Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Essay 20 My Sweet Family

Most people have a sweet and harmonious family, so have I. There are three members in my family, my parents and I. Oh! I forgot a member, my cute puppy. So there are four members in total. Since I’m the only child in my family, I got a lot of love from my parents. My home is the best place to have rest and also the sweetest one. And now, I’d like to introduce every member of my family to you all.

My dad is the supporter of this family who gives us a wonderful life. My dad is a general worker and he puts his work at the first place. He works so hard that I even couldn’t see him for a couple of days sometimes. He seldom played with me when I was a little child. In my memory, only my mom and grandparents were always around me. I only can remember that I often saw my father sat behind the desk and wrote something. Because of this, I was used to blaming his indifference and admired other children who could play with their dads. But as I grew up, I got to understand him more and more. What he did and is doing now are all for family. I might say that I have the most generous father in this world who gives me great love in another way.

My mom was a successful business woman and now she’s playing the role of a kind wife and mom in my family. My mom was a successful business woman in the world of rag trade. As a six years old girl, owning a piano was an unbelievable thing at that time. She was very busy too and always went to another city for her business and every time was a suffered experience. I used to cry badly before her left because I didn’t want her leave me and tried to use this way to keep her stay but it didn’t work at all. However, she is totally opposite from who she was before. Now, she would like to stay at home and take care of us like cooking, doing laundry, cleaning the house and so on. My mom is a great mom and I love her very much.

The last member of my family is very special, he can’t speak but can communicate with me very well. He has a very cute name Bean. Bean is a white puppy with long hair and big eyes. He is also very clever. Understand the training, he can do many special things like rolling over on the floor, begging with front claws, etc. He can tell me about his happiness and sadness with his eyes. When I was unhappy I would talk with him and from his eyes I can feel that he was worrying about me. However, when I was happy, he would be happier than me and lick my toes with his little wet tongue. I wish that I could take him with me wherever I go. He is also my good friend who would never leave me.

I am so happy and grateful that I have such a sweet family. I have the greatest parents in this world who always support me and care about me and a friend who would listen to me whenever I need a person to talk and wouldn’t get tired. I love my family as they love me>

Essay 19 Chatting Online

The technique of computer is developing faster and faster. Now, people can chat with friends not only face to face but also on the Internet. It’s really an easy and convenient way for people to chat with friends or make friends all over the world. When I am free, I would log on MSN or QQ and then chat with friends or my family. I like chatting online in two reasons; one is that I can keep in touch with my Chinese friends the other is that I may save amount of money in the way of talking with my family online.

Chatting online is the best way for me to keep in touch with my friends especially Chinese friends. Since I’m far away from my Chinese friends, the only way for me to get enough information about them is through the Internet. Because making calls as I did in China is not as convenient as before. Since we have time difference, I don’t know if they are free or not. But for chatting online, the thing is different. We can chat with each other whenever we want to and as long as we can. Even sometimes, I couldn’t see the one I want to chat to then I could leave a message so my friend could see that when he/she logged on next time.

Not only friends are far away from me but also my family. I often chat with my family online instead of making calls then I would save some money. Under the convenience of QQ, I may talk with my mom online as long as possible without paying. Since I got here, I miss my family very much especially my mom. So I want to call her and listen to her voice as much as possible. Every time I call her, we would chat with each other over one hour. So it must be a great mount of bill for making international calls. But since I can chat with her online then I don’t need to worry about it anymore.

So chatting online offers me such convenient like keeping in touch with friends and families. Then I don’t need to worry that I would be far away from them some day.

Essay 18 Dining Customs

Every country has its own dining custom. Different area has its special way of cooking and specialty. Like in Japan, sashimi is very popular and people would like to sit on the floor when eat. But in some countries people don’t eat raw fish. The dining custom between China and Western countries like America are very different on both food and eating behaviors.

