Blog 5: Getting lost

Last week, my sister who is the daughter of my father's friend came to Singapore for an exchange program. Thus, during recess week, I went to Jurong Birdpark with her and her schoolmates.
On last Sunday, I went there alone to meet her at the gate of the park, because we lived far away from each other. Before leaving, I had googled how to get there and taken a photo of the map, which I wished to follow if I got lost unfortunately. Actually, I really got lost. I took No.30 bus and got off at the wrong bus stop. I found myself in a rural place where only several cars were passing by on the highway and there were no passers-by. I was so worried but kept walking in the right direction I felt.
On my right, there was a highway and on my left, there were high barriers to screen out the goods imported. The map could not help at all. After a long distance, I noticed there were three people cutting grasses, which gave me a hope. I ran towards them and asked for help. They were all Indians and quite friendly. However, I could only understand the words "go down" and "turn left". I thanked them and continue my steps.
Due to tiredness and no hope, at last I gave up. At the same time, a taxi was coming to me. Therefore, I waved to the driver right away. (There were few taxis, so if I missed the one, probably I had to wait for another for a long time.) I said Jurong Birdpark to the driver and tried to wear the belt. The diver replied, "What? Jurong Birdpark? It is just over there. Very close." I looked at the direction he pointed. I thought he probably wanted me to get out and walked there by myself, but to my surprise, he said, "Don't worry. I will send you there." I felt grateful to him and kept thanking him. In no more than one minute, we arrived. And after making sure I was walked to the right direction towards the gate, he drove away.
It took me one and a half hours to get to the park, tired and hot. However, the help I got from those people made me feel happy the whole day, especially the taxi driver. I have never met a kind man like him before. When I told my sister the experience, she was also surprised and that made her love Singapore more. Perhaps this is why I enjoy Singapore so much. I’d like to deliver this kindness.

Blog 5: We need enough sleep

I know many people do not have enough sleep. They will not go to bed before midnight. While it is very hamful for us to stay up late. Since we only have one body and we need this body for about more than 80 years, such long time, we need to take good care of ourself. Here I would like to introduce you how harmful it is if we are lacking in sleep.

One of the biggest harm is we might become easier to be down with a fever. Because a lack of sleep can lead to the decrease of our immunity. The risk of being caught by a cold for people who sleep less than 7 hours is three times higher than those who sleep more than 8 hours. Some researchers found out that people are inclined to feel upset without enough sleep. We can rest when we sleep. If we do not have enough sleep, our brain would feel tired and be easier to have negtive feeling. Besides that, people might become stupid due to a short of sleep. You may want to have a hot drink, later you are likely to spill the tea on your clothes. The reason is that people might have their fingers all thumbs after a period of a short of sleep, which is a comman phenomena.

So how many hours of sleep is enough? According to the survey, an adult need at least 7 hours sleep. The time can be longer in autumn or winter . The best time to go to bed is during 9 to 11 o' clock in the morning.

So my dear friends, please give up your bad habit of staying up late. Try go to bed earier, you may find yourselves more dynamic to work or study next day.

Blog5: A new way of thinking

How can we cure melancholia? Many answers respond to this question, including creating potent medicine, visiting psychotherapist regularly. However, not many of us think about it in the other side: how can we stay happy and become happier? I did not find how powerful thinking in this way is until I watched the lecture series by Mr TalBen Shahar. In his lectures, I understood that it is significant to transform our minds from concentrating to wiping out what we do not want to focus on obtaining what we desire, if we really want to make a difference.

This kind of conversion seems like carrying coals to Newcastle at first sight but it did work for me. I used to be some kind of prone to be depressed. I used to tell myself, I should not be depressed anymore and I started to take actions to solve the problem. While I was determined, I found it uncomfortable because whenever I thought about dealing with it, the first perception that surged in my mind was DEPRESSION, followed by tears, pains, pressure, agony and the like. So it seemed like I took measures because there was something wrong with me, which left me less desirable to continue. However, in the lecture, I learned that I should think of being happy instead of not being depressed. Hence, I said to myself, I did so because I want to be happier. Amazingly, I became willing to improve myself, making me happier, which in turn motivated me move further. No one believes I was once easy to be depressed because now I can speak to the public confidently with spontaneous smiles, do assignments with full passion and lead a group of people well. It really makes a difference though I was shaky whether it would work.

Besides its application in psychology, what is behind this theory, thinking in positive side, tells me much more. Thinking in positive side is pivotal because of, in my opinion, two reasons. Primarily, it creates new ways to promote betterment. For instance, scientists once did a lot to figure out how to cure certain cancers. What is different now is that they spare much of concentration to how to keep healthy so that people can stay away from cancers. Another relevant point worth mentioning is that, as indicated in my own experience, it makes individuals more willing to improve. As an illustration, in China a decade ago, central government proposed a campaign named “wipe off poverty together” but it turned out that many local officers followed the instructions for the simple reason that their superiors ordered them to do so. Such is human nature that a great many people do not want to admit weakness and become defensive when they have to expose it. Later, the government carried out another plan “become wealthy in union” whose essential purpose and content are almost the same as the former plan. However, it was warmly welcomed all over the country although what they were supposed to did not change. Therefore, not only this way of thinking applies in my life, it can be put to use in many other areas as well, from health care to economics to national policies.

Thanks to this idea, I’ve opened my eyes to a new world of thinking from another dimension. Next time when others ask me how to conquer melancholia, I will say, ok, let me tell you how to stay happy and become happier.

Blog 5 Titanic 3D Movie

    The famous movie Titanic 3D will be on show on 5 April in Singapore. That is really exciting and attracting for me as a fan of Titanic.  I will certainly go to the movie theater to watch this fantastic movie.

       Titanic was a passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City.  She is the largest ship in the world at the time of her maiden voyage and her sinking caused the deaths of 1,517 people, which is really a tragedy.

