Blog 2 the second month in Singapore

In this month, I experienced my first Spring Festival away from home.  Although it’s a pity that I can’t celebrate it with my family, this Chinese New Year is really interesting and special.

On the Lunar New Year Eve, we celebrate together with our seniors from Jilin University. They prepared many delicious foods for us, snakes, drinks, and dumplings.  We played games, watched movies and the Spring Festival Gala together.  Actually I thought this gala was not as good as I had expected. 

On the Lantern Festival, I and my roommates bought some rice balls and cooked them in the microwave oven.  We failed several times because all of us hadn’t cooked it in a microwave oven, but at last we finally succeeded.  Those were the most delicious rice balls I have ever eaten because we cooked it by ourselves. 

Besides, I also visited our host family during the Chinese New Year.  They are a kind couple with a little smart son. The hostess cooked very delicious dinner for us.  During her cooking, the host chatted with us and taught us how to play “Jungle speed” -- a kind of card game. It is very interesting and we really had a great time that night.  Before we were leaving, they invited us to join in a game on February, we accepted it and I’m looking forward to it.

This month is full of joy and I enjoy living there in Singapore very much!

Blog 2 : “The Lamp”

I hope you still remember the story I told in the class storytelling contest, my friends. But never mind if not, I’ll attach the text in the end. Here I’ll talk more about it.

Maybe the story sounds like cold humor at first sight; at least my roommate thinks so. In fact I didn’t intend to make it a funny story. I want to express (at least) two serious points through it.

The first one is a little negative, as well as realistic: The person you follow can be totally wrong, so be careful. You can see, in the end of the story, “I” finally knew that the girl regarded the washing room as a normal study room (please don’t doubt the possibility, her eyesight was really poor and she hadn’t been inside before) and that was the reason why she could insist staying up for study, also the indirect reason for me. She was encouraged by an imaginary student!

The second is: despite the fact that she was wrong, just believe in her, and then everything is Ok. If I hadn’t come to her house, I would still be impelled by her to study more hard. It’s a good thing for me. But I already knew, maybe after that, I would return to the original state. So on the contrary to the first point, sometimes when you have an unquestioning belief, things can be better. That is, it is how deeply you believe but not what you believe that matters.

So, which one do you agree? Or both (actually I do)? Or neither? Maybe you have better thoughts. Look forward to your comments!

The Lamp

When I was a junior high school student, I was not very hard-working until I found a girl study very late every night. Her room was always lit, even after I went to bed. I could see her through my windows every day since her house was opposite to mine. I had seen her in our Grade Conference before but only knew her name and her outstanding academic results in our grade.
One day, the lamp in her room was off as early as 9 pm, which was abnormal for her. But the next day was the same. I wondered whether she was ill or not and decided to visit her at the third day. After all, it was she who encouraged me to study hard though there was not one word. With some apples, I knocked at the door. Exactly, she opened the door after I said who I was and why I came. After simple greeting, I was in the living room and she told me that she surely had a cold but not serious. Then I asked her a question I thought of for a long time, “How can you stay up so late for study every night? It is not an easy thing. And you have already got so high marks. There is no need, I think.” Smiling, she replied, “I think I did not stay very late, because, you can see, there is a room outside my windows. It is always bright at night as I know. The person in that room stays up later than me every day.” After hearing that, I regretted for my question. How can you imagine the room she pointed at is a public washing room!

Blog Two:Why should youngers experience being an old man?

Several days ago, I got an intersting news that the scientists in the US invented an "old man clothes" which looks like a space suit and when you wear the clothes, you will find that you cannot move freely; what you can see is not clear any more and for lack of oxygen, you may easily get tired. In a word, after wearing the clothes, you will be "old". The product is invented for youngers to experience being an old man.


Respecting the old is a part of morality and everyone will benefit from the morality, but some young people always do not know the difficulty and notice the emotion of the aged.I cannot forget another news that several years ago in Nanjin when a young walked behind an old man who walked slowly, the young was so annoyed for the speed that he pushed the old man down. The push made me despair at the time.






There is my experience about the difficulty of the old. I like eating the hard rice. And one day my grandmother came to my home, and we still cook the hard rice. I enjoyed the rice very much, but grandmother ate quite slowly. After the meal, she felt sick in her stomach.At that time, I knew that she was too old to eat the hard food.




There are so many difficulties of the old;though we are still young, we should also know the old's trouble and try to understand and help them from now on but not after we wear the "old man clothes".

Blog 2 ：Followers of Chinese Style Music

       Recently I have listened many English songs, aiming to improve English and enjoy fair-sounding music at the same time.  English is also great but it reminds me of Chinese style music.  Checking my music list, I found Chinese style music makes up a big part in Chinese songs. And there are three followers of Chinese style music that I like most.

       Jay Chou comes to the first one.  I have been enjoying his music for many years. It’s him that makes me to be fond of Chinese style music.  Jay is also the most famous follower of Chinese style music. Somebody even call this style “Chou style”, though he does not agree.  He regularly fuses traditional Chinese instruments and styles with R&B or rock thereby form a new genre-Chinese style.  His famous opuses of Chinese style includes “Faraway" “Chrysanthemum Terrace” “Rice Fragrance” “East Wind Breaks” “”“Hair Like Snow”and so on.  Jay is the representative of Chinese style music.

