THE TAMING OF THE SHREW(go to a performance)

On Dec. 19th, 2008, I went to our School Drama Club’s performance. I watched one of the Shakespeare’s famous dramas, “The Taming of the Shrew”.

I knew that our drama club had practice for this performance for a long time, and I felt really excited about this show. I bought a VIP ticket, and was looking forward to this drama.

The lead role of this year’s drama is Fan and Cherry, and all the actors did a great job. Cherry gave me a great impression, and I believed she gave everyone a great impression too. She is so beautiful, especially at the end of the show. At the end of the show, she put on a really nice dress, and she looked very elegant. I heard many people talking about here after the show. She almost became my hero.

The drama was very interesting. Fan acted as Cherry’s husband in this play. They built up many small conflicts in the show. Finally, Cherry fell in love with Fan.

Richard was the only actor from Grade 10, and he did an excellent job. He said he had learnt many experience from the Drama Club Performance. He thought although it was very tired, he felt happy too.

It was my first time to see the GCA performance, and it brought me an unforgettable memory. Now, I am looking forward to the next year’s performance from our school drama club. If I have a chance, I might sign up and try to join the drama club next year, too. I think that will be great fun.

GO TO A RELIGIOUS SERVICE

I went to St. Paul’s Church on May 2nd. St. Paul’s church is a Catholic church. It was my first time to go to a religion service, and I felt quite nervous at first. It was raining outside, and I went in the church a little bit late. The pray ceremony had already begun when I came into the church. Many nuns were standing on the stage and singing one of the songs from the “Catholic Lyrics”.

After the song, one of the nuns came to the middle of the stage and started to give us a speech. It was my first time to learn knowledge about Catholic from the church, and I did learn something. I was told that all the people would be innocent when they were died. The god would forgive for all the bad things they had done before. This is the main idea I learnt from this trip to St. Paul’s Church.

I find this trip quite boring. Actually, I am not agreed with the opinion from the nuns. I think everyone would do bad things, and after they have done them, they can’t goes over the mistakes. Also, I don’t believe that there is god in the world. No one can save us, but ourselves. If we want to feel happy, we need to do good things for the society.

However, go the St. Paul’s Church was a good experience for me. Although I am not agreed with the opinion, I still learnt some culture from a different country.

GCA FASHION SHOW (work as a volunteer)

Fashion Show is a big event to our school, and every year our school would spend a lot of money in this project.

Luckily, Sylvia and I became the emcee and the Grade 10 chief contact person. So that means, I was in charge of many things There were many things should be done before the Fashion Show, such us the back up banner, the model training, the make-up. At last, Sylvia and I divided jobs for ourselves. I was going to be charge of the making of the back up banner, and Sylvia and I were going to be charge of the model training together.

To make a back-up banner was a really difficult job. The banner was very big. The length was 6 meters and the width was 3 meters. There would be 27 letters total. I found 6 more volunteers to help me to do this work. Because we wanted to make the letters very bright, so we decided to us paint to paint all the letters. Also, we didn’t want to make all the letters in the same style, we decided to use different ways to paint.

After we made all the letters (which took us nearly 10 hours), we got another big problem, which is how to put all the letters on the curtain. We decided not to use the double side tape because we were afraid it would drop off easily. At last, we used staples to staple all the letters on the curtain.

The model training part was extremely tired. Not all the models came on time, and they were speaking in a loud voice. Sylvia and I needed to talk in a louder voice and gave everyone their order. We needed to tell them how to walk on the stage. It took us more than 3 hours to finish all the training part.

The emcee part was the most exciting part for me. I found I really love this job. I was the emcee of our school’s talent show, and I became the emcee of the school’s fashion show! There were 6 emcees total for this fashion show. My partner Alex and I were going to introduce the uniform part and the teacher’s clothes. Actually, this time, we didn’t practice a lot because at the weekend before the fashion show, we even didn’t know what the cloths looked like. At last, we decided not to practice at all.

On the day of the fashion show, someone helped me to do the make-up. I dressed in nice clothes. When I went on the stage, I found I was not nervous at all. I felt excited about this. I thought I was really brave now. There were many audience looking at me, the only felling I had was that I felt confident.

The Fashion Show didn’t last for a long time. After it ended, I took pictures with many teachers.

I did many voluntary works during the whole Fashion Show project. I got 20 voluntary work hours totally.

FUN PICTURES TAKEN IN CLASS 10C

GRADE 10 STUDY AWARDS

GRADE 10 PLANNING

Degrassi Junior High quiz.

GRADE 10 ENGLISH

One of my English Text papers.

