Yoga Time

I did more than 20 hours on doing Yoga. It stared last year and I'm still continuing doing it. I go to the Yoga Club called "Jin Ji Bird" nearly every week. Usually, I do two hours of yoga when everytime I go there. From 2-3pm, I do the yoga in 26 degrees atmosphere for one hour and I take several hours of rest, then I continue doing yoga in 40 degrees atmosphere for another hour.

I am really bad at these stuffs like sports or basically anything that has to do with your body. For Yoga, it is a slow sports and it has to do with concentration. I found myself as being very concentrated and I can continue keeping doing one action for more than 15 seconds and some of the actions are pretty difficult! I really kind of discovered my patience. For a very long time, I wanted to develop my patience as i finally did it!

Also, after doing Yoga for such a long time, I become much more calm than before as Yoga is a very quiet activity and sometimes there is reallly nothing in my mind, completely nothing! It is hard to do but it is very good for your mind and body to relax, to be away from the daily work and pressure. Now I know how to relax myself, sometimes I just lie on my bed and imagine that I'm somewhere else like on a green field or beside a beautiful lake ,imagine that there is no homework, no exams, no projects like"Happy Trash"... At one moment, there is totally nothing in my mind. After all, I'm so relaxed and energetic. In addition, Yoga helps me become stronger on body quality. I used to wear much clothes in winter and feel so cold, since I did Yoga, I do not feel too cold and I still feel active in winter! I did not become sick last year. On the other hand, Yoga helps me to become more beautiful. I lost some weight indeed. However as I am always so hungry that I could even eat the whole big box of KFC chicken legs and wings, I eat so much after doing Yoga. It helps with my appetit.

Often if you have much experience, you always learn from it. As your experience grows, the things you learn will increase as well. For all of the things I learn from my experience, they will help me deal with the situation I probably will face in the future. Perhaps they will help me with making plans or making decision, or maybe help me to avoid suffering from the working and studying pressure. Sometimes, I really need these stuffs to keep me in a happy mode and they work! The experience makes the life much easier.

My fitness goal is not big, just to lose some weight and to get into the beautiful clothes I want to wear and it sort of became true. As a result, I am satisfied. I will keep doing Yoga in the future!

GCA cooking project with exchange students

On the 11th of April, it was a Saturday, normally I do not go to school on Saturday, but that Saturday I was having a great school day--GCA cooking day with exchange students from Germany and France, also some GCA teachers. We learned how to cook the western food.

I was in the group with GCA's vice principal Mrs. Beath. She tried to teach us how to make the bread puddings. Other groups like Miguel's applesauce group, Melissa's muffin group, Max's pancake group and Raphaelle's cake group and so on. All of these cookings took place in the GCA building.

First there were some group members from other classes doing the shopping with me, we bought bread, butter, rassins,yogurt, milk and eggs. These were for the bread puddings. As we followed Mrs. Beath, it was quite easy because she prepared everything well and we just started with plans. I was in charge with the bread and the butter, I found it was kind of hard because I could not let the butter cover the whole bread but I finally did it. Then we poured the liquid that was made of milk, vanilla and yogurt onto the bread, then we had to wait for an extra hour. During an hour, we also made the jellow and drinks made of mango, banana, yogurt and milk.

When I was free, I went to see how my friends were doing, Melissa asked me to smash the bananas as last time, the same, so much fun! I watched Miguel finishing his applesauce with so much trouble on the way and it tasted surprisingly good! Raphaelle's cake was a big success compare to last time. Everything was fine!

I enjoyed this activity so much as me myself was participating in it and felt so much fun. I found it interesting because we have never had this kind of activity before and this idea of cooking the western food with the exchange students was so creative and outstanding! I also learnt a lot for making western food and probably next I will not be hungry when I'm alone at home!

The concert of the Piano Prince

On the evening of 30th of December, I went to the Concert of Richard Clayderman-AKA the piano prince. It was held in Wutaishan Stadium. It started at 7pm. I went there all by myself. The reason why I chose this concert was because I love music and I used to play piano when I was younger so that I could say in some ways I understand music a bit.

I felt okay about the performance. Either liked it or disliked it because the music was very beautiful and I was totally into it and I was so excited to be in the same room with Richard Clayderman as before I often saw him on TV or on newspaper, but at that time it was so near! It was my pleasure to sit there listening to the world top musician playing his own music. I liked because of that. Unfortunately, I was sitting on the third floor and the stadiun was quite shabby. I did not see anything on the stage except a very "small" piano. Also, so many crazy kids were screaming shouting and yelling, they made me feel like this was not in a concert, a concert of Richard Clayderman! I was a bit annoyed and angry. I could dislike the concert because of that.

