Lily and I met at 10:00 am to finalize appointments in Shenzhen before working on our presentation for today’s reception in Guangzhou. Our parent and student reception was held at 11:00 A.M. since today is Sunday. This reception had our largest attendance with 52 students and parents joining us. We had 10 new students and parents as well as 12 returning students and their parents. Lily was joined by Pan Yao and UB who helped lead the meeting. We did a presentation for new parents, one for returning parents and one on 7 steps in applying to American Universities. Once again parents had lots of question of the students which they handled perfectly. After the meeting new parents wanted the cell phone numbers of all the returning students so they could call and see if they could arrange flights for the student to travel with a returning student on their first flight to America. Lily, Pan Yao and UB “worked the crowd” making sure they talked to all new students and parents and answering any questions they may have. We concluded our reception at around 2:30 P.M.I took the afternoon to get caught up on some work while Lily went to Karaoke with many of the students who attended the reception. She will pick me up at 6 pm to have dinner with her mother and father. In the meantime Pan Yao has made a hotel reservation for me in Shenzhen as well as confirmed two dinner appointments on the 28th. He had several parents request for additional appointments so Pan Yao and Weijia are working to help me create time. I will leave Shenzhen for Seoul on the morning of the 29th at 6 am, so time left in China is short.
Had dinner tonight with Lily, her parents, sister and brother, her grandparents and her aunt. Many wonderful dishes, of course as usually I had no idea what I was eating most of the time and when I asked for the English name they said that there wasn’t one. We finished dinner at 10:30 p.m. just in time to get back and answer some emails.
I am so proud of all our students who are really doing a great, great job in making my visit to China a memorable one. In particular, Yuxuan, Diana, Chuqiao, Bolin, Adam, Cody, Soki and now Lily, UB and Pan Yao have had a good instinct as to how to best help and how to even protect me from a variety of potential mishaps. Even one of our new students, Weijia Shen has played an important role and I am sure in the years ahead she will be a great help to us. I am overwhelmed with appreciation for thee students good care of me, although I have to admit that it feels a little funny to have the roles reversed…but I am enjoying it!
Tomorrow the 28th we will be in Shenzhen to visit a school, interview a prospective student, have dinner with three families and meet with a consultant. On the 29th I will leave for Seoul.
