A visit to SAM

Today we are supposed to have our second learning journey, and our destinations are Singapore national museum and Singapore art museum. In my view, I think the latter is much more interesting than the former.
There are a plenty of odd and interesting exhibitions in Singapore art museum, and three pairs of wings captured my attention easily during my visit, and this artwork left a quite deep impression on me. I can remember clearly that these three pairs of wings are made of hundreds of slippers. Furthermore, the source of these slippers makes this artwork even more meaningful. As the introduction shows, these slippers are all collected from the prisons in Singapore. The artist uses these slippers to make three pairs of big wings, which means the freedom which the prisoners are all looking forward to. As far as I am concerned, this artwork indicates the exact meaning of art. From this kind of good artworks, we can not only understand the definition of beauty, we can also comprehend our society and history. We are able to figure out some repulsiveness and scandals in our society and in long history, because actually artists are usually good at reflect these repugnant phenomena by the mean of sarcasm. Therefore, we can think back over all these things that happened and be more forward-looking and smart in the future. That is what the power of art can bring us.
I really enjoyed my visit to Singapore art museum, and if given another chance, I will visit it again.

Black

For a long time, I used to regard black as a color standing for death and tragedy, which always brings adversity to us. However, after Wednesday’ journey to Singapore National Museum, I realize that black symbolize disparate meanings in different cultures.

Apart from representing misfortune for Singaporean, black is also associated to elegance and luxury. Furthermore, wearing black is able to be a symbol of progressiveness and an expression of a new post-war self identity as a citizen of modern Singaporean. Compared to Singapore, black in China does not mean the same things. It is not only considered as the color of mourning, but also relates to power, mystery and melancholy. For instance, approximately two thousand years ago, to distinguish the noble from populace, the first Chinese empire commanded that all the aristocrats were supposed to wear black clothes, which definitely made the black become the color of power. In addition, in a number of African countries, black has its distinctive meaning. As is known to all, a part of African countries suffer from drought frequently, causing a series of problems for them. In their opinion, black is equal to thick cloud in the sky, which is signature of rain. Therefore, the color black is flourish and new life for them.

Black has a variety of meanings, not just standing for misery or death, but also symbolizing power and prosperity. From now on, I will change my attitude towards the color black.

Museum + Museum

Yesterday we took a journey to the Singapore National Museum and the Singapore Art Museum in a single afternoon. Though we finished the trip in haste, some parts of it still left a deep impression on me.

When we entered the Singapore History Gallery, the very first historical treasure greeting us was the Singapore Stone. Carved with ancient characters, it is believed to contain the earliest inscription of Singapore. Personally I think this statement is doubtful for those characters have not been interpreted yet. Scrutinizing the stone carrying a long history, I could help thinking what if the content dose not match with the precious perception- would that threaten the position of Singapore Stone? Whatever the word is about, this stone bares the ancient people’s thought and that, in turn, become a link between the past and present. No matter the content is major as it is though to be, the characters on the stone is whispering that long long ago, there was someone who lived just where we are now, and was perceptive enough to recorded his reflections. Maybe the decoding of the characters should not become people’s obsession; after all the infinite possibility is a kind of beauty.

The food part of the Singapore living gallery also impressed me a lot. The theme of the exhibition is “eating on the street”. The history behind this relaxing title is quite harsh: works and merchants in late 19th century resorted to street food because they did not get a family in Singapore. The booming of street food was actually the consequence of poor living condition, which is kind of miserable. Nevertheless, the exhibition was pretty thorough and delightful. It was a pity that we have not got enough time to fully appreciate the gallery.

As for the Singapore Art Museum, I admit that I was quite confused by almost every piece of work. In some cases, the illustration of the work even reinforced my confusion. I was irritated by some so called “art”, through which I think the artists have no intention of bring pleasure to the audience.

Personally, I prefer the Singapore National Museum. Perhaps I will visit it again later.

Gossip Girl- a good American TV series

I have been watching Gossip Girl since I came to Singapore, and I have already watched twice of its four seasons. I really think it shows some aspects of Manhaton's elites' luxious lives as well as some of ours lives.
Theitle is about something about the gossip, but what it really shows is not that superficial. hese elites are quite materialistic and greedy to some extend, which is realistic and ugly, but I think what is shown mainly on the TV series-the permanent topic-love, never fade away or die down in any family or between any couples no matter what they behave in the society outside.I love one of the heroes, Chuck Bass, who is rich and proud of himself. I love him because he is charming and has some English accent, and he is really serious about the feelings he has to Blair, whatever he did every night-some ugly things.
Another heroine, Lily, the mother of a rebelling daughter, is always trapped in the lies she set herself years ago, telling us lying only do harm to oneself ultimately someday. Never lie to someone you care and love, or they will find out one day anf leave you alone in the cold unexpectly.
The TV series is also good for our hearing of American English. The quick and American English of everyday English is really useful to us to adapt to the foreigners daily life.I recomend it to you.