       However, after 83 years later, in 1995, a very famous director James Cameron wrote and directed an epic romance and disaster film about Titanic, which recalled people’s memory of the very famous ship and impressed them with the beautiful love story between Jack and Rose.  Actually, before the film was shown to screen in 1997, Titanic was not been optimistic about because it was considered as the most expensive movie at that time.  Unexpectedly, the film became famous all over the world and garnered countless awards including the Academy Awards.  Besides, it also grossed over 1.8 billion breaking the world box office records.

       Now, on April 5^th, 2012, precisely a century after the sinking of the famous ship and 15 years after the film’s initial theatrical release, Titanic resurfaces in theaters again.  I’m really looking forward to it.

Blog 5 The Give Programme

I am lucky to be chosen to join the Give Programme, whose aim is to make us more invovled in Sinaporean life. And my duty is to teach Chinese chess to the secondray school students. And luckily the school where I teach is not far from where I live(comparing to those who have to spend approximately 2 Singapore dollars on MRT which manifests that they almost have to take the MRT from one terminal station to another )
I remember I was very nervous at the beginning of the first class, plus it was hot in the classroom, thus my sweat wet out my shirt. By the way, we are required to dress formally, no shorts or sneakers or T-shirt is allowed. But I think I concealed my nerverousness very well by making some gestures and telling some stories about mysself. Gradually everything went on well and smoothly as expected, and I could say that I even enjoyed my time teaching them afterwards.
I found that there are many differences between the education in China and Singapore. In China, we have more rules and we are more "quite" ; however, in Singapore,the children are really outgoing and willing to express their ideas and opinions. But maybe it is because the capacity of class in Singapore is much smaller than in China, so that teacher can place more concentration on each student.
Another phenomenon I found interesting is that student speak both English and Chinese, and the blend of these two languages sometimes makes me feel that they are Chinese actually which narrow the distance between me and them.
I like those children very much, they really leave me a very deep and good impression!

Blog5 : Outlook

I realized how wonderful I can make my campus life be when attending NUS open house.

Though the two’s open house didn’t give me much details about the school, it gave me a blueprint of the campus life. Compared to bridging course, life will be much more fast-paced. We will have more things to study, more work and project to do and more activities to participate in. In the open house I got to know some things about NUS such as USP, SEP, NOC (Unfortunately we can’t participate in this program), UROP, double degree, double major, minor etc. Maybe my campus life will be surrounded by those programs, lectures, experiments, various activities etc. It is better than the life now though life now is more relaxing and comfortable. But I prefer life with challenges and adventures. Maybe I’ll find more about myself after matriculating into NUS and life will be more wonderful then. And I also came to know more about the majors. After talking with some seniors and professors, I am not so puzzled as before.

For me the most important thing during this program is that I got to know my campus life could be wonderful in many ways and I have to work enough hard to achieve it.

So many decisions waiting us to make

Last Thursday, I, with another two of my friends, went to the Vivo City to watch a movie called Salmon fishing in the Yemen. The film is made based on a true story which, from my perspective, is that a officer of British Government and a scientist fell in love in Yemen when they helped a local rich man build a dam so that it not only can raise water there for the arid area, but also can raise fish for people to fish. They three met many challenges there because the local people did not understand them, and they even faced the danger of death. However, they finally conquered the problems and riped the love. Why do I stress that "from my perspective"? Because I am not sure whether it is true or not, for the movie we watched did not have any title, and we can only tell the words by listening, which was a big challenge to us. But fortunatelly, due to our experience in watching movies before, and the sentences we understood, we can almost understand the plot. From the experience, I realized that my listening skills needed to be improved and that forcing myself to the totally english environment when watching a movie without the help of titles is good for our practising.

Blog 5: Science or Engineering

Nowadays, the most popular topic among SM3 students is major in NUS. Because of the agreement that SM3 students have signed, we can only choose science, computer science or engineering. Like me, most people abandon computer science and hesitate to choose science or engineering.
The reasons are obvious. First, not everyone has a passion for computer. Some of SM3 students do not choose computer science because they are afraid of C programming, not to mention C++ or Java. A large amount of student hate computer science because they do not like to sit in front of computers all day to design crazy programming which is filled with countless letters and numbers. What`s worse. Sometimes the programmers have to spend a whole to look for a error which makes the program not work. As for me, I like programming but I do not like work with computers in rest of my life, because computer radiate bad ray which may cause health problem or make me look old.
As a result, I prefer science or engineering, but which of them is better? There are a lot of lectures for SM students about majors. However, the more they say, the harder we choose. After a long time of delving into majors, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages in science and engineering.
Science is a kind of basic major. In science, what we can learn is mostly theoretical things. It aims at molding scientists who have critical thinking and solid theoretical foundations. The biggest advantage of science is that the module in science is more flexible and we can have the scheme which is most suitable for us. Moreover, some seniors told us that if you studied in science, you would have a relaxing university life and you can use spare time to participate in activities to gain CCAs to remain in halls. The disadvantages are also evident. Because the knowledge we gain is too theoretical, it is hard to find a job.
Engineering is more practical compared to science. It is never a problem for engineering students to find a job, especially for the students who are in the hot majors. It is because there is a big demand of engineers and the graduates are not enough to meet the needs of big companies. Furthermore, engineers do not have to be an engineer forever; they can choose other jobs since they have clever brains, profound knowledge and practical skills. As some researches show, the graduates in engineering can be bankers, businessmen and so on. For example, the Chairman in China was once a student in engineering in Tsinghua University. Nevertheless, there are a lot of talented students in engineering. Once we choose engineering, we have to compete with so many strong rivals.
Above contents are just some suggestions. Now the deadline of choosing majors is coming. I hope everyone can choose suitable major.

Blog 5: Faith

At this night (25/3), I can feel that the recess week is going away. There aren’t many unforgettable memories during these 9 days, except one happening yesterday.

It is 5 pm, and I woke up from my nap after hearing Xuezhi’s voice. He guessed I might forget the invitation from our mentor in hostel and intended to remind me of it. Indeed, I had totally forgotten it. All I had known about the invitation was that borders on this level were invited to have a dinner with our mentor, Han Yi. And she would wait for us at Clementi MRT station at 5:30 that day. Maybe I didn’t take it very serious so I forgot and slept late…

Time was limited. Although I tried my best to be punctual, I was still late for 6 minutes. When reached there, I saw almost all our “level mates” and the mentor as well as several adults I didn’t know. After some greetings, I realised they are all friends because they are all Nazarene. Then we were all taken to a villa of one of the adults.

