learn how to cook

On the eleventh of April, I came to school to learn how to cook from the exchange students and some teachers in GCA.
I was in Ms. Hadley’s group and we were going to make pancakes. The materials we needed were flour, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, batter, baking powder and vanilla. We bought them in a store in Shanxi Road. After buying these stuffs, we started to work.
The steps seemed very easy and it was true. We just needed to mix all of these things together.
The liquid one was a little bit harder than the solid one. The only thing we should pay attention to was how much each stuff we need. If we add something more or less, it would be very yucky! Luckily, we did not do anything wrong.
At that time, we thought we could do the job easily and soon we could go home. However, we had a big problem with the pan and the stove. The electromagnetic oven and the pan could not react at all so we could not cook. We tried a lot of different ways, we even changed the stove, but it still did not work. At last, we could just borrow a big pot from the cafeteria. It worked, but was so bad, we could not cook the other side of the pancake because it was totally sticked with the pot.
Finally, we give up to make it at school, but, anyway, we knew the process and we were confident to make it well by our own.

showcase

P.E( P. E journal)

planning ( teacher interview)

English( using similies)

Mandarin( term 3 exam)

Social Studies( Candian map)

Art ( term 1 exam)

Math(chapter 3 test)

Science ( group work, "what effects the reaction's speed)

volunteer 2

On the 14th of March, some Danish students came to my school and I volunteered to help them know the school well.
Charles, Joe and I were in the same group, the Danish students in our group were Martin and Rajesh. They were three years older than us. The first place we took them to was the NFLS gym. On the second floor, Only was dancing. Mike Ma and Charles told him to show something and they did it together. Their breaking dance was very wonderful and the Danish students were very interested in it. Then, we took them to the first floor to play table tennis. Even though China is the best country in table tennis, we could not win them easily, especially for Rajesh, he was a really good player. After some time, he told me the reason was he had practiced table tennis already. Twenty minutes later, we got out of the gym and showed them some other places in our school. We showed them the cafeteria, the main school was having a big test there so we did not stay there for long. The last place we showed them was the dorm. We took some pictures there.
Then, we took them to the food market beside our school. It seemed that it was the first time for them to go into a Chinese food market. They said the place was used well, one side was for meat and one side was for vegetables and some other things. However, they also thought the environment there was not so good and the people there was not so qualityless. I thought they were right and that was one thing we should improve.
At about half past eleven, they came back to school to see their teacher. After that, Charles, Joe, Jim, Sylvia and I took them to a Swiss restaurant to have lunch. The food was great and we talked a lot during the lunch. After lunch, Joe and I took Rajesh back to school because he wanted to join the GCA football team to play a game. However, when we got their, some students from main school had already controlled the ground and we could just wait. Rajesh was not unhappy with that and he kept talking to us. At three, we said goodbye.
The other voluntary work I did was to help the fashion show. I helped them set up the seats. Some other volunteers and I almost carried all the desks and chairs on the first floor. It took hours to make the stage and seats perfectly. During the show, my only job was to keep the people who did not have tickets away from the stage. To be honest, it was boring because I missed the exciting show but I knew that was my job and that was my choice. After the show, the cleaning job was difficult, too. We had to clean all the rubbish and put all of the desks and chairs back to the place where they used be. It took us another one hour to finish all the job and when I left school, it was half past eight.

Go to Jiming Temple

On the third of May, I went to Jiming Temple with Jerry in the afternoon.
The religion there was Buddhism. And also, it was a nunnery. We bought a ticket to get into there. There were many different houses, some of them had joss and some of them were used to buy some souvenirs. There were also some places for visitors to burn joss sticks and bless. On the top of the temple, there was a small tower. However, we needed to buy another ticket to get there, so we stopped at the bottom of the tower.
After visiting there, I learned some things about Buddhism. The first thing I learned was if a person is believed in Buddhism, he should forget all the distracting thoughts and keep calming down. Also, Buddhism encourages people to do good things and to help the poor people. The highest level is to help everything and if there is a thing good for others, then to do it. Another important thing is, Buddhism will not allow any of its penganuts to kill lives, that was the most serious violation of its rules.
I knew a little about how to convert Buddhism. There are two ways, one is to receive the precepts, one is to clean one’s mind. Most people are in the first way. People have to find a penganut who was in a high level and receive the precepts very well, then they should ask this kind of penganut to confer the precepts to them.
I think Buddhism is the most peaceful religion in the world and I think it is really good but I do not think I will join it in the future.

my classmates and I

Charles, Martin and I.