The food between China and America are very different. Chinese people are used to eating rice every day but in America, fast food is more common like hamburgers and fried. Chinese people attach importance to eat so they have a lot of ideas and ways to make food. They can make over one hundred different styles with the same material. And Chinese people are used to eating fresh meat but not the frozen. So shamble is common in China. For Western countries, people seldom eat liver of Chicken. And the way for getting meat is from the freezer of supermarket.

There are many different eating behaviors between these two countries. In China, people share food together and would like to put dishes into others’ plate to show their hospitality. And at the end, the person who invited others would par for the meal. But in America, people don’t share food just order respectively and it’s impolite to put food into another’s plate. And people pay separately. For Chinese people, tips are not common at all because the income of waiter/waitress is stable and paid monthly. But in America, tips are their major income.

Essay 17 Friends

This Thursday, I’m going to ask some friends to come over for dinner. Because we have few time to be together lately. Everybody is busy for final and have no much free time. I’m kind of person who would like to be with friends a lot. I’d like to listen to my friends’ situations as well as telling them mine. It’s really an enjoyable thing to share everything with friends both happiness and sadness. To me, friend is one of the most important parts of my life. I can’t imagine how I can survive without friends. My life would be dull if no any friend around me. Friend means a lot and everybody would have many experiences of making friends during the whole life. But there are two kinds of friend. One is who’d like to help you when you’re in trouble and the other one is who can only share happiness with you no more trouble.

The first kind of friend, who may give you a hand when you are in trouble, is what we need to value. I personally think that the deeper meaning of friend is a hand pulled you out of the darkness. Only such friends can be true friends. I’m lucky that I have many such friends. When I’m in trouble, they would try their best to help me without asking in return. I appreciate what they did for me. There was the most recent trouble I had in this summer. I lost my suitcase in the airport after returned from Europe and all my daily things were in it like wallet, cell phone, changing clothes and so on. As I was so helpless and muddleheaded that I didn’t know what I should do, one of my good friends helped me a lot. She analyzed where I could loss it and then she made many phone calls. During those days, she shared everything of hers with me. Sometimes I would feel ashamed to bother her but she was very gracious and told me just to help myself. I’m very grateful about her help and such friendship is very valuable.

Another kind of friend would keep away from you when you are asking for help. They would rather get quiet than help their friends. I might be afraid that they would get trouble too. I can’t say that they are bad or something. But I personally think that we don’t need to pay attention to such friend or care about them. Because once we pay too much we would get hurt by their indifference. I had such experience before which made me sad a lot. I treated her as my good friend and I was serious about our friendship. When she was in trouble I would be the first one who’d like to help her. She was used to being my example because her excellent grade. Once I asked her a question from the class but she said that she didn’t know either and I believed initially. But gradually I found that she always escaped from helping me on study. And ultimately I got the answer that she was afraid that I would beyond her some day. I was so sad at that time. I thought good friends should be close and help each other. But what she did was opposite.

It’s important to make friends but more important to tell good friend and those friend whom we need to keep away.

Essay 16 My Habits

No doubt, everybody has his/her own habits. Some habits we have are good and some are bad. We are proud of good points but ashamed of the opposite. Honestly, it’s easy to keep good habits but hard to get rid of bad ones. Sadly, some people even don’t recognize their bad habits. In this world, nobody is perfect, but at least we should see what good habits we have as well as the bad. In my case, I’m pleased with my good habits like going to bed and getting up regularly, keeping every clean, washing hands after getting back from the outside, and so on. And to those bad habits, I know clearly and am trying to get rid of them like being lazy to do exercise, eating food at midnight, etc. However, among those habits, the best one is keeping reading every day and the worst one is lack of exercise.

I like reading and every day I would keep reading for more than one hour. When I was young, my mom told me that book is like the sea of knowledge. From books we can almost get everything we want to know. To me, book is just like a magic thing in where I can get know about this world more. With books, my life is wonderful. I would spend at least one hour on reading or browsing online every day. My this habit makes me happy. And through reading I can refresh myself and get more and more knowledge which I don’t know.

