Visa is coming along~~~

Ok, it’s time for the update of the week. 

I have just talked to the spokesperson from the Chinese Delegates and he has informed me that things are going towards the right direction. He said he will let me know every other day and inform me how the process is going. I am super excited and cannot wait to hear the good news from them.

After revise again and again for the agenda for this visit, we have finally come to a “final schedule” for the trip. The reason it still cannot be the final yet is because we have to follow the other local chapters’ time, since they are going to help us to host the delegates. We need to work around their schedule as well, however, because the Chinese government needs to see the agenda in terms of offering these delegates visa, so I have to sent them a “final copy”. I just want to share with you guys and hopefully I can get some feedback.

Monday, May 17:

3: 45 p.m.— Depart from Peking International airport

5: 15 p.m.–Arriving in Newark International airport. (12 hours time difference between two counties, so it will still be May 17^th when the delegates arrive.)

8:00 p.m.—Dinner in NJ.

11:00 p.m.–Check in to Gennetti’s Best Western

Tuesday, May 18:

7:30am – Breakfast at Best Western

8:50am – Arrive at the Wyoming Valley Chapter

9am – Presentations by the Delegates

• Lessons learned from catastrophic disaster response, such as your support of the relief efforts of the 2008 earthquakes;
• Henan Red Cross Structure, Roles and Responsibilities;
• Roles of those who volunteer and any training programs offered;
• Status of the blood program in Henan including recruitment of blood donors.

Noon- Lunch at the Blood Center

1pm – Tour of Regional Blood Center

3pm-5pm – Tour of City Hall, County Courthouse, and Historical Society Museum

5pm – Welcome Reception at Wilkes University

6pm pm – Welcome Dinner at Wilkes University

After dinner will be free time

Wednesday, May 19:

7:30am – Breakfast at Best Western

8:15am – Trip to Scranton
9am – Lackawanna Coal Mine

Noon – Lunch at Scranton Chapter of Red Cross

1pm – Leave for Harrisburg

3pm – Visiting the State government (possibly greet with Legislators or Lt. Gov.)

4 p.m.- Visiting Hershey park

8 p.m.- Dinner (undecided)

Overnight in Maryland Hotel

Thursday, May 20:

8:00 am – Breakfast

9:00 am – Depart for Washington D.C.

9:30am– Tour of American Red Cross National Headquarter

Lunch at American Red Cross National Headquarter

Tour in the afternoon

• White House Tour (Ask for the visit the White House tour)
• Lincoln Memorial
• Smithsonian Tour
• National Mall

6:00 p.m. Dinner in Maryland (A very traditional Chinese dinner)

8:00 p.m. Driving to Philadelphia (Where the Independence speech was given)

Overnight at Philadelphia

Friday, May 21 :

8:00 am – Breakfast at hotel

9:00 am – Visiting the Philadelphia Red Cross Chapter

Noon- Lunch at the Philadelphia Red Cross Chapter

1pm –5 pm — Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Independence Park

Dinner experience the Philadelphia Chessesteak

Overnight at NYC

Saturday,  May 22:

7:00 am—Breakfast (With all the belongs)

8:00 am– Visiting the NYC Red Cross

10:00 a.m.—Arriving

12:10 a.m. leaving Newark

Sunday, Return to China

Trip is complete

I am still pretty upset with the fact that I cannot be there during the trip because of my gradation, however I don’t think I want to miss out on my graduation either. I cannot believe time goes this fast, 4 years gone by without I even notice. But I have another good news to share with you all! I have just got accepted in New York University. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am super excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I hope you as my dear reader feel the same way as well.

Final counting down to my graduation, I have to say I am not that excited. Wilkes has become a huge part of my life; Wilkes is like one of another big American family for me. I didn’t even leave yet I have already missed everything so much already. But every little girl has to grow up and leave the family, but no matter what, I can always come home plus NYC is not that far. Oh! And mommy just got her visa as well, so here we come, the Zhang’s family!

Hope you all will have a great week! Stay tuned.

Words of the Week: Graduation (毕业典礼 Bi Ye Dian Li)

Money, Public Relations and a Sponsor

Since the time is getting closer and closer, money starts becoming an issue, so what I need to think it’s where we can get the money down to pay for the whole trip. At the beginning, the plan was the local Red Cross will pay for all the delegates’ expense including six people’s airfare, lodging, food, transportation and entertainment. If it’s during the normal time, the amount of money we need to raise might be doable. However, as most of you might remember at the beginning of the year, Haiti had a horrible earthquake, so for the local Red Cross, raising money to help Haiti become their top priority.

