California fires ( Journal #22 )

Recently, everyone can feel the power of Santa Anna Wind. The wind makes people feel dry, hot and windless and I can’t even breathe everyday because of the dry weather. The disaster has been causing nearly 300000 people losing their home or properties. One of the reasons that make the disaster is the Santa Anna wind phenomenon but another more important reason is humans’ behavior. I always think that God grant humans numerous benefits such as, food, water, and nature but humans not only don’t value everything that they have already had but also kept destroying these things that surround us.

The event made me recalled another disaster that happened about 4 years ago, that is, SARS disease. SARS disease cause a bunch of people died. The main reason is a virus, coronavirus. Originally, the virus was not a dangerous virus and it could be easily killed by antibiotic medicines. However, because modern people abused antibiotic medicines, the coronavirus started changing itself and became another virus that contained medicines resistance ability. That is why SARS disease is so hard to control during that time.

Chinese has a idiom that is, "if the disaster is made by God, humans still have chance to survive, however, if the disaster is made by human being, humans can barely survive.” The idiom just only wants to remind us to value everything that we have had already. As to such kind of disaster, I strongly believe one principle that people don’t try to manipulate the nature. That is what I feel about the California fires.

Time management ( Journal #21 )

Time management is a big issue for university students. Students who study in the university are very different from high school students. In the university, most professors won’t assign students daily homework. Maybe they will just only give students a schedule to remind students what they should do. Thus, if students don’t know how to arrange their schedule, they will tend to fail on their study. There are some techniques that can assist students to manage their time.

First of all, students need to discriminate their study time and leisure time. To set up a personal schedule is very important for students. Students can review their own schedule to arrange their study progression. Second, students have to arrange extra time for unexpectedly accidents. If students arrange their time too exact and if some accidents happen, students will be hard to master these things and they will lose their flexibility to deal with these accidents.

The last one is that students need to separate their study time and leisure time. Although improving academic skills are very important for university students, they still value their physical and mental health. Students need to arrange some leisure activities to vent out their stress or negative emotion. Students can release their stress by exercising or hanging out with friends. By these activities, students not only can release their own pressures but also can refill their energy for keeping moving.

Therefore, I believe that students can efficiently manage their time by arranging their own schedule and discriminating study and leisure time.

Essay ( jornal # 20 )

Television is one of the greatest inventions in the world. For modern people, television has also become an indispensable thing in their life. Some people might say: watching television is a waste of time. However, for me, I think that watching television is not a waste of time. By watching television, we not only can receive different knowledge but also can obtain relaxations from our stressful life. For international students, watching television is also a good way to learn foreign language and foreign culture.

First of all, for most of international students, learning foreign language and different culture are their priority. Most of time, students learn foreign language from text books and classes. After school, they can utilize television to be an approach to continue learning. For example: students can choose some educational programs like discovery and national geology channel to broaden their vision and obtain diverse knowledge.

Besides, by watching these programs, they can also train their listening and speaking skills. When students watch television, they can learn how to exactly pronounce the foreign words or they can learn how to apply the vocabulary that they learn from the class to usual life.

Furthermore, watching television is not only a leaning approach but also a relaxation method for most of people. In this strong competition society, people are always under an enormous stressful atmosphere. Sometimes, people have no time to go outside to relax. At this time, watching a good movie or a soap opera can help people to put down their stress temporarily. We can name watching television as “no-brain activities,” that is, people do not need to use their brain to think but totally relax. We can choose a music channel and spend a whole noon to enjoy the wonderful moment.

All in all, I think that watching television can not only help people to relax in their leisure time but also provide other learning approaches to learn foreign language and culture especially for students. Thus, that is why I think that watching television is not a waste of time.

Halloween Party ( jounal #19 )

Halloween is coming. I have never joined such kind of party so far. Actually, I am not a party animal, so I don’t go to party in the past. As I received the invitation card, I had no intention to join the Halloween party at that time. One of the reasons is that I don’t know what kind of costume I can wear. After my sister heard what I said, she yelled me. She said” you should experience any kind of American culture and Halloween is the most important occasions in the America. Besides my sister, my friends also strongly invited me to join them. So finally, I changed my mind. As to costume, I will probably play a sexy nurse or a naughty devil. Why will I choose this costume? First of all, the nurse costume is related to my occupation because usually, we worked in the hospital professionally and seriously, now in this particularly occasion, I want to reverse this stereotype image to everyone. The naughty devil, because it is Halloween, it is very appropriate to play a character that is related to ghost. That is why I want to choose a devil role to be my costume. Well, that is only my imagination. If someone really want to know what kind of costume I will wear, go to the Halloween party and then the answer will be revealed at that time.

