The article “Great Leaders in the World”provides some common characteristics of the prominent leaders. A successful leader has to be capable of speaking well in public, having mutual understanding of other people, having the experience of traveling early in life to expand his horizon, and daring to challenge the authority in the proper ways. According to Howard Gardner, an outstanding leader has to create the message that can influence the followers’ feeling, and possess the ability to embody it. For example, Margaret Thatcher gave the direction of the future of the Britain, and made people believe that she could fulfill what she promised. In fact, she indeed showed her courage during the Falklands War and after the terrible bombing. Besides, the other kind of the leader is the one who is able to persuade his followers in the more complicated ways. For example, the Mahatma Gandhi and Jean Monnet are the best models of it. Mahatma Gandhi convinced citizens of the nation to believe that violence was not the only way to solve the conflict. Besides, Jean Monnet made certain that the Europe didn’t have to be the collection of the hostile countries. They provided the population a flexible thinking, changed their thoughts, and took the obstacles as chances.
Thus, I think that the leader’s characters such as confidence, broad vision, courage, and the acceptance of other's opinions are quite important because they will present in his behavior and the way he deals with things, and they will influence the followers’ perspectives about whether the leaders have the potential to be a distinguished one.
The definition of the household force is that the trespass on body or the spirit between the family members. This force arises more and more people’s attention in the recent years. The following are some misunderstanding about it. First, only the violence between husband and wife is called household force. It’s wrong because violence between the people live together but don’t marry, the one of the spouse hit the other’s family, and even they are divorced are also called as household force. Second, the victims are always females. It’s not true because there’re males who suffer the violence but fear to ask for help, because people think it’s disreputable. However, the violence isn’t relevant to the sexual difference. Third, there’re few people are in this situation. In fact, there’re 30 to 35% of the couples are in the shadow of the violence, which points out the problem seems to become more serious. Fourth, the violence is not as serious as the victims say, or they will leave as soon as possible. There are many factors which influence the victims’ ways to deal with it. For example, the economic, traditional stress, and the social support will restrict the victims’ will to escape from it. The last but not least, the children in the violent family are much more possible to become the abuser. It’s the most common concept that most people agree; nevertheless, according to the report, there’re 70% of the children in the family won’t become abuser, and only 30% of them will be. I think this concept is why people label the children and produce a kind of the prejudice to them. From the above statements, I think we should pay more attention to the others, because this kind of violence is uneasy to discover. A bruise, scar, or a cut can be a signal for help. If we can notice it and give our hands in time, many tragedies can be prevented.
Shaka, this sign is composed of extending the thumb, pricking up the little finger, and curling the other fingers. When people use the gesture to greet others, they will have their back of the hand face the one they greet. Besides, it also has another positive meaning in many countries. In Hawaii, it means all right, cool, smooth, hello, take care, or till next time. Furthermore, it represents greeting or acknowledgement in America when other drivers give way to them. In southern American, even the famous football player, Ronaldinho, who was awarded FIFA World Footballer of the Year expressed his excitement by the gesture.
In Taiwan, people seldom use the gesture to greet or to show delight. Instead of the gesture, we wave hands to greet people and use the YA gesture to express our delight. Besides, when somebody gives way to us, we will nod our head to show our gratitude. We have many kinds of gestures or body languages to show our greeting. However, we use the shaka sign to mean ‘’call me back’’ at the end of the conversation. What's more, we also have a slight change that we will lean the hand and have the it near the ears. There're so many kinds of interpretations of the gesture. It's amazing that the slight change of the gesture and the different countries will interpret its meaning so differently.
