triangle----------Mandy 2

When it is my turn to post e-journal online, it means that our bridging course is going toward an end. We have done many things together for the past one and a half year, which have turned us from strangers to family members of this fantastic group. There are a lot of things beyond language could express and I still want to say, but there is a movie makes me feel more eager to share. It is called triangle.
The movie describes a story under an infinite loop. The leading character Jess once went sailing with another five friends and met a rain storm which turned their boat over. Fortunately, a huge cruise ship passed by and picked them up. However they found nobody in the huge old ship and they have no idea where this huge ship is heading. While six of them separated to search help, five of them were killed by a hooded man except Jess. When it came to Jess, she fight against him very hard and pushed him into the sea. I thought it was the end of the story, but the real horror just about to arrive. While she standing on the board, she saw a group of people yelling for help on a wreckage of a tiny little boat. They were exactly the same group who had just been killed by the hooded man. That is the same people who companied her went sailing and ran into the rain storm, including another Jess! After several rounds, she finally realized that she was trapped in an infinite loop and the only hope to get out of it is that piece of wreckage where she came from. And when all the six people died, another round began which means another six would step on to the ship and experience exactly what the previous six has gone through. So she could do nothing but hooding herself and killing all of them in order to get onto the wreckage. But the result was the same as the previous Jess—she was pushed in to the sea by the next Jess. I once again thought it was the end; however, she did not die and was washed ashore on the beach where her house located. She went back home and found another Jess and her son was doing what exactly she had done in the past. Maybe because the desire of returning to normal life was too strong, she killed that Jess and took over her son. She got into a traffic accident when she drove her son to the harbor to stop her friends sailing. She was supposed to die but it seems not. A man offered her a lift to harbor and she went sailing with friends again, which finally finish this big loop.
I suffered a lot in the following three days for thinking about this movie, and I finally got what is recycling in this infinite loop. The key is Jess was dead right in front of the movie! The man who offered her a lift was not a driver at all! He was the god of death who was going to take her to the other world! She betrayed her promise to him and received the punishment just like Aeolus’s son, Sisyphus, who has to endlessly pushing a stone to the mountain top and watches it rolling down, in order to pay for his guilt for cheating the Death. That was not the end of my thought.

What if life is just one big infinite loop? All the things that we are trying so hard are just like following a script of a movie and we keep repeating all these unconsciously?

Any science fiction that involves time as a scalar such as the time traveler’s wife and trisome will make people sink into ponders.

So, anyway, never cheat the god of death!

Creative Way to Pay off College Loans Jessy

With college costs soaring every year, more students are getting heavier loans to pay for tuition fees. Recently some creative ways to lessen the burden become popular and they are accomplished through online organizations like SponsorChange.org, IndieGoGo, CharityforDebt, and ChipIn. These organizations not only provide students borrowers volunteering opportunities, but also directly connect them with donors willing to help. By conducting volunteering work, students can exchange for money and enhance their resumes simultaneously. For example, Breanna Zwart, a 2007 graduate of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, earned $400 totally for volunteering for five hours at a local senior center’s spa in four sessions. The other way is to reach out the masses and ask for microdonations straight forward with the help of social networking. Max Stephenson from New York University raised more than $12,000 within two years. Compared to Max, Jacqueline Merkher, 22, a trained artist with a Pratt Institute undergraduate degree was unlucky to only collect $850. While the success of Max lies in newness and boldness, with more students joining the campaign, people might become numb and unaffordable to the urgency of tuition fees. Ensuing effort made by some websites is to give donors something meaningful in return, and launch special programmes like a pilot program in 2011. I think these approaches to pay for tuition fees are really creative and have done great good to some students, and they tend to be more popular with more students joining the campaign; however, once the demands of students exceeds the saturation point, then the effectiveness of methods will get discounted. At this point innovation and creativity can save the situation. In this case, the saturation point refers to the maximum of money people are willing to donate and volunteering opportunities they can provide. Just as a big cake is shared among too many people, everyone can only get a small slice. We can discern that Max Stephenson sets an example for students struggling with the soaring costs, and then they imitate his behaviour to turn to those social networking sites. When many copycats came into sight, they did not receive a satisfying result. Comparing Max and those copycats, we find that Max actually acts as a pioneer, who has discovered a potential market, while other followers verify the value of the market and then attempt to take up part of it. Usually they will not live up to their expectations unless they improve the original idea significantly. The quote by Albert Einstein “problem cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them” emphasizes the importance of creativity as well as innovation. Indeed, this case can be extended to real life. The battle on markets of smartphones between Apple and other companies has become fiercer, but iphone always has its place in the market. (Jeff,2010) Because Apple products has device consolidation, this characteristic distinguishes itself from other smartphones. In conclusion, following others all the way will never make you beyond the first original one, so what is more important is innovation and creativity. In this article some organizations have adjusted the policy and advocated that students give something meaningful in return, therefore we may look forward to more microdonations brought by the improvement. Reference: Jeff. V, January 25,2010, Best Smartphone for IT: Blackberry vs. iPhone vs. Android, Retrieved from: http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/mowi/article.php/3860411/Best-Smartphone-for-IT-Blackberry-vs-iPhone-vs-Android.htm