The tour to SAM

Yesterday all of the students went to Singapore Art Museum. We departed at noon, which was really hot outside. After we got into the building, we felt cool and curious about what is on exhibition. The art there really impressed me a lot and swept me off my feet.
All of the art has one special feature, that is mysterious. The Singapore art date back to 600 years ago, the artists created pictures, statues, things of special meanings and functions. Some of them are reallly scary at the first sight. I saw a statue which was made by squirals skin and snake skin, and there was some artificial human finfgers in it which had postures that was abstract and made me a little sick. There was some shows on the wall as screens which presented many process some artists made, some of which were mysterious and confusing, but I really appreciated what it showed. There was a house which shows some special things that was about ghosts and unknown things, l ike a series of four pictures describing a man killing himself by eating a knife and ended up becoming a ghost in black, and the meaning or moral I couldn't understand. There was also some pictures shown in the curly boxes about the understanding and the imaginatiojn of death, due to people's greedy needs and eager for money, which was pretty critical and arousing. It made me think of my life and what I may left after my death.
I really appreciate the art spirit the exhibition showed although I did not reaaly fully understand what is behind those stories and superficial arts.I love the trip in SAM.

About The Journey to The Museums

Today we went to the National Museum of Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum. I really enjoyed the journey. I have said that I am a person who hate history, because what is written are just opinions, not facts, however, when it comes to museums, it is acceptable to me. That is because the exhibits cannot be made by people, they are absolutely facts. After the visit to the National Museum of Singapore, I realized that the history of a country is not only decided by the age of the country---Singapore is indeed a young country, compared to China, which is more than 5000 years old, but the Museum was awesome. We saw a number of videos, telling us what different things were like maybe several hundred years ago. In China, exhibits are usually fossils and other things dug from the earth, in Singapore, some of them are more modern---headsets, projectors and so on. I think I enjoyed the Art Museum more, the first reason is that there were more exhibits than the National Museum, there are so many galleries that I nearly got lost. Moreover, there were a "special exhibition gallery". Inside it, there were a lot of...well...things that I cannot understand. I think girls suffered a lot because there were things related to death, and to the exhibits I cannot understand, my comment is: This is it. Why? Let me give my own definition of "art": Art is a thing through which people can let their imagination and creativity fly high while express their own feelings, so it is common that one cannot understand other people's mind. There WERE some terrifying exhibits, but the author must have tried to express some feelings. If we cannot understand, it's OK.

Prof Tay's show

Staying on my bed, I was too lazy to move my body this Sunday morning, although the weather was quite nice for us to go hiking or doing some sports outdoors.
Suddenly a voice came from outside: “ Prof Tay is having a show in the canteen of Eton Hall.” Prof Tay is our C programming teacher and he is somewhat weird, most of the time he seems to be quite solemn and very strict to us, however, he is really funny sometimes. I jumped out of my bed and quickly put on my clothes, and then I rushed out of my room, walking straightly to the canteen in a hurry. When I got there, I found Prof Tay appeared in the canteen as expected, and he was singing songs while many of us SM3 scholars were sitting here, facing him and listening to the song with euphoria. Prof Tay was capable of singing and actually he had showed us his talent before, which had left us a deep impression.
This show touched me completely not because how well Prof Tay sang, but the amiable way he treated us. To be honest, it’s totally different from the situation in China. I will never imagine that a professor will come to students’ hostel, singing for the students on purpose. It is even quite difficult for a student to meet with a professor out of class. The professors in China always seems to be busy and have no time to discuss something with students, but nobody exactly know what they are busy doing except themselves.
In my view, it is something quite significant that the professors in China should learn, and they also need to know how to make friends with students, because it is beneficial to both sides.

Love at distance

Love at distance (we also call it distance relationship).

Firstly, is that love at distance is a kind of test of your patience and braveness. Because you cannot meet each other frequently, the most dangerous thing that can cause breaking up is the strangeness that caused by distance and time. Therefore, people who are in love at distance should communicate with the other one timely by QQ, phone call or letters. You can post him or her some presents on his or her birthday or on Valentine’s Day. The other important way is to date at regular time, but I don’t think it is suitable for us. So, if you are lack of romantic and patience, you should not start your distance relationship. By the way, if you are carsick, you should not start your distance relationship, either.

The second thing about love at distance is that do not be narrow-minded. If you always quarrel with your partner because of your narrow-minded behavior, who is thousands of kilometers away, who will like to keep a distance relationship with you? Therefore, we should be tolerant for things happened between you and your partner. So, if you are oversensitive and bad-tempered, you should not start your distance relationship.

Finally, I want to say, love at distance is holy and realizable.

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The science and the religion

Two days ago, I attend a talk show held by a church to memorize the death of Jesus. The theme of the talk show is “come back from the death” and in the show there are many splendid programs to sing the paeans of love and the god. What impressed me most is a story about a little girl’s reviving after an unexpected accident. The girl hanged herself by accident when playing with another girl. When adults realized the fearful accident, the girl’s pupils had been slack. Her father took her to the hospital and prayed all the time. The miracle is that the girl came to life finally and had no any bad aftermath. The whole family worships the god and is grateful to the love of Jesus.

The next day, I repeat the miracle to one of friends. He cared nothing for this kind of things. In his opinion, most of these miracles are coincidences and in fact the science plays a vital role in them. I also cannot what would happen if the girl did not accept any rescue just with her families’ praying. Most of us—students from China—have no religion and believe the science and nature. Notwithstanding there are many things which the science cannot explain and many religion ascribe they to the power of their gods, people believing in the materialism still insist science can solve these mysteries one day.

As it comes to me, I respect the existence of each virtuous religion, even though it is far away from believing them. These religions combine thanks, love and a lot of good characters with the gods, which enlighten and indoctrinate people. This is what science can hardly achieve easily. A Christian told me that his heart was empty because of some misfortunes in his life, but the Jesus initiated him the wisdom of life and he pluck up again. It is beneficial and helpful to give people believes in their hearts.

No matter if we have faith in any religion, we had better know the whole world through both science and religion. Thus, we can be more wise and sane.