GRADE 10 P.E

This was taken during the P.E class.

GRADE 10 MATH

This is one of my math quizes.

GRADE 10 SCIENCE

This is one of my Science text paper.

GRADE 10 MANDARINE

This is the text paper of my Mandarine fianl exam.

GRADE 10 ART

This is a picture which I have drawn during the Art class. It shows the difference of four seasons in a year.

THE TRIP TO THE NANJING BROCADE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

I went to the Nanjing Brocade Research Institute on Feb. 5th with a foreign family which was travelling to China at that time. They family was very interested in the Cloud Brocades and asked me that where they could buy some of the Cloud Brocades. I suggested them to go to this museum and joined their trip to the museum as well.
The Nanjing Brocade Research Institute was a museum where people could see many beautiful Cloud Brocades. The museum was located on East Cha Ting Road. There were four floors in the institute. The first floor displayed the production technology for Brocade The second floor displayed beautiful silk fabrics duplications of ancient dynasties and different Brocade patterns, including both loyal and folk clothes, their dynasties span from Warring States to Ming, Qing Dynasties and to modern times. The third floor exhibited Chinese minorities’ various looms, fabrics articles, nationality trappings, etc. The fourth floor displayed Brocade garments and minority trappings.
I like the artwork “On the Beach” very much. I showed the picture on the blog too. This was a very beautiful Cloud Brocade, and it took 1 year to make. On the Cloud Brocade, there was a woman holding a green bottle, and it seemed that she was finding something around. I like this artwork very much because it gave me a sense of relaxes and peace.
I like to go to this museum very much. Although I have been there before, I feel very excited. I think this museum represents a culture of Nanjing. As a person who lived in Nanjing for a long time, I believe it is my responsibility to learn the culture about China. Also, I think I will develop myself during the process of leaning the culture.

DINNER AT BELLA NAPOLI

On Dec. 6th, I went to an Italian restaurant “Bella Napoli” with some of my friends. Dec. 6th was Katherine’s birthday, and we decided to have dinner together. Sky suggested going to the “Bella Napoli” which located on the 3rd floor of De Ji Plaza. He said he saw the advertisement of this restaurant on the “Map” magazine. Later on, at about 7p.m, Katherine, Maria, Vivian, Sky, Cindy and me went to the restaurant together.

I did not like the food there very much. Firstl the dishes were very expansive. A pizza there would cost 115 yuan. Second, I did not think the food there was very delicious. Katherine ordered a kind of special spaghetti there, and she said that was awful. She did not like it at all. I tried some of Katherine’s spaghetti, and I got the same feeling as hers. I had been to many different restaurants and ate spaghetti before, and the spaghetti I ate in “Bella Napoli” was the worst. The spaghetti there was too sweet!

However, the environment there was quite good. The restaurant looked very beautiful. The tables there were red, and they matched the white walls very well. The whole restaurant created a sense of harmony to the people. I saw many foreigners were eating there. To my surprise, it seemed the foreigners were enjoying their meals very much. The service there was quite good. The waiters there could all speak English very well.

I thought I would not recommend other people to eat there because I really did not like the taste of the food there.

GRADE 10 PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES (20 HOURS)

I was a girl who was not very interested in sports. Although I knew that sports were good for my health, I thought they were very tired and did not like them very much. Any way, my school said that the BC government required us to do many physical activities, and we needed to do at least 10 hours physical activities before Jan. 8th. On Jan. 26th, I started doing my physical activities. I asked my mom if she would like to be my supervisor because I did not think I could keep doing them everyday. My mom was very pleased to hear that, and became my supervisor.

On Jan. 26th, I started doing my physical activities. I planed to do 1 hour each day, and then I only needed 10 days to finish the homework. My mom did not want me do go to the gymnasium because she thought the air there were not fresh, and the gymnasium was far away from my home. Finally, we decided to do the physical activities in an open space downstairs. At about 4 p.m, Mom and I went down stairs together. I must say, I was lazy, and did not want to do a lot of running, so I chose to do some rope skipping. I thought rope skipping was the easiest sport in the world. I would not feel tired at all. After half an hour, I found that I was wrong. I was too tired to move. Any way, I got a supervisor beside, she told me I could have a rest for 10 minutes and kept going. After 10 minutes, I kept doing the rope skipping, but much slower than before. Luckily, I did another 30 minutes safely and successfully in the end.

