Blog 4 (2) Reflections on writing

So what is next? After long time narrating, the passage deserves a conclusion and a repeat of controlling idea? But I even had no intention to write a topic sentence! This bad habit contributed to the fairly low mark of my paragraph. In my view, in some cases it is necessary to make a clear structure of an essay and to show it to the reader, thus readers will get across your ideas. However, sometimes it is not. When write something relates much to one’s emotions, any assertive conclusions or judgments will be superfluous and break all the scenery the writer has made.

What enforces me to write opinions above is an event I shall not forget for a long time. Paragraph 6 was distributed in today’s class, and it was that paragraph that I made my mind to write essays in a well organized way in future. My standpoint was not clear enough, especially the topic sentence, thus making a vital mistake. I got punishment, fairly low marks, for the shaky ground. For the first sentence, actually I considered a long time whether I should write a sentence like this: I will never rely on the Internet to sustain my relationship with a girlfriend, for love does not equal to life on the Internet; but I can’t agree more to make the most of the Internet for romance. 

The main problem is I seemed to have no standpoint. Firstly I issue a denial, and what I mean is that we cannot rely on the Internet too much. Secondly I state my opinion that we should utilize the Internet properly, or moderately. The sentence is written in a Chinglish way because of my lack of knowledge in phrasing. The meaning of “equal to” in this sentence is not clear enough. Another problem is I do not address my idea in a direct way; instead I use the phrase “I can’t agree more”, which is a bit weak in stating an idea.

It reminded me of compositions in senior high school. Translated in English, its name is “An essay that contains five paragraphs: introduction, three main points, and conclusion; each main point is formed by four parts: topic, transition, body and conclusion”. Surprisingly, we have been taught to write formal essays several years ago, and what we are expected to write now is identical to we have been expected before.

Perhaps it makes it easy for teachers to mark the composition, since detailed criteria can be adapted to evaluate students’ work. And it ensures that everyone’s work could be judged in a fair way, thus getting rid of all kinds of conflicts. For students, writing becomes easy as well. Some specific models are provided for them to imitate. With three years’ imitating, anyone can get good marks if he or she spends a little time in reciting models and a few materials.

I am convinced that it is a good way to write academic articles. However, it is not useful enough. One may laugh at this ridiculous statement, for people write essays in this style all the time; it therefore should be the best style with no doubt. But think of the whole life: will people write this kind of essays if they do not have to worry about graduation, money and occupation? When we are free to write anything we like after escaping out of the hell of College Entrance Exam and being admitted in university, seldom do we write anything to reflect our lives.

Of course we should not write academic articles casually. However, masterpiece rarely does in a stodgy way. Not only do we need to write essays to establish a successful career, but we also need to record happenings, express emotions and retrospect ourselves in essays.

Blog 4 (1) Missed the bus

“The weather is fine”. The sun appeared after hiding behind the cloud for the whole day, and it shone upon the ground where everything was full of vim and vigor. The alarm woke me up from a good sleep. Seeing the cloudless blue skies, I felt relaxed and anticipated it would be a fascinating day. However, life is just as it is. It sometimes goes beyond your expectations but sometimes not. Today is the last day but one of February, and this special day turned out to be not a bit awkward and memorable.

After getting up, I just did as usual. Though it was not a proper time for students to get up –7:40, I was still confident enough to catch the school bus because I always managed to get through all the chores and be one of the last persons to get on the bus.

It was eight o’clock, a bit late. But thanks to the poor elevator and time-wasting fingerprint detector in our hostel, I even did not have to worry. Leisurely I put textbooks in my bag and wore socks and shoes, preparing to go downstairs to catch bus. It was when I went out of my dormitory that premonition flew in my mind. The elevator stagnated rather than went up and down. And there happened to be no noise of doors’ shutting in the whole building. Finally I began to feel nervous and uncertain whether I could be punctual for the bus, so I speeded up even to fly. It was too late. When I was in it, the bus often waited others until 8:05 or later. The exception occurred when I was that late person. Two past eight, I trudged through my way to the gate, hardly to catch my breath, only to find another bus that was for SM2 students.