I found the concert was sometimes boring and sometimes exciting. That really depended on what music he was playing. For example, while he was playing a song made by himself and it was unknown, I almost fell asleep. However, while he was playing the famous song like"Dream Wedding" and "To Alice" , I was sort of crazy because I love the songs. Especially when he played the theme song of the movie"Titanic", I was almost crying because on the right side of the piano there was the video clip of the movie and I was crying while watching the movie. That time, old feeling for Titanic were back, it was so touching. I felt excited.

Anyway, it was a great concert I believe!

All best job!

PE hanging

Mandarin Journal

Planning test

math quiz

English listening test

Science quiz

Art book project

A day in the church

On the 14th of December, I went to the Mochou Church(a christian church) with my German friend Miguel. I attended in the early afternoon. I chose Christianity because among all the religions, most of the time I heard about Christianity and when I was younger, my parents told me the story about Jesus and this relates to Christianity.

I did not like this experience at all honestly. Sorry. Because I nearly fell asleep during that as it was so boring and I could not understand a word! Also because the atmosphere was so serious and I do not like people to be so serious. I hate that I had to pay attention to what the priest said even though I could not understand because when I saw Miguel, he was like all the time no talking, no laughing, there was even no expression on his face! I was shocked but I had to follow because he knew how to deal with this situation. Just show my respect. Actually it was strange and different for us Chinese. Sometimes, it created a feeling of fun, looking forward, I always saw a row of teenagers heads down in the exactly the same way, they were sleeping. "Church is never a residence hall! I never saw people sleeping in churches in my entire life!" Miguel finally became a bit more relaxed and said with a laughter.

Later on there was a performance on the religious stories and Miguel was correcting while they were telling the story! I could not believe it! As time went on, some students were leaving and the atmosphere became much better than before, at least Miguel and I started to whisper.

When it was about to finish, there was a priest speaking terrible Indian accent, both of us wanted to laugh but we stopped ourselves. Finally, we sang the song(sort of like a chant), then left without regreting.

Well, I probably did not learn much about the religion because all the time I could not understand properly. However, at least I knew that I should show my respect and pay attention though I did not know what was going on. Also, this shocked me, I knew that churches are all very serious places but I could never imagine that it could be so serious! Next time, I will be prepared.

Volunteer hours

For another ten hours for volunteer work, I did a tour guide of Nanjing Foreign Language School and Grand Canadian Academy for some Danish students. I taught the German and French exchange students Chinese. I also helped with the cooking project with the exchange students arranged by my GCA teacher.
For the tour, it was a great time to make new friends. Not only from Denmark but also from GCA as all of the volunteers were from different classes and were divided into groups so I got to know them.
In our group there were students from 10E and a student from 10C. We had two young girls, one is called Sofie and another is called Julie. They were a bit older than us. We all decided to see around spontaneously instead of being so scheduled.
Both of the girls were very interested in our daily routine like when do we start school and when do we finish, what do we do in class and how do we like the classes… At the same time we knew about their school life and daily routine. They told us about what they learnt at high school and they said they didn’t like school too much because in Denmark everyone hates schools and no one would feel so proud of his/or her school like NFLS students do. They also told us they have already graduated from high school and that was why they had so much time free and could have some fun. The girls said they studied different languages at school like Deutsch, English and French and they both could speak more than three languages. However, they had no idea how to speak Chinese. At the end we tried to learn some Danish from the girls and all of us were very pleased with the tour.
We were walking in the campus, on the playground, inside the building or even outside NFLS in the nearby market. It was a sunny day and we enjoyed the sunshine so much and exchanged our ideas of culture and share our experience of travelling, learning and hobbies.
When we were about to say goodbye, we took pictures.

For teaching Chinese to my friends from Germany and France, it was not only about the skills of teaching but also the knowledge of Chinese culture and the language. Anyway, it was my volunteer hours but I would do it as long as possible because I was really enjoying doing this.
I will take my experience of teaching my German friend Miguel. Always, I teach him at the Starbucks and when every time we meet, he will try to say things using the new words he learnt or he reviewed. After doing all of this, I will give him a list of new Chinese characters or words that I think they might be good for Miguel to know. With the help of Pinyin and my correction, he could read the words and the characters properly. Then we made sentences with the words. Miguel is an expert on learning languages so sometimes he could even come up his own sentences with the new words and they sound very funny, but more like impressive. I talk in Chinese with him so often that he has enough chance to use all the word he knows to tell me things. I really, really enjoying teaching him and all the other exchange students Chinese.