Later on, I kept doing my physical activities everyday. Sometimes I did 2 hours a day, which is very unusual for me. I thought it was a good idea that I invited my mom to be my supervisor. Without her, I was sure I could not keep doing this everyday. I did many different kinds of sports during my physical activities time. I ran along the Xuan Wu Lake; I played table tennis (ping-pang) with my father; I played badminton with my mother; I did rope skipping downstairs or at home. There was on thing that made me very happy. I found I lost weight by doing the physical activities! I believed I became healthier than before too.

I found that I knew more about myself during doing the physical activities. Before, I thought it was unrealistic for me to do 10 hours physical activities because I really didn’t like them. After doing the 10 hours physical activities, I found that “impossible is nothing” I could do many things if I tried my best to do, even the things I thought they were unrealistic at the beginning. In addition, I made my own personal fitness goal after the physical activities. I decided to do some physical activities everyday for at least 15 minutes. I want to be healthier than before, and be slimmer than before too.

I changed my mind to the physical activities. I thought some of them were interesting. I decided to try more kinds of activities later on. Of course, my mom felt happy about it, she said she would like to find some for me as well.

I also did the other 10 hours exercise during the May holiday in a gym. I felt happy that i did a lot of work on my after school activities. I feel healthier than before now.

GRADE 10 CLUB ACTIVITIES (tv series club + leadership)

During the term 1~2, 2009, I joined the TV Series Club, not only as a club member, but also as a leader. As a club leader, I did more things than others did during and after the club activities. I could found out the club’s strengths and weaknesses easier than others could as well. At the end of the 2 terms, I developed myself by joining the school clubs and realized how two work effectively with other students at GCA.

In Sep. 2009, Candy in 10-E said she would like to make a new club and asked me if I would like to be another leader of this club. She said she would like to make a TV Series Club. I agreed her idea, and then became another leader of this club. Later on, we started to make the table and advertisements for our club. We made three copies for the table and taped them on the wall in GCA. To our surprised, many students wanted to join our club, and that made Candy and me very happy but a little bit nervous. After one week, we took down all the tables from the wall and typed all the information there in our computer. Soon, we decided to hold our first club meeting. The meeting was quite successful. First, Candy introduced both of us when I was writing down our cell phone numbers on the whiteboard. Then I told all the members about what they were going to do at our club activities later on, and asked them for their suggestions. At last, we decided to hold our club activities on every Tuesday after school.

After the first meeting, Candy and I went to a DVD shop together. We needed to buy some TV Series DVD for our club activities. During the process, I asked Candy if we needed to buy some movies as well. I explained my opinion to her too. I thought TV Series is quite long, but our club activity would only last for an hour at one time. The members might feel bored if we only watched TV Series for weeks. I thought it might be good for all the members if they watched movies sometimes. Finally, we bought two TV Series and five movies. At the beginning of our second club meeting, I showed the members all the videos Candy and I had, and wanted them to make their own decision. There were some arguments when they were choosing the DVD. They wanted to see different videos. At last, Canady and I decided to obey the majority’s will, and told the others that we would watch the videos they wanted next time. Any way, almost all of the club activities after the second meeting were quite successful. At the end of term 2, Candy and I started to do the verifications for all the club members. We really had a hard time on those verifications.

As a club leader, I found out some strengths and weakness of our club. Many students were interested in watching TV Series or movies, which was the reason why our club got many club members. However, there were still some weaknesses of our club. I thought we might make some changes. In my mind, a club could not just made by fun, the club members needed to learn something from the club activities as well. I thought our club might ask the members to write something about their feelings about the movies nest term.

I believed that I developed myself by the club activities. I thought I could be a better leader than these two terms next term. On the other hand, I hoped I could learn more experiences from the coming club activities.

Also, luckily, I was chosen to be a member of our school leadership club, and i learnt many experiences of being a leader from this club.

THE VOLUNTEER WORK AT NANKING ORPHANAGE

【① at the gate of Nanking Orphange ②inside the orphange, at the children's living room ③the verification of my volunteer work ④the log of my volunteer work】

From Jan. 20th to Jan. 22nd, I went to the Nanking Orphanage and did my volunteer work. I usually played with the children there or taught them some simple English. During the 3 days, I got new impression of the children in the orphanage. On the other hand, I learnt some experience about how to teach or play with the children in the orphanage. After my 3-day volunteer work, I believed I can did some other works more effectively than before, which I thought was very useful and necessary for me.

The Nanking Orphanage was very beautiful and the orphans lived quite happy in the orphanage. Before I visited the orphanage, I thought it might be dirty and small. The children there would live in a bad condition. The workers there might be very acrimonious. They would be rude to the children very often. However, as soon as I arrived at the orphanage, I found that all of my opinions were wrong, totally wrong. The orphanage was very big and beautiful. Two main buildings and a small garden formed it. After met the director of the orphanage, I went to the fourth floor of the Rainbow Building (one of the buildings in the orphanage) which is mainly for the 6-10 years old children. To my surprise, the children there were quite happy. Some of them were playing with each other while others were watching TV when I came into their living room. The grandmothers (people who took care of those children there were usually called as “grandmothers”) there really took good care to the children. They were very nice to them.