“It doesn’t matter at all!” I said to myself, since so many missing belongings had already molded me having an attitude that worried a little for misfortunes. So I proceeded with my way to NUS and regarded this experience as a great opportunity to observe the views in a normal working day in Singapore.

The speaker in the MRT liked to inform passengers of something interesting. I eventually discerned how important and bustling Jurong East was. “Doors on both sides will open at next station.” The train pulled in Jurong East interchange and opened an extra mouth to swallow busy people. With no more than a minute, the nearly empty train was crowded with people of various colors.

So what is next?  To be continuing...

valentine's day

to be my valentine or not to be ,it is question which needs no answer if you can feel your genuine thoughts and feelings in your own heart.

you even do not need answer my question -- what you have done will tell in fact.your starry eyes have already responded to my passionate love to you,my dear.your eyes are more charming to me when they are gleamed with the enormous joy and excitement.

well,do not mistake my intention-- i am single and i will keep this situation in the near future.however,this does not mean i feel nothing when i watched the movie "you are the apple of my eye" or heard how my friends in china made the plan to spend their valentine's day in a romantic atmosphere with their boyfriends or girlfriends.as a matter of fact,perhaps those who are free from love now like me will have much stronger desire and curiosity  to know how it feels when we are in love.the beauty and mystery of  love virtually lie here.

of all the stages of love,  i like the start most(of course i have not gone through any of these stages, nevertheless, i still have something to say about love because of the popularity of love novels, love movies and love songs, especially in china in my opinion). the blurry but obvious feelings towards our boy/girlfriends at the very beginning of love and  romance will bring us the misery of missing him/her as well as the pleasure of enjoying the existence and growth of love in our heart--the feelings are blurry or fuzzy because we are not sure of the love(this kind of sweetness is not as clear as that after some time) and what is in that boy/girl's heart(in fact, to guess this is such kind of pleasure that all the young people cannot help doing it again and again, haha); the feeling are obvious because none of us is sensitive enough to feel the seed of love in our heart. maybe we will enjoy ourselves more if we are already our sweethearts' boy/girlfriends, but the complicated feelings in the beginning will never fade in our memories even we break with him/her because we can hate him/her but never our own love which is so pure beautiful attractive and seductive.

well,it does not matter if you disagree with my opinion.be someone's valentine,and then we will develop our mindset about love.

hope we all can enjoy the sweetness, purity, elegance, pleasure and romance of love.

Blog 3 Reading Journal

In Theme Six, we learned some reading strategies in order to handle a heavy academic study load. The three tips are, preview, skimming, and cluster. Preview means reading the first two paragraphs, the first sentence in the middle paragraphs and then the entire last two paragraphs. When skimming, we do not have to read the entire sentence but move our eyes quickly across the lines and get the key words. Cluster is a way in which we read a group of words at a time rather than read word by word. Before reading, we had a vocabulary check. Then we applied the methods with three different parts of text respectively. We also recorded time during reading.

In my case, the cluster worked the best for me. I improved my reading rate amazingly. However, as far as I am concerned, the three methods have their own advantages and are suitable for different kinds of reading. By preview, we can get the main idea of the passage and it is useful for us to synthesize materials from a large amount of source. Skimming can help us to orientate the important points, while cluster make it quicker to know the details. I will combine the tips Preview and Cluster when I read materials of the lecture.

Anyway, I should apply them in my daily reading and meanwhile, enlarge my vocabulary for better comprehension.

Wish Everyone Survive in the Sudden Rain( Blog 3)

February 27^th is an impressive day for boys, for we were late for class due to the rain which is extremely heavy. It was not the first time that we saw it raining cats and dog, and the weather in Singapore really shocked me a lot. The weather in Singapore is quite different from it in China, especially in hometown, Harbin. Because Singapore is typical tropical country which is surrounded by sea, the rains though often takes not a long time are extremely heavy. Through my experience, I want to share my opinions about the weather.

