Ronaldo, a giant star fell from the sky

By Darren

He is the real king in the field of soccer after Maradona. He is one of the greatest soccer players in the 20th century. He is the biggest soccer hero of Brazil since Pele. On the soccer field, he is omnipotent. He is Ronaldo who is revered by millions of fans and has been the representative of soccer. On 14th February 2011, he announced that he would retire on that day. From then on, a legend came to the end. A giant star fell from the sky. We will not see his wonderful skills and magical shooting any more. The soccer world lost a great player as well.

Ronaldo was born in Brazil in 1976 and his full name is Ronaldo Luís Nazário de Lima. He was a center forward and became a formal soccer player when he was 17 years old. As a player, he conquered the world because of his perfect soccer skills, mystical dribbling, wonderful shooting and the creativity on the soccer field. During the club career, he won his first Ballon d'Or which was presented to the player who had been considered to have performed the best over the previous year in European in 1997 when he aged only 21 years old and again won the award in 2002 when he was 26 years old. Additionally, he is one of only two men to have won the FIFA Player of the Year award three times, along with French footballer Zinedine Zidane. In 2007, he was named as one of the best starting eleven of all-time by France Football. During the national career, Ronaldo played for Brazil in 97 international matches, amassing 62 goals. He was a part of the Brazilian squad which won the 1994 and 2002 World Cups. During the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Ronaldo became the highest goal scorer in the history of the World Cup with his fifteenth goal, surpassing Gerd Müller's previous record of 14. In the field of soccer, his awards and records are countless and his performance was amazing.

Besides these skills and awards, his insistence and optimistic attitude also moved so many people. He was caught by injury jinx in his life. Two serious right-knee injuries made him stay in hospital for totally 6 years and almost cannot play soccer. However, he went out of the difficulties finally. He always said that he loved soccer, he loved his job and nothing can stop him continuing to play soccer. Because of this faith, he insisted to fight with injuries. Another feature when he was injured was that he always smiled and kept optimistic. Once he was interviewed on the television, when he was asked that how he can bear the pain and still hope to come back to play soccer, he said, “Everyday I encouraged myself to be insistent and not to give up. I smile at myself and recalled the nice things in the past so that I can forget the pain and be happy.” Although injuries were so serious, he still held the hope. Because of this point, many people started to know and like him. On the other hand, he also encouraged others to overcome difficulties. When he visited a hospital in China, he encouraged a boy who had cancer to be consistent by telling his own experiences to the boy. After that, he made a phone or sent an e-mail to the boy once a month. The boy lived 7 years longer than predicted at last. At that time, he was a spirit supporter for many people.

For me, Ronaldo is my favorite soccer player. He left many beautiful memories to me. When I was young, I started to see his play. The splendid performances made me excited and relax from the hard life. Along with age increasing, now I am not only attracted by his skills and awards but also his spirit. When I face problems, I will watch some videos of Ronaldo to recall his smile and consistence. He makes me also believe there is not any difficulty that we cannot overcome and positive attitude is the most important thing in the life. Now Ronaldo has left the soccer, but I will remember his consummate skills and his spirit forever. These things will influence my whole life. Ronaldo, wish you good luck in the future!

Luck versus hard work

I am always wondering that why there are always lucky guys around us. It seems like they do not need to endeavor to fulfill their goals while others like us have to work very hard and may not culminate in success. Thought a once-in-life chance, a great family or a nice teacher’s support can all play a role in one’s success, without luck one may never become a success. However, luck alone can never launch a successful endeavor, stop envying others’ good fortune and keep firmly in mind that is it hard work itself that paves the road to our goals.

If I am put into the position of having to choose which factor makes greatest contributes to one’s success, I would undoubtedly put hard work on the top my list. Just like the saying goes,” opportunities only wait for the prepared mind”, we should never dream of our dreams come true if we do not put efforts to step out for them. Taking a lazy guy as an example, He may be able to become a well-known scientist based on his intelligent and lucky fortune. However, if he satisfied with what he has already achieved and stop forging ahead for greater breakthrough, the next time when he have a opportunities to chase a new goal and set a new milestone for himself, he may recognized that his fellow who fell behind him much once in a time now dominates him completely! Because when he was enjoying his tea and believing that his intelligent served as fertilize for him to grow his knowledge, the competitors were trying every efforts to do what he can to struggle with time. Believe it or not, every endeavor is a chance for you to get closer to your goals.

