英語基礎寫作一 心得

其實這門課所上的內容跟我原本想像的不太一樣，既然名為"基礎寫作"，我以為是靠大量的寫作來提昇自己寫作的能力。話是這麼說，我還是學習到了如何分析一文章，我也盡量用我所學到的像topic sentence或quotation應用到我自己的文章，但可能是我本身語文程度就不太好吧，所以寫出來的東西總是有奇怪的邏輯而不自覺XD

總之我覺得這是很不錯的一門課，至少我覺得上完這門課我的寫作有比以前進步，最後當然是謝謝老師的用心 :D

The Freeways in Taiwan

      Freeway is a very convenient system of traffic. People who drives a car can use it to go to where it passes through quickly. Although the highest speed limit of the freeways in Taiwan is not as high as other contrary like the United States, it still doesn't take too much time from Taipei to Kaohsiung.

      Freeways are the most important highway in Taiwan. The first freeway was constructed in 1970s. It was really a milestone of traffic then although it just passed through the western Taiwan. Taking a train was not the only way to move from a place to another. After then, other routes were constructed continually. By far there are 8 different routes of freeway that have been constructed, and some of them are planning to extend the routes.

      However, though freeways make our lives be more convenient, they also bring some negative influences. One is that the business along the freeways would drop because people need not stay. For example, once Hsuehshan Tunnel had been constructed, the business of Pinglin, which is a midway town of the Freeway No.5, became very languished. Another influence is that the construction will destroy the environment. This issue is more important than any others.

      To sum up, constructing freeways makes our lives become more convenient, but it also bring some problems. How to strike a balance between the development and the protection of the environment is still a lesson for us.

Spirit of Statistician, Physicist, and Mathematician

      One day when I went to a bookstore, I read a book which is about mathematics. It had an interesting story about a goat. The purpose of the story was to tell us about the different spirits of

statistician, physicist, and mathematician. What was the story about? Let's check it out.

      One day, a statistician, a physicist, and a mathematician had a trip together. when they were on a train, they see a black goat on the grasslands outside the window. 

• "I claim that all the goat here are black, and my sample size is 1." said the statistician . 
• "I just conclude that this one is black . I don't know how about others." said the physicist.
• "I am only sure that the side we saw is black ." said the mathematician.

      Obviously, the three kind of people have different opinion. Statisticians are used to analysis the data they get and then predict about the future. In other words, statisticians are looking at future; Physicists are more strict then statisticians. But they still have some ideal assumption. In other words, physicists live in a methodic world which follows the laws; However, what mathematicians think is always following logic. They never believe the fact that haven't been proved. In other words, mathematicians are very strict about everything. It is quite difficult to persuade them by any nonsense.

      This story really gave me a big apocalypse. Because of majoring in mathematics, the spirit of the mathematician in the story is a model of my study, so do my personality. 

The Bulletin Board System

      The Bulletin Board System, or BBS for short, is a common online socializing platform. It is a foundation of modern forum. Though less and less people know about BBS, there are still some famous stations such as PTT or Bahamut. The introduction below includes some advantages and disadvantages of BBS and some comparison with modern forums.

       The first advantages of BBS is that the system is text only, so the speed of data transmission could be very fast. Another advantage of BBS is that the appearance is very clear. You won't see too many otiose things or ads so that you can be attention on the article you read. Comparing with modern forums, the speed of them are slower when browsing, and there are a lot of otiose things or ads that hindering our reading.

      However, BBS has some disadvantages. The first is that we can't see any picture files. (Actually, some people can use only signs and the command in a computer to make a picture, but it is not a kind of a picture file.) This can be overcome by uploading the picture to the Internet and then giving the link in the article. But some people think it is still inconvenient. Another disadvantage is that the operation is not easy. In BBS, you can only use the keyboard. Each key has different function. It takes some time for you to be proficient. Comparing with modern forums, they can view the picture directly, and the operation is also very easy. No wonder that modern forums are more popular than BBS.

       Although modern forums are more popular than BBS, BBS still plays an important role on the Internet. The amount of information is larger and the velocity of information transmission is faster. So some people especially university students prefer using BBS. So if you are proficient to the operation of BBS, it is a good way to get information quickly on BBS.

Miracle of Linsanity

      Jeremy Lin, who is a basketball player, has become very famous for his excellent performance on the basketball court. It is rare that an Asian American could be noticed in NBA. Most of the basketball fans around the world know his name. It is called Linsanity.

       In fact, before he became famous, he was just a common basketball player in Harvard and wasn't noticed before he get in New York Knicks. How does he succeed? First, he is hard-working on basketball. He practices basketball very hard everyday. Second, he is not stuck-up. He realizes that basketball is not played by only one people. He always cooperates to his partners. Most important, his parents support Lin's basketball career very well. If they were oppose his decision, Lin's couldn't had been successful.