The worst habit, also makes me in pain, is seldom doing exercise. I am not a sport girl and honestly doing exercise is a suffering. I can get any excuse to avoid doing it. I would rather stay at home the whole day than do exercise only for half an hour. Because of lack of doing exercise, my body is in trouble now. Every night, I can’t fall asleep easily. Sometimes I went to bed at 11:00pm but after 3 hours I was still awaked. Since I’ve know that my this habit has threatened my health, I force myself to get rid of this bad habit. So when I am free now, I would work out instead of staying at home and I feel much better than before already.

I’ll keep my good habits and try my best to get rid of bad ones. Only in this way, my future will be brighter and more wonderful.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Essay 15 My Favorite Fairy Tale

Today, I called my best friend and asked her what she was doing. She replied, “I was reading fairy tales.” I laughed at her after getting the answer because those stories are for children. However, after finished the call, I felt an irresistible impulse to read fairy tale too. I remembered that fairy tales were also a beautiful memory of my childhood. As I was a little kid, my grandma used to tell fairy tales to me every night before sleeping. And my favorite stories were folktales. My grandma seemed have numerous folktales to tell. At that time, I wondered if those stories were real or not and I always wanted to be the characters of some stories. Like the story about Nu wa who is the Chinese female God of making human being; the story about Pan gu who is a giant and he scarified himself to form the earth; the story about Hou Yi and so on. However, among those folktales, my favorite one is "Chang E flying to the Moon". There are many versions about this story but I personally think that the one I got from my Grandma is the best.

"Chang E flying to the Moon" is a very beautiful love folktale with a sad ending. Long long time ago, there was a very beautiful lady whose name was Chang E. She had a very happy family. Her husband was the hero who shot down nice suns among ten (It is sad that there were ten suns in the sky and people suffered a lot). She also had two lovely children one was a body and the other one was a girl. Every one admired this family. Some day, Hou yi got a magic pill from God. This pill would bring people to the heaven and keep people young and everlasting. However, the thing was known by Lian Meng, a bad guy who wanted to get it. One day, Hou Yi went out go hunting, Lian Meng slipped into the house of Chang E and threatened her to get the pill out. Under such dangerous situation, Chang E had no way except swallowing the pill. After that, her body started to fly aloft and then disappeared. It was a grief to Hou Yi. He couldn’t stand missing his wife so he shouted her wife’s name toward the sky at night. Suddenly, he found that the moon was extremely round and big. He could see a figure was moving in the moon which looked like her wife. He hurriedly put the offering on the table in the garden and hoped that Chang E could get back. The god was moved by the sincere of Hou Yi. So she allowed them to see each other once a year on the 15th day of the eight month when the moon is at its fullest and brightest.

Because of this beautiful folktale, people set up this day as the commemoration day for remembering the love of the couple. This day is also called the Mid-autumn Day. On this day, Chinese people would like to appreciate the round moon as well as eating moon cakes with the family. Sometime I could really see a figure appear on the Moon. =D


Essay 14 Talking about Winter Holiday

As final is coming, winter holiday is coming too. I strongly believe that all students and teaching staff are looking for it because it is a break for we all. We can have more free time to do what we want during this period of time. We can sleep and stay up as long as we want to and don’t need to worry about getting up late for class the next day morning. The winter holiday here is one month, which is different from Chinese. In China, we have about 45 days holiday which is longer and the beginning is at the middle of January. Break time basically depends on the most important festival-Spring Festival. So this winter I’ll do different thing from when I was in China. I used to stay at home with parents and often go shopping but now I am far away from my parents so I’ll be with my friends.

