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. 

Delay - Free Write Stuffs 8

Hi, everyone, I am back :)

Well, I am a bad girl because I missed last week's free write, but I am going to make it up this week! Which means, I will write two 15 minutes free writes this week. One one Tuesday, and perhaps the other on the weekends. Please forgive me that I did not write the Free Write last week, I am so stuck with my GMAT tests again. Yeah, GMAT AGAIN ! At last I finally finished it !!!! Hooray !!!!

For the test scores.... I did not do a great job, as I expected, but I got a quite average score, a little above average i guess. I did not score 700 and above, in deed, I am one question behind 700 ! That is to say, if I got one more question correct, I will get 700. I got 690, yeah, kind of in a not so good luck condition I guess.

My mother said that I should be happy with my score and just carry on for the Tofel test; however, I feel that I can do better, and some part of me wants to take the test again. The reason I said some part of me is because the other parts of me, you are right, I split myself into parts, simply want to rest at the very moment. So I ended up in this dilemma of whether I should take the test again. Hope I will figure it out soon.

After the big GMAT test, I felt relief and less pressured, I unlocked my Facebook and it felt so good to "Facebook" again !  I have not realized before, but after closing my Facebook for a month, I felt so happy that I could see all my friends status again. Although I feel a little left out at first, I am trying to catch up with what everyone is talking about and what games my friends are playing. Recently, I got obsessed with a new I-phone game, Candy Crush, it is so cute and fun. My friends are all in really high levels, such as 80 or 90 something, while I am still in 37, so there is a lot for me to catch up with :D

Spring Break - Free Write Stuffs 6

No surprise, sure, I know you could have guessed it easily... Yeah, I am studying again during my spring break ! Well I am not going to complain about it this time, otherwise my blog will be "Jolin's GMAT studying grumble blog", sounds awful.

By the way, I could like to emphasis that I did write all the Free Write Stuffs passages in 15 minutes, with a I-phone timer besides me and rings whenever it is 15 minutes (big pressure with that). However, I did use some extra time to choose the photos, I think it is alright, is it ? The photos seem small, but you can actually press on it to make it big :)

Because my boyfriend got admitted to National Chengchi University's MBA graduate program, I had a few dinner and lunch outings with my family and my boyfriend's family during the spring break. As I am still having tests, he seems too happy for me this week, I mean, he is now a graduate student, or at least going to be one, and he got admitted to a wonderful MBA program, not to mention he got in as second place out of all competitors. I am happy for him, but how I wish to celebrate with him without worrying my GMAT test. Moreover, I really ate too much recently that I had funny stomachs almost every day.

I guess you might want to know where vegetarians can enjoy a big feast and end up having stomach aches. Here, let me share some great restaurants with all of you :)

1.  Sophie's Garden

This restaurant is wonderful, there are many many choices for vegetarians. Just click in and have a look

2. Lian Xiang Restaurant

This one is a grand, high class, all you can eat vegetarian restaurant. Well, it did cost an arm and a leg to dine in there, so perhaps taking your parents with you will be a smart choice!

Well, sometimes there's really nothing going on- Free Write Stuffs 5

As usual, I am studying, day and night. If I am not studying, I am either sleeping or eating, or perhaps on the way to the library to study. I know my life sounds boring, but that is mostly what I do recently as my GMAT test is approaching (It's on the 22nd of April, oh god !) My brain is mostly filled with grammar rules, adverb clauses, pronoun agreements, linking verb...etc, or not, it is about critical reasoning, AWA writings and reading comprehension.

Yeah, you are right, I am under a lot of pressure. I know that we should just relax and try to enjoy the beautiful things around us when approaching a test, but I just could not find something to share or talk or even think of any interesting things that happened this week.

Perhaps the best thing that happened this week is having a wonderful dinner with my family, including my grandparents and my aunties. We had roasted potatoes, it taste super delicious. I am not sure if it is because I scored really high in my prep exam before eating the roasted potatoes (however, it does not mean I am good at GMAT now. In fact, I have done most of the verbal questions in the cram school before taking the prep exam), or it is because the potatoes were especially good in hard times of life (I mean when preparing for an exam), the potatoes were the best ones I have ever tested in my life.

Finally, hope all of you can have a wonderful spring break and please wish me luck on the test :) Moreover, if you are not in a good mood recently, perhaps you can try the roasted potatoes, they are wonderful !

