springS

Yesterday, there was a little snow fallen but it ended soon. Today, there is a shinny day again. Though I am in bad mood, the Sun still try to warm me. How strange the spring in Calgary is. In my hometown in China, there must be lots of rainfalls now. Every year, when the spring comes, the weather in my hometown will become very humid. It always has small rain for whole month. When the humid air comes from the sea, things will be more terrible. At that time, if you don’t close the windows of your house, the humid air will soon enter the house. Then the whole house will be wetted. You can see countless beats of water on the wall and mirrors. The fabric will be no longer dry and mildew easily. Though it is terrible to open the windows at that time, I used to open them because it will smell bad if close the windows all the days and don’t let flesh air in. As a result, I always be blamed by my mother. I used to hate the humid spring in my hometown, but now, I miss it because I could feel the spring. All plants would become green again at that time. The small rain sometimes gave people happy mood. Calgary’s spring is so boring.
The final is coming; I am so worried about it. When the end comes near and near, I feel more anxious than before. I have to work much harder in the follow weeks.

Different stuff

My friend Mike is always interested in my Chinese stuff. He especially is curious to Chinese food and culture. Today, I made Chinese medicine soup at home. The strange smell attracted Mike came down quickly and asked what I was making. I told him those were Chinese medicines. I found it was hard to explain what the medicines were made by and how it worked for good health because I did not understand them all. What I know just that they are some good stuff. To Mike, these were some dried plant and had may be magic power, I though. Off course, he got to try the soup. I was not surprised that he said “yucky” after trying it. It was not the first time he show me his response liked this. May be I ought to improve my skills in making food, hah. He is curious to Chinese food, but he still prefer to his Canadian style to Chinese. He also asked me about Chinese words, and he seems likes Cantonese better than mandarin. It is a pity that I just can show him some simple Chinese stuff. I also learned some thing from Mike. He is a really lazy man. He hardly takes time to cook. He always makes his dinner with one pan and a microwave. He material he need is bought from supermarket and everything has been cut and prepared well in package. In China, people always use about one hour to prepared dinner because everything we have to do by ourselves, so I use this way now. This is one of the stuff I learned from my friend Mike.

Want to be free

My friend Mike just finished his vacation in Mexico and came back. He told me that he had a pretty nice holiday there. He showed me many pictures that he took in Mexico. It is a beautiful beach with blue sky and the sea. Mike told me many interesting things about his vacation. I can felt he was exciting for this though this was the second time he went to Mexico in half a year. He likes sea very much. He said that if he has enough money, he would go to Mexico; buy a house near the beach and live there for his rest life. He also asked me to travel more. He told me that I should enjoy my life. Actually, I really hope so. The first place I want to visit is Munich, the city of Germany. I like the city because my favorite soccer team is in this city. I want to there to watch my favorite soccer team’s game. I can’t imagine what the scene like when I sit in the enormous stadium and watch the soccer game with forty thousand people. It must be an amazing moment. I also want to travel around the world. However, they are still dreams to me. I even never traveled around China. There are some conditions of Mike’s advice. If I had enough money and free to travel around the world without any restriction…but it is pity that I neither have money and freedom to do things what I want. Hope I can do it in one day, hah.

A nice day

Today, I talked with one of my friend. She asked me to help her to move her house this weekend. Of course, I will help her. When I ask why she want to move, she told me that her son is going to go to kindergarten, and she want to move to a place that has good kindergarten. She loves her son very much. She talked a lot about her son. When she talked about the future after her son grow up, she felt a little disappoint about it. She said that children in west countries pay less attention to their parents after they grow up. I can hear she afraid that after her son is 18 years, he will leave them and just back to see his parents once or twice in a year. She said she don’t like this. She wants her son can keep a traditional Chinese culture: “xiao”. Actually, I can’t totally understand her feeling because I don’t have my children now. Though I know my mother also love me, I still can’t understand how parents love their children; but I know I should give more phone calls to my parents from now on. I think this is a common problem that many Chinese immigration families face. Most of the parents try to remain this good tradition.

I am also curious that how many Chinese families can keep this tradition in Canada.We have a nice pizza party today. We all have friends in different levels. It is a good opportunity for the EAP students sit together and chart with each other. And also thanks for Scott and Murray. They gave us lots of funny and good music. They always give us surprise~!

