the fall of Iowa City

The weather has become cold, leaves have changed their color, and the wind has flowed wherever you are--these are characteristics of the fall in my hometown. It makes me surprised that Iowa City has the same fall as my hometown. Therefore, I feel excitied and comfortable in the fall of Iowa City. Although the wind is a little bit chilly, I like to walk around the campus everyday. Because the colors of leaves are changing, I can detect different colors of leaves everyday, which is really interesting. I like the fall because it has some similarities to our life--it changes quickly, and sometimes it is hard to detect. However, because everything is colorful, you can expect anything you think will happen tomorrow. When the fresh air flows on my face every morning, a new day has started. Life is as new as what you will see in the changes of the fall in Iowa City.

do things immediately

I used to do everything slowly, because I was lazy. However, when I was very young, my mother told me do everything immediately, and now, I thought this is the most important life lesson I learned from my mother. Do everything immediately is a good custom, it will not only makes me do everything effective, but also will makes the people around me feel comfortable. For example, when I work with people in a group, if I do everything very quick, it will encourages others to effort more. Also, to do everything immediately can bring me a lot of spare time, because I use shorter time to work than others, so I will get more time to do anything I like. That is what I think the most important thing I learned form my mother, and I highly recommend you to hold this custom, it is really helpful for your entire life.

how to overcome the stress

I have been to Iowa for almost two months, but i still cannot communicate with native speakers very well. The most stressful situation for me is when i talk with someone, who totally cannot understand what i am saying. This thing is quite often for everyone of us, and especially for me. Whatever how much vocabulary I learn, I cannot use them in the correct ways, and I cannot pronunciate them well, because English is not my mother language. However, I get some experiences about how to overcome this stress. The most important thing is think about the sentences you just say, make sure the words in the sentences are quite correct to use, and if they still cannot understand, try to use different words, or give them some examples to illustrate what you are going to talk about. Therefore, by using these methods, a native speaker will probably understand what you are saying, and after that, make sure that you need to ask him or her how to say this meaning correctly, that will give you a lot of improvement on English.

my favorite movie genre!

I like the movies The Shawshank Redemption and The Nuovo cinema Paradiso, both of their movie genres contains drama. The website IMDB has already gave the definition of drama as:"should contain numerous consecutive scenes of characters portrayed to effect a serious narrative throughout the title. This can be exaggerated upon to produce melodrama. Please submit any such keywords. Subjective." (IMDB,10/08/2007, www.imdb.com/Guides/genres) In the movie Nuovo cinema Paradiso, the main character is the Toto, it shows the entire life of Toto. When he was young, he was a very smart boy who lived in a small town in Italy, he liked everything about movies. the projector of the cinema of paradiso ( the only small cinema in this town), Alfredo is the best friend of Toto, he taught everything he knew to Toto, not only about movies, but also about love, life and many other things. He also disrupted Toto's love when he was young, and forced him to go to Roman to work. finally, Toto became the most famous movie director in Italy, and he also own a valuable memory with this old man. In the Shawshank Redemption, the main character Andy was a banker when he was young, but he was misarrested by the police and put into the prison. this movie shows his convict career, and shows the friendship between him and Red, who also is a prisoner. He used his knowledge to help people to get fun, to found out the evidence of the crime of gaolers, and finally got out of the prison. I like the words he said:"Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free." This movie shows Andy's strong ability to get out of the fear, and to find out the freedom and happy. In conclusion, I like drama because it shows everything about a person's life, with many dimensions, and this kind of movie can impresses me really a lot!

Fun in Chicago

Yesterday, I and my Chinese friends and Alicia went to some places in Chicago together. First, we have been to the Art Institute of Chicago. We saw a lot of oil painting at there, included Van Gogh's "the bedroom" and many other expressionism painting. Otherwise, we also watched a lot of Chinese antiques there. After that, we went to the Chinatown by taking subway. That was the worst subway I had ever seen, there was very dirty and dangerous. But, when we had been to Chinatown and ate traditional Chinese food, we get over the stress. That's the most delicious Chinese food I had already ate in America, and all of us felt so excited when we ate. Also, I and Alicia discussed the customs of eating between China and America. After that, we went to the Michigan Ave and bought some coasts there. In the end of the day, we went to a old pizza restaurant, which is strongly advised by Alicia, and we ate the traditional Chicago food, a thick piece of cheese pizza, and felt so satisfied.