Hello Concord family!

I hope everyone had a great Holiday the past week. I had such a great and wonderful time with my family. It’s been so long since my family we all have came together. It was the first time I have ever done secret Santa where we get a person and we have to give them a gift without them knowing who their secret Santa is. I struggled a lot trying to get a gift for the person I got. I’ve never done Christmas shopping before in my life and it was really difficult, but I had fun. I would totally do it again next year!

With December coming to an end, I am glad to say the semester is over. Thinking back to the first day of college to the end of fall semester, there is a lot to reflect. Even though I wasn’t feeling too proud of myself ending the semester with grades that I’m not happy with, I am proud of finishing strong and especially not giving up. I know I can do better and I doubted myself a lot during times when I know I’m right. For a goal that I keep to myself, I will start asking for help because asking for help has always been a hard thing for me. There were many procrastinations, and anxiety moments. Even with so much difficulty, the classes for fall semester that I really enjoy learning was communication and ethnics. I realized there is so much to history that we aren’t being taught at an early age and things that is still going on in 2019. Everything that I have learned I have used it in situations and outside of school. I think it’s amazing how I can pick up things that I’ve learned in school and make it useful. I am excited to what next semester has for me. I register for spring classes and I think I will enjoy them knowing that I am taking a lot of writing essays, and English courses.

Since the semester is done, I am on winter break! Being on break has been good so far. I feel like it has been so long since I’ve been back at home. Just a few days ago I went to picked up my mom at the airport. I was excited to see my mom back from her trip. During break I have done a lot of reflecting and trying to find a job before my break ends. So far I am in the process applying at Target. Other than that, babysitting my nephew and nieces is what I do. Being an uncle is not easy, but being with them and seeing how much they have grown is an amazing thing to witness.

With December coming to an end, stay warm, and stay safe. I wish everyone a happy month. Stay tune and until next time! I will be uploading a lot of photos so stay on the look out!

-Keng Thao

Hello Concord Family,

It has been a really stressful month. With final exams coming up, I am nervous and also excited because I am waiting for a new semester. I wish there were things I could’ve had done better, but I will continue to work hard.

So many amazing things happened this month, where we had our Hmong culture day here at Mankato. I never knew I would be dancing and singing on stage in front of hundreds of people who came to watch our and others performances. It was a successful event and I was glad that I got to be a part of it. I also celebrated my 19th birthday. On thanksgiving break I ate with my family and they sung happy birthday for me, and my sister had surprised me with a cake that she had baked! It was a delicious cake and it took her more than two hours to prepared it. With so Many things that are stressful, I am glad that I still have other things to keep me happy and not over think too much about school.

Although, I feel like I didn’t do well this semester I feel like its a way for me to learn my mistakes and know what I need to do for next semester so that I can improved. I am so glad I was able to push through and I finally did all the presentations in my communication class. I feel like I have learned a lot in that class this semester. I had done a group presentation where it was a last presentation for the class and we talked about intercultural communication.

Back to my previous blog post I talked about two of the classes that I struggled with was Math and Biology. I had the chance to drop any classes that I wasn’t doing well. I ended up pushing myself to continue taking Biology because I believe that I can do well and get a better score on my exam if study hard enough this time, therefore I didn’t dropped any classes and I’m hoping I will do better this time. Something I want to share about my Biology class is I enjoy learning the things we are being taught and its so interesting to see how much new things I am learning that was never taught to me before. A topic that we are learning right now in Biology is about human evolution and natural selection. At first it took me a really long time to really process my head through what we were learning, but now I was able to understand it. I have to admit, at first I didn’t like what we were learning at all, until we had a lab and did an experiment between identifying differences of skulls and animal evolution. My interest has build ups a lot this semester and I hope it will continue to push me into taking another class for next semester!

With everything being said, I hope everyone had an awesome month. Looking forward to Christmas! I will post photos more on my blogs, realizing I had not put any yet, so stay tune to what is to come! I am excited with new things coming next month and that is it for now.

Talk to you soon!

Keng Thao

Hello Concord Family!

I hope everyone is doing well. Time is going by so fast that I can’t believe It’s really about to be over for first semester! It has been a stressful month with all midterm exams and preparing myself for Hmong culture day and final exams. Hmong culture day is an event that is coming up where I will be participating as a performer. Many weeks have gone by, and so far I can now say that I enjoy the classes I’m taking at Mankato. As an extrovert I am glad to say that I have made a lot of friends and getting to know more about my professors. I think having such a skill as advocating really helps, especially when I need to speak up for myself. Ever since the first day moving into college and where I am at now, I have learned so much of being a college student.

