My experience being bilingual

The number of the languages you can speak is never too big, I always believe in that. Speaking more than one language may not be a very practical skill, may not help you solve a specific problem. However, knowing another language means that you can communicate with another crowd of people, which may give you the chance to find the answer. One person can never know everything and different people are good at different things, so knowing different languages gives a chance to know many different people and gives you an access to countless new things. I have learned a lot about the American culture from my American friends.
On the other side, knowing another language may cause you trouble. Sometimes, you may speak another language while thinking in your mother tongue. In the first few years learning English, that condition was almost unavoidable. It is not a big deal when I am just speaking Chinglish or broken English. However, if I put English words in Chinese sequence (I cannot remember an exact example but it does happen sometime), it might have a totally opposite meaning. And speaking two languages at the same time will cause you mix the two languages together. Some people probably like that, however, I think that a language stands for a culture and only when you use a language long enough, you can feel and understand the culture in the language. When you mix the two languages together, you are seem using both of them, but you can touch the culture of neither.
I hope that I can have the time to learn a language till I can use it as well as my mother tongue and during that period of time, I will not be unfamiliar with my mother tongue. However, it will always be a dream. The benefits and difficulties of being bilingual can never be measured and compared clearly.

Pictures and diagrams

In the reading material, Elizabeth Hill Boone mentioned a pictorial and diagrammatic recording system which people use besides words. This system is used in many aspects of science and culture; and tells very complicated relationships between different items in a clear way. I find that I use this system a lot and rely on it very often. The author stressed the diagramming system’s use in chemistry and mathematics a lot; however, I am very familiar with its use in my life. 
Actually, my first impression of diagrams was not very good. When I began to learn writing, the first thing I was asked to write down is what story a picture told. A picture is easy to read but really hard to write out. I always feel like that I am missing some details when I am writing out a picture. And when I grew up a little, teachers loved to give me homework such as previewing the next chapter, find the relationships between the concepts introduced and put all the concepts in order. Explaining all the relationships in words was definitely a huge amount of writing; so I always chose to draw that out. However, it was hard to find out the relations; it was even harder to put the concepts in right positions where could show the relations clearly. Fortunately, I have a computer with Microsoft Office Word. The technology is really useful in making diagrams, using which I can arrange the positions of those concepts easily. 
Not only showing the complex relations, a diagram itself can contain an incredible amount of information. Taking a two-dimensional diagram as an example, we can see that its two axes have meanings and units, the diagram itself has a title, and the curve records the correlation between two items now and can tell the tendency in future. It contains so much information that I do not know how to convey it into written words. 
I learn cell’s structure using a picture taken by ultra microscope; I find my classroom using a map of MSU; and I learn the differences of memories in the old and the young using a bar graph telling the results. I use the diagramming system everyday, in every aspect of my life. 

How does literacy shape technology? & How does technology shape literacy?

I’d like to answer the easier one–“How does technology shape literacy” first. Baron gave lot examples on how the computer changes literacy, such as adding animation, video, and sound to texts, students’ dependence on spell-check program, and the World Wide Web. I think technology is making more texts more easily available to more and more people; so with the development of technology, people should have literacy much more easily. And literacy has also changed to fit technology. It is obvious that we read, write and speak in almost a different language to what people use several hundred years ago. Even people living in the same time sometimes fail to understand each other’s texts because of change in literacy caused by technology, for example, a parent may find his daughter text messaging in “the language of Mars”.
About the next question, how does literacy shape technology, I think the point is that literacy may change the original usage of technology. Just like pencils were first made for woodworkers and computers were intended to perform numerical calculations, people most of the time do not intend to invent a technology to change the literacy, actually, some people are afraid of changes in literacy. However, sometimes, when the new technology gets connected to literacy, literacy is so attractive that technology deviates from its original track.

