study

This semester has almost finished, and I am not sure if I can pass this level. Certainly, I hope I can go to next level successful. Today is the last day we have classes; however, I don’t realize that we will face the final exam tomorrow for a long time. The time passed so fast for me, and I have been Canada for one year. In this year, I learn lots of things which I never know before, such as living by myself, cooking and buying food. Everything has to be done by myself and I am surprised that I enjoy my life like that. I will go back China on Dec.22 to Jan.5. It is not a very long time, but I have to go because there are many reasons let me do; however, I don't want to show my reasons here.(although many people have already knew it....-_0|||) Haha~~

stay well

I met with Susan on Sunday afternoon in the Student Center to discuss something about paraphrasing and summarizing. Susan came from a small town which is near Calgary, and her sister was my classmate before; as a result, Susan and I also become friends. I found that I did not know how to paraphrase and summarize, so I wanted to know how to do that well in our writing. I thought that the local students might know how to do it because they must be practiced for many times when they were young. During the discussion, she showed me some paragraphs in the article as examples, which is from her book, and told me how to write. She told me that the best way to paraphrase and summarize is to use the different grammar structure and different words which has the same meaning as the words that you want to instead of. It is the same as what our writing book said. Also, the good way to paraphrase and summarize is practicing. If practice more, you will be more familiar with it, and you will know how to write it. After the meeting, I felt I studied a lot about paraphrasing and summarizing. I knew them more clearly than before. Now, the most important thing for me is to practice more and more about it. Finally, I feel that communicating with a native speaker is a good way to study more things about academic English.

In EAP

I talked with my friends Becky and Megan in their apartment, which located in the upstairs of my apartment, for an hour and a half about the knowledge we have learned from EAP program. All of us agreed that what we have learned is useful in our future in university. However, there were some problems. Although we heard fluent English from other students and native speakers, it was difficult to recognize which words are academic vocabularies and which word is slang. As a result, we had to pay more attention to avoid using informal words when doing writing assignments. Also, we still met another serious problem in the process of learning grammar, which was some definition and information in the textbook were too general. For example, when we need to tell about the structures and the usages of phrases, the simple introduction caused puzzles to us because sometimes we could not distinguish which part of a complex sentence should be a phrase. Therefore, I had to point out the subjects and objects and find how they were used. While discussing the varied sentence structures in the book, I found that it was a process of recombining my knowledge about this part of grammar. After this speaking experience, I believe that all of us benefited from exchanging learning experiences. For me, I have learned how to express my opinions in English much better than before. I need this kind of activity to get more practice and build more confidence. It also helps me find out my defects, and then, I will find solutions to correct them.

In Subway

I have already worked in Subway for almost one year. During the working time, I should listen to customers and talk with them. We often only talked about what they wanted to buy; however, when I sometimes met some customers who were very interesting and friendly, I might talk some other things with them. For example, we talked about what faculty we were in or interesting things. Actually, most time, I just listened to the conversation that they were talking about in order to practice my listening. In my working place, I always talked with my colleagues. Although some of them always scared me in order to have fun, they were not out of spite and they are all funny guys. I felt I improved my listening when I listened to their conversations. Even though I still couldn’t understand all of conversations when they speak so fast, I could understand half of them. That’s a large step for me.

During these days, my friends and I were preparing furniture for our new home. We wanted to buy some second-hand furniture such as the bookcase, sofa and so on. We found an organization which helped international students to find the free furniture. The old man from the organization was very kind and helped us a lot. He never requested us for the requital. We talked about the styles of furniture. Someone from the church helped us deliver the furniture. At first, I didn’t know the academic words of some furniture and hardware. After that, I learned many words and uses about furniture such as mattresses, frames, and nails. I had a good chance to practice my speaking with other local people.

flim

Today I watched the film,called underdog, which was shown on PPS. PPS is a Chinese program that can watch some movies, TV shows, cartoons and some other programma by Internet. I just search movies and found underdog which was shown by English voice and Chinese subtitle.
The movie begins in City Hall in Capitol City, where the mayor is giving a speech about how crime in the city has skyrocketed. As he talked a lonely abandoned canine was walking in the street. Cad sees the dog and takes him into a lab. After he gets put into a cage surrounded by other caged dogs, The dog asks the dog next to him what this place is; all the dog says is that BAD stuff goes on in here. In the lab lobby, Cad watches the door with another security guard, Dan Unger. Dan stops a man trying to walk in saying the lab is closed for the night. The man shows his pass, and Cad identifies him as Dr. Simon Barsinister. Simon and Cad go into the lab, where they retrieve the dog and plan to perform an experiment on him. Simon tells Underdog that it’s going to hurt a lot, which causes the dog to sneeze into Simon’s mouth then jump out of his hands. As he runs around, Underdog damages a bunch of damage to the lab and knocks a bunch of chemicals onto himself. The chemicals change his body around and make him able to run out of the lab by busting through a few walls.

study hard

I met with Bryant who is my friend’s roommate in the Student Center to discuss something about writing. Bryant came from Vancouver, and we knew each other when I went to my friend’s apartment. I found that I couldn’t clarify citing and copying clearly, so I wanted to know how to avoid the plagiarism in our writing. I thought that the local students might know how to avoid it. During the discussion, he showed me some articles and told me how to distinguish the quotation and reference. He told me that the best way to avoid plagiarism is to use the reference which could prove that you were citing from other information. Also, it is a good way to support your opinion in your writing. Then, he taught me how to write reference in a right way. After the meeting, I felt I studied a lot about writing. I knew citing and copying more clearly than before. Communicating with native speaker is good for me to study more things about English.

