Abstract

How lovely macaws are; somehow, these beautiful birds confront the biggest threat -- extinction. The issues are urgent to be solved, or just let go by us. Besides, there was a number of scientists and environmentalists who contributed their own opinions and warned our governments. We still cannot see any apparent effects of it. Once a philosophical school of pragmatism said: “there is neither certainty nor absolutes”. I would like to say if a solution causes positive results, it is certain and absolute. However, whether the huge operating machines, governments, slow down the processes or go towards the wrong ways? Let’s investigate it.

Academic Classes

Gin

Most students come to SIU to either study in its undergraduate program or study in its graduate school program. For some students who cannot reach to the English minimum requirement of the TOEFL of SIU, the SIU has provided another manner that is through CESL classes and training. However, it would be a good news for the majority of students who want to complete their higher education dream and make them more competitive on the career market. That's our goal and why we are at here.

The regular courses, academic classes, have offered professional courses in many regions such as ECE, Business and Music Institutes and so on. CESL classes can only focus on a small range in which will probably include Environmental issues, Animals, or Space development, and these classes cannot teach students to get deep into the fields. As the small fields, I would rather CESL focuses more on writing and grammar, presentation and speech, and reading skill; because these three skills will be more important and useful when we start our academic classes.

I have felt that CESL classes are too focused on the core class, and sometimes there are too many home works assignments for students from every teacher. CESL should leave a little time for students to prepare for the TOEFL test. The reason is we need to take two tests at the end of the term in which either you pass the academic English minimum requirement, reach the next CESL level of the TOEFL requirement and pass classes, or see you in the same level in the next term. Besides, for this winter term, the final and the TOEFL test are too close. It will make students lack in test practice and fail it. Anyway, class I like most is my writing class because my writing class only teaches us writing skills. The other reason is that the writing skill is much useful.

Compare my hometown and Carbondale

I have been in many cities and towns since I started traveling. Of course, I would compare them to my hometown—Taiwan all along. Comparing them, whether better or worse than mine, doesn’t mean anything or have any purpose, but I merely want to know how much gaps there are and how lifestyles are different among them. Taiwan, in which I have lived more than 20 years, will be compared to my current place in which I am living.

Taiwan, a small island, sits in the eastern Pacific Ocean, where the tallest mountains of Asia are. Most them are over 3000 meters high. The coast’s line is about 1200 kilometers long or over. Its pattern is like a potato, narrow on both the east and west side. Taipei is the capital city of Taiwan, and I have lived there for a long time. Taipei is like a sleepless city, operating 24 hours. Business companies work both day and night for linking to every corner of this world. To satisfy these needs, that bookstores, restaurants, shopping centers and others open 24 hours as well.

Carbondale, a small town, is located in the middle east of the United States. Here there are not many mountains but it is quite flat. On the other hand, land collapses will not happen. It has beautiful autumn scenes. Although Carbondale is a small main city in south Illinois, small businesses are everywhere. Most stores are closed before 10 pm. You can say it has already contained everything we need in it. Carbondale’s life is more peace and relaxes than my hometown.

It is not about how better or worse in this article. It is about the lifestyle differences. We said it in Taiwan: “dropping worse to get better from your experience”. Every different lifestyle has its own value, dropping our worse parts, but learning and getting the most valuable parts from others.

Wal-Mart

“Wal-Mart’s impact on wages was first felt in rural towns in the south and Midwest where Wal-Mart got its start. Often, it became the biggest employer overnight, setting wage rates for all retailers,” experts said in USA Today (2003, par. 21). While many spotlights beam on the Wal-Mart’s legend appearing in the grocery stores of the United States, it has broken stock market trading records many times. It became a superstar and performed as a giant. “Wal-Mart is one of the most impressive success stories in history of business,” E. Loke said (2004, par. 3). However, does Wal-Mart need to be adored? While someone answers it as “Yes,” I have my own opinions that just came in my mind.

In my view, the main cause that makes Wal-Mart rising in its standing among the grocery stores is the lowest price strategy. J. Hoenig said (2004, par. 6) ”The company’s ‘low price guarantee’ shouldn’t be dismissed as marketing…Wal-Mart can save a family over $ 2,000 a year compared to shopping at higher priced alternative.” When everyone agreed with this, I was much concerned about the product’s quality. From my shopping experience in Wal-Mart, I would say there is no good quality item in the store. The items I bought never could be used for more than half a year. Besides, I was a computer design engineer while I was in Taiwan. We produced two different prices models of the same computer. One is made in Taiwan, and the other is made in China or other countries. Why? That is because we made it for low price marketing though they have the same design; Wal-Mart purchases these products from computer venders. The cheaper electronic consume products had worse qualities the more problems in it.