Taj Mahal, one of the seven marvelous sights, was built under the fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of her wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It was built in northern India in 1644, and erected by twenty thousand people for twenty years to complete it. The mausoleum was symmetric and the central dome was sixty five meter high with four steeples which were thirty nine meters high around it. In addition to the main mausoleum, there were forecourt, garden, fountain, water path and two mosques on both sides of it. The most important part of it was the central room where the stone coffins of the emperor and the queen were put. The fabulous building represented the emperor's sincere love for the queen who accompanied him for nineteen years even when he joined the battles. However, she died of giving birth to the fourteenth child. Before her death, she requested the most fantastic mausoleum and her husband couldn't remarry. He kept the promise in mind and used the white marbles which meant the unchangeable affection to construct Taj Mahal; besides, he planned to uses black ones to build his mausoleum opposite to hers. However, this plan had never fulfilled because his son overthrew him and prisoned him for the rest of his life. It's very touching, but there are different opinions about the building. Some appreciated the firm love between the couple, another thought it's too selfish to bound a living person with her death, and the other said that it's an atrocity to force so many people to carry it out. I was deeply fascinated by the legend and focused on the good motive about the building. Though the building took lots of workforce, it was eternal and had a wondering place in the world and opened a new era of the architectonics. I believed that the sacrifice of the people would not be meaningless. In addition to the impressive legend, its designs also had practical purposes and had the sense of aesthetics. It applied many functions to it for fear the earthquakes. Before the base was build, the architects started by digging eighteen wells which piled the stones and teakwood repeatedly. The design could make it stand strong quakes. They also considered the worst situation, so they made the steeples incline outwards about twelve degrees; thus, while the steeples cracked down, they would collapse outwards and the mausoleum would be safe. Besides, the most astonishing feature was its diverse colors that they would change with the lights from disparate angles by reflecting on the white marbles. On the other hand, it was elaborated by two kinds of the styles. The inner walls were inlaid with a variety of gems and used splendid colors, which expressed the charm of the traditional Indian art. Furthermore, the external proportion was perfect and showed solemnity and the harmony, which revealed the simple and majestic style of the Islamic art. Taj Mahal not only successfully blended the arts of the Indian, Persian, and Central Asian, but also contained the wisdom of the ancient people. In conclusion, it had become the masterwork and opened the new page for the style of Pathan, the essence of the Indian and Muslim arts.
To have a good leader is essential for a blooming country. In these days, people are concerned about whether the new leader can lead us to the prosperous future, even when the election has finished. We saw the debate on TV and evaluated their policies, achieved in their official career, and their personalities. All we do is to be eager to know which one is suitable for the position. In my opinion, the essential factor to be an ideal leader depends on the character.
A leader should be confident, bold, farsighted, but not be foolhardy and those characteristics affect the ways he deals the matters. Boldness and farsightedness will be beneficial when we interact with other countries. When a leader has such feature, he will be more likely to forward the international matters, promote the international relationship, and won’t cover up his party for personal profit. With the feature of the confidence, he will be open-minded and won’t make big errors in the social situation, international conference, and etc. Those features help us to shape our national image and level up the impression of our country.
The other one is the character that affects the attitude that he takes to the us, which is responsibility. If a leader is responsible, he knows what he should do, and is willing to listen to our want or need. Based on it, he will promote the good policy for us, and identify himself with us out of choice. When we are in straitened circumstances, he will accompany us to get through the difficulty rather than live luxuriously and has no ideal for how we strive for living. This character molds many great leaders such as Chiang Kai-Shek, and Kangxi Emperor. They both considered people and let the countries flourish in their time, and we also need one to lead us to the bright future now.
The leader represents our country, thus, we all citizens are eager to find out a suitable one instead of the perfect one. I believe the person who cares about our living, has deep understanding about our situation, and has the characteristic mentioned above will be the most ideal one.
1. Shadows of Humans Haunting World’s Seas
2. Silicon Valley Turns Its Face to the Sun (March 3, 2008)
3. Regional Bloc Criticizes Colombia Raid in Ecuador(March 6, 2008)
4. President Fails to Budge OPEC on Production(March 6, 2008)
Shadows of Humans Haunting World’s Seas
The article shows us the evidence that how do we affect the environment gradually and ignore the consequence, and what cause the recent natural disaster which takes lots of lives. Ironically, we exhaust the natural resource, pollute the nature, and blame the natural catastrophes, but humans are to blame for the species extinction, weather change, and the natural disaster.