After discussing this with both the Henan Red Cross and the local chapter, we had made an agreement that the Henan Red Cross will help the local Red Cross pay the airfare. Right here, they had helped us cut the cost in half. I was very thankful with what they did in terms of helping us and being so understandable. According to my internship director, all the other chapters had agreed to cover all the expense when the delegates visiting their chapter. So now, it really comes down to the amount of money we have to raise for the delegates while they are visiting Wilkes-Barre, transportation and entertainment.

So far, for the first draft of the schedule, we had decided to have a welcome dinner at Wilkes University (since I am from Wilkes and most importantly I am proud of my school, so getting the delegates from my hometown to come to Wilkes is very honorable). So who is going to cater the dinner and where we can get the money from became an issue. Right there and then, I got an idea. Why don’t I ask my GREAT Zebra Communication and my school for help? Not surprisingly, Professor Jane Elmes-Crahall has agreed to help me with this account team and so are the other 13 amazing classmates of mine. I was very grateful and very excited to work with them.

Now as we have our PR group of the trip, we need to find a “sponsor” for the dinner at Wilkes. After discussing with my PR group and my professor, we decided to ask our amazing, lovely, caring school president and provost for help! So this Friday me and Amanda (one of my co-manager) went to the President’s Coffee hour at 8 in the morning and ask for help. [Did you guys see that? I got up at 8 to get the money down! Aren’t I a good intern or what? Lol…] it didn’t take long for them to say yes to me, and they were telling me they will do everything to help me with the progress. I just felt so lucky to have an amazing school like Wilkes and being around great people like this. So welcome Wilkes University to join us for the trip!

Finally money part had done for the week. I am pray they will get their visa on time so that everything will end up happening.

Wish us luck! Stay tuned.

Words of the week: Money 金钱（ Jin Qian）

Things are getting tougher!

Time goes so fast! Before you know it, it’s almost April and things need to start getting done soon. This week I finalized the invitation for the visit, and guess what? Changing it again and again was not fun.

Well, maybe you start thinking why would you concern about getting this invitation done so desperately? It is because that’s what the government needs to issue these “visitors” passports. Maybe you guys don’t know about this, the Chinese Red Cross is actually government controlled, so anything they do has to follow what the government says instead of American Red Cross which is donation and non-profit based. This is kind of an exchange trip between two counties, so now you know how big of a deal this visit is.

Today I want to talk about how different it is for us to come to America as an international student.

There are about 8 different categories getting a visa, they are Business & Tourism (B1/ B2 visas), Studying in the U.S. (F and M visas), Exchange Visitors (J visas), Employment (H, L, O and P visas), Dependents (F2, m2, J2, L2, and H4 visas), Press & Media (I visas), Transit (C visas) and others.  Different types of visa will require different types of documents and in terms of how to apply and how long it will take it varies as well.  Today I just want to share a little bit about my own type of visa, which is the F-1 student visa.

As an international student, as soon as we got accepted to a University, the school will issue us an I-20 form, and that will be our legal document. It will by legally allow us to stay in the United States during the school year, which normally will be up to 4 years. After getting the I-20, we will start first by making an appointment with the American Embassy in China. (There are only 6 place you can go get your visa interviews in China, Beijing, Shen Yang, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong) Because of the limited places can issue visas in China, so lots of people from other parts of the country will always have to travel long hours to get to the Embassy.

As everyone probably knows, there are 1.3 billion people in China, so you can imagine the vast of people trying to do their interviews. According to the Embassy five years ago (the first time I went for my visa interview), every day they have around 800 people trying to get an American Visa. As the relationship grows between China and America, you can just imagine how many people each day were there for the interview then. Normally for business or exchange purpose, the interview should be scheduled one month earlier, and for student visa like I have, two month ahead is recommended. You can tell how hard for us to get this interviews now, and because of the mass amount of people try to come, so normally there is about 50% chance for you to get denied. However you can always re-apply, but it just takes time again. True story, because of the visa got denied, one of my friends’ brother end up lost his chance to study at UCLA with full scholarship. So for us, getting visa is super important.

I am just pray to God that things will work out that the Chinese delegates can come here on time! Wish us luck guys~~~

Word of the day: 签证 （Qian Zheng）. This means Visa in China!