There were more things besides a dinner. We started with a lesson about how to make our own food, a kind of roll. Then we had the chicken soup and chatted with each other. We laughed a lot and learnt a lot. We were enjoying the free party.

After the dinner, the house owner made the aim for this party clear: they were glad for our coming as overseas students and they were willing to help us to adapt the new environment, because some of them had also experienced the same experience as we had and had been helped overseas when they were young.

I thought it was a kind of faith. It was not the faith to Jesus, but a faith to help someone who needs the help, just like them in old days.

Later, we students performed some programs to show our gratitude. Finally it ended with a song Friends. Then we separated with reluctance.

The faith will be inherited.

Blog 5: Reflections of "There are more dogs than people"

As we all know, Xu Sun, a student with scholarship from China who got into trouble as a result of saying "there are more dogs than people in Singapore."  First, I would like to introduce the origin of this speech to you.  Qingdong Kong, aprofessor of Peking University, used to give critical comments on a video about an incident happened on Hong Kong's subway.  However, the media misinterpreted the speech on purpose in order to attract more attention, which eventually caused a great disturbance.  In fact, he never said that "people who don't speak mandarin are dogs" or "Hong Kong people are all dogs".  I think that the media should not be that irresponsible.  On the other hand, Qingdong Kong had better pay more attention on his words since they may have a very bad influence.  Then Xu Sun quoted the misinterpreted words to complain about something, which also caused a great disturbance in Singapore.  I feel sorry to hear that since I think we should be thankful that we got the scholarship to study in Singapore rather than insult Singaporeans.  Besides this, people should pay attention to their own words especially in this law-governing society.  In conclusion, people should treat the media objectively and be careful of what we say. 

Blog 5: A Distasteful Animation

       The other day, my roommate shared with me an animation called Happy Tree Friends, which drove me crazy. How I wish I had never watched that animation!

       In the episode my roommate and I watched together, there were three animals: a red rabbit, a blue cat and a green little dragon. Each of them was depicted very simple with a numb smiling face. At first, they rode in a cart running on rails. As the cart headed forward, horrible things came one after another. The first animal was crashed by a large robot hand beside the rails, blood splashing around. Then the second animal was cut in half from the top of head to the heels by a huge unknown machine, leaving its skeleton exposing to the air. The last animal was no luckier than the former two, who was burned to death in the red boiled liquid pouring down from above the cart.

       I was shocked as I watched it. But out of curiosity, I watched two more episodes, both of whom, as I expected, were filled with violence, adversity, blood and death. Some of the scenes were so distasteful that I hope not to recall them the rest of my life.

I wonder how the creators of this animation survived through these ideas. What is more, animations are generally intended for children. Did they ever think about how this kind of work would affect kids? I feel so lucky because I am neither one of the irresponsible creators nor a child watching such animation in childhood.

Blog 5: Those things about entropy

Origin
"It's a very strange thing," after a physics class about entropy, I was talking with my physics teacher who was smiling and looking at me ."It's a very strange thing," I continued," about the significance of creatures in the aspect of physics if I consider entropy to this significance, and the result of the cosmos is also very strange." I asked some questions about this significance and this result, but my teacher said he did not know the answer exactly and I could think by myself. Therefore, I started thinking. This was the first time when I encountered the concept of entropy.
My problems
In the second law of thermodynamics, entropy is a basic quantity which quantifys randomness of a closed system. Bigger a system's entropy is, more random this system is, and vice versa. More importantly, in a closed system, the entropy will be absolutely bigger and bigger if there is no outside impact on this system. Immediately, in my mind, problems come out.
The first problem is that the creature of life seems to be a exception to entropy. It is universally acknowledged that the body of a creature is orderly rather than oforder. Superficially the basic aim of a creature is to maintain hers/his/its order and live longer as a kind of creature. However, it seems that the creature of life is meaningless to our universe.
The second problem is that if the whole universe is considered as a closed system(as far as I know, our universe should be a closed system) , the entropy will be bigger and bigger which somehow means that our universe will inflate forever and die in peace and darkness, whereas physics teacher said our universe is inflating for a time and then it will deflate to a point again. Obviously, two conclusions are contradictory.
My analysis
To answer my question raised by myself, I thought greatly and searched oceans of information and asked my classmates(my class was a tracked class for bright students, so most of my classmates are very intelligent) for help. Subsequently, I got my answers.
For the first problem, my conclusion was that actually we, the creature of life, contribute much to the entropy increasing of our universe. To some extent, the vitally important feature of creatures is that they will spare no effort to maintain their low entropy and a creature is not a closed system. But what is creatures’ significance? Like what Hegel said:” That’s reasonable”, we, lives, should have significance. One day when I encountered biocatalyst, an idea burst out that creatures, actually, are the catalyst of the increasing of entropy. The universe is like a river, everything is flowing down to the lower altitude, but there is a boat which is trying to maintain itself so it push the water or other things backward, and the result is that the flowing of water or other things is speeded up. We, creatures which is most unique considered by ourselves, become a catalyst of universe’s process of termination which is related to the second problem.
For the second problem, I found an intersting thing: Black Hole which is the key of my analysis. It is said that the black hole’s entropy is extremely high and anything will deflate into black holes, so logically I thought two conclutions, I mentioned above, was not contradictory. Besides, I need learn more about it.

Blog 5 My Give Programme

I have just spent a busy recess week during which I gave three classes to the class 1G in Westwood Secondary School. I think I obtain a good harvest from the Give Programme. I cannot wait to share my experience with you.

Together with two partners, I started my "GIVE" journey from last Tuesday. We were expected to wear formal clothes like teachers instead of casual T-shirts. After waiting for some time in the school office, Ms Wong directed us to 1G classroom, where 26 cute boys and girls were awaiting. They looked so young, although they have already been 13 years old. When I first saw them, they seemed to be enjoying their noon break. The commodious classroom was filled with laughter. Our little nervousness for the first class vanished instantly as soon as we saw them. I had confidence that we would finish our lessons smoothly and they would enjoy them.