No TitLE

Since the time being changed last week, I find time goes really fast now. I just changed the clock. I never made the Earth turn faster. How come my time lost so quickly? Everyday after I back home and finished dinner. It is already 7pm, even 8pm. What I do everyday is the same as before. It is really interesting that it seems I lost 1 hour everyday. The day time is become longer and longer now. One month ago, the sky was totally dark after 6pm, but now, I still can see the sunlight after 7. And I always have the concept that it’s early because the sun still in the sky. The sun is tricking me. May be he want me to do more during day time, but I find my day time is also limited. I am still finding ways to adapt the crazy Canadian time~
Yesterday, I went to the writing center to ask for help. The instructor gave me lots of useful advice for my term paper. I think it will be better if I could have extra time because 15mins is really not enough. Another thing I found is that the instructor looks like Nicolas Cage in the movie “Con Air”. He has the similar face and hair style, and eyes. I am not sure if it was because I am tired or other reasons to make me feel him like the movie star. Hah, may be I can ask Yolanda, she was also me the teacher yesterday. Anyway, he is a nice guy and helped me a lot.

Something

I saw one of my high school mate yesterday. I was so happy that she is the first classmate I saw after I came to Canada. I couldn't image I can see her here. She was taking her children back home. It's really shock, and it must hurt many of my high school classmates because she used to one of the most beautiful girl in my class. I remembered many of my friends wanted to date her at that time. Now, everything had changed. She had come here nearly 5 years and she is the wife of a store owner now. I talked with her, I found her had change a lots and we couldn't find much topics to talk except the past. It seems we are from different society leveal now. May be it's ture, time has past and changed us a lot.

This morning drived me crazy. I got up so late that I had to do all the stuff in hurry. Then I ran to the bus stop. It's lucky I still could catch the bus. I decieded to get off beside the campus because I need to come to science building today. I think my idear isn't bad, but when I arraived Brendwood, the dear bus driver told us that the bus was out off service now. So I had not choice, I got off the bus, and then walked to school, not really far, but it's enough for me to walk. And I lost my my to the computer lab, TOO...

Disorder

I haven't come to here for a long time. My life in the last few weeks was really chaos. The mid-term exam made me fell panicky. There were so many stuffs and I had to deal all of them. I could not stop for a while in last few weeks. Life is always full of crazy things. I can’t say I enjoy them, but at least they make me wouldn’t be hollow. But no mater how my life likes, in order to pass the final, to past the courses, I need to improve my English. This is an important part of my life now.

In this week there was an interesting thing happened to me. One morning, the water in my bottle poured out and washed my bag and my books cleanly. I ought to be aware of it because my dream had predicted it to me! The night before my books' washing event, I dreamed that I fell in a pool of water. I should be careful about water. Yes, I want to give some magical power to my dreams and give an excuse to my careless. That’s why dreams can release people’s stress because I can change my unhappy mood about my wet books to think about the amazing dreams. Sometimes, when I feel tied or stressful, I want some spirit bailment or some happy things to make me keep going. However, dreams still dreams, I can’t live without air. One of my friend said to me that life was tough, but we had to live until we die. Off course, he couldn’t give me any answer how to live because he was seeking how to pull him out from helpless life, too. Hah, I don’t know what I am writing now. It’s time to get out from chaos now.

Something

The c-train was late again in today’s morning. When I got to the University station, it’s nearly 10 o’clock. What the hell, I will late for my class. Suddenly, I saw a guy was running to his class. Then I began to run to. I don’t know why I ran at that time. May be I don’t want to late for my class, or I just ran for funny. I hadn’t run for a long time since I came to Calgary. Hopefully Scotte would say Sam is a good student because he run to class~haha. However, I found it’s totally not funny. I felt really terrible when I was running. It’s hard for me to describe say how awful it is. I just ran in a short distance, but I felt like in the middle of a marathon. Before I came to here, I used to play soccer frequently, and I never felt tired after playing one or two hours; but now, I am so weak.

Another interesting thing interesting today is that a guy talked with me about the coming Super Bowl at the bus station. He talked lots about the two teams going to play on this Sunday’s final game. He is the fans of the New England Patriots. Actually, I don’t know much about football. I don’t like football very much because the game intermits very often and it’s a little boring to watch it. I couldn’t find many topics with the football fans, but it seems nothing can stop him talking about football until his bus came. He’s a nice guy, and I just wish I could know more about football and shared my opinion with him.

