On September 13, 2015, Sunday grade 9 and 10 from Leman international school went to a trip to Heishui that is in Tibet. We went to a trip for 4 days, on first day to Heishui, we went to Wenchuan and stayed in the guest house. The way going there, we were on the bus for 2 hours. I was sitting with my friend Dabin and we were listening to the music on ear phone sleeping. I heard all music that is in my phone and did games with other friends too. I tried to go card game in bus with them but I thought it will get dizzy when I play games one the bus so I just sit down on my sit sleeping for 2 hours.
After 2 hours passed, we arrived to a guest house that the base color of the building was red and grapes were growing on the woods. I and Dabin became roommate and got room that is up on the roof and have ladders to go up the small roof and look around the village. The guest house was really large and the quality of the building was not so bad. However, inside was not cleaned well that dusts were all around the place. The bugs were flying in the room also it looked like it is a guest house for bugs and dusts. The sky was blue and air was clean up on the mountain (the guest house was on the mountain) but air in our room was felt like I am in the desert. Warm water did not come out, so I and Dabin could not take showers, we just wash our hairs quickly and came out of the bath room. Toilet there was really bad, place where we shower and toilet was right beside each other and also we had to send water that we used to the toilet and flash it after we had a shower. After we changed our cloths in to warm one, we went to visit foreigner’s houses. We looked around the house and also heard about the history about that house. It has been more than 2000 years and the owner’s ancestors have been leaved here more than 2000 years.
I felt surprised about that because in these days, children and adults won’t like to live in old houses and go out to modern places. Same as my thinking, nothing related to young adults and children was not found. It seemed like the old owner of this house is the last person who lives in that house. That house was made by long woods, and no nails were used to build the house. Only woods were used to be holding each other and support. There was a room that we can cook foods, it was in the middle of the room of the house
After we came back to the guest house, I changed my cloth in to comfortable one that I wear when I sleep. I went to Sheila and Sophie’s room to turn on the music and play games. We did rock scissor and paper and the person who won drew funny things on the loser’s face. We had to go down to eat dinner with that face because it was dill that we promised before we start the game. Lots of people laughed at us when we went down to the restaurant with funny faces. After eating dinner, we went up to the room and started to play games again. We played card games together listening to the music. We turned on the K- pop music and started to sing, we wanted to make Tae Woong angry by singing A- pink’s song loudly. We were laughing when we sing songs, it was fun to see Tae Woong’s angry face and keep coming to our room to say stop it.
We slept after 2 hours and when the morning came, we went to the Heishui riding bus for 4 hours. We stayed there for 3 days more in a hotel and did lots of various experiences that normal students could not do. we went to the place it is similar with temple but not. (Monastery) We learnt about Buddhism gods, Siddhartha was the prince of Indonesia. He wanted to go out of the palace and learn about real life so he went out of the palace and starts to live same us poor people. And at last, he notices about what is the real life and became Buddha. He haves few students to teach what he noticed and one of them goes to the other place to teach other people Buddha’s notice. Next day, we danced in the park with the foreigners, few played with the kids chasing them and others were dancing or resting. I learnt how to dance their traditional dance, it was hard to follow them but it got better and better and at last, I could dance quite similar with them.
On 28th of August, 2015, Friday during language art class, we talked about being an independent learner. Also, we talked about the various ways to be an independent learner. During the class, I could understand it at first, but it got confused later. So I was worried about it, because if I don’t understand it well, it will be hard for me to write a blog post later after class. But finally I understand 80% at last by thinking about it lots of times and make a list of connections of it. To be an independent learner means, that we are learning lots of various things in the world by our self, or study only one things for a long time. Being an independent learner will be really hard for most of people who were learning in groups of least one person together for a long time least 5 years. Learning independently needs to know how to understand things that you don’t know by yourself. Such as finding dictionary, search in internet and ask someone. Also, being an independent learner is related to the cultures too, cultures around us can affect us big and also give us help or troubles. For examples, there are place where we are learning, manners in our characteristics, foods we eat, education systems, and climates of the country where we are studying. Most of the people could think why that affects us huge. And now I will explain about it one by one, first, a place where you are learning gives you affects by the cultures in that place, second, education systems in every country are different so the place where you have education is really important too. Third, manners of the countries are different, the position we study is different and also how we study is different too. There are other things too but it is too late so I will write until here. Thank you for reading it.
