Log #7

      Recently, I saw my juniors in senior high school post some pictures about cheerleading on Instagram, which makes me recall the time when I was in the cheerleading school team. Cheerleading plays a very important part in my life because it makes my senior high school life more colorful and I have learned lots of things through joining the cheerleading school team. When I was a freshman in senior high school, I didn’t give cheerleading school team a thought try and thought that I would never join this school team during these three years. However, this thought was totally overwhelmed after I participated in the cheerleading summer camp in my second year of the high school. I found that cheerleading was not as boring as I thought before. It’s a very interesting and meaningful sport. When I cooperated with my partners to do some cheerleading skills successfully, I would get a sense of achievement so I decided to join the cheerleading school team.

       After joining cheerleading school team, my senior high school life became more colorful. I had to practice cheerleading skills and do some training every day after the class. Someone may say I spent a lot of time on training, so I would not have enough time to study. Nevertheless, I thought that if I did time management well, practicing cheerleading was not an excuse not to study well. Besides, I joined many competitions and had lots of performances. I gained the different experiences that I couldn’t learn from the class such as how to face the fear of performing in front of hundreds of audience. What’s more, I also learned lots of things in the cheerleading team. First, I learned how to coordinate with my partners or teammates. Cheerleading is a sport that needs every member to perform together. Hence, coordinating with each member is a crucial lesson to learn. Next, every great thing is nothing but a lot of little ones. I practiced cheerleading and did some physical training every day. It was hard to see the training result right away after doing them, but maybe a few weeks later, I would do some difficult skills that I could not do before. All our capabilities were accumulated in every training we had done. If we didn’t practice cheerleading hard, we wouldn’t have abilities to do some difficult skills. Besides, it made me more perseverant because of the training. I could bear what I couldn’t withstand before. I would keep telling myself that I could do it. To sum up, I am so proud that I have joined a meaningful team like this in my senior high school. I will never forget all the things I learn from the cheerleading school team.

Concept Map

Log #6

          Nowadays, people often say that the education in Taiwan stops our children or teenagers to actively express their thoughts in class. They become more silence, and they even don’t have their own thoughts. Few days ago, I saw an article about this and thought that it also related to the self-discovery. I found that the older I am, the fewer things I learn and like. I start to think what I was before.

In the elementary school, I like lots of things and spent lots of time doing them. I could spend all day reading novels and picture books of Shakespeare until my mom stopped me and asked me take a rest. I could go swimming and play basketball or dodge ball with classmates after school every day. I also actively make an effort to get a chance to get into the choir and ballet school team because I liked singing and dancing. Besides, I like classic music so I saw opera and listen to the classic music before going to bed. I even learn how to play piano. What’s more, when teacher asked questions, all the classmates raised hands and answered the questions positively. Then, when I was in the junior high school, I was very interested in math and I was good at it. I found that doing math questions made me happy and had a sense of achievement. Hence, at that time, the major I want to study in the future was math. I loved math so much. Apart from math, I still spent many time reading books, and I learned how to draw cartoon from my classmate and learn how to construct the structure of novel and how to write it. I usually discuss with classmates to come up with new plots of the novel.

Next, it’s the senior high school. I still fell in love with math. In the club, I began to learn how to play guitar. Also, I learn how to organize an activity and cooperate with my classmates to hold this activity. Moreover, the most important part of my senior high school is cheerleading. I accidentally joined the cheerleading school team, which made me realize that I should decide I hate this thing or not after giving it a try instead of just saying that I didn’t like it and didn’t do this thing forever. As a result, after I recall what I was before, I am shock that how colorful life I had before. Now, in the college, although I have more free time to do what I like, I don’t know what to do and just waste precious time sometimes. I should start to think what had happened on me and what change me. I had lots of hobbies before. Why now don’t I have most of them?