First, the thunder during the rain is extremely loud. As far as I am concerned, there are two big things about the rain in Singapore. The first is the big rainfall which is 2345mm in each year on average. The second is the bid volume of thunder that every time I saw lightning in the sky during the rain, I would held my ears until the end of sound which sounded like a big explosion. To make matters worse, the loud thunders do not stop showing up during the rain which drives me mad.

Secondly, the rain often comes quickly and ends quickly. Sometimes the weather seams sunny, but after a while, the clouds gather quickly and the air becomes humid, then it starts to rain heavily. The speed is so fast that you can prepare for it. Take me as an example; one day I planned to go to JP for purchase, as the sun shined strongly, I went out without an umbrella. You can imagine what sad thing happened on the half that I was caught in the suddenly heavy rain. After that time, I always remind myself to bring an umbrella when going out.

Finally, I find the rainwater dries very quickly. After a heavy rain, there was water everywhere, but about one hour later the ground will be almost dried which looks like it doesn’t rain. I also found it today.

OK, that’s my opinions about the rain in Singapore. Wish everyone survive in a sudden rain.       

     

4.the Training for Give Program

My participance in yesterday's training which is aimed at helping us to perform well in Give program really taught me something. That we should listen to other people's opinions is one of my gains in it. During this training, we played some games. In these games we need to cooperate with echo other. So communicating became the most important part of these games. One of these games is that firstly we need to be separated into two groups, one group make a shape by some toys and the second group need to make one whose shape is same to the first one in mirror. Although it is hard for us to express ourselves in English, we try our best to communicate with another group and finally made a great success. Besides, I also learned that we should make a realistic plan instead of a plan which may sounds great but is difficult to achieve. This idea is gained by the following experience. This is a game in which we five people's feet stand on two parallel clubs and try to move together to collect some sticks. First we made a great plan which is starting from the edge of the field and try to move to the middle of the field so we can collect the sticks and meanwhile we also made barrier to other group. For the first time we succeed. But we lost the second round. In second round we made an unrealistic plan. We wanted to collect all the longest sticks and do not pick up the short one. Although in that way we can gain a great scores, it is too hard for us to move so fast to achieve that. During this training we not only learned the knowledge about how to teach but also learned some important skills in cooperation.

Blog 3. OMG OMG

Blogger writing 3

Maybe you are virtually unheard of a Chinese American soldier’s weird death in USA military camp in Afghanistan, but this really drew broad attention on the life of Chinese American soldiers. The man Chan Yujun, less than 20, was born in NY Chinatown who was found dead three months ago in the tower of American military camp in Afghanistan, with a bulletin penetrating his jaw. For a long time, the Pentagon tended to deem it as suicide until an American officer revealed that Mr. Chan had ever been abused by his superiors.  Then under pressure from OCA-NY (a local Chinese oversea association) and media did the military higher-ups start to investigate.

Generally speaking, not until the 2th, 3th generation of immigrants can they get the social status and fuse into the mainstream in America, but many take joining the army as a faster drive.  However, in the US Army, Chinese American account for 3% of all, compared with the Chinese occupation of 5% of American population, which is indeed a deep gap.  In addition, the fact that there are few Chinese higher-ups in the army makes a bitter situation for the soldiers with a Chinese background.  Many of them still face with invisible ceiling, top-down and even peer abuse. 

Anyway, hopefully with more and more attention and supervision casted into the field, they will be embraced with equality, if not, at least firstly without afflictions.

What a meaningful weekend (Blog 3)

How time flies, it has been the tenth week since we come to Singapore.

This weekend, I took part in ‘Discover in Engineering’ organized by Faculty of Engineering. This activity aimed to offer a deep insight into engineering to our SM3 students as well as SM2 students. We were all impressed by the great role engineering had played in our lives and its various applications in many aspects from medicine to transport. The professor making the introduce of engineering was very humorous and told us that engineering student would be trained to be those who were capable of managing everything and could work well in any fields since engineering enabled students to develop an analytical and hands-on skill. Many students communicated with their seniors and faculties from Faculty of Engineering and expressed their concerns over engineering and benefited a lot through this learning journey.