      However, the trend of Linsanity doesn't always cause positive influence. For example, medium  in Taiwan spend too much time reporting about Jeremy Lin so that people who wants to watch other news doesn't have any chance. Another example is that reporters in Taiwan asked too many otiose questions about Lin's. This may intrude into his privacy.

      It goes without saying that Lin's performance is excellent, including his basketball skill and his personality. His spirit is a model for everyone. The trend of Linsanity is really a miracle.

How to Make Cookies

      


      Cookie is a delicious dessert that many people like it. But many people want to make it themselves but don't know how. Let's introduce how to make delicious cookies below.


      Before making, we should prepare some ingredients. We need 80 grams of butter, 60 grams of sugar, some eggs, and 200 grams of flour. You can prepare additional ingredients such as cocoa or raisins if you want.

• First, melt the butter, then add the sugar and mix them until becoming white.
• Second, take one egg and whip it. Then add it to the mixture in the first step and stir them uniformly. Then add the flour in it and stir them until becoming dough. If you have other additional ingredients, you should add them now.
• Third, put the dough in a refrigerator for about 30 minutes.
• Fourth, roll the dough to about 0.3 centimeters thickness, and then make the shape you like.
• Fifth, add some  egg yolk on the small dough, and then put them on a baking tray. Put them in a oven. Set the temperature at about 150 degrees Celsius for 6 minutes.

      

      Then you can have your delicious cookies made by yourself. Enjoy it!

The Security of Foods

      Recently, there were much news about the problems of foods. For example, meat contains Ractopamine, drinks contain plasticizer, and agriculture products remain pesticides, etc. It seems that there is nothing to eat or to drink. But actually, the issues are not so serious because we have eaten them for a long time and few people died of the foods. There are some reasons so that we could take this issue easy.

      First, people are more demanding about food quality. As people become more affluent then before, they demand for higher quality of foods. Nobody wants to get disease, so they avoid eating insecure foods. In fact, there is no food that is 100% secure, so it is not necessary to be nervous.

      Second, the technology makes the food test more sensitive. Take Ractopamine for example, the test machine could just test up to micrometer accurately before, but now machines can test up to nanometer accurately, so many issues seem to be appearing. But in fact, the quantity is too little to make people get disease if you don't eat too much in a short time.

      Last, the medium and the reporters in Taiwan make the issues exaggerated. People usually get information from medium and the reporters instead of scientists or teachers. Unfortunately, medium and the reporters in Taiwan are used to exaggerate the news. People who believes in the medium easily would become nervous about foods with problem. 

      To sum up, the issue of foods is not as serious as we think. There is no food that is secure absolutely. They wouldn't harm us if you don't eat too much in a short time. If you are too nervous, there may be nothing to eat.

Little Miss Sunshine

      This movie is about a little girl called Olive. She participated a competition for Little Miss sunshine. It is a kind of motivational movie.

      Olive is my favorite character because of her lively and cute. There was a scene that when Olive knew that she would participate the competition, she was so happy that she became crazy. How funny it was! Another reason I like this character is that other characters were too noise for me whenever they quarreled with each other while Olive was quiet. During the trip to the competition, Olive was usually afraid of becoming a loser, but her grandfather tried hard to cheer her up, and then she felt better.  

      In the end of the story, although Olive didn't win the competition, she tried her best to dance on the stage won a lot of applause, including her families. Then she knew that there are something more important than winning the competition. That is, love and support of her families.

Politically Correct English

    Politically correct English is a new concept in the recent year. It can make language more respectful to all people. By using politically correct English, we will avoid some offensive words so that we would not offend others when we are talking.

    What is politically correct English? One case is that there are many words in English that put too much emphasis on gender such as "policeman", "stewardess", or "waitress", which end in "man" or "ess". It is better to use "police officer", "flight attendant", and "server". Another case is the issues of race and disabilities. For example, we should use "Native American" instead of "Indian", and use "person with a disability" instead of "handicapped".

    The goal of politically correct English is to treat everyone fairly. But there is another big problem. English has no gender-neutral singular pronoun to replace "he" or "she". Generally, when we use singular pronoun with unknown people, we often use "he". Though it means he or she, many people still visualize only a male. One solution is to use "they" to make the sentence plural. Another solution is creating a new gender-neutral singular pronoun to treat both genders fairly.

    If you don't want to offend someone, you had better know which words to use. Using politically correct English is a good way to show your respect although some people think that it has gone too far. Just to make others feel better.

Skipping Class in University

    Students skipping class in university has been more and more common. Almost every student has ever skipped class at least once. Adults must think this isn't really a good behave. But is it absolutely bad?

    There are some common reasons that university students skip class. First, they stay up very late because of homework, studying, or surfing the Internet, so they decide to oversleep. Second, they don't want to study in this class at all. They select this class just because they want to get the credit of the graduation. Third, they think that they have other more valuable matter to do rather than staying in classroom, etc.

