journal

This week was filled with ups and downs. Sometimes I felt so depressed that I just want to lie down and do nothing. I was tired of reading a novel, newspapers, or a magazine and underlining new vocabularies in order to look it up in the dictionary afterwards. Day after day, doing the same thing over and over again, how boring is that! How I wish I can do some extraordinary things instead of stucking in the same old routine each day. Well, things can't always go my way, right?
Yesterday was my 20th birthday, so I was feeling better. I got all my friends' text messages, phone calls, and cards; all wishing me to have a happy birthday, and I DID! My dad came back from mainland China just yesterday, so luckily, he can celebrate this big day with me. What's more important: he got me an iPod as my birthday present! He also gave me a speech, teaching me how to be a responsible grownup. I had a very wonderful and meaningful birthday.

Tibet's Protest

Tibet’s protest has been a big issue now. International media also put their attention on this serious event. Many people blame China’s violent action in coping this problem; however, I think the person who caused all these dispute is Dalai Lama instead of China government. In a way, Dalai hammered the idea that Tibetan should be independent, should have a leader of their own in the future, and that leader has got to be Dalai himself. So he kind of gave wrong, incorrect ideas to those Tibetan monks that they should stand up and fight for their right. Nevertheless, these monks are not fighting for themselves, but for Dalai. I condemned China’s fierce action like everyone else does. But, Dalai can put an end to this protest anytime he wants, only he wouldn’t want to. He just watched more and more monks died in the protest of fighting for his political power. Also, the timing of this protest thing is quite sensitive. The focus has already been in China these days, for China is hosting 2008 Olympics. So those monks believed that they can make a use of it, capturing everyone’s attention, and maybe will succeed if more and more people notice this protest.

No matter what, I think if they want their opinions to be heard, they should take a more peaceful action to let others hear what they really not; instead of acting like some anti-social rioters. It may seem cruel and inappropriate for China to bring army to settle this protest, yet, I reckon that, sometimes, the best way to show government’s ability to control this kind of serious situation is to act fierce and strong against the rioters.

Is Anybody Listening?

In “College Lectures: Is Anybody Listening?” David Daniels points out how lecture system affects a large number of college students, making students lack basic skills, general knowledge, and creativity as well. According to Daniels, lecture system, this traditional aspect of education has several inadequacies. But the solution- having smaller class demands “energy, imagination, and commitment from professors,” Daniels indicates. However, they force students to “share responsibility for their own intellectual growth,” even though they can be tiring. Finally, Daniels declares that lectures will never fade out from university because they are “economically necessary,” so “students must learn to listen before they listen to learn.” I found Daniels’ points are exactly what I feel about present educational system.

Although students possess higher degrees these days, employers usually feel that owning degree, even doctoral degree, doesn’t mean these graduates have the quality for the job. On the contrary, the administrators often find their employees uncreative, unambitious, and arrogant sometimes. These executives with academic degree think that they are intelligent, but, the thing is, their ideas are often boring, dull, and lack innovation.

Needlessly to say, such conditions arise from the lecture system. Present lecture system makes more than a hundred students enroll in single course. It is unlikely to have roll call at the beginning of each class, imagine how long is going to take to call at least one hundred names and check if there are any absences or not. Therefore, because professors make roll call infrequently, students skip classes easily. On account of big class, professors hardly know how students perform in class, for students don’t have to join in discussion groups, they need not to express their ideas to their fellow students and instructors. This generates many problems. First, students can only gain knowledge from professor’s outdated data. They don’t get the chance to hear what others’ opinions about the materials that they are learning, so they lack the new stimulus to study better. If the class is smaller, students can have debates or experiments to learn better than listen to the old professor talking the theory in book with a monotonous tone. In fact, not only students get bored listening to the dreary lecture, the lecturers feel tiresome while they see students’ lifeless faces.

I often find myself dozing off while having classes like that. In class, the instructor talks more than anyone else in the classroom, and students soon get distracted by other things, for it’s difficult to remain awake if they do nothing but listening. Listening is kind of a passive way of learning. Students don’t write essays to present ideas of their own or give any feedback to their lecturer, as a result, both teachers and students who are eager to gain some useful knowledge in their lectures disappointed by this situation.

In conclusion, lecture seems to be the most common way of teaching in ancient time and also at the present time, so it’s not possible to abolish it immediately. But both sides: students and professors need to improve this condition, so that we students can learn more from professors and classmates, and professors can also gain some extra knowledge from their students.

I Wish

I’ve always been dreaming that if someday I can have my own store that I can use at my command, how I am going to make it become my “wonderland”. To my relief, this question has never been a difficult one to answer. I can easily figure out what I am going to do. I will build a rock ‘n’ roll megastore. In it, there will only be rock ‘n’ roll CDs. I will only sell the music that I really love, which is rock music. In my opinion, the owner of a CD shop should really know something about music. As for me, a big fan of rock tunes, know quite a lot about rock ‘n’ roll. So I can definitely make introductions of some great bands’ music which are worth listening to for my customers. I want my customers to buy albums that they genuinely like, not just spend money out of impulse. I think it’s my responsibility to find the best buyers, people who truly think that if they don’t get this CD, their life will be meaningless. I hate the idea of watching CDs in my shop end up in shelf, covered with dust. Therefore, I will place some CD players around the CD shelves. That way, customers can have a quick listening to the album that they’re interested in, assuring the buyer of purchasing music that they really like. And if anyone wants to take some more time to listen to the album track by track, it’s also welcome in my store. I will put some tables and chairs for those who need longer time to check whether they like the music or not. Moreover, I will make some coffee for them. It’s always my pleasure knowing that someone wants to know more about rock music, so I’ll be glad to bring them a cup of coffee and have a talk with he or she about rock.

Well, I do hope that some day this dream will come true. I will be really happy doing my job as the owner of a record store.

Who's next?

I’m very interested in this on-going presidential election in the United States these months, though I’m not an American. :)

Thanks to the media, I am quite familiar with the candidates who are running for the election. I know who Obama, Hillary, and McCain is. I also find out the media has put much of their attentions on Obama and Hillary than McCain. I read an article on The New York Times, it talks about these two Democrat presidential candidates. In the article, it points out one significance behind this race: either these two’s winning represent something in American history. After the election ends, and presuming that McCain lost, then the result will probably like this: Hillary wins, and becomes the first "female" U.S. president. Or Obama defeats Hillary and becomes the first "African-American" president ever in American history. No wonder many people’s attentions are mostly on Hillary and Obama in this nominating contest. I think the competition between these two candidates is kind of much more exciting than the main election few months later.

Many Taiwanese have notice this campaign and get interested in this primary election as well. Probably it’s because the situation is quite similar to Taiwan. People are disappointed with Bush government’s policies, for they make people live harder than before. Parents worried that whether they can afford their kids to go to college or not, working people are having hard time since the economy is changing drastically. And most of all, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan make people, especially the anti-war kind, furious. They think the government shouldn’t put too much money on buying new weapons. Instead of buying weapons, government should use the revenue to make people's lives better. Also, people don’t think having wars with other countries can really solve the problems that the United States are facing. This strong action- war, will only produce more and more hatred all over the globe. Besides, the wars killed thousands of American soldiers, so people doubt the necessity of having wars.

There are many other problems also indicate that people in America are eager for some changes in the future. I can’t wait to see who will be the next president of the Untied States.