Jerry and I

Jerry Charles and I.

club activity 2

On the first day of the winter holiday, I took part in the biking club’s biggest event. Our aim is Baohua Mountain. It is a mountain in Jurong. This time, more people joined us, they were Gary, Steven, Tim, Bill, Kevin, Bryan and David. We started riding at nine. However, I started much earlier than it because my home is far away from the school. I started riding at half past seven and spent more than an hour riding the twenty-five-kilometer-distance. That was the reason for why I was the slowest person on the way we were going there. We chose Ningzhen Road because it is the least far way to get there however the road is not flat and there are a lot of small mountains so we were always riding up and up. I also got a small trouble during riding there. I was so tired that I could not catch them. So I let them go first and I would ride behind them. Suddenly, after a crossroad, I could not see them and I thought they turned to some direction so I changed my direction to see if they were there. I could not find them and it seemed that I got lost, that was too bad! Luckily, David connected me and found me at last. After that case, we slowed down.
At about twelve, we got there and we found a small restaurant to have lunch. There were no people except us. The food there was not bad and enough for us, these tired people to get energy back. After an hour of rest, we went to the gate of the forest park and took some pictures and then, we went back. We rode much faster on the way back because we had enough rest and food. And also, the road was going down and it helped us save a lot of power. However, the wind also made the trip tough. At about four, we got to school. I felt very tired after riding but Bill and Tim did not have that kind of feeling. I could not believe that.
On 5th of April, our biking club had another event, Mr. Gallinelli and Mr. Harris went with us. This time, our aim was Purple Mountain. I thought it might an easy one, but I was wrong because we had to get the top of the mountain and then riding down. The mountain was not so high but the degree was very small so we could not ride fast and we even could not move forward by riding in some places. We spent almost all of our energy to go to the top. After a break, we went down. At that time, a terrible thing happened, David could not control his bike and fell down. He was hurt badly and his bike was broken. Mr. Harris thought we could not continue and we should take him to the hospital as soon as possible. This event was cancelled because of this and we did not take photos, either. After we sent David to the hospital, I went to school to play basketball with Mr. Harris.

Vitas " Opera Two"

Go to see a performance

Yesterday night, I went to see a concert of Vitas with Charles, Martin and Tom. The title of the concert was “Sleepless Night”. It was held in Olympic Centre, half past seven in the evening. There were about six thousand people seeing this concert.
When people saw Vitas, they were screaming and clapping their hands. Vitas showed his amazing dolphin-vocal-sounding for more than two hours. He sang some of his own songs like “Star”, “Opera one” and “The Cranes Crying”. He also sang some famous old songs like “My Sun” and “La donna e mobile”. After he singing “Star”, he sang a Chinese song “Tibetan Plateau”, that made the concert to the climax.
He invited a Chinese girl to perform the song “Doll” together. He let the girl do the same action as him. That was interesting and I could see that girl was very nervous. Anyway, it was a good idea and it was successful.
At the end of the concert, he played a trick on all of the people. He said “Goodbye” and started to leave. However, he walked very slowly and wanted to hear the screaming. Finally, he came back, and sang another song. He did this three times. At last, he got a red scarf in a box and wore it. People realized he was going to sing “Opera Two”. That was his best song and I loved it very much. He did it pretty well and after that, the concert was really over.
When we got out of the Olympic Centre, it was ten p. m. I could not sleep well that night just like the title “Sleepless Night”.

physical activity 2

I did a lot of sport activities this term. Every Sunday, I played basketball. I thought my basketball skill had improved a lot.
I used to practice my shooting skill at first. I could just find a very old basket in a community, and I kept shooting and shooting. I hope there could be some people play with me together, however, those people never appeared. Anyway, I improved my shooting skill and no body would say “James cannot shoot” !!!
One day, I found a really big basketball court. It was in a military college. There were ten baskets and a lot of people were playing there. I was very happy because I finally could play with someone.
The first game I played was the most exciting one. I played with the college students. The one I against was a left-hand player, it was a big challenge to me because it is hard for a right-hand player to defense a left-hand player, and also, he was much taller than me. I could not do it, but they could not defense me, either. I was stronger than them and I could jump much higher. I did very well at attacking. There was also a bald man made me angry because he always pushed me and he played very dirty basketball. My reaction was beat him by lay-up, again and again. Even though I was not that James, I also should do something in basketball for this name.
Two weeks ago, I played with some middle school students. Some of them could not play at all, I thought they should be the audience, but not player. I played D that day, I blocked for eleven times. There was a boy played pretty well. He could shoot and he was strong, I think he might do much better in the future.
During the May Holiday, I went there again with my father. Because of the holiday, there were not so many people, so we just played a little while for fun. My father also taught me some skills, some of them I thought were very useful and I would like to use but the other actions were too ugly, so I decided not to learn them.
Except basketball, I also did some exercise like push-up and sit-up to train my strength. I hope these things can be helpful to me when I play basketball.

