Final Journal: Goodbye! Congratulations!

    

   Congratulations! We did it. From the last few months I learn a lot from Sean to how to organize different kinds of composition. It's useful for me. Result in studing composition this semester, I can finish several main kinds of essay in 30 minutes. It's amazing. Althrough the research paper is most useful for university studying, it is the most difficult part of this class. Now I have a general idea about research paper. I appreciate Sean and every classmate to help me and spend the wonderful time with me. It is said that teacher and classmate for one semester, friend forever.

Journal 16: Reaction to Film

       Baraka is a non-verbal documentary, which was filmed in 152 different places in 24 countries. And the word Baraka means "blessing". Out of thousands of scenes from this film, one scene touches me most. The powerful scene to me is that one child is begging money and food from passers-by and the only toy he has is an old and dirty toy car. He looks little and helpless and doesn't have enough nutrient ,food and clothes. He cannot go to school. This scene lets me remind the pictures that the African sick children who have not enough money to get good treat. There are so many poor children who need help and so many wealthy people who live a luxurious life. More orgnization need to build to help the poor children and we should also do somethings to help them.

Journal 15: Anticipating Your Parents' Objections

Dear Mom,

  I really appreciate the way you take care of me. You ask me to take more education and spend all of my time on studying. When I talk about I want to find a part-time job from the campus, you are worried about that I will not have enough time to study and I will be too tired on studying and working. Actually I know how to schedule my time ,and I can take care of myself. What's more, I can learn more from the job and in the mean time I will learn English. It's good for me. I hope you can stand by me.

Tinna

Journal 14: Summarize/Paraphrase Practice

          

Jon Healey. Government: Paying for unemployment - latimes.com. Opinion L.A. - Barack Obama, immigration, Michelle Obama, opinion, elections, Jonah Goldberg, campaign, politics, op-ed, editorial, letters to the editor, health care, healthcare reform - latimes.com. Retrieved November 14, 2011, from http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/10/government-paying-for-unemployment.html .

 It seems California is one of the lowest tax state in unemployment insurance taxable wage. Jon (2010) reports in this article from the LA Times that California have a taxable wage base of only the first $7,000 while most other states is based on $12,000 to $37,300. In addition, it also has a lower tax rate than most states. So there isn't enough reserves to provide unemployment benefits during a deep recession. People doubt about the ability of states to create reserves for a downturn day.

Journal 13: Analyzing an Argument

Andrew Harrer. Supreme Court to decide: Is GPS tracking too '1984'? - latimes.com. (n.d.). Los Angeles Times - California, national and world news - latimes.com. Retrieved November 14, 2011, from http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-gps-20111110,0,3813779.story

In this article Andrew Harrer pokes fun at that the police should be allowed to affix an electronic tracking device to a suspect's car without a warrant and follow his every movement for a month (par. 1). His point that  there's something creepy about round-the-clock electronic surveillance  (par. 2) is a claim of policy which appeals to emotion: creepy. He thinks that GPS tracking, which allows police to follow as many people as they want for as long as they want without expending many resources, takes invasion of privacy to a new level(par.4).

Journal 12: First Source

    Brian Hansen holds a B.A. in political science and an M.A. in education from the University of Colorado. He noticed that higher education in the United States was undergoing a virtual revolution. More than 1,600 postsecondary schools offered some 54,000 Internet-based courses to an estimated 1.6 million students enrolled in online courses and degree programs, not only at traditional colleges and universities but also at institutions that exist only in cyberspace. Distance learning can make higher education  available to “the other 99 percent” — all the world's people who don't go to college. Indeed, according to one prediction, distance learning will push the global demand for U.S. higher education to 160 million students by 2025.

Journal 11: Research Question

      I used to hate research paper because I don't like to write articles. However, for the composition class, I have learned a lot of method about doing the research paper, which makes me feel better. The fist tool is wikipedia, which is not authorized, but a usefull tool to look for information you want to know a general concept about the aspect that you need. The second method is to search from the library website of CUSF, where I can find much information, such as books, articles from magazine, newspaper ,Internet,even government. Form that , a large amount of authorized material can be digged out. With the assistance , I decided to make a research about online distant education, which is a great complement for the insufficient educational resource.