Cold Day

Today is so cold!! Although it is just a little snow, I have to say it is really cold that I do not want to go outside. My friend and I go to buy some gifts to our family members who are in China; we have to wait for the No. 10 bus. We remember the time when the bus came in order to save time and decrease the time which we are waiting. Although we just wait around 10 minutes I realize I do not want to be outside any more if the weather likes today.

Before I came to Canada, my favorite season was winter; however, after I arrived here, I felt I could not tolerate the weather here because I am almost freezing. I love winter in the past because it was very beautiful. Everywhere is white and everything is clean and pure. I have never been in a place like Canada where is so cold liked North Pole.

X'mas gift

Charles bought an iPod Touch yesterday for me as my Christmas gift. Actually, I don’t like listen to music when I am in the bus or C-train, so by the time I got it, I did not be excited. I think if he bought a NDS or PS3, I would be happier. Ha… he wants to have an mp3 for a long time; I think he also wishes to use it when he has nothing to do in his way to school. Also, he said he wanted me to give him the gift which as the same value as he iPod, and he told me maybe I could buy an earphone that used with this iPod. I said that I would buy a very big one that he could use the earphone warm his ears when it is snow outside. Ha…. I used this iPod two days and it still has charge...so fantastic..

game

Yesterday I met my friend Rebecca who was my roommate in the residence of University of Calgary last semester in the food corner of Mac Hall when I was having my dinner, and I talked to her about forty minutes until I went to home. I asked her to talk with me because she is a native English speaker. This was a good practice for my English speaking. At the beginning we talked about games because she and I were interested in playing games. She told me that she had a new PS2 game and had played with her brother and it was really interesting; however, I didn’t have a PS2 and I could just asked some questions about this game and was not able to play it. Also, I told her about the online game which I played now and it was just allowed in Chinese servers. I described how to play this game and what the background was.That was really interesting.

Chocolate chip cookie

When I was working in subway, I think about why every person who lives here knows what Chocolate chip cookie is, so I just look at the Internet and find that is very normal in eastern countries.

Currently, the chocolate chip cookie is one of the most popular cookies in United States with half the cookies baked in American homes being chocolate chip.. While the Nestlé's Toll House recipe is the most widely known, every brand of chocolate chips (Semi-sweet chocolate morsels in Nestlé parlance) sold in the US and Canada contains a variant of the chocolate chip cookie on its packaging, and almost all baking oriented cookbooks will contain at least one type of recipe.

Practically all commercial bakeries offer their own version of the cookie in both packaged cooked or ready to bake forms. There are at least three national chains that sell fresh baked chocolate chip cookies in malls and stand alone retail locations. Several businesses, including

Doubletree hotels, Citibank, Aloha and Midwest Airlines, offer fresh baked cookies to their patrons to differentiate themselves from their competition. Additionally, there is an urban legend about Neiman Marcus' chocolate chip cookie recipe that has gathered a great deal of popularity over the years. To honor the cookies creation in the state, on 9 July 1997 Massachusetts designated the chocolate chip cookie as the Official State Cookie, after it was proposed by a third grade class from Somerset, Massachusetts.

Book

These days I was reading a book called“Silent Spring”,this book took place in forty years ago when the pesticide was widely used. In the book, Rachel Carson stated that uncontrolled pesticide uses caused the deaths of animals in both short and long term especially birds. One day the over use of pesticide would evoke a silent spring which means no bird songs could be heard because they have all died from pesticides. People suffered from pesticides, too. The pesticides could poison people through fruit, meat, water or even air, but the most terrible thing is that the pesticides damaged the ecological system.

This book could be a breakthrough in the environmental movement. It facilitated the ban of the pesticide DDT in United States and most of the countries, and helped the environmentalism to against materialism and scientism. It increased the public awareness about how the technology affects the nature. In this book, Carson encouraged people to use pesticides carefully and responsibly, and aware the chemical impact on the entire ecological system. Like Al Gore, Carson gave us “an inconvenient truth”. Pesticides may not be a big issue like 70 years ago, but today we are still facing vast problems such as Global Warming, deforestation, and desertification. The only way that we save ourselves is to respect the nature and correct our mistakes.

culture

Today I worked in Subway in university, and one of the employees was called Liz was talking to me when we prepared at the back. She is a Canadian who just graduated from high school. I told her about Chinese culture because she asked me some questions that connected my culture. There are lots of difference between Canada and China. Some of them made her surprise such as the education system. When I told her about how the Chinese go to university after high school, she was shocked. I told her that in China, after we graduated from high school, all of us expect people who wanted to go abroad needed to take an final exam which to make people to go into different universities. We studied in high school for three years, and no matter how the marks were during these three years you had to do the test in order to go to the university. Also it is the only mark to judge students that they are good or bad students; furthermore, to go good or bad universities depended on this mark. All in all, this experience improved my confidence while I am talking to native speaker. Also I learned some new useful vocabulary from her.