A senior from Chemical Engineering made an address and briefly introduced her major. The senior was excellent and she had got a master offer from MIT. She told us what Chemical           Engineering was really about and    encouraged us to be brave enough to embrace challenge. We juniors all admired her for her outstanding achievement and fluent oral English. However, I believed she should have put a lot of hard work in her study.

Since I have more interest in Statistics, I do not want to choose engineering major, but from this learning journey, I got much inspiration and more determination to study hard in the following four years. I believe everyone has the potential to be the best one and everyone should have a rich university life.

           

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My Immortal (Blog2)

My Immortal

   Before you really know what I am saying, please do not be confused by title. I do not mean that I am talking about love or something which is very abstract and boring. I just share with you one of my favorite song. Of course, its name is “My Immortal”.

   “My Immortal” is a plain song accompanied with a leisurely piano rhythm.  The song describes a dispirited story about the band’s guitar player Ben Moody. Whole music’s pace is very slowly, so the singer’s voice can gradually express the desperate of Ben and then move the audience. Nonetheless, the MV of “My Immortal” is excellent too. The cost of photograph this MV is not too much, but I think it is the most touching MV I have ever saw and listened. The MV is black and white but colorful. A story in countryside is narrated in the MV. The scene is very simple. For instance, a fountain, many children played happily before the church, the heroine and hero wandered alone in the rainy day, the damp air after the rain, the heroine lain on the roof with the blurred background alone, a cozy house but no one lived in. All these scenes are so simple but gloomy and perfect. Besides, the voice is most impressive.

So I just share the lyrics with you.

I'm so tired of being here

Suppressed by all my childish fears

And if you have to leave

I wish that you would just leave

'Cause your presence still lingers here

And it won't leave me alone

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I held your hand through all of these years

But you still have

All of me

You used to captivate me

By your resonating light

Now I'm bound by the life you left behind

Your face it haunts

My once pleasant dreams

Your voice it chased away

All the sanity in me

These wounds won't seem to heal

This pain is just too real

There's just too much that time cannot erase

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I held your hand through all of these years

But you still have

All of me

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone

But though you're still with me

I've been alone all along

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

I held your hand through all of these years

But you still have

All of me……..

And the song's MV,if you are interested in it.

    In fact, Amy won the “best new singer” and “best hard rock” Grammy Prize in 2004 by this song.But I have to say that the reality is always cruel to everyone. Ben Moody left the band and his girlfriend Amy Lee. Then he created a band called “We are the fallen” and covered Amy’s song. Amy did not create any new work after that frustration. But after seven years silence, Amy begin to release her new music in 2011 and I have listened them. They are really good work but not better than before. I wish Amy can find her true “Immortal” and give us better music work.
   Obvously, the last photo has been PS..... lol

Blog 3 Take out your phone

I decided to write to my father because of a book.

     Among my favourite books there is a special one called Dear Andre which is a collection of letters between Long Yingtai, a Taiwan writer, and her eighteen-year-old son. When I read the book, I envied their opportunity to communicate with each other in such a meaningful way. And that is where my idea came from.

I began my first attempt with a “special” text message in which I talked about my brief reflection of a book. And in my former university, I managed to send the first “formal” email to my father before the SM3 selection. In that email, I told him what I thought about the programme as well as my university life. To my surprise, he was so moved by my simple text messages and the email that he stored them and took a look at them from time to time. This encouraged me to carry on this kind of nonverbal communication.

Until now, I still keep the habit to SNS my father everyday. Through my experience, I know more about my father’s thoughts and the love between have deepened.

Today is my father’s birthday. I sent a text message at midnight so as to make sure that I am the first one to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to him. 

My dear friends, sometimes love need to be expressed. When you read these words, could you please stop for a while and take out your mobile phone? Just a simple text message will do. Tell them you are fine and ask them to take care of themselves.