See an exhibition

On the 7th of March, Charles and I went to meet Rex (from 10-B) after lunch at Nanjing Ancient Life Museum to see the ancient life exhibition there.
The price of the ticket is cheap, it just cost me 10 RMB to go inside. The museum is very big, there were many fossils. The exhibition showed us the process of the evolution of animals. It started from billions years ago to present. The exhibition introduced the different kinds of animals at different time. I learnt the first lives were small things in the sea and the main before the dinosaurs were insects. To my surprise, the biggest dragonfly was fifty centimeters long.
We also learned the human’s time is a very short time. If we divide all the time from the birth of the earth to present, the human’s time starts at about 2 to twelve p.m, we just have more than one minute. That showed the long history of our planet.
In the museum, there were some models of the animals, too. These models were very verisimilar. There was also a movie about the evolution of human in the main hall. However, we did not finish watching it. There were some introductions of the scientists who worked on the ancient lives.
I think it was a really successful exhibition. We could learn a lot of things and see the fossils that are not easy to see there. I like that exhibition very much, and I hope to see some similar exhibitions like this in the future.

Eat in an Italian restaurant

On the 7th of March, my friends, Charles and bill went to a western restaurant called Napoli with me.
We watched a big show that morning, when we got out, it was 11 o’clock.. We went to the Italian restaurant at Deji Plaza to have lunch. The restaurant is very big and clean, the ornaments there were very beautiful, too. I think people who eat here would have a relaxed mood.
After reading the main, we found it was better to order the macaroni. Bill asked for the macaroni with seafood, Charles asked for one with mutton and I asked for one with pock. The food there was really delicious, we can enjoy the smell of cheese very much. After eating them, we also ordered some sweet food. Bill ordered an ice-cream and I ordered a cake. Charles did not order anything because he had no money.
I think the food there was really good, but the price was too high. We decided to order some other things to eat, but the price frightened us and if we ordered them, we would not be able to pay. I had never seen such high prices, even a cake was cost 30 RMB. We spent more than 200 RMB that time only for three plates of macaroni and some sweet food. That made me crazy!
Anyways, I enjoyed the food and the time there, not the price.

Volunteer Work

On 30th of January, my cousin and I went to an elderly house in Qinhuai District to do some voluntary work. We spent a lot of time working there.
We went there after breakfast. Our first job was cleaning the refectory. The elderly had just eaten their breakfast, so the refectory was dirty. The cook asked us to sweep the floor and clean the desks. My cousin chose to clean the desks and I chose to sweep the floor. The refectory is not very big but it was hard to clean it all because there was so much rubbish and oil on the floor. It took me more than forty minutes to clean all the messy things. I also mopped the floor. After our job, the refectory was much cleaner.
Then we entered a room, in the room there were two old women. One was 96 years old, one was 92 years old. This was my first time to see such old people. It seemed that they were all very healthy. We firstly wished them happy Chinese new year, and then we talked about everything. By talking, I knew they lived the hard lives in the past and they felt luck now. One elderly liked reading, I promised I would bring her some books some day.
My cousin and I talked with them till 1 o’clock in the afternoon. Before the elderly sleeping, we said goodbye to them.
On 1st of February, we went to the elderly house again. This time, we went to the kitchen first. We helped the cooks wash the dishes and the bowls. We also helped them trim vegetables for cooking. This was not an easy job but we still did it well. After that, we went to see the two old ladies who we talked last time. This time, one ladies’ son was there, too. I gave the lady who loved reading a book. The book was “Wen Hua Ku Lv ”. It is written by Yu Qiuyu (a famous Chinese writer). The lady was very happy to see I brought the book, and she read it as soon as she got it. We played cards with them. We helped them infusion of tea at the same time. I felt very happy with the elderly. We left the elderly house at half past one.
By doing these two volunteer jobs, I knew that the elderly need to be taken care of. I also learnt that is important to treat the elderly politely. I would like to do the job again some day.