That Wal-Mart has hired too many illegal workers is another main issue. This issue is so obviously to notice. It has made many families lose their jobs, fall into poverty circumstances, and move to another place. For the rich, they still can swing between Wal-Mart and other high quality product companies. On the other hand, it is a kind of activities, which grab money from poor families and give to the rich.
That Wal-Mart is beating local businesses to die is another serious problem. Wal-Mart has set their stores in many small towns. This strategy will make the small towns’ businesses completely gone. N. Jacobs (Daily Egyptian, 2005, par. 1) once said, “Some Murphysboro and Carbondale residents… fear it will destroy the town’s small businesses and quality of life for some of its citizens.” When the grocery store giant, Wal-Mart, takes place of the small towns’ businesses that citizens’ life of the area would be controlled.

Mal-Mart’s retail strategies seem to have been successful in the past in the USA, but it might not have the same success in the future in both the USA and other countries, because there are many potential issues that are waiting for people to discover. We have a company which produces a rice steamer that can be used for more than 20 to 30 years without any repair, and it is very cheap; and most Taiwanese families have owned one or two of them. Its name is Da-Ton rice steamer. That is just an idea of a good product that I expected. When illegal workers take the place of those legal employees that will cause another serious society impact. The biggest profit of small businesses in a small town is you can control your lifestyle and business’s diversity and it will not prolong the gap between rich and poor.

Reference

Hoenig, J. (2004, February). Welcome Wal-Mart. Capitalism Magazine. Retrieved on November 29, 2007, from http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4561

Jacobs, N. (2005, April). Local opposition to future Wal-Mart Supercenter in Murphysboro. Daily Egyptian. Retrieved on November 29, 2007, from http://newshound.de.siu.edu/spring05/stories/storyReader$858

Locke, E. (2004, February). Three Cheers for Wal-Mart. Capitalism Magazine. Retrieved on November 29, 2007, from http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=3534

USA Today (2004, January). Wal-Mart's influence grows. Retrieved on November 29, 2007, from http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2003-01-28-walmartnation_x.htm

Movie

Movie

There are more than hundreds of movies that have been produced each year. From my memories, I would like to pick one of them to write about because it not only has a touching story but also the music is dramatic and awesome. It is “Les Choristes”.

The movie was produced in France in 2004. It talks about a small school in a small village of France that had many trouble students. Why people thought they were all “trouble” was because those students were wild, untrained, rough and did not study books at all. One day, the school had a new teacher. He gradually found out they had the talent to sing. Then, he started to train them.

This movie presents a serious question; it is most teachers love and like to teach good, smart, intelligent, and well-rounded students. For those trouble students, however, they always give up their eyes first meet each other. I like this movie’s story because it warns us that education should spread out to each single child in the world without asking their background. Besides, to find out students’ potential abilities would be another main point. Let us try to think about how there are so many crimes in our society. Obviously, the answer here is that most criminals were abandoned by the education at first and then were neglected by society. If we could save them from the edge of self-destruction before they feel frustrated and disappointed to the society, we do not need to pay so much in social resources. However, we should really care about our education, not just only focus on the subjects but also notice the students’ moral characters.

Vacation

I do not seem to quite remember it; a long time ago, I saw a drama. There was a saying in it: “In your whole life, you might not always live as well as you want, sometimes it was better than you expected, but how about when you are frustrated with it? Do not feel sad for it. Just treated it as a vacation, the one you have never had”.

If you asked every single person whether they wanted to have a long vacation in which there were no time pressures and no financial issue problems, the answer will be absolutely, “Yes”, because nobody wants to have frustration in our lives. Let’s forget about the frustrating things and focus on the long vacation.

Alaska, the most northern state of the United States in which part of it extends into the North Pole, is the Salmon fish’s home, and has mantles of white color over all areas in the winter and green in the spring and summer. It has been popping up in my dreams for several years and it is my best idea for a place to go. You can call it the last virgin place of the US as well. The extremely cold weather blocks tourists from visiting and the city from developing. It keeps the natural scenes as it was several thousands of years ago. You can see the glacier running among the mountains, icebergs in the sea with some animals lying on them, and ice cap on the mountains radiating different colors of light varying with the sun’s angles. Colorful northern lights will always occur in the nights of summer. Green grasses cover the big plains and decorate some yellow, white and purple flowers; animals run and have fun in it. The air is the cleanest you have ever breathed. Lakes are scattered everywhere and the water in them is so fresh that you can see through it to the bottom. Because it is also the Salmon's home, in every summer, all of the salmon will come back to breed their next generation. Humans and brown bears will have a salmon feast at the same time.

I am a person who loves natural life and am anti-urbanization. And Alaska is my dream place that I have not been to yet. No matter how far it is, no matter how cold if is, I will go to it in my lifetime, and hope Alaska will never be changed from what it was.

Why do some species succeed in being saved (by people) while others do not?

EAP2
Gin

Why do some species succeed in being saved (by people) while others do not?

While humans are developing and striving, some creatures are depleting in numbers or have already been extinct for a long time. The reasons are that we have obtained resources from nature too much and neglected its recovering timing. When we were surprised that those species were disappearing in our environment, we started to breed and protect them. Somehow, we were not really successful to save them all. We failed and lost them for good. In my opinion, there are three reasons for this.