When I was in China, I had many things to do in winter holiday so I enjoyed my break and had a lot of fun. Mostly, I would stay at home for relaxing because I was very tired from study so I had enough time to sleep and watch TV as well as eat snack. Every minute spent at home was enjoyable and pleased to me. Expect staying at home, I was fond of being with my friends, especially my best friend. We often hung out at either her place or mine. We talked to each other without secret. We even slept together sometimes. We also used to go shopping the whole day even bought nothing, we were happy though. To me, the most exciting day was Spring Festival. On those days, every corner was covered by happiness and every member of my family would celebrate this day together. My 45 days of break were full of happiness and I miss the winter holiday I spent in my home country very much.

As I am in America, I can’t do everything I did in China. But I’m sure that I’ll have a nice break here too because I’ll be with my boy friend here and we can do many things to get fun too. Even Mayville is a small town, but I like the quiet here which I couldn’t get in my hometown. I enjoy living in a quiet environment and actually I need serenity to make myself relax sometimes. We also can go to many big cities which not far from Maryville to go shopping and drive around like Kansas City. Even I have been in Maryville for almost one year, I’ve only been to Kansas City for three times. So this winter is a nice chance for me to know KC more. I’m already looking for this winter holiday’s coming!

Even I’m in America now and I will spend my first winter holiday here, I’ll get fun as I did in China for sure. Because both my hometown and America are nice places to me and the most important thing is that the winter holiday is coming!!! ^-^

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Essay 13 My Favorite Music

There are many kinds of music, such as pop music, R&B, country music, rock music and so on. Among those kinds of music, piano music is my favorite. Some people might be not familiar to piano music, they prefer other kinds of music more. But to me, piano music is the best one among those ones. I like it for two reasons; one is that music is played by piano, the other one is that the melody is soft and makes me relax.

I like piano music because it is played by piano which is my favorite. Piano is my favorite instrument. As I had played piano for six years, so I have special feeling toward it. I personally think that piano is a symbol of dignity and elegance. So I enjoy the music played by piano very much.

Another reason for me to like it is its melody which relaxes me a lot. I’d like to listen to piano music when I’m free especially after study. Because the melody piano made is soft which can help me to reduce the stress and then relax myself.
I enjoy listening to piano music. It is also a way for me to be happy

Friday, December 5, 2008

Essay 12 Learning to be satisfied

Nowadays, everybody has to face to the complication of the society and we are tempted by many things every day. A lot of people can’t deny the temptation from money, power, social class, and so on. Because they can’t be satisfied by what they are possessing now and they want more. Actually we all have the lust for trying to get what we want but don’t have yet. In fact, it’s not a bad thing. It’s kind of the source of ambition and because of this lust. With this kind of lust, we are getting strong and ambitious to overcome every difficulty. As we are making our dreams come true, the lust encourages us never to give up. However, it would become a trap and bad thing if the lust is beyond an invisible limitation. When somebody can’t get enough about what they want from a legal way, but under the driving of temptation, they would do something crazy. However, what would be waiting for them is the life in jell. So we should learn to be satisfied as well as having some lust to improve ourselves. When you are troubled by thinking about getting more than enough, you may come down and think about the life you have now, you would find that you have a very nice family, a kind wife or husband, lovely children, healthy parents. Then you have had the most valuable thing in this world already. So there is no reason for you to be frustrated about what you can’t get or complaining every day. We need to learn how to enjoy the life which we have now but not making ourselves in the darkness of excessive lust. Now is the time for us to appreciate what we are having and when you are starting to enjoy the life you may find that you are the most happiest because you know what is the source of happiness and how to be satisfied.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Essay 11 A Heartbroken Experience

On May 12, 2008, a huge disaster happened in China which touched the hearts of all Chinese people. It was a strong earthquake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan Province. Everything there was damaged and numerous people were dead in such unpredictablely natural disaster. During those days, TV and Internet were covered by the news about Wenchuan earthquake and news spread over every corner of China. What people most focused on was the earthquake. The earthquake was so strong that less people in disaster-stricken area survived and all buildings were in ruins at one night. Therefore, it was unable for rescue team driving into the area to search and rescue survivors. The only way was taking helicopter. However, many rescuers were dead of aftershock which made the tragedy worse. From the TV, I saw the city was covered by numerous bodies and some survivors were looking for their family with crying and shouting. They tried to dig their family’s body out with blooding hands. At that moment, I believe they couldn’t feel any hurt and the only thing they kept thinking about was finding their family.