My most impressive medium-- book

Among all the variety of media, I like books most. I love the feeling of holding a paper book in hand and read it word by word, which can make me feel relaxed and peaceful. I am wondering why I believe in stories from a book ever easier than stories told by a video. As most people believe that what you have seen is more believable than what you have heard of, my more trust in books than videos is quite strange. However, I think that video can be just a part of the event. Many videos do not tell the event from the beginning to the end, or you can say that many events do not have a beginning or an end. An event without some parts can be a totally different story. But in books, the writers know the whole story and can tell it completely as possible. Another reason why I think book is the most impressive medium is that it makes me think a lot. If the writer wants to express some emotional things, the descriptive words will drag me into the situation, feeling like that I am the one experiencing the emotions. And if the writer wants to tell a story, I will make up the characters using imagination, which give me a deeper impression of the story. 

When I am reading a book, I usually focus more on the personality of the characters and the plots of the story instead of the appearance of the actors. However, when I am watching a video, it is so easy to get an incorrect first impression of the characters according to the actors’ appearances. Anyway, I think imagination is a kind of participating and participating is the easiest way to convince me; so I consider books to be the most impressive medium to me.

Literacy in My Life V

I was thinking about the definition of text; I think that it means a medium that carries a meaning and can transfer the meaning to some people. So I think that emotion is a kind of text. We talked about emotions in the psychology class; actually the curiosity of emotions is one of the reasons why I chose psychology as my major. People cannot tell the others’ emotions exactly but actually through their eyes and expressions, it is not so hard for us to tell how they are feeling. So I think facial expression is a special kind of literacy. 
I am always interested in watching people’s expressions, especially when watching movies. It is so funny that the bad guy pretends to smile warmly in front of others and smiles coldly when he turns back. I think that facial expressions do not cheat people; they do express what that person thinks and people do feel the emotions that the expressions represent. The reason why people cannot read each other’s mind is that we can control our facial expressions. People sometimes give fake facial expressions to cover their true emotions, which is just like telling lies. 

Literacy in My Life IV

Recently I watched a TV series called Moonlight Resonance. In the series, there is a dumb girl, whose parents always “sing” a song to cheer her up when she is unhappy. Or you can say that they “dance” the song. The warm and sweet scene touched me and reminded me of something about sign language. 

I have learned some Chinese Sign Language hoping to do some voluntary work in a school for the hearing-impaired. And when I came here, I found that one of my roommates whose major was education was learning American Sign Language and I learned some ASL from her. The first thing my roommate taught me was her name. And because there is a “t” in her name, so she taught me the word “toilet” by the way. It is a typical example of differences between CSL and ASL. In ASL, putting your thumb between index finger and middle finger means “t” and shaking that gesture means “toilet”. However, in CSL, the “OK” gesture with thumb and index finger not touching each other has the meaning of “toilet”. What’s interesting, the gesture actually stands for an English word—“W.C.” which means water closet. 

I think, sign language is really a miracle. It can even make dumb people "sing" and dance.

Literacy in My Life III

I went up early this morning to call my friends in China. It was always fun to talk to old friends. This time I called one of my high school friends, with whom I have been living in the same dorm for a year. She told me about a lot of things happened on our old friends. She is really lucky that she went to the university together with two high school classmates. They are really good friends now and as she said “living the same life as in high school”. After hanging up the phone, I felt quite pleased but there is something that is different from the feeling of talking with her in high school. I think for a while and came up with an answer that we were talking in different ways. She is talking like how we talk in high school, using some special words or ways of expression we invented and used often in three years school life. However, I am getting used to a new way of talking with Chinese friends here and sometimes I have to think for a second about how to answer her in her or my past expression pattern. The change of my expression pattern made me miss my high school life and amazed me by the rapidness. I think the expression pattern is an important part of literacy. Just like an American may not understand a British’s jokes even though they both speak English. The differences in expression patterns are due to different language environments where we live in. The change of expression pattern is a part of our adaptation to a new environment and sometimes it happens much more quickly than you expect.