A few weeks ago, our planning teacher came up the idea of cooking with the exchange students. However, it was her first time ever thought about doing this and she wanted to have some students volunteering for doing this before so that she could see how everything works. I was luckily one of the volunteers. When I met the French girls, Melissa, Pauline, Raphaelle, they prepared almost everything so soon we got started. Melissa and I decided to make the muffins and we mixed the sugar, the vanilla, the butter and the bananas. I was in charge with smashing the bananas and it was so much fun because everyone was feeling disgusting about the bananas and imagining how it actually looked like. We laughed so much. Finally, we put some chocolates into the sticky mixture and put them into the oven. About 25 minutes later, muffins were successfully done!

I think for those amazing experience up there, I really learnt a lot. I realized that when you get into the society, you will not only work with the people you like but also with people you do not know much or even you do not like. I know that I have to be the one that gets into the situation as soon as possible otherwise I would suffer from working. In addition, no matter what you do in the future, always try to find the interests about the stuffs so you are able to enjoy every second of life. I found myself being patient, devoted and responsible. Usually, I was not a patient person, but after teaching the exchange students Chinese, I realized patience is so important. Maybe because I was enjoying most of the work, I really sort of devote myself into it. I felt like I wanted to express everything about my school activity and all my thoughts, tell everything I know and help as much as I can.
I believe being a good listener is always the best way of working with other people. Respectively listen to other people’s opinions and say your own ideas gently make a group with team spirit.
When you agreed to do something for someone or promised to do things, you should feel like you have duties because since you promise means you own the responsibility and be responsible enough to your promise, your words and your actions.
As you are having more and more experience, you can easily get the advantages from the experience and it is good to only show your advantages when you are employing as it reduces the percentage of failure. Also, you will have less trouble during life time because you learnt to prevent it. To myself, I really think I’m becoming more and more mature and think before doing something. Experiences make me feel more confident and see more about the world.

Taking part in the Model United Nations

As Zorro from 10B and JJ from Grade 11 set up a club called "GCA MUN", I was so interested in it and without a doubt, I joined it immediately. Seeking how NFLS students participate in MUN ahs always been sort of like a dream to me and now now I can even participate on my own! I'm looking forward to it!
On a Thusday afternoon few weeks ago, we went to see the MUN in NFLS, of course, we could not participate because we are never part of them and the only thing we did was sitting there and watching the process.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, all of the delegates were dressed in NFLS suits, formally sitting on their seats and one by one they said their words for the countries that they represent. Indeed, I was so confused because it was difficult to understand. All we knew was they were arguing about the water drinking problem. I saw so many people passing the notes, rasing their flash cards and going to the front. The first thing that came into my mind was: we are not going to make it.
Later, we discussed about the process orders and what was going on on the meeting. Luckily we have JJ who took part in MUN with the NFLSs and the PK MUN in Yale, he explain almost everything and we became only a bit more clear.
For this club, all you need is the view of the international politics and brave, wide ideas. You should be able to think and to see affairs from another angle and tell different thoughts. The English was a problem as well because we do not know a lot of words in Politic, we need to learn.
In this club, we will work like a real Model United Nations so we need to know how to be a good lisener and show respect to other people's opinions. This is the only way to work with other people in this club.
The Model UN club can help with our vocabulary and the international minds and thought, also the skills of how to deal with the situation on a big affair. However, it is sort of not interesting for us to join.
This club grows people with great political ideas and potential ability of becoming a leader. For both GCA and the society.To me, I will know more about the world and of course I will not make stupid mistakes when I talk about politics with other people.

Food from Italy

I went to have Italian food with my friends(Miguel and Yali)in an italian restaurant called Dina in Xinjiekou. I was there in the 15th of March. We ate supper there. The reason for choosing this restaurant was that this is an litalian restaurant and it was not very expensive to eat here.

As it was italian so that most of the food we had was pizzas and spaghetti. Also I ordered a fried potato snack(not really dessert because it was not sweet). I had the pepperoni pizza. Miguel took the super supreme pizza and Yali had the spaghetti.

I liked the pizza because at least it tasted like a pizza when I first bited it also it was big enough for me to eat so I did not feel hungry after having it. In addition I really liked the sausages that were on the pizza. It was delicious.

It was very different from the Chinese food we have at home as the pizzas come from a totally diferent cooking system and food type. For Chinese food we cook it with the pot, but for the italian food they use the oven. Usually we eat rice with vegetables but the italian pizzas are bread with vegetables, cheeze,seafood, olive, sausages or chicken and it tasted sweet and salty at the same time sometimes, but in Chinese food, salty and sweet food will never be put together. On the other hand, for Chinese food, we use chopsticks but for pizza, you can even eat with your own hands.

I think the atmosphere was quite okay. It was not noisy but it was not too quiet neither. There were a lot of different people, such as people at my age, people that are a bit older than us and adults. I seldom saw old people there.

The waiters and waitresses were very nice, they gave warm welcome when we entered the restaurant and the service was quick. However, I did not like to go downstairs for paying, they should come and get the money.

