Linda – A Crazy Day of Interviewing and Running Around: Stopped by Mall Officials

“Ring ring ring”
I received a message, “Tomorrow 4:00 pm.  We will meet at Tous Les Jours cafe…”

I thought oh, I have a geography class at 6 pm. It’s far away from Tous Les Jours cafe. So I replied immediately, “I got it. But I have a class at 6:00 pm. I can get there earlier so that I can leave earlier because my school is far away from Tous Les Jours cafe.”

Then our teacher, Mrs Xu replied,  “Well, you can come here at 3:20, so that then you can leave when you finish your task.”

When I hurried there, i arrived at 3:30pm. I started doing my work, took photos and then delivered the photos I had taken. Then I noticed that Steven still hadn’t  turned up. At that moment, my teacher’s mobile phone was ringing. I thought it might be Steven.   It was Steven!  He said, “Hi, is that teacher? This is Steven. I’m lost. I forget the name of that bus station in front of Tous Les Jours cafe?”  Then our teacher explained quite clearly how to take the bus and where to change it.
…
10 minutes later, he appeared. We all started to tease him. We often met at this cafe but he could never remember the bus stop name…

Well. It’s time to do more interviewing.  Steven and I decided to go to the shopping mall, because we thought it was really convenient and cool. Unluckily, we still could not find a person who would agree to an interview.   So we wanted to go outside where there were more people.   But right as we got on the elevator we found two girls who looked like college students. We made our mind to try again so we asked,  “Excuse me. We are from What Kids Can Do and Adobe.  Can we ask you some questions about the Olympics? It won’t be very long.”   After looking our credentials they agreed.

The interview was relaxedness and funny. Right at that moment, a staff of the shopping mall came close to us…

“Excuse me, can you let me know what are you doing? Are you interviewing?”
He asked. “Yes, we are asking some questions about the Olympics. If you want, we can interview you too.”   “No. I mean… can you come to our manager’s office? We are told to pay more attention to the interviewers, you know. ” “Well, I know.” Steven followed him, I finished my interview then went to the office in a hurry.

“You know, here is close to the Olympic stadium. So we must pay attention to the interviewings.”
The manager said. “So, can I know the questions?”
“Of course. We showed them our question list of interviewing” They made a copy which took them a long time. Let me say, it should be about 20 minutes, I think. During that time, we called our teacher and told her details. She asked if she needed to talk to the maneger, we said: “it is fine here. Do not need her to be here. We will be back soon.”

20 minutes later we were back to the cafe.

“Oh my!” I looked my watch. It was 5:00pm. There’s no time to rest. I must go. Fortunately, teacher and other students could go with me.

First, we took a taxi. And we hurried to the line 5. It was 5:15pm. Then at the transfer station we took line10—a new subway line. It was 5:35. Finally, I took a taxi. when I got there , it was 5:55pm.

It was a hurried day that so many things happened. But it was more exciting, isn’t it?

(the photo above is a picture of Me, Steven and Kelen)

Kelen – My Tutoring School: The New Oriental

It is obvious that English is the most popular language in the world. English is really useful in our daily life. Therefore China is running fast with this language. There are more foreigners in Beijing now that in the past, so we must learn well it.

Having a great job depends on the level of education that we have, and because of this Beijing has been the home of many new English schools. The most famous is THE NEW ORIENTAL.

I’m a student of this after-school training program for English.  I enjoy it very much.  This is a training school that I go to on the weekends for additional tutoring.  The teachers in the Neworiental are all very popular. They are humourous and cool!

In the class we have a cheerful time and learn a lot.

The New Oriental School’s motto is “Language is Power~!” This is picture below is my English teacher and I after one of my classes.

Steven – A common daily life of a Chinese senior school student

“Ring, ring.” The alarm clock is ringing. I open my eyes and look at my watch.

