journal 13

David, Barboza, (2009, Nov 15) Obama begins first visit to China

New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/world/asia/16shanghai.html

Obama comes to visit China for the first time. David Barboza (2009) says, in the New York Times, the purpose of this trip is tying the relationship between America and China (par. 1). Although the world’s economy is in deep recession, China economy still rises by eight percent (par. 7). Consequently, America is hoping that China’ new policy of currency will allow America to easily access the China market and speed up its exports (par. 4). Some America ministers say that China makes use of slowing down its currency to greatly increase its exports (par. 9). But the truth is that many Chinese companies exist and work in the US, and they also have to pay for the same business costs of America’s (par. 10). President Obama is very eager to work and cooperate with China for a better future of America. Let’s hope that the world recession soon slow down, creating jobs for many workers.

journal 12

Deforestation has become one of the most concerned problems. Many of forests disappear quickly. (Edward Harris. "A Vicious Cycle of Deforestation." Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, CA) Feb. 3, 2008: A.6. SIRS Researcher. Web. 25 September, 2009.) It also results in many horrible disasters in the world. (.”( CQ RESEARCHERSept. 20, 1991, Vol. 1, No. 19, pp. 683-698, (c) Mary H. Cooper. "Saving the Forests." CQ Researcher Sept. 20 1991: 683-698. SIRS Researcher. Web. 15 October 2009.). This also leads to the vanish of biodiversity and watershed protection. (David Lamb, Peter D Erskine, John A Parrotta (Dec 9, 2005).Restoration of Degraded Tropical Forest Landscapes. Science, Washington. Vol. 310, Iss. 5754, p. 1628-32 (5 pp.) Therefore, people have to look for the solution to this problem. Some of them are: reforestation, plantations, and forest management. ((David Lamb, Peter D Erskine, John A Parrotta (Dec 9, 2005).Restoration of Degraded Tropical Forest Landscapes. Science, Washington. Vol. 310, Iss. 5754, p. 1628-32 (5 pp.)

journal 11

I have made a research of deforestation from the Wikipedia. There are many aspects relating to this topic such as: environments problem, economic impact, causes or controlling of deforestation. But I prefer ways of controlling deforestation. I want to know about how people are doing to prevent deforestation and what is the result. Solving this problem is not easy, and it takes lots of time because it depends on many things such as: effect, people or policy. However, preventing deforestation is really necessary due to the benefit of forest. Consequently, it must be a must. Governments all over the world pay much attention to this problem. They also invest money and human resource for plantation, forest management and farming. Let's look at what they are doing, and how they do it. My question topic is : what is the best way of controlling deforestation?

Topic research

Research paper seems to be so dreadful to many people, including of me. In my country, we also often did research paper one or two times a year. But we were not trained how to do it. Therefore, our research paper is not good in quality.
It is really a good chance for us to study how to make a research paper. Although my major is economics, i still want to choose somethings out of this scope, just for a little challenge.
I want to study more about the deforestation. And, of course, i will choose this for the research paper's topic.

American food

Whenever saying about American food, I always think of hamburger and fast food. Truly speaking, I do not like American food, because it is too fat.
In my country, traditional food is rice, meat or fish and vegetable. We just eat bread for the breakfast. We seldom use cheese or jams because it is expensive. Some years ago, fast food is never heard in my country, but nowadays it is becoming more popular, especially in the big cities, for the youth due to convenience.
In contrast, Americans are fond of bread. I see them eat bread all the time with cheese, jams, and meat. They also like fast food so much that even children get used to eating it. I heard from a newspaper that an American mother of eight children also let them eat fastfood. I do not think it is a good idea as fast food contain a lot of fat, and there is not enough fruit and vegetable in it.
If a friend said to me that " let's go eat American", it means that we will go to eat together, but each pays for himself. This is maybe the style of America, independence and fair. This is a little different from some countries where the men or those asking to eat out first will paid.
America also have many kinds of food. However, it is really famous for its hamburger. Its hamburger is so delicious because of the meat, the cheese, and the sauce, that other countries can not imitate.
However, whenever mentioning about America, I first do not think of its food. And I do not think that America is famous for its food. Instead, it is famous for economics, education, technologies or somethings like that.

journal 8

People have different thoughts about difficulties in their life. Some often ask themselves why they have to face up with so many challenges and do not possess a happy and calm life while others do their best to find the solution for their problems without any complaints. Personally, I totally agree with a saying: " A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

