Volunteer Service in Yilan Amusement Park

The first day, I accompanied them to Leofoo Village amusement park. I was assigned to take care of a men who was considered about the smartest patient. At the beginning he did not want to hold my hand and walk with me. I was a little bit nervous and frustrated that he was curious about everything and would get lost in anytime. Also he did not want to take any ride we took. However, after spending time with him for the morning. He began to understand that I was there to help him and take care of him. As I got tired and gave up to hold him tightly, he began to follow me and held my hand himself. He would ask if I feel cold. I was touched. Even though these people have intellectual disability and cannot communicate well with people. They are genuine and care about people around them as well.

Volunteer Service in Yilan a Girl

There I meet many friends with intellectual disability. Although I cannot keep in touch with them, they became part of mine. By help helping them, I learned and grew. One day, I went to a room with around ten women. All of them had to use wheelchairs. Although they usually have abnormal looking, they smile when I greet and introduce myself to each of them. One girl who looked like baby raised her hand and held me tightly. She was talking about how her parents brought her to there with sounds that I can barely understand. She had a circular, ten dollar coin-sized tumor on the top of her head and have to wear a hearing-aid device. While the teacher, who worked there to teach and take care of these people, helped others take shower.  She laughed when I mugged with a funny face and sang songs to her. She seemed to know that I did not understand her language very well. She pointed at me and pointed at her right eye. Then she pointed at me again with a concerning face.  She noticed the birthmark on my eye which most people who know me a long time don't even notice. I explained to her that it is a birthmark rather than a bruise. She smiled at me again.

Volunteer Service in Yilan Introduction

This winter break, I joined an volunteering program held by Eden foundation. I went to an institution that takes care of people with intellectual disability in Yilan. There are total of 15 people with 2 leaders joined this program. The first day, I went to Yilan Train Station with some of the team members by bus, took another local bus to the institution. Along trip from Taipei to Yilan, beside sleeping I stared through the window. City, forest, farming field. It was a tranquil place where people live without the city stress. In these seven days, I accompanied them to field trip, and helped them eat, change cloth, walk, and even dance. At night, we have different activities in which each day there're two people responsible for. After activity time, we shared our experiences with each other. Then, two or three people will have turn to share their life story with everyone. Finally, we would walk to seven-eleven, which is the only shop around beside a fried chicken pedlar.

Dinner with a Dog (4)

When I went back to the seat, the dog looked at me with a innocent face. It looked at the food and turned to me again. Salad was on the middle of table covered with some tissue paper and banana on the top, and soy bean milk was at the right edge of the table beside egg. Perfect. I was surprised and glad that the dog kept the promise. Actually, I knew it would. :)
I had a wonder wonderful dinner with it. I shared some egg with it when I was about to leave. It seemed a little bit shy, so I put some yolk beside its month. It carefully licked and eat it. It looks like it had been fed with many other food by other people and students. However, mine should be special because that was a honor from my appreciation. It kept sleeping, and I went back to the library to continue my work. It was a nice day.

Dinner with a Dog (3)

I honestly haven't talked about why the dog and this dinner was so special that I would spend several days talking about it. First, of course, it's the last week of school and there are so many things going on besides my college application. Above all, the really main point was that the dog seemed to understand me. Sitting down, I thought I should have gone to the bathroom before I bought the food because now there's no one to keep a look at my food and stuff. So, I talked to the dog and command it to take care of my food before I went out. was satisfied with my cleverness until I finished when I started to worry that it might eat my egg or drink mymilk, which is my puppy's favorite. I quickly ran back to the spot. What if it spoil and mess up all the food, salad, soy milk, banana, I placed on the table?? That would be horrible and would absolutely embarrass me. Running through the door, I felt a tinge of regret. Still, half of me believed that the dog will keep the promise.

Dinner with a Dog (2)

At the cafeteria in Tsing Hua, I was sitting in front of a sleeping dog. It stirred at me for a moment and kept sleeping. It must be too cold to stay outside. In this special season, December, I heard some college students counting backwards and yelling "Merry Christmas and happy new year!" Interestingly, they repeated that several times. Seeing six people sitting next table and one of the girls who commanded how, the arrangement, they should should sit, I was glad to sit with a lovely and adorable dog, even though it seemed not to notice my existence. Nevertheless, everything is better than staying at that crazy school.