From 8 a.m to 11 a.m, the children need to do their homework. I usually sat down on a chair nearby and read some books. Once the children need any help, I would go straight to them and answer their questions. Because the children there were in Grade 3 to Grade 5, I could answer most of their questions easily. Well, the only thing that I could not answer was the question about music. I really had a hard time on the music aspect. The children would have lunch at 11 a.m and had a nap to 1 p.m. I went to a restaurant nearby and enjoyed my meal during this time. Usually, I went back to the orphanage at 1 p.m and started to teach them some simple English. They learnt English at school, so I helped them to review for a while and then taught them something new. At about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, we played games together in the garden for 1 hour. Later on, the children would go back to their living room and watch TV. I brought “UNO” with me and taught them how to play. Many children were interested in this new card game, so some of them were playing “UNO” with me while others were watching TV. I left the orphanage at about 7:30 p.m.

After I finished my 3 days volunteer work at the Nanking Orphanage, I found I learnt many things. The children in the orphanage were very quite when I first saw them. The nannies there told me I could play with them for a while and make good relations with them. Luckily, after one hour playing, most of the children were more active than before. After a whole day, we had become good friends. They said they hoped to see me again, and I felt very happy about it. I also mentioned that the children there would feel bored if I taught them English sentence by sentence. However, after I made some games by those English sentences, the children showed more interests than before. I decided to go to the orphanage quite often and play with the children there. I thought that could make them happier if I did so.

The volunteer work only lasted for 3 days, but I leant a lot from it. I knew the orphans had a nice home and lived happily inside. I got experiences about how to teach the young children. I realized the importance of volunteer work. It could help me to get more impression of the society that I lived in. Any way, I believed I had learnt many useful skills during this three-day volunteer work, and I was willing to do more next vacation.

THE DINNER WITH GRADE 12 STUDENTS

On Tuesday, December the 23rd, I went to a Mexican restaurant called “Tacos” with some of my classmates and 3 students from the Grade 12. Actually we decided to go to another restaurant before. However, after we arrived at the restaurant which we deciede to go, we found the restaurant didn’t open. Later on, we deciede to go to “Tacos” which was located on one of the most famous roads in Nanjing – Zhu Jiang Road. We deciede to go there because “Tacos” is a quite famous restaurant in Nanjing, and most of my classmates haven’t been there before. At about 7 p.m, we arrived at the restaurant and started ordering the meals.

I had been to “Tacos” for 2 times when I was yong. I thought the food there were all very delicious. I ordered some bacon and a bowl of rice with curry chicken. Whatever, after I finished my dishes, I thought the food were not very good. My classmates were not satisfied with the foods there as well. I didn’t think the foods there tasted as the same as real Mexcian food.

One of my classmates ordered spaghetti which is very different than the food I usually ate. The shape and the size of the spaghetti were not like the traditional Chinese noddles at all. The shape of the spaghetti looked like long triangles, and the size of them were much bigger. The way we ate spaghetti was different as well. We used forks instead of using chopsticks. The environment and atmosphere there were good. “Tacos” was a quiet place without a lot of noise. People who were having meals there usually talked with a low voice. The service there was also good. The waiters were very patient.

I think I will recommend my friends to have meals there if they just want to find a place to have dinner instead of finding an Mexcian restaurant.

AN EXCURSION TO THE EXHIBITION

At the art class on Dec. 4th, our class,10-C and class 10-A went to an exhibition together. The exhibition was held in Nanjing University, and it was an exhibition mainly for famous sculptures. I saw a lot of sculptures which were made by Professor Wu Weishan at the exhibition. Professor Wu is a techer in Nanjing University, and he is a very famous sculptor too. There were also some artworks from other artists. There were both traditional artworks and contemporary artwoks at the exhibition.

I took many photos at the exhibition. Attached photo was the picture of me with my favourite sculpture which was called “A Bing” and made by Professor Wu Weishan in 2002. This artwork was a sculpture about one of the Chinese most famous musicians, A Bing. The sculpture were made by copper with brown color. The lines were exquisite and quite complicated. The subject is the person “A Bing ” in the artwork. The artist designed a special pose for “A Bing” which seemed like he was thinking about a music.

