Good bye all my heroes

Time flies. we finally reached the end of the semester. I remebered at the beginning of the class when I first saw the course schedule, I felt so overwhelmed. I thought that the amount of work was too much for me, and that whether or not I would still survive after the course. But right now, when sitting in my room writing the last journal recalling what I have been through, I am proud of myself as well as all my classmates and Professor Sean in Composition class. Together, we all made it through.

Firstly, I wanna give my thanks to Sean for being patient on reading our "sencond language" essays and research papers, teaching us how to use APA, and importantly giving us chances to write - the chances that most of us, honestly, didnt appreciate much at the beginning of the class.

Next is my thanks to Thuy, my best friend and knowledgeable sister who has accompanied with me during the whole semester, for not only teaching me the way to work professionally and motivatedly, but also for funny luches when we lied on the grass enjoying Juice It Up. Im proud to say that I have learnt a lot from u.

Then, my thanks to Cyndy and Leo who helped me much in working in group and prepairing for giving group's presentation. U guys are among the most awesome partners I ve ever had.

Last but not least, my thanks to Cindy, Amy, Ella, Angelica, Karen, Georgina, Sylvia, Seng, Motaz, Abdullatif, and all my peers in Compsition Class for the time that we had together.

Once again, bravooo for all of us, the heroes trained by leader Sean.
I wish u all the best.
Good bye !!!

Journal 17

Baraka leaves me the feeling of uncertainty for the world we are living in now. It used to be a "big big world" to me, but not anymore since the moment I watched Baraka.
Yet, Baraka takes us on the journey to the hidden corners of the world where we havent exposed ourselves to and to the crowded cities where we stuffed ourselves in everyday. And I was quite shocked at the scene in which the slim tall old buildings rose neatly in a narrow city of a poor country. It was so stuffed that I, a spectator sitting in a large modern air-conditioned class in the richest country in the world, felt no air and almost choked. People behind the iron windows of their houses seem to be kept in cages; they show no feeling in their eyes. And then when it came to the scene of the city's semetary, I was shocked once again. The semetary where dead people were resting looked exactly like the buildings where city dwellers were living. I couldnt realize that it was the semetary until my teacher explained it. For some people, it might be an impressive scene; but for me, it was a sign of hopelessness. As my professor, S. Cochran, once said: " We live in the box, we finally die in the box". Yes, we are dying in the box that we build for ourselves.

Letter to my parents

Good morning Mom,

I know its now early morning in VN and ur still sleeping when I write this letter. But i dont want to give u a wake-up call and make u shocked with what im gonna tell u. Dont worry, Mom. There s nothing bad happen here to me. But I think it might be shocking to u. So plz plz plz  be well prepared for what ur gonna read.

Mom, I m gonna have a tatoo. Im serious, Mom. I have been thinking of it for months and considering the consequences i will likely take if i get a tatoo; so just let u know that i dont come to this decision because im moody. Mom, I know u will be pissed off to know that, and I understand why u will get so angry at my decision. In our culture, its inappropriate for having a tatoo under our skin. I know u may worry that people will consider me "a gangster member" when I tatoo myself, which will probably affect negatively on my career once im out for work. But Mom, i m gonna have a tiny tatoo on my shoulder where I can cover it with formal suits, and its absolutely not easy for people to notice if they just glance at me. And since i have taken it seriously, I can get over the pain having my tatoo scarred under my skin and I also wont look back or suffer from regretting having it later.

So, Mom, plz dont worry about me. Your little girl is now mature enough to take responsibily for what she's done. I will protect myself as well as u, my greatest Mom, have been doing it to me for more than twenty years, I promise.

 Love u always!!!

