The Moment of Dream Come True

hi 

Sorry, my friends!  I haven't updated my blog for almost a month since I've dedicated myself in job searching.  It took a great deal of time sending applications or filling out my resume onto employeers' HR system.  In addition, i have been quite anxious and stressed out, since the time is running out.  Part ot the reason I didn't write my blog until now is the things i always want to share with my friends are positive and happy things.  I want to tell you "I've found a job!" instead of negative things.

Today, after talking with Jill this morning, I feel quite relaxed and NEVER EVER worry about my job at all.  Thanks again, Jill!  I love learning English but i couldn't spend much time on that due to my tight schedule, and esp the final is comming in two weeks.   Thinking spending a summer in a language school where i can work on stuff i really want to concentrate on would probably be a great treat for me.  I want to have a very good accent which is hard to improve without a lot of work or starting at a young age with native speakers and a focus only on spoken, not just written.  Besides, this would make a good use of my summer and give me a chance to remain in the US.

好感動哦! 因為太感動了! 我一定要寫中文　
我今天第一次吃到飯耶! 這是來美國二個月半來我最豐盛的一餐(外食不算)
有二菜一湯還有飯耶! 哈　我自己煮的哦! 小鼻，我會做飯了!! 哦　耶耶耶耶

Jill: when you can deal with stressful situations

Hi!

This's my room, small but nice and comfortable.    Especially, I have a good view from my window - will upload the widow view some other sunny days.

Actually, being too lazy and too busy, i was not used to writing blog while in Taiwan, but right now in the US, I just want to write, to keep a record and to memorize all of the touching and pleasant moments, so I'm trying to write more.

Today I took part in an activity which is so called TGIF, Thanks God It's Friday, which takes place every Friday, from 3:30pm to 5:30pm.   It's an activity for people to make new friends.   The most important, during this period, all of the meals and drinks are free!   Fantastic!  Why there are no such social settings in Taiwan?  I made many new friends from all over the world wherever I even don't know.   We happily talked, made jokings, and introduced yourself whenever there were new friends joined.   They're all very nice, friendly, and active.  I'm happy that I made many new good foreign friends today.

 
This is gonna be the most inspiring and wonderful news never then ever besides admission to the exchange program.  
 
To turely understand a language and to speak like native speakers including both speed and accent (my goal), I think 4 months is not enough.  That's why I was eager to extend my duration of time in the United States.  However, before I came here, all of the information all told me it's not gonna be possible to extend my J-1 visa, which made me upset for a while.
 

This is my second day in Boston since I travelled to California for five days and just arrived here yesterday. 

Fortuntely, everything went pretty well. One of my American friends came to pick me up in the San Fransisco airport and we travelled in San Fransisco for two days and stayed in my friend's house in Monterey for the rest of three days. I was so exciting about everthing.  I read street signs, learn lots of very American expressions and wrote down every new vocabularies I learned on that day. 

Burning Paper Money

The burning of “ghost money,” the paper regarded as an offering to inhabitants of the netherworld, is a common practice in Chinese society for thousands of years.  People in Taiwan, most of whom are Buddhists and Taoists, believe that the more mock money they burn, the more good fortune they will have; as a result, they are used to placing tables laden with a variety of foods, fruits and beverages in front of their premises to worship their ancestors, gods, and ghosts during several important festivals, such as Tomb Sweeping Festival, Ghost Festival and Chinese Lunar New Year.  However, nowadays, an increasing number of the environmental protection authorities are calling on the public to avoid burning paper money due to the pollution it brings.  While many people argue that this long-hold tradition must be conserved, there is some evidence that the practice of burning paper money yields negative results. 

The Exploration of the Documentary Daughter from Danang

A heartbreaking drama that greatly upsets people’s perspective on happily-ever-after, Daughter from Danang is a complex emotional documentary about longing, identity, expectations and the vast gulf between lifestyles.  Born in Danang, Vietnam in 1968 but reared in Tennessee in the U.S, Heidi Bub is the mixed-raced daughter of an American soldier and a Vietnamese woman.  Fearing for her daughter’s safety at the war’s end, Heidi’s mother sent her to the U.S. on “Operation Babylift” at the age of 6.  Although born in Vietnam, Heidi is an “all-American” girl.  Discovering that her birth mother had been searching for her just “like finding a needle at the bottom of the sea,” said Edward Guthmann, a Chronicle Staff Writer, she couldn’t wait to fly to see the person for whom she had also been longing for over 22 years.  While most stories have happy endings, Daughter from Danang ends in an extraordinary, unexpected, and tragic way.  The consequence that the mother and the daughter never saw each other in the aftermath of the reunion can be attributed to two reasons: false expectations and cultural differences.

Understanding Earthquakes

The houses were shaking; the books on the shelves were falling out; pots and pans were going right down to the floor!  Everything was shaking.  Frightened, shocked, and screaming – people awoke from their sweet dreams and found it was an earthquake.  Forgetting all the safety rules taught in school, residents hurriedly escaped from their houses.  Finally, the houses stopped shaking; as a result, some people were relieved and started to go back into their houses.  A few minutes later, a fateful disaster occurred - the earthquake was back again!  Before the residents could respond, all of a sudden, the buildings collapsed, the bridges were destroyed, the roads split and thousands of people were buried under piles of bricks.  The whole island suffered blackouts at the moment.  This was the scene on September 21^st, 1999 in central Taiwan that is known as the 921 Earthquake.  This disaster renewed fears about the catastrophic power of earthquakes and made people in this land start to think about the importance of earthquakes preparedness.  To understand the 921 earthquake, it is necessary to comprehend how an earthquake occurs and develops.

    A sudden release of energy stored in the Earth’s crust creates earthquakes.  In general, an earthquake is caused by tectonic plates getting stuck and putting a strain on the ground, which is also called a tectonic earthquake.  The strain becomes so great that rocks succumb by breaking and sliding along fault planes.  When a failure at a fault plane results in violent displacement, the strain elastic energy is released and seismic waves are radiated, thus causing an earthquake.  According to the United States Geological Survey, this process of strain, stress, and failure is referred to as the Elastic-Rebound Theory.  “It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of an earthquake's total energy is radiated as seismic energy,” explains Spence William, a distinguished geologist.  Most of the earthquake's energy is utilized to power the growth of the earthquake fracture and converted into heat.