Log #5

           It has been two years in my college life, and I have deeply felt the differences between the senior high school and the college. One of them is that the bond between senior and junior in the college is not as deep as the bond in the senior high school. My senior high school is a very conservative school, which means that my school has many rules and traditions. One of them is the senior and the junior which is so called 學姊學妹制 in Chinese. When we entered the school, the first thing that the senior taught us is that we had to greet to the senior like 學姊好學長好as soon as we saw them. If we didn’t, we may be labeled as an impolite junior who didn’t respect them in the senior’s eyes. At the beginning, it was hard for us to get used to this tradition and we often felt a little shy to greet to the senior who we were not familiar with because we didn’t do it in the junior high school. So, sometimes during the break time, we rather stay at the classroom than going out. Once, the senior in the second grade even came to our class and said that the third grade senior didn’t satisfy our manner and hoped that we could improve. Of course, we did it and felt more and more comfortable to greet to the senior in the hallway. But, as the time went by, we thought that it’s necessary for us to have this tradition because it enhanced the bond between the senior and the junior. Unlike in the junior high school, we had a close relationship with the senior in the senior high school. Moreover, when we encountered some academic problem, we could turn to the senior for help instead of feeling helpless. As a result, when we became the senior, we also taught our junior this tradition and wished this tradition could pass on to future generations.

Log #4

         This week, I saw an article about a film, which is Taiwan documentary. This film is called "±2°C". I have seen this film before when I was in the high school. It’s really a good documentary that wroth everyone to watch and reconsider what we can do for our country. It tells us about how serious Taiwan environment current situation is. However, our government and most of people don’t care about this issue, global warming, instead, they care more about the national defenses. Rather than spend money on finding solutions to prevent the sea level rising or climate change, our government prefer to spend money on buying weapons from other countries to make sure that they can protect our nation from being attacked. They don’t consider it as a severe problem. I think that it’s not only the government’s problem but also all the people’s problem. We don’t take it serious. We often think that climate change won’t affect us so quickly. We don’t have to worry that our homeland will become too small to live. What’s more, in our daily life, we have learned and known how to prevent the climate change from getting worse, but, only few of us actually do something to safe our mother land. We may think that if I don’t take actions to save our earth, others will do. There is no need for me to recycle or to decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emission because others will do these things. Many people have this kind of thoughts, which causes what Taiwan serious environment issue today. We have to change our thoughts. Everyone has the responsibility to protect our environment, our homeland.

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2010/02/25/245788/p2/Climate-change.htm

Log #3

         This week, I searched some articles about the solutions of the sea level rising. I found that different countries have different methods to solve sea level problem. Apart from what I have mentioned in my first two logs, the reasons why the sea level is rising are not only the under groundwater pumping and the glacier melting but also the burning the fossil fuels or other human activities, which have released huge amount of heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. These gases will cause the rising of the temperature and make the ocean heater, which will increase the rising of the sea level. Sea level rising becomes quicker and quicker year by year so we have to come up with the solution to prevent sea level from rising too fast. Like Netherland, they built a huge gate to protect this city from storm and flooding. It also can automatically open or close to let ships to pass through. Additionally, in New York, the federal department spent about one billion dollars on the anti-flooding project. They used this money to build a U-shaped berm, living break water, and flood prevention plan to hug the lower side area to prevent this area from being submerged. What’s more, I think that the most effective way that we can do for our mother land to ease the sea level rising is decreasing the usage of the fuel. The less we use the fuel on our transportation or the factories, the less the heat-trapping gases will be released into the sky. So, let’s save our home land from being flooded by the sea.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/04/22/rising-sea-levels-causes-and-solutions

http://mashable.com/2014/07/16/cities-rising-sea-levels/#mwBwNBlVKZqO

Log #2

Sea level rising          

          After knowing the current situation of sea level rising in Taiwan, I searched more articles about the future impact of sea level rising. I found that the impacts are more that I used to think. Just like what I said in my first log, many people don’t view this issue as a serious problem because they don’t think they will be threatened by the sea level rising right away. Their house, their car, or their workplace will not be flooded by the sea. In fact, we are all in danger. Apart from the underground water pumping, glacier melting is also the main reason of sea level rising. What’s more, the glacier melting not only occurs on the ground but also occurs at deep sea. We may not notice whether the ice is melted under the sea or not so we won’t alarm that the glacier is melted so fast. If the sea level keeps rising, our agriculture industry will change because the soil will become saltier, which will influence the plants. These plants may not be able to cope with the change of the saltier soil so these plants may die and then disappear. Also, the freshwater may be influenced by the sea level rising. The freshwater may become less and less. As a result, we may spend more money on transferring the salty water into the freshwater that we can drink. All in all, we should be more aware that we are all influenced by the sea level rising.

