The ELI Weekly
Out and About: Finding Happiness in the Sky
–by Sol Ha Kim, RW 50
How is your life in Gainesville so far? Are you gratified satisfied, happy with with ELI? When do you feel happiness in your life?
Happiness inspires us to be more productive. Positive thoughts lead us to have thankful minds and remembering gratefulness consciously in our daily life will lead us to be happier because we would realize how we are loved and cared for while we live.
Mindful photography is a state of awareness that allows you to focus on the photographic process so you could forget all your concerns and trivial not important thoughts. You just need to take photos of the things in life that bring happiness or joy in your everyday life. In addition, you could also photograph people or objects that affirm your identities, who you are as a person, or represent your important goals for the future. A photo will design you to focus specifically on positive emotions, thereby bringing happiness to your daily life.
I fell in love with a beautiful endless sky in Gainesville when I first arrived here, so I took a ton of pictures of it. This led me to have beautiful thoughts in my mind as well. I am now grateful for having a chance to study English in Gainesville, Florida, and meeting nice people around here. I cherish value highly every moment I experience at UF with wonderful friends. To be happier, why don’t you take mindful photos while you are spending time in Gainesville?
CIP Weekday Activities
Sign up for all activities here:
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0C4BA9A823A02-student15
Monday October 25th – Cabana Hangout – 6:30 – 9:00pm – Activity Change!!!
Come swim in the pool, play games, and socialize with LAs and students at the Cabana Beach Apartment pool area! Bring your bathing suit and towel. If you don’t want to swim, just come and socialize! Take bus 21 to Cabana Beach Apartments.
- You must sign up to attend this activity.
Tuesday October 26th – Soccer – 6:30 – 9:00pm
Come play Soccer on campus at Flavet Field! No experience necessary!
- You must sign up to attend this activity.
Wednesday October 27th – Volleyball – 6:30 – 9:00 pm
Come play volleyball and hang out at Lexington Crossing Apartments Phase 2! No experience necessary! Take bus 34 or 35.
- You must sign up to attend this activity
Thursday October 28th – Pumpkin Painting at the Bat Houses – 5:45– 7:45 pm
Come watch the bats come out at the UF Bat Houses, a Gainesville and Halloween tradition! While you wait, socialize with ELI friends and paint mini pumpkins for Halloween! Come dressed in a costume if you would like to! Take bus 20 or 21 to the Lake Alice Bat House area.
- You must sign up to attend this activity.
Friday October 29th – Gator Nights – 7:30pm – 10:00pm
Join in on the fun activities at the Reitz this week with their “Double Feature” Halloween theme! Bring your Gator1 ID and meet at the Reitz Union Subway area.
- You must sign up to attend this activity.
Weekend Activity
Saturday October 30th – Micanopy Fall Festival – 11:30-3:30pm
Come see the small town of Micanopy and celebrate the Fall season with their fun Fall festival! Try good food, buy crafts and goods, and see how we celebrate Fall! Car spaces with the ELI are limited availability. Please only sign up if you need a ride. Meet at Norman Garage at 11:30. If you have your own ride, email Tate to let us know you are coming your own way.
Self-drivers can meet us at Norman Garage or just go straight to the festival at 706 NE Cholokka Blvd, Micanopy, FL 32667.
- You must sign up to attend this activity.
Conversation Partners (CPs): Want to meet with an English speaker once a week and make a new friend?!
Sign up here! https://forms.gle/ctQAzW8EjXgvhYgHA.
Returning students who want a CP should still fill out this form, even if you had a CP last semester!
This is optional, but if you sign up, you agree to meet your partner once a week for one hour to speak English and respond to them when they contact you to make plans to arrange a meeting.
Try meeting them on campus or a coffee shop. Try chatting about your family or home country to start practicing English with your new friend! CPs are excited to meet you! Wait two weeks after signing up to be paired. Email conversationpartners@eli.ufl.edu if your partner does not respond after one week.
Weekday Activity Photo
Notes from the Office
Hallway Etiquette: Remember that many UF faculty and staff have offices open to the hallways on campus (for example, the ELI, the Department of Economics, and PURC all have offices on the second floor of Matherly Hall). For this reason, if you are hanging out in the hallways between classes, please remember to keep the noise level down, so that people trying to work are not disturbed. Also, please do not block the hallways or stairwells in buildings and be careful around doors that may suddenly open.
Check Your I-20: If your I-20 is expiring soon, make an appointment with Daryl in MAT 223 to renew your I-20 before it expires.
Student Voices: We love to see our students writing, but more than that, we like to see the writing in print. Every semester, we take your writing and publish it in Student Voices. Past submissions have included paragraphs, essays, creative stories, recipes, letters, obituaries, poetry, creative stories, class projects, and other interesting works on a variety of topics. I encourage you to submit anything of your work that you wish to see published. It can be from any class or something you have written on your own but ask your teachers for help editing! You can email it to Olga (omoody@ufl.edu) or to your teacher. Please include your name and class on your submission. The deadline for submissions is Friday, November 19th.
Birthdays!
Students:
- 10/26—Juyeong Yu
- 10/28—Jane Anaya Medoza de Flores
- 10/31—Stephanie Sleiman Scialoia
Staff:
- 10/30—Christine Voigt
Manners and Culture
Q: What is Halloween and why is it so popular in the US?
A: Halloween happens on October 31st, but many places around town will have events for Halloween the week before. On Halloween, children wear costumes and visit houses in the neighborhood to ask for candy by saying, “trick or treat!” If you have your porch light on that night, some might stop by, so don’t be surprised!
Halloween is actually a combination of ancient Celtic and early Christian traditions. In Europe, All Hallows Eve (the night before All Saints’ Day— November 1 on the calendar) was said to be a night when ghosts and spirits would roam the earth; people carved scary faces in vegetables and left them out to scare the spirits away. We see this tradition today with the carved pumpkins. In the 20th century, it became a popular holiday for children. And, so many of us remember fun at Halloween as kids that it has gradually become a holiday that adults enjoy as well!
Notes from the Editor
- Share your special experiences of campus, Gainesville, and Florida by sending me your stories for the Weekly.
- Do you have grammar questions? Do you have manners and culture questions? Share them with us!
- Send stories and questions to Maya (mshastri@ufl.edu).