Anyway, I would like to recommend this restaurant to the people who want to try pizza with a not very high prise. Enjoy!

Exhibition--more about the culture

I went to the Nanjing Museum the week before last. I saw a lot of things and learnt a lot. I went there with my boyfriend Miguel and some of my classmates. We all arrived at the gate of the museum at 2pm. The exhibition was free only if you had a student card. We chose this exhibition was because it can show the Chinese culture to Canada or other places well.
The artworks were basically from the ancient time, but some were modern. They show the Chinese culture of different times including carved jade, silk, drawings and handicrafts.
I mostly interested in a artwork called “The jade and silver clothes”. It was a piece of clothing that made of silver and jade. I was shocked by that because I couldn’t believe that people from ancient times could do such a good job and how could they make silver and jade together and form in the shape of a body! Also I was so excited to know if there was someone wearing that clothes, it must be very cool to be in the jade and the silver! I was really eager to know how much would it cost…I think the mysteries the clothes created was the most important and the biggest reason why I liked it.
I think I like the exhibition though I was a bit sleepy at last. Actually it was a little boring because I was not interested in most of the artworks, but anyway it was great to know more about our culture!

My Volunteer Work

I started doing volunteer work a long time ago. I taught a 5-year-old girl named Catherine English for free as my volunteer work.
At the very beginning, I thought it must be difficult to talk about everything with such a young girl in completely English, but anyway, I tried to say “Hey, how are you” and “what do you like to do” when I sat beside her. She was very nervous at first as she could hardly understand anything I said. She wanted her mother because she really didn’t know what to do. I suddenly said: “Catherine, how about playing a game?” “A game?” she replied curiously. I knew that I definitely caught her attentions! “Yeah, the game is called ‘Diane says’…” I explained the game rules and started right away. “Diane says touch your mouth! Touch your head!” I said to the girl and she did it very well. After a while, we decided to play “Catherine says”. She was quite excited to see a girl who is 10 years older than her standing in front of her and following all her orders! At last we had a competition on this game. Unfortunately, I was 2 points lower than her… I gave her my chocolates. When I was about to leave, I check her new vocabulary. To my surprised, she learnt them all by heart! So quickly! As a prize, I gave her all my chocolates.
My first volunteer experience ended successfully and I had been looking forward to teaching her again. When I saw her for the second time, she came and gave me a warm huge at the door. She asked me about all the names of Disney characters, especially the Disney princesses. “There are so many princesses in Disney Castle, who do you like the best?” I asked. She told me in Chinese. “Ah, Snow White! In English, she is called ‘Snow White’.” “Ok, Snow White, Snow White!” She shouted with excitement. Later I also taught her “Little Mermaid”, “Mickey Mouse”, “Donald Duck”. Finally she was so excited that even started to draw! I thought that was a great chance to teach her all the colors. When every time she changed a color, I told her to read after me. “This is blue. Blue, read after me Catherine.” “Blue.” “Yellow.” “Yellow.” She really remembered those words in the end!
Till now, I have been teaching her for more than ten hours and she could say the words on weathers, animals, clothes and food. She really got to know more words which were absolutely beyond my imagination! I could tell that she enjoyed learning from having fun.
For me, teaching Catherine was totally a volunteer work but I enjoyed so much! I never felt tired after doing this. I really love seeing other people get what they need from my help though there was no paying back. So, Catherine needed the new knowledge and I offered her. Nothing was paid back but it was worth!

At The French Restaurant

On Sunday December 21st, we guys went together with the Grade 12 students to the French classmate’s restaurant “LA TABLE DE MR. EIFFEL” to enjoy the French food.
First came up some vegetables with the source, after waiting for a while, the waitress served a bowl of pumpkin soup with French bread. The third was the main dish, some chicken wings, duck and potatoes. Last there were the apple pies for dessert.
After finishing eating, I though that I had to go to the McDonald’s for lunch again because the French food was TOO little. I was still hungry after the lunch. Also, we did most of the waiting in the restaurant instead of eating which was really a bit tiring.
For me, I like Chinese food and eating habits better than the French ones as Chinese food is definitely much faster and a lot more. I think French eating ways care more about the manners and the surrounding feelings instead of the food. During the lunch, one thing I liked was the candles on the tables that created a feeling of harmony.
In addition, I was not used to the taste of the French food, I think they taste a bit strange, totally different from the Chinese food and that is one of the reasons I do not like French food so much.
Also, I felt quite embarrassed during the lunch, while I was nearly finishing my pumpkin soup, the waitress came and gave me the bread, she told me that the bread should be eaten with the soup!! I was almost done! I felt not so good about this… French people eat TOO slowly!
Anyway, different countries have different eating habits and I appreciate all of them as I do to the Chinese ones!