I couldn’t remember how many times I cried as I watching TV and hearing news from internet. I couldn’t control myself to stop crying. There was a little story which moved me a lot and made me cried badly. She was a new mom whose little girl was only 6 months big. When the rescue team found her body, they were shocked because the baby was still alive. It was obvious that she bent her body over her kid and kept this position all the time but nobody would know how long she kept being like this. As rescuer pulled the baby out, they found a cell phone in the blanket. There was a short text, “my dear, please remember that mom loves you forever.” As I saw this, tears run out from my eyes and I moved by such great love from a mom. The rescue team searched survivors for many days but what they pulled out from the ruin were dead bodies. Wenchuan became a city full of bodies and misery from a beautiful scenic spot. During that period, what I did mostly when I was free was watching news from TV, reading information on the Internet and newspapers. I kept asking myself, “What can I do for them?” I donated money as most people did but I knew only donating money was not enough because money wouldn’t solve everything, especially for those people who lost family. But I couldn’t do anything except donating. At that moment, I wish I was a millionaire then I could help those people who lost home as much as possible.

From this poignant disaster, what I saw was not only the misery but also how clannish Chinese are. Lots of people would like to be volunteers and donate blood. I was shocked by the news that the blood bank had enough blood and couldn’t accept more after the first day asking for flesh blood. There was a saying that blood is thicker than water. And Chinese people proved this for everybody all over the world. Though the earthquake was merciless, people in every corner of my country were all eager to give a helping hand. It held all Chinese together and I strongly believe that Chinese people are able to conquer all difficulties in the future no matter how big they will be.

Essay 10 Talking about Online Shopping

With the development of modern technology, Internet offers people more and more convenience. With the help of the Internet, people can do a lot of things without going out, like paying bills, watching movies, study online and so on. Among those, the most attractive one for people is doing shopping online. Online shopping does have many advantages but everything has two sides, some people think that it also has many disadvantages.

Online shopping attracts people because it has many advantages. Nowadays, more and more people, especially for the office worker, don’t have that much free time to go shopping they’re busy working, studying and doing other important things. So online shopping becomes the most convenient and best way for the office worker. Many people choose shopping online also because they can’t stand that crowded and noisy environment. For shopping online, they just need to choose the article they want and pay online, and then shopping is finished. To most people, shopping is not a hard and anguished job anymore, they can just stay at home, click the mouse, spend several minutes to get what they want without stepping out of the room or standing in line for checking.

Well doing shopping online is not always a perfect thing, it also has disadvantages. It seems easy and quick, but there’s always a trap online. If you are careless, it will bring you some troubles. For example, if you order a cloth online, at the moment you get the item, you may find that the color is different from what you saw online, or the size is either too small or too big because it is not available to try on before ordering, or the material of the cloth is not what you want. There are also many swindlers waiting for you to bargain with. You would pay for the article but couldn’t get anything ultimately.

So online shopping is offering convenience as well as disadvantages. On one hand, we enjoy shopping without going out. On the other hand, we need to be very careful when choosing and trading online.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Essay 9 Childhood