First, we have noticed too late those endangered and extinct species. On the other hand, some species were gone before we discovered them. We could not get at lease a couple of living creatures for breeding them the natural giving birth way. Second, our gene engineering technology is still on its way; it is not perfect enough, nowadays. Our scientists are still studying the gene’s function, and what the nutrition for gene re-creation is. Or you can say that, the gene engineering technology is not ready to play a main role on the stage. The gene engineering technology has still a long way to struggle. Environment will be the most important issue here. While we are capturing some high value animals and some others for some reason, we make their numbers reduce but we do not disrupt their living environment. Thereby, these species will still have a suitable environment to live in and have a next generation if we stop overexploiting and polluting our environment, and damaging them.

We always do what we do when we want to do in any time such as deforestation and capture wildlife. We always notice everything after we have already lost it. You might say it is because we did not have enough information. But in my view, it is just an excuse. We did not use the same sense as the Native American (Indians) – getting something from nature, one day you must payback to the nature. The only way to stop the species from becoming endangered or extinct is to stop damaging the environment; educate people to know how species are important to us and protect them; and improve our gene engineering technology on Recovery of wildlife is important.

How technology changes our life and communication

Gin

EAP2

Technology

As long as time has passed, our technology has been advanced more and more in many fields. It not only helps our life become easier but also changes it a lot in different ways such as traveling, shopping, communication and so on.

To travel from somewhere to somewhere else has come to feel shorter, although the distance has never changed on the map. People started traveling much more, and met friends more often. It was a good big jump for all people; however, until the advent of internet, it completely washed out our everyday life. We shop through our finger tips. We click a key, then we can watch movies. We can find anyone for chatting. The internet pulls everyone closer in communication and makes it easier to chat at any time, but makes people be social less and less. Especially, the majority of internet heavy users have hidden behind monitors. In Taiwan and Japan, we call these internet heavy users dwelling men or dwelling women. It means staying in the home all day long, doing everything, and doing work at home, shopping at home and neglecting social affairs. Those people who neglect a normal society become clammy and cold for everything. They lose their social abilities. They do not even know how to read a person’s mind by their face changes and body language. They may also believe everything is true which shown on internet. The worst thing is their population of dwelling men and women is increasing.

Technology’s progress makes our life easier such as by internet and makes us get more resources, and communicate with someone easily. If we are not able to control ourselves well and use the internet in a good way, the technology will endanger us.

The Moon Festival

EAP2
Gin

The Moon Festival

There are many festivals in Taiwan and most of them are interesting such as the Chinese New year, Rice Pudding Festival and the National Birthday. Of course, all Taiwanese can get days off with pay. It is a little bit hard to pick the one that I like most from them; however, if we only focus only on the fall season, I would like to say “Moon Festival”.

Moon Festival is a really important day for Taiwan. It has been counted by the farming calendar. It is celebrated on August 15th. Most Taiwanese have 2~4 days off and a bonus from the company for it. It is like a second New Year of the year for us because all of the Taiwanese will go back to their home to see parents and relations. It does not matter where we are. On this day, Taiwanese have a big feast, moon cakes and a special fruit in its eve. Some people will choose to B.B.Q outside. During the feast, we would like to tell others what we have done this year, what will be our goal in the future, and exchange some of our current information, job situation or just chat.

We usually do fireworks on the eve night of this day, too. In Taiwan, it is legal to do it anywhere. As you guess, it is also the busiest day for fire fighters. If you conceive in the Moon Festival that every shopping mall and department stores are closed on this day, you are totally wrong. In Taiwan, Taipei is a sleepless city. Those stores and companies operate 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, but they only take a short day off; it is just about 4 hours of break and then they reopen before 12 o’clock at night. After the dinner, we will probably go out together to watch a special TV program, to see a movie, to go to Karaoke for singing songs and just lay down on the grass or ground and watch the Moon and stars. These activities will be continuous until the mid night.

The Moon Festival has also a special meaning for me. It is my birthday, too. My family and relations always celebrate my birthday for me. That’s why I love to have the moon festival from all holidays.

My Favorite Musical Group

EAP2
Gin

My Favorite Musical Group

Air Supply, a musical group, debuted in the 1970’s and I started to listen to their music at the age of 13. The group consists an English guitarist, Graham Russell, and an Australian vocalist, Russell Hitchcock. They are in the minority of groups, which are over 30 years old and then still publishes new albums, even now.

Their lyrics are all about love, easy to sing and simple to remember, in which are used many beautiful words and phrases. They usually present the listener with a deep mind. They made people show bravely their true feelings to their lovers in the shy ages. Air Supply’s music was soft and made people relaxed and comfortable, but not fall asleep in the Rock and Roll era. Russell Hitchcock, a singer in the group, has a special and higher and brighter pitch voice than others, and always brought people access into an empty and endless space.

I love this group; it not only performs outstandingly, but also it was the first I know and listen to when my country was so closed. I expect the musical group to keep on going and release new songs.