The man-made pollution has been a serious problem, and forces all human beings to take it seriously. The ex-president, Al Gore, has directed the most astonishing movie which unveils the global warm has gone from bad to worse. Besides, Discovery, and National Geographic Channel also make some films to illustrate how the circumstances have been. Those acts arouse the human concerns about the issue.
Fortunately, people start to notice the problem and take actions to deal with them such as Kyoto Protocol, the Montreal Protocol, the Vienna Convention, and etc. Many countries unit to slow down the speed of the effect, and try to strike a balance between economy and ecosystem. Though some of the countries still stick to their economic development and refuse to sign the protocols, they can't underestimate the trend. It’s a good news for us that we have taken the first step, and I believe we can figure out what we have to do to run endless business of our nature.
1. Do You Want to Know a Secret (Podcast)
2. Health (Podcast)
3. Crime and Punishment (Podcast)
4. Storytelling and Morals (Podcast)
5. Car Accident (Podcast)
6. Exaggeration and Understatement (Podcast)
7. Trends and Presenting (Podcast)
8. Money Idioms (Podcast)
9. Dating (Podcast)
10. Being Scared (ESL Podcast)
11. Taking Vitamin and Supplement (ESL Podcast)
12. Showing Disapproval and Sympathy (ESL Podcast)
13. The Seven-year Itch (ESL Podcast)
14. A Generation Gap (ESL Podcast)
15. Being Alike and Different (ESL Podcast)
16. Star-crossed Lovers (ESL Podcast)
17. Being Under Stress (ESL Podcast)
The three topics I like:
1. Do You Want to Know a Secret
It’s a quiet interesting title, and I believe that every one will answer “yes”. The TV programs always report the affairs and scandals of the celebrities for people’s curiosity about them. Besides, there’s always somebody step out and spill the beans. Most of the people are interested in it no matter whether it’s true or not. In our daily life, we comment others but we don’t know whether others gossip about us too. It sounds scary that we always try to figure out what others think and even speculate them. Maybe it’s because people like you and want to realize you but it may because that they dislike you and say something bad about you. I have no idea about these, but the gossips can be harmful and cause misunderstanding. The proverb goes ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ and it may make sense.
2. Exaggeration and Understatement
The topic is talking about the ways people express their emotions and illustrate the things happen to them. When the two people face an identical incident in the same time, their reactions may be worlds apart. What’s more, the intonations can make disparate effects. For example, the phrase, Oh! Man, can express surprising, frustrated, unbelievable feeling. The reason why I am interested in it is because it really happens in my life. I meet all kinds of people everyday, and their attitudes, personalities and thinking are so unique. While they face the same frustration, some of them will deal with it calmly and without emotional fluctuations, another will cry out for help, and the others see the bright side of it. It’s an amazing thing that everyone is so different. When I observe these differences, I strongly feel that everyone is unique and so do I.
3. The Seven-year Itch (this one I can't upload in this blog but you can listen to it by pointing the file in of tthe right side of the blog)
In marriages, the seventh year seems to be an obstacle to overcome. I don’t know how the couple feel when they celebrate the seventh anniversary. Do they feel relieved or fear they will hear the bad news this day? In the conversation, I hear the two concepts about marriage that the wife thinks that everyone should take it as a lifelong commitment and the husband just take it as a short term arrangement. I don’t have the experience of the marriage, so I don’t know whether it makes me worried. However, my parents have married for more than twenty years, and they indeed have some collision in life, but they learn to adjust themselves to each other and cherishthe relationship. Thus, I think that the communication in the daily life is important and couple should always be considerate of each other; therefore, the seventh year will not be an uncrossing river.
The fast food industry seems to become more widespread and popular, especially Mc. Donald's. In my opinion, the reason why it succeeds are based on some features which include the clear direction, discipline, advertisement, and prevision.
