Fun and more fun!

As the school year is coming close to an end, these past two weeks have been very eventful! 

Battleship 

      Last weekend, I participated in Battleship - an annual intramural tournament. This game takes place in the school’s main pool and is a really unique experience. The different teams jump in canoes and try to sink their opponent’s canoes with buckets, while simultaneously trying to block water from getting into their own canoe. The last canoe not to sink in the pool is the winner! If you’re still confused as to how this game is played, make sure to check out this battleship video from a past tournament.

My team used umbrellas to prevent water from getting into our canoe but by the second round, they were all broken from the continuous onslaught of water, so we had to re-strategize. Some teams also wore crazy costumes such as pirates, superheroes, and ninjas. Yoky, a fellow LINKer, was on one of the teams that had crazy costumes, as shown in this picture: 

During the tournament, “epic” music was playing from movie soundtracks, which made the atmosphere like a real battle. Unfortunately, my team did not win but we got a good workout and had fun while doing it! 

Macklemore Concert

       This past Monday was also very exciting, as we had our big spring concert in the evening. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis  - made famous by their song, “Thrift Shop,” -were performing for JMU students in our large convocation center. 

If you have never heard of Macklemore before, he is definitely worth checking out! Start with my personal favorites: Same Love, A Wake, Can’t Hold Us, Starting Over, and Otherside. Macklemore and Ryan Lewis are a pair who make songs that are fun but also often represent important things such as marriage equality or overcoming drug abuse. The entire convocation center went crazy for the performance and Macklemore ended his concert saying that JMU has been his craziest and best college concert of 2013. My friends and I stood in the second row in front of the stage and we got to help hold up Macklemore as he jumped on top of everyone to crowd surf throughout the show. It was a really exciting time for everyone there!

Madipalooza 

       This weekend was JMU’s annual festival -- Madipalooza! At the festival there were six live bands, giveaways, free food, prizes, and carnival games. It was a beautiful spring day for the festival! 

My friends and I climbed a rock wall, competed against each other in a boot camp race, listened to the live music, did flips on a trampoline while strapped in a harness, played football, took pictures in a photo booth, and relaxed in the grass while eating ice cream. 

This festival was a great end to the school year before we have to start worrying about final exams!

Written by: Jessie Rosati

LINKers

The LINK program is one of the special programs at James Madison University that was created to support international students with the hope of better preparing and bringing them closer as a family and as a strong distinctive part of JMU.

I have always been an international student for the past 3 years by virtue of having studied abroad in the US. Coming from a totally different culture, even being prepared, just like many other international students, I faced several unexpected difficulties regarding foreign languages, new learning techniques, cross-cultural shocks, and especially making new friends. I found it challenging to look for a group of close friends that I could usually hang out with during my first year of my study abroad experience. I found it challenging to blend in and be a part of the bigger group, "be one of them". I found it challenging to openly share about my home country and culture as well as learning the others'. I found it challenging to be an international student.

As time passed, I overcame many fears and difficulties; I became more mature, I thought. But after graduating from high school, knowing that I was going to James Madison University, the thought of me being experienced, trained, and used to studying in the US "accidentally" disappeared. Compared to my little cozy high school with no more than 500 students, a place like JMU filled with more than 20,000 students was just "a tiny bit" too overwhelming for me. Along with being excited, I started to get nervous. I did not really know what to expect. I did not know what it would be like to study in college. I could not imagine how I should behave or react among more than 19,000 other American students. At one point, I was afraid of being unable to adapt to the new life.

(eating strange-and-tasty food is one of those enjoyable culture shocks)

With all of the nervous thoughts and excitingly nerve-wracking ideas about studying at James Madison University, I was introduced to a team of energetic and friendly people who called themselves “LINKers”. Thanks to the LINKers, all of my nerves were calmed down. They wiped away my fears away and my concerns about any possible upcoming challenges that I thought I could not face in this new environment. They literally were able to address all of the challenges and difficulties that an incoming JMU international student could possibly face, and ease my transitions to this new home.