The first lesson on the basic rules of Chinese chess was taught by my partner. Fortunately, we were allowed to teach in Chinese, or I really have no idea how to explain the movement skill of various chessmen. We had prepared for the first lesson to render it as interesting as possible. I am clear about the significance of developing their interest in the first class. The basic rules were taught together with our personal experience of playing chess and instant demos using a software called "Chess Wizard". We felt inspired that most pupils had mastered how to play Chinese chess after the class.

The following two lessons carried on two days later. I was responsible to teach the skill of killing the opposing king, which could be the most interesting lesson for learners. I enlightened them to find the way to win the games on their own. No wonder they were fairly fond of it. Many students performed actively in answering questions and showing their thoughts through the computer. During the exercise time, they played together with passionate discussion, and we would offer help when they met with problems. I believe that they have become interested in this intellectual game. In the end of the third class, I distributed the chocolates I bought in advance to encourage them. I genuinely appreciate their cooperation for my classes.

Now I have a better understanding of "Interest is the best teacher". And I am proud that I can make some contribution to spread our Chinese traditional culture. The talent of these secondary students gives me a profound impression. I will cherish this unforgettable experience.

Blog 5 The exciting journey during recess

This Tuesday was really a fantastic day for me not only because it was one of the comfortable recess days but also due to the company of my three classmates Qingchun, Tian ye, Yiyang as well as Mr.Ng. Here, I would like to share with you our special journey.
At 9 o’clock in the morning, we were picked up by Mr.Ng and he took us to an Indian restaurant where for the first time I had a taste of the typical Roti Prata with fish curry and a special kind of drink called Teh Tarik which was a kind of milk tea made in particular procedure. On the way, Mr.Ng told us a lot more about Singapore and at the parking lot, I learned how to use the coupon to pay for parking fees which from my perspective, is a way that requires people’s high self-consciousness.
After that, we went to Bukit Timah Nature Reserve with the high expectation to have a look at monkeys. Fortunately, we also encountered two lizards before coming across several little monkeys who were taking an easy walk along the road and the courtyard walls. Furthermore, although the highest mountain in Singapore is not as difficult to climb as the mountains in China, we also took some effort to climb to the summit. To be honest, the scenery along the road was so wonderful that we couldn’t stop taking photos all the way.
However, these were just the beginning of the greatest excitement. When we were having fun in another park nearby, we suddenly saw a thin but long snake crawling on the road. It had bright red stripes from which we conjectured that it might be poisonous.
It was already 12 o’clock when we finished the exciting journey. Mr.Ng took us to his house where we had a great delicacy. We were surprised to find that besides reading newspaper, Mr.Ng was also fond of listening to classic music. The most impressive thing on me was that during the whole day, Mr.Ng was speaking Chinese, which made all of us much more relaxed and I was moved by his being so caring for us.
Moreover, this Tuesday was also special since our small group spent almost the whole afternoon talking about our research topic. We analyzed the advantages and disadvantages for each topic elaborately before making a final decision. During the long discussion, I learned more about how to explain my own idea clearly as well as how to achieve a thorough comprehension of others’ opinions. Although it was only the beginning of our research program, I had a deeper understanding of the meaning of cooperation, which was to learn more from each other and in the meantime to strain every nerve towards the same goal.
At the beginning of phase 2, I would like to thank all my tutors as well as classmates for your help during the past few months. I am looking forward to the following learning journey. No matter how stressful the future will be, I just want to keep moving with all of you.

To be much closer to the nature

      If you want to be much closer to the nature, Labrador Lodge will be your first choice.  As our dormitories where we live in the period of bridging course, Labrador Lodge is so close to the Labrador Park and Sea that we can approach the park on foot for at most 15 minutes.  If you are fond of jogging, you can readily find an exquisite place in Labrador Lodge Park to go jogging.  Moreover, since the park is built along the seaside, standing in the park you can breathe the fresh air and commune with the nature directly.  In contrast, the River Valley where the boys live is much closer to the noisy traffic.  I always hear some boys in our class complain they didn’t sleep well last night because of the rumbling noise.  In addition, the equipment in Labrador Lodge is really old according to its appearance.  Since its raw material is wood-a type   of pretty natural material, giving person a refreshed natural sense.  Furthermore, there are some kinds of lovely little animals living in the Labrador lodge, such as pigeons, cats and cockroaches.  While you having a meal in the dining hall, you can see lots of birds fly along the bottom of roof and cats lying under the tables.  At that moment, you can be more close to the nature as if you are eating outdoors.

Blog4: An inspiring SMS

When we boys were leaving for RVHS on Wednesday afternoon, I received an unexpected SMS. It said that, "It is amazing that your pronunciation improve a lot. " It was from my groupmate--Yan Shi.
We gave our oral presentation on Wednesday morning. To be honest, I had practiced many times before this. Thus I was quite confident when I was giving my presentation. Through the inspiring SMS from Yan Shi, I knew that my efforts did pay off.
I am so grateful to the SMS, because it not only praised my work but also gave me more confidence to take up challenges in the future. On the one hand, everyone need encouragement and help to make himself more confident and braver. On the other hand, we are not willing to show gratification to others in many cases. But once you do it, the recipient will thank you a lot. Now we are all taking the intensive English class, and almost everyone will encounter some difficuties in this process. We should never grudge giving encouragement. That you give praise to others means that you give yourself courage.
Next time when you appreciate the outstanding performance of someone, just show your feelings to him.

Blog 4:About the weather in Singapore

When I first came to Singapore,I thought that Singapore is too hot,why? Because at Beijing airport, the temperature there could be below zero.When I eventually got used to the life in Singapore.I found that the weather was great!

         I come from Chongqing, one of the hottest cities in China.In summer,the temperature there can even shoot up to 45 degrees centigrade, which is very hot for even those intrepid people.However,I love summer,so Singapore is the best choice, for it only has “warm”summer.It is not hot but fine for me.Furthermore, there are also airconditioners indoor.That is quite good.In general,weather in Singapore is the kind of weather I prefer.

