IIE officials

Burmese refugee students (me, 2nd from right) with officials from Institute of International Education which is the grant administrator of our program. This photo was taken in 1992 at SUNY-Buffalo.

http://www.iie.org/

Studying very hard for SAT

You can see, I was studying very hard for SAT. The sponsor agency did not know what to do with us. They took us from jungle and did not know which level of education we had. So, they asked us to take both SAT and GRE. Well, I scored well below 50% for both tests.

Life at SUNY-Buffalo

Life at SUNY-Buffalo. I got there in August, 1992, just in time for Buffalo winter. I have never seen snow before. The first night, we got about 8 inches of snow. I spent one semester there taking only ESL classes.

ESL graduating dinner (IELI)

My host family

This is my host family. They sponsored me and Min Thaw (far right).

ESL graduating ceremony

This was taken at ESL (English as a Second Language) graduating ceremony at SUNY-Buffalo. ( I was second from left, wearing a white jacket.) I spent my first 4 months in the US studying English only.

http://wings.buffalo.edu/eli/eli_history.htm

My host family in Buffalo

I spent my first X'mas at their house. I went back and visited them a couple times after I moved to Richmond. I have lost contact with them now.

Life in Buffalo

Scott (far left) was our assigned student coordinator. He helped us a lot. I remember us banging on his door constantly for 10 min while he was having a quality time with his girlfriend.
My roommate Kim and Mr. Sung. Kim was a very friendly and adventurous one. He was also a South Korean ex-marine. He bought an old ford station wagon and did cross country driving before he went back to Korea.