Oh! 5:30 AM already! I must get up right now. The first thing I should do is go to kitchen and cook myself breakfast. It will be easy and simple. I usually fry an egg and crab some pieces of bread and have a glass of hot milk or soybean milk. Soybean milk is one of the most my favorite milk I like in China. Many Chinese like to drink it with some other Chinese snacks. Such as the steam bread and dried dough or small pieces of cakes.

At 6 o’clock AM, I will read English or Chinese loudly. Sometimes I need to recite some famous Chinese poems or English articles. Because I think no matter what kind of languages you will learn, it is a kind of input or output process. That means we should spend some time on it.

At 6:45 AM, I should go to school, sometimes I will go to school by bus. However most of time, I will go to school by bicycle. In China, drivers should be older than 18 years old. Now I am in high school, I can not go to school by cars.

We should arrive school at 7:20 AM. It is our school rule. If you are late, you will be punished badly by teacher. If you were late often, your parents will be invited to see the teacher. And the teacher will talk to your parents seriously.

Classes begin at 7:40AM. We have 5 classes in the morning until 12:10PM before lunch. 30 minutes lunch time and 20 minutes rest time later, we will begin our afternoon classes. We will be done at 5:20PM. But we can not go back home at 5:20PM.

We will HAVE AN EXAM AFTER CLASS!!! It is so crazy.

I will be back home at 6:30pm. That means I can have supper soon. After 30 minutes of supper, we will have to do my homework. We have tons of homework everyday.

I will go to bed at midnight, usually at 12 pm. This is one day of mine, a common senior school student in China. Most of my classmate have the same lifestyle as me everyday. What is your dailylife in USA there my friend?

Siqi – Mourning for Si Chuan Earthquake

watch this video here

On May 12th, 2008, we had a horrible earthquake in China. These days all of Chinese leaders and soldiers are helping to save more Sichuan people. But there are still a lot of our Chinese people died during this disaster. I could not believe it just happened around my life. The only thing I can now is keeping my studying and donating some money. I wish I could help them more.
Here is a video from the internet that I download from http://www.youku.com. It shows that all of China mourned for 3 minutes and the national flags were lowered to pray for the dead.
Here is Red Cross Donation Bank Account. Hope anyone who would like to help us. It will be a big appreciate. Thanks.
帐户名称：中国红十字基金会
(附注：以上两帐号均可网上捐赠 网址：HTTP://www.crcf.org.cn)
开户银行名称：中国银行
BANK NAME：BANK OF CHINA
银行帐号：800100086608091014
A/T NO：800100086608091014
帐号名称：中国红十字基金会
ACCOUNT NAME：THE CHINESE RED CROSS FOUNDATION
电代码：BKCHCNBJ

Iris – Chinese Youth: Staring a Story From My Friend

Yesterday, my friend Ding Yuhan who studied at the high school of United States shared her experience of study abroad to me.

Firstly, I asked her what the difference is between education of China and USA. As a bi-cultural student, Ding Yuhan indicated that different teaching methods influenced different logical thinking. She then mentioned an illustrative example. In China, most students study for exams. Their motivations are propelled by teachers but not interests. However, American education tends to foster students’ potentials and then motivate them to study for interests. Students can ask questions without raising hands or asking after class. This flexible atmosphere always evokes creative ideas in the class. Furthermore, Ding Yuhan also explained common phenomenon of Chinese student study abroad. Although, they are always good at mathematics, physics and grammars, they can not solve difficulties when they face practical problems. This point actually exist at Chinese education. Therefore, what can we do and how can we change are topics we should think about.

Ding Yuhan also showed her interests in the music of Justin Timberlake. She prefer the singer’s classical songs rather that hits feat with rappers. We also talked about the significant experience we had. We both applied volunteers for Beijing 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, I had to give up this chance due to the age limit and my study schedule. Ding Yuhan kept her dream and then became an qualified volunteer.

Ding Yuhan will have volunteer training courses after June. Apart from diplomatic skills , she also need to master related English vocabularies. When I asked what images Beijing citizens should have, Ding Yuhan answered ,“Smile is the best card of volunteers.”