These days, we are learning about culture in Language Art class. We are reading different books that we chose at the first lesson in Language Art class this year. I am reading a book called “The Serpent’s children.” It is written in ancient China, this book is about the serpent’s children in ancient China, while reading the book, we are thinking about the relationships between the culture of real China and culture in the story of this book. In this book, there are parts that are related to China’s tradition that is one of the cultures.
In past, serpent’s children were just poor children who will work for their owners when they get old enough. Also, serpent means snake and it means they are sneaky and like to alienate people so it was not really good meaning to call it. People around them thinks they are poor because they need to work for their owner forever unless their owner’s family all dies even the cousins too and also they avoid them and not go beside them thinking they would be strange. However in the story, the girl who is ‘I’ doesn’t thinks being serpent’s children is shameless. She thinks it is something good to be for her and even, she is proud of that too.
Mostly, she thinks opposite way of thinking that other people do. This shows the writer wanted to be opposite of the culture at that time and change the mind of the people. There is other face of this story too, in real Chinese culture, people thinks about son only and thinks males are better than females, and this is also in the book too. ‘I’ thinks bad about this this time. She is sad about it and feels bad, in this point culture is exactly the same. These points of view in the book is related to the culture in China in real world.
We are learning about culture in Language Art class. I am reading a book called “The Serpent’s children.” This book is about the serpent’s children in China, this is related to China’s tradition. In past, serpent’s children were just poor children who will work for their owners when they get old enough. People around them thinks they are poor because they need to work for their owner forever unless their owner’s family all dies even the cousins too. However in the story, the girl who is ‘I’ doesn’t thinks being serpent’s children is not shameless. This shows the writer wanted to be opposite of the culture at that time and change the mind of the people. This point of view in the book is related to the culture in China in real world.
Today, I went to IFS which is located in Chunxilu. I was afraid to go by myself there because it was the first time to go there at that time. So I asked my mom to go with me there because the place where my mom needs to go today is also near IFS. Just 10 minutes far from it, my mom agreed at that so I went there with subway with my mom, and my sister.
I went there to play with other people; at first I did not know who were coming because Ian just told me to come yesterday. So I just went to IFS with my family and met Ian who was standing in front of the C subway station. After I met him, my mom and sister went to Consulate to change my name on the passport from Yooha to Yuha, and also make a new one for my sister too.
After I met Ian, we went in the building to find a Starbucks. There were two Starbucks in IFS, one in 1st floor (maybe) and one in 3rd floor.
At first, we could not find it right away so we searched for information center, to see where Starbucks is. Surprisingly, we found it really fast, maybe about…. 10 minutes? It took only that much to find it. We went in there, to wait for other people. We ordered Caramel Macchiato (Ian), and Green Tea Latte (Me). And we met Eva and Marina there too; we chat together and took some selfies too.
After all of the people who were going to come, we went to burger something (I can’t remember the name.) and ate lunch there. It was quite expensive for the students to eat paying there own money so I chose the cheapest one to eat. Fries that egg fries are on it. After finishing eating it, we went to down stair to find something to do. At first, we went to the place where we can do bowling but we had to pay 350 yuan (maybe) so we decided to not do it.
After that, there was nothing to do so the boys decided to go to Raffle City. I wanted to go with them and play at first but my mom was near IFS doing her work so I couldn’t go with them. I called my mom and waited for her while I was just walking around the building taking pictures. It was fun thing to do because I was thinking lots of thing in my mind and I liked walking around alone since I was a little child.
After 20 minutes, my mom called me to come out of the building and come to the place were she is waiting for me so I went down the escalators and searched for my mom and sister. I met them and when my mom asked me to go inside again and eat something, I told about the restaurant where we eat lunch. She said lets go there and eat so I took them to that restaurant.
We set on the table that is located inside of the restaurant and started to order foods to eat. We ordered various foods and drinks too. We ate dinner there and went to KFC to eat dessert. We bought 2 ice cream and one ice flakes with syrup.