B8 An Tian--From Don't Come Without True Heart

Today, I saw an amazing guy in a blind-date TV program—Don’t Come Without True Heart. (<非诚勿扰>) Why do I say he is amazing? The answer is that, he was totally considered as a crazy man by every common people at first! The most ridiculous feature of him is his exaggerated behavior. Moreover, his mandarin was very American-style though he has an Asia look, and the way of humor of him was different from others’. Maybe it was because he was born in the USA and grew up in HK and is working in Beijing, AND he is a graduate from Harvard, a postgraduate from Oxford, and a doctor from Cal. Bocaly (?). Perhaps, madman and genius just have one line gap, like the main character—Nash, in the film The Beautiful Mind.

However, what impressed me were not his wonderful certifications, or the unusual actions, but his so called “common sense”—the social responsibility. At the last turn, when he had the right to choose one girl from two, he asked the girls a question,” What will you do if you have 10 million dollar?” none of the answers were satisfied by him. Now, I still can clearly remember his serious saying,” Enter to increase knowledge, the part to better survive the country and the kind.” The way he said really regarded this as a common sense, which made me felt shamed. I am sure everyone some kind of the social responsibility, but I must admit that I don’t take that into an account as seriously as him. What a strange and funny guy he was! When he talked about this matter, the serious expressions were just showed on his face, which let me know he is a real man.

You know what? At the end, he didn’t take any girl from the stage—the social-responsibility thing!

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Many of us are busy in working on the research project. I believe that everyone want to perform well and contribute to his team. I think it is very important for us to learn how to cooperate with others before we enter the universities. In my mind, teamwork is an ability, which we can make good use of it. Everyone should put the work of team at first. Everyone should know how he or she can contribute more. Some are good at reading, so they can help to look up some information of the research. Some are good at thinking and planning, so they can help to design the questionnaire. Some are good at writing, so they can help to correct the errors of the reports. Some are good at analyzing, so they can find out the results more easily. In order to make the work more effective, everyone should take responsibility of the part he is good at. Now, our group's research is coming to the end, and we are very glad to try our best to achieve the goal. The progress of the research is very meaningful to us.

Learning from the personality test

After the result of the DISC test coming out, I was a little confused by it. It showed that when I am in public, my type is “I”, which stands for influence; but when I am under pressure, my type turns into “S”, which stands for steadiness. Weird as it seemed, I wondered whether I had suffered from schizophrenia. Ha-ha! Luckily, I found several “companions”. However, after the speech I contemplated for quite a while, and finally came up with two conclusions.
It is natural that some people are accustomed to switching their personalities in different occasions. I am the one of them. They perform gregarious and sociable when they are relaxed in a casual occasion. Do not be surprised if you see them being serious and reserved while they are working. Actually, performing appropriately in any occasion by intuition is much easier than pretending like that.
I also learnt that people’s personality can be changed, especially in adolescence. Hence if one is not satisfied about his personality, he can shape it deliberately. For instance, if you think you are not assertive enough, you should try to force yourself to be a leader to dominate others as well as make some big decisions. In addition, some accidents or environmental factors also can alter one’s personality; like a successful speech enable a person to be more talkable. To some extent, a complicated personality may means one is just changing his personality at this time.
I have almost known my own traits now, which help me perfect my personality better in the following days. Personality is also a tool that I can resort to know another better.

Chinese food and their eating habits

Overall, different areas have different kind of food. For example, Guangdong food is a bit light, Sichuan food is very hot, Shanghai food is rather oily, and Hunan dishes are very spicy, having a strong and hot taste. The food in the north and south of China are very different. In the South of China people have rice everyday, sometimes they have it two or three times a day, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They usually eat it with fish, meat and vegetables, but In the North of China, people eat a lot of noodles and steamed bread for three meals. Though the food is different everywhere, I think they are all delicious such as Hot Pot, dumpling and Spring roll.
Where everyone has their own plate of food, in China the dishes are placed on the table and everybody shares. Among friends, Chinese always order them food as enough as possible. People in china always use chopsticks to eat a meal. One of the most famous eating habits in china is that people eat good food for their breakfast, and they eat a lot in the noon for lunch and little for dinner.

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I Am a Loser to Myself

I am a damn loser to myself.

When required to categorize the personality of myself, I found quite a few personalities that may match me. Ambitious? Yes, otherwise I would not be here. Reserved? Yes, I hold the deepest secret to myself.

However, I scanned through all the personalities, I did not find the one that matches me most. That is lazy.

I am a lazy guy. I always compromise with myself. I will give way to rest even if I have work to do. I will play games when I cannot come up with an idea for my assignment. I will step back when I feel like stating my opinion because I feel it too troublesome.

Did not I regret? Did not I blame myself? Did not I promise to work hard the other day? Yes, I did. In primary school, I told myself to practice electronic piano more often. In junior high school, I told myself to do extra work for math competition. In senior high school, I told myself this is the end for wandering around and the start for real donkey work. As for now, I told myself no need to put as much effort as usual, just focus on school work to a certain extent.

However, I never keep my word. The days in Singapore are the most intolerable period in my life. I cannot attend to my assignment until the last minute. I cannot go to the hospital until I feel extremely uncomfortable. I cannot read through all the leaflets on majors until I am supposed to give our choice. I cannot because I am too lazy. When competing with myself, I am always the loser. I have no choice but to surrender to myself.

Is it possible for me to change? Is it possible for me to really cheer up? Is it possible for me to mend my way? I do not know. I do not dare say that I can overcome all the barriers. I am always a coward when the enemy is me.