Disaster

In recent days, when I open some Chinese wed sides, most of their head lines are talking about the heavy storm in China. It is the most terrible weather in the last 10 years. Many provinces have heavy snow and low temperature. Even in my hometown, my grandparents told me that this winter is the coldest winter in last 12 years. The worse thing is that the bad weather comes at the time that millions of migrant workers are going home for the Chinese New Year. The storm destroyed the rail power system. Trains have been paralyzed because of the cripple power line. Almost 8 millions migrant workers have stayed at the Guangzhou provincial train station for over one week. They come from different provinces to work in Guangdong province. Spring Festival is their only chance to bake home and see their families. Some of them hadn’t back home for several years. Now, they all are obstructed by the terrible weather. I can feel how anxious and despondent they are. I used to work in a fabric factory. There are many migrant workers in the factory and I worked with them for three months. This experience totally changed my opinion to migrant workers. Most of them are hard working and very kind. They leave their home town to search better life and they always miss their family. Most of them have the same aim that earn enough money, and then back to their hometown to do some small business or get marry. Their life is tough, but their smiles always emerge in my eyes. I finally understand how optimistic they are because I am now study along in another country and I hardly find any smile like this in my past 5 months. Now, may be one of my friends is staying in the train station and look for the “luck train” to take him back home. Sincerely hope the bad weather will end soon and all of the workers can back home and have a nice new year with their family.

Blizzard

We have a blizzard now. It is a heavy storm but not a game of Blizzard for this time. Yesterday, I still had very nice weather. It felt warm all the day, even at night. Now, I can feel my room is a shaking in the big wind. Today, when I walked out side, I could feel the snow hit on my face and the big wind big wind push me backward. When I was waiting for the bus, I just saw a piece of blank paper in front of the street. I could feel nothing but cold. The wind chill was really cold. I tried to make a phone call to check the bus schedule. I thought it just took one or two minutes, so I didn’t wear my gloves. When I finished the call, I found my hand had changed like an ole man’s hand and I nearly had no feeling with my fingers. It took me about ten minutes to recover in the bus. “Don’t let your body expose in the cold outside”. I should remember what my aunt told me. The temperature went down so quickly. I hardly find a sentence to describe my feeling to the crazy weather. Today, I have the coldest weather since I came to Canada. Tomorrow, I may continue to refresh my record. Another thing, when I back home, on the way to the bus, a black guy came to ask me if I want some cigarette. I don’t know what he wants to do. May be he just want to sell me some cigarette, or in other purposes. After all, I refused him. Some strange guys seem like to appear in crazy days.

Good in bads

Today, I took my first reading quiz after EAP3. It was a really tough quiz to me. There are so many words I didn’t understand! What the hell~ I was really shock by the quiz. Actually, I am frightening deeply in my heart. Can I pass the EAP3 and get enter to my university major? The application of the fall session has brought me lots of trouble now. There are many materials I need to complete and I have to do it quickly. And today’s quiz told me that my vocabulary is not enough for my study. At least, it is one of the main obstacles for me now. I think I am under somewhat high pressure now. I need to make some plant to pull me out of such kind of the serious situation.
The only good thing I have today is from my friend Mike. I back home late night because I took my attending lecture. I was hungry and felt cold when I was waiting my bus. Though it is not very cold today, but the tough facts I met today made me felt really cold and helpless. I want to back home quickly. However, when I thought about I have to make dinner for me, I think, I don’t want to do anything after I back home. As light always can be seen in dark, good thing happened. My friend Mike had made dinner for me. It’s not the first time he do this. Sometimes I make it for him; sometime, he doses it for me. For this time, he really did me a big favor. He seem found me with something unhappy, but he didn’t ask me too much. He just said: “Life it tough~” I know what he means. Yap, life is tough, but some considerations always help much. Thanks, my friend. God bless you.

The best way to learn a foreign language

In my opinion, both studying in class and out of class are important for learning a foreign language. We take classes because we need to learn the skill and knowledge. I used to learn English by myself. I spent lots of time and did many practices every day. The more practices I did, the more problems I found, but I always didn’t know how to correct them because no one could tell me the right answer and reason. Answer comes easier than reason. I always make the same mistake because I didn’t know the correct reason for answers. I think this why we need teachers. They have huge knowledge and experience in the field they teach. Especially learning a foreign language, it safes time and is much easier within teachers’ instruction. We also can share experience with our classmate. It’s also help for our study.
Learn out of class because we need more practice. One of the most important goals of learning a foreign language is for communication. It’s about how to the knowledge we learn in out daily life. The time of classes is limit and it mostly focuses on teach and learn. We need more time to practice what we learn. Watch TV, chat with friends in English, do the practice in text book…I have lots of opportunity to use English everyday. However, for me, it seems hard for me to hold the mind that I need practice more out of class. Even I always avoid using English in my life. I think this is why English still poor. From my negative example, it is not hard to find the importance of learning foreign languages out of class~~