In my opinion, childhood is the best period for everybody. Most people must have a lot of beautiful memories about their childhood. As a child, you don’t have any stress come from work or society. As many people say, childhood is the happiest and easiest time in one’s life. I always dream about returning to the past, experiencing the happiness only children own. Children show their true emotions. They are innocent and naïve. Sometimes, you can get truth from children only. They dare to say anything any truth they know, in another word, they’re braver than adults at this point. They know what compassion is and what honesty is better than adults. Every child is a great dreamer. In their world, everything is possible and all real thoughts are presented. As we all had great ambitions when we were children even some of them were unpractical. Children never know what animosity is so they have much easier lives and much less stress than adults. In their world, everyone is equal. They make friends without thinking about how rich they are, how high their social class are. They never think about making social communication net. The words children talk with their friends are sincere and from the bottom of hearts. Therefore, the friendship you get in the childhood would be the most sincere and longest. It’s easy to make friends but not easy to get one who can always be sincere and honest to you. I wish everybody could keep those valuable things they ever had in their childhood. Then, this world would be more harmonious and easier. But it’s just a dream of me and would never come true. But it’s a good thing to have dreams as children do.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Essay 8 My loss

This evening, I watched TV with my roommate together. As we saw a piano concert, we were pleased by the wonderful melody from the piano. Which also remined me of a memory about piano. I had an experience of learning piano for six years. My mom told me that I had specific image about the piano. I would play the piano without any lyric as long as it was available, but at that time I was just a little kid who even couldn’t say any word. When I was around five years old, I owned my own piano. At the beginning I was very excited as well as curious. I studied the piano under a personal teacher. And I needed to take two classes every week and practiced it for two hours everyday. For a five-year-old little girl, playing the piano had no any meaning just for curiosity. At the very beginning, I was pleased to play and practice under the curiosity. But soonly, I felt tired of it, I disliked to sit there for two hours with the movement of fingers only, I got fidgety of practicing the same song but always didn’t do well. I cried and told my mom that I didn’t want to learn it anymore. but the answer I got from my mom was if I didn’t practice then she would not buy me any candy. Therefore, I spent an unpleasant time with my piano until I was eight years old. I changed my attitude toward the piano as I watched a performance of Richard from TV. Because of him I started enjoying playing the piano and really loving it. From that time, I clearly knew what I wanted. I dreamed of being a pianist as him. So I practiced hardly even without the supervision of my mom. I was happy and longed for classes every week. My teacher commended that I had obvious advancement for my skill and I was very happy at that time. However, I faced to a big problem when I was in my last year in primary school. As the exam for entering middle school was coming, I put all my attention to study and had to give up piano. In the meanwhile, what I gave up was my dream of being an excellent pianist. I lost the chance of being a pianist but I am not sad or regretful about it because I’m also enjoying my life now. Even I can’t play the piano as a pianist but it’s also one of my hobbies so I play it sometimes. It makes me happy and it’s magic that I would forget those sad things as I am playing. Piano is my best friend forever!

Essay 7 My Favorite Season - Winter

My favorite season is winter. And snow indicates the coming of winter. I always wonder how magic and delicate the shape of snow is. It seems like being carved by artist. No doubt, snow is the most wonderful creation of the nature. I have had special feeling toward snow since I was a little girl. I like watching snow falling down from the sky especially at nights with the light of moon that it is great. Some people dislike winter because they think that there is no fun in winter, everything is covered by snow and the weather is cold. But to me, there are a lot of beautiful memories about winter. When I was young, I used to hung out with neighborhood kidds after school even the weather was severe. Actuaally we were looking for the heavy snow at the very beginning of winter. Because we were fond of having snowball fight and making snowman as well as going sledding. We were so happy when playing in the snow. We didn’t care how cold our hand were, how dirty our cloths were. The only things we cared about were who could win in the fight, who could make the best snowman and who could sled the fastest. However, we had to stand the complaint from parents. Another reason for me to like winter is Spring Festival. It is the most important festival in China. On those days, everyone would go back home to be with family and celebrate. It is also the most traditional holliday to Chinese, so everyone would take a break on these days no matter how busy he/she is. To me, the happiest things is that I can eat hot pot with my family. In my family, eatting hot pot on New Year’s even is the custom so on this day every member of my family would sit around the table to share the hot pot together as well as chatting. It’s really an enjoyable thing to eat hot pot in cold winter especially with the family. I keep those memories as my fortune and I wish everybody could like winter as I do.