I cannot defeat myself maybe forever. I am a god damn loser to myself.

My ideal life of study

For almost every student, study is alway the most important part during the time of study in school. However, in my opinion, study should never be the only part for us during the time of study.
The time studying aboard should be special and colorful. Absolutely, having good grades is necessary. However, we should also do something else that can relax ourselves. To be honest, I am not really agree with the behaviour of just sitting in front of table and studying all the time. Maybe there is no need to live a stimulating life, we can still take more congregate activities and make the life of study colorful.
Furthermore, I think life should have some passion. In some special situations, we can have some "crazy" activities as long as we can take responsibilities for what we have done. For instance, I think we can play together using some cream as long as we can clean that place after the activity. When we have passion to play, why should we control ourselves all the time and do "normal" things like others do?
Time is precious for all of us. Cherish it and enjoy our life aboard, then we can have a good future.

My first project

A few weeks ago, our tutor informed us that we were supposed to accomplish a research project before the end of Bridging Course. Although it is an extraordinarily tough task for green hands, our group has made great strides in the last four weeks with the assistance of our mentor. Just as the old saying—it is first step that costs troublesome, we faced a great deal of difficulties after we started working on our project. Our group got lost in choosing a suitable topic. It was not that we could not come up with a novel idea hounding us, but that we were not capable of deciding which topic was the best. In some particular aspects, a part of topics had advantages over others, but vice versa. Fortunately, a week later, we made up our mind after consulting our mentor, who offered us a number of effective suggestions. However, it seemed that troubles would never disappear because we had a new problem just seconds after we selected our topic. To certain extent, this problem could be described as a language problem. Even though having study English for about eight years, we are unable to express us well in English when we need to design the questionnaire. Nevertheless, everyone in my group raised some ideas and we discussed with each other together. Finally, we finished our questionnaire. There is still a long way to go before we complete the research project. Apparently, a lot of difficulties are waiting for us, but after we overcame a series of problems, I have a faith that our group is able to carry out it well.

Who I am

I once watched a film called “Who I am” with the leading role of Jackie Chan. He is quite famous for his action movies and this one is also presented excellent action scenarios. However, I prefer to focus on the plot that the hero lost memory one time, during that period, keeping asking himself who he was. It is a serious question, which sometimes I ask myself.

I have repeated telling to others that I am actual an introvert person who is also modest, reserved and benevolent. Are these all to describe myself? Human beings with certain personality can also change in different conditions. These days we are doing the research project and designing a questionnaire. Last time, group members elected me as the group leader not in terms of my ability, maybe just for fun. It is hard for me to act more like a passionate leader in a group not only because I lack the dominative power over others, but also my personality has an effect. I apologize for not working together efficiently. That does not mean that I will give up. Fortunately, I am a persistent person, I think, as the miracle happens from time to time, I can make a change successfully. “Who I am” is a really profound philosophy problem, but it will not disturb me if I have the ambition—I can make a change. Give me a fulcrum and a level and I can move the earth.

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A world without war Nowadays most people on this planet are against war, but at the same time, a lot of wars break out now and then, and a lot of people are suffering from the wars now. We human beings have been going through the torture since a long time ago. Just in the second World War, about 55 million people died related to war, and the economic loss was more than four thousand billion; many great architecture, precious literacy, and unprecedented wonders were destroyed; many countries spent years recovering from the war. Since we suffered a lot in the world, many countries did not recognize the importance of peace. After that, the Vietnam War, the wars in Middle East, the Gulf War broke out one after one. The losses could never be made up. We humans are always saying that we like peace, but actually we just broke our promises one by one. In fact, we came to realize the importance of peace: a lot of films about war have been produced; many talented writers had works about war; and pictures, songs, news against war are countless. However, those actions were not enough to keep world in peace. What we need to do now is to take action to prevent all war, to cherish the peace. I am always looking forward to a world without war, without the war between groups, races, or countries. Without war, there would be more laughter and less torture in this planet. Everyone in the world should contribute to maintaining the peace. However little the strength is, when multiplied by seven billion, the power is strong enough to do anything!

Personality

At last, a weekly theme that is able to make me say something about it comes---personality. No doubt, this theme makes me think of the assessment we took several weeks ago---the DISC test. I personally think it is pretty precise. Let me talk about my result. I am a person of "D" type, pure D. According to what the expert said, this kind of person is very rare, there are only 3% of all the people in the world who belong to this kind. D stands for dominant, which means people like me want to dominate everything. It is kind of true. In China, during our holiday, we have to do a small project, I say small because it is nothing like what we are doing now, it is not a research project, we just copy something from the Internet regardless of the copyright because we know actually nobody will read it. However, it will take days to finish it so a lot of students do not bother to do it and when the deadline is approaching, they join other people's group to get a mark. What about me? I do it alone, because I do not allow others tamper my job. I always get a high mark, so I think the result "D" is very precise. Some people will think that the type of me will affect my work related to to research project because we have to work as a team to finish it. What I want to explain is, I can control myself, which means I will never try to dominate what I ain't supposed to dominate or what I do not have the capability to dominate. You can ask my teammates about our relationship, we are getting on very well with each other, and I think that is the purpose of the DISC test---know who you are, then, use apt ways to do the right things.

The personality and values

The personality and values

“There are always some conflicts between the personality and values.” Some people always complained like that. The reason why they said these words is that they cannot find the balance point. In my opinion, the personality actually is a special kind of value which cannot be accepted and gratifying. What is essential is that we should learn to transform the personality to a visible kind of value.