Literacy in My Life II

Today I took a math quiz about integral, which I think is quite easy. Math is easy for most Chinese students. It is because that we have learned a lot in China, but the most important reason I think is that in math we use letters, numbers and graphs more than sentences. So we can understand and solve the problems even if we do not know much English. Isn’t it amazing that we use the same mathematic symbols all over the world. I have never thought about that before, math is just like music, which can get rid of the gap between different languages. I am always interested in things can jump over the gap between different languages. I think the reason why music can do that is because that it does not tell a particular story, instead of which it tells an emotion. But as mathematics does not tell emotions, how can it ignore the gap between the languages? My answer is that it usually discusses problems in a made up model not the true world. Math models are extreme situations of the true world, so everything in it is exact and especial. Even though we live in different countries, we are in the same and the only mathematic country.

Literacy in My Life I

I went with Wang Lin to visit her sister this spring break. I talked about the differences between Chinese and English with her sister’s husband, Mark and another guy. It was quite interesting. And we talked about misunderstandings caused by similar pronunciations in Chinese and English. At first, they learned hard to pronounce my Chinese name, Shuai. And then at the end of our talking, they told me that my name made them think of Shrek… I was speechless, but have to admit that joke does make some sense. And the other day, when Wang Lin and Mark were talking, Wang suddenly forgot what to say, so she said “nei ger” which in Chinese means “well, by the way” involuntarily. However, Mark heard that as “negro”. This coincidence may cause some problems in another situation. I think this kind of situations is quite interesting. Maybe it is because that we are so familiar to our own language and think in our language, so we just ignore how the others thinking in another language may understand our words and sometimes take some words in other languages in our own language. 

What does literacy mean to me?

The dictionary told me that "literacy" means the ability to read and write or the ability to use language proficiently. The first impression this definition gave me was a vague definition. How well a person can use language can be called proficiently? For example, I, I can read most of my textbooks and write some not short articles in English, can I say I have literacy? I cannot understand some awkward biological nouns in English and I cannot always express my feeling exactly, so I do not have literacy? It seems that there is not a gap between literacy and illiteracy. What is more confusing, I will confidently say that I have literacy, if I am asked in China; but I will ask for the clear standards before I can tell whether I am literacy or illiteracy, if I am asked in the US. I think, literacy also depends on which language you are talking about. Anyway, in my opinion, literacy is the ability to pass on your ideas to the others and to understand the others’ ideas.

Genre Portfolio III--The Death of the Moth

III. Essay
The Death of the Moth
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chap2.html

In this essay, as the title says, the author described the death of the moth. The moth fought against the death bravely but finally failed. 

At the first paragraph, we can find no sign of death. Actually, the scene described is very lively: “Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book.” At first, all the things, both living creatures and non-living natural scenes, are full of vigor. In such a happy background, the moth danced “the queer spectacle”. But the life span of a moth is as short as one single day. Soon the moth fell”on to his back on the window sill” and after severe struggling, the moth “succeeded in righting himself” but also used up his strength. The description of the moth’s spry dancing makes the audience more shocked by the soon-coming loss of life. 

Death is a regular topic in many essays; people describe the deaths of all kinds of living things. But this essay is especially excellent. There are many reasons for its excellence. I noticed two details which may give some reasons. First one is the last sentence, “The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” Woolf used “decently” and “uncomplainingly” here, which is not only to describe the moth’s pose but also his spiritual state. Though the little moth can never defeat death, he tried his best and did not let the extreme power of death conquer him until the end. His death is respectful because he used his final strength to fight against the death. And it seems that the death was somewhat shocked that the moth managed to right himself before dying. The second detail is the author’s lifting a pencil. She lifted her pencil right before the moth’s death but she did not have time to give the moth a hand. These details remind me of Woolf’s life. Pencil here is a symbol of a helping force. Woolf committed suicide at the end of her life. According to her letter left for her husband, she did struggle to live on but ran out of her strength. I guess, the action of lifting a pencil may indicate that there was someone or herself who wanted to help her get out of the maze. However, just like “I” did not have time to help the moth, that person did not give her a hand in time to save her. 

