Journal-Dance with Cloud Gate 2

Although I look quite healthy in appearance, I am disabled when it comes to dancing. However, it was our honor to have “Cloud Gate 2” long stay in our school, and it was almost a once-in-a-life-time chance to be in the course. I was really lucky to be one of them, despite the fact that I didn’t make this choice by myself. The course was different to others in our school that it only took two weeks, 14 days to get 2 credits. But it was not an easy task at all.

At the beginning I felt extremely ill at ease to move my body in front of so many people or to react with boys. But after two days of training, I gradually open my mind to emerge myself in the music. I went up when the music got high, and I went down when the music went soft. I felt myself connected to the people I met and the environment I was in. In the end of the first week, we had a performance in our class. Although I was simply a “wall” of the floating room, I am proud of being so. I must be the must emotional wall of all time! In the second week, we have to choreograph and to create our own performance. At first, we couldn’t think of anything, and we almost begin fighting. But after long negotiation and the matter of adrenalin, we had a bog shot in our final performance.

I learned a lot after taking this course; I not only liberate my body but also learned the way and also the art of communicate. Preparing a show is like having a baby – it hurts, but it worth.

Journal-A person I would like to meet in the past

Have you ever seen the image of a Chinese heroine riding on the horse, yelling and killing Xiongnu like a real man? Or do you remember the song” Who is that girl I see? Staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show who I am inside?” Mulan was a young woman who disguised herself as a man to take her elderly father’s place of in the army, and I really feel like meeting her if I could travel back in time. I am a member of our basketball team, therefore I sometimes feel like I battle with others on the horse, too. Mulan, to some degree, is my reflection.

The hardships before Mulan turned herself from an ordinary woman into a heroine must include a lot of sacrifice: freedom, fighting brothers, youth…But the final choice she made was to give up the military promotion and went back home to show her filial piety. Most important of all, she is a rare case about a “woman” being mentioned in any ducument. It occours to me of the unfairness between genders. In the past, either in Chinese or Western culture, women had no position comparing with men. Even in nowadays, there are still many stereotypes in our society. Let me tell you a story: once upon a time, a pair of father and son had a serious car accident, and the father unfortunately died. The only thing the father asked before he passed away was to save his only son. So the hospital engaged the most authoritative doctor to operate, but the doctor shouted out loud:“ Oh, I can’t do this! He’s my son!” upon seeing the patiant. What’s wrong with this story? Weird, isn’t it? One may wondered, wasn’t the father already died? Why did he showed up as a doctor? The doctor is a female! See? We often fall into stereotypes unconciously. And the other true story is about an Arabian woman who was raped, but unexpectedly, she was the one to be blamed by the public and was whipped because of it.
I am here because of the speech freedom I got and the gradual raise of feminism in the society. It’s also my honor today, standing here and delivering my speech while it would be an impossible mission in ancient China.

Mulan would be an inspiring figure I would like to meet in the past. She stood out to prove that we girls are not weak; we are as capable as men. She was a pioneer, who represented the strength and courage of women. If I could travel back in time to meet Mulan, I would tell her about how women’s position have been improved now. Although playing basketball may be considered as a masculine activity, I knew I am good at it, and no one can oppress me. Just like Mulan’s story, as long as I am capable of doing something, there’s no way for me to give it up or have my head down. And I bet she would not mind if I invited her to play one on one if she knew how to play basketball! I think it would be the time my reflection shows who I am inside after I meet Mulan.

Journal-Fireflies at Ruili!

This Friday, my best friend and her boyfriend, my boyfriend and I went to Ruili, a place that is famous for fireflies. We googled the hotel on the Internet and we were all looking forward to our “double date”. We were really lucky that the host of the hotel -Ben was rather hospitable; he picked us up at Chayi city and then drove us to his place. Although it saved us 180 each person, he really drove tooooooo fast. I felt extremely dizzy and had a serious carsickness. However, after arriving the destination, I recovered because of the beautiful scenery of tea garden and his wooden house. We met another two girls from Hung Kong and we soon became friends through a short talk. We decided to go fireflies seeing and mountain climbing together. After having a short break and eating the dinner, we set out to see the fireflies at 7.

It was an amazing and unforgettable experience ever in my life! I cannot believe in my own eyes with the glittering lights. At times, I wondered the lights I saw weren’t fireflies but decorations for Christmas. The fireflies even stopped on my hands! We also saw fluorescence mushrooms from time to time. The ecological environment there was stunning natural, even snakes appeared, too! (I was freaking out because of that!)