Now I will introduce a movie to reveal my views. Its name is <fame>. It tells many ingenious students found their own ways via a lot of efforts. Each of actors is distinguished. They have their special talents. However they did not know how to exploit their talents. Then they came to a famous school to learn. A white girl had a pretty countenance and is very exquisite but a little shy. An Indian boy owned many strong emotions to express but he could not control them very well. Another girl had a beautiful voice but she had never tried it because her father’s objection. All of them have diverse personalities which are quite precious. If they do not learn some skills to pursue the inside value—just do something they like and do not accept suggestions and cultivations, their personalities will be a heap of wastes. No one will see its value.

Then, how to transform the personality to the value? Everyone is like a stone which probably hides a jade. If we do not desire to be abandoned, learn to burnish ourselves to make others see it. That is why we must learn many years at school. It is a really a hard journey of learning. Never complain that no one can appreciate you again. It is your problem. The value is there. Behind every blossom there are millions of efforts.

B7 love and Marriage

Recently, I am watching a Taiwanese drama called The Fierce Wife. It describes a special story (at least this topic seldom appear in Taiwanese drama) after the main characters got married rather than the loving story in the school or something. What’s important, it gave me some new ideas, or in other words, it changed some of my old ideas. I think the most obvious one is that, I found myself do not obey the “only love” policy as much as I thought I should do. Before I watched this drama, LOVE must be put in the first stage in marriage. Although not only some of my friends but also some elder people told me that, marriage can’t keep long only with love. I can’t agree them even look down upon them, because in my mind they just couldn’t find their Mr. /Miss. Right, yet. However, after watching The Fierce Wife, my idea changed. I know, maybe certain love can’t go into marriage for they can’t live together for a long time; while certain marriage might not need love as just their lives can engage with each other very well; of course, more or less love and marriage can be together during the rest of lives. I just don’t know how much it is. Several days ago, I called my cousin I less believe the “only love” policy now. And he was so calm and told me, “you thought too much.” Finishing the call, I realized I really did. At the age as mine, love is love, hate is hate. When I am still young, follow my heart, just do it.

A "Test" of Our Personalities

A few weeks ago we are informed that a “personality profiling” was arranged for us. According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, “profiling” means: “the act of collection useful information about sb/sth so that you can give a description of them or it.”-the ambiguity seems to being implying something serious. It occurred to me that maybe it would be an examination conducted to find out our psychological condition. Somehow I was annoyed by this initial idea. Luckily the reality disconfirmed my assumption; it turned out to be a workshop given to find out our personality tendency and to deliver suggestions on tips of getting along with different types of individuals. The system utilized was called DISC Personality Profile Test, which categorized people into four types, which are D-Dominance, I-Influence, S-Steadiness, and C-Conscientious. Certain kind of people incline to show certain kind of personality and therefore tend to adopt typical method of their kind. As the symbol of each category indicates, people under D tend to be leaders, and they focus on results rather than process. In contrast, those of C incline to be perfectionists who are fussed on details. “I” people are outgoing and creative; they are often surrounded by friends. However, people in “S” category are quiet and less decisive. We completed a diagram after doing the questionnaire. By following the instruction, we then interpreted our personality tendency from the diagram. Though we were more interested in our peers’ types and associating their behavior with those types, the points laid in, according to the speaker, how to guide our life with these results. The analysis sort of gave us explanation of our advantages and disadvantages-they are determined by our personalities. The common attitudes towards the utility of these explanations may be making good use of the strength, and at the same time, improving our weakness. While I think exaggerating the significance of the latter part perhaps should be avoided. I approve that it is possible to make improvement on out weakness; but it would be to consuming to be obsessed on this practice. Besides, it may lead to the neglecting of our advantages which could do us more good if used properly. A single workshop is far from enough to provide us with a full picture of our personality. It requires time and efforts to know ourselves better.

B7 my coming 19

My coming 19
In the middle of April, in the middle of next week, in middle of that day, I will be 19-year-old.
Wow, what a wonderful year had I experienced. Lots of things I had never expected happened to me. After the college entrance examination, I was upset by my grades, bad indeed. I used to consider relearning one year to get access in a better university in China. However, my mother stopped me absolutely, because she thought it is a waste of my youth. Maybe relearning one year will offer me a better job in the future, but compared with money, time is more precious for me, and the pressure in the relearning period is hard to stand. That is the reason why my mother did not allow me to relearn. So I follow my mother’s proposal, and determined to study in CQ University. Later, a letter from my university informed me that I was chosen to be the candidate of SM3 scholars, which means I may have the opportunity to go to Singapore for bachelor study under the condition that I must work for them for 6 years.
Finally, I captured this opportunity and was matriculated by nus. This is one thing I had never expected. Now, I am going to have my happy birthday first time in abroad. Moreover, two fellows the same birthday as mine. How marvelous it is !!!
What’s more? This year, I experienced my first love, which I had wondered for long. Even though it did not last for long out of my expectation, from the Valentine’s Day in 2011 to the end of March, half a month, but it really made me happy, and it left me a lot of sweet memory. Thanks for my first love and the one who I used to fall in love with. In our condition, maybe it is hard for us to go back to be friends, but you really taught me how to be mature, and how to chase for my dream. Now, my 18 is vanishing. This year, lots of things which might change my whole life happened to me. Thanks for these things, because they left lots of memories whether bad or good in my adolescent time.
I am preparing well to say good-bye to my 18, and to say hello to my coming 19.