However, hard work alone is not sufficient to guarantee success. Hard work is only the first step, oftentimes luck is necessary to move to the next level. Like a football competition, sometime approaching the ninety minute, the game is tied as a result of both teams’ hard work and practice. It is only a stroke of luck, maybe a penalty kick award to one of the team that allowed the lucky team to break the deadlock. While both team have obviously worked very hard preparing for the game, in the end it is only a stroke of luck that made the difference between winning and losing.

There can be little argument there are many contributors for us to be successful, we should not fail to notice the role that luck has played on the way. Luck is needed, however, without hard work; one will not be able to take advantage of lucky circumstances. Truth are always more complicated than that portrayed by the statement. But no matter what is awaiting us ahead, we should never abandon our great dreams and make concerted efforts toward it.

phoebe

sleeping during the lecture

9.Song Yuanzhe(Louis)

In last few years, I never slept during the class even if I felt tired. As you known, we got up at 6:30 am every morning and went to class to study, so I was used to get up early and hardly felt sleepy. Things are different in Singapore; we could get up at 8:00 am every morning in phase one and phase two. However, getting up at 6:30 comes back in phase three. It is very difficult to get used to.

Regularly, I usually sleep in first lecture which is CM1101 in Tuesday and Friday. The lecturer is an Indian who has serious accent. In order to know the meaning of she said, I would pay attention to listen what she said and thought the real meaning of the words. I hardly do like this because I always felt sleepy during the lecture. The more concentrated, the sleepier I felt. Finally, the desire of sleeping always beat the desire of paying attention to the content of the lecture. Of course, my head taught the desk and never lifted up until the lecture ended. After the class, I would spend more time to study the content of the lecture. What a bad circuit! I swear not to sleep during the lecture for many times, but I still slept next the chemical lecture. I should correct the bad habit, but no useful solution I thought out.

Recently, I started to run before the dinner in order to keep fit. The more surprising thing was that I only slept half the lecture of chemistry. Reviewing the days before starting to run, studying and computer constitute everyday life and I often felt sleepy. Comparing the two styles of life, I realized that doing exercise is a necessary part in our daily life. Not only it will keep fit, but also help us to improve the efficiency of studying. Also, sleeping early is another factor to avoid sleeping during the lecture. Since I arrived to Singapore, I have stayed up almost every night because there is not too much pressure of studying and we can be relaxed if we want. However, there is more pressure of studying in phase three, the negative effect of staying up will appearance easily. The obvious effect is that we may feel sleepy in next day’s lecture. Consequently, I will keep doing exercise and sleep early at night.

Finally, I find the reasons why I always felt sleepy during the lecture. I also know the negative effect of hardly doing exercise and staying up. In the rest of the semester, I will keep the good habits. After all, studying is the most important thing for us. I hope that I have good habits in the future.

recommending movie for valentine's day. By Serena^__^

One of the world’s greatest poets, William Shakespeare, had ever said,” Love is a spirit of all compact of fire.” It is true that love and romantic story have been the everlasting topic of life, which deserves careful perusal. As the Valentine’s Day is coming, I would like to recommend a movie called to those who have left romance deeply in their heart.

The movie tells a simple story. Sophie is an American girl who works for the New Yorker magazine and is a fact checker. To put some spark in her life she decides to go on a 'pre-honeymoon' with her workaholic chef fiancé Victor to Verona in Italy. However the workaholic Victor is unmoved by the romance of Italy and utilizes his time to do research for his soon to open restaurant and ignored Sophie. The lonely Sophie discovered by chance an unanswered "letter to Juliet" by Claire in 1950's -- one of thousands of missives left at the fictional lover's Verona courtyard, which are typically answered by the "secretaries of Juliet". She answered it and soon enough the now elderly Claire arrives in Verona with her handsome barrister grandson Charlie who works for human rights. Claire is still looking to rediscover her long lost love, Lorenzo Bartolini. Sophie thinking Claire's story might help her in her writing career decides to help her in her quest. So she wrote down the story and helped Claire to search her lover. After many days of searching, they happened to find Lorenzo Bartolini's grandson, So that Claire and Lorenzo could reunite after 50 long years. Back in New York, Sophie realized that her true love was not her fiancé anymore, and she found herself deeply in love with Charlie. Sophie returns to Verona to be at Claire and Lorenzo's wedding. She seized the chance to tell Charlie she loved him. It turned out to be a happy ending since Charlie had already fell in love with her in the journey with his grandma.

