Karakoram Highway

An unfamiliar way I have never heard before. I knew it better after I read the background of Karakoram Highway. It is a transnational road which winds past some of the highest mountains in the world—the Himalayas, Karakoram and Pamir. The unbelievable thing is that it connects China and Pakistan. Two different races and customs connected by a highway. How amazing it is. Most of the road lies in the long barren peaks, so it’s not hard to imagine why more than 800 workers lost their lives constructing this road. I was stunned by the spectacle of the pictures. An unusual road snakes through the dark green and high mountains. It is a worth trip for those people who like to see superlatives.

Grow up

Six days left before I go into the new coming year 2008. I usually think about my remarkable things within this year and make a goal to what I want to do next year. It is also a month which excited me. The Chinese New Year is coming soon, and I am going to be 22 years old. Sometimes I am happy that I grow up but most of the time it bothers me. I always ask my parents’ suggestion when I was going to decide anything in childhood. Now, I ask for some suggestion, they will say I have to make decision myself because I am old enough to deal with anything. Some of my friends said their parents didn’t give them too much freedom to decide anything, but I like my parents to give me a lot of suggestion that I can make anything easier.

What's new?

Malaria has been a fetal disease around the world, especially for people who live in undeveloped or developing area. It causes severe illness in millions of people and kills more than one million each year. Now, a researching crew found a slug-like species, sea cucumber, produces protein and lectin which can effectively against the malaria parasite. Researches produce the same protein the mosquitoes have first, because mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite. Then, they fused protein with part of the gene from sea cucumbers. Professors said the processes still go with unpredictable danger but it’s promising. This news stimulate not only medical person but also those who suffer from this disease or who live in risk.

Train crash

Train crashes always happen thought trains today have high qualities. The high-speed railway in Taiwan had its first driving in 2006. It and the old Taiwan railway are all emphasize that they offer a comfortable and maximal safe environment for passengers. However, I saw many train crashes in Taiwan very often. Today, I read online news from BBC, about a train crash in Pakistan. One of the officials said the signalling faults and poorly maintained tracks are often the cause of the accidents. I think railway in Taiwan has the same problems the Pakistan has. Worst of all, the accident in Taiwan’s railway sometimes happened because of the controllers. Many innocent people will be killed in this disaster due to their careless. Taking a train is the convenient and economic way for me to go anywhere. For commuters, taking a train is a part of their lives. It is an important transportation though it has potential danger.

An exciting trip

Some of my best friends and I are going to have an exciting trip this weekend. We planned to go to Kaohsiung. Instead of taking transportation, we decided to ride our motorcycle. We will take a rest at some spots that our motorcycle won’t break down. One of us lives in Kaohsiung; she has already made a schedule for this trip: a new and famous department store, a beautiful port and a big night market. We are excited about this trip not only because the attracting schedule but also the gift-exchanging activity. I spent a lot of time to think about which present is practical and useful for male and female. I can’t reveal the gift here until the end of this weekend. Guess what it is?

My plan

It was the third year since I studied in this university. I got not only the knowledge but so many things from my teachers, friends, and some people I didn’t know very much. It was a difficult time to start a new plan for my own future as Elisa mentioned few days ago. I was panic even though teachers suggest me try to find a job. I think the Bachelor Degree is a basic certification that can prove a person has the abilities to do a job. I will not find a good job which I interest in if I don’t get the Bachelor Degree. However, it will be a very hard task if I enter graduate school. I still have to follow my original routine like study more articles, listen to English radio and so forth. I will also learn computer skills from books that I can have a test and get the certification. That’s what I have planned to do so far.

My aquarium

One day, I kept watching at my aquarium which my friend gave me two moths ago. It was a coincidence, her mother didn’t allow her to feed any kinds of animal at home and I wanted to feed fishes since I moved into my own room. Therefore, she gave me for free. There were too many to count and they swang very fast. Especially, three small shrimps in it, their bodies were very clear that I could look through them to the other side of the aquarium. I wonder how their life likes in the aquarium because they stay in a limited place for their whole life. Are they happy or not? What do they do in it? All silly questions came to me while looking at the aquarium.

Electronic dictionary or paper dictionary

Teachers always suggest us not to use electronic dictionaries. I once tried to use a paper dictionary but it cost me a few more time than searching on electronic dictionary. Although I could get further information such as different meanings, examples, synonyms, and antonyms while using paper dictionary, I save a lot of time by using electronic dictionary. I could just turn on the power and entered the word I wanted to search, and then the meanings will be showed on the screen. It helped me a lot when I had a large amount of articles to read. I will use paper dictionaries as possible as I can because I am English major.

keep going?

