Journal 5

This week is a normal week, nothing special happened. I sat in front of my computer listening to the radio. And then, a beautiful song came into my ears. Now, I am going to share this song with you. If one day you are sitting in front of your computer feel that nothing to do, go and listen to this song. I believe this song can company you a whole afternoon. This song is called “By Your Side,” performed by “Tenth Avenue North.” I listened to this song over a hundred times. Every time I listened to this song, I had different feelings, different thoughts. Due to the culture differences and my insufficient understanding of different languages, I may not be able to introduce this song precisely and completely. I will try my best to express my thoughts and my affection for this song. If I made any mistakes or had any misunderstanding about this song, please inform me and correct me right away.

The first time I heard of this song, I thought it is a love song. The story was about a boy who was so in loved with a girl. But the girl seemed to feel that he was not enough, and keep searching for someone better. However, the man still cared a lot about the girl, and is always by her side and willing to give her a hand when she need him. This is what I thought about the song when I first heard it. Yet, the next time I listened to this song, I feel like that it was a song about religion. The song was telling you that no matter what happen, God will always by your side and protects you. These were my thoughts and reflections about the song. Every time after I listen to this song I feel that I am full of energy and have the courage to start over the next day. I hope whoever listen to this song will feel the same way.










Below are the lyrics of the song.

By Your Side
Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

reference:
http://www.6lyrics.com/by_your_side8-lyrics-tenth_avenue_north.aspx

Journal 4

This week is spring break. I went out with my friends who are my best friends since junior high. We seldom met each other since college, so we all expected for the coming of that day very much. We went to an expensive restaurant for lunch. The food was good and atmosphere was also nice. We chatted about our lately life, and played some games. We really had fun there. After lunch, one of my friends who just got back from London drove us to her house. In her house, we saw our photos together, talking about our other friends and we shared a lot of our precious memories. Though everyone laughed out loud, we all miss the good old time, and felt a little sad about our separateness.

Time flies, we sat on the floor talking about our dreams is just like yesterday. Now, we are all in different places, fulfill different dreams. We used to spend most of our time together, but now it is so hard for us to get together. Now, we all have our new lifestyle, we all got new friends. Everything seems to be so different than before. But one thing will never change. The promise we made the day we graduated: we will always be friends.

Again, comes to the separateness. We said good bye at my friend’s house, and keep on our own new life. We got together this spring break, expecting the next meet. Used to spending all our time together, till now, we see others almost twice a year. I believe that when we grow older, it would be even harder for us to get together. No matter how far they are to me, as long as I know they care about me, I would gain a lot of courage.

Journal 3

I was really sporty this weekend. Sunday morning, good weather for sports. I played volleyball, basketball and badminton on the very day. It was really interesting to play those sports. However, I suffered a lot for it. After a whole day of sports, my legs hurt a lot. I can't even walk normally now. But I really think it is worthy. I think that when I was really concentrated on the sport that I was doing, I would forget anything that had been bothering me. When I was playing the sports, I really enjoy it. I can felt the sunshine, the wind, even my sweat. I laugh from my bottom of my heart. I was surprised that how happy I was when I was playing the sports.

I had been too busy to enjoy this little happiness. When I was a child, I could feel so happy merely because I went to a park for the swing. However, as I grew up, I could not feel satisfied that easy. I tend to ignore the happiness I could get from my daily life. I try to seek something is far and vague. Today, I suddenly found out that happiness were always there. I recognized that happy or not depends on how we see things. I might feel exhausted and tired for playing all those sports, but I could also choose to be happy for my achievement. After a sporty Sunday, I found the girl who can feel happy due to a song she likes. I found the girl who can feel the simple happiness of life. I found myself back today, and I hope I would not get lost again. From now on, I am going to cherish all I can get from my everyday life. I will try to live fully of my life. Be a girl that is thankful and easy to feel satisfied.

Journal 2

Yesterday was my mother and my father' birthday. It was really special that their birthdays were on the same day. That was because my mom’s birthday was the same day as my father’s birthday by lunar calendar. It was really a meaningful day, so my families went to a fancy restaurant to have dinner together to celebrate their birthdays. I really like that restaurant because the steak there is delicious, and I also love the dessert a lot. Above all, the atmosphere there is really appropriate to celebrate birthday. We often celebrate birthday in that restaurant because the servers will come over and sing a birthday song for us, and after that, they will take a picture for us, and give us the photo before we left. That day was almost as usual, except we invited our cousin. Surprisingly, my cousin is a regular customer and is a friend of the restaurant manager so the manager gave us aperitif for free. That was really a joyful thing to have that savory drink for free. Another delightful thing is we took a lot of gifts for spending a certain amount of money. I think the whole dinner was really fun and the most important thing was that my parents felt very happy.

p.s. I happened to know that the restaurant would have a branch store in Chiayi. I will go there someday to see if I can find the same happiness there. I also hope that everyone can find some joy in this restaurant.