http://www.businessinsider.com/5-terrifying-impacts-of-rising-sea-levels-2015-2

http://www.livescience.com/51990-sea-level-rise-unknowns.html

Log #1

          After discussing, our group decided to choose the sea level rising as our topic of group project. It’s a very common problem that we can usually see on the media or news. Taiwan now is also threatened by the sea level rising although most of us don’t feel that we are in the danger of sea level rising. So, we chose this topic to aware ourselves that we can’t keep ignoring it and pretending that it’s not our business. In the first week, we discussed the current situation of sea level rising in Taiwan so we found the articles about this issue respectively.

          After reading some articles about the sea level rising in Taiwan, I found that this problem is more severe that I used to think. See level rising in Taiwan is not only caused by the global warming but also caused by the underground water pumping. Especially in the western coastal plain, because of the agricultural needs or fish farming, pumping underground water is very common to see in the west Taiwan. A Matsu temple near the coast even has to move to the higher place to avoid being submerged. But, our houses or other buildings cannot be moved to other places. If the Taiwan’s sea level keeps rising, we will have fewer places to live and our lovely home will eventually sink in the sea. We don’t want to see this situation happen in the near future. We can begin to do something to prevent this situation happen instead of just thinking that the sea hasn’t come to my home so I don’t have to do something to slow down the sea level rising. 

Log #8

       After reading the entire book, The Fault in Our Stars, I feel that I am still not interested in this book but I like how this book ends. The author uses a tragedy, Augustus’ death, to end this book, which means that our lives are not always like the fairy tale. Our lives do not always have a happy ending; instead, we may encounter many accidents that we cannot predict in our lives. So, the ending is very close to our daily life, and I like it. Sometimes, a tragedy can be remembered more and more impressive and touched than a comedy.

        In this book, I like Augustus the most not only because he was a hot boy but also because he had a great influence on Hazel. He was a person who loves metaphors like he liked to have a cigarette between his lips but he wouldn’t light it up. He said that even though he had something dangerous but he could choose whether this dangerous thing could hurt him or not. After Hazel had met him, she changed many aspects toward life. Hazel no longer thought that she was a grenade that may blow up at any times. She began to accept that although she was a grenade, she still could love whoever she liked and didn’t worry too much about that they would get hurt when she was gone. Also, the Augustus’ death gave a lesson to Hazel. Hazel realized that one day she would pass away just like Augustus and her parents would suffer from the same pain that she suffered now. However, Hazel grew up and her thought became more mature. This was all because of Augustus. 

Log #7

          This week, I read the last part of our book. In this part, the male leader role, Augustus died, to my surprise. After they came back from the Amsterdam, Augustus’ condition became worse and worse. He even couldn’t walk by himself so he had to sit on the wheelchair. He even held his own prefuneral in order to hear others’ eulogies. After few days he held his prefuneral, Augustus died in the hospital. The ending of this book was so overwhelming that I couldn’t guess its result.

At the beginning, Augustus was the healthiest person among these suffering people. However, I was shock that he died in the end of the book. I think that this author wants to tell us that life is changing all the time. We cannot predict what will happen in the next second. Just like Augustus, everyone does not think that his condition will get worse and worse. Therefore, we should cherish every moment with our loved ones. I also like a plot that Augustus held his own prefuneral before he died just because he wanted to hear what would his best friend and his girlfriend say in his real funeral. It’s like a book called Tuesdays with Morrie. The old dying man, Morrie, also held his own prefuneral because he thought that it was really pity not to hear what other people think about him. I think he is right. I also want to hear others’ feelings about me. I want to know how others think about me. It’s really interesting to hold a prefuneral.

Log #6

    The second part of following paragraph is talking about the journey of Hazel, her mother, and Augustus to Amsterdam. In the beginning, Hazel’s condition became worse before going to Amsterdam and she was considered not healthy enough to go abroad. However, Hazel did her best to recover. As a result, she was permitted to go to Amsterdam with Augustus and her mom. In Amsterdam, she and Augustus met her favorite author. Unfortunately, the author was not an ideal man that she used to think, which made her very depressed.

