Free Write Stuffs 15- Date

Recently I have been to several amazing places on my date with my boyfriend, my friends and my family. Therefore, I am going to introduce some of these places with all of you :)

First of all, places to fill our belly up! Last Saturday was the Graduation Ceremony, my family, including me and my mother, had lunch with my boyfriend's family, which includes my boyfriend, let's call him Howard from now on, his parents, his younger brother, and younger sister. We went to a vegetarian hot pot restaurant, and it was really good! I truly recommend this restaurant to girls who love to eat hot pots but need to keep an eye on their diet. There are several choices of vegetables and the soups of the hot pots are not the greasy ones. For example, they have tomato soup, pumpkin soup and Chinese Tea Spicy hot pot. These soups are not only healthy but also delicious! The restaurant is called 若荷，it's in the eastern district. (click on the Chinese words and go to their official website.)

Next, after we have our stomach filled, let's take a little walk. Howard brought me to this wonderful bookstore, Tools to Liveby (click on to see its Facebook page) yesterday. There are many Japaness and European stationaries, as well as cool stamps, travel books and delicate little stuffs in the store. The store is rather small, but it is really beautiful and antique. People who love delicate stationaries would probably love the place. Try dropping by next time you pass by!

Last but not the least, as the finals are approaching, as well as my Toefl test, me and my friend met up to study today. She is a friend of me from secondary school, which means we have know each other for almost nine years (going to be ten real soon!). She brought me to this quiet and beautiful coffee shop, Aura, tonight after dinner. The coffee and tea there were really good, my friend ordered Earl milk tea, and she loved it. Moreover, it is a petite yet classic coffee shop, quite peaceful as well. Definitely a great choice to study there!

That's all of my sharing, hope everyone a wonderful weekend, and good luck on finals !  

Free Write Stuffs 14 - How to Train Your Dragon

For me, this week is cartoon week.
As I am having the Toefl test in July, I am training my English listening abilities recently. However, since I have just finished my GMAT, I am not really in the mood to sit at the table and study that seriously. So I figured out that I might train myself my watching Disney and Dreamwork cartoons with English subtitles, as if I am immersing myself in an English environment.

Throughout the week, I have watched many cartoons, such as Tangle, Brave, The Rise of the Guardians, and How to Train Your Dragon. Among them, How to Train Your Dragon is my favorite. The story is about a Viking family living on the island Berk, the father of this family is very strong and is a typical Viking man. His duty is to guard the village, mostly the sheep, form being eaten by dragons. On the other hand, the son of this enormous Viking man, is a weak and tiny boy, named Hiccup. At the beginning of the movie, Hiccup wanted to kill a dragon just like the other Vikings, nevertheless, when he finally caught the mysterious dragon, Night Furious, he realized that he could not bear to kill it. So instead of killing the dragon, he healed Night Furious and became friends with it. At the end of the movie, Hiccup finally showed the villagers that they could live peacefully with the dragons and even have them as pets.

The reason I love this cartoon is because Night Furious, as shown on the picture above, is a adorable dragon, and that is cartoon teaches us that we may sometimes have a wrong perspective towards the things we fear. If we could conquer the fear, we could even be friends and live peacefully and happily with them.

Free Write Stuffs 13- Family

When I was a little girl, I loved the movie Stitch, but it was not until recently that I found how touching the movie was. There was a line in the movie when Lilo said to Stitch: "ONANA means family, and Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." Well, when I was small, I could not image that one day my family would be in some way different form the others, different from kids with parents each holding their two little hands, different from kids whom are kissed and loved by both their mother and father.

Sometimes, it is about cherishing, so I am satisfied with what I have now. I love my mother, and my grandparents and my aunties are loving as well. As a big family, we get together really well, and we are close. And in some place deep in my heart, I believe that my father loves me as well, just that he got to be with the other small kid and the other family. Maybe he did not contact me because he simply have not find a good way to do so. And family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten right? So my father will not left me behind nor forget me, just that he have not find a way to contact me, or after all these things, to comfort me.

This semester, we have been writing about lessons learned from life or experiences. Well, I learned that...

If one day, I shall have a family,
I will, with my life, make it a great one

one that have kids happily grown up knowing what love is
and that it is the most precious thing in the world parents could have given to children

A family that children know they will be safe, will be loved, and cared.

Will have parents holding both of their little hands, walking down the streets and playing happily in the playgrounds.

I know it may sound too idealism, but if all of us start to establish this concept now, maybe we can fight for such an ideal, or dream in the future. :)

Movie Reflection- The Ultimate Gift 3

We finished watching the movie, The Ultimate Gift, last Monday. I think it was an awesome movie, and really taught me the lessons of life. What impressed me the most in the movie is when Jason was learning The Gift Of Dreams. Upon receiving  this gift mission, Jason took Emily and her mother, Alexia to the Texas farm for Christmas. Emily demanded that Jason take her and her mother out for a great Christmas, and a great Christmas means to go horseback riding and to sense the atmosphere of Christmas. Jason completed Emily's  demand by decorating the farmhouse in Texas, and letting Emily and Alexia rode on the horse. However, Alexia told Jason that it was not Emily's dream to ride a horse, in fact, it was Alexia who loves horses and Emily actually hates them. 

After  knowing that Emily did not get what she really wanted for Christmas, Jason approached Emily on the front yard of the beautiful decorated farmhouse, and asked her what her dreams really are. Emily said to Jason that her dream is a perfect day, a day with the people she loved, and they loved each other as well. So she was having her dream come true when Jason, Alexia, and herself spend a wonderful day together. I was really touched when Emily said that her dream was to be with the ones she loved, and knowing that the people she loved also loved each other. It may seem simple to have a perfect day, and to be with the ones one loved, but for Emily, and for some of the children either with bad health or a broken family, that dream might be too much to ask for.