For group 5

There are only two more weeks left for English course. Although many of us have skipped or have thought of skipping some English classes and lectures this semester, the time spending with our tutors were so happy, so memorable and unforgottable, especially with Ms Lee! No matter there were more torture or more knowledge that English and CELC have brought to us, we do cherish our spending time together; we do cherish those people.

This blog was created by Ms Lee and all of us have contribeted to it. I hope we can keep writing something, in fact anything, into this blog in the future, to share with everyone in group 5 what is going on with you and what is you motion recently. This is our blog, our group 5! Awesome group 5.

Now, plese help me, or help yourself finish this blog by writing anything you want to say to Ms Lee first!

(For me, I have to think for a while, hehe!)

Dear Ms Lee,

I don't know how long it would take for you to see these words. But I hope you will see them.

Thank you for the letter you wrote to me. I know I was not as good as what you have said and I should have done better. Can I just consider your comments as a wish, or a goal for me to achieve? I think I can.

You are an excellent tutor. I guess you can feel how much we love you. My roommate told me that after our reflection, there were only two words left in her mind: Ms Lee. She said that we talks about Ms Lee all the time.

Ms Lee, Ms Lee, Ms Lee. We will all miss you.

Best wishes!

Lyn

Remember our English names!

Lyn 31/03/2011

Time and hope Lyn

Do you want your time to be faster or slower?

I used to want my time to be faster so I could skip the boring and miserable parts of my life, and the happy time would jump directly in front of me. But these years I wanted it to be slower, but this is apparently impossible. In fact, no matter what I have wished and hoped or what I am wishing and hoping, time is time; it won’t have any change for any reason.

Perhaps the waiting process is the best ever thing.

Just like going back to China. The two months before coming back is a wonderful time period for me because returning to my hometown is like a wish but will be realized in two months time. While if there are more than two months ahead, usually I will not allow homesick come to my mind as it seems to be too long and too far away from me – it is too torturous!

The Chinese Writer Qian Zhongshu had a famous saying about memory and hope, “there are only two types of people: such as a bunch of grapes, one will eat the best grapes first; another puts the most delicious until the last to eat. It seems the first kind of people are happier because every dop they eat is the best left while the second type should not be as the grapes are the worst leftovers. But the fact is that the second kind of people are happier, because the first only have memories and the second still have hope.”

I think I am the second type of people. My life is sustained by hopes and my hopes should be easy-reached. If I had any dreams, they must have been divided into many small pieces, small hopes and wishes. But during the process, maybe I have forgotten what my dreams were.

Time can change many things, but I hope time will not change my dreams, my hopes and my fantasies.