My Reflections on Ameican Hero Movies (Blog 3)

  A green beam breaks through the atmosphere reaching our blue planet, and then a warrior in green appears. His aim is to save the universe. This is a scene of a hot superhero movie­ ----- Green Lantern (2011). Nowadays, numerous American heroes have been put onto the screen. At the same time, millions of fans flock to cinemas to see their heroes’ real face. Consequently, box office receipts have hit hundreds of million dollars. However, I start to reconsider this phenomenon and the following are my reflections.

  Firstly, those sound, electronic effect, splendid decoration and 3D effect make me feel bored. Most people who fancy these movies are attracted by the tremendous scenery and thrilling sensation. Admittedly, no one can deny that their breakthrough in techniques, for example, Avatar’s success strongly proved it. However, after Avatar, nothing stays novel and even 3D effect becomes a routine like a highway to earn money. 3D effect in many films is no better than none, like Pirate of the Caribbean 4. Besides, Harry Potter 7 is the one which transformed into 3D but was not really shot in it. Some people come to cinema to obtain excitement while I prefer to relax myself during a movie. Therefore, those heavy music, fighting scenes, or rigid 3D effect bring me dreadful tiredness.

In addition, the plot presented in American hero movies is old fashioned, namely, in an exact pattern. In the beginning, the main character is too ordinary to capture a girl’s heart, meanwhile, his life is a terrible mass. Inadvertently, he comes across a serious of strange things, and then acquires super power. Next, failure arrives, which finally will cause the catastrophe of all humans. However, anger, love and responsibility evoke his latent power. In the name of freedom, he defeats the enemy so he rescues the girl, protects the city, and saves the world! Don’t you become bored when this pattern keeps repeating over and over again? What have ever changed is the actor and the hero’s name.

  Thirdly, the spirit reflected by these movies remains monotonous. In general, there are certain virtues like love, freedom, and insistence presenting in the movies. However, I believe it does not make any sense to emphasis these repeatedly. Moreover, what they are advertising is American ideology, which is assimilating numerous people around world. Why don’t we show our profound Chinese culture to the world but keep simulating others?

 

All in all, everyone should have a deep thought before following American hero movies fanatically. With awareness, the reason we love them will become more explicit.   

Team Work (Blog 3)

Recently, I have been exposed to lots of experiences andinformation of teamwork. It impresses me deeply.

Know more information by chance

Two weeks ago, we, a small group,made a presentation. (Food Guard, do you still remember?) It is my first formal teamwork product and we spared lots of effort on it. As a result, it is not too bad. In this case, teamwork played a vital role and we work hard together.Still, we met many problems about teamwork. I started to think about working asa group.

After that presentation, I ran into a NUS graduate. He said, ‘teamwork is increasingly important nowadays. In21st century, great discoveries of science are always found by teams. Hero scientist like Einstein can hardly been seen any more.’ 

What is more, I inquired something about teamwork of a civil engineer (also a NUS graduate). Similar advises came to me,‘ in civil engineering project, people always work as a teamto discuss about the design. If you don’t have a good skill to express your ownperspective, no matter how professional you are in this area, your design won’t be accepted by your teammates. Generally, man of higher position is more capable of communicating with others and persuading subordinates.’

Reflection on teamwork

According to the limited experience on teamwork, I find some problems. Sometimes, small conflict is unavoidable. If not dealt properly, it will make teammates work negatively,resulting in low efficiency. I need to learn a lot about how to listen toothers, even not quite willingly, and come up with my suggestions in a way that teammates will not feel being offended. Also, the ability of coordinating the team is crucially important. Sometimes, I should compromise and persuade others do it willingly as well. Only in this circumstance reconciliation can be available. In this case, everyone can have a voice in this team project,instead of being monopolized by someone. And the discussion and work atmosphere will be activated. Ultimately, the result of teamwork will be better and the cooperation itself will be more effectively and become an unforgettable memory.Wonderful, isn’t it?    