I have no idea about my future study plan and I found it was not a big deal whether to get the university degree or not. I used to be a diligent student, of course, I am still is now. I concentrate on English learning since I decided to major in English. However, I didn’t make a great progress in my English abilities in these two and half years. I was afraid of speaking English and I had not enough vocabularies in writing and reading. After attending a speech and getting some suggestion from my teachers, I started to think my future carefully. I consider if it was right to contribute all my time to English or I should give it up and learn another skills that has big differences from English. Was it a panic time to most of the students in the third year in university or it was just my problem?

A fortune-teller

The last time I went to see a fortune-teller was at the age of seventeen. I went there with my parents. They gave the fortune-teller my lunar calendar birthday that he could analyze my present and predict my future relied on my birthday. He told me a lot of things I had to follow or I might get hurt. For example, I couldn’t ride my bike too fast nor could I ride too slowly because I might get hurt by someone at twenty-three years old. I was told it will be better to get marry after twenty-seven years old and I would have a sweet family. Yesterday I went to see a fortune-teller with my friends again. This fortune-teller looked at lines on my right hand and said the same thing as the last fortune-teller. Was that a coincident or it will really happen?

Taking a train

Taking a train is the most convenient way for me to get home. I spent three to four hours at train station and on a train. That is, I had a lot of free time while taking a train. I used to read a book at train station, but I couldn’t concentrate on my book for there were too much people and too much attraction. I also try to sleep until I reach my destination but I felt sharp pain on my neck. I started to watch at people around me. I found it was interesting to hear the conversation between people. Sometimes it made me laugh and sometimes it surprised me. It seemed strange and not good but I could get some idea or information from them. I also got some idea that I could write on my blog.

Liver cancer

On Tuesday, my reading teacher asked some of my classmates to find out what the top fifteen causes of death in Taiwan. According to the report from the government, the liver cancer is at the top of the place of statistics. The symptoms are not very obvious at the first phase. People don’t aware of the pain of the liver because it is a “silent organ”. When people feel sharp pain in body, people might get the cirrhosis of the liver. It might damage our live because it can turn into cancer if we don’t get good medication. It happened due to many potential reasons. People stay up doing their works or playing computer and people don’t eat healthy food or do regular exercise. Those unnatural routines cause not only liver cancer but other fatal disease. I was surprised to the statistics because many of my friends are stay up and they looked just a little tired but health. I think I have to give them the statistics and suggest them to go to bed early.

Online game

I never play online game because I think people who play online game are just waste their time. I prefer doing anything to the online game. However, one of my friends introduced a game to me and I addicted to it recently. She told me the game could stimulate my brain and train my abilities of concentration and reaction. I didn’t believe what she said and refused to play, but after few minutes, it whetted my desire to try once. I found it easy to control and the cute animal pictures were interesting. Most of all, there weren’t special rules. I could just put the squares with the same patterns together. I played it everyday, but I didn’t spend too much on it. I played it as my free time entertainment.

Learning

What is learning? A question that asked by a speaker in a conference on Thursday. She wanted all listeners to pick up a paper and write down the personal answer about what she asked. Learning in my personal view was an active that discover what I don’t know and what should I know. Teachers taught me knowledge in books; parents taught me manners in daily life. I learn every thing every moment. The one purpose was that I want to get something new or to get something I have to know. I thought it was the basic meaning of learning.

Advertisement

My teacher asked me to choose an advertisement and analyze, then I have to report it to everyone in class with my group member. I was proud of people who made ad whatever the topic was. I wander why they could make those short sentences with complicated meanings. I spent a lot of time to translate the content into Chinese even though it was a very short sentence. I had to consider the syntaxes with caution or the content might far from its original meaning. Although it was hard to analyze the ad, the title and pictures on TV, magazine, and newspapers attracted me a lot.

Computer again

Sorry to be here late! My computer was broke down again. Therefore, I sent it to the computer agency yesterday but the mechanic told me that he couldn't check my computer immediately because someone had already make an appointment with him. That meant that I had to do everything without computer until Sunday. Undoubtly, it was awful to some of the students, I believe. For most of them, a computer might be at the prior position than anything in life. I couldn't stand the empty desk without my computer, I wanted it back. I hope the mechanic can call me at Sunday before noon that I can prepare the linguistic test which need online dictionary.