Journal 15: "Facebook: Ruining my education"

Ostrowski, H. (2011, April 21). Facebook: Ruining my education. dailytitan. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from www.dailytitan.com/2011/04/21/facebook-ruining-my-education/

In this article, H. Ostrowski uses claim of cause to convince us that Facebook is ruining our education by taking herself as an example. According to her, Facebook, the most popular social network today, does not only distract us from important things (spending too much time on Facebook, typing away on Facebook chat in classrooms), but also disturb our roomates who "incidently" get their eyes caught on the laptop addicts' screens. To strengthen her argument, the author also points out the result of a 2008 article from The New York Time about negative effects of social network sites on "slowing study habits". It's obvious that she tries to use ethos and pathos appeal to buy the readers' agreement.

However, her argument is not persuasive to me for some reasons. Firstly, she doesnt give the readers any number of students who are distracted by Facebook in classrooms. As far as the article shows, she is the only one who got distracted by Facebook, which doesnt guarantee that all her classmates or the students in the school experience the same disturbance. Secondly, she blames it on her friends' use of Facebook in class and in library for ruining her attention on studying. But she doesnt mention whether her friends make noise while using Facebook; or it is herself who is so curious on what other people are doing and easily loses her self-attention. And lastly, the evidence she cites from the The New York Time writer Motoko Rich doesnt help to strengthen her argument: "Hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading – diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans". The readers will cast doubt on this phrase. Are the social network cites like Facebook the only cause? How about online games and porn movies that poor performance in studying is contributed to. The argument, thus, is warranted.

Journal 14

Kirschvink, J. L. (2000). Earthquake prediction by animals: Evolution and sensory perception. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 90(2), 312-323. doi:10.1785/0119980114

This article is written by Dr. Kirschvik, who has a strong background in geology and biology. He is now on the falcuty of California Institute of Technology, Division of Geological and Panetary Science. In this article, he is trying to find out a reasonable explanation for the question: "why can animals sense earthquakes? ". According to his knowlegde combined with the data collected from other renowed professors and reliable sources, it is animals' evolutionary mechanism that enables them to link their preception to the earth's precursors before the earthquakes occupy. Thus, I think I can use his ideas to support for my argumentative essay thesis that animals are superior to us in predicting earthquake.

RESEARCH TOPIC

At first, I came up with a topic involving in my business major, a topic that has caused a lot of controversy to the experts, "How can we realize that there is a bubble in real estate market?". And of course, it led me to not only a volume of contentiousness but also a bunch of headache after skimming my documentary. Thus, I decided to change my topic into "Animals vs Human in predicting earthquake". I was inspired by this topic after the earthquake in Japan. I wonder why we are now having a lot of tools that help us predict most things from weather conditions to meteoric collisions that are likely to happen, but not earthquakes. I also wonder why the animals always have weird behaviors before the quakes occupy. Can they sense the disasters coming? I can't answer those questions right now 'coz i havent collected enough information for myself and dug deeper into the database i have had. Just wait n see if I can find something interesting for my research paper.

Spring break

Well, since this is my first spring break here in the US, I dont either know how funny it is or look forward to it. Actually, I want to go back to Singapore and meet my Mom there; she is going on her business trip to that city at the end of this month, which is also the time of spring break in the US. I miss Singapore; I miss Vietnam; and importantly, I also really really miss hanging out with my Mom. But somehow, I think 7-day spring break is too short for me to put my plan into action. I dont have any back up plan now. For me, its better to go to school than staying at home having nothing to do!!!

IF ANIMALS COULD TALK

If animal could talk in a language that we, the human beings, can understand, then life would become more interesting and, of course, noisier as well.
When we walk by an upper house whose owners raises big ugly black dogs to pay their watching on his/her property, those little demons smell our scent in the air, jumping on the fence, and barking. What if they could talk human's language? Will they probably give us, the innocent passers-by, a warning in advance? "Hey, potential thief, dont break into the house; no, actually, dont walk over the fence, or I ll bite you up. Grrrmmmmmmmm!!!"