The story is typically a product of Hollywood. All of this is wrapped up in unimaginably beautiful shots of the Italian countryside, the warmth of the friendship between Sophie and Claire, and visits to many of the men named Lorenzo Bartolini, which was the name of the boy Claire loved so long ago. “Letters to Juliet” requires the three of them to visit the candidates in person, leading to a series of false leads and at last, of course, to the real Lorenzo Bartolini .

As it happens, this story stirred memories of romantic memories in my own life. Two friends of mine were lovers when they were in junior high school. Misunderstanding made their fates run in the opposite directions. However, years later, after a fickler fortunate, when destiny wanted them to meet again, they chose to be happier than ever before. Besides, tomorrow is their wedding day. It is really a pity that I cannot present at the wedding and give them my wishes for their future. Just as the movie tells us,” When we are speaking about love, it's never too late.” That is to say, if what you felt is true love, it is never too late to seize it.

At this moment, I am wondering what if I was the one standing beneath the “Juliet's Balcony” in Verona itself with a man dear to my heart and saw the notes pinned to the wall. I am sure I will do the same thing as Sophia. A romantic journey with strangers, an experience of true love is worthy of reminiscing for the rest of life.

At last, wish those who have read this article had a perfect valentine’s day.

Protect Our Local Dialects----by Joyce

Protect Our Local Dialects

Joyce Liu Yang, Group 5

There has been a long debate about the Chinese policy of popularizing Mandarin. Since the day of the establishment of People’s Republic of China, Mandarin, a dialect of Beijing, has been the official language of the country. At the mean time, however, local dialects are rapidly losing their population and going to a phase of endangerment.

Many people from northern China admit that they find it very annoying when they go to Guangdong as everybody speaks Cantonese, a “foreign” language which they call “birdese”. When people from non-Cantonese speaking areas come into Guangdong to work, they felt alienated due to the language barrier and find it more difficult to adapt into the society. The difficulties of communicating within a multi-dialect country are expected to be the main reason for the government to popularizing Mandarin.

The initial purpose of promoting a standardized language is good and the Chinese government has done a very good job on it. In fact, the government has done too good a job that local dialects can hardly find their places to survive in nowadays’ society: teachers must past standard Mandarin tests before they are allowed to teach in schools, local dialects are not allowed in all official occasions and etc. In big cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the new generation is losing their dialect as they rarely have any chance to get exposed to Cantonese: even their parents try to speak to them in Mandarin as “they need to master Mandarin in order to do well at school”. Likewise for other dialects like Fujian and Chaozhou, old slangs are forgotten, as well as the local culture in them. This is a sad story for all of us. The cultural diversity that we are so proud of is now facing a severe challenge as dialects dies out.

Also, the exaggerated status of Mandarin has led to discrimination towards dialects. Take Guangdong as an example again, until today, even though Guangdong was the first province in China to open up to the world and had been the most developed region across the nation before the Yangtze river delta area rises, many people still hold the impression that Guangdong people are stingy, uneducated merchants. Though people admire the prosperity in Guangdong, in the annual Chinese New Year Concert present by China Central Television (CCTV), Cantonese are always found to speak poor Mandarin and act comically, which always gives audiences a good laugh. At the very same time, Mandarin based dialects always have their lovable place in the New Year Concert.

To make things worse, the central government came up with a proposal last year to suggest all local television stations using Mandarin, which cornered dialects to a dead end. This proposal led to a huge wave of protest in Guangzhou as well as in Hong Kong. Local dialects are like rich minerals where local cultures embed into. Many dialects are said to have inherited the pronunciations and expression of ancient Chinese language. For instants, Cantonese would say “未” instead of “没” for the meaning “not yet”, which is a character commonly seen in ancient Chinese literatures. To preserve local dialects is to preserve our culture that has passed from generation to generation.

In fact, when we look at the cosmopolites around the world, though they have official languages, dialects are well accepted by the citizens. BBC even has various dialect channels to appeal to dialect-speaking audiences. Singapore also has a very wise educational policy which suggests that students must learn the language of their own ethic. If Singapore can be so magnanimous to accept foreign languages and cultures, why cannot Chinese accept our own dialects?

( Yeah I finally finished!!!)

Night Photography By Justin

In the nigh of 3rd February, I went out with my friend HL for the night photography. That day was the first day of Chinese New Year, both of us wanted to do something special and have some fun. After the BBQ party with my roommates, we left Labrador Lodge for City Hall at harf past eight. Unfortunately, we had to go back to LL before eleven o’clock no matter how hard I begged my dear aunties and how many beautiful words I said to her. It was quit hurry, but none of us can control our irresistible impulse. On the MRT to the City Hall, HL repeated his suggestions to shot night pictures in Chinatown instead of City Hall for many times; after all it was Chinese New Yeaer. However, I did not think Chinatown really has an atmosphere of a hot and happy CNY. As I was kidding, I would rather experience the luxury and prosperity of capitalism in the beginning of a traditional Chinese New Year.