     In this part, I think that one thing is a little weird. Hazel asked Augustus about his ex-girlfriend who had passed away. She found that Augustus actually didn’t have a good time with his ex-girlfriend when his ex-girlfriend’s illness condition got worse and worse but Augustus couldn’t dump her because she is nearly dying. I wonder what makes Augustus fall in love with Hazel who also suffered from incurable disease. He had experienced the same situation that he may break his heart when his lover passed away. Why did he fall in love with someone with cancer again? Did he want to experience the same pain again? Furthermore, in this part, I like a sentence so much. It says that the weird thing about houses is that they almost look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. It also makes sense to the human. When people are upset or mad but they are pretending nothing is happening on them and hiding their emotion inside their mind, we won’t know whether he or she is fine or not. What we can see on their face is the information we can get on theirs as usual. They may look so peaceful that we won’t even notice that he or she needs some help to get through their difficulties. 

Log #5

     After discussing and voting for the book we want to read as our group project, we decided to choose a book called The Fault in Our stars. In the first five chapters of this book, it talks about the leader role, Hazel Grace, suffered from thyroid cancer. She joined the Support Group weekly and met people who also suffered from cancer there. One day, a new man called Augustus Waters came to the Support Group, and Hazel was attracted by this charming person. They knew each other immediately and had a deep conversation to talk about how they think about their cancer. They also recommended their favorite books to each other. Augustus did have a great feeling about the book that Hazel recommended called An Imperial Affliction. Hazel and he even wrote an e-mail to the author of this book to ask for some details that the author did not mention in the book. But the author asked them to come to Dutch, and he would tell them everything in person. As a result, Augustus asked The Genie Foundation for a wish to help them go to Dutch.

     Although this book is basically a romantic book, it still has something meaningful to tell us about how to face the death. It says that depression is the side effect of dying. I think it’s exactly right. When people know that they suffer from incurable disease and they are going to die, they may think more negatively. Just like Hazel, she thought that she was a grenade and she would blow up and hurt people that did care about her so she wanted to stay away from other people. However, I think that if she kept staying away from people that did love her, she would hurt them harder and would miss many important and meaningful things like the love of her parents. So, instead of keeping distance from others, we should cherish every moment to make more memory with our family and friends before we die. We only have one life. Go and do things that we want to do and don’t stay away from people who really love you.

Three best presentations

1.      Evelyn

I like a quote she said in the class. It says that “Don’t apologize for crying. Without this emotion, we are only robots.” I think that we all have emotion no matter who we are. We have to release what we feel about instead of just burying it in our mind and not telling it to others. It is crying that makes us stronger. It is crying that lets us have power to overcome every challenge. So, don’t feel shameful to cry because it’s human’s instinct to cure our sadness.

2.      Cindy Cheng

The book she shared with us is very interesting. The part that impressed me the most was that she said “or”, “the”, and “a” are some words that seem to be not so important but they do exist in every sentence. Just like people, we may think that we are a tiny people that won’t have a great influence to our country or even our world. However, every single person does have their meaning to the world just like “a” and “the”. We are all important. Don’t feel that we just people who don’t have influence. We all impact other people in every moment by talking or merely hugging.

3.      Patty

After listening to Patty’s presentation, I have more interesting on Me Before You this book. In this book, it says that “You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.” I like this quote so much. We have to enjoy our lives instead of just wasting our time to do something meaningless to our lives. We are young now but we won’t know when we will die. As a result, we should enrich our daily lives as possible as we can. Otherwise, maybe when we become old, we may regret that we hadn’t done something that we really want to do.

Log #4

      This week, I am still going to talk about the same book called “The Duff”. These two weeks, I kept reading this book and found that the following chapters became more and more interesting. This book also talks about the relationship not only between friends and Bianca who is the leader role in this book but also between boys and Bianca. She encountered more problems that she had to solve.

