2012 Highlights

 

  Do you remember the movie call "2012". The movie talked about the world isn't day. Do you believe? I don't believe. What did events happen to you in 2012? I have many events in 2012. However, there are two memorable events . I will remember about this year when I look back 5,10,or 15 years from  now. One is I became a U.S. citizen in May. I was very happy because I can apply for my parents to come to the United States. They wanted to visit me in 2010. But their visa didn't pass. Now they can come to settle in the United States. I can live with them together in U.S.

 

The other one is  the first time I drove to Los Angeles with my two friends in June. We plan to tracel by car has been a long time. but we hasn't implemented. We finally went to LA. We was starting at 1:00 A.M. because the traffic didn't block. But we were very sleepy. We drove turn by turn. We spend seven hours. When we arrived, although we were very tried, we were very happy and exciting.We wanted to go Disney and Universal Studios. We have a good time in there.





 

Highlights of 2012

This is my flour baby, his name is Jason.

          In life, there is always some important events that happen to us. For example, in 2012,  the iPhone 5 came out, London Olympics, Euro Cup, U.S election, etc. those were very important and lots of of people put attention on it. For me, I have some unforgettable events had happened in 2012 too. On April, I was still a high school student as a senior. I took the 'health ed' class because that is a required class to take. That class was impressed me because we had to make a "flour baby" which is we made our own baby using a 5 lb flour or sugar, and we had to bring the baby with us everyday and wherever we're going. We also had to bring it back home, if you left it in the locker or anywhere, that's cheating. And of course we had to bring it to school for teachers to sign. If I abused my baby, and the teacher saw it, she will minus points for sure. I think the "flour baby" was a hard work for me because that was too heavy to bring to school, and I had some other classes's textbook to take.







This is the score of my first written test (right)

          Another highlight of 2012 is I passed the driving test. In the summer, I decided to learn driving. On March, I went to DMV to do the written test, before I did the written test I had read the handbook unceremoniously. Because I didn't prepare at all so I failed the first time. For the second time, I passed the test because I spent a lot of time to read the handbook and read some information online, that was very helpful, and I missed only 1 question for the second time. For the driving test, I passed it in the first time, that was unbelievable. Because my appointment was in the morning, so I felt so sleepy when I was driving, but I had to wake myself up. I was so lucky that I got a nice driving instructor, and I had learned a lot from him. Another highlight of 2012 is that I watched couple movies, some Chinese movies, and some American movies. For examples, The Hunger Games, Titanic with Imax 3D, Love in a puff, etc, I think those were part of the hottest movies in 2012. Overall, I think 2012 was precious, and I hope there will be more intersting things happen in the future.

The Hunger Games (left) and Titanic (right)

Precious Moments

first time doing archery

Our lives are full of memorable, adventurous and exciting experiences, among those unforgettable moments there must be some events that are represented as highlights of the year. In my personal experience, one of the highlights of 2012 is going to college. As a freshman, I learned that life in college is all dependent on oneself. No matter what kind of situation I might encounter during my college life, I must find a solution by myself and be able to handle them on time and efficiently. Besides the difficulties I might have in college, there are also benefits that had helped me a lot for my life as a whole. I made few friends, and gained some knowledge that I considered to be helpful for my future. (including education and social) Now, I feel more accustomed to my school and will continue my study for the following years.

Another important highlight of 2012 is my first time going to camp in the US. The camp was held by a church and was located on the other side of the city. Although it wasn't a long period trip, I still learned a lot from it and had a wonderful experience. I did many activities that I haven't done before, like zip line, archery, paint ball. First experiences are always unforgettable in most situations, and of course, I also did a lot other first time experiences in 2012. Overall, camping was a good time that I spent with my friends together. Finally, I believe that there will be much more wonderful and exciting experiences waiting for me in the future. 

My Daily Life

      School is a place where I can learn everything I wish to and gain knowledge. For me, go to school is the most important job. I think when I am young, I need to learn as much as I can before turn into a working woman. By going to school, I can get an education and also a career that I like. By having an education, I can get a better job with high position. I feel comfortable and happy  when I go to school for many reasons such as I can meet my friends and learn new things from teacher. But sometimes I feel tired and insomnia about tests and quizzes because I have to stay up all night to study and stress about the grades.

Do you like to text message? Text is a way to communicate with others rather than having a phone call and most people do not have anything to say. I love text messages a lot and it becomes a part of my daily life. I always check my phone and reply text when I wake up in the morning. I like to text with my friends. We talk anything and have fun a lot. Sometimes, I just read a text and start to smile like a crazy girl. For me, I like text better than phone call . In text message, I can say many difficult things and do not feel shy but in phone call I will get nervous and can not say anything.

My daily life

We should do something to relax ourselves, and not just go to work or school everyday.