3.The Experience of buying a Trouser

  Although you may do not think that buy a trouser is a difficult thing to do, I still want to share my experience of buying a trouser with you. I bought a trouser this Saturday in Vivo City. It begins from my decision to go to Vivo City together with Wang Yifan. After we arrived there, we visited some shops. And finally I found a trouser I like very much. When I decided to buy it, Yifan told me that if I think the trouser is long for me, I can ask them to do me tailor. And after I finished trying the trouser, I surly think it needed a tailoring. So I ask the servers to help me. They measured it and marked a suitable position, and they asked me to pay the money first. After I payed the money, they bring my trouser away and told me that I should come back after 7:40 to take my trouser away. Then we went to eat to kill the time before 7:40. Finally, it is time for me to bring my trouser. I came to the shop and show my receipt to the server. They let me wait for a minute. And finally I got my lovely trouser.

Let me do a short of summary, if you want to buy a trouser, please remember:
1. Try the trouser and decide if you need a tailoring.
2. If you really need a tailoring please ask them to do it (you can get a free tailoring in the shop when you buy it)
3. You may need a short time wait before you can finally get your trouser so do not buy a trouser in a narrow time.
4. Remember to bring your receipt to the shop, because you need to use the receipt to bring your trouser.
Thank you for reading.

Are you brave enough?(BLOG2)

                                                                Are you brave enough?

 Nowadays, I get to know something about USP (University scholars’ programme), which aims to help student develop a creative thinking, an innovative mind as well as an enterprise spirit. Anyone taking part into this programe can gain a comprehensive education including science, engineering, arts, law and social science. What’s more, all students in this programme can live in Utown halls for four years without any additional condition. Utown is a newly established area located in the Kent Ridge campus, which follows the example of American Liberal Arts College , integrating teaching places into living places. However, for those who do not participate into this programme, they should have enough CCA credits(which reflects whether you are active in hall activities)to ensure that they can remain in the hall after Year 1. Therefore, this programme may be more suitable for you if you want to put your full heart into study and do not want to distract yourself on finding suitable living places everywhere when you lose the qualification of living in the hall.

What should be emphasized is that there will be many reading and essay for you from economics, science, law to ethics if you take part in USP, hence, your study stress may be very heavy, especially for our Chinese students, who got Chinese education domestically and are not used to English essay writing or intensive English reading.

Are you interested in this programme? It takes our courage and braveness to make this choice and it lies in the problem whether we are brave enough to make this decision rather than whether we are able to manage it. Also ,we should consider whether we are suitable to this programme and whether we have the ability to deal with stressful life. It is we that make a better decision, so are you brave enough to apply for it?

About cartoon

            Here, I would tell something new about cartoon which is not included in my oral report because of time.

     As we all know, cartoon is for children in kindergarten and primary schools. However, this is  really old idea, cause everything is made for money. Cartoon making company still need money to make new works.So it need to fit the people, the teenages and adults,  who have money and could use it on the comic and its side productions. So this is my first point about my suggestion to the comic business--the customers. What is more,because  there is much presure among today's society so we need something to release our stress and cartoon is the best thing which can call back our childhood's memory to let our mind have rest. Besides this, it takes less time thanother relaxing activitiesso that we do not have to misss our work. So, we  can see what a big market it is , if we plus the number of stressful white-collars in the world.

     The next part I want to talk about is the writers. Of course they are trying their best to make the readers happier and earn more money. However , they ignore one problem , which is very important , is that they need to communicate with the ideas of chidren and what are they think about. The world is changing, so our knowledge is changing, especially the chidren, teenagers, and those youth.  They are  young so it is qiute easy and quick for them to get new ideas. So to be a good and welcoming writer, he need to add some elements which relate to today's word. Some people say that Chinese cartoons' failture is because they always want to teach the audients, but I do not think so. Why do writer write stories? It is because they wat pass thgeir ideas to us, which can let us know something new. For example, we can feel the love between father and son in"Find Nemo"(Disneyland, 2003).We can see the pollution of the river in "Spirit away"(Studio Ghibli 2001) and the appetite of man in"Castle in the Sky"(Studio Ghibli, 1986). So it is not a problem. The problem is that the idea should be compound ed with the story, which need the audients to notice it by themselves. It also a satisfactory thing if we can learn something new after we finish a film.