It has been such a busy month, turning papers, speeches and doing presentations. So far my exams has not been going to well and the results were not what I expected to be. Out of every exam I’ve taken so far is math. On a subject that has never been my favorite or skilled at, I am starting to enjoy learning math along the way. I wish I did better on math in high school, but I am learning and growing as I take steps to improvements. With exams, I also did a speech on Identity in one of my communication classes. It was a scary, yet fun experience to talk in front of my peers and not use any written notes that we did on our rough draft. Speaking from memorization, I find it as a great method. I think it was a really great that we did because it helps make it more meaningful coming from the top of our head and not focusing too much on what to say. For my next speech I am working on an advocacy speech. Hoping I will have less anxiety than the first one.

Aside from exams, I have great things that happened to me this month. I got to meet and know more about the Japanese culture at one of the events that was led by the Japanese International student association (JIA). There were so many great performances! In high school I took Japanese for four years, but coming here to Mankato there is no Japanese language, but I got the chance to have a tutor that teaches me Japanese! With great and bad things that has happened so far this semester I am having a great time. I am excited to what is to come still and will continue to work hard.

Well, Concord family, this has been an insight on how half of my semester has been. Stay tune and until next time.

Keng!

Hello Concord Family,

September came and is going by so fast! I am already halfway through my first semester. I took my first exam! Taking my first exam was a great, yet scary experience. I am not a great test taker and I was really nervous because I didn’t know how well I would do on the exam. Ever since I’ve moved into college, I studied more and learned how do things more by myself. It was a huge transition for me, which I am really proud of.

As homecoming week is coming up, I am excited of what to come. These past few weeks of school, I have been busy preparing for more exams and speeches that are coming up. I started off without knowing where to go for help or having friends, but after meeting so many new faces I am surrounded by amazing people who I never expect would bring the best out of me. Last week in my communication class I wrote my second written reflection paper and I had to answer the questions on the screen within the time that was given. I was frustrated and felt like I didn’t have time to think but to get it done. I wish I could had done better and have more confidence in myself. Having to improve my writing skills is something that I will and need to work on. Taking notes has also been a skill I have been improving on so that next semester I am ready and prepared. Even though these past couple of weeks were tough and stressful, I managed to still do well and getting enough sleep, so that I don’t go to my classes late.

One good news so far this month that I was really glad to hear is I was awarded with work study! Having a job on campus is such a new experience and totally out of my comfort zone, but as we are growing up into adults there are now more responsibilities than ever. Earning money and balancing my schedule so that I also focus on schoolwork and homework.

Well Concord family, so far this has been an insight of what’s been happening in the past several weeks. Happy September!

Until Next time,

Keng Thao

Hello!

As August is coming to an end, I have just completed my first week of college! Moving into a college that is a bit far away from home was a little scary. I knew I was going to miss home and didn’t know how my first week would go, but turned out it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Before school started, I moved in two days earlier to settle into my apartment. I needed to take a tour to make sure I was more familiar being on campus and figuring out where the buildings were. In my head there were just so much thoughts being process and the fact to even think about myself, actually being in college now was still shocking to me. When school started, there were times I got lost around campus, but thankfully there were other college students who were kind enough to help me and also took me to a few of my classes. I had the chance to visit the (MCC) multi culture center during my passing time. It was a place that made me felt welcome and comfortable. It was a place where anyone can come in to study, chill, hangout and get free school supplies. Many of the Seniors spent their time there and many has work studies at the MCC. The MCC is also a place where clubs such as the Latino, Latinas, Native Americans, (BSU) Black student union and (HSA) Hmong society association are. It was amazing meeting many people who comes with different backgrounds and stories. During the first week of college I attended my first meeting with the HSA. Surprisingly there were a lot of people that I didn’t expect to show up. Since it was a late at night meeting. The meeting that I attended was a meeting where other Asian Americans got together and learned more about the club and getting to know each other. I was glad to pull enough courage and get out of my comfort zone to really experience the college life. I had an amazing week! I’m excited to have another meeting again with the HSA and picnic that will be hosted by the club members next week! Stay tune.

Until next time!

Keng Thao