Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

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[edit] Qing Chen English 112

Christine Lee, she is my classmate from English 112. She is a freshman in college. Her major is undeclared. Christine is come from Hong Kong. She only has been to University of Massachusetts, Amherst for three weeks. Overall she likes the college a lot. Even though the college is new and huge for her, but she is looking forward to get into know more people in her first year here. From the conversation I interviewed her and she told me how much she misses Hong Kong. She misses the original place that she grows up. She is an outgoing friend, she loves to meet new people, which she wants to improve her second language, English.

Christine Lee’s High School experience really impressed me. First she only