The name of the company was from the brothers, Mc. Donald, and it was because they invented that customers could get meal without getting off the cars. They set up the first company in 1948; however, they were not capable to expand their business until Ray, the man who foresee the profit of the business, joined them, and he used the technical way to run the business. .
The basic of the company is their goal. Take Mc Donald's for example, its goals is trying to cover all levels of the customers from children, teenagers, to adults, and to cover each kind of culture. For instance, the meal and the toys are two of the ways that they are used to shorten the distance between itself and the clients, and we can see that it takes the cultural differences into consideration. In the culture of Muslim, it sells the fish burgers instead of the hamburger, and we have rice bugers in Taiwan. The two products are not only popular in the two countries, but also hot in other countries. Only by involving in the living style of the native, it can be prosperous and enlarge the customer groups.
Another way is to make their discipline, it has three rules for management including simplification, standardization, and specialization. Besides, the faiths of running the business are good service, cleanliness, and the reasonable price. To fulfill the discipline, the menu is easy to understand,and the ways that employees make the food are regular. For example, the fried chickens need one hundred seconds to make, and all of the food have their specific time to make, which is the standardization. Thus, we can trust the same food no matter which branch of Mc Donald's we go. It also tries to make the unique food to stick out through the bag such as the egg roll ice-cream, pancakes, and bagel. Furthermore, the first faith is providing good service attended by asking the workers to have good training without salaries for the first few months;however, it spends lots of money training the new workers and sending the managers abroad to learn the new ideas. In addition to the service, the cleanliness is another important condition for the success of the food industry, so it has the workers keep the environment clean and time schedule about when cleaning staff should tidy the restrooms. Though the price seems a little high, the efforts and the endeavor Mc Donald's make deserve the price. These disciplines lead the company to a successful way.
Every good product needs innovative advertisement to enforce the impression of the public. Mc Donald's successfully connects it to the fashion by inviting the famous singers to film the advertisement, and mold it into the symbol of trend. The large numbers of the fan are more willing to purchase for their idols. Not only the teenagers may be attracted, but the children may be appealed to the toys. The cute toys are the good strategies, because they attact the children and make them want to buy the meal; besides, the parents will buy the food for the children nowadays. It signifies that Mc Donald's realizes the change of the society well, because it knows there are lesser and lesser children, and the parents will want to fulfill children's wishes.
The other factor about its success is that it owns the ability of prevision. It knows well about how people's life style changes and what the customers need. For example, people become much busier and have no time to wait for a meal, so it enables the customers to get the food without getting off the cars, which makes the fast food so popular and prosperous. The other example is it starts to prolong the time to 24 hours, because the people are no longer getting up early and going to bed early like the people in the agriculture times. More and more people have irregular living styles and it knows the potential of the market and seizes it.
In the competitive society like today, the companies have to have the discipline, competence, innovation, and prevision to adapt to the change of the society; furthermore, they have to figure out the ways to keep up with the changes and break through the rivals to get their place in the market.
In the winter break, I reviewed some of the lessons taught last semester, memorizing the new vocabularies, reading foreign books, watching foreign movies, and listen to music. In fact, I planned to watch the BBC everyday before the break starts; however, I couldn't attain it for having to spend some time being with my old friends and relax myself.
The way I reviewed the lessons is to reorganize them, restudying the context in the process. I didn't know whether it could enforce my impression of the content, but I did get the outline of the class. Besides, I felt familiar with the content, knowing that I really got some knowledge during the classes which providing me kind of fulfillment. In addition to the class, it's also important to enhance the vocabulary, so I used my leisure time to keep reading the winter homework, that is, the vocabulary book. It's pleasant for me to see the vocabulary memorized appearing in the other books and being able to recognize them. Furthermore, the book helps me to differentiate the meaning of the words. Though the translations are the same in Mandarin, the meaning and use are disparate, and I am eager to know that. I also bought some books to establish my background knowledge, and it's the only way to make me have something to say.