               There is one other  thing that drive me crazy, which is the super rainstorm!  I really enjoy watching it pouring down and listening to the sound that drops hitting ground.  Furthermore,  sometimes the thunder is so deafening that I can feel the bed shaking when I hear it in my room!  How exciting it is! 

               Maybe some residents don’t like it,but I’d like to say I love it!

Blog 4：When we are young

My sister who is learning in Chinese Agriculture University came to Singapore with schoolmates to have an exchange course yesterday. Therefore, in order to have a good tour with her in her free time, I searched for some places of interest. When I asked my roommate, a lovely girl, she told me a lot of interesting places. She knew the prices of almost every spots. She even told me where the ice cream was the most delicious and at which corner of a certain street a small but famous and traditional restaurant exist. I was really surprised. How could she visit so many places?
As for me, I merely have been to Sentosa, Botanic Garden and some shopping malls.
I still remember when I was interviewed in Harbin Institute of Technology, the professor from NUS asked me whether I am energetic. And I replied yes because I used to join many activities and enjoy every second to go out and do something. However, nowadays, I seldom go out but almost spend my weekends in the dormitory because I feel tired after a week’s courses.
Today, I opened a book my sister gave me, which I had left at home. Some words caught my attention, which were written by my friend in HIT. He said that the reason why he gave me this book as a gift before my leaving is that he wished I could read books or traveled outside so that either my heart or my body would be on the way. I felt sorry to fail to achieve this goal.
I just realize that I waste so much time that I could have spent in enjoying the world outside. When we are young, what we should do is go out to see the world to find what diversity of ethnic people are doing, where colorful scenery are shining and how distinct culture are mixing. Thus, when we are no longer young, we can say we have already go through the whole world and there is no pity.

bolg4:The first oral presentation
On Wednesday, we successfully gave our first oral presentation in class, which may be meaningful and impressive to us. I think my presentation may be not good, but I did make my efforts to complete it. Before I addressed the speech, I could not remind anything about my speech although I managed to recite it fluently yesterday. Then when I was on the stage, I felt nervous and stressed because it was my first official speech in class although there were many oral reports that I had made before. During my speech, I made all my efforts to smooth the presentation so that I left some information which was not relevant to the subject closely. After the speech, because I found that my classmates were not active to ask some questions to others and I regarded my topic-the oppression against women and girls as the boring and monotonous one, I felt a little shameful and sorry to ask for some questions and I got back to the seats quickly and embarrassedly. In conclusion, I will depict my first presentation as a failure and there is a lot of progress that I can make in the next presentation.

Blog4: Walk to the Coast

      Old and shabby as Laborador Lodge is, as we concluded on Monday, one of the a few things worth mentioning is that it is close to the south west coast where Laborador Nature Reserve is located. Students in LL like going to the coast for exercise, relaxing and entertainment.

       I go to the seaside periodically. This afternoon, after we came back to the dorm, I decided to walk to the coast for relaxing. Umbrella in hand in case of rain, I walked along the sideway. It was mild then, and I could only encounter one passerby or two every now and then. There were tall trees and meadows on either side of the road, where birds kept twittering and insects were performing a symphony. I felt pleased by the sound of nature and my mind free because of the peaceful surroundings.

       The coast was quieter than what I usually saw as there was no fisherman fishing and less people around. The sea lay vast and mighty, and the sun was dipping towards the horizon. Sprays were chasing one after another, swirling and pattering the rocks on the shore. It was the best time for the mind to wander, so I sat on a bench, gazing into the sea, inhaling the salty and moisture air, and enjoyed this peaceful period of moment.

       As I walked along the path along the coast, I saw a small black dead fish lying at the corner of a pole. It had already a bit rotted, ants all over its body. I thought it must have been abandoned by a fisherman who had caught it. The scene gave me a feeling that life was delicate and fragile, and could end at any time. Thus we had no reason not to cherish every day we live, and no reason not to be ourselves and appreciate what we possess in life.

       On the way back to the dorm, I felt my mind clearer and more energetic. How great it was to get close to the nature, to enjoy and appreciate life.

Blog 4 :Chinese Pop Singers

Today I am going introduce some Chinese pop singers to you.

Jay Chou used to be very famous for his Chinese style songs like Nunchucks, Faraway and Nocturne.  Some of his songs such as Faraway and In The Name of The Father were so classis that he even can not write any song better than them.  However, his last several albums were not very popular.

Vae is a very famous network singer.  In 2005, he flushed the entire network with an original album called "custom".  From the on, he wrote quite a great number of good songs including The Can-Xue, Rose's Funeral and Why Not, whose melodies are very beautiful.  And he is also one of my favourite singers.

Melodia and Silence are another two network singers who are very popular in China now.  I would like to recommend some nice songs to you, such as Bach's Old Testament and If I Go After Dateless.

Hope you will enjoy them. 

Blog 4: Epiphany

Sometimes,you were afraid of something which was going to happen. But when it doesn’t happen as planned, you will become eager for it and feel regretful for its breaking the appointment. The premise is that the thing finally will happen, anyway.

Today,that “you” is me and the “something” is my oral presentation. To be honest, I was a little afraid of doing oral reports or presentations or any other such kind of jobs, because of my poor oral English. I had been worrying about today’s oral presentation from last Sunday, the day I began to preparefor it. From then on, every day I felt uncomfortable and always thought about what if I failed to present it well. I even wished today wouldn’t come. However, I couldn’t stop the time.

I am No.18, the last one to present. Even though the whole morning was for us to do the presentations, since everyone had question time, there was only 20 minutes left when Mengdan (No.16) came to the stage. How to describe my feelings then? I don’t know. Maybe I felicitated that probably I wouldn’t show up? But when Mengdan finished and teacher said “one more last, and next week to finish all”, I was shocked. The time indeed seemed not abundant but it still had the possibility to do two, I thought. Instantly, I realized that this thought had given me away already: I was not afraid any more, on the contrary, I looked forward it somehow.