This is my favorite!

Journal 1

Today my friend and I went to see a performance in the school performing hall. It was a music performance. We didn't plan to see this show at first. We happened to see the poster outside the performing hall. The poster was quite attractive. So, we went inside the hall. However, when we were there, we were already late. But we were touched as soon as we saw the performance.“聲光火舞”is a performance present by music with some special visual aid.

Most of the performers are from Taiwan, but there are some foreigners who also appreciate the music and the culture from Taiwan. I think it was really special that the foreigners were performing the things from east. They could also understand the beauty of the eastern culture. They not only sang but also used guitar, drum, and some other instruments from different country to perform the music from different culture. I think that was really cool. They combine the elements from both east and west, and perform something new and creative.

The show really impressed me. I enjoyed the music and the light effect a lot, but what really touched me is the spirit that the lead singer wanted to show us. That is the spirit to show the beauty of our country (culture) to the world. The performers all think that to show our culture to others is a kind of duty. Especially the lead singer, a girl from Taiwan, she is really proud of her own country. They toured around the world, and brought the shows from Taiwan to the world. When I heard the lead singer sang, I could tell that she really love this place.

Week Fourteen

Q1: How do you like the weekly writing prompts? Are they interesting or boring? Inspirational or weird? Are they related to your life? Can you suggest anything better and give some examples?
I like the weekly writing prompts; I think those topics or issues are interesting and related to my life. They are not only interesting but also inspired me to think.
Q2: Do you like the two-way online discussion with your keypal? Or do you think we should have more people (like 3~4 students) form a group blog to exchange ideas? Why or why not?
I like the idea of the two-way online discussion with my key pal; however, when the theory put in to action, it might encounter a lot of difficulties. For my own experience, once one side of the student could not finish the task on time, it would be difficult for his or her partner to finish her own part. For this reason, I think more people to discuss one topic might be better. I believe that if more people participate in the same task, we might know more different ideas about the issues or it might inspire us to think those topics from different angles.
Q3: Have you encountered any difficulties during the semester when using blogs to discuss with your keypal, e.g., computer problems or anything?
Actually, I think the whole process was quite successful, despite we don’t get a lot of chance to discuss the topics.
Q4: How do you like the project website? Are they friendly enough? Have we left out any important content? How do you like the layout/design?
In fact, I love the project website. It is delicate and it is very convenient to see our task every week due to the link. I also like the pictures or videos about our every week tasks. It makes us easier to understand the topics or sometimes it even inspires me to come up some thoughts about the tasks.
Q5: What have you gained from this blog activity?
From this blog activity, I learn to express my thoughts in a more efficient way. I also learn to think things in other ways, in different angles. The most important is I try to think more, I try to show concern to the latest issues.
Q6: If you had an opportunity to start over, would you have done anything differently? If so, how?
Since I already saw others’ thoughts about those issues, if I can start over again, I might have more thoughts to express.

Week Thirteen

Q1: Please offer your suggestions as how we can grade your performance better?
First, I think the content is the most important part to grade our performance. The reason why I think that the content is the most important is that to write blogs is to show our opinions of the topic and to share our thoughts about the issues.

Second, the grammar and the writing skills are also important. This class is about writing, so the way we present our ideas also matters. The ability of writing will affect the readers’ understanding about our thoughts. That is why grammar and some other writing skills should also be valued.

Third, the last but not least, I think how much efforts we make in writing the blog is also very important. For myself, maybe I am not doing very well every time, but at least I try hard and I take those tasks seriously every time.


Q2: Based on the criteria you suggested in Q1, please give a score to yourself and explain how you’ve earned it.

I think I would give myself 7, since I try my best to fully express my opinions of those topics, and I do think a lot before I write the blogs. However, there must be some other improvements I can make. For example, I saw other’s blog and the ways they presented their thoughts are clearer than mine. Also, I found myself bad at grammar, though I tried to pay a lot of attention to it; there must be some mistakes that I didn’t notice. But I think I make a lot of effort to write those blogs. I also think that I learned a lot from writing these blogs.

Q3: Based on the criteria you suggested in Q1, please give a score to your partner and explain how s/he has earned it.

I would give my partner 6. First of all, I believe that she might be very busy so that she can not do the tasks on time. However, it is a little unprofessional to catch up the progress at one time. It also makes me hard to do some tasks too. Nevertheless, I think that she presented her ideas and thoughts briefly but clearly which I should learn from her.