         Finally, in my opinion, Chiness companies should not have such a high speed to produce a cartoon. Whether a company can make money depends on if the work attracts customer. If you only make a lot  low quantity films and TV series, they will only waste your money and let the public lose interest in your cartoon. However , if you use a long time to make a good one, you will surely get your money back. What is more, you have get the fans' interest and they will support your next work. Besides this , you will also attract some investers' attention  who are likely to give you money and make the company bigger. There are many good examples, such as "Star Stealling Girl", "The Lotus Light","Qin's Moon",and so on.

         This is my summary about cartoon.I really like them and wish that there will more and more good works.

I have a dream!! (Blog writing 2)

    I have a dream that one day my son and his American friends could communicate with each other in Chinese, naturally and happily.

    I have a dream that one day everyone is born to be capable of speaking Chinese.

    I have a dream that one day my son can proudly tell his son:’ you no longer need study English.’

    But when I woke up to the joy of getting rid of English, I found it was high time that I went to CELC learning English. Despite the fact that in recent times, English act as a common language for people across the globe to speak, it cannot cover its inherent drawbacks which may greatly contribute to its failure as compared to Chinese.
     One of its fatal weaknesses is that for each new object, it must create a new word which none know its meaning except its creator. Take ‘altostratus’ for example. It means a layer of flat cloud, lying at medium height, or one of the clouds which form this layer. Few people exactly know this word’s meaning unless they are atmosphere professionals. On the contrary, even third-graders in China know the meaning of its equivalent in Chinese, regardless of their age or major. (in fact, they have no majors).
     In addition to the previous point, English also has a bulky grammar system which made it not only a tough job for language learners to gain a clear idea but also hard for native speakers to use freely. For instance, it has 16 tenses, a wide array of moods and different shapes for a word. They serve as endless traps waiting for us to fall in and make us extremely confused. However, Chinese neither has tenses nor moods. Nouns need not add a ‘tail (end)’, either. Due to this, Chinese is more human friendly than English.
    The third point, which few people have ever noticed, is that Chinese does much less harm to the environment. It is allegedly the fact that each time Chinese officials attend conferences at UN, they always consume the least time to deliver a speech and the least paper to put their notes down. Few other countries have done as well as China in terms of this. Compared to other languages, Chinese is incontestably the most efficient and environment friendly one.
    All in all, Chinese exceed English in many aspects. However, dream is enjoying; life is suffering. Now that it is an irresistible trend towards the universal popularity of English, it is not our turn to make a choice between English and Chinese. The only thing we can do at present is study English hard and have a promising future.
Thanks for your honored patience to finish it. Have a good day!

Blog 3 A short love story

One day, a grand, brilliant ball was held at the palace to celebrate the victory of the war. The prince came around to toast everyone, and enjoy happiness with all people. A pretty, young girl took part in it, she was just like a Cinderella whose dress was simple and austerely elegant. Once the prince caught a glimpse of her, he was mesmerized by her natural beauty and elegant manners. But the prince was sober because he was aware that he couldn’t judge a woman only by her appearance. He approached the lady and greeted her with a friendly smile. When greeted by the prince, banal( mundane) girls would desperately come near the prince and glorify him with all kinds of beautiful compliments. However, the girl just replied with a smile and behaved herself in a neither cringing nor arrogant way. This behavior made herself highly esteemed by the prince and he couldn’t help feeling affection for her. However, he didn’t want to engage with a girl he didn’t know much. He began to send the girl various gifts and wrote letters to make friends with her. Though deeply falling in love, they never referred to anything about marriage, since both of them were extremely prudent towards the choice they would make. On reflect, the prince made his mind to make a final decision. He went to the girl’s house alone, and knocked the door. The door opened, out came the graceful girl. The prince handed an envelope to her and promised, “ Marry me , and your family will be the richest one in this town.” The girl shook her hand and signed, “I’m so disappointed that I would not accept. The only true gift is a portion of yourself.” After saying this word she intent to send the envelope back to the prince and closed the door. “Open it.” The prince said. She grinned for his silly behavior and opened the envelope. There was a letter in it. She read carefully, in case of missing any single word. “Accept, farewell; Refuse, …”

No sooner had she read through the line did the prince kneeled down and put his hand on his heart, saying, “I love you.”