My awesome experience in Esplanade--crystal

last night, i went to Esplanade to enjoy an awesome concert which i will remmeber for a long long time...The gracious and grand music still echoes around my ears till now.
At first, i thought this concert was just like the concert or the show in UCC which were not that formal because this concert was presented by NUS Chinese Orchestra. Untill 40 minutes before the show, i was still at Labrador Canteen eating dinner. Then i was shocked when we saw a group of friends dressing very beautifully and formally who went to the concert as well! I thought i could just go there wearing T-shirt and jeans! At the same time, aunty May shout at me surprisingly: Xiaolu, why are you still eating!you should go and change now! you cannot dress like this to go to concert! I rushed upstairs and hunting a formal dress like crazy! luckily, i found one. But the consequence of this is was we were late for the concert!
Upon reaching the concert hall, i thought it was my illusion,the concert hall was so gorgeous! Maybe it was because i never went to a concert before. The design and the sound effect was really excellent! since the theme of the concert was related to chinese history, I felt I totally forget myself in the music. However, the most impressive part of the concert was the ending piece- which is a theme music in my favourite Japanese cartoon! I never thought this familiar sound which is played using violin or guitar originally could be played by chinese traditional music instrument so fantastically beautiful!
This concert experience was quite unforgettable as i felt like i stepped into a new adult world where everyone was so well equipped (but really tired to do so). I also quite pround of our chinese classical music which is so powerful and grand and i was moved to see so many Singaporean Chinese to go there. At that moment, i felt that all the chinese around world were tied so tightly together by one bond--we are the ancesters of the dragon! ^^

The Chinese new year without noise of firecracker Van

The Chinese new year without noise of firecracker

Last year is supposed to be a year of uniqueness. It is the first year of my experience of Singapore in which I indeed changed a lot, both appearance and mindset. I would like to record these small ideas here.

I remember that after last year’s celebrating of the Chinese New Year, we are asked to complete a journal to record these experiences. I wrote a passage in which I tried my best to squeeze complicated words as much as possible. However, it turned out an awkward work because that I am not skilled at how to use those words. This year, I also want write what happened just now.

This year’s experiences are quite different from last year’s. We went to NTU to watch the New Year’s gala hold by CCTV. We booked a tutorial room since we wanted a projection screen. My friends from the same city of me and I gathered in that room to watch the show and played “Killer of Three Kingdom” game. It was really a good experience because we don’t need to keep silent as we were at cinema, we can enjoy ourselves in bursting laughter. Despite the distance between my hometown and here, we still can find the feeling of home. I acknowledge that the friendship developed in the process of helping each other in a foreign environment is literally different from others. We find the sense of belongings in this big family. We are more like sisters or brothers. I love this big family!

There was an episode before we left NTU. We found it very difficult to get through the cab company’s hotline since it was 12’o clock then when all the people wanted to catch a cab to go back home. Finally, we worked it out. The taxi driver was a Chinese. It was the time when he should accompany his family, but he worked so late. I want to express my wish to those people who are still working in this festival. Wish them a safe and happy year!

‘A year’s plan starts in spring’, this is a good proverb. Every beginning of the year, most of us may compile a list of dos and don’ts. For me, I don’t want be so ambitious. I want to maintain my current living habit. I believe that remaining constant or seldom changing is a witty behavior . We should be confident of what we have now; only in this way can we find an efficiency way to improve ourselves.

Hope everyone who had read this journal a happy new year.

Zoe

It seems that I am facing the biggest decision that I have ever made. It is mid-March now, also a time of major choosing. I feel even more struggle than coming across science tests one after another. Someone told me just to follow my own interests as the major which I will be involved in would impact my future career and even life significantly. What the point is that I am actually not sure about my interests. I thought that I was deeply into Math until I saw the rate of employment and the mean monthly salary. Since then, I lost the interest in my Math module MA1101r rapidly and became keen on engineering.

As chemistry seems to be with the highest employment rate and salary in the analysis form, I found myself being more and more appealing to it. But soon my seniors disappointed me. She told me Chemistry Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering was found to be the one of the toughest major for Sm2 students. It only takes in one to two Sm2 students every year.