 

watching TV can be good for you

          I think TV is very important to all of us because you can learn a lot and you can watch dramas, movies and news. For me, I usually open the TV before I eat dinner because I enjoy to watch TV while I eat dinner with my family. I usually eat dinner at about 6:30, at that time, most of the television channels are playing news. It's good to watch news because you will know more about what the world is happening now. Sometimes when my computer is so slow then I open the TV because I don't have to download things to watch, but I can't choose what I want to watch because it plays randomly.

 

You will find out a lot of things when you open the computer

          Another activity that I do everyday is playing computer. I think all of us love computer so much because you can do a lot of things on the computer, for example, you can talk to your friends or even chat with them face to face, you can watch movies, or online shopping, etc. For me, computer is very important because I can talk to friends, play games and listen to music so my life is not bored.

Piano can bring you to another world

 
         Piano is one of the activities that I do everyday too because I have to play a song every week for my piano class, so I need to practice everyday. Piano is important to me because the sound came out from the piano makes me feel excited and sometimes bring me to another world, and it can make me clam when I play songs that are softly, but of course I have to play well so I can feel that way.

Essential tasks

Reading has become a must do activity in my life

Everyone has some tasks that they must do everyday. It doesn't have to be something that everybody consider a must do thing. A must do list could be activities that you do routinely because your family force you to do it or because you just want to do so. For me, surfing the Internet has become part of my life. I always check my email, news, chat with my friends and family, watch videos, etc. There are so many things that I do on the Internet for almost every single day. It is considered an important task for me because I can find out specific information about topics that interest me or I can search for something that I didn't understand. Also, reading news article online help me to stay updated and learn English. By reading helpful information I can enrich my knowledge in a variety of subjects.

Another task that is part of my routine life is listening to music, whenever I am stress out I must listen to a song; this helps me to relieve my stress and calm down. I sometimes also drink a cup of tea and read a book while listening to the music. In this way I get a little bit distracted so that I don't think about the stressful situations anymore. I'd like to live my life happy and relaxed, there has been studies that show stress could decrease your life span, so we should all enjoy our lives to the fullest. Eating healthy and exercising are also extremely important must do activities for me, I always try to maintain my health by taking care of my diet and physical activities. Although this looks like the little things that we do in our routines, it can turn out to have huge effect later in life.

A Love for Life

Face the challenge bravely
Reviewed by Yongjia Sara Xu

     Have you ever felt that it's very hard to face challenges when you are alone?  In the book A Love for Life, written by Penny Hancock and took place in Holland. The main character Fanella who wants to have a child in her life, adopt a child after her ex-boyfriend leaves her. She faces all problems and overcomes those sufferings in her life by herself, and adopted a five-year-old girl whose named Ellie. But then Fanella's best friend Teresa introduced two men to her, and Fanella is hard to choose between both of them because they both have problems of their own......



     I highly recommend this book because this story is good, although this is fiction, but it's real and related to our life. In this book, I admire Fanella that she wants adopt a child even though her ex-boyfriend leaves her, that's interesting because it's not a easy job for a single woman. When I read how brave that Fanella is because she faces all challenges by her own, I think of myself that I gave up to do something, and I asked myself some questions, why I gave up? Why I ran away when I get in troubles? Shouldn't I need to be like Fanella that bravely faces challenges? One part that I liked about the book is that Fanella can bravely keep her life going even though she got some problems, I admire her so much, and I should learn from her. One part that I don't like is that Teresa looks like jealous that her best friend Fanella marry to Rod, she should be happy that Fanella  finds her happiness.

A Love for Life

A Challenging Life
Reviewed by Anita Chong
Having the wants to adopt a child, Fanella, an editor in a publishing company, has to face a lot of challenges that she encounter in the life of adopting a child. In Penny Hancock's A love for life, which took place in Holland, Fanella broke up with her boyfriend because he didn't agree to have an adoption for the couple. Her best friend Teresa helps her out by introducing her to tell stories to the children in Rod's class, who is Teresa's son teacher. 

After working together for a period she fell in love with Rod, but gets disappointed after realizing that he's married. Meanwhile, Fanella gets approved for an adoption of a five-year-old girl with behavioral problems, Ellie. Fanella then decides to meet Mark-Teresa's husband colleague. Their relationship didn't go well after all because Fanella was still in love with Rod.....

A love for life is a story full of challenging events that happened in a woman who was trying to adopt a child. Overall, it is an interesting story in which we can relate to real life, like the difficult lives of single parents who are applying for adoptions. It also made me think of the conflict situations between couples, because sometimes one might have a different opinion other than his/her partner. 