This artwork makes me feel harmonious and changes my thought toward a famous people. In my mind, a famouse person is usually serious and glassy-eyed. However, in the artwork “A Bing”, there was a nice smile on A Bing’s face. With that smile, A Bing seemed very friendly and happy. The smile on his face was not only warm, but also powerful. From his smile, I could know that he was a person who was not afraid of bad people and corrupt government. He would try his best to brought other people in the society a happy life. This artwork reminds me a lot of heros’ name from the past. There were a lot of heros just like A Bing, who were always affirmative and never gave up. Without them, we won’t get such a great life today. I think the artist wants to tell us, no matter what a bad condition we are in, we can’t give up. We need to study from A Bing, always bring a smile on our face, and try our best to go over all the problems.

I like this artwork very much because from this artwork, I realize that the most useful way to go over a problem, is keep going, and never give up. I feel this way from A Bing’s smile which gives me confidence. I think that other people might appreciate this artwork because they will realize the same thing as I do. After seeing this artwork, they might strart trying their best to do everything.

I like this exhibition very much. I think the exhibition is quite interesting. In the exhibition, I saw a lot of beautiful and meaningful sculptures which made by Professor Wu Weishan and many other sculptors. These greatful artists used their artwork to show Chinese culture and spirit to the whole world. From those artworks, I knew more about the Chinese statuary which I thought was very useful for me too. On the other hand, I learnt from the artists as well. It was hard for an artist to creat a sculpture, they would meet a lot of problems, but they would not give up. That is the most valuable thing I learnt from the exhibition.

I really enjoyed this exhibition and learnt a lot from it.

GUEST ARTIST

On Dec. 1st, Professor Zhao Bing （the man in the photo on the left side of the article）came to our school and gave us a speech. Mr. Zhao Bing is a landscape architect, and he is a teacher in Nanjing Forestry University. As an expert on landscaping, Professor Zhao Bing had many works. His artwork was located in many famous places, like Confucius Temple and Suzhou Classical Gardens. Mr. Zhao introduced us something about the design of the Suzhou Classical Gardens.

During the presentation, Mr. Zhao told us how the people designed the Suzhou Classical Gardens. There were two important way to design a garden. Planting was a very important part for a garden. Different types of planting might create different senses of feeling to people. Suzhou Classical Gardens used a very special way to build up the plantations. The designers planted different kinds of trees around the houses. People would think that the houses were hidden behind the forests.

The second way of designing was using water to separate the houses. Many people thought water was the best thing in the world. Water was very clean, when you looked down into the water, it would show yourself truly. That’s the reason why people in ancient China loved water very much. In the Suzhou Classical Gardens, many houses were separated by different sizes of lake or pounds. During the summer time, these lakes could provide people a cool environment. Also, the lakes around the house could make the person calm down. The designers wanted to use the lakes to create a sense of serenity to the people who lived there.

Mr. Zhao Bing also mentioned that a garden might be influenced by the designer’s emotion. For example, an active designer might made a garden which could make people felt energetic. On the other hand, a designer which is not very emotional might create a garden which could let people felt calmness.

Actually, I don’t like this presentation very much. I think this presentation was a little bit boring. Professor Zhao Bing used very nice pictures of Suzhou Classical Gardens to show us how the people decorated the gardens while he was saying. I like the way he used very much. However, Mr. Zhao Bing used many professional words which were very hard for me to understand. It was boring for me to sit there for more than 1 hour and just seeing the pictures without understanding the most of the speech.

GRADE 10 SOCIAL STUDIES

This is a poster about why Canada need confederation. Katherine and I did this poster together.

TALENT SHOW (Act in a Performance)

I felt very happy because I was the emcee of the GCA Talent Show! I thought It was an interesting experience for me. I learnt many experiences from this activity.

My planning teacher – Ms. Bartell asked me if I would like to be the emcee of the Talent Show one week before it happens. Although I said I was willing to do it, I felt a little bit nervous about it because I had to speak in front of the whole school!

During the following day, Patrick (who is the other emcee of the talent show) and I practiced a lot in the GCA small garden. We did some detailed practice too.

On the day of the Talent Show, I was nervous. To my surprise, my art teacher –Ms. Hadley said I seemed calm when I was standing on the stage. The day after the talent show, many teachers came to me and told me that I did a good job. I felt very happy about this.

After this Talent Show, I thought that I became braver than before. I could do many things confident in front of all my classmates. My parents felt happy about this because they were worried that I could not fit in my new school very well.

It was my first time to be an emcee, and I thought I did a quite good job. To be the emcee of the school talent show became an unforgettable memory to me. I would like to join more activities in the future.