It’s the will of heaven? Maybe I can prepare for my oral presentation better since I still have one week. As I stated at the beginning, I’m eager for its coming now. So why not to choose to prepare it with good mood at the very beginning?

Yeah, I will.

Blog 4 : Apple influence

   “An apple a day, keep the doctor away.”This saying used to describe apple’s benefit to people’s health.  But now it is used for another meaning.  That is to mean people who play with the apple product whole day cannot get a doctor degree.  This is used just for fun.  But it reflects the influence of apple product.

 Apple products are probably the most popular electronic products now.  In Singapore apple product can be seen almost everywhere.  Though it is not cheap, it cannot stop apple products from becoming shopping-rush goods.  It has become a trend in the electronic market.  Now many people are looking forward to the ipad3 which is going to come out soon.  Though Apple Company lost Jobs, it is still a magnate in electronic market.

But apple products do cause some problems at the same time. Though apple product is good, it also has evident disadvantage.  However, people follow as sheep when they are faced with apple products.  They do not know why they want to buy.  They just buy it as others buy it.  Another problem is that people put too much focus on such products.  It influences their daily life of studying or working.

Apple product is good but don’t let it control your mind. Being a sensible and reasonable consumer is quite important in today’s society.

Blog 4：The Experience Of Taking Part In The 5km Runing Race

Last Saturday, I took part in a 5km running race with some friends. It was a really a challege to me. I am happy that I finished the whole race without walking a step. When I first started running, I felt full of energy. After few minutes, I started to feel exhausted and wanted to stop running. While I kept telling myself that I can do it, just keep on running. I tried to look at the scene along the road, trying to distract myself fron the tired feeling. Soon I saw a mark saying that I had finished 2km. I encouraged myself and kept on running. I did not know how many minutes had passed when I came across the women who stood on the side of the path, encouraging us and telling us that only 1 km left. On hearing this, I felt reflesh and speeded up until I passed the finishing line. When I was in high school, I always failed the PE exam. However, I finished the race this time. I felt proud of myself and I knew that I can succeed if I try my best.

blog 4

I think recently somehow I lost the motivation to improve my English skills. It does not mean that I don’t like English anymore or I gave up learning English, but I need some time to introspect into my own mind. I placed too much attention on the vocabulary as well as the listening, but I just realise that without merging those book knowledge with practical experience, all that I am doing now is not efficient at all. Therefore, I quite learning English in this inflexible and simple way. However, although I know I need more practise and try to use English instead of Chinese as often as I can, just like the teacher told us, I can feel that there are something more profound inside the language learning. It’s not just about using frequently or hard-working, it’s about changing your concept of the object. For example, when we hear Chinese, we can immediately feel the meaning. But when we hear English, we can’t, or for the most of the time we can’t. We need to translate that into Chinese to find that similar feeling. Maybe it’s because the English speakers think differently and we have different mindsets. Maybe it’s because we have different understanding due to different culture, or maybe it’s a very complex reason combining all those points of view. Anyway, my English is far away from being satisfactory so that I still have a long long way to go

Blog 4 5K Fun Run

Last Saturday, I took part in a race together with my friends in West Coast Park. The race is called ICS 5K Fun Run, and is organized by International Community School.  Many people, no matter they are young or old, joined in this activity.  Most of them are Caucasians.  This is really an impressive experience for me.

       We met by the large sheltered area in West Coast Park at around 8:30 in the morning.  Later, we collected our running uniforms (a yellow T-shirt) and changed.  At 9:00am, a coach led us did a quick warm up and introduced some rules.  Then the 5K Run began.  At the beginning, the race didn’t seem very hard and I ran in a normal speed.  Actually, I even passed many people!  However only 10 minutes later, I became tired.  The run seems endless and my energy ran out very fast.  Another 10 minutes passed, I began to feel desperate and slow down my speed, just like walking fast.  When I had finished 2 kilometers, I gave up running and began walking completely.  And I just went running and walking by turns in the last 2K run.  At the time I finished my running, I didn’t want to move even a finger!

       After the race, I realized my lack of exercise.  I think I will do more exercise and run longer next time.

Blog 4： Three Kingdoms Killers

Let me introduce you my favorite online game-- Three kingdom killers. It is the most popular table game in China. It can not only let you know more about Chinese history, but also help you distinguish your ally and your enemy.

The game is a little difficult. Don`t worry too much. After reading my blog, you can know the basic rule of the game. You can begin your amazing tour of Three kingdoms killers online.

First of all, everyone will get 3 cards to choose from. Each card represents a person in three kingdoms. Different persons have different skills. (Don`t care about the skills now. For beginners, every person is the same.) Next you will get a card representing your blood and 5 cards that you can use in the process of the game. (Generally, in your turn, you will get 2 more cards to use) Then you use cards to separate you into 3 groups. The king and the good ministers are in one group. The bad ministers are in one group. The hidden traitor don`t have friends, he must depend on his wisdom.

Now, the game begins. Only one group can win. Therefore, they should use their cards to kill the people in other groups. You only know which group you are in, so you should guess who is your ally and who is your enemy. It is very fun, isn`t it. If you are the hidden traitor, you are unlucky. First, you should help the king kill the bad ministers, and then you should help the rest bad ministers kill the good ministers and the king. Only when you kill everyone can you win. What a tough job.

Do not wait. Join us to experience a different magical game!

Blog 3: Life(a novel)

Before I have read a novel--Life, written by Lu Yao. The first character, whose name was Gao Jialin, was almost an perfect youth. There was no obvious shortcoming of him. He always got first place in an exam when he was in the senior high school. He was talented at writing and good at playing basketball. If there was an obstacle, he could become mentally stronger and more confident. Because of the poor education standard, in his class there was no one who was admitted into a college after graduation from high school. Nor did Jialin. But thanks to someone who know and appreciate Jialin's ability, Jialin was chosen to be a teacher in a primary school. However, the good situation did not last for a long time. After the son of the village head graduated, he replaced Jialin to teach in the school. As a result, Jialin became a farmer. He was depressed and upset. Luckily, the pure love between him and a girl--Qiaozhen, relieved him and made him be hopeful about future. Because someone wanted to flattered Jialin's uncle, who was an officer in the county, Jialin was given a job by some illegal process. When he worked in the county, Jialin got a sense of self-development and wanted to live more dreams. Gradually, he did not admire Qiaozhen so much as before and he fell in love with another girl, who was a classmate of the senior high school. Finally, Qiaozhen got married with a farmer. Yet something unfortunate happened to Jialin in the end. The affair about his job was accused.With great regret and disappointment, he became a farmer once again.
This is the summary of the novel. Jialin is an aspiring and outstanding man. He had his own faults, but the biggest problem causing his failure was the social problems. There was no adequate resources and opportunities in his time. Many youth like Jialin could not achieve their dream. Nowadays situations have changed a lot and we should treasure present happiness. Tell youself, "Never lose heart. Never give up. Try your best to pursue what you want."