However, I still need some recreations to relax myself, recharging myself to keep holding on the studies. Watching foreign movies and serials with my families are so felicitous. In the winter break I watched the Harry Potter 1 and 3 and the Crime Scene Investigation. However, it's superfluous to take it as work which made the movies banal and unenjoyable. Just listen to the content, enjoying them, and accidentally found that I could know what they talked about without the captions or heard some words learned before which made me feel content. To have some feedback for the effort made before is the power to keep myself working hard. In addition to the films, there are lots of the latest albums released in the winter break and I thought it is a good way to get familiar with many accents, and enjoy the melodious music at the same time.
I also spent some time visiting my senior teacher, and had a long talk about my new life. She gave me much advice not only in studying but in leading the university life and encouraged me to do more efforts. Not knowing whether I can make it, but I will follow her advice, maybe I will make a big change when I meet her in the summer vacation, who knows. The winter break is short and another semester begins, and it’s time to adjust myself .
Last week I went to Jin-Shan with three friends, I had longed for it for a week before. The most touching thing was one of my friends came here from Kauhsiung, she took lots of time taking bus just wanted to be with us. We didn't have an overall plan for the three days trip; instead, we decided the spots by our feelings. It's because we wanted to relax ourselves, and not to worry about where we should go, what time we should set off, or which restaurant we should go. If we were tired, we could stay in the hotel to rest, chat, and watch TV. It's nice to slow down the living paces, and didn't have to feel concern about what next steps we should take; the only thing we had to do was to comply our feeling and fulfill it.
After the last class finished, I rushed to the dormitory to pack my package. I took the bus with one of my friend, but we didn't chat a lot on the way for I totally fell asleep. During this trip, I couldn't complain but the drivers in Taipei seemed not knowing how the brake worked. They always stomped the brake instead of stepping it slightly. Except for the dizzy experiences in the car, we truly had a good time. When we got the hotel, it was late and we went to 7-11 for our bellies.
In the second day, we went to Jin-Shan Old Street and had many delicacies such as fried octopus, noodles with duck, old style candies, and etc. At the end of the road, we saw a bike store and decided to rent bikes to sightsee the scenes, because there were no motor garage around. We rode along the road and had no plan where we would go. Suddenly, I saw a sign indicating the 中角Beach and White Sand Beach, but we had no idea about how far they were. After a short discuss, we went ahead to the 中角Beach, and the sky started to drizzle; However, the little obstacle couldn't delute our zesty mood. In fact, we didn't go to the beach shore but sat in a cute restaurant near it, and enjoyed the meals and the seascape. Absolutely, we started to chat and took lots of photos to commemorate our trip. The other destination was decided by asking the people in front of the restaurant, who suggested us to the Lion Head Mountain. The long journey started, and the sky kept crying, but we still set off to our destination. Riding up the hill, and following the wrong direction were the episodes in our adventure; fortunately, we arrived there and walked up the mountain. In the whole way, my friend sang songs which were so funny and we totally didn't care about other people. We had our photo with the fantastic scene of 燭台雙嶼. How carefree the trip was! Not to care about the others' feeling. Singing whenever we wanted, laughing loudly when we felt happy, and going wherever we wanted without plans. Though we seemed to be a little crazy, we all had much fun in the trip.
We had less time in the third day, so we met the other friend who studied in 東吳 University. We went to steak restaurant where those studied in Taipei recommended, and went around the Taipei University. Besides, we wandered around the National Taipei University to realize the circumstance our friend studying. For having to come back Hsin Chu and Kaohsiung, we took a short rest and went back to where we belonged.
It's an impressive experience to be with them, and I did treasure the memory. However, I should do my things well, and I could go back to Kaohsiung to create our another new pages of our friendship without worries. Hope their new life will be happy and replete.
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[this is good]Global warming is indeed an issue we should care about and try our best to eliminate its effects on the... read more
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