On the second day, we woke up early and had a nutritious breakfast before we went mountain climbing. I was exhausted after climbing the mountain because there were 1000 or so stairs in total! However, the scenery worth taking a tiring walk. It was a pity that I threw up in the end of the trip- the mountain road was awful. Nevertheless, it was still a great trip which not only better or relationships but also widen my horizon.

Journal-Big triumph!Top 10 in ICRT speech contest

This Sunday, we 5 girls went up to Taipei for a speech contest held by ICRT and Gram English. It was not my first time having this kind of competition, but we are the only one from a thousand miles away.

Before the contest, we practiced in front of our classmates, receiving their comments and revised our drafts again and again. Finally, we presented ourselves on the stage and happily got in the top ten. It is wroth mentioning that this time I am myself one the stage. I had a lot of experiences of participating in speech contests, but I simply deliver the speech, not saying something from my heart. Or I would stand there making affected gestures. However, I took a risk this time, a risk for being who I really am. I change my style to a more natural and conversational way. Luckily, it is exactly what the judges’ want. It was like a gambling game and I made a right bet. Thanks God I got the third prize! But it is not the end. There would be round two at the coming Sunday, and I should be careful and work even harder to keep my place. Congratulations to Chung Cheng girls, we 4/5 girls are in the top ten, and we are going to “fight” again!

Put the serious part aside, we went shopping on Saturday to let out my stress. I got several “loots” such as a pair of shoes, jeans, some clothes and so on. Although I felt a little guilty, but it truly was a great sense of satisfaction. (LOL)

It was a great experience to challenge ourselvers, but the final contest is at the coner, we have to work hard together first!

Journal-We are the Champion

After FLLD cup @ NTU, it is Kaoshiung’s show time! This time, the basketball game was held in my hometown, Kaoshiung, surely I have to show my hospitality of Kaoshinug people and a hostess. I offered almost everything asking for no reward, I know it is happy to help others, and I am really proud of being Kaoshiung people!

However, we had 3 games in the first day, and unfortunately, I caught a cold and was during a period. I worried about it a lot, but I pay no attention to it during the game. The only thing I saw in the game is my teammates and the basket. In the first game, we took the opponents over by 32 points, 11 in the second game, and 20 more points in the third. It was a big victory ever to all of us. As the saying goes, “well begun is half done”, I took them to the night market as a celebration, and we all went home exhausted. On the second day, we beat our opponents by 53:18. What’s next? Championship! We got the fifth trophies in the first year in CCU! Then we went to Qijin to eat seafood and ice, but it is totally in a rush. It is a pity that we can’t step on the sand and feel the passion of Kaoshiung.

This champion is meaningful to us because first of all, there are two seniors just joined us-it might be the last game for them in their university life; second, we just changed a new coach; third, we never continuously won that many games. We all love the feeling of striving together and wining together. Although the practice before the game was harsh, the progress was tiring, the result is wonderful! Everything just paid off, not to mention the encouragement given by our friends in Chaiyi and family in different cities. There’s always something except victory we can get through the games, such as a better relationship with teammates and experience toward either victory or failure, and I think these are definitely more important than wining games.

Joural-You are my sunshine

I woke up 5:30 am this Saturday to go to Tzuchi Hospital for taking care of the children who have some problems with their family or economical situations. The camp is called “Little sunshine “, and it is held once every month.

At the beginning, I have no idea about the camp; the only thing I know is the background of those children, I never think of it as a camp held by the belief totally on the contrary of mine. Honestly speaking, I feel resisted when I knew the fact, but I have already promised to help, there’s no way to get cold feet of it.

Yes, I confess the songs and the videos were difficult for me to accept, but I tried my best not to involved charity with religion. As soon as I have the thought of this, I started to lead the kids with pure love. The kids responded and reacted with me pretty well, and followed as I said though they didn’t obey at the beginning. I saw the improvement of them and felt the sense of achievement from them.
We taught them to be grateful that time, and I really think they will apply it to their lives. No matter how bad the situation is in their family, I want them to feel the love from my ”God” and me one day.

In the end of the half-day camp, one of the little girls came to me and asked me if I’ll come next time, I was so touched that I decided to come for her anyhow. After all, I learned the love regardless of religion and the way to comfort children. And I was also surprised myself about the patient I got for the children- I belittle myself! (LOL) Most important of all, I woke up 5:30 am this Saturday not only see the sunrise but also see my sunshine.

Journal-so called, spring break

Due to the time-off of school anniversary, we had a six-day spring break, which is much more than most of the universities. Although the custom of sweeping the tombs and the concept of mourning ancestors are not as common as it used to be now, I still choose to accompany my family more. After all, study in another city from my hometown indeed decreases a lot of time for the whole family to get together.

