Poetry for me

With its sensory images and rhythmic pattern, poetry enriches my life; however, it does not exist in my daily life. I only read a poem when I have time to kill and I am in the right mood. A poem should be slowly tasted just like drinking my favourite Chinese tea.

-  51 words

Customs at the Sydney Airport

I traveled to Australia ten years ago on my student visa and went through the Customs at Sydney Airport. I handed my declaration form to a Customs office who was in his 50s and looked friendly.

 “Do you have any food with you?”

“No.”

 I thought I was lucky as I had given my beef jerky to my mother before I boarded the plane.

“Could you open your backpack?” I zipped my bag open.

“What’s this?”

“That’s Chinese eight ingredients tea.” My God! I forgot there were some ingredients which could be called food in my tea bags.

“Do you know you can’t bring this into Australia?”

I didn’t reply; he already had taken my Chinese tea and thrown it into a big box full of prohibited and restricted items.

 After X-raying my suitcases, he asked me in an austere tone,

“Do you have prohibited items in your suitcase? You will receive severe penalties if you tell a lie. ”

 I was becoming nervous and doubted my mother who must have put some food into my suitcases without telling me. But I had to let him check it out. He unzipped my suitcase, and, suddenly, he laughed when he saw the “evidence.” He opened the lid wide and let me see: an iron wok with a “wood” handle sitting at the bottom of my suitcase.

 220 words

Three Things I Have Learned

Dynamic character, "changing or growing personally," is what I have learned from the guide to literary terms. Pascal, the main character of Ghosts, is the typical dynamic character who is from a radio news writer with full career dreams to a person affected by gang members. 46 words

Quotation is " the exact words", which has changed my thought. I use to quote the whole sentence as a quotation in my paragraph writing. Now I know I need a phrase to lead my reader to my quotation and a quotation is only " part of sentences." 46 words

The practice of writing quotations in class helped me to understand a quotation needs to be "fully explained." The sentence written by our group, Pascal is shocked by her mother's "the disdain for those she served," does not explained the point of attitude towards those gang members. 47 words

Reaction of good English writing

The differences between William Zinsser' s advice and the rules created by our group turned my thought upside down. We agreed that using long words and nouns made the writing more academic and advanced. We would rather use 'currently' other than 'now', 'assistance' instead of 'help', which is just opposite of Zinsser's English writing principle of 'Brevity'.

I had been told our way through one and one English course and never doubted it. Even though I know that verbs play an important role in my mother tongue-- Chinese and I also mentioned it to my group. However, I did not notice that these two languages have the common--feeling life in the words. It is certainly the secret to attract readers.

Knowing what is good English writing and how is to be learned by imitation, I am confident to fellow Zinsser's idea to be myself, working in the vein of being a better writer.
--154 words

First Reaction to the story "Ghosts" by Edwidge Danticat

A detailed character description in Edwidge Danticat’s story,“Ghosts”

delights me. Pascal’s mother had a “stern face”with a disdain between her furrowed eyebrows while his father batted his eyes quickly and twitched his mouth involuntary; Pascal’s brother Jules had a “Breadfruit Head” and Tiye flashed his “bright-red gums as though he had been eating raw meat.” Danticat’s varied descriptions certainly were helpful to built vivid images--all these characters just come alive.

Even though Tiye and his crew angered me, the police officers angered me most. “They could all have switched places, and no one would notice.” How the police officers behaved made things even worse as they were in uniform. Actually, not only the policemen but also the lawyers, even the Supreme Court Judges, had their own dirty laundry for which we could see the whole political society was a disaster. .

I could not imagine any place worse than Bel Air; however, Bel Air was only a mid-level slum. People like Pascal had no choice to be a free man away from the Ghosts.

------179 words

Respond to "Temple Grandin: the Non-Whisperer"

My misconceptions about animals are dispelled by the feature on Temple Grandin written by John Allemang. My friend had a shepherd dog called Lucky, who only saw his owner most of time when my friend fed him with bones in the evening. Smart Lucky got out of the high-fenced yard and ran away many times. After Lucky was sent back, my friend always punished him.

I never wondered that my friend’s punishment only made things worse. Because we did not think about that “the animal world is all sensory –based,” which is different from us; we did not consider “which emotional system was driving that behavior?” We only assumed that what works on human beings also works on dogs.- 119 words

Most Powerful Picture of Temple Grandin

The image of Temple Grandin turning into a cow undoubtedly impresses me most. As she kneeled down, a cow appeared for a second. Even though it changed back into Temple Grandin, she just did exactly what the cows did. She climbed into the chute and saw the light and shadow, the reflections on puddle and the chain and buttons glinting in the sun. She immediately understands why the cattle balked when they went through the chute. I could not stop thinking about that has anyone else transformed ourselves into animals when we approach them? If the answer is no, we will just see a plan other than “walking through the whole plant.” -113words