       Vae is the second one.  People may be more familiar with his another name—Xu Song.  Indigo blue is extracted from the indigo plant but is bluer than the plant it comes from.  Vae inherits Jay’s style and performs extraordinarily well. His songs, such as “Luzhou Moon” “Rainfall on Tomb-sweeping Day” “Rudimental Snow on the Broken Bridge” “The fated enemy”, are really a hit for us, those who like Chinese style music. He is a competent follower that makes me love this kind of song much more.

       The third one is Hou Xian, whose original name is Deng Wenbin.  Though he is not as famous as the two above, he devotes more time to creating excellent opuses. His songs are almost all of Chinese style.  “West Wing-room” “Tang Song Yuan Ming Qing” “Baby face” are all classical Chinese style songs. He follow this style and created many fair-sounding songs.

              Chinese style music always makes me very comfortable and peaceful from soul. Thanks to these followers, I can frequently enjoy such great songs. Maybe I will also love English songs as well but the feeling will be quite different. I hope more followers can come up and create more fair-sounding songs.

Blog 2:Mum and Dad, I love you!

        I have been in Singapore for two months.  During which I experienced the first Spring Festival abroad, wonderful but also made me homesick.
        I lived in an one-child family, my father, my mother and me.  Like most Chinese children, I never said "I love you!" or something romantic to them since it would make all of us feel very strange.  Every time they asked me whether I miss home, my answer was always "no", though I knew that it would really hurt them.
        In fact, I miss them badly. They are the two persons who brought me up in the past 18 years and they are also the two persons who love me most in the world. Remember the last time I saw them through QQ, they were smiling shyly at me.  However, at that time, I want to cry...  Both of them are no longer young, the white hair on their heads can tell.  They devoted themselves to lead me to a better future, seeking no rewards.  While the next ten years I will not be able to accompany them which should be my obligation.  Sometimes, I felt very guilty when this thought came to my mind.  I think the only thing I could do is to study hard and live happily everyday, and do not let them worry.
       Mum and Dad, I love you both very much!  Best wishes to you!
       

Blog Two: A Surprising E-mail

   For me, today seemed nothing out of the ordinary.  However, something strange came along after I came back to Labrador Lodge.

   As usual, I opened my laptop to check my e-mail as soon as I arrived at my dormitory.  And there were some advertisements for online shopping and newspapers I book everyday sent to my mailbox.  To my surprise, I found there was a letter from my classmate of senior high school who had never sent an e-mail to me since I went to Singapore for future study.  I thought maybe she had lots of things to do in her winter holiday, such as coming back to our hometown, visiting her relatives who she had not seen for a long time and preparing for the Spring Festival.  Since I had never expected her to send a letter to me, I was really shocked when I saw this email from a far-away friend.

   Another thing shocked me was that there was only one sentence in the content of the e-mail.  I really wanted to know whether she had made typing errors when sent the e-mail to me.  Actually I felt a little sad when I saw the only one sentence which conveyed her wish to me. Suddenly, I noticed an attachment was in this e-mail, too!  Since the size of the attachment was much large, it took me a long time to download it.  As soon as I successfully download it, I opened the attachment eagerly and found it’s a video clip……  Twenty minutes later, I finished watching the whole video clip.  I was so excited that my eyes were full of tears.  She had recorded the scenes of great joys as previous classmates were re-united with one another.  In addition, she put our two photos into the ending of the video clip. When the photos were floating on the screen, the caption appeared also which told she would always be my best friend!  The sweet scenes moved me deeply, moreover, the caption she made are not only Chinese but also English!  I laughed happily because of her action at all.  Did she think I cannot understand Chinese while studying in Singapore?  Maybe she just wanted me to use English more often.

Blog One：Happiness

    I have been in Singapore for one month.  Gradually have adapted to all the novel things, I get used to the life there.  Before I came to Singapore, I was afraid that I couldn’t find the sense of belonging. In my opinion, the sense of belonging is the foundation of happiness.  To be honest, my eternal life goal is HAPPINESS.  With time passing, something that makes me gain happiness happened.

    The first thing is smile.  Every morning, we will leave Labrador lodge for NUS CELC by the bus.  When I pass by the entrance guard, she who is an Indian always smiles  at me and says good morning in Chinese.  The friendly smile tells me a sharing, loving person inside. Victor Borge said, “laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”  I can’t agree this viewpoint any more.  The laughter I accept everyday warms my heart thoroughly as if the first light of morning  shines on snow land.

    Besides, the friendship between me and befrienders brings a lot of happiness to me. As I met them at first time, they took me to the university health centre to take our health check.  During the time of waiting for check’s result, we talked a lot and became familiar with one another.  A few weeks later, they organized a unforgettable camp for us.  Even sometimes we didn’t do a good job in “station game”, our leader encouraged us cordially and told us the goal of games is not the success but the happiness we can gain from those.

    Last but not the least, teachers’ care for us gives me a deep impression and their kindness really moves me. One day ,a teacher invited a girl to stand in front of us.   While we were completely baffled  by this strange behaviour, the teacher told us today was her birthday!  We sang a birthday song to her later and I noticed that this lucky girl’s eyes were around with tears.  You can imagine  how deep our  eudemonia is  since teachers can remember our birthday date when we in a unfamiliar country. 

    Well, to put in a nutshell, happiness is just around us if you find it.