[11.18] DST draft

On January 12^th 2008, I arrived at the IAD airport in Washington DC, to start my brand new life here in a country that I have never been here before. All my life I lived in SZ, which is very closed to HK, I lived there for 18 years and have never been living outside of it before.

It has always been their dream that my parents want to send me abroad, and I doubt that they have even started 15 years ago, when I just started my elementary school. I remember that there was an exchange program to the US when I was in fourth grade, and we were all crazy about it, but finally the program was aborted by some kind of unknown reason.

When I was in middle school, I went to UK with my parents. We stayed there for 2 weeks and I visited a local college. It was that experience gave me a first look of studying in a foreign country.

After I came to the US, I experienced:

culture shock: food, speech, lecture, living style.

Time management,

self regulation-spring break,

self-study.

Interaction with people, polite, friendly, culture shock.

[11.2] My worst and best educational experience.

The worst class I have experienced was in last semester, when I was taking a Philosophy class. The professor was experienced, but his lecture was so boring because he was only reading contents from the text book, which most of them were assigned readings. It was also very difficult to take notes because his handwriting was hard to recognize. In my opinion, the characteristics of my worst education experience are: Boring lecture, and hard notes.

Word Count: 75.

The best educational experience happened when I was taking English Language Center courses. The instructors were patient and would explain every point clearly, and the interactions were also a part of the lectures, which made students to think and speak out, not only listening to the instructors, and it made the lectures a lot of fun too. It was easy to take notes in class, important information was written clearly on the blackboard in bullet format. So the characteristics of my best educational experience are: good class experiences, patient instructors, and good notes.

Word Count: 93.

[10.18] This I Believe (draft)

I am a non-believer and . I don't believe in any god in any religion that exists on earth. This is not because I was educated to not to believe in god, but because no one has told me about the god, or I will say, because there was no resources for me to believe in. When I was in high school, I have read about stories on the Bible, I have a book that contained most of the famous Bible stories in it, from that book, I read about "David and Goliath", "Noah's Ark" and so on. I read them just as normal fairy tales just like others that we can see on the story books. After I come to the US, I met some Christian friend, they warmly introduced me to their bible study group and encourage to join their meeting everyday. From that time I became interested in Bible. They gave me a Bible as a gift, and I started reading it. I found it so interesting and started to discuss with my friends. I asked them questions that I didn't understand. And I went to church for a few times and went for retreat in spring break last year. I met some very kind uncles and aunties in the church, they have looked after me very well and I really love them. However I don't go to church and bible study now, I still stay contact with them. I love reading books about Christianity and I like to think about it. I think I will remain a nonbeliever, and waiting, when the time is ready.

[10.12] The Post-80s.

         The term “Post-80s” was first used on newspaper two years ago, which referred to those who were born in 1980s, after the Chinese “One Child Policy” was put forward. Since there was only one child in a family, parents usually spoiled their child by giving them whatever they want and satisfying all their requests. The meaning of the term also includes: no sharing, no caring, and no responsibility. This is a negative term people use to describe us when they are commenting on a negative news that has something to do with my generation. 


Word Count: 98

[10.7] The Mercy That Has Lasted For 1000 Years

    Mazu, who is the goodness of the sea in Taoism, is widely worshipped in the south-eastern coastal areas of China and the neighboring areas in Southeast Asia, that the places have strong sea-faring traditions, and people believe that Mazu will protect them away from danger and come back home safely. To worship Mazu , large numbers of Mazu temples were built on the south-eastern coast of China throughout 1000 years, and the temples have now become a religion symbol and influence the local culture deeply. On every New Year festival, people will go to the temples to worship her by burning joss sticks, hope Mazu will bless them for a well-off new year. 

    The Mazu temple I am introducing is about 20 minutes drive from my home in Shenzhen, which my family also go there on every Chinese New Year Festival. Since Chiwan is an industry port, there are warehouses, container terminals, the Mazu Temple is like against the grain while standing in those modern buildings. There are concerns of the government may move the temple to somewhere else, since people built the temple there near the coast 100 years ago wanted Mazu to protect the fishermen and sailors, removing the temple is against the local residents’ wills.


    My preserving proposal is having some posters about the history of Mazu and the temple posted in the city, and gather signatures from those who are against the removing, forward the signatures to the government and persuade to preserve the temple. 


Word Count: 250

[9.28]Style shift? Attitude shift?

When I finished reading the UMBC 1968 year book “SKIPJACK”, I found that every student in the pictures was very formally dressed, which was very different from the style we can see in college today, which makes me wonder: if the dressing style has changed, will the college experience change too?

Back into the late 1960s, colleges only offer college education opportunity to upper-class people: those who were wealthy or the elites in the society. Students treated college seriously and that’s why we saw the students on the old pictures were all formally dressed: pants and shirts with ties for boys, and long skirt for girls.

Now college education is available to everyone in every social class, and the style of how students dress themselves has clearly showed the shift. When we enter a classroom, we can see students in various casual styles: tees, sports shorts, hot pants, jeans, slippers and flip-flops. Not only students’ style has changed, but also the teachers’ style has changed too: some teachers start to wear in casual style, shirts or t-shirts with jeans.

In my opinion, I consider that the style shift may lead students to an attitude shift towards the college education because I think that dressing style can reflect one’s attitude. Back into the late 1960s, those young adults from upper class families might treat college experience more seriously and focus on school works; they might think that college was for the “evolution” of themselves, which would take them to the next stage of life. But in nowadays, people may not think this way. Refer to my experience, I heard cell phone rings in class and people will just walk out and talk, or student who brings laptop to class and spend the whole class checking Facebook or Twitter.

I used to think that the style shift is a good thing because it shows that college gate is opened to everyone, which is a social improvement, but this social improvement doesn’t seem to have totally benefited the modern college education.

[9.24]Style Shift or Attitude Shift?

When I finished reading the UMBC 1968 year book “SKIPJACK”, to my surprise I found that every student in the pictures was very formally dressed, which was very different from the style we can see in college today. It makes me wonder if the Style Shift will have an impact on the modern college experience.

Back into the late 1960s, college education was only for the upper-class people, those who were wealthy or the elites in the society, and that’s why the style of the students in the late 1960s was shirts and trousers and ties, for ladies were skirts no shorter than knees. 

Now college education is available to everyone in any social class, and the style of how students dress themselves has clearly showed this shift.When we enter a classroom, we can see students in various casual styles: tees with funny pictures, sports shorts, hot pants, jeans, slippers and flip-flops. Not only students’ style has changed, but also the style of the teachers has changed too. Nowadays some of the teacher also starts to wear in casual style, shirts and jeans, or sometimes t-shirts.

I think that the style shift may lead students to an attitude shift towards the college education. Back into the late 1960s, those young adults from upper class families might treat college experience more seriously and focus on school works; they might think that college is for an evolution of themselves, which will take them to the next stage of life. But in nowadays, people may not think this way. Refer to my experience, I heard cell phone rings in class and people will just walk out and talk, or student who brings laptop to class and spend the whole class checking Facebook or Twitter.

I used to think that the style shift is a good thing because it shows that college education is open to everyone, which is a social improvement. But now I have to ask myself, does the style shifting really benefit modern college experience?

Word Count: 335.