Genre Portfolio II--Final Destiantion

II. Movie
Final Destination 2 Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbcvn-ZX7Us
Final Destination 2 playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=39E99F2261382610&v=orRpAcB_prU

I watched three “Final Destination” movies because my friend told me that this series was what a horror movie fan must not miss. I am a horror movie fan who always watch horror movies with a really cool head, because I am clear that there must be some explanations for those horrifying things, maybe the girl is undead or that guy can see ghosts, some “reasonable” reasons like that. But in this movie, couples of people die because they survived in a traffic accident. Isn’t it the strangest reason of being killed in the world? 

This movie gave me a totally new understanding of survival. In real life, there are plenty of examples in which people foresee or just feel the coming danger and survive because of that. Those people are looked at as incredibly lucky guys. It is the most natural thing to consider survival from a deadly accident as lucky. But why? Those survivors died or will die one day. We can escape from death at this time does not mean that we will survive the next second. Then why do we feel lucky? Because of the extra second? That’s silly! So how should we treat survival? A delay of death? Maybe. So that, death comes sooner or later, should we just give up fighting for survival? 

When facing death, the young adults tried their best to escape from the shadow of the death. Though they have never won one game, they stuck to figuring out the signs before death’s arrival. At last, the heroine drove into the lake to commit suicide, being driving crazy by the pressure of friends’ death and her self’s coming death. She did not die, because the hero saved her. At that time, I believe that a strong will to protect somebody can beat death. But in the last act of the movie, a guy got killed in an accidental explosion when he was having picnic with the hero and heroine. Does the shadow of death come back again? Or it is purely an accident? We do not know the answer, but I believe that everyone has an answer in his or her mind. Just like that, everyone has his or her own choice of whether we should fight hard for survival or not. 

Genre Portfolio I--2 Pages from the Diary of an Only Child

I. Blog/Diary
2 Pages from the Diary of an Only Child
http://anna9.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/10/2-pages-from-the-dairy-of-an-only-child.htm

This diary talked about some of her feelings of being a “lone chicken”—the only child in a family. I am a “lone chicken” also, so my situation is similar to the author’s; however, due to the policies in China, most of my peers are “lone chickens”, so my story is a little bit different from hers. In this diary, the author talked a lot about how the others, the adults and the peers, treated her and her feelings about that special kind of treatment. 

After reading this diary, I could not help compare the author and myself. The author is quite clear about the advantages of being the only child. She expressed her opinion through her father’s words. It is true that being the only child, we get all the resources, attention and love our parents can offer. We have parents around us at home and we have friends outside, we are not alone actually. What is even greater, we can get a quiet room whenever we want, need not to worry about an annoying brother or sister. 

It is not hard to find the advantages of being the only child, but most of my friends including me, would choose to have several brothers and sisters if we could. The author did not feel like to be sympathized by the others because of being the only child and felt confused about whether the attention a boy showered on her was because of love or sympathy. It is a totally different story in China, nobody will sympathize you because you are the only child. We do not have the author’s problems, but we have our own annoyance. Brought up by parents or grandparents, we are used to getting whatever we want without difficulties; so when we grow up, most people are somewhat selfish and do not know how to take care of the others. Many of my friends have complained about not having a sibling to share some secrets that can only be shared with those who can understand as they were you and will never betray you. Friendship cannot replace sib ship sometimes. No matter how close you are to a friend; you will never know exactly how close he or she is to you. So we feel lonely even when we are not alone. Another disadvantage of being the “lone chicken” is having much responsibility to parents and relatives. Having only one child, giving the child all they have, the parents naturally think that their child should be the best; but the truth is, there must be most ordinary ones. I am living my own life as well as my parents’. 

Though there are many disadvantages of being the only child, we did work out our special way of growing up safely and soundly. 