notebook computer

When it comes to computers, a notebook computer, the best choice to run all works. I use it for over two years. Why I chose the notebook instead of desktop, that's because the notebook is more convenient than the "heavy" desktop. I can plug into interational network if my wireless function is permitted. I don't have to tie so many wires with string as desktop computers needed. However, I strongly felt that the notebook was not user-friendly anymore. In contrast, it bothered me a lot recently. I had my computer reinstalled five times so far. I wander why it got computer virus so easy. For most my friends, they considered the virus because I watched something bad on website. However, I need to claim here that I used my computer in proper way. My computer broke down because the sofware was too weak.

writing

I have strong feeling that I had problems in vocabularies and grammar. I read a lot of articles and I learned grammatical usage from those I read. However, no matter how hard I worked, I made quite few progresses. I didn’t know how to use those perfect vocabularies I saw from articles and I couldn’t use the proper grammar in my post. I gained a good comment only when I wrote simple articles. But I am not freshman or sophomore; I wanted to be an excellent writer. Perhaps, I need more time to discover the best way for me to learn how to write the best article.

Hard game

My friends and I had a small party last night. Differently, we didn’t have food but long talk and special game. The game we played was similar to chess. A paper with lines and different color solids are needed. The standard colors are red, green, and yellow. However they depended on producer. At the beginning of this game, we made all solids on position, people who can have their solids to the other empty side is winner. Every game took us a long period of time; we thought carefully when we started every solid. It was a competitive and wise game because I had to work my brain hardly. The winner should be patient, wise and careful. I didn’t have those potential so I lost every game so far.

Women

People have a fixed concept that women should stay home and handle all housework. Women accepted it for the sake of her family. At my mother’s generations, blind date was in fashion. They got marry in short time after dating with each other. My mother was only 23 that year. She told me that she had a lot of goals to achieve, but she had to take care of her family even now. I mean, she was not regretted for her marriage but felt pity that she couldn’t achieve her goals.
Today, I read an article on internet website. The title was International Survey Shows Philippines Tops in Women Managers. Statistics showed in this content that more and more women wanted to take part in jobs. They thought they were as good as men. Undoubtedly, more women now stood at the same position with men on their jobs. In Philippines, women held half of the senior management jobs in the country. Obviously, women proved their abilities by working hard. Husband should approve their wife to have a job if they want.

My new MP3

My younger sister bought a new MP3 recently. It was designed in white color, rectangle, and a clear screen. Moreover, it not only has fashionable look but simple and useful function such as download and play music, vedio,photo, and e-book files. I wanted to have the same one when my younger sister showed me few days ago. Therefore, I asked my friend Judy whether she could go to Carrefour with me or not. I didn’t look at other samples; I bought the MP3 I want directly. I can’t wait to use it directly, but I need to charge the battery for at least 12 hours. That means that I can use it tomorrow.

Be Cofident

“Be confident” a motto from a teacher in summer camp. The reason why I remember it so clearly is that I also had problem of being confident. The teacher in that activity emphasized that everyone should do anything with confident. He didn’t care whether we were right in grammar when we spoke English. In contrast, he was happy to hear more from his students. As my teachers in school, they also wanted students to be confident to speak English. They said it was ok to make mistake in spelling and grammar. However, I still can not overcome this challenge. It was a hard task for me. I was fear for making silly mistakes and maybe some teacher would think why I was so stupid. Therefore, I held back from raising my hand and answered questions. I didn’t know when I can be confident to do everything; perhaps something push me someday and I can be very confident of doing anything.

today is not my day

I got a cold the day before yesterday. I felt ok at the previous day. However, I felt awful because of my running nose this morning. It seemed there was an unlocked faucet on my nose because there was water kept pouring out from my nose. I used many packages of tissues. Worst of all, I kept coughing all day and it was really annoyed me. I was afraid to bother the teacher so I kept myself from coughing. It was very misery because of the serious itching throat. I hope I can get better tomorrow.

Be Honest

Yesterday, I bought two train tickets for next two weeks from Tainan to Nantou. I ordered them on internet, then wrote down the codes of these tickets and bought them at any train station. Interestingly, in my departed train station, there was just one ticket seller in the ticket window. Perhaps the seller was too busy to count money correctly because there were so many people in train station. He gave me the wrong changes. Theses two tickets cost me 358 NT dollars. I gave him 360 NT dollars so he should give me 2 NT dollars for change. However, he gave me 302 NT dollars. I was astonished and confused why he gave me so much money. I only spent 58 NT dollars for two tickets if I took the changes. I finally return the money because he might be in trouble if he lost 300 NT dollars. I was not regret to return the money, contrarily, I was happy because I was an honest person.