Various perspectives of difficulties in life depend much on each one's habit and characteristic. For a hard-working student, quizz or examination is one way of practicing and strengthening academic knowledge while it is a big problem to those who do not feel interested in studying. According to the optimist's opinion, people will grow up after any obstacles they must face. Therefore, they do not dare to confront with any challenges and hoping that tomorrow will be better than tomorrow. I remember the day when my family knew that my mum was having a cancer. We were very sad and cried a lot as we thought that she would soon passed away and left us alone. But later, we recognized that the most important thing we should do at that time was bringing her to the hospital and carefully taking care of her. Moreover, we also needed to let her know that how much we loved her and we would be with her all the time. Now it has been ten years since that day; she made greatly recovery and still strongly lives with us. And nothing is more important and wonderful than her appearance in our life. Generally speaking, at that time it was really a difficulties for all of us. However, it was also the chance for us to strengthen our family relationship and to show our love and gratitude to the other members.

In conclusion, there is a reason for all difficulties or challenges happening in our life.This will help us to be more experienced and skillful in the future. Consequently, do not be afraid of any obstacle.

journal 7

It is not easy to look for a close friend. And people have different opinions of how to be close friends. From my point of view, I agree with " bird of a feather flock together".

I have a friend who shares with me the same interest in traveling, and we also have many other things in common. We have been for friends for more than 10 years, and live with each other for 4 years during the student life. We liked to go out for dinner in the evening, go shopping and movies at the weekend. Especially, we like to travel a lot. And we often went to a new place every month. It is really joyful and interesting to travel with one who understand us so much. We also can eagerly discuss about an attractive topic, or we can also keep silent to be own in our deep thought. Sometime, we also argued with each other because of disagreeing in something. However, this did not last so long and we continued our new routine.

I also have a friend who often shares with me her thinking. She is my neighbor for 15 years, and we have been friends since then. It can be said that all of my childhood was together with her. We often went fishing, catching butterfly, or played traditional games. As she is at the same age of me, we often went to the class and studied together. Whenever she was sad, she often talked with me and asked for advice. Later, when we were far away from hometown for college, we did not live close to another. However, we still often hanged out together.

Those are my close friends, and we share many things in common. Therefore, I think it is easy to be friends with those who have the same interests with us.

If animals could talk!

I am just wondering how" if animals could talk" could be a journal 6? It is not silly,but it is funny and I laughed a lot when I first read this journal. However, truly speaking it is so interesting and fantastic if animals could talk.

I love pets so much, especially the dogs. Yet, it is not easy to take care of one dog in the US. I just imagine that if one day my dog could talk with me, he would be regarded as one of my best friends provided that he were just be able to talk with me. Every morning, when I wake up, I would ask my lovely dog that "did you sleep well last night" and gave a sweetie kiss on his chin. Then we would happily enjoy breakfast for about 45 mins. Although this dog could speak, he still had to stay at home and look after our house carefully. I would not leave home for work without a request to my beloved dog that" be obedient at home, I will be back soon". Pets are like babies, they need to be fed, and looked after. So it is not simple to have a dog, but what you receive from this funny and lovely dogs are much more which will fades away your tiredness, and loneliness. If you live alone, without your family and friends, when you be back home in the evening and there is a dog waiting for you at the doorsteps, how will you feel? warm and happy? More impressively, this one could talk and of course I would ask him " anybody reach our house and take something out today?"
General speaking, I would talk with my dog the whole day if he could speak, even the simple or small thing. I would love him as much as I will love my future baby.

A favorite song!

People often listen to music when they are both sad,happy, exhausted or energetic. Sometime, song is just about the a simple life in a remote area while sometimes it is an adventurous story of a whole life. I often listen to music when I feel blue. One of my favorite song is "farewell to you" of White Lion.

I just heard this beautiful song 2 months ago for the first time. It was the day I was preparing to leave my beloved country Vietnam for the US. At that night, my friends and I had a "farewell" party. We danced, sung and reminded each other of sweetie memories. We talked to so much till midnight. However, we felt time ran so fast and it did not wait for us. It was a sad and memorable day. Now when I am in America, I often play this song .Whenever I hear it, the feeling of that day remains, not fades away.Its lyrics is very simple but it is a meaningful song. I am deeply impressed at" well its time to say goodbye, I am glad you stayed until the end". And it is always true that "it was easier to say hello than to say goodbye". Yes, "it's hard to say goodbye" but I will be back one day and we will enjoy sweet time together.

weather

Weather is a popular topic people often talk or discuss together. In my country, different countries have different climate. In the North, there are four seasons in a year. It is really hot in summer, extremely cold in winter, rather cool in fall and pretty warm in spring. However, in the South there are two seasons: rainy and sunny one.

