Diary 7

Dear diary,

     I had a deep talk with my parents as what Sookan told me. Surprisingly, they showed that they understood me. They worried about me just because they cared about me. I moved a lot. I finally understood them a little bit better. They told me that they thought I should finish my college first and my grades were going down because of I spent so much time dating with Kyle. They said I can still be with Kyle and he was a good boy. If some day I will marry with him they will be glad. 

     My mother did some preparesion for my marriage. I was so happy. I was happy with my parents and happy about that I can be with Kyle. I felt so thankful for Sookan she helped me a lot. The relationship between me and my parents were much more better. Sookan was a vise friend. I felt sorry about I argued with her that day and I really hope I will help her either one day.

    

         xx.xx.xxxx

Diary 6

Dear diary,

         I was so sad because I told my parents about me and Kyle and I wanted to marry Kyle. I argued with them because they did not agree that. They always said I am to young to have a boy friend. I do not want to explain this to them and I do not want to talk to them. I think they could not understand my feeling, never, ever! I just want to elop with Kyle and start our own life. I love him so much, I can live without him. I was so mad, I do not know how to solve this.

         I told Sookan that I wanted to elop with Kyle, she was shocked and argued with me. She said I was so naive that I did not think about my parents and what will happen if I just elope with Kyle. She also said that I need to talk to my parents for real, and I need to express my feelings I should not just say nothing with them, or they can not understand my feeling neither. We yelled at each other, I felt so sad. But when I thought about what she said. I thought she was right. I need to have a long deep talk with my parents. I need to try for me and for Kyle. 

       I felt that Sookan was very nice, she did care about me. I should not yell at her. I felt so bad, I thought she will forgive her but I do not know how to face her and how to let it go. Everything will be fine. Now Ellen, go to sleep.

                 xx.xx.xxxx

       

Diary 6 Oct 13th

Dear diary,

           Today, I hang out with Kyle and did some shopping. We spent a nice day today.  I want to introduce Kyle to my parents and bring him home because I love him so much and I also want my parents agree me to date with Kyle. But now, I can only introduce him as he was a normal friend of mine because I do not want my parents think that our relationship improved so quick. 

           I spent so much time dating with Kyle and my GPA went down. I was a little bit worried but not too much. I just wanted to be with Kyle forever, actually I do not care about my grade that much but I do not know if I tell my parents my mind they will support me or not. I think I should spend my college life to know more about the world and know more people because social life is very important. I think I did a good job in this part. 

          

                            

           

Diary 5 Oct 10th

Dear diary,

Oct 10th

     

     The relationship between Kyle and me was much more closer, I enjoyed the time I spent with him very much and I even wanted to marry him. I know it was a crazy thought but my mind told me that. 

    Sookan was different from me, she was a hard-working student. I think the most important thing in her world was study. Unbelievable! She was always very busy, she got up so early everyday and when I saw her in the campus, she was always in hurry or she was reading a book. Sometime, when I walked pass a classroom during the lunch period, I always saw Sookan keeping notes. I wonder if she had time to have lunch! She went back to dorm very late, always a few minutes before lights out. Although, I really wanted to talk with Sookan and hang out with her, she did not have time to do so. 

    

               

Diary 2 Sep 2nd

Dear diary,

Sep 2nd

      Today I met an amazing person, and she was my roommate, Sookan!

      When I was sitting and talking with my teacher, a beautiful girl which looked like a faery entered the lobby.  She wore a traditional Korean custom long dress named hambok. She was so shining and grace when she wore hambok. I was so proud that she was my roommate. She looked quite different with us. She had long black hair, yellow skin and beautiful black eyes. The volume of her voice was so low, it seemed that she was not that talktive and she was a little bit shy. She traveled about 24 hours from her home to our school! It was an unbelievable long time! That's why she looked very tired. 

      She told me that the hambok was made by her mother by hand. Her mother was amazing! And she also said she didn't like wearing those hamboks in public because it made her feel awkward. She did not like to show her difference but I think she should because those differences were good, they made us who we are. Haha, after all, what a cute girl. I like her! 