Starting from the point of arrival at Washington Dulles airport, the LINKers could not have created a better first impression. They gave me detailed instructions of how to get to the hotel nearby where I could just hop on a bus and get to JMU safely. Seeing a group of other new international students, lead by LINKers Rania and Yoo Jin, was truly a pain/nervousness-relief; not only for me but more importantly my parents. And that was just the very first of a sequence of impressive things that this team of wonderful people prepared for the international students orientation program. They gave us a friendly campus tour; they introduced us to many crazy and funny games and activities in order to bring this group of international students closer together; they went nuts and pumped up the atmosphere when the emotions were a bit down; took us to the bank to create an account if we needed to open one; they taught us all the JMU cheer and songs; they went to dinner and football games with us; took us on shopping trips. And the list can go on for two more paragraphs.

Those things sound real simple. But the impact they created was undeniably significant. On top of all that, (and I'm being totally honest right now): I loved the whole process sooo much that I gave this whole experience 9.5 out of 10 grade (cuz nothing is perfect). My parents gave it a 10 out of 10 because they thought that it was more than a perfect preparation for their lovely child (me). Seriously, I told my parents almost everything I went through during the first week being at JMU, and they could not be any happier. They were so glad that I was not left out, that I met and made some new friends and was taken care of during these important first days on campus. The International Student Orientation program (Transitions) prepared the students on one side, but also made their parents feel secured and safe on the other. That is just simply amazing.

So I entered JMU for more than five months, and added two hundred more friends on Facebook, how awesome is that? That was just a bad joke that was probably influenced by Mr. Pratik Banjade. (he’s the one who is sticking out his tongue in the photo :P)

(with the JMU ISLC hosts – many of them were part of the awesome LINKer team)

On a serious note, I did make a lot of friends, and more amazingly, I started to consider many of them as my favorite people. I can randomly walk on campus and be happily greeted by so many people I met during the international orientation. For me that is really priceless.

I have wanted to be a LINKer simply because I wanted to have the honor to carry that torch of craziness, passion, dedication and caring in order to warm up the cold air of nervousness among the incoming international students. I want them to experience what I went through with the LINKers this year. I want their parents to feel calm and reassured about having their sons or daughters study at JMU. I want to do my best to make sure that the international students are all well prepared and connected together creating a web of good relationships and perhaps becoming parts of a warm-hearted family during the time they pursue they educational goals here at JMU. In addition, since the very first step I took on this campus, I have received so many things some different people. I was offered a 4-year scholarship for academic achievements. I was being taken care of by all of the people in and related to the LINK program. I am having the best college life that I could ever imagine before, thanks to my new friends, my favorite people yet at JMU. It is time for me to give back, bring the happy smiles on people faces by making their lives better and more enjoyable. Yes I want to be a LINKer because I want to help the others, I want to push as hard as I possibly could in order to bring the best experience to the new international students, I want to create, connect, strengthen and maintain the links between the international family here in JMU.

Written by: Duc Tam Nguyen

Life after Spring Break

Hello!

I just came back from spring break? Did you have fun?

I went to Miami and Bahamas for my spring break, it was super awesome! I met lots of great people and had some new experiences! I brought my photo here hope you can feel the sunshine and warm weather there!

Photo taken and provided by Weiwei

It’s good to be back at JMU! I missed my beautiful campus and friends! The weather is still cold, but I can feel the spring sound with birds singing outside.

We just had our new president inauguration on March 15th. It was a historical moment for our JMU community. Not only did I attend this exceptional event, I was also one of the 80 or so volunteers who carried one of the countries flags which make up all of the countries that are represented on this campus, It was a great chance to be involved in this great event and to remind the rest of the community of our international presence and contribution to this campus.

The biggest thing, which happened a few weeks ago, was our International Student Leadership Conference. Last year the conference had students from 65 different countries and more than 250 participates! This was my third time attending the conference. I met a large number of people from different countries, universities who are all leaders in their own ways on their campuses and back home. Each year the theme changes. This year the theme was about the leadership which takes a big part in our lives. This great video summarizes what the conference is about in general and shed light on its highlights. You should definitely come to next year's ISLC!

Have a great week everyone!

Written by: Weiwei Xu