A Day in My Life

What a nice day! Looking at the clear sky outside my window, I stretched my arms and made up my mind to get up. I forgot to turn the alarm on again last night, fortunately, I woke up in time myself. OK~ a brand-new day begins~ I talked to myself. After washing and dressing, I rushed out of my dorm, remembering to lock the door. A bus ran away, I almost caught it...While waiting for the next bus, I couldn't help stopping myself abusing the cold weather. Having being here for almost two months, I was still not used to the weather. Finally came the bus, and I reached the classroom just on time. Class time always flies. A friend called me just at the time I stepped out of the classroom and picking out my cellphone to call someone. In my expectation, she asked me when to go to lunch. My friends and I always call each other at meal time. After having a so-so lunch and a nice chat with my friends for about half an hour, I had to rush for my classes in the afternoon. Finally, all the classes for today were done. I went back to my dorm a little exhaustedly. My roommates are always return earlier than me. Saying hi and talking about my day with them, I sat down and turned my laptop on. My friend called me to go to dinner when I was checking my email and browsing some websites. I like to do my homework at night, so I went to shower and did a short cleaning of my room before I sat down again to deal with my homework. At 12 o'clock, I went to bed. That is one of my day, normal, tiring and a little bit happy.

The Kiss of Life

This picture was taken by Rocco Morabito in 1967. He was driving on West 26^th Street in July 1967 when he saw this scene. At that time, the apprentice lineman R.G. Champion was shocked by an accidentally "alive" high-voltage wire while he was doing a regular check. Before the ambulance's arrival, his coworker, J.D. Thompson who went up to release him down found that he was out of breath, so Thompson gave him a mouth-to-mouth breath in midair. As an experienced journalist, Morabito grabbed his camera and won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography; and Champion finally recovered.

I think the subject of this photo is love. Here, it is not love between lovers, families or friends, it is love of life. This kiss is neither for a lover nor for a friend, as its name "kiss of life", it is for life. Honestly, when I first saw this picture, my first impression was a kiss between two gays. But when I read the story behind the picture I felt quite ashamed of my original impression and really shocked by this kiss for life. I guess that is why the picture was unique, it gives you a misleading first impression, and when you find that and change your impression, the second one is deeply imprinted in your mind. I have to admit that picture is a magic way to express something. If I hear that story in words, I may response like "Oh, really? Champion was lucky. " but when I saw the picture, I stopped and focused on Thompson more than Champion. Not the same as I heard the story in words, when I saw the picture, I couldn't help stop, think about it and feel and appreciate the love in it. I guess that is the power of photography.

25 random things(what should be on facebook, not here......)

1. I am afraid of dogs, unreasonably, even the little cute ones.
2. The proudest thing I have ever done is being a director of an English musical.
3. I changed my English name before come here, and spent quite a long time to decide which name I like…
4. I like blue best but I also like many other colors as well.
5. I have to admit that I am becoming more and more scared of terrifying stories, though I am not willing to.
6. I like to drink, no matter wine, beer or any other alcohols.
7. I don’t like drunken people, I believe that a person can feel that before he or she gets drunk.
8. I feel like to cough if I smell the smoke, so I hate people smoking.
9. I like to read stories or watch movies with happy endings, though I am clear that tragedies sometimes are more like our lives.
10. I cannot remember anything that has made me sad, because I forget that kind of feeling quite quickly~
11. I have wanted to learn psychology since grade seven, now my dream comes true!
12. I have another dream: find a job in Hong Kong and move my parents there, because it said that there are the world’s best old-age homes in Hong Kong.
13. I believe in horoscope and spent a lot of time to study that~
14. I knew what my blood type is when I donated my blood without informing my parents.
15. I like to sleep under a thick quilt with an electric fan on when it is rain.
16. I tried to spend a whole night in the cinema, but I fell asleep soon after the movie began.
17. I bought my cell phone which I am using now because of its commercial.
18. I bought a Bluetooth headset because I thought that my cell phone’s headset was broken, but the day after I bought the Bluetooth one, I found my original headset was working quite well…
19. I can never run 50 meters in 10 seconds.
20. I had had a dreamed of meeting a friend that I hadn’t seen for years in a place, I really found that place the next day, but I didn’t met that friend.
21. If I dream and I remember that dream after I wake up, the dream is most probably about me floating in a castle.
22. I have never cried in front of others except my mother and one of my English teachers.
23. Many people have cried in front of me, my friends even several of my teachers; it’s really confusing…
24. I prefer chatting face to face or by phone much more than online.
25. I hate to follow the others, but I always follow the others’ ideas without awareness…