Personal Health

I love sports and I did some sports during the winter time.
Basketball is my favourite. I returned Wuxi at Christmas, the first thing I did was taking the ball and get to the gym. The temperature was low that day, but after the warm-up, I felt hot so I took off the sweater and the shirt. I had not played basketball at that gym for a very long time and I missed the baskets there very much. I also met many of my friends there. We played a small three-on-three match. We did not count the scores because we just played it for fun. After that, I walked to a small basket. The rim is not as high as the normal rim, it is about 2.8metres high. Because of the height, I was able to dunk. I like dunking because I enjoyed the wonderful feeling of “flying” very much. I also played a match with some other people. I played the PG in that game. I shot some three-point shots and did some nice assists. I think I played well that day. I did not stop playing until dinner time. I spent more than three hours playing there.
I did another sport in the winter holiday. That was badminton. Actually, I was not good at playing badminton and I did not play it for many years. David, Bill and some other friends played with me at Qinhuai Sports Centre. The centre is big and there are many courts in it. We firstly played doubles. Bill and I were in a team, David and Kevin were in a team. It seemed that Kevin played the best and I was not the worst. Then we played one-on-one. I won David but Bill played better than me, he won me four points. I also played with a man one day, he played very well. He taught me some skills and trained me kill shot. I played badminton for six times, each time I played for one or two hours.
I sometimes did a little exercise at home, too. The small exercise was push-up and sit-up. One night I did one hundred and fifty sit-ups and fifty push-ups, that also made me tired.
After doing these sports, I felt I got stronger. Every sport I did can train my muscles, especially the badminton. Badminton is a sport that needs the power from the whole body, so it can not only train my arms’ strength, but also the legs’ strength.
In conclusion, I did much sports and exercise, the total time was over ten hours. I also gained the happiness from sports. I felt satisfied with that.

Club Activity

I joined the Biking Club at GCA. The club leader is David from my class. The members in this club are all in Grade 10. Some of the other members are Tim (10-D), Steven (10-D), Gary (10-D), Bill (10-F), and Jordan (10-F). I took part in the club activities 3 times and the time was about 8 hours.
The first activity I joined was to ride to the Jiangxin Island. Ms. Hadley, Mr. Gallinelli and Mr. Harris went with us (Mr. Harris did not go to the island, he just rode a little). At that time, I did not have my own bike, so I borrowed a bike from Louis (he is in America now). There were five students in that activity, they are: Tim, Steven, David, Jordan and me. We met at the school gate at about one o’clock in the afternoon. We went through Beijingdong Road and Beijingxi Road. Tim and Steven joined us at Caochangmen Bridge. We spent about forty minutes reaching the wharf. We went to the island by ferryboat. We rode around the island and we enjoyed the beautiful view at the same time. The island is not too big so we just used one hour from one side to the other side and we took a rest for about twenty minutes. We used another one hour to back to the wharf. The first activity finished at about four o’clock.
My second activity was a little strange, only David and I rode to the aim. David asked some of the other members if they would go and they all said yes, but at that the riding day everyone told us they could not come. That made me sad and a little bit angry. The aim was Jiangjun Mountain, it is very far away from the school. We spent two hours riding to the Jiangjun Big Street. The mountain is near the street, but it was very difficult for us to find the right way to the mountain because there are so many small roads cross the street. We did not choose the right way at first. Luckily, I took a map with me, so we finally find the right way. The mountain is not high but it is hard for us to ride up and rode to the top made me very tired. This activity took us about three hours.
The last activity I joined was the easiest one. Our goal was to ride around the Xuanwu Lake. The members who rode with me that time were from 10-E and 10-F. We rode slowly this time because we wanted to enjoy the comfortable feeling: the wind near the lake was cool that day! We started from our school and spent one hour to the railway station. We took a ten minute break just like the break at GCA. After the break, we backed to the school. This activity totally cost us about two hours.
In conclusion, the three activities I took part were very good and I enjoyed them very much. I made some new friends by riding together; I made myself stronger and healthier by riding for very long time. I hope we can have more interesting activities in the future and I also hope there are more members in our club and make the club bigger and stronger.

Cultural Awareness

On the nineteenth of December, 2008, I had a big dinner with some of my classmates and two Grade twelve students.
We had the dinner in a Swiss restaurant in Xinjiekou. At about six p.m, all the people arrived. The waiters and the waitress were very zealous. We ordered some plates of salad, some pieces of pizza, two big bowls of ice cream. Each of us had one staple food, too. I ordered the “Alpes Plate”, it had potatoes, tomatoes, pork and an egg. It was very delicious. From all the food I ate, the “Alpes Plate” was my favourite because it had a lot of potatoes and I love potatoes. Another reason I liked it is it was very nourished, it did not have too much meat and it had some vegetables, I think it was a healthy food. Compared with this, the pizza was not so good to me. I did not enjoy the pizzas very much even though they tasted not bad. The pizzas had a lot of energy and it might make me get fat, so I did not like them.
We had a happy dinner there. We talked a lot of things about our lives and some interesting things at GCA. We also took some photos during the dinner. I took about two hours to have the dinner and talked to the classmates. At last, we had some fruit and ice cream, at about a quarter past eight, we left the restaurant.
By the way, that dinner made me very happy because it just cost me fifth yuan. That was a cheap price!