After eating it all of it, we went back to subway station and came back home again and did Chinese class.
Before summer holiday, we had a passion project showcase! Passion Project is a project that Grade 8 to 10 students did a project by pairs or by alone for today’s showcase!!!
At first, I did a project with Da Bin but just before 5 days of a showcase, she told me to do it by ourselves so I just prepared for my new project. I collected my drawings which I worked for it while I was working with Da bin, then I drew more of it that I laminated it and cut it so it looks like bookmarks.
Well, I think no one thought it is a bookmark but any way I think like that~. After deciding to do alone, I thought about lots of thing that I can do it for 3 hours. I thought writing good quotes will be good so I started to search them in internet. I wrote it in Korean, and also in English too. I cut the papers in 16 each A4 paper and wrote them on it.
Then, I stocked the double sided paper back of the paper so it could be a sticker too. I wrote about more than 100 words of it in black and red marker. In black, I wrote most of the sentences, and I wrote some important words in red, and decorated the words too. After finishing it, I started planning for the other event too because I thought it will be boring if people just look at what I did.
So, I looked at the blogs where I found the quotes again. And I found that they were written in hand writing that is called Kellagraphy. I never learnt that so I thought it could me hard and people won’t like it but just try it because it is time to show something I can do it. At the day of the showcase, I was still thinking about it.
I wasn’t sure if I could do it So I started practicing few times, I didn’t have a right pen to do it so the writing wasn’t neat at first. But I tried and tried until I found a right hand writing for it. At the day of a showcase, I brought lots of A4 paper from middle/ high school office and a marker. I cut the papers in about 4 pieces, and placed it beside me.
When the showcase had started, lots of children came to my table and started to talk to me. At first, I felt okay but….when the time passed about 1 hour, I felt tired and my hands were shaking by lots of writing. I thought ‘this is not a thing for human to do’ but when the children smiled and said thank you, ‘I thought this is why people do it.’ I think it was one of a meaningful day in my school life.
On Saturday afternoon, I had a small tea time with my friends in my house. I made sweet tea, and some cookies to eat with the tea too. When the tea time began, I and my friends chat together about school life. A thing that normal teenager girls would talk about it, about the boys in the school and who is like this or that. While we were chatting so happily, I forgot that the tea is hot and I just drank it at once. My tongue felt it’s burning. I quickly put ice on it but it made my tongue tingle.
On Sunday morning, Jessica woke up late at 12 o’ clock. She was too lazy to make a nice lunch for her so she decided to eat peach that is inside a can. She opened the refrigerator to find it, it was deep inside it so it took long time to find it. After few minutes, she found it and checked the date so it is safe to eat. After checking it is safe, she decided to eat so as she lifted the lid, she noticed that the can was not peach. It was a can that corns were in.
In class, 10th graders and IB students (11th grade) did a debate about China and America’s education. 10th graders were in affirmative team and IB students were in negative team.
Every one tried hard and did their best for the debate but I think it was a debate where I could see which team would win.
While they are preparing the debate, we searched about both countries’ education. I was searching information in negative side so I know more information more than the affirmative side.
Do you know that lot of people in this world thinks China’s education is good. They think all of the students study in a good system and get a good job. However, when I searched the information and read the news, I discovered a different fact, something made me think the opposite.
For example, in china is people think their parents help the students to get better educations and also the teachers work hard but it is not. Of course they work hard for the students but only for themselves. They say it is for them, if they grow up they will say thank you for them.
America’s education is much better than China. Also, there are students who suicides but not as many as china. Also, they get for free time after school then students in China. While Chinese students have to go to the academies after a school
By doing this unit, I could know about lots of facts of two different education systems and think about it too.
Written by, Victoria Hwang
May 24, 2015
Today, when I saw out side of the window, the weather was clean and warm so i decided to go out and play. So I went out to the park near my house to have a fun picnic, I thought it will be one of the best picnic in my life. But the ferocious wind blew hard towards me suddenly looking it’s trying to destroy my picnic. I tried to protect my food and eyes but the wind carried lots of maples and leaves to me so it made my eyes hurt. I screamed, and rolled on the ground rubbing my eyes.