stray dogs

Before having my own dog a year ago, I rarely pay attention on stray dogs. Not knowing what to do, I could just stare at them and did nothing. Until having a dog, I started to take notice on them. I saw some of them were starving and some were sick. I didn’t have so much money to build a comfortable house for them or offered them so many foods. The only thing I could do was to feed them if I had food with me.
The temporary help couldn’t solve the real problems of stray dogs. The government should make some policies to help those dogs. For example, I saw a foreign TV program few weeks ago. The government of a nation asked some polices to protect dogs. Their responsibilities were as follows: First, they should make sure there was no dog abuse in every district. Second, they must to find out where stray dogs come from by finding out who was the host and why they threw their dogs away. In addition, they should detect everything about stray dogs even if they died. It was a good way to solve the problems. There will be less stray dogs than I saw now only if the government makes good policies.

Learning Japanese

I had no classes this afternoon because the teacher was on leave. I stayed in my room until having dinner with my friends. First, I took a nap because I almost awoke last night. It was because I drank a cup of 500cc milk tea. After short break, I felt powerful to do anything. I prepared for the listening test, read some English articles, and did some chores. When I piled up my textbooks, I fund a Japanese book which I studied at the first year. It reminded me the happy time of learning Japanese. It was pity to stop the class at the second year because the teacher left for another school. I remembered that I studied hard when I learned this language because I was very interested in it. Therefore, I made up my mind to study it again this year.

Two-day off

I spent two-day holidays in Tainan last week. What I mentioned was that it was the first time to stay here doing nothing important. I went home every week since the first year in university. I stayed in Tainan only when I had TOIEC test or some reasons that I had to stay. This year, my parents suggested me to go home two times a month. They thought I spent too much time and money taking train from Tainan to Nantou. I could not but promise them I will stay here last week. In fact, I really want to go home because I had serious homesick and I wanted to play with my lovely dog my father bought this year. No one will walk the dog and play with her when I was not home. Staying here was a little bit boring except I did my schoolwork within these two days. I tried to find something interesting to do such as watching movies, soap drama, and listening to the music and so forth. However, they could not raise my interests after few hours. Perhaps, I should go home to have my holidays.

Al Gore

I saw news today. It read that the America former vice president Al Gore won the Nobel Prize. He propelled the global warming to the top of the international agenda with his film “An Inconvenient Truth,” which received a lot of attention around the world. I also watched this film few months ago, the whole plot connected to the global warming intensely. In the contents, Al Gore stood in front of many people. He emphasized the serious effect of global warming. The atmosphere was harmony. Al Gore made the speech humorously though the issue is very important. In my opinion, he devoted almost his life to propel the earth protection. I was not surprised to the news that he got the noble prize because he deserved it.

The paralysed railway

The railway was destroyed due to the violent typhoon yesterday. The train cable was broken so the whole timetable was in chaos. I had eight classes today and I didn’t want to catch the train in hurry this morning. Therefore, I could not but wait for the train. Luckily, I had seat when I stepped into the train. I thought in my mind that I could take a nap before I reached Ta Chou. I did really take a nap but hardly could I breathe the fresh air. So many people get in the train and they talked too much. Moreover, the train I took called “Local”. It meant that the train I took had to wait for the express train to pass the platform in case. I was helpless because I couldn’t take other trains. Only the “Local” stopped at the station near my house. The only thing I could do was waiting for the express train to pass the platform.

movie class

Today, I had a course called English movie. I was very interested in this curriculum when I chose my minor course. The teacher wrote on his internet board that he want us to learn the background, cultural values, and ways of thinking from movies he offer. He will also analyze the subtitles in movies. My assignment is to watch movie and remember the meanings of the subtitles. It was new to do school work by watching movies. I felt fresh to joint this course; I believe that I can watch a movie with English subtitles after this semester.

unlucky day

I felt unlucky recently when I rode my motorcycle. I was a good citizen because I follow the traffic rules. I stopped when the traffic light turned yellow and I turned on the turned signal when I was ready to go right or left. I could not understand why so many people like to challenge to me. They could not do that even if my motorcycle is not good looking. My heart could not relax for whole week. Everyday, I wonder if I can go home safely. Maybe I will feel better after this weekend.

My new experience

Perhaps, it was common to most university students to stay up and went out with friends. However, I have difficulty in staying up or I feel tired the next day. Interestingly, I challenged to my body clock last Saturday. I stayed up all night with my friends.We went to the restaurant for dinner. After meal, we sat and chatted for almost five hours. Everyone made a suggestion for the next program.