Those first visiting our country for the first time are really surprised at the hot climate of Saigon all the time. It seems to be hot all the time and we even need a coat or a sweater. In the rainy season, it rains everyday; but just after a short and heavy rain, it is brighter. And in the sunny season, there is early sunrise and late sunset which is really wonderful for those visiting the beach. Yet, if we travel to the highland, the climate is a little different in spite of 2 seasons- sunny and rainy. Sunny season is cooler ; and in rainy season, it rains softly all the time, from the morning till midnight.

In the North, there are 4 seasons. And it is really famous for fall with cool climate and yellow leaves fall down. In spring, there is soft rain, which we call " spring rainy". This is really romantic for couples, hand in hand, and going around the city.

General speaking, we have different climate in different countries. Whenever, I am far away from my country, i miss it a lot, even a rainy day or a brightly sunny day.

toad- a horrible animal.

Everybody wants to be a hero. And none of them want to face any fear. Surpringsly, they are still scared of small things for no reason.

Personally, I am terribly frightened by the toad just because its skin looks lumpy. When I first saw a toad at my 3-year old, I loudly screamed out and asked my mother for help. Looking at my funny face at that time, everybody laughed a lot. They even did not understand why I was so frightened as in their eyes, toad is a really useful animal. They eat mosquitoes; moreover, it is nutritious for bone growing. Especially, those whose children do not grow up often look for toad and make toad for their children.

As we lived in the country side, there were many toads live in my house. They often slept under the bed and noisily croaked all the night. I hated them, really hated them. Whenever I saw them, I tried to jump up as far and high as possible. Sometimes, I used a stick and heavily poked them away.

I remembered one night, I went to bed without putting my shoes in the shelf. When I woke up, inserting the feet to my shoes and hearing a crying from the inside. I feel disgusted and threw my shoes away immediately, carefully washing my feet. Since then, I never put my shoes disorderly.

Until now, I still feel horrible when I see a toad. I do not know how to overcome my fear. Luckily, in US, I do not see any toad.

Journal #2

Nowadays traffic jam has been one of the most concerned problems of not only small countries but also the big one such as America.

Truly speaking, all of roads in the US are much larger than my country's at a first glance. I used to think that we never get stuck in the roads here until the day I went to San Diego . Cars slowly moved up in a very long line of nearly 2 miles and it took me 3 hours to reach my destination. Even worse, this happens frequently especially in some specific freeways such as: 22, 405, 91, 57, 5.I have just been to the US nearly 2 months and I have not got my driving license yet. Therefore, I have to get bus everyday to school and it takes so much of time.If I have class at 8 o'clock in the morning, I have to wake up at 5 o'clock, getting out of my house at 5:30 and catch the 6:00 bus.

Indeed, it is not convenient to use buses in California. Maybe because roads are large here, people use private cars more than public transportation. However, I am practicing to drive and take a test next month. So after that, I will buy a car and will not have to use bus anymore.

Comparing Orange County's transportation to my country's, it is totally different. Firstly, my country's most popular mean of transportation is motorbikes. Only those who are rich can afford a car as car price of the same kind in my country is two times more expensive than the US's due to high tax of 100%. Secondly, roads in my country are very small, and traffic jams always happen especially in rush hours from 7to 8 in the morning and 6 to 7 in the evening. Thirdly, public transportation such as buses is more popular in my country. Most of buses are always full of seats, and customers have to stand instead of comfortably sitting down while it is not difficult to find a seat in a bus of US.

Generally speaking, traffic jam now is the problem of not only one country but also the whole world. Government should have different ways to solve this problem such as limiting the fuel resource or raising the car's price.

Introduction!

Hi everybody,

My name is Hai Yen. I am from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. I have been here for nearly 2 months. Life in the US is completly different from mine. However, I am trying to get falliar with the people, weather, and school here.

My major is bussiness. I want to get the MBA. Consequently, after finishing the ALP, I will apply for the MBA program in the Cal State Fullerton. Campus in the US is so different from my school. It is much bigger, and has more building with different functions such as: education, recreation, nursery. People here are so friendly and useful. They are really nice and eager if you are in need of help. One day, i came home by bus. As I did not know about the route as well as which station to stop, the bus driver nicely showed me the way without forgetting to smilely say " take care".

I hope that i will do well with my school, although i miss my family and hometown so much.

Nice to meet all of you.

Yours,

Yen Luong