Or just imagine one day when you r on the plane flying in the skies, a bird suddenly passes by your window from outside, what could you think it would say?
_ Bird: Hello beauty, where r u going?
_ You: It's none of your business.
_ Bird: C'mon, dont be rude like that.
_ You: (reluctant) K. Somewhere in Southeast Asia
_ Bird: Ohhh, great!!! I m on my way there, too. So hope to see you then. BUT NOT SO SOON !!! >:-<
Then it flies away and you never ver see that bird again.

These are just two examples in which animals could speak human's language. And if they could, they would also tell us how to protect them, especially those that are in the red list, from extinction.

I love you as much as I love myself

I am not a person who usually come for people's advices. I cannot remember for how long I have not sought advices from people. You may think I am conservative. But I like resolving problems by myself. If my solutions work, then I do good job. If they dont, then I will start again and try to find out where I get it wrong. However, I sometimes really really get stuck, and that's when I come to my mother for advices. For me, she is not only the person who gives birth to me but also my best friend who is always by my side whenever I need her. A few years ago, I was just so delicate that I easily fell down and gave up when people had no appreciation for what I had done or when they laughed at me and talk bad behind my back. But my Mom's advice changed my life: " People's rumors cant bring you down if you dont want they to. Are they going to help you when you are in trouble??? No!!! So why do you have to put your mind on those trash? If you dont love yourself, then no one can love you!!!"

Because I have high appreciation for self-reliance, I hardly give my advices to people. If they have problems and they need my help, they have to come up with their solutions first, then I will give them a hand to their solutions. If they need someone to talk to, I will sit by them and listen to them until they feel relieve. But plz dont ask for my advices because I dont have any advices for them. It's not me but themself who know exactly what they really need.

If I tell my parents that they are the ones I love the most, they know I am telling them a white lie. But if I say "I love you as much as I love myself", then they will take it as "I love you the best!!!"

American food = fast + fat + food

In my opion, American food is fast and fat food. In my country, if somebody says, "Let's go eat American", then it should be meaning "Let's go eat Kentucky Fried Chicken". Because we do not have any franchises of Mc Donald's, KFC is the king of the "taken away" food industry there. More and more Vietnames are getting addicted to KFC. Admittedly, American food is addicted. Although I am also a big fan of it, I have to restrain myself from consume it everyday; otherwise, I'll get "super size".
The reason is American food contains too much fat and calories, especially the American fast food. It is far different from Vietnamese cuisine. The American's common diet is usually more focused on bread, meat (chicken, pork, beef), eggs, milk, dairy products such as yogust, cream, sauces, and less on vegetables. Even when the American use vegetables for their meals, they serve their salad with creamy sauce, which is also a high-fat diet. In contrast, the Vietnamese cuisine is in favor of using as much fresh vegetables as possible. It is shown clearly that rice or subproducts from rice (vermice celli, noddles) are our must-have dish everyday. Also, In a tradional Vietnamse dish, lattuce or flavored herb or fresh vegetable is a must-have ingridient, and we use lemon juice and sugar to make salad's sauce.
In addition, the American don't use much seasoning. Their key flavors are salt, pepper and oil; while the typically Vietnamse contains a bunch of seasoning flavors. Beside sugar, salt, and pepper, we also use soya sauce, fish sauce, seasame oil, and even dried herbs.
Although there exists differences between the two countries' cuisine, I must confess that the American food is delicious. It's easy for people to get addicted to the American food. And once they are addicted to it, they can't stop eating it. In general, no matter what country the food comes from, people should be aware of eating right because "delicious" does not always mean "heathy".
PS: In the quotation "Let's go eat American", is American an adjective standing for American food? What if someone takes it as a Noun??? Then, I guess the meaning will change drastically from eating American food to eating the Americans

Is the glass half empty or half full?

When you want to find out if a person is a pessimist or an optimist, just simply ask him/her this question: "Is the galss half empty or half full?". If the answer is "empty", then that person must be generally pessimistic now. In constract, you are talking to a fully optimist.