     

             

Diary 1 Sep 1st

Dear diary,

 Sep 1st,

   Tonight, my parents prepared a big party for me to celebrate the coming of my college life, It is wonderful. The foods were so delicious. We had BBQ at the back yard, and we invited our friends and neighbors. It seemed like a big festival. They were so nice, and I loved them so much~ I really glad to see the happiness on my parents' faces because of me. I think they were proud of me. 

  Tomorrow is the first day of my college life, I am so excited but also a little bit nervous. I can not wait to see my new roommate, as far as I remember, her name is Sookan. What a strange name! She is a Korean girl. I have never met a Korean girl before; I just knew about people from other countries in books. How will she look like? Brown hair? Dark eyes? Does she eat as same as us? Hamburgers? Hotdogs? I am sure she is a nice person because my mind told me that. I think we must become good friends! 

    

                

Gathering of Pearls

                                            The book review of gathering of pearls

      Gathering of pearls is a good book for international students to read. It talks about a Korean girl named Sookan came to American university to study by herself. She met many problems, but she solved all of them finally. She was a smart, nice and strong girl and I learnt many things from her experiences.

       Firstly, I learnt that we need to keep working hard in order to achieve good scores. As the saying goes, “No pain, no gain.” Everything will be better, if you pay time and energy on it. Sookan did a really good job. She focused on study. She got up very early to study everyday and she was always the last student left the class because she wanted to write down all notes. She went back dorm late. She kept doing that day by day and every teacher liked her very much because no one could say no to an extremely hard-working person. I saw diligence and burrow on her. This kind of sprit is valuable and it is necessary for each student. For high school students who are at the age which is the best time to study, hard-working is one of the most important things. Sookan is a perfect model for us, so this is one of the reasons that I will recommend this book to others.

       Secondly, although Sookan was a little bit shy and afraid to communicate with native speakers in a new environment, actually, she was really good at communication. She was good at making friends and made other people like her. It is called personal charisma. She did not show this kind of ability clearly, but she did have that. She was polite maybe it was because of her original culture, so every teacher liked her. Sister Reed even seemed Sookan as her own daughter and gave Sookan a valuable pearl necklace. Sookan respected others and she was very friendly and warm-heart. She was good at accomplishing others and she was always nice to others, so her classmates recommended her to become the student chair during the election, even though Sookan knew a little about her classmates. Sookan was a good friend. She was wise and cared about others' feelings. She could give her friends correct adivses and helped her friends solve problems. She made two very good friends because of her personality. And her friends helped her a lot when she was in trouble. So this book also taught us how to communicate with others and become friends with them. Society is very important for everyone, so that it is good for us to read this book and see how Sookan deal with this kind of problems. It gave us a lesson.

       Finally, the most important thing that the book wanted to tell us was life was hard, if we bump into troubles, we might be sad and hopeless, but we still need to be strong and move on happily. Sookan faced many troubles and sad things. She can not catch up the lessons at the beginning, she felt overwhelmed. She solved it by working harder and harder. She felt not good about writing letters with her sister because her sister was so strict and always made Sookan to follow her thoughts even her thoughts were not suitable for this new environment. Sookan struggled with that for a long time, but finally she chose to understand her sister like her mother did. To accept others rather than change them. She lost her dearest mother and she did not know it until she finished the first semester. She felt like it was the ending of the world, but she moved on and made her own decision to continue studying in America, to fulfill her dream. The things that Sookan had been through were heavier than others and maybe because it was in the book, but it taught people that we need to be strong enough to fight with our lives, to make it better by ourselves. This book encouraged us to smile to our lives, to turn the pain experiences into shining beautiful pearls. Everything will be ok. And those difficult time you have been through will only turn into steps, full your life and make you become to a better person.

      This book is perfect for people like me to read because it is not that difficult to understand and it gave readers many life enlightenments.

The ending of Peter Pan

         The ending of each character was different.

          For Peter and Captian Hook part, Peter fought with Hook and he won. Captain Hook wanted to explore the ship into pieces, but Peter stopped him. Actually, I liked Hook as well because he was a funny and unique character but for the whole play, it was good for Peter to win this important fight so that the lost boys and Wendy, John and Michael could be saved. It is a kind of happy ending.