Blog 4:Do not abuse our rights

We all know that The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10th December 1948. Since that, people have attached great importance to guaranteeing human rights and worked hard to dispel the violation of human rights. However, we sometimes disregard the other side, the abuse of human rights.

Rights should be used in the right way and with qualifications. We cannot live alone, so that we should care about others when we want to satisfy ourselves. For example, we have the right to sing songs freely but we are not supposed to sing songs extremely loudly when everybody else is sleeping, which is unacceptable legally, emotionally, morally and traditionally.

In addition, punishment should be inflicted on who use rights in a wrong way. I recently heard news that a Chinese scholar in NUS had said something improper about Singaporeans in renren.com which annoyed many people. He was asked to make formal apologise and attend a hearing held by NUS about what the punishment should be. This is not the first time that I heard something like this. Hence, educating people not to abuse their rights is as important as helping them fight against their rights.

In conclusion, we all need to pay attention to the way we exploit our rights and use them for the benefit of ourselves as well as others.

Some reflections of playing football

When I was young, I enjoyed playing football very much and usually, my position was striker, because I like the feeling to attain scores. However, as I grew up and was higher and higher, I gave up playing it and turned to playing basketball.
Last Friday, fortunately, my friends invited me to join them in a friendly football match towards local students. But this time, my job was to defend. In fact, I seldom defend, but I would do my best. During the match, although I tried my best, rivals still gained three scores, which made me feel frustrated at that time.
After the match, I came up with some reflections from football. One is that I realised that being a defender is as difficult as being a striker and, defenders are very important for a team. Before the match, I, like most of others, always appreciated the stikers more and paid little attention on defenders. We prefered to give a lot of applause and complishments to strikers when they gain scores, but always forgot that defenders also have their own contributions. So this experience made me understand more about defenders and their functions. And next time, I will be happy to be a defender.

Blog 4 Whether it is necessary to use monitors?

Last week we talked about whether it was necessary to have monitors everywhere, especially in the offices for employers to keep an eye on their employees. Being interested in this topic, I tried to clear up my mind and think more in depth after our class discussion. Here I would like to share my opinion with you.

In the first place, to view it at an individual level, it seems that no matter where and when the monitor is used to keep track of a person is a kind of invasion of privacy. To put it differently, each and every one of us is an entire world, a world in which we have the right to do whatever we want without others’ interference. Just as Shuzhi has put forward, it has nothing to do with the employer if we want to scratch the back to make it more comfortable at work, but we will be absolutely stopped to make such an embarrassing little thing when under observation which is likely to decrease efficiency instead. Hence, there is no doubt that it is unnecessary to have monitors to watch us when we are doing some “personal things”.

However, here comes the critical problem: what is the accurate definition of “personal things”? Seen from a social angle, every thing that an individual does is closely related to the whole society, even when we are in a public washroom, what we do will undoubtedly affect some other people. Nevertheless, why we usually don’t have monitors in washrooms? To some extent, it is because the society tends to pay as much attention as possible to value individual privacy and try to solve the problem in a more acceptable way, which means to put up slogans and to use some public-service advertisements and some other ways to improve people’s quality. Although it still may not work for everyone, at least it is effective for most people.

As far as I am concerned, using monitors is not a shortcut for high efficiency, it is the policy we put forward when there is no better way to protect the rights and interests for most people. For companies, I think it will be more reasonable to guarantee the efficiency by giving each employee appropriate task within fixed time instead of tracing the working process. As for the situations where it is hard to keep a balance, such as in the supermarkets, it seems that we have no choice but to use the monitors to achieve relative equality for most people. What’s more, it is significant to inform people when they are under observation, since that the right to know is a basic right for all of us.

To conclude, using monitors is a means to protect more people's rights and interests when there is no better ways to make it.

Blog 4 My Roommate

For the first time, I try to describe a person in English. He is my present roommate.

Forgive me that I will not mention his name here. We have lived together for nearly 3 months. The first impression he gave me is shyness. He is really a shy boy who even has difficulty talking with strangers. After he becomes familiar with a person, he will not be shy anymore. Actually, I enjoy making fun of him. Although I am not very outgoing, I believe myself that I can make him more active than before.

No wonder he is a capable person. I am used to calling him "literary youth","technical youth",and "academic youth". It is not common for a boy to enjoy literature so much. He wrote his own novel in senior high school! I often find him writing journals quietly which are not allowed to see by others. He is also good at using mobile phone and computer. However, frequent replacement of operating systems brings him trouble. Both his cellphone and laptop have broken down for many times. Fortunately, they got well in the end. I think this is his difference from my character. I seem to be more cautious while he is more willing to take risks. Actually, I extremely appreciate his exploratory spirit.

His another personality I want to mention here is diligence. He is really an "academic youth" who likes studying. To many pupils, studying is just the access to good grades and happy lives.

However, his thought is that a person should always learn something to render his or her life meaningful. So he learned literature and computer skill by himself. He does well in self-studying.

In brief, I am glad to know him and be his close friend. I will know more about him while we live together.

Blog 4:My Experience of Battling the Ants in my Dormitory!