To my dear friends ( Journal #18 )

Actually, recently, my emotion is not really stable. I feel very weakness and hopeless. I can understand that people in the different stage will have their own task and we will have our own concerns. Even though I am doing some things that I am supposed to do, I still feel very untrue. Originally, in my home country, I had a pretty good job and very good salary. However, I quitted my job for pursuing a dream. No body knows if the dream will come true or not. Maybe, I can never reach the dream. Now I am standing on this place where I am pursuing for a long time, however, I start feeling fears. When I am struggling with the fears, they suddenly appear in my life. Who are they? Well, they are my dear friends. These friends are not all from my home country. Although they are from different country, they are just like my old friends. When I meet troubles, they will stand by me and support me without complaints.


Yesterday when I was talking to my friends, she told me that 2 months later, everything will change. Some of my friends will move to another state and some of them will transfer to another school or go back to their home country. Suddenly, I and my friend felt very sorrowful. Although we still have 2 more months can be together, we are still very sad because we all know that time won’t stop for any reasons or person. In my opinion, I hate any kind of short relationships and if I know that the relationship is short, then I won’t start. As I was falling into such kind of negative emotion, one of my friend reminded me that let us treasure the moment that we have now. She said that no matter which kind of relationships are, one day the relationships will still end. But if we can treasure this moment and create more memories between each other, we will never feel any regret and the memories will also be branded on our heart forever.

"C’est La Vie!”--- That is life. Now I still feel miserable for I am going to leave my friends, however, I will make more opportunities to hang out with my friends. This journal will be bestowed upon my dear friends; thank you for you guys always stand with me and support me when i am frustrated. I hope that you can understand how grateful I am and in my mind how important you are. Thank you my friends.

The mirror has two faces ( Journal #16 )

In the nowadays, there are numerous movies around us. Actually, I love to watch movies and I am used to watching movies for I can vent my negative feelings. One of my favorite movies is “The Mirror Has Two Faces.” This movie was published in 1996. The director is Barbra Streisand and she is also one of a main character in this movie. This movie is mainly talking if the appearance of women can affect a relationship. Barbra in this movie was playing a professor of university. She always thought that her appearance was not good. In other words, she felt herself was not beautiful. Until her Mr. Right appeared, she just realized that actually, the appearance probably will not mean anything.

I love the movie because I have the same feelings with the character that Barbra plays. I saw that a lot of people around me always pursuit or focus on the appearance of people. Sometimes, they don’t really care about the person’s characteristic; they just only focus on their exterior appearance. Gradually, I felt that I was influenced by those who were around me as well. I lost my confidence for I didn’t have a beautiful appearance. I started paying more attention on my clothing and hairdo, yet I forgot to strengthen the things I had already. I kept blindly seeking some intangible things. For instance; I spent a lot of money on my clothes, shoes, and accessories, however, I didn’t buy some good books to rinse my arid empty soul. Until I saw the movie, I suddenly noticed that when I was seeking those untouchable things, I was also losing some truly important things. Because of this movie, I started reviewing my life and tried to correct my attitude in time. Now I still keep pursuing some things that will make me become more attractive, but I also realize that only when I am full of self-confidence I can just become the person who I am pursuing. I mean ---- Beauty.

The Expository paragraph ( Journal #17 )

If I could visit any place in the world, I would like to visit Korea. I have some reasons for my ideal. First, in the recent year, Korean drama becomes very popular and through the Korean drama, we can see Korean’s own culture such as: food, custom, and so on and the more information from Korean I contact the more interest I have. I want to further know and experience the really Korean culture. For example: how Korean women dress, how spicy their food is and how beautiful the winter scenes are. The second reason is that recently, Korea’s economic system is getting stronger. One of the reasons that make Korea’s economy gets blooming is high-tech products. Such as: cell phones and computers and also those products make whole world start knowing Korea. Finally, each girl loves to shop for the fashion accessory of course including me. I would like to go to the place where the Korean young people will usually go shopping and I will purchase the latest and fashion things for my family and my friends. According to those reasons, I would like to choose Korea to visit.

Universal Studios ( Journal #15 )

On September 29th, all of ALP students had a big patty, that is, we went to universal studios. This time is not my first time to go to universal studios; however, it was my first time to go there with my classmates who were from different countries. This experience was very interesting because each person must use their second language, English, to communicate with each other. Although we were not in the regular class, we were still l learning. Some people like speeding rides but others don’t. Some people like horror things like horror house but some of them don’t even though each person has their own liking. Sometimes, we have different pinions that will make us argue but eventually we can always find the balance. By this traveling experience, I start trying to hang out with some classmates who I am not familiar with. By this chance, I also met some friends that we didn’t see each other for a long time. Actually, I love people. I love the feeling that when I and my friends be with together.

I strongly believe that people can’t be alone. No matter how old you are or which status you are at, we all need people surround us like family and friends.

So, I say: my dear friends, how about eating “Hot Pot” next week.