     After having a quarrel with Casey and Jessica who used to be her best friends in the senior high school, Bianca became more cynical and wanted to do something to change what other people think about her. As a result, she asked Wesley Rush who had told her that she was a duff for help. Then, Wesley, of course, agreed with her and helped her change her style but he asked Bianca had to teach him homework in advance. Bianca accepted his request, and they started to do their change. During the time they made effort to change Bianca, Bianca found that she was so sensitive to everything that had happened on her. She began to observe the people around her and she discovered that things were not like what Wesley had said. Her friends viewed her as true friend instead of seeing her as their foil. Bianca and Wesley also re-evaluated each other and found others’ advantages that they hadn’t known before. At the end of the novel, Bianca and Wesley fell in love with each other. What’s more, she also apologized to her best friends and finally their misunderstanding vanished into the air.

     After seeing the following chapters of The Duff, I realize that no one on the earth is perfect. He or she may be the duff in the field that he or she is not good at. For instance, a person who performs well when playing basketball may feel challenging when playing volleyball. Everyone will be others’ duff. As a result, we don’t have to feel upset when we are not good at doing something. Instead, we have to think about what we are good at and feel proud of what we are able to do. 

log #3

This week I want to share a book called “The Duff”. I accidently saw this movie with my friend because she had heard that this movie was good to see. At the beginning, I just thought that this movie was a comedy film that didn’t have any meaning in this movie. However, I changed my mind after I saw this film. I found that it did really have something meaningful to express. As a result, when I saw this book in the reading lab, I decided to borrow. That’s why I choose this book.

     Bianca Piper who is a smart but not so pretty girl has two best friends, Casey and Jessica, who are two of the most beautiful girls in their senior high school. She didn’t think it was a problem that she was always the foil of her two best friends at the beginning. But, one day, a man called Wesley Rush who was a handsome football player and was also Bianca’s neighbor told Bianca that she was a “Duff” of Casey and Jessica. The duff means a designated, ugly, and fat friend. Bianca started to notice that she was the foil. She became more and more cynical to everything that happened related to her and her friends. What’s worse, she even had a quarrel with them and broke their relationship. However, during the time that they are not best friends, Bianca found that every group always has a duff. No matter she or he is beautiful or handsome, people always have a chance to be the duff.

     After reading this novel, I think that most people in the world tend to judge a book by its cover. We will think a person can’t play basketball well because he is not tall enough; we will think we won’t be friend of a person because he or she is ugly or fat; we will think we will marry a person because he or she is wealthy or good-looking. These are normal situations in our present society. We should try not to just a book by its cover. Instead, we should do our best to find others’ advantage and be kinder to everyone.

Log #2

     My second book is The Chronicles of Narnia- Prince Caspian. Why do I choose this book? Because when I was a little child, my parents took my brother and me go to the movie theater to see the movie called The Chronicles of Narnia- The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. After I saw this movie, I fell in love with Narnia series. I even went to the library to borrow all the Narnia series’ books in Chinese and read all of them within one week. As a result, I decided to read the English version to see whether English ones were as good as Chinese ones.

     Prince Caspian is the fourth book of Narnia series. This book is mainly talking about four children, Peter, Susan, Edward, and Lucy, went back to Narnia again. But, they found that everything was changed because they had left for more than one thousand years. They even found that the castle they used to live in the old Narnia became a ruin. After that, they saved a dwarf who was kidnapped by the bad soldiers of Miraz who was the king of Narnia now. Then, the dwarf told them the present situation of the Narnia in order to thank for their help. Now, Narnia was ruled by Miraz whose ancestor had invaded and governed Narnia. Miraz’s nephew, prince Caspian, was the first successor in this kingdom. However, prince Caspian’s aunt gave birth to a son, which means that Miraz had a successor so he want to kill prince Caspian who was the first priority in order to let his son become the king after he abdicated. As a result, prince Caspian ran to the forest to take shelter. Surprisingly, he met the animals which could talk. After avoiding being murdered by Miraz, price Caspian blew the magic horn of Queen Susan to call for a strong help, which was the main reason why the four children came back to the Narnia. Prince Caspian also asked the old Narnia people for help. These old Narnia people, of course, agreed to lend him a hand and viewed prince Caspian as the king of the Narnia who would lead them to defeat Miraz and would return Narnia into Golden Age again. 