         For Peter and Wendy part, they finally said goodbye to each other. It was a little bit sad because they did not want to leave each other. They wanted to be friends and stayed together forever. There was a kind of romantic production created between them because of everything they had been through together. I can feel their emotions through how they said goodbye to each other. All good things come to an end. The all things they left were the beautiful memories they gave to each other. I think Wendy will always remember the boy who lived second to the right and straight to the morning as the most crystal memory of her childhood.

Peter Pan

        one quiet night,a boy appeared. He was so vigorous and nimble. His name was Peter Pan, a boy who lived in Neverland and never grew up. He came to Mr. Darling' s home and became friends with those three children--Wendy, John and Michael. Peter took them to Neverland and had an exciting adventure. They met pirate Captain Hook and fought with him; they became friends with Indians. Finally, Wendy, John and Michael came back home after this wonderful adventure.

       I love this play very much. Some times it was funny and some times it was warm. The friendship between Peter and Wendy liked crystal, beautiful and twinkle; the friendship between Peter and lost boys was strong and warm, they lighted up my eyes. Peter was my favorite character. He was smart, brave and a little bit arrogant. He wanted to punish Tootles because he shoot Wendy; he saved Tiger Lili and became friends with Indians; He fought with Captain Hook to save his friends. He was the main character and he supported the whole story. Wendy was also important, she was a nice and gentle girl. She always wanted to be a mother to take care of others. She told stories to children and made them feel like she was a mother. They story was beautiful and the play brought me joyful.

        This play was much more meaningful for me. I was a little bit different than the audience because I was one of the cast. I joined the play myself. Although I was only a little character—an Indian named panther who wore very natural costume, inserted colorful features on the head and spread two blue lines on the check, and I just had three lines, I was very proud that I was one of the drama members because I can learn deeper about the play and knew more about the story. I had witnessed how characters were built. Felt more about characters’ mental activities. This was very important for understanding the play. The part which Wendy said goodbye to Peter impressed me a lot. Because it was a little bit sad and it showed how important they were for each other. They tore themselves away from each other. And the players were excellent. They showed the plot perfectly. I moved a lot.

       I  was the person who sat at the backstage “ watched” the play by my ears. It was a very different and fantastic experience. 

Vocabulary 11.12

1. mannequin     n.

A dummy used to display clothes in a shop window.

A small, black velvet purse hung on the shoulder of the mannequin.

2. second-hand   adj.
Things are not new and have been owned by someone else.

To save money, I had purchased second-hand textbooks from upperclassmen at a fraction of the original price.

3. animatedly      adv.
Someone who is animated or who is having an animated conversation is lively and is showing their feelings.

Many of our classmates were there with drinks in hand, talking animatedly.

4. faltered  v.

If something falters. It loses power of strength in an uneven way, or no longer makes much progress.

Flustered, I faltered, then hurriedly responded," yes, well I had a good time, too. Good night."

5. impulsive     adj.
If you describe someone as impulsive, you mean that they do things suddenly without thinking about them carefully first.

You are a bit impulsive and head strong at times.

6. constrained   adj. v.

To constrain someone or something means to limit their development or force them to behave in a particular way.

I had always felt constrained there.

7. Gregorian chant    n.

Represented by Gregorian Chant, it is a significant source of Western music in a sense.

A Gregorian chant program is scheduled for June, and students will be coming from around the world.

8. pearl      n.

A pearl is a hard round object which is shiny and creamy white in color. Pearls grow inside the shell of an oyster and are used for making expensive jewellery.

I would wear my cream silk dress and the pearl jewelry that Sister Reed had given me.

9. elope     vi.

When two people elope, they go away secretly together to get married.

I just want to elope and get our lives started now.

10. taciturn.          adj.
A taciturn person does not say very much and can seem unfriendly.

I would write to each of my taciturn brothers, even though they had never written to me.

11. sobbed.       v.
When someone sobs, they cry in a nosiy way, breathing in short breaths.

I started to sob.

12. pouch.      n. V.

A pouch is a flexible container like a small bag.

The pouch of an animal such as kangaroo or a koala bear is the pocket of skin on its stomach on which it's baby grows.