A blog of by-talk

First and foremost, I need to state that this blog is likely to be a boring one, so do not be tricked easily by the topic. I tried hard to write a blog which has something related to this week’s topic—physical anthropology and finished it ultimately.

Tuesday afternoon, we conducted a debated among the whole class, arguing about whether human beings are descended from apes or not. Though we have the Darwin theory and the natural selection theory, we cannot prove that apes are our ancestors, no matter how similar the gene we and apes have. However, it is absolutely true that the process from our ancestors to human beings now belongs to species evolution. How we evolved from the very beginning after a tremendous period of time? Have you ever observed the growth of a normal human being? Take us as examples, when we were young, we started to learn some simple characters and arithmetic calculations whose formulation had been built thousand years ago. That means most of the subsequent theories and rules are based on the former ones. It is the inheritance we have received from ancestors’ that wheels the evolution into a better situation. We should pay more attention to the process, not ignoring the significance of inheritance of fortune from older generations. If we take it into consideration, then there will not have so many cases like that traditions, languages or specific cultures lose its power and successors .

The Research Project

A lot of people might be flabbergasted by my posts---there are way too many of them...Some people will think I am more than insane, including the members in my mentor group and that is because they have to make comment. What I want to respond is, the only reason I write these is that after I have finished my lunch (which will take little time), I have nothing to do, what's more, since most of our classrooms will not be available until our class is about to begin and I want an air-conditioned room, the only place to go is SELF. To my group members, I want to say, I have already written sufficient posts and I believe you all have written sufficient comments, so we can regard the extra things as fun, it is not necessary that you comment my posts,otherwise you will go mad, sooner or later. I am still suffering from the topic---physical something (I refuse to remember the jargon and to write blogs on it). Come on...after all, we are not doing our PhD...Anthropology? Are you kidding me? (By the way, is it spelled as anthropology?) However, I am more interested in the research project we are working on, I really appreciate because it is significant for us---we(...OK, I) have never done this before in China but we are going to do this a lot in NUS in the future, I think this is why we need a bridging course, it IS a bridge. Each one in our group thought a lot and did a lot. So far, we are almost done with our questionnaire, after Qizhong read it, he said it was all right, which rejoiced me. I think it is credited to all of us. I must mention that Lu Shumin is a good leader, though she once wanted to quit, she organized us together for several times to talk about the project, which, according to our Wednesday tutor, Esther, is a "Mission Impossible" for some groups before us. If the momentum lasts, I think I have enough confidence to say our project will turn out to be an extraordinary one. Of course, I hope all of us can do very well. Cheers!

Whether should we college students curb spending?

There is an interesting phenomenon that clothes shops, restaurants, and gift stores always locate around universities, which implies that college students are the perfect consumer group. Nowadays, college students are wild about clothes and shoes of famous brand, high-tech product, entering into some expensive public place of entertainment as if the money is the pie falling down from the sky, ignoring the bearing of parents. The type of college students’ consumption has transformed from “for living” to “for enjoy”. Some people believe that this kind of college students’ consumption reflects the standard of living is rising, so it should be soundly accepted. However, in my opinion, the phenomenon should be criticized. college students have no reasons to take it for granted that abuse parents’ money. On the contrary, we are supposed to keep the grateful heart to our parents and their selfless pay for us. What’s more, this consuming behavior called conformity consumption is not rational, which is also unmatched with the requirement of the tradition to be economical. In addition, when every college students get involved into the whirlpool of comparing unrealistically, they and their family will suffer the pain of limitless pay for it. and it can even give rise to some serious crime. Why not consume as we really wish deep down? Why not throw the useless false pride out? In conclusion, I reckon that it is necessary to advocate a correct and rational consumption among college students .

B6，A story about prediction master

My story about prediction
In this blog, I want to talk about things which I had really experienced about induct and predict.
There are some of these groups of people in China who make living by predict and induct others future. Some can be very precise, but some are absolutely superstition and lie. Still, lots of old people and adults trust them, and they call them “half of the god”, but in my opinion, it is rubbish for me.
I prefer to call these groups of people “micro expression master”, “psychologist”, and “actor”. Therefore, I have this story to support my view.
When I went to Simian Mountain in my hometown for vacation with my family, we have visited a small temple in a forest. There were two masters in the temple keep talking with visitors about what their future life would be like. I heard that one master talked to a visitor that the next year the visitor’s life would be dangerous inferred from the wrinkle in his hand, and in order keep security, an amulet is entailed. Last, this visitor gave lots of money to the master with happiness. I was puzzled, and I wanted to find out how her lie became so successful. At the same time, my auntie was seated in the chair and became the victim. The master talked a lot about the health problem of my auntie, and one sentence impressed me much. That is “you see, your eyes are so dark which means there is a group of unlucky ‘Chi’ in your body, you need to invite the Buddha to protect you away from dangers, and you also need to rest more.” I break out with a sudden laugh. The reason for my auntie’s dark eyes was that she stayed up the whole night to gamble with others. I felt it is so funky. Finally, I thought my auntie is very rational and gave ten Yuan only to the master.
In addition, I supposed I need to experience the “prediction” myself. I was seated in the chair, and listened to the master, and I found how she lied. Every time, she talked a lot about my life, and kept staring at me. Whenever I felt she was right, I would smile. So she observed my micro expression, and knew she was in the right direction, so she continued. That is why I called her micro expression master. Due to our micro expression can never lie and can show whether her saying was true or false. Finally, I gave her ten Yuan as a fee for this discovery.
She had this ability to observe other’s expression to earn money, so that I cannot deny that she was a master. Whenever she was right in one aspect, stupid people might feel that she was a real predictor, and offered her a lot of money to keep them security. That is why my stupid uncle gave her 400 Yuan last.
Well, I acknowledge micro expression is hard to learn, but using this ability to cheat with Buddha nominally is quite wrong. I did not disclose her, because no one will believe me, and this is her place, disclosing her would make myself dangerous.
China is changing, and our young generations no longer conservative and superstitious. In my view, these groups of liar will vanish one day.