They hugged each other tightly for the first time.

My First Taste of Esplanade

   This Sunday, I together with teachers and classmates went to Esplanade, which is the internationally famous theatre, for a concert. And I find myself fascinated and enjoyable in it.

  

  Before I went to concert, I doubted whether I can enjoy the concert, for I had not seen such a grand symphony before. But Ms Angelina persuaded me to be confident, “Everything begins with the first time. You shouldn’t lose confidence when you even have not tried it. As the concert in Esplanade is very elegant, this experience is precious. If someone asked you if you have seen a symphony concert in the future, you can confidently say yes.” Yes, as a student, I should not only be surrounded by study, but also art.

   After I sat down in the theatre, I was circled by the gracious atmosphere and appreciated the elegant environment. And when the music began, although I was not quite understand music, following the rhythm I found I enjoying it very much. Various songs from America, Japan, Korea, etc, were displayed, which led me to a international music journey.Different from pop-music which I hear everyday, symphony is more pure and elegant which feels smooth and natural.When the concert came to an end, we all applaused loudly to show respect to symphonic orchestra.

      My first taste of Esplanade is enjoyable and fascinated. I really want to have a second taste in the future! I will continue my journey of music! 

   

  

  

Reading Journal

        I think I was successful after using the three tips. Because I read the three passages faster and faster than before and could understand the main idea and the details more thoroughly. I always read the article word by word , which turns out to be very slow and I had to look up every unknown vocabulary. But the technique told me to preview the passage first and it was really effective. Because by the previewing, I knew what the author was talking about and I could guess some of the details. After the skimming, I would have questions about how things came up and how will people solve. Because I knew the maiNidea of the passage, I knew where I should concentrate on in the nextr stage--clustle. What is more, I could guess some words ' meaning because I knew the story and I could imagine what kind of emotion the writer would have so that I would knew what meanings of words the author would use. So, in my opinion, ythe second tip is the best for me.

Reading Strategies （blog：3）

       Today, we learned three strategies for reading fast. They are preview, skim and cluster. When I started to learn English, I always read an article word by word. And this method doesn't work anymore because I am going to step into the university. By then, I have to handle a demanding academic reading load, so it is important to build up my reading rate.


        In fact, I have been using these three reading techniques since I was in middle school. They do improve my reading ability. And among the three strategies, I prefer preview to skim and cluster. Not only does it cost a little time, but build the structure of the whole passage in my mind, so I can have a good understanding of the article.


        Different people have a different preference. So you just need to choose the one that is most suitable for you.

Blog 2 Apply the reading techniques

Not only the exciting stories but also the improvement of reading skills makes reading lessons attractive. Last Tuesday, we did a lot of reading about tales of the sea. More importantly, we learned about the three reading strategy, namely preview, skim and cluster, which help to build reading speed.
During the reading lesson, I was surprised to find that I can read more words when I applied the techniques. At first, I thought it was because I have read part one before lessons. However, when my speed increased in the following parts, I was quite amazed.

According to my experience, skimming is the most efficient way to comprehend the main events while clustering may be most useful to understand most sentences. As for previewing, it provides me with an outline of a story, but I may not be accurate all the time.

As an elementary English learner, it is fairly miserable for me to work out all the new words in a passage, especially when they appear more than twice in a line. After the reading lesson, I am convinced that it will make a difference to my reading skills. What is more, I still regard vocabulary as the most significant. Anyway, it is better to know more words in a passage!