In a silk pouch that mother had made was her thin, white gold wedding band.

13. listlessly.     adv.
Someone who is listless has no energy or enthusiasm.

As I stared forward listlessly, little Sarah snuggled up against me, and whispered into my ear.

14. hymn.   n. Vt.
Hymn is a religious song that Christians sing in church.

I was comforted by their high-pitched hymns reverberating in the domed chapel.

15. fainted.    V.

A faint sound, color, mark, feeling, or quality has very little strength or intensity.

You fainted two days ago and you have been here ever since.

Capturing the Before

Capturing the Before

By spending a long time looking at those photos taking by these artists. I finally found out that these artists were not just taking pictures of the moment in the blink of an eye. They were using their cameras to record their life which included their emotions and experience. Some of their photos had blue and purple colors which made me feel deep, quiet and gloomy. And usually there were some windows in the photos and contained the white and golden colors which were the colors of sunlight. And those colors gave me the feelings of hope and warm. I do not know why that when I stood in front of some photos, they could remind me thinking about my hometown or missing some very important people. I think it is the magic of these pictures and it is the glamour of these artists. 

Here is one of my favourite pictures. This picture seems like the photographer stood in the shadow of the wall and faced the camera to the bright part. I can feel about the changing of the colors from dark to bright and it seemed the light is within touch. If I was in the picture this kind of feeling will push me towards to the bright side and my heart will fill with warm and hope.

  

After the storm

                          After the Storm

          Sookan, a Korean girl who goes to study in American college alone. Her life in American is hard but happy. She gets involved with different new culture, makes new foreign friends and gains more experience. And she also has some excellent personalities such as warm-heart, humility and hard-working which make her get into this new environment quickly. In my opinion, she will probably succeed her college study in America.

          Life is hard. Sookan will bump into some troubles defiantly but I believe she will solve all those problems.

          Firstly, now Sookan is not good at English, she can not get high grades of those difficult courses. She always needs to stay at classroom alone to write down all of notes. It takes her lots of time and this is an extremely hard work. She gives herself too heavy burden and actually she can not hand it well because she even doesn't have time to eat and sleep. It does harm to her health. But English can be improved through daily conversations. It means to communicate with native speakers more. So Sookan needs to be more socialize. And luckily she already starts to know about this, she finds that her life is tired and hard. She does not have time to join in the community activities and can not enjoy the college social life. So the thing which going to happen is, she takes a deep thinking of this problem and have a talk with both Ellen and Marcie. Ellen encourages Sookan to join more social activities and to experience real college life. She makes Sookan to join the second election and Sookan becomes the student councilor. Sookan gets more opportunities to talk with native speakers and to express her own ideas. As a result, her comprehension and expression of English improve a big step. Marcie does not care about the social life. She just suggests Sookan do not sleep so late and supervises her to have lunch on time everyday. Sookan does a good job on both study and life because of them.

            Secondly, she needs to gain money to support herself. She can not get money form her family because her family is not rich and she does not want to ask money form her mother. She works for the scholarship work everyday during the free period in the dining hall and she also does baby-setting for Professor Bennett. She works hard and everyone likes her. So I think then Professor Bennett wants to give Sookan more money for the baby-setting but Sookan refuses. But Professor Bennett still helps Sookan find an other job which is helping the librarian translate some Korean books in to English and they will pay for it. So Sookan does the translation work during the baby-setting and even talks about the book with Sarah and Jimmy. Then with those money Sookan can support herself and even send some money back to Korea.

         Thirdly, she still confuses with the different between Korean culture and American culture. She feels free to do things in the American way. She feels good to talk with older people equally in America but she still remembers to be polite and humility. She likes to introduce her own culture to others. She is a Korean after all, but she is still a mix production of two different cultures. She keeps writing letters to her mother and sister and she even gets in touch with her brothers and friends. She introduces her life here in America and tells them the things that they did not know before. She spends a lot of time communicating with her sister, although her sister does not change her mind, she still supports Sookan to make her life more meaningful through helping poor people. Finally the relationship between Sookan and her sister becomes much more better. And Sookan gets use to American life style step by step. Her life at here becomes truly happy and worthy.

           She will fulfill her dream someday.