A nonprohit ad about cancer patients

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTn2iurL2cE

This is a nonprofit advertisement to focus people's attention on cancer patients. There is no word throughout the whole ad but it is undeniably touching. The ad begins with a little girl sleeping on bed, when she suddenly jumped up and looked through the window, we knew that she was waiting for someone, maybe her parents. Then the girl went into the washroom and opened her mother's dressing bag to find a pair of scissors. When seeing this scene, I thought that she must be a very naughty girl and was going to play some tricks. When she began to cut her own hair, I was more convinced that she was play a trick. But at the end, when the boy whose hair had fallen off due to the side-effect of chemotherapy appeared, we knew the girl's mind suddenly. I realized that I misunderstood her, a girl who has a soul of angel. This ad is very exquisite, all the scenes were shot  only in a room.  At first, what the girl did was quite confusing and maybe a little naughty, but when the ad ended, nobody felt untouched. What the girl did was quite childish, but it showed her real concern of that boy. When some people are shouting some slogons out loudly without doing anything, the girl uses her hair, her action to teach us what is real "getting concerned".

THINK AGAIN

"Think before you move" is a famous Chinese saying and also the sentence which my parents tell me most frequently. I do not hate that sentence and I do not feel annoyed when my parents say that to me. Sometimes I quite agree with that sentence but I just cannot always follow it. I do not know why. Maybe it has something to do with my birthday; I was born under the influence of Aries a horoscope representing energy and directness. Horoscope books say that people who are born under the influence of Aries should slow down their speed and think the situation over and over again before taking action, otherwise, it is easy to get hurt or hurt the others. It is true, at least to me. I have never done perfectly in my math exams because that I often fall into some obvious stupid traps in the questions. After hundreds of times of being regretful for my stupid mistakes in my math exams, I finally made up my mind to control myself. I did succeed for a period but later I quitted. I felt unhappy though I got several good scores in math exams. I had to think a lot of things before I do anything, before I move, before I speak even before I laugh! After comparing the high scores I got to the happiness I lost, I quitted. Though I do not follow the sentence, I still think it is a good suggestion. After all, sometimes it's worth the wait, sometimes it's worth the rush.

And about "How is this slogan subversive?" honestly, I have no idea. I think this slogan is more like for some individuals than for the American culture. It is more like a piece of advice from the old, I think.

Response to “I Want a Wife” From the Social Perspective

"I Want a Wife" is an interesting essay, because the author is actually a wife but she says that she wants a wife. Is there something wrong with this author? Definitely no! After reading the essay, I believe that nobody will say no to a wife. Author repeated "I want a wife who…" many times to list the duties of a wife. Most of the duties she listed are obviously unfair and unbelievable to me, so I read the essay and defined it as a satire. After reading, I could not help thinking whether it was true for the society at that time. This essay was published in 1971 when the women's movement just begun. Being written by a wife makes what this essay said more convincing, but the title and the tune the author used makes the essay much less serious. The author found a not so serious way to magnify the social issue properly, so that she can draw people's positive attention without discomforting some sensitive people. Obviously, the author is a feminist. At her time, the general idea was that women were in a lower social class than men. Being a well-educated woman, the author was absolutely not satisfied with the attitude people taken towards women at that time. This essay must exited people's enthusiasm of women's movement. Even in such a society as it is today where people are "created equal", this essay still worth reading. Not only because it is funny, but also because that it makes me think of other kinds of discrimination. To protect or to maximize some people's benefit, there must be some people sacrifice their benefit and be treated unfairly.
Link to "I Want a Wife":http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/wife.html

Personal response to “Mother Tongue”

I originally chose this essay because it is shorter than the other one. However, when I found that the author was an ABC from China, I felt curious about what she was going to say in this essay. While reading, I was really attracted by what she talked about. Some of her experiences reminded me of some of mine. I have thought of language in families before, actually. At home, I talk with my mother in a dialect and with my father in another; at school, I speak quite accurate mandarin with my peers. Same as the author, I felt embarrassed because of my mother’s language some times. When hearing her talking to my teachers in a funny kind of mandarin with dialect’s pronunciations, I had to keep myself hard from bursting out laughing. When I grew up, I began to appreciate my parents’ dialects, and I even began to feel like home only when hearing their a little bit rube words.