A “great” afternoon

Today, after the tired course in the morning, we would have our movie watching2 lesson. I was so excited in the noon that I had not sleep. When afternoon came, I was very sleepy, and I thought maybe the movie is boring, so I wanted to take a nap at first. Unfortunately, Ms Moh Keng sit behind me… I was too sleepy, so I fell asleep beside the wall. When I was dreaming, I felt that a hand is on my left shoulder. Ms Moh Keng said: “Hey, wake up, and have some chocolate.” Then, I was awake. After a while, I was sleepy again. I fell asleep but not beside the wall. When I was having my second dream today, that hand came to my left shoulder again, and I still had some chocolate. Then, I was really awake, and the boring part of the movie had passed. I had a good time watching the movie. It is a “great” afternoon.

The culture of movies

We have learned supplementary material six---telling tales，and I believe that watching movies is a kind of way of telling tales.

When I watched a movie called V for Vendetta, I asked myself a question why the film is so popular among us, thus it becomes a part of our daily life? Therefore, I want to answer the question in this blog.

Firstly, we all know that movie contains various kinds of contents in its category. Classic, action, suspense, thrill, history, romantic, mystery, biography, research based, animals, and others. We cannot tell exactly how many types of movie there are, and I am convinced that it is the variance of movie makes it able to fulfill different audience.

Secondly, Movies are good entertainment and can be inspiring. If taken in the right context, they can bring us strong positive messages and teach us many things. These movies are carefully and brilliantly scripted to show how "real life" characters deal with the "real life" situations they encounter. They were intended to teach people how to deal with similar problems and issues.

Thirdly, we can always view the lives of others, which will hardly, if not never, happen to us. Therefore, movie makes it possible for us to sympathize with others. For instance, when health issues are portrayed and humanized in a movie, viewers are left with a richer understanding of what it must be like for a person with that condition and the people who take care of them. Movies like "A Beautiful Mind" (schizophrenia), "Children of a Lesser God" (deafness), and "Rain Man" (autism) are all examples of stories with sympathetic characters that bring us into their world. Awareness is the first step to understanding, which may then lead to a desire to do something and make a difference -- or at least be more sensitive to people with these conditions.

However, every coin has two sides, and excess of everything is bad. We cannot be addicted to movies or just imitate whatever happened in movies .For example, in movies scenes involving murder and pornography are easily broadcast. In certain drama of television, a famous actor was killed by someone, and in another drama program, appearing normally, he was killed again; in other words, murder in a row in fiction is taken for granted. This event in fiction may cause people to justify violence or murder psychologically.

Thus we should understand that they were not meant to teach people how to live like gangsters or terrorists. People just need to learn to separate fantasy from reality. Look past the fact that a movie shows how your "hood" is. Identify with the movie and see what it is trying to tell you. Nobody expects E.T. to land in their back yard, so why should we act like gangsters simply because we see it in the movies? Leave the script reading to the actors and start reading the scripture. Instead of saying "Houston, we have a problem." try saying "For God so loved the World."

About Choices

I really cannot talk something about the theme this week...So I will talk something about choices. One of my roommates is always afraid of making choices. He just cannot make a decision in front of two mobile phones, two ways and so on. There must be a person next to him who decides for him. I think a lot of people are not good at making choices. How do I know? It is April now, we are about to choose our majors in this month, but a lot of people do not know which to choose. I heard a lot of voices like "which one should I choose". NUS arranged a lot of lectures and invited a lot of senior students to talk to us. The purpose is to make us "clear", however, all these made most of us just more confused. I have made my decision for a very long time. The reason is I know what I want. I want a challenging job with some, but not too much danger in the future, and the most important is, I want a well-paid job. The pursuit of money is never wrong, is it? So I did not think a lot and chose civil engineering, and I will choose the specialization "offshore engineering" two years later. Being an offshore engineer will meet all my needs to my job. I really did not pondered a lot, I should de facto, because if I choose civil engineering and cannot enter that specialization---it is not easy to enter, my career will be ruined, according to most of the people. One must know what he or she need before making choices. Know what you need and do not hesitate, just choose it.

ONE, TWO, THREE …INFINITY

Recently, I found a book called ONE, TWO, THREE …INFINITY. The book was written by George Gamow, a famous professor. I don’t know much about his important discoveries, but I do not feel ashamed for that. I have read the book when I was still a young boy. I enjoyed reading the book very much, and I became more and more interested in the magic of mathematic, physics and logic since then. It is such a famous book, but to me, a young pupil, had no idea about the fame. I could still remember the day when I found an old book in the box of my mother’s old books. It had a simple title which made me feel quite relaxed. I fell in love with the book for the amazing facts which I had never heard or thought. I regarded the book as a lifelong treasure. The book is my root of study.