    It is worth to skipping class if you have other more valuable matters to do. The principal of National Taiwan University said that he supports skipping class with intention. Like having a grand tour in Europe. Though it sounds a little ridiculous, but the spirit is worth learning. For example, I have ever skipped a class in Tsinghua to go to other university to attend to one of their class.

    Skipping class is not absolutely bad if you have other valuable intention. Not sleeping in the dormitory or playing computer games. If you can make your life more meaningful, sitting in the classroom will not be the unique choice.

Corporal Punishment

    Corporal punishment in school is a controversial issue in Taiwan recently. Decades ago, corporal punishment wasn't been discussed because most of the parents took it for granted and thought that it was necessary. However, more and more parents think that corporal punishment will cause bad influence on children, and even forbid it. In my opinion, I have some reasons to support  corporal punishment without excess.

    First, making mistakes must be punished. Just like the laws of a country. Different degrees of mistakes would have different punishment, so that the child would know what he or she did was not correct. As a result, children would behave with discipline.

    Second, corporal punishment is a great lesson. Before punishing, telling the reasons why the students would be punished can be another kind of education. If just punish without saying anything, it is possible that cause bad influence on them. It is a good way for students to learn a lesson.

    Last, corporal punishment is a great way to let students introspect themselves. In Finland, school punishes students by having them stay in classroom after school to introspect themselves. In New Zealand, they introspect themselves by cleaning the environment. Those who was punished would really understand they did something wrong.

    Corporal punishment in school is necessary, but it could not overdo. Maybe it is not perfect way, but it is efficient. It doesn't make any sense that many parents forbid corporal punishment. This must just make children more and more arrogant.

Rubik's Cube

Rubik's Cube is a marvelous toy which have been played by lots of people around the world. Once you mess up the cube, it is almost impossible to return all of the block if you don't know how to solve it. There are some introduce below. I hope they can make more people be interested in Rubik's Cube.

Rubik Ernő, who is a Hungarian architectural professor, invented this cube. At first he used this cube just as teaching materials of architectural. But then he found that if stick six different color stickers on the six side and then mess up the cube, it is very difficult to return it. A few years later, this toy start to spread around the world. And this toy is named "Rubik's Cube" from Rubik Ernő.

The most basic ideas of solving the cube is called "Layer by Layer" instead of "side by side". We have to complete the first layer first, and then the second layer, and finally, the third layer. Each layer has some formulas to complete the layer. Just follow the formulas step by step, and you will return a mess cube.

Recently, there are more and more different cubes are manufactured because more and more people can solve the general Rubik's Cube, which can't satisfy the experts. Like increasing the layers up to 11 or make the shape strange to challenge those who interested in. 

Rubik's Cube is really an amazing toy. It can not only kill time but also make some beautiful pattens. Hence Rubik's Cube is worth playing.

If you want to know the details, you can browse this website: 

http://www.unicube.tw/

The Tomb-sweeping Day

The Tomb-sweeping Day is one of the 24 solar terms in the lunar calendar. The date of this day is 106 days after the winter solstice, in other words, is on April 5th. (But this day would be on April 4th if that year is a leap year.) The book Huai-nan-tsu records that this day everything is clear, and the plants are starting to blossom. This is why the Tomb-sweeping Day called Ching-Ming in Chinese.

The Tomb-sweeping Day is a very important day for the Chinese and the Taiwanese. Everyone should visit the tomb where the ancestors were buried. Then we start to clean the tomb, put some sacrifices, and worship the ancestors, etc. The meaning of sweeping tomb is to commemorate the ancestors because of their achievements. We should never forget them.

However, the live in the present days becomes busier then before, so some people decide not to visit the tomb because of their work. I think this may not be a good choice. Visiting the tomb must be much more important then one's work.

Mathematics and Arithmetic

Most of the people think that Mathematics and Arithmetic are equivalent. But in my opinion, they are quite very different. I have been studying in mathematics for two years since I got in the university. Then I know that math is actually a very different knowledge I have never learned.

Arithmetic is just a technic of calculating or solving the problems with numbers. On the other hand, mathematics is another larger world. The kernel of this knowledge is "analysis", and then you have to prove the conclusion if possible.  For example, given a function f(x) = x^2 , prove that the function f(x) is continuous on |R(Real numbers). The statement in this problem may be trivial for many people, but actually, we have to write a very strict process that each word is reasonable and conforms to logic. The answer is too long, and I think it is not the emphasis of this article, so I omit it here.

Comparing arithmetic with math, they are really different. So I don't like people who confused arithmetic with mathematics a little. Math is really not easy, but arithmetic is not as hard as you think. Just to read the question carefully, the answer to the problem is just a little calculating.

My First Post

Hello everyone, my name is Eric. I major in mathematics, and I'm second grade.

English has been the international language for a long time, so learning English is very important. My English may not be very poor, but also not so good, so I study in this class to improve my English writing skill.

Also, the teacher of this class speaks English quickly. This can be one of the challenges for me. I hope in the end of the semester, I could understand 80 percent of what the teacher says!