Then, the next question comes to your mind is " How does a pessimist's perspective of life differ from an optimist's one?". Well, the answer lies right in the quote by Winston Churchill: "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty". And I think it is true. In the pessimist's view, everything becomes a huge obstacle that he impossibly overcomes. It is obvious that this negative view lets him down and sucks his energy. Thus, the pessimist sees the worst in the best and waives his opprtunities away. However, it is a different story for the optimist. The optimist sees the whole world in pink, and considers everything as "being as light and easy as feather". Thus, life becomes easy in the eyes of the optimist. Then, the free feeling she has for life, the less stress she suffers, which makes her mostly energetic. She, of course, does not want to miss any opportunities offered to her, no matter how challenging they are.

In general, we cannot come to conclusion whether the optimists are more successful than the pessimists. But it is clearly that optimistic people are less suffering from stressful life and more energetic then pessimistic ones.

PS: _ Someone: "Is the galss half empty or half full?"
      _ Me: "I dont know. Give me a glass of water, and I ll let you know if it is empty, full, or just simply half :) "

CAN BIRDS OF DIFFERENT FATHERS FLOCK TOGETHER?

Some people might cite "birds of a feather flock together". Some think "opposites attract". In my view, birds of a feather do flock togerther, but then one day they realize they have so many things in common that they feel no opposite attraction for their peers.Thus, I tend to come to friends who have something different from mine, and my best friend is among them. Although we are best friends, we usually have clashing opnion on different aspects from characters to tastes.

The first contrast is our personalities. My best friends is an extrovert. She can easily have smooth conversation with people for the first time she meets them. As a result, she has a big circle of friends. However, it is another story for me. I am quite introverted, and I only feel comfortable when I listen to people. I like to listen to her stories, and I think it is an useful way which helps my friend relieve her stress. In turn, she is always the person I come to for some tips when I am in trouble because she is sociable and has experience in solving problems.

THe second contrast comes from our different tastes for fashion. My best friend is an active girl, so her fashion style must be sporty. For me, I am in favored of classic. We usually have jokes on each other's style, but we never take it so serious. When I need sporty clothes, she becomes my best advisers; then, when she goes to parties where classic style is always the best option to think of, she comes to me as her mastermind.

To sum up, it is not always true that people with clashing personalities cannot get along well with others. My best friend and I are a good example of this exception. Though we are different from appearance to characters and tastes, and sometimes we have debates to support our opinion, we never end up in fighting because we know there is no right or wrong answer for opinion. We are different and together we help complete each other. That is the point we should consider when we decide to "flock" with "a bird" whose feather is different from ours.

I HAVE GOOD DAYS, BUT I DO HAVE A BUNCH OF BAD DAYS!!!

Yes, I sometimes have a good day, but I do usually have a bunch of bad days; and "Bad Day" of Daniel Powter sounds like mine. Thus, I fell for this song for the first time I listened to it, and it now becomes my favorite song that's always present in my playlist.
I sometimes pose a question to myself if the song's writer is such a  good mind reader that he can express the exact feeling a person suffers when she has spent a day long with all bad luck. The "she" in the song starts her day with "a kick up the leaf", "faking a smile with the coffee to go", which brings a picture of a new boring day without energy. Admittedly, I find myself be in the line with the lyric so much that I am supposed it were written for me. Everyday I wake up at 5am, step out of my house at 6am, and do not come back home until 9pm. With a hectic schedule at school, I do not have time for myself anymore. At the end of the day, I also pose a faking smile to my uncle when I meet him at home. It is not because I do not love him, it just because I am too tired to give him a big bright smile. My professor once told me that in advance, and honestly, I did not believe it. Now, "I DO, SIR!!!". What a freaking hurry life!!!
However, Daniel Powter with his gentle voice turn the song into a soft tune. It just like he is telling a story, not a suffer, about a chain of memory for those bad days. In addition, the video clip illustrating for this song is so interesting. Two people who see "no blue skies" in their everyday get stuck in their lives so much that they sketch what they think about this life on the post sign at the bus stop as the only way to express themselves, which then magically leads them to the love they are looking for.
So, although life is tough, but it is still magical like a fairy tail if we believe and do not give up, right???