Except language in a family, I also felt quite interested in another topic in her essay, which is about Chinese students. “Why are there few Asian Americans represented in American literature. Why do so many Chinese students go into engineering?” Actually, I have found that most of my Chinese friends studying abroad chose finance and accounting as their majors. That’s not just a coincidence. Even some girls who is not good at and, most important, not interested in mathematics related things, chose to study accounting. They said that it would be easier to achieve the degree, because math thing is much easier than the others. Does that mean that Chinese students are born smarter than Western countries’ students in math? I don’t think so. The math taught in American college seems easier for Chinese students simply because that we have learned those knowledge in high school. The same thing, the American students are not born smarter than us in English writing. They just have been using that language more often than we do. In my opinion, there is a gap between two languages but it is not insurmountable.

Skills list

I Entertainment
Singing
Opera
Popular songs
Rap
Dancing
Free style
Ballroom dancing
Classical dancing
Musical instrument
Acting
Drawing
Telling jokes
Magic
Feeding pets
Making handicrafts
Computer games
II Sports
Billiards
Swimming
Skiing & skating
Basketball
Football
Soccer
Volleyball
Hockey
Yoga
Tennis
III Writing
Science fictions
Knight novels
Short stories
Romances
Essay
Gossips
News reports
History fictions
Biography
Comics
IV Repairing
Cars
Bicycles
Computers
Cell phones
Lamps
Tables
Chairs
Drawers
Shoes
Accessories
V Communication
Chatting online
Presentations
Typing text messages
Making new friends
Getting along with others
Attracting other’s attention
Expressing your ideas
Writing
Drawing
Body language
Understanding others’ ideas
VI Living
Reading maps
Remembering places
Remembering things have happened
Arranging your time
Tidying up your place
Furling clothes
Repairing clothes
Reading instructions
Picking fresh fruits and vegetables
Cooking
VII Study
Which subject?
Social science
Natural science
Business
Education
Etc.
Reading
Remembering
Writing
Experiments
Survey
Asking questions
Taking tests
IIX Design
House decoration
Clothes
Stories
Plays
Dreams
Goals
Inventions
Organizations
Survey
Romances
IX Transportation
Bicycles
Wheelbarrows
Cars
Canoes
Boats
Helicopters
Horse riding
Hiking
Skateboard
Recognizing directions
X Language
Different languages
Chinese
English
Italian
Spanish
French
Etc.
Different dialects

What is the relationship between language and how you perceive the world?

Honestly, I have never thought of this question before. I always think that I perceive the world by watching, touching, thinking or simply living. I have never put writing in my list of ways of perceiving the world.

However, after reading the chapter and thinking about my own experience, I think I can somewhat understand it a little. Language has idioms most of which represent the way the country think. When I learn Chinese when I was a baby, I learn those idioms and begin to know what are right and what are wrong. I guess that is the most important relationship between language and how I perceive the world.

In Chinese, we have an idiom”your words are just like you”, so I think writing mostly influences your image in others’ eyes. I guess it changes the way others treat you and so it affects how you feel about the world. For me, I think writing help me imagine and think in a better-formed way. It makes me to understand something more clearly.

My First English Blog

I have tried lots of new thing this week, such as studying to a university, coming to the USA and creating an English blog.
What should I say in my first English blog? That is really a question. I have got a lot to talk about, about my roommates, about my new friends, about the classes, about the cafe... too much to say! OK. Maybe I should talk about myself first.
So now, Nicola's self-introduction~ My name is Nicola or Hao Shuai(Chinese name). So you must know that I am from China, an awesome country. I can play the violin but I am not playing it very often now, which is not because that I am lazy but because that I am learning to play billiards. Though I am now crazy over billiards, I am not playing it well... Anyway, I am practicing and I am confident that I will make a progress soon~
All right. The class is about to over. See you guys later~