One part that I liked about the book is that Fanella didn't give up the willing of wanting a child despite of the hard job and personal status. On the other hand, what I found not interesting is that everything in Fanella's life was not very favorable; she always has to find her way out of the complicated situations she might have involved in. Fortunately, she's gotten her best friend Teresa, who is always willing to help her no matter in what situation she's in. I recommend the book for people who care about children and for those who are willing to read a life about a single parent adopting a child. The stories has a lot of ups and downs so you might get emotional while reading the book. 

Giants worldseries game 1

I took this picture, when i went to the Giants worldseries game 1 this year. In this picture you can see my sister and me.

This picture means alot to me because i am such a big fan of the Giants. And knowing that i was part of all those fans that went to the game make it more special.

Also going to this game was such a good experience, because i got to met the players, another reason why this photo is so special is because i would keep it with me, so in the future i can see it again and remember how exciting and fun was that day. 

My favorite place is where I always feel most comfortable

       This beautiful place is called Stinson Beach and located in Marin County, California. Stinson Beach is about a 35 miles drive from the Golden Gate Bridge on California and also one of the cleanest beach in the state. 

       There are so many place that people can feel comfortable. For me, I feel enjoy, comfortable and relax at the beach. I find out the beach is nice in many ways such as the waves are crashing, the sunshine, the sky and the weather. I like the sound of waves roll in and out. There are days that the waves can be calm and smooth or days the waves can be windy and rough. All the sounds come from the waves is the most wonderful sound that I like to listen whenever I go to the beach. The wonderful natural things at the beach help me have a better day.

       I went to Stinson beach to have a picnic with my family, relatives and friends in 2011's summer.We spent a day to play with the sand, waves and water. We also take off our shoe to walk on the beach and feel the water. But the funny was that we were trying to taste the salt of the water. Going to the beach is one of the best way to reduce stress. Also I can have a lot of memories with people that I love at the beach.

Palace of Fine Art In San Francisco

 
  When you see this photo, do you know where is this place? I think many people known it and many people went there. The place is Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. It is at 3601 Lyon Street. It is a antique Roman ruins of buildings. It is primarily a domed hall, with arches and columns. The architectural design of Palace of fine arts showed to the world a spectacular visual sense of beauty. It was the world's museum exposition in San francisco in 1915. It built for temporary buildings of the exposition. Palace of Fine Art should have removed in October, but residents of San Fracisco efforted to save it.
  Palace of Fine Arts is unforgettable to me. When I lived in San Francisco, I visited the first place is it. I like this place very much. I felf very comfortable in there. The view is very beautiful. When  my friends with her family traveled to San Francisco last month, I also took them to there for  the first place. They also like there. We took a lot of photo in there. When people ask me, where is the most beautiful place in San Francisco. I must say Palace of Fine Arts.

An important place in S.F

Bill Graham Civic Auditorium / City Hall


                         This is one of the important places in S.F for me, I really love this place. Do you know where it is when you look at the photo above? Yes, It is the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, in there, it can hold 7,000 people and it was built in 1915. It is in Civic Center 99 Grove St (between Larkin St & Polk St). As you can see in the picture, there is a big space in front of it and there is covered with lots of grass which is very beautiful. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and City Hall both are very important place in S.F because it is the government office, and a lot of people had their wedding in City Hall too, and sometimes there is a concert in Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
         
                       For me, this place is very important because my high school graduation was in there. The graduation was on May 23, 2012 which was on Wednesday, my mom, my aunts and my uncles had to go to work but they asked their boss to have a day off so they could attend the graduation. I was very happy that most of my family came to the graduation. On that day, one of my cousins graduated too, but the graduation was not on the same time because we were not the same school. At 7 am, all the students (our school) came in to the auditorium for rehearsal, I looked around the auditorium because this was the first time that I get in there and I surprised how it looks like. It was huge which is unbelievable because when I look the outside of the building I don't think it can be that huge. I saw a lot of seats in there, of course those seats are for audience but at that time they are for students, and those seats above were for students's family. At about 10 am, our graduation ended... we left because the next school needs the auditorium, then we went out to take some photos with friends and family. This place such as a great place, and it gave me lots of wonderful memories.

The Kaaba

The Kaaba is located in Saudi Arabia and is considered the center of Muslims world. It is an ancient and
simple structure that has been for many years. The Kaaba is covered with a black silk cloth which is embroidered in gold with verses from the Qur'an. Kaaba is a large stone structure constituting a single room. It is the holiest building in Islam.

Muslims have to go to Kaaba once in their life if they have the money. They go there for pilgrimage. There are millions of Muslims go there to do this religious event. This religious pilgrimage occurs every year, and a lot of people travel from all over the world to go to Mecca where Kaaba is located. Mecca is the city in Saudi Arabia.

This is the place that I wish in some days to go there and to be a member of the people there. I really like this place because it is a comfortable and quiet place. I have relatives who went to Kaaba last year. They said that they enjoyed everything there and had a religious time. They spent most of their time praying.