     After the dwarf told the four children the present story, they decided to help prince Caspian so they set off to find Caspian. They crossed the mountains and the rivers. Finally, they found prince Caspian, and they also met Aslan, who is a lion and the king of the old Narnia. Prince Caspian and these four children began to think how to fight with Miraz. After discussing for a long time, they decided that Peter fight with Miraz individually. Miraz accepted the battle. Peter and Miraz began to battle. They fought so hard and fought for such a long time that they still couldn’t know whom to win the battle. At the end of the battle, Peter won it, but Miraz escaped and asked his army to assault Prince Caspian and his people. As a result, the battle turned into the war. At this time, Aslan showed up and used his magical power to defeat Miraz’s army. Then, prince Caspian won the war.

     After I read this book, I think that this book is as amazing as the movie. Moreover, it has more details that the movie doesn’t mention. Among these characters, I still love Lucy the most because she is so innocent and brave. She always believes that Narnia and Aslan do exist. That it also the reason why Aslan loves her so much and always gives Lucy something important to do.

Log #1

Book: Tuesdays with Morrie

Author: Mitch Albom

Page:1~82

These two weekends, I read a book called “Tuesdays with Morrie”. Why did I choose this book? Because I had heard this book for a long time and I also had heard this movie, but I had never seem both of them. I often saw some articles or heard my friends or teachers recommend this book. Then, I wondered why they were so attracted by this book that they kept praising it. I bought this book last semester but, instead of reading it, I put this book aside unheeded. As a result, I started to read this book because of this course.

     This book is talking about a dying old man, Morrie, who was the author’s college professor suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He gave the author the last class once a week in his house. These classes met on Tuesdays. What Morrie taught was the meaning of life including world, regret, death, family, aging, marriage, culture, and so on. At the beginning, the author, Mitch, didn’t know that his professor had less time to live because he hadn’t kept in touch with Morrie for about fourteen years. Not until Mitch saw the TV program which host interviewed Morrie did he find that his professor was dying. So, Mitch paid Morrie a visit, which was the beginning of their class. After their class started, Mitch began to think more deeply. He found that he had forgotten many things, and one of them was that he had made a decision that the purpose of work was doing something he liked instead of just making money. So, Mitch started to consider what had happened to him and to think what thing was meaningful to his life.

     After reading the front chapters, I found that what Morrie said inspired me so much. One of these sentences he said was “Don’t assume that it’s too late to get involved.” Just like the old saying “It’s never too late to learn.” Sometimes, I think that I was too old to learn something, and other people have learned this thing for many years. I may not keep up with them and reach their level so I didn’t give this thing a try and gave up. However, if I don’t try and give up, I won’t know how best I can do and whether I have the talent on this thing or not. Maybe, when I become old, I will regret that I didn’t do this thing. Thus, I should dare to try new things, and I shouldn’t assume that I won’t do well and won’t do as good as what other people do. My life will be more meaningful and colorful and will be filled with many different experiences. 

My Reading History

I was absolutely a reader in Mandarin when I was in the elementary school and junior high school. I really read a lot of books and novels at that time. I could read up to three books or novels within one day. My mom even limited my time to read because I could spend whole day reading without doing any other things. Also, I spent much money on buying books. The book store became a place that I often paid a visit to. I felt very happy and comfortable when I went there and took a seat to read. Picking books, which had lots of fun, was another thing that made me fascinated. But, now I don’t think I am still a reader who often reads books and novels because I don’t have much time to read as before. However, if I have leisure time, I will pick up my books and read them as much as possible.

I started to read when I was three to four years old. My mom bought lots of picture books and Chinese famous history novels for my brother and me. It was these picture books that made me a reader. I found that it was pretty interesting to read a book with so many beautiful patterns which made children more willing to read. As a result, I stepped into the world of picture books. Then, when I was in the elementary school, I began to read books with more letters and less pictures. Two of my favorite series were complete works of Shakespeare and金庸. Among these books, I liked The Taming of The Shrew and 神鵰俠侶 the most. The Taming of The Shrew was a book that filled with lots of interesting plots. I could see how the male leading role turned his shrew wife into a tame woman. As for神鵰俠侶, I liked reading the description of the fight between characters and the chivalry that the male leading role had.

Thanks for my mom. I realized how amazing the book world was. When I was depressed or sad, I found my calm and comfort in the book which could let me get rid of all the sadness and worries. At the end, I hope that I will have more time to read and find great pleasure in reading like what I did before.