We decided to go to AnPing to have fun. I saw many people there and I was proud of them because it was one o’clock that time. I doubted whether they felt sleepy or not. When my watch went to two thirty, we moved to the next place-85℃ to have dessert. We had poker game there. We played until about four thirty. We moved to the last spot- The Gold Shore. We stayed there until the sun appeared. I felt extremely tired because I had never stay up like that. It was a wonderful memory and experience to me. I thought there was no chance to have an experience like that because it was very crazy.

BBQ food's name

In today’s oral training class, I learned a lot of different kinds of food’s name, for instance, foods for BBQ. Teacher Chad separated the board into two parts. The left side is for common BBQ food in Taiwan, the right side is for American.

I know BBQ food in Taiwan very much because my family has BBQ every year. We had pork, beef, mushrooms, sausage, and etc. Chad said they had some food which are very similar to us and some we do no have. Chad gave me an insight in BBQ food’s name such as shish kebab. Someone might know what it was before, but for me, it was a new discovery. The other new discovery is that I found American people are really like to eat hamburgers, hot dog, and ham.

who can tell me how to save money?

I am perplexed about how to use money well since I was a university student. That is, I do not know how to manage money. Although I keep accounting but I feel my money flow away like water. Every time I open up and check my purse, I remind myself not to put extra money in it. However, I still put some to make myself feel better. Due to this reason, the number of my bank account decrease day by day instead of increasing.

There is not enough time for holiday

Four-day holiday was too short for me. It was not enough to do many things. Let me state the processes of my holidays. I was so tired when I backed to home at the first day because I took long time on train. Therefore, I slept all afternoon and do nothing at the first day.
The second day, I played with my dog, I loved her very much. I can not stop missing her when I was in school. Then, I had very short chat with my parents because they went out and ready to come back at the third day. We had BBQ at the third day. I wanted to talk to my parents. However, there were too many people in my house. Therefore, I had no chance to interrupt.
The last day, my parents went out again, I was disappointed that I can not talk to my family for a long time. The time was moving so fast. I can not wait for the next holiday.

Luxurious day

Today was a luxurious day. My friend and I want to relax our exhausted heart. Therefore, we went to the McDonald’s for our dinner. We ordered two combos with two hamburgers, fries, fried chicken, and two Cokes. We had long chat there. The ice cream ended the talk in McDonald’s. Then, we went to a cake store for dessert. I ordered cheese cake and she ordered chocolate cake, we both buy some bread for breakfast. Moreover, I bought some candies there. I spent almost seven hundred dollars this night. We think we spent too much today, our food for next week might be very simple.

The Moon Festival

Tomorrow is an exciting day because it is the last day of a week classes. I can go back my sweet home to see my little brother because I did not see him for almost one month. In addition, next Tuesday is the Moon Festival. It is the best time to hold a family BBQ. Therefore, I called my Mom to prepare essentials (It includes meat, vegetables, fruit, toast, drinks, etc.) The other two foods are pomelo (one kind of fruit with green peel and light green pulp.) and moon cakes. I cannot wait for these four-day holidays.

A bad day

Today, I had a bad and dangerous day. I finally ended my classes at three o’clock. I was so happy that I can go home so early. Therefore, I went to the parking area in the basement of Dorm six. My motorcycle was at the B2, so I had to ride it to the B1 that I can ride it home. I met a lot of crazy students who where also rode their motorcycle when I was about going to the parking exit. They seemed that they were in hurry because every one sped up to the exit. I cannot follow them because my motorcycle was not allowing me to do this. At the moment, I can felt many small hurricanes pass my motorcycle. It was so terrible. The unlucky thing followed when I was twenty steps to my house. A man wanted to start his car as I turned right. I thought he did not notice that my classmates and I were in front of him. I changed my way when he was about to hit us. However, it was so embarrassing to run into neighbor’s plant. I was strongly suggested him to diagnose his eyes because my friend and I wore yellow color clothes.

Tow teachers

I met two excellent but strict teachers this semester. One of the teachers, Bill is in the writing class. I was impressed by his look. He has a strong body and a kindly face with beard. I thought he will be very nice as the teacher before. However, the fact is that I was wrong. But I like the way he was going to teach us. The other one is a new teacher, he retired from the other university. He had a very special accent. Both of them have their own rules and they respect rules very much. They emphasized that everyone had to follow those rules or we might fail in classes. I was excited and anxiety for these two classes.

A special day

Today is the first day of the new semester. Our teacher had told us that we must be school in time. The class began at 8:10. Therefore, Judy and I woke up early and rode to school at 7:30. We were shock to the traffic because many people rode and drove their transportation to work. The way took us only eight minute originally. However, we got to school at 7:50. What a special day it was. Perhaps, we need to depart ten minutes earlier.