The more I knew, the more confused I am. As the NUS open house is approaching, I become extremely worried. I do not have a clear future plan, which is the most I am afraid of. I do not want to be like some of my friends in China to choose in a brash way. One of them chosen to learn civil engineering because he thought it was right down for him. But not until he began to learn in that major did he realize the huge difference between what he thought and what he was learning. He became less and less interested in his major and started to play truant. No one can imagine that he was one of the top students in my previous class. To tell from the bottom of my heart, I really do not want to be like that.

I may go to extremes in it. My parents comforted me that they were still able to support me in financial way even if I was out of job. Only parents who always keep their eyes on their children will contributed without expecting gains. Is that what I want? Or anyone can tell me, is that what you want? After your parents worked so hard for three quarters of their life, they still have to take care of yourselves? The reason why I chose science before is that students learning Math is usually easier to go abroad as Mathematics is a commonly used subject around the world. Besides, more entrepreneurs were from science majors other than being engineering students. What advantages of engineering is that it is easier for engineers to find jobs as they have not only science knowledge but practice skills. But no matter how much engineers can make, they can only be employee queens and they can only work at non-executive level unless you go back to universities to further study on managing. I am so greed that I want to have both high salaries and position. I may sometimes be so short-sighted that I cannot wait for the benefits after a long period of time; I expect to earn at once. Gosh. What shall I finally choose to get the maximum profits....

A Summary for the first half of phase 3 Mandy 1

How time flies! Half of the last phase in bridging course was over. It is recess week now. Next week we will have three upcoming mid-term exams. Haven’t had enough time to summarize half of this phase, I take this chance of writing journals to make a brief review.

Every day is like a never-ending day that I never stopped doing my homework; wring lab reports, and rushing for science lectures and tutorials. Compared with science modules, I had to say English was regarded as a piece of cake after supper to me which brought me a lot of fun during the endless and tiring period.

What was really interesting most in the half phase was English debating. This is my first time to participate in the English debate. After that, I not only experienced the debating methodology but also learned a lot of debating skills and oral presentation abilities. I now understood what Archimedes said it was not a failure if you were beat with a fist, but it was really a total lose if you could not rebut him logically with sharp words. Nowadays, soft skills of expressing yourself to society are as important as hard skills of mastering Schrodinger equations.

The learning journey to Changi Museum also shocked me a lot about the dark history in Singapore. After Japanese occupation, local residents suffered a lot from extreme torture and many of them can never meet with their beloved ones. During that miserable period, there were many nameless heroes who made contributions to defend people and defeat cruel invaders. When the tour guide gave introduction to the mural entitled "Two Malarias with Cholera”, I even could imagine such a tragic but heroic scene. A spirit of uniting warmed up me. I am really impressed with these honourable heroes who even sacrificed themselves. How can such three aesthetic patients encourage each other and support each other to go through the death railway full of hardship?! How can Chinese poor people share the only left little food with the parading hungry and restless POWs to Changi Museum? How can four POWs survive in a crowded prison cell? How can four intelligent women make those rice sack cloth to convey their living message to their husbands? How can Bombardier Stanley Warren use strongest determinations to overcome surgery infections and make use of creative painting materials to draw murals encouraging patients to struggle for life?!All those moving deeds were stored in my mind to remind me of their spirit for freedom, for union, for love, for family, for responsibility, for sharing and for a whole country.

Yes, sometimes when we were faced with difficulties and wanted to give up in this busy phase and even in later life, we can always set examples of those heroes in the history who give us the most valuable life lessons and inexhaustible encouragements of perseverance.

Life goes on but we need passion, values and spirits to fill in.

My Hometown Yano

I am born and bred in Henan province, a place with colorful history.

“Henan” in Chinese means “south of the river”. This river refers to the Yellow River, the cradle of the Chinese nation. Henan is in the center of China, along the Yellow River makes my hometown the place of the origin of Chinese culture. During the long period of ancient times, Henan was always the political, economic, and cultural center. The first empire, Xia was built in Henan. Since Xia dynasty, there have been as many as 20 dynasties setting their capital cities in Henan. People always say, “ The history of Henan is half of Chinese History.”