I spent my spring vacation with my family in the first and the last couple of days, we chatted a lot, and we don’t mind to tease each other; we went to “eat” luxurious afternoon tea, where I think I had a food baby; we went to the new-opening department store to go shopping …and so on. I love the intimate atmosphere we had when we are together. Laughter is everywhere. And most important of all, I feel totally at ease and unrestrained at home, or in front of my family. I am not ashamed even if I am naked! (Just kidding!)

I also spent a day or two with my friends; I spent a day with my senior high school friends: we went to the bank of love river and merely talked about our collage lives for a whole afternoon. It was relax, comfortable and joyful to realize there’s nothing changed after we have been separated since we are in different schools. On the other day, I went shopping with my collage friends. The feeling was different from spending time with senior high school friends, but both of them were great and full of happiness.

However, most of the time I slept during my spring break. After the tiring tasks in CCU (Dancing, basketball, academics works, and so on…) spring break is really a break for me to rest. It was not special to sleep 12 hours a day every day in these six days! I indeed got the sense of happiness and satisfaction from sleeping!

Journal-Let’s go “Shrimping”!

It was Friday night, and we decided to go shrimping in Chayi city almost on impulse. Although shrimping is not a popular activity among young people nowadays, we still want to give it a try and see if we can have fun.

I have gone shrimping once ten yeas ago, and the only thing I remember was that I pulled the pole too hard that it hooked to the ceiling and I got nothing but dust. This time, I learned the lesson, and changed my strategy: First of all, be patient. Gently put your bobber down and watch carefully what the origin height your bobber is on the water surface. Second, wait until the bobber goes down below the water surface. Third, the most important of all, you can’t pull it immediately once the bobber goes down. It is better to count to three, and in the meanwhile, slightly pull the line to feel the tension of shrimp, but watch out for the situation that the tension might be so subtle that you can hardly feel it. You have to shrimp the shrimp with your heart.

After two hours of waiting, I won the second prize among we six people. However, honestly speaking, the total amount of shrimp isn’t very much so we didn’t have much to eat. I murmured as the other two “shimpers” holding their “shrimp hill” passing by. They heard me and felt pity for us so that they granted us some shrimps! It was so nice of them! (In fact, even the boss granted us a dish because of our poor technique.) It was really a interesting and special experience about going shrimping. Shrimping not only entertained us but also fed us well. We really have a lot of fun and enjoy ourselves very much.

Journal-English Majors Cup@ National Taiwan University

FLLD girls’ basketball team was collapsed last year; however, after we won the second prize in CCU freshman cup, we ten girls decided to recombine the team. In other words, we are all rookies. And it was what everything started.

As soon as we knew there was an “English Majors Cup”, we didn’t hesitant for a moment but sign up for it immediately. We all know it would be a great opportunity to make progress. Therefore, we speeded our practice up and sometimes we even practice at six in the morning!

Our first opponent is Huafan University, we beat them off by 19:9; nevertheless, in the afternoon, we faced off with National Taiwan University, who was the home team of the game. During the game, I was too nervous that I didn’t have a clear thought and had a lot of turnovers. Moreover, National Taiwan University played a hard game that they relied on their home court advantage and put out elbows frequently. We not only lost the game but also got several “souvenirs” from the game-bruising, scratching, strains, sprains…and so on. Although it hurt, we still strived for victory: we all know the true meaning of sportsmanship and the right attitude to play the games. Our third opponent was National Chengchi University. We supposed to win this game but we lost our feeling of shooting ball, and it turned out to be another defeat. It was not a glory record, but we learned a lot from the failure. Is it what the proverb goes, “a newborn calf is not afraid of tigers”? Well…there’s no positive solution. However, it was commendable to have such courage to participate in the game, and we were proud of ourselves.

Besides the game in the daytime, we went shopping in the nighttime. My aunt in Taipei played a great host that she treat me a lot of famous and popular local snacks to show her hospitality, and I really think I was bearing a food baby because of that. LOL~

Anyway, I had a wonderful time during these three days; I improved my basketball skills and bought a lot of things at the same time! I think I just “kill two birds with one stone”!

Journal-Two days one night in Tainan

On 2/27, 2/28, 2010, I and my five other friends (including two locals) bounded for Tainan to celebrate Lantern Festival. It was the first time I traveled to another city with motorcycle, and it was truly a special experience.