My Favorite App Game - Free Write Stuffs 4

This week I could like to talk about my favorite I-phone application game- Snoopy's Street Fair. I really enjoy this game because Snoopy is my favorite cartoon characters and this game has whole loads of adorable Snoopy characters, such as, of course, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Sally, Linus...etc... Moreover, this application charges no fee but has high quality images, beautiful computerized street fair stores, and many many cute decorations for one's street fair.

In the street fair, players can build different stores and sell different products to customers to earn money and experience percentages. After getting enough money and experience percentages, players will get upgraded and be allowed to buy newly unlocked stores, or even expand their street fairs.

However, if a player wants to buy really special things for the street fair, such as the love tree in the picture above, he or she will have to spend Snoopy tickets, which can be earned through only two ways, one is to play for five consecutive days, and the other is whenever a player get upgraded, the game will give the player two Snoopy tickets. Otherwise, a player will have to spend real money to buy Snoopy tickets !

Well, this week, I spent 90 NT dollars buying 35 Snoopy tickets to buy this love tree. I could not help it, it is so cute and I have been saving Snoopy tickets for a long time but still could not buy the tree, I am in deed in level 27 now ! So we can see how hard it is to buy an adorable tree !

Music Music Music !- Free Write Stuffs 3

Zoey Deschanel's Song- Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkzRyHa9a6g

This time for 15 minute free write, I would like to share one of my favorite singers- Zoey Deschanel with everyone. Zoey is a cute girl, and her style is really distinct, in other words, she is the kind of girl who always stands out in the coward. Her music, like herself in person, is of a unique style that can always catch my attention. Moreover, her MV (music video) is even cooler, unlike most popular singer's MV, Zoey's MV is not about beautiful ladies and handsome men falling in love or breaking up, but about cute dancings with montage filming or metaphors of life.

The reason why Zoey is of great importance to me is because whenever I am in a bad mood, her music always cheers me up as though there is magic in the melody. Especially her album "She & Him", every song in that album is awesome, and really heals human soul (at least my soul!) Take the first song, The Sentimental Herat, in the album for example, when I came upon hard times in life and could not find a way to express my emotions, I would listen to that song, and the song always made me feel that its lyrics actually transformed my emotions into words accurately !

Music have always been a great part of my life, and Zoey has accompanied my through not only hard times but also happy times in life. How about your favorite singer and favorite song?

btw, the album "She & Him" is by Zoey and her guitarist.

Short Stories Of My Group Members- Free Write Stuffs 2

This week I would like to share some short stories of my group partners, Sally and Michelle, with everybody.

Firstly, there is Sally. Sally is really fond of Mocha, a form of green tea power, and last week she went to a store that only sales Mocha. As she dined in the restaurant, everything tasted so good in Mocha for her. After finishing the "Mocha feast", she compares another specialized Mocha-selling store with the one she went to last week, and eventually, she came to the conclusion that the one she went to last week was in fact the best Mocha store she had ever been to.

p.s. That Mocha store is in Yong-Kang street (永康), perhaps people who are also fond of Mocha can ask Sally about the store's information :) 

Secondly, it is Michelle. Michelle is having her driving license's test today and tomorrow. She passed her writing test today and is going to take the hands-on test tomorrow. Last week, there were many new drivers joining her on her training, as the new drivers were very slow, she got really frustrated at them. Unfortunately, due to her frustration, she accidentally misstepped the gas pedal for the brake and bumped onto the wall. After the accident, she had to pay 2,400 dollars for the damage she made. 

Life of the GMAT- Free write stuffs 1

I prepared for the GMAT test the whole winter vacation. I kept studying and going to tuition and studying and attending classes, it was really tiring but I hope I will get good grades in the end, maybe about 700 and above. Among most of the testing subjects, I am most worried about the reading comprehension, well, sentence correction is also a big challenge; however I have overcome it this winter vacation through studying grammar real hard! Yeah, I meant Real Hard !

Reading comprehension, on the other hand, is really difficult and requires a lot of hard work and practice. It takes not only good reading skills but also the ability to analysis reading passages precisely. Moreover, I think my vocabulary has not improved since high school, in fact, my vocabulary has actually failed behind after entering university. Therefore, I am planing to improve my vocabulary from now on. 

The other thing about GMAT is that, I had to get really good scores because I need to apply for the scholarship in my graduate school. That is to say, I had to work even harder to meet the goal of scoring 700 and above in order to go abroad. Speaking of GMAT, it is actually quite frustrating for me to free write now as I kept thinking and correcting sentences whenever I see one. That is really bothering me at this minute as I spot tons of mistakes in my writing and could not go back and correct it!