Quarter Break

Wow! Time really flies. It feels like this year’s students just arrived in Seattle recently, but already it is Quarter Break – a brief vacation (10 days for Shoreline campus, 13 days for Edmonds campus) between Spring Quarter and Summer Quarter. Most of our students use this vacation to try their first American travel experience as individuals. They are now traveling all over America – New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver and Victoria in Canada too. Next week I hope they will show me their photos of Disneyland, the Statue of Liberty, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc.

In their Spring Quarter classes, the students learned how to make their own travel reservations in English on the Internet, and they learned some background information for major tourist destinations. Also, we provided many cautions, such as how to avoid getting property stolen, and to never trust strangers. Of course, some of them will have trouble in their travels – missing a flight, taking the wrong train or bus, dishonest taxi drivers, losing a cell phone or camera, etc., but hopefully nothing too terrible.

Naturally, we teachers worry about them, but we realize that this individual travel is a very important part of their education and maturation process. I hope that as the students use the practical information and English that they had studied in class during their travels, they will appreciate the education they are getting at in the HTC program. But to be realistic, they are probably having too much fun and excitement to realize that.

There are some students who are not traveling far this vacation – just staying in the Seattle area and making short trips in Washington State. Some of these students went river-rafting on the Wenatchee River last weekend. Some will go to the Olympic Peninsula this week to enjoy the mountains, lakes, waterfalls and rainforests. And this weekend many students will make a trip to Eastern Washington for a “star-viewing” party; they will go to a dark area far from the city to enjoy the night sky, with many people from other states and countries. (I hope it is not cloudy!)

Well, I hope everyone is safe and having a good time, but also saving some energy for Summer Quarter – there is a lot more to learn and do.

Neal Colodner
June 17,2009
(Seattle)