When talking about Henan, people hardly fail to talk about one place------Shaolin Temple. Shaolin Temple is in Zhengzhou, Henan. Its name, Shaolin, derives from the environment of the temple. It is surrounded by the bamboo grove which in Chinese culture stands for the upright, peace, modest character. Shaolin Temple is famous for its magic martial arts. There are over 700 kinds of martial arts in Shaolin Temple. What’s more, the monks in Shaolin Temple not only practice martial arts but also Tsan Chan which helps them to control their desire. As a famous king in Tang Dynasty, Li Shimin was rescued by the monks in Shaolin Temple, since then, the martial arts were permitted to develop. It is regarded as the origin of the martial arts in China. Every year, there are thousands of tourists from all over the world visiting Shaolin Temple.

To me, Henan not only means the colorful history and Shaolin Temple, but also the place my heart forever loves. When I am in Singapore, I always miss the days in Henan. The delicious food is one of my most precious melody. There are a lot of local cuisines in my hometown. Among all of them, I love the Hui noodles the most. It is a kind of noodles which iscooked with lamb and several kinds of vegetables. The most important in Hui noodles is the soup. If you want to cook delicious noodles, you have to use the best fresh lamb. After clean the lamb, we have to poach the lamb with the certain kinds of spice for 2-3 hours. After the preparation of soup, we need to make the noodles. Hui noodles are hand-made noodles so they are quite chewy. Last time when I came back to China, I enjoyed myself with lots of Hui noodles. That was excellent.

No matter what happens in the future, my heart for my hometown will never change. I do hope my hometown Henan will prosper better and better and I would be glad to have you all as guests in my hometown.

To Be Continued (by Tony)

It is a typical cool winter afternoon with weak sunshine of southern China when a young adult stepped back to his high school from which he had left for one year. He silently wandering around the quiet campus.

This school looks brand new with well designed teaching buildings and neat paths, so you might feel amazed to hear that she has been 81 years old. Actually, the body is young and pretty but the soul inside it is mature and intelligent. However, few outsiders know that the small lovely lake inside the campus is smelly in summer and the swimming pool has never opened for students. ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, the young man smiled when he walked through a familiar hallway. Anyway, it is good to be back.

He kept walking. It seems surprising that in every corridor he went through and every corner he turned into, there was an old friend suddenly, carelessly bumping into him and said, ‘Oh, sorry!! I didn’t mean to… Ah, see who is this! Long time no see, Tony!’ Once and once again the young man ran across the same friend, but in different clothes, and with different appearances. Sounds scaring, isn’t it? By the way, this friend is called Mr. Memory.

Then, just say hello to the old days. When Mr. Tony looked into a classroom, he thought of a troublesome exam he had taken two years ago. The nearby linking corridor reminded him of the morning when he got up late and stormed into the classroom. He also remembered how delicious the first dinner he took in the campus canteen is. Everything around carries some story, even the blue sky and the wind with the smell of the sea.

Finally Mr. Tony arrived at the ground track field. This time he did not come across Mr. Memory. Well, maybe he did, but tired of saying hello again. He met with a football, who is standing alone on the football field, bathed in golden, warm sunshine. Suddenly Mr. Tony felt like crying without obvious reasons when he saw this scene. ‘Perhaps, it is because I came back alone and met no more friends but Mr. Memory’, he told himself. Then he decided to leave. When he came to the main gate where the school motto was carved on a big stone, he understood all at once after reading those four words –‘diligence, fortitude, trustiness, cordiality’.

How do you feel on the day when you look back? The worst answer is that you regret for the time you have wasted. Sometimes when the environment has changed and more freedom is given, people tend to gradually lose their dreams and escape from the truth of life. After a long time, when they get a chance to calm down and dive into their memories, not only will they feel regretful, but also, amazingly, they may be touched by the life they used to live, which is tough, challenging but meaningful. However, being regretful also may be the best answer because, unfortunately, some people never wake up.

On the way home, the seed fell and the weather became colder. After experiencing a whole year of summer, Mr. Tony felt a bit uncomfortable about such coldness. He tightened his coat and looked out of the car window.

Is this the end of the story? No, it is the beginning of a story.