To tell the truth, after I came to Singapore, if the irritating traffic noise is the second most disturbing issue which I have been trapped in, nothing but the enormous ants in my dormitory can be the most disturbing one.
The first time I came into my dormitory, I lay in my new and soft bed while my skin of my arm itched. It was ants in my bed! I still remember that I spent much cleaning my bed. Hopefully, after a few days, this "cute" ants never came back.
To my surprise, 1 months later, they came back. After analyzing the matter, my intelligent roommate found that it was after we ate up the Vinegar Garlic which I bought from my hometown when ants appeared again. So he went out to buy the Vinegar Garlic, but unluckily no store in Singapore sells the commodity, so he just bought garlic. However, it had been proved that the garlic did not work. Afterwards, we met the female senior who once lived in our room. She told us that there was a large ant nest near our room and she had already spared no afford to kill all the ants but never succeeded. Then we tried,too. Obviously, we also failed.
Now, we are not bothering to battue the countless ants. "Let them go."I think. And we always amuse ourselves by pinching the ants and killing them. It is just like a game, a boring and cruel game. Maybe the best way to defend the ants is to avoid eating snacks in the bedroom, and we are trying.

Blog 3: how to choose our majors

       Last Sunday, we were invited to a programme which was called the discovering engineering @nus.  The reason why we were invited to participant this programme is that we will choose our majors in university in April and we need to know some information about the majors we can choose.

       At the start of the programme, there was a humorous professor who can speak Chinese, especially the DongBei accent very well giving us an overview talk on Faculty of Engineering. This lecture was really attractive and inspiring.  This professor, teaching the aircraft and studying the reasons of air crash in the mechanical engineering, used some vivid and well-designed pictures of aircrafts to let us know lots of benefits of studying engineering in future.  Maybe one day we can design and manufacture our own aircrafts or cars successfully.  It sounded pretty cool, right?  Maybe one day we can repair furniture and even cars in our houses by ourselves instead of going to the repair shops.  As a result, our life will be more convenient.  Maybe one day we will not choose the jobs in the field of engineering.  However, it does not matter.  We can use the skills and strategies which we use to solve problems in the field of engineering to deal with other kinds of problems. In other words, the most important thing engineering will teach us is not the knowledge but the way of thinking and being practical workers.  Afterwards, we had a sharing session by SM seniors.  The seniors told us a large amount of information about every major in the Faculty of Engineering.  Thanks to their patient answers to our questions on choosing majors, we knew this faculty well.  Having known the benefits from engineering studies, we also heard some shortcomings and challenges students met so far.  Since everything has two sides, dialectics affords a broader overall view of the things.

      After this process of discovering, I have learnt that taking lots of detailed factors into account before doing any decisions in our life is crucial.

  

Faith
Today, in our afternoon class, we watched a very old movie called “Chariots of Fire”. At first, I thought the movie is a documentary concerning about the war or the military. However, I am totally wrong because it is actually about some hardworking and persistent runners who go through kinds of difficulties to get the golden medal in the 8th Olympic Game. The two main characters are Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams. Eric, a Scottish hero, is a much talented athlete with a strong belief to god. The most impressive to me is that he did not make any compromise with the royalty to attend the preliminary race on Sunday which is seemed as profaneness to him. Luckily, a polite runner initiatively exchange the event with him, thus, he can achieve his goal in the 400-meter race successfully. Likewise, Abrahams is also a gifted runner but he is not as talented as Eric. After he loses the game with Eric, he finds a very good coach to instruct him, and through a hard train, he managed to defeat his rivals in the 100-meter race, although he does not beat him in the preliminary race. In conclusion, the movie is far away from our daily lives, but is a meaningful and far reaching instruction to our mental lives.

Blog3: Thought about Homosexuals

Nowadays, the attention to homosexuals is increasingly more. Shall we consider it in an open-minded way or never accept it?
For teenagers, especially boys, they would like to joke on the topic of homosexuals. And if there is a person whose sexual orientation is a person who has the same gender, they won’t laugh at him at all. When I was in senior high school, one of my best friends is a lesbian. She didn’t dare to tell anyone else that her partner is also a girl. When she told me, I was surely surprised. However, when I thought of it completely, I believed she must have considered this different thing thoroughly, so I smiled to her and said that it was OK.
In China, we all know that homosexuals won’t have a good reputation. Because of the stereotype that a man who found his own family and has a child is filial, most of them have no bravery to be a homosexual for fear of being laughed at. Eventually, they will also get married with a woman, but they don’t care about their wives at all. Therefore the phenomenon that wives of homosexual don’t live a happy life is very common in China.
Things are different in western countries. For example, homosexuals are allowed to get married in USA and their right is protected well. Because of this, those in China choose to immigrant to USA to get married. From this distinction, I think Asian countries must pay more attention to them and take measures to protect them from being hurt. There is no mistake for them to choose the partners they love.
In conclusion, we new generation should be open-minded enough to let the mindset away. We should treat homosexual in the same way we get along with ordinary people. As long as they think they live a happy life, we ought not to have prejudice on them or force them to change their mind.

Blog3: My Little Cat

Cats are my favorite animals. I raised three cats in total in my childhood, all of which were very cute and affectionate. I think the stories of them were worth writing into a book. But in this blog I will just introduce the second cat I raised.

       I got the little cat from a neibour who intended to give it away. The little cat was only less than three months’ old with white fur and two bright yellow eyes. it was very mischievous, always trying to explore unfamiliar areas under the bed or behind the sofa but ending up upsetting things or trapping itself. And sometimes it could be very affectionate, especially when it came to meal and sleeping time.

       Most of the time we adored and tolerated it, but one thing we could not bear was that the little cat seemed fond of passing urine on pillars, which quite conflicted with our conventional idea that cats are clean animals. One day it committed the same mistake as several times before, and my mother could not tolerate any more. She commanded us to put the little cat in the basement. It was a very cruel punishment because the basement was dark and full of dust and, we children guessed, haunted. One day later, when we at last released it from the basement, the poor little thing had gotten dust all over its fur, purring in a faint voice, hungry and lonely. I felt very guilty. I took it back home, washed it up and made its bed cozy and warm. The cat was very clever and never passed urine on the pillars again.

      It was not long before my mother sent the little kitten to other people for she could not stand keeping it at home. I missed my little cat very much.