Opinions

Exchange Students Struggle to Adjust

By Jin-U Jang
Manifest Staff Writer

There are many international students attending UW-Marinette. All are looking to have a great time in America. They learn another language and customs. Some of them make trips to wonderful places.

Many look like they are have a great time in the United States, but their real life is not as happy. In fact, it is often a difficult life.

I am also one of them so I know their life and their anguishes.

One fellow exchange student came here a year ago. When he arrived, he thought his American life would be allow him to study hard for a better future. He also thought he would live with host family for one year.

However, his real life was not so easy. He couldn’t find his one-year host family. Some host families wanted him to live with him just one week or one month, and he moved many times during the semester.

While he moved about six times, the semester was gone. Before the summer vacation, he lived with his host family, but the host father became ill and he could no longer stay with the family.

So he had to move again. He didn’t have any place to live during summer vacation. So without any choices left, he rented an apartment, making the arrangements.

“I was really tired (of moving) to another host house and meet(ing) another host family,” said the student, who prefers to remain nameless. “I had to be adapted to new host family and new place.”

After that, he moved two times more and now lives a lodging house.

Of course, some exchange students have lots of good experience in America.

In my case, I met very nice host family so I have lived with them without any problems. I have been there about six months.
During this time, I have never worried about moving to other host house. I usually go to watch my host sister’s basketball game and to my host mother’s and brother’s house. I went water tubing and watched a basketball game with them. It is my special memory with my host family.

Many exchange students are making similar happy memories with their families. They are also learning or improving their English by living with host families.

Jane Jones, UW-Marinette’s director of international programs and continuing education, uses newspaper and radio to recruit host families. She provides them with information on students so they can select one. Usually, people chose students because they want to match their hobby or way of life with the student.

Jones said it is usually cultural differences that cause students to move from their host family’s home. She doesn’t blame either side.

All of international students experience another culture when they come to the U.S. The culture shock they experience can lead to problems with their host families or their life in America.

On the surface, these students seem happy. But every single day is challenge to them.


America Idol: Meet the American President

By Jim Harris
Manifest Staff Writer

We live in a time when more people voted for the last American Idol than the last American president.

This trend of declining interest in the direction of our country and the increasing interest in making a new celebrity must be confronted.

Extremists may want to ban these reality-type shows, but why not combine the two?

The primary process could take place on an island. Candidates of each party would battle with each other until the last one is standing. This person would then be that party’s candidate.

After the primary massacre session, the winner of each part would then meet on another show during which they would face panel of guest judges and answer question e-mailed in by viewers.

As an added incentive, the viewers whose questions were used would win a cash prize.

The top three candidates would move to the final show. This time, there will be a debate. During the debate, viewers will be allowed to text in their guesses as to the winner. The voting process will take place after the debate. Viewers can call a number to place their vote for their favorite.

Two nights after that show, there would be a show to announce the winner. A winner from the text-in guesses will be drawn and will received a free presidential pardon to be used to help any one person at any time during the winner president’s term in office.

The vice-presidential candidate process could be fun, too. The public could pick the vice president, maybe inflict each potential candidate with some unnamed tropical disease. Viewers would be responsible for diagnoses and cures. If more than two candidates survives, they must compete in a talent contest, which viewer’s would judge.

We could do this for all federal elections. Just imagine the renewed interest in our leaders. People might actually feel that they have some stake in the mater, The bookies in Las Vegas would be jumping for joy.

If such extreme measures what it takes for us to pay more attention, then let’s do it. Isn’t that what we all crave?


Fast Food: How Safe Is It?

By Deborah Collins
Manifest Staff Writer

Busy students with part-time jobs and other responsibilities often grab fast-food meals. They are filling and relatively cheap.
Is fast food always safe, though? We already know some of it is laden with trans fats.

The biggest issues with the fast-food industry may be hair nets and gloves, or the lack thereof. Wearing one’s hair back in a baseball cap — not a hair net — seems to be the current practice.

Walk in any fast-food place today and you’ll be greeted by employees with their hair neatly tucked into their cap or on top their head with the hat firmly in place. The hair net seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Latex gloves have also been replaced by frequent hand-washing in some establishments and slap-hazard cleanliness in others. What changed? Are we too caught in our haste to be somewhere that we’ve let some of the important things slide?
Fast food has joined Hollywood movies, blue jeans, and pop music as one of Americas most prominent cultural exports.

Unlike other commodities, however, fast food isn’t viewed, read, played, or worn: It enters the body and becomes part of the consumer.

The hundreds of millions of people who buy fast food every day rarely consider where the food came from, how it was made, or what it’s doing to the community around them. They just grab the tray off the counter, find a seat, unwrap the paper, and dig in.

A single hamburger may contain meat from hundreds of animals; a single restaurant omelet may contain eggs from hundreds of chickens; and a broiler chicken carcass can be exposed to thousands of other birds that went through the same cold-water tank after slaughter. No wonder we have so many cases of e-coli and salmonella cropping up.

Seventy-six million cases of food-borne disease occur yearly, some are mild but the more serious cases cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths yearly. You can protect yourself by choosing which restaurants to patronize. In many areas the latest inspection score from the local health department is posted.

You can also make sure the person preparing your food wears gloves; if not, don’t be afraid to request they wear them. It’s the law.

Society needs to wake up! Fast seems to be the key today. Get in, get out, and get on our way. At what cost?