I M SICK OF BLOOD !!!

Im sick of blood. Yes, it's true. Blood is a vital part of my life, but I must confess that I hate to see it. However, my fear for blood has just occupied me lately. When I was young, I used to be a naughty child. Thus, it is usual for me to get minor injuries every day. There was nothing wrong with me until one day when I myself witnessed a terrible motorbike accident. I was riding my motorbike from school to home on that day, paying attention on the ride but didn't forget to take a grasp view of an early beautiful Friday evening. People were dressing up, rushing out, riding motorcycles, taking their beloveds out for a lovely weekend night. I especially put my attention on a couple in elegant suites. I guessed that they were on their way to a party. It seemed that they were late because they were speeding up with carelessness. They passed by me, they passed by other motocyclists, and they crossed the trafic light when it was red. Then, "what will be will be". The man lied there under the truck's wheels at the intersection while the woman was blown 3 meters away from the motobike when the couple hit a truck while trying crossing the red light. I was right there at the coner of the trafic light where the accident occurred. Yes, it's me, an expected witness. The man was lying there with all his brain spliting out of his skull, and the woman was in her own blood bond, unconscious. I almost vomited when I HAD TO witness that scene. Then, when I came home, I could hardly eat anything for a few days because I was obsessed for what I had seen that night. Since then, I have also had obsession for blood. Everytime I cut myself when I cook, I feel like my gut being cut with a sharp knife. I also freak out when I have to get injection. In general, I am sick of blood, totally sick of blood!!!

New Year's Resolution

Western New Year passed. Lunar New Year is at the corner. Yet, both of them have one thing in common: New Year's Resolution.
The Year 2011, the year of the Cat, is so special for me because this the first year I miss my family's New Year reunion. Before I arrived here, I neither lived with my family nor lived close to them. However, I never missed my family's reunion on the first day of the year. In my country, it is traditional that wherever they go, people always come back home on the New Year Day to meet their beloved members in their family. On that day, we usually have meals together, talk about what we have done in the old year, and what we expect to do in the new one. Also, handing out lucky money cannot be missed, which is representative for wishing good fortune to the ones people love.
This year is a differrent story for me. I will have been thousands of miles far away from home for studying, and it is impossible for me to join my family's reunion on this New Year Day. That leads me to being deeply hoemsick. Thus, I have decided on my New Year's Revolution. It is all about my home-coming trip in this year. To do so, I must keep myself focused on the plan I have set up. All I have to do is trying my best to improve my English skills, practice the GMAT exercises at the same time, as well as  heading myself toward a goal of earning a high score on GMAT test to apply for my master program. Once I am accepted to take master program, I will be able to come back home for a break in a couple weeks in summer, or on Xmas Holiday in winter. It seems to be a hard task, but I have to try. No starting, then no results.
So that all I can come up with for my journal today. Hope you all in the class will achieve your New Year's Resolutions.
By the way, I havent read my peers' posts on this 2nd journal because I now have to rush to my verbal class. I will do it later when I am at home.
Nice day !!!

JOURNAL 1: INTRODUCTION

Hi all. My name is An. I am from Vietnam. I am glad to be a part of Sean's ALP class with you guys. I like travelling and dicovering. That is why I am here, not only for studying but also for experiencing the most diverse culture in the world, the American culture. Because I have just been here for almost two weeks, my language skills are not good enough to communicate well in English. However, there is an old American saying "practice makes perfect". Thus, I believe if I try my best, I will speak English faster than our master, Mr.Sean, does now (haha, sorry Sean. Im just kidding. Dont worry. I say so but I dont know how long it will take me to do that. So now you are still the best English speaker in the class). This is all that I can think of to write about myself now. Hope us all still survive till the end of this class and achieve all your goals for your studying.
By the way, Sophia Xu and Gavin are two posts I have read so far