We chose City Hall, because City Hall is the political and economical center of Singapore. There are numerous skyscrapers, and during the night these moderm building of great hight were wrapped with lights of different colors. Those brands and names shown in illuminated light on the top of these skyscrapers such as Capitaland, OCBC were still shinny. At that night, City Hall did not sleep, but expressed another kind of attraction and beauty with a feeling of CNY. I wanted to shot some pictures of Singapore’s prosperity, and show them to my parents and friends.




We found a place that is covered by grass, and there a fine perspective opened out before us. There we had a distant night view of City Hall, and the beauty of night City Hall is fully expressed. We set up the tripod, fixed the camera, and began thinking how we should construct a picture, and how we should set up the camera. We agreed that in order to express the brightness of the night city, we must leave enough space for the dark sky and surrounding environments. Only when the lights were compared to the darkness, can the night view be bright and charming. We raised the front part of the camera up a bit and shot the picture at an angle of 35 degrees to the ground. At this angle, we could express the great height of the buildings in the picture. We chose to put the city at the right bottom of the picture so that there was enough space for dark sky to invoke comparison. The exposure time was set to be more than 10 seconds so that the city could be bright and shinny enough.

We failed many times because of the wrong settings of the camera and the wrong angles and positions of shooting the pictures. We tried hard to perfect all these things. When the picture finally came out on the LED screen, my friends and I got extremely excited. We did not expect the picture to be as good as this, and it was far beyond our expectation. When we saw the picture, we noticed the vague, white and soft bulks of cloud over the city. The shinny skyscrapers seemed to be wrapped in fog. It was really a wonderful accident. During the exposure, the cloud flowed over the sky softly, and this kind of slow movement had created the fantastic clouds like marshmallows. These clouds had made the picture unreal. The angle of shooting had made the city look like floating over the sky. It was like a mirage. My friend and I were so excited, and HL cannot wait to try again. There fore, he and I spent another 10 minutes to wait for another group of clouds to flow over and tried to shoot a picture like this of purpose. This time, he got a better picture, which was brighter and had more vague clouds.



In our life, sometimes we can notice some unusual beauty accidentally. Fortunately, I notice this beauty through camera and succeed in recording it.

PS: The picture descried in the journal is the last one. I found the casino (first picture) was quite strange; perhaps it is because the three buildings as a whole are not symmetric.

Some Thoughts about the Earthquake

Huang Hongxiang
Every day when I first log on my qq account, it will pop up a small window called qq news. Most time I just pay attention to those interesting entertainment and sports news. As for top line news, I just shoot a glance at it and seldom click for more information. However, on Dec.19th, 2010, when I saw these words “An earthquake measuring 4.8 Richter scale struck Anhui, Anqing” appeared on the index of qq news. My mind became orderless and I immediately made a phone call with my mother because Anqing is my hometown. Even I can feel the extremely anxious myself during the time I waiting for my mother’s answer. I didn’t have any concept about how seriously damage the 4.8 a Richter scale earthquake can cause. Luckily there is nothing happened to my parents. They told me there was no obvious sensation and not to worried about them. I know they didn’t tell me the truth. From my previous classmates’ statements, they could easily felt the shake of building and furniture when the earthquake occurred. It seemed that they were not so optimistic about this earthquake, so do I. We all confused whether there was no bigger aftershock in recent few days. I became anxious those days and around a week later I could eat and sleep well.
Maybe some people think I just make a big fuss over a minor issue. Earthquake measuring around 5 Richter scale happened so frequently in the world. There cannot be something serious happens. Actually in the past, I held the same opinion as them. However, it has changed these days. To be honest, even the moment I know the 8.0 Richter scale Wenchuan earthquake took place, I had no such strong emotional feeling like that this time. It is because I never considered about those people as much as my parents and friends.
From this earthquake, I have learnt some experience. If a focus event happened, only if one experienced it himself or it is related to him, he can have enough right to make comments about it or expressed his feelings. Otherwise they are just some meaningful statements put out by group of insignificant people. The people who are in the events must experience and think about more than others. Next time when I meet something I don’t know much or not relate to me, I cannot make comments without deep thinking. What more, I must keep in mind that although sometimes I think some actions others do are impervious to reason, I should at least show enough respect to them. There is very few stupid person on the earth. .