Lost

Lost
Yesterday, some friends and I went to see a theatre acted by Zhang Junzhe and some seniors. It was about some different degrees of people living in city. They gradually lost themselves because of money, right, reputation as well as love. In order to get profit, they could do some things basing on sacrificing others. However, at last, the people who did it got nothing except deaths.
In my opinion, all of us have the right to chase some things we like, but we should not damage other people's profits. Perhaps there can be some small benefits now when you do some bad things for others, there can also be one day you are repaid. Never think that no one can know what you do even if you think you have done it secretly, everything can be clear as time goes by. Maybe sometimes people can not know it immediately, there can be one day everyone learn about it.
We have the right to chase for benefits, but if our lives are filled with benefits, we can lose a lot of fun in our lives. Though benefit is important for all of us, we should not lose ourselves. Dignity is always the most important thing for us.

Keep going on & be happy~

Woohoo~ The checkpoint finished. A relaxing weekend comes.

The checkpoint exams yesterday was not very easy, especially the calculus. Perhaps my IQ is decreasing at an egregious rate….Maybe I didn’t prepare enough… Anyway, it’s over. It’s time for fun and for a new period of studying!

This afternoon, I went to KTV with some friends in NTU and really had a good time. Although it has been several months since our last meeting, we are still close friends. We sang, we chatted and we laughed a lot. During the first phase, there seem to have been many stories in both NUS and NTU——some are interesting while some are sorrowful. One thing in common is that we are all trying our best to pursue our dreams and never stop. We know we guys from Beihang University are excellent and we are sure to reach our goals if we are really in desire.

A new week will come soon. There will be more heavy tasks in front of us. Anyway, it’s OK. We shouldn’t be childish or complain all day long. When I’m tired, I think of my parents and friends. They make me feel warm. They make me feel that I’m not alone and I’m supported. I will take care of myself and won’t let them disappointed~

Yesterday I made a call to my mom. I told her that I was considering which major I should take. Before that, she had given me a lot of advice. However, she just said she would respect my choice. She believed no matter which major I choose, it wouldn’t be a hindrance on my life. I agreed with her. No one can predict what the future will be like.

I really like the sentence : “Just follow your heart but think twice before you determine.”

The differences among Thai, India and Singapore food

Let Us Smile

Last night, when I was pouring out my grievance to my friend in China on the phone, what he said shocked me. “Are you still wearing a silly smile every day?” he giggled. I hesitated and the said “Yes, so what? I want to stop it but I cannot. You know……” He interrupted me “No. Just keep it. We all like your smile.” I was astonished, for he used to be a cool guy.
This brought me into meditation.” Why do I smile?” Many of my friends once asked me this question. My simple answer is “For no reason”. However, even though I know sometimes I may look stupid, I still cannot quit it or more precisely speaking, I do not want to. I also feel down when I get trapped in a predicament. Nevertheless, one thing I am sure of is that if the hard situation cannot cheer me up, I can do it myself. Happiness is something from our mind. That means it is our choice to be happy or not. So everyone has the talent for being joyful unless he or she doesn’t accept it.
A smile comes easy—you just need to wrinkle up with cheer. I do not know what others think but to me, the dimples of encouragement can really nerve me on to try again when failure makes me upset. So I enjoy others’ smiles. This also gets me itchy to smile.
A smile is worth millions of dollars, but it does not cost a cent. It is one of the most magical things in the world and you can gain it anytime you want. So every morning when you get up, stand in front of the mirror , give yourself a bright smile and liven up your new day.

The first checkpoint

Struggling out of our beds, we felt exhausted both in physics and mentality; because we would have our first checkpoint today and we had to get up early in Saturday. It was a kind of suffering actually. Furthermore, we had been warned that if we could not pass the exams, we would receive a warning letter; and the collection of two warning letters could be used to exchange a single air ticket for return to Chinese (That sounds quite scared actually).That was why all of us took this exam quite serious- all of my roommates stayed in our room, preparing for the coming exam until midnight yesterday.
Today the C programming test was a little tough for me, and some of my roommates were also not so optimistic about the outcome of the test; however it was definitely easy for those guys who had learnt the C programming before. As for the mathematics test, it was not so difficult, but I just hated the complex calculation in the test. If you wanted to ask me whether I was confident about the result, I just could not give you a precise answer. Who knows?
Looking back, I don’t think I was wasting my time in these three months, and no matter what the result will be, I will accept it with happiness. Also, I hope I can do better in my future.

Introspection

In my last blog, I have mentioned that NBA playoff is about to commence at late April. Now, there are only approximately twenty days and ten regular season games before the knockout start. However, in this pivotal time, I find an interesting phenomenon that those who are struggling for a playoff berth are the most tough and powerful team. For example, few days ago, 76ers (stand at six place in East Conference) beat the hottest Bulls at the united Center (a gym’s name), who lost to Bulls at a 40 points deficit in their last visit to the united Center. I am always wondering what cause these tremendous changes. Are they become more skillful? Was Bulls not paying close attention to this game? Definitely not. In my opinion, they just realized that if they did not try their best, they would lose an opportunity to take part in the Playoff. It is the sense of crisis that triggers their potential. But this is the exact reason why I feel so strange. Why do not they focus their mind on games from the beginning of the season? If they do their best in every game, I believe they no need to worry about the playoff berth. It sounds like my current situation. Every day, I spend a great deal of time on playing computer game and surfing the internet. And then when examination comes, I would try as hard as I can to finish my course. However, what if I failed at examination? So, I have made up my mind that I should improve myself day by day. I won’t play games all the time. I am supposed to find the balance between entertainment and study. I promise to myself that I would be diligent every day, every minute.