Only with the correct information, than can we make the correct decision. Lastly, do not assume! For example, only one person in a group needs to bring an item. If the people in the group assumed each other will bring the item, in the end, there will be no one that will bring the item out.

9^th march

Yesterday, In the afternoon, there was an orientation that lets us understand what will we be doing during the IS lesson, also let us getting to know our partner from the TianJin university and interacting with them. There was a tour around the school after a 5 minutes introduction. I was just walking around aimlessly with my buddy until we were called back to meet the teacher. We were allowed to go after meeting the teacher. There was no clear instruction on what was needed to do. So I assumed that it was free time and went to eat dinner before walking back to the hotel. At night, my teachers told the class that we should have contacted the teachers before deciding what to do. I thought about what the teachers had said and felt that it was true. The teachers are responsible of the group, they will be worried if they do not know where we are at. So with just a sentence of where I will be, is able to let the teacher to worry less. This taught me to think more of the situation for the people responsible for me.