Journal 10: Advice

When I am standing in the crossings, I want to talk to my friends and my family members to seek advice. They also love to do that, so I have been given much advice. Most of them gives me supports when I am wandering , and furthermore some of them gives me much help. However, I am not going to follow all those advice. Everyone has a balance in mind. When they choose the decision, they will judge by themselves fist. When I chose the middle school, my family members all suggested me to choose one school that needed lower score to admit. At that time, I was so eager to enter another high school that I made my decision and finally passed the exam. I also give much advice to my friends. I and my friends become more familiar through changing advice and opinion.

Journal 9: American Food

   When I first time arrived at America 6 months ago, there were two things I could not endure. The first one was American food. The second one is California public transportation. Every day I ate the hamburgers, bread, pizzas, raw vegetable salad. In addition to those, I drunk cola ,juice and coffee. It is difficult for me to find a soup here on the dinner table, compared with soup in my every dinner fare in China. I was crazed about that. At that time , I don't want to hear about "Let's go eat American", and I made a dream that I went to enjoy the Chinese food with my friends. There were SiChuan hotpot and fish hotpot. I was so aborbed in that dish in my dream. With staying longer in California, I was surprised to find many different kinds of food here except traditional American in my mentality. I have visited some specific restaurants, such as "Little sheep hotpot", Sichun Restaurant and Chinese DongBei Restaurant. And now I begin to like pizza and hamburger and salad, but it refers to fruit salad.

Journal 8: Optimistic Quote

   Winston Churchill, the former Prime Minister of the UK and Nobel Prize in literature, said "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." This quote is used to explain how people perceive the same event and situation. One can not simply interpret one's reality, and should see two sides of one thing, and pose a positive attitude to it. Another example of pessimism and optimism is the question "Is the glass half empty or half full?". This philosophical question indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for optimism (half full) or pessimism (half empty). I choose the optimism in many cases in spite of sometimes choice of the pessimism. For instance, it is the optimistm to support me to keep studying English  for so long time. I wish I can pass TOFEL test next time. haha.

Journal 7: Birds of a Feather

It is said that "Birds of a feather flock together". This is just like my friends and me. My intimate friend, Juan. She comes from North of China. We met in the university. After years in the same dormitory, we seem like sisters. We both like badminton. Every Friday after the classes, we will go to the playground or just outside our building, and play badminton. Those were moments full of fun and enjoyment. Every two days, we will go jogging around our dormitory village. We have other same hobbies. We like to watch the romantic TV series and to read books. After reading a book, we discuss together and enjoy the fantastic, comedic, romantic and sad stories. She affect me in my food habit. Before I met her, I rarely ate spicy food, even hate that. I remember I first time go the SiChuan Restaurant, which is famous in spicy dish. I was invited and persuaded by her. With a restless mood, I tasted every dish. Although I feel better about spicy food after the dinner, I still dislike it a little. With having spicy food more and more with her, I gradually love the special and delicious  spicy dishes. She also follow me to taste my hometown dishes and change her life habit.

Journal 6: Dr Dolittle

If human could talk with animals, the world would gain great changes. Can you image that one day when you are walking through the park, a deer say hello to you. When you drop your purse in the ground, a pigeon will remind you. It sounds great. I want to talk with Bela, the dogie. I want to tell her I like her so much and ask her what she can understand me, and what she like to eat best. However, I want to image the scene when the Kingkong can communicate with human. He can get more understanding from human. I hope human can be more friendly to animals, less deforestation and hunt.

Journal 5: Life's Soundtrack

       Just like a movie, our life has a soundtrack. My favorite music for my childhood is famous Chinese song "XiaoCao", which is the first song I learned in my primary school. The song describes the strong life of grass. Every winter, as a result of cold weather, grass disappears from the land. However, without any care, grass itself comes out the earth and regains new life. When I first time I heard it. I cannot really understand the meaning under the earth. I just like its melody. However when I lived alone during a period of high school life, I got the reference. One needs to train himself or herself more durable to difficulties and learn to how to overcome them.