From the lesson of gift, Jason learned that he may not have his own dreams, but he had the ability to accomplished the dreams of others, and this also led to the establishment of Emily's House. I really appreciated what Jason did for Emily and Alexia, and from the movie, I learned that by losing the person we loved, such as for Jason, he lost his father and Emily, we should be even more caring and spread out our love to more people who need that love and caring just as we did.  

Movie Reflection- The Ultimate Gift 2

So we did watch the rest of the movie last Monday; therefore I am going to reflect on the movie for this week's free write. As we watch a lot of the movie this week, I forgot some of the details of the movie, so unlike last week, the plot may not be as specific. Remember  I mentioned in the last blog that the rich grandfather Howard Red Stevens was planning to give his grandson Jason Stevens "The Ultimate Gift" and a series of gifts that will lead to the ultimate one ? Well this week, we got to know what are the other gifts, they are The gift of money, The gift of friend, The gift of family, and The gift of learning.

At this point of the writing, I suddenly realized that maybe I should not reveal what the movie is all about so clearly, maybe I should write about how the movie impressed me and let those who have not watch the movie show interest in it and go see the movie by themselves! 

From the movie we watched this week, the little girl, named Emily, who made friends with Jason impressed me the most, she has leukemia, but is a tough little fellow who influenced Jason a lot. Upon seeing Emily suffer from her illness yet still be positive, Jason realized that if Emily could be optimistic despite of her illness, why couldn't him? Therefore, Jason began to help Emily and her mother, Alexia, who is also a beautiful woman like a daughter. By helping Emily and Alexia, Jason learned the lesson of the gift of friend. 

Another thing that impressed me in the movie is when Jason went to a village to help fix the broken books and gathered new books in a local library named after his father. The village Jason went to is also the place where his father died, and Jason was determined to find out the truth about how his father died. That is when we ended watching the movie last week. Hope we could explore the truth with Jason this week :)      

Movie Reflection- The Ultimate Gift

This week, I am going to write about a movie reflection about the movie The Ultimate Gift.
I am not really familiar with this movie, and the teacher said that the movie is not shown in Taiwan, so I guess most of the people here may have little clue about this movie as well.

First of all, we watch only about fifteen minutes of this movie last week, so I can only reflect that much today (If we happen to finish the movie, I would share more of it with everyone).  For the first fifteen minutes of the movie, it was mainly about the first gift a grandfather, Howard Red Stevens, to his grandson, Jason Stevens, who happens to be the main character of this movie. The movie starts with a funeral, I think it was the grandfather, Howard Red Stevens' funeral. After the funeral, the whole family, the Stevens, including all the aunts and uncles gathered together to listen to the will's of Howard Red Stevens. To all the Stevens family's surprise, most of them got only a little of the handsome heritage of Howard. So the family members went away from the gatherings with much disappointment and frustration.  At the end of the gatherings, the lawyer of Howard Red Stevens called Jason's name and told him that his grandfather gave him some heritage, then the lawyer handed out a recorded CD by  Jason's grandfather. In the CD, Howard Red Stevens told Jason that although he owed him much, he is going to give him some presents, and the first present, is in Texas.

When Jason got to Texas, he thought that he was going to receive the gift right away, however, the only thing he got was going to a farmhouse with an old man, who asked him to do manual work. The work was to build posts on the farm yard, at first, Jason was reluctant to do the work and simply slept on the yard, however, later he figured out that the only way he would go back to his hometown is to finish the work. At the end, Jason did a great job on the work and finally was sent back to his hometown. Before leaving, Jason asked the old man at the farm if he had a gift to give him, the old man just laughed and said: 'If you do anything like that (the way Jason finish the manual work at the farm), you can do everything.". And after Jason got back to meet the lawyer of his grandfather, the lawyer told him that the first gift was "The Gift Of work"

I think what Howard Red Stevens wanted to teach his grandson, Jason, is the attitude towards working, so that if he (Jason) got the heritage, which is a lot of money, he will still have the correct attitude towards working.

Fever Fever Fever - Free Write Stuffs 9

After the GMAT, I had a few days of relaxation and then I caught a cold and had a fever.

It was Friday night that I started to sneeze, at first, I thought it was simply an allergic reaction, so I went to bed early hoping that I would get better the day after. However, when I woke up Saturday morning, I was still sneezing, non-stop, and I felt sleepy with a little sore throat. As me and my friends had planned to meet up Saturday afternoon, I went out despite of my illness. While I was taking the bus to the coffee shop we planned to meet up, I felt my head spinning and it was really hot, but the strange thing is I was not sweating at all. Nevertheless, I ignored my illness and carried on, when I met my friends, I felt a little better, and to my surprise, when we were in the coffee shop, I felt perfectly fine !

To my disappointment, after my friends left, I felt hot again, and it was not by then that I began to realize I might have a fever, so I went to a clinic immediately fearing that I might had the newest bird flu, I was so scared that I thought the doctors in the clinic would take me to the hospital right away after finding out that I had a fever. To my relief, the doctor said it was only a normal flu, and the fever was caused by my throat, which was swelled and red.  

I rested the whole day on Sunday; however, my throat stills hurts so much that I am so unwilling to talk today. I hate catching a cold and even worse, I have a presentation speech later at about 14:00. I don't like the idea that I might have to postpone my speech again, as I had already postponed it last week because I had to take the GMAT test. 

Therefore, I had better go have a rest now and hope my throat would get better after noon.