Our first stop was Tainan train station, we had our lunch “Chou’s shrimp roll” and “Anping tofu pudding” there, and rest for a while since we sat on the motorcycle‘s back for two hours long. These two are two of Tainan’s most famous snacks, and I think the reputation is well supported by the fact. Then, we paid a visit to “Anping Old Street” to experience the sense of nostalgia, but it was so hot and jam-packed there, so we didn’t spend too much time strolling around. Later on, we bought another snack which is a innovate one, called” Elate Pudding” to “Mo Niang Lin’s park” to watch the sunset. It was tranquil when we lay down on the meadow seeing people flying kites and cute dogs running around. In the end of the day, we chose “Garden night market” as our finally destination because it is elected by the ballot as the top night market in Taiwan. There were no doubt million of faces swarmed into the spot, you don’t even need to move on your own feet-people would push you automatically. After a “drastic battle”, we returned one of the local’s home fully supplied. As soon as we settled our packages, my friend’s grandpa played host to us hospitably with shrimps and crabs and a lot of sea food he bred by himself. He even took out his aged wine to treat us! We chatted till midnight and went to bed with satisfaction.

On the second day, we slept till the sun baked our ass (LOL) and then we set out to visit several temples and went to Luerhmen to see the ceremony of “whipping the spring ox” and to see the fireworks. The fireworks were beautiful, but unfortunately, an accident happened while we were watching it-the fireworks exploded right beside my feet! And I got hurt at the moment! It was quite unforgettable to have such an interlude in almost the end of our journey. Although it hurts, the scar has proved the colorful memory I had in Tainan.

task11

Question 1
How do you like the weekly writing prompts? Are they interesting or boring? Inspirational or weird? Are they related to your life? Can you suggest anything better and give some examples?
I like most of them( the illustrations beside the prompts are cute, too! And they encouraged me to finish the tasks! It seems that TA worked very hard on the layouts, thank you!) , especailly the topic of Britney Spears and Randy Pausch, it is relatively easy for me to bring all my thoughts into full play. Although other topics are related to our lives, it is too similar to write some new contents. It is better to choose something big happen lately.
Question 2
Do you like the two-way online discussion with your keypal? Or do you think we should have more people (like 3~4 students) form a group blog to exchange ideas? Why or why not?
Yes. I think two is just right. Too many people causes more technical problems, especailly the coordination of time. However, we can choose several articles in the end of the semester of others( not our original partner’s article) to give responses so that we can learn from others.
Question 3
Have you encountered any difficulties during the semester when using blogs to discuss with your keypal, e.g., computer problems or anything?
Nope. Not at all. The only problem is that we are both extremely busy so that sometimes we can’t turn in our works on time.
Question 4
How do you like the project website? Are they friendly enough? Have we left out any important content? How do you like the layout/design?
Great, for all the questions above. I think topics related to our lives are not necessary have to be related to the academic ones. It can also related to the things around us, such as big news either in school or in the world.
Question 5
What have you gained from this blog activity?
I find that private schools’ students are not necessary inferior to we who study in national university. Their skills and attitude toward learning and writing are worth learning. I also learned many words and phrases from my kel pal as I mentioned above.
Question 6
If you had an opportunity to start over, would you have done anything differently? If so, how?I will try hard to turn in the tasks on time, to use the grammar more accurately, and to improve my skill of choosing words efficiently.

task 10

1. Please offer your suggestions as how we can grade your performance better?
From my point of view, grammar is probably on of the most important part of our blogging. Only through correct English can we express the right thoughts we are trying to tell others, not to mention we are English majors. Also, the grade should depend on how many efforts we put on it, especially through examine the abundance of the content. And, the progress we make should also be involved in the grading item. It is not hard to see whether we get ahead or not after a long period of blogging from A to Z. Still, the partnership between you and your key pal is a part to consider, too. Good relationship can create better pieces of work together.
2. Based on the criteria you suggested in Q1, please give a score to yourself and explain how you’ve earned it.
I think I can get 7 piont in total( if the full score is 10). I am uncertain about my grammar, but I guess I have improved a lot through these regular practice. I think I do well on finishing the task since I look up the dictionary for simmilar words and phrases, find the information I can add into my article… and so on. Although I may turn in the task late sometimes, I will make it up as soon as possible. As to the partnership between I and my key pal, it is quite satisifying. We responded each other in patiance and we exchange our opinions matually and sincerely.
3. Based on the criteria you suggested in Q1, please give a score to your partner and explain how s/he has earned it.I will give her 8.5 pionts. She always responds me as much as she can, and as soon as she can as well. I can tell from her words that she works hard and she is really a nice girl not only to be a key pal but also a good friend and a good learning partner. She uses good grammar, and I learned couple of words and phrases from her.