Dinner with a Dog (1)

That winter dance friday, I did not go to the party. Instead, I went to the library at Tsing Hua University. Actually, I did not plan to go the dance, and Ms. Pamela announce of senior exclusion just gave me a perfect excuse to escape from the hazard.  I enjoy almost working on everything in the library. It has the right atmosphere where I can think well and critically. Around six, I went the cafeteria in the university. It was so crowded there that I barely found any seat. Walking out from the 7-11, I saw an empty small sofa with tea table in front and quickly walked there. There lied a dog sleeping winding its body. Oh! what a lovely dog I thought. To use that tea table, I took another small sofa from another area without table and sited with the dog. It was noisy, but the dog was in the tranquil world with me.

Shape Matters More Than Size

I read an article on LiveScience titled, Evolution of Genitals: Shape Matters More Than Size. They use data from scarab beetle to demonstrate that shape of genitals is significant. It is important not only for the parents to produce offspring, it also plays a role in evolution of the species. If a population of species has been isolated from another physically, the two populations might gradually and indecently develop so different shape of genitals that even when they are merged again, they cannot breed with each other. Therefore allopatric speciation occurs. However, the size of genitals does not show such significance in this case.

Macbeth Project

After viewing the document about the Macbeth project, I decided to do the Board Game, which is worth 100 points. I was in library where I found the movie, Macbeth. In order to understand the plot and characters better, I borrowed the movie and plan to watch it before I start on the project. Maybe I can create a special rule, different from the normal rule of board game, for Macbeth. For example, if the you are the character Macbeth, you can kill the people once you move by them, but you have to the last one to dice. And Lady Macbeth can choose to move plus one or minus one step from the half the path to the end point because she is having a dream walk! Hopefully, I will have more ideas and understanding about other characters after watching the movie.

Volunteer Meeting

I had a meeting in Taipei about the volunteer service in Yilan. I met people all over Taiwan. We discuss how are going to do to help people with intellectual disability. I learned that they grouped those people according to the seriousness symptom. Some of them who are mild retarded and can plant are put into farmers group. But most of them who have serious problem even with living are in living group. I was assigned to help the living group which I think would be more challenging than to the other. We discussed activities that we can play with them. Also, we are going to decorate the hall way for New Year for them. I am responsible for the decoration. I just did the planing and sent it to other members. I was glad to meet these kind and generous people.

END?

OMG It's almost the end of the semester but I just felt like learning and reading. There's always not enough time for me to read the textbook and not to mention about all those novels that I have long wanted to read. It's Christmas. Even though I got many homework and projects to do as well as tests to prepare, I have want to give myself some free time to read novel. I should have a better time management. I realized that I have wasted too much spare time to do nothing but frustrating with college application. So at end of British Literature today, I choose a book called the Charlie and  the Chocolate factory. I wish to enjoy reading it during my the next few week. It's not really break because it's just days that I have to work on my own without classes where I can discuss with teachers. Nevertheless, I will have one week to do community service when I can relax a little bit. I wish everyone and myself a nice break. 

Responsibility for public interest

"It seems to me incumbent upon this and other schools' graduates to recognize their responsibility to the public interest... unless the graduates of this college... are willing to put back into our society those talents, the broad sympathy, the understanding, the compassion... then obviously the presuppositions upon which our democracy are based are bound to be fallible."--John F. Kennedy

The reason we learn and go to school is not simply to fulfill our pursue of knowledge or have the skill to live well financially after we graduate. Yet we must get jobs. Our ultimate goal of life is to enjoy living. We should find something, such as jobs, that we enjoy doing because we can present our talents and make contribution that feed back the society. These contributions will add on to our achievement. It is a fair positive feedback loop. When we have achievement, we have more self-confident, respect to ourselves, and therefore respect to others. In turns, we have self-actulization, which is at the top level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and that's the state of enjoy living. 

The idea democracy, freedom of people to govern themselves, is based on the presume that people are educated so they have the critical thinking to make the right decision. It therefore is a goal aimed by education. Taking advantage if this, we have the responsibility to take account to the public decisions. However, many of us today don't have this public interest. For example, many well educated people who have the skill and ability to take part the politic society do not want to take the opportunity. Even though most of us do care about public affair, we value more on our personal achievements that we have more control over. In school, the leaders or student counsels are not usually the people with the best ideas or critical thinking, but people with willingness to take the responsibility of leadership. 
Somehow, I agree that we have the responsibility to have public interest. =3=

Dancing Practice

I stay after school for about two and half hours to practice our dancing for christmas performance. I suddenly realized that time went so fast that it's the end of the semester, and I'm going to graduate very soon. Although we just started the last week, we have a very nice series of shows with some drama and dancings. I appreciated the people who handle and arrange this performance and who teach us dancing. It's had been a long time since the last time I danced. I love dancing and the feeling of control my body movements. Sitting on the floor watching their dancing the girl and boy's special part, I felt a tinge of sadness that I did not participate enough in this class. Even though I enjoy being alone. I found that sometimes I cannot just live in my own world. I need to more open to people around me. Maybe I'm thinking to much again….

