Visionary #2

I think Wang Yung-Chin is a visionary. He was born in Taipei, Taiwan. His family was really poor when he was small, and they need to sell his sisters to support his family. The reason he started to try hard to earn a lot of money is that he want to redeem his sisters back. He went to Tainan to learn how to farm when he was 15, and he decided to have his own rice company the following year, which he only have 200 dollars to use. Wang Yung-Chin is really good business minded. He knows how to sell things and see which industries can earn more money. He started to earn a lot of money and became successful. He is a very strict self-discipline, self-demanding, and absolutely honest person. He also did a lot charity. He did donation after huge disasters like 921 earthquake and Wen-Chuan earthquake. He also proposed to aid 10,000 primary schools in China.
Although his motivation when he as small is to earn money for his own use. However, after he was grown up, he thought about the society, wanted to make it better, so he did a lot of charity to help the poor. I really think that he is a great person.

Workhouse

A workhouse is a noun, an institution maintained at public expense where able-bodied paupers did unpaid work in return for food and accommodation. The above is one of the definitions from the dictionaries. In England, the workhouse is equal to the poorhouse. Poor and homeless people can go to the workhouse to find a job to do so that they can survive. Although the conditions of the workhouse are harsh and the jobs are hard to do, it is still better than nothing. Even though the job may be bad, people can still get food and money to support themselves.
Another definition for workhouse is also a noun; it is a prison for pretty offenders serving short sentences at manual labor, it is a county jail that holds prisons for periods up to 18 months. The first definition is used more formerly in England and the second one is used more popularly in the U.S.

Sources: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/workhouse

What is a Visionary?

From the book, it says that a visionary may be someone who envisions a better future or someone who claims to see people or events in dreams. In fictions and comics, there are many characters that can see the future by all kinds of paths, and one most common is from dreams. However, mostly, when the stories are about "time traveling" or "predicting the future", they come out that the future cannot be changed, and no matter what the characters did, it seems just like it is them who caused the results. When we talked about visionaries, I also thought about the people in the real life - who are the people considered visionaries? Since I'm not familiar with this, I did some research and realized that there are many people who are considered as visionaries. Ex: Favianna Rodriguez (political artist), Susan Nussbaum (founder), Bill Drayton (founder), etc.

Source: http://www.utne.com/2008-11-13/50-Visionaries-Who-Are-Changing-Your-World.aspx

Class Evaluation

I would say that British Literature is the hardest class I took in my senior year. I am not as good in literature, there are a lot of pieces that I can't understand, and there are a lot of homework. However, although I my self cannot feel it, my mother said that she felt my English is improving.
I know one of my huge problems is that I cannot focus on one thing for too long if my hands are not writing. I think your way of solving this problem, constantly changing what we're doing, is very useful for us the concentrate. Moreover, I like the discussions we had during class. The class size is small and we're able to discuss some questions. The discussions really helped me a lot with understanding the pieces.
What I really don't like is the holt reader. There are too many questions to finish in the book and they're so hard to write. Well, I think posting journals on our blogs is a very special way for doing homework.

How Can We Fight Injustice?

As the proverb says, "The pen is mightier than the sword." I really agree with this statement, especially when I live in a high technology world with computers and the Internet. There are many injustice on the world that we cannot solve (global poverty etc.), but we still can express our ideas by speaking or writing out our ideas. To me, I think works both spoken by mouth and written by hand are both very powerful. People can publish their works by blogs, newspaper, television, radio, or magazines. These are all common "places" that people constantly visits. Most people orders newspaper and watch television everyday; some listen to radios when they are the car; many read the magazines monthly, weekly, or even daily. These are all very power sources that can provide people to publish their work. However, among all of them, I think the best way to let people notice your work is to publish on the Internet so every person in the world can look at it and know what you want to say. Although this may not solve the problems, it still can let your thoughts be noticed.

Apollo Landing Rewrite

On July 21, 1969, Apollo II successfully landed on the Moon. It is the first manned space mission to land on a planet! This is so amazing. The space shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins into orbit. They are all lucky guys to go to the Moon. On June 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed their small lunar module in the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong then made his descent to the Moon's surface and spoke the famous line, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Over 600 million people stared at the television and witnessed the event. Armstrong and Aldrin marked their great achievement by planting an American flag in the soil, which is great decision. American became the first human to step on to the Moon and our flag is also the first flag being planted on the Moon! Before they returned to their shuttle, the astronauts installed a plaque that bore the signatures of each astronaut and President Richard Nixon, along with an inscription. The inscription read, "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind."

Why keep a diary?

To me, to keep a diary is to keep my memories. When I was small, my mother used to force me to keep a diary in English so that I can practice how to write in English. However, because I really don't know what to write, I wrote "I am happy today." everyday. Now, when I look through what I wrote, I felt really funny and recalled my feelings when I was writing the "diary" When I was in middle school, I kept a habit of keeping a schedule book. Although it is not a diary, I almost wrote down what I did everyday. And now, when I flip through the books, I can recall what I did in that year, in that month, and at that day. I don't know what the purpose of writing a diary is when I was small, so writing a diary is a painful thing to me. Now, because I found fun looking through what I wrote, I know that the purpose of writing a diary is to keep my good memories fresh, and I found fun writing it.