认识了新的小伙伴？
从学霸突然变成了学渣？
美国同学到底是不是乐于助人？
怎么才能参与进课堂？
此板块的笔者是一个刚刚进入美国留学圈的十年级菜鸟，曾就读于北京某知名高中国际部，现就读于芝加哥北郊一个优质公立高中。转学到美高，究竟是个怎样的体验？“菜鸟周记”将会给你最新鲜最实际的答案！ 她将会把自己第一手资料+感受分享给大家，希望可以帮到好奇的或者未来有打算出国留学朋友们，在开始美帝生活之前做更有意义和更充足的准备。
菠萝
先是菠萝君的英文日记，后面还有中文总结哦~
Wednesday
Today I saw one of my college friends posted this sentence on her moment, which I think make sense: America is a place where everyone will try their best to help you. It is a place of opportunity.
In my life here, there is always someone who will give me a hand, or a smile, or a greet, although I never thought of those things will happen.
My Bio lab partner Julia sent me a message to ask whether I would like to have lunch with her.  She has her social group which she can certainly have lunch with. I think she sent me that message because she knew probably I would be alone and bored
One of my Econ classmates, who is a senior now and also transferred from China in her sophomore year, sent me an email asking whether things are going okay. She said she know the hardship of finding the right track, and she is willing to help if I have any questions. We don't know much about each other before the email, but I think, I hope, we will get to know each other well.
Mr. Beaumont came to my class to find me and ask me how were things going. Not until he know that everything is set did he live with relief.
There are so many moving moments, in my school and in the States. But actually,  it should be everywhere, everywhere in our life and every inches in the world. It is just that we were not grateful enough to realize it.
Thursday
It's a sad story. I got an awful grade in Calculus. What makes it worse is that I should have done it in the right way.
Thinking back, I remember that I was so confident when I handed in my test, talking to myself that it would certainly be an A paper, probably a hundred percent. It was not so hard for me, but some of my classmates were complaining, expressing their worries which mixed with excitement and a relaxing feeling. I was so pretentious that I didn't even bother to join their small talks.
I saw a full mark from Rebecca, the girl who sits behind me and who usually says that she might have messed up her homework. One thing that I want to emphasize is that none of my classmates are ahead of the rest of the class before our teacher teaches us how to use our differentiating skills to solve the problems. But theyjust learn so fast.My current teacher isn't like my math teacher back in China who explain everything so well that you don't need extra efforts to get everything. Even though, my classmates learn really fast. You might think they are idiots at the beginning of the class, but they end up with brilliant scores. And I realize one thing: students here also like to say "I think I messed up" when they did well. It's the same. The best students are always the modest.
And I was so frustrated about my economics test. Even though you put me back to last night again, I wouldn't realize that we are supposed to define terms. I never thought definitions could be so hard, never ever in my life. I can vaguely know the meaning of the terms, but I can't define it well. I missed all three definition questions, and there weren't many in total.
I introspected myself, but I got no practical solution. Yes, I need to memorize those definitions, but I am too slow on that. I typed them all on my chrome book, marked the difficult ones, but ended up memorizing few. Was that because of language? Partially. The sentence patters appears to be weird to me, and I am not able to rephrase them with my own words and be sure it have the same meaning. I bet my classmates haven't spent longer time than I have done. There should be a way to do better. But I got stuck.
Experienced all of those, I am still pretty calm, typing out all the stories on my phone.
I kept telling myself thatit is part of the life.
It has been so long since I seriously considered how I could do better at school and got no answer. I used to be good at schoolwork, and that kind of superiority lasted so long, started from elementary school, I guess. I was always on the right track in schoolwork, so that all I need to do was keep working in my way and be careful. Those good grades just come to me.
Somehow, I wondered why am I so lucky, and I wondered how it feels like to struggle in schoolwork.
I wondered with nervousness and pretentiousness what will happen and how I will react if I do face difficulties in academics and if I do find that no matter how hard I work, I seldom can achieve what I want.
And here it comes. I am sad as well as relieved. Because it is a part of life that someday I need to experience.
菠萝说事儿
——他们哪儿来的自信？
我觉得这好像已经成了对美国课堂的标准描述：老师提出了一个问题，然后全班同学几乎都举起了手争着回答。
而这好像成为了对中国学生的第一印象：他们不爱参与课堂讨论，就窝在一个角落里听别人说然后记笔记，考试倒是考得不算差。
菠萝君这两周的所见所闻告诉我，虽然说那个“标准描述”是夸张了点儿，但是美国同学们真的是争抢着回答问题。而菠萝君呢，却慢慢发现自己在贴近这种别人给中国学生加的标签。于是菠萝君开始思考，怎么才能让自己、中国的小伙伴们在课堂上更加踊跃呢？
首先，要意识到，并不是100%能答对问题的时候才能举手。你说，老师问出每个问题之后如果都能得到100%正确的答案，那他/她是不是就没必要讲课了？因为那说明大家都恍若神仙妃子、天降英才，都具有超乎凡人的神一般的学习能力。那么老师的存在意义在哪里呢？菠萝君有做过小朋友们的夏令营老师，当菠萝君问出问题的时候，其实是期待看到小朋友们的反应，期待知道他们到底明白了没有、明白了多少。因此，我们的不完美的答案正是给了老师们一个最完美的答案。就如美高课堂上总是有很多人举手，然而驴唇不对马嘴的答案比比皆是。固然在高等级的课上，大家的答案大多还是靠谱的，但是总会有人提出问题或者质疑。提问题和回答问题一样，都是不断加深对知识的理解并且帮助老师知道自己讲的是否有效。
其次，其实你也不知道你的想法有多有用。连奥巴马都不可能不在两院不通过的情况下说“我肯定是对的，所以我要下达指令”，那你怎么可能在还没有和任何人分享你的想法之前告诉自己“我的想法不好，说出来肯定没有用”？ 菠萝君某天在帮戏剧课的小伙伴们做课程展板，她们准备剪几朵云。她们都先把白纸对折再尝试着剪出云的形状——我当时看她们都自顾自地忙到着，虽然觉得这方法很奇怪，但心想大概这也可以剪出来的吧。结果……结果云朵的样子蠢的可爱。于是我就教她们剪了朵云，然后大受称赞。若是我在她们没有费好大力气剪出那些“云”之前就说出我的想法呢？我们永远不知道自己的想法有多棒，因而，说出来又何妨？
菠萝君以为，想明白以上两点，那种举手的时候的小怯懦，小害羞，和小犹豫就会被源源不断的，那种莫名而来却驱之不散的自信所取代。你说他们为啥有那么多自信一次次地给出不或许靠谱的答案和想法？其实你也可以有啊~
文字：菠萝
排版：Bill
校对：Jerry

菠萝君都说了，问了问题是想看小伙伴们的反应。那么，你们对菠萝写的内容有什么看法呢？
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【菜鸟周记】迷之美国高中第一周！
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