Library

Library is always my favorite place to go, whether I feel like studying, reading or even sleeping. I enjoy the tranquil atmosphere of library where everyone is so quiet that I can clearly hear the noise of pen moving on paper. People in library are usually hardworking or enjoy reading. Although library is quiet and is usually thought as the best place to study, it's not easy for me to concentrate here. There many latest magazine, new books, and any book or document that I find interesting. I would stop by any shelter and take off any book. I like to 'explore' in this booky forsest but I often find it a waste of time. Still, I remember a quote, "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted." Isn't it a perfect excuse for amusements and diversion?

Operon Anology

The more I learn, the more I do not know. Operon is a stretch of DNA required for enzyme production. It consist of the operator, the promotor and the genes they control. If the promotor is a door, the regulatory protein is the lock, and operator is the hole for the lock.  There are two kinds of doors. In the first type, called repressible operon, is usually open but sometimes need to be locked. The other type, called inducible operon, is usually close with the lock on. It will only open when the lock is taken away. Repressor can lock the first type of door and Inducer can open the other type.  Only when the door is open do the worker, RNA polymerase, enter and produce enzyme. However, those workers are lazy. They do not really produce anything but they make orders, mRNA, to ribosome factory.

Shakespeare Workshop

That professor from England was amazing. He led the class as a stage. I had fun to do the interesting activity of exchanging papers and coming up with sentences. Also I realized that it's not so easy to act, sing, remember lines, and be "drama" at the same. However, the experience was incredibly special because he brought us to another dimension of learning shakespeare, unlike the usual lecture in class. Later that afternoon, I met him on the hall way and asked him: "Do actors on the stage, performing Shakespeare's plays, pretend that they are the characters, or they find similar experiences or emotions to adopt in the situation, which is what actors should do?" He replied the first one because people normally "don't have the experiences Shakespeare wrote." He said that was a good question, but I was uncertain about his answers because I remembered in drama class I have learned that actors who "pretend to be the characters" may lose their minds if they were to play a truly good show. Well, I guess there're much more things for me to learn about.

Owl

I heard owl screaming when I was sitting near by the library. 6:03 the time was clicking. "You!" the first sound I was innocent. "You!" the second I wondered. "You!" the third sound I looked into the darkness. Fourth and fifth I tried to catch the eyes with my two sights. But that was the last one. I couldn't find any thing nor did I walk close. But I knew there is something. It's far away yet close within myself. It must be an owl I thought, but no one walked by seem to hear the sounds. For only one moment I doubted its existence. Vision can lie but sounds cannot. Soon I would forget how it sounded, and there would be no more. However I do not want to let it go. It is the loudest silence. I was not alone.

Essay

I was shocked by the head of school who was so emotional and angry that she declare that she is going to rewrite our recommendation letters. I wish I have started my application essays earlier and treat them as important as the academic subjects. Realizing I had giving myself too many excuses to procrastinate them, I found so stress out that I feel like I will die by suffocating at any time. All I wish is to finish them as quick as possible. However, the hurrier I am, the more difficult to think critically.
I will probably find myself weird, childish or insane in the future when I look back the journey I will have written. Somehow I think I need to look through the reality but not just live within the moment.

Sport Day

Although I did not have the convivial spirit of sport day, it was well done. I won the third place in long jump. I was surprised when I was called on the stage because I hardly "jumped." Even though our team, Smurf, did not have the powerful cheer up as other teams, I honestly enjoyed singing the happy la la song. It was a nice and sunny day.
My back hurts and sores today because of the tug-of-war. I pulled so hard with my feet shaking and hands burning. I thought we should have won the first place for tug-of-war but we only got third place. After all, I help and comfort a girl who had a heat stroke. I let her lie on my leg and gave her massage. I hope she is feeling much more better right now. Everything was nice until the end when Sherry announced that seniors had a meeting afterward. What is dream? What is reality?

Smurf

I am in blue team for sport day, so I will be a smruf. Preparing for the sport day, I helped make the smurf hats. We folded the paper and sticked the Smurf logo on the them. There are different logo of smurf, so we will have a variety of smurf. However, the hats are all made of paper and are not really big enough to fit a head. Somehow I think during that day, wind will blow our hats, and they will scatter all around the field. "La la la la la. Sing a happy song. La la la la la la. Smurf all day long." We took a part of the them song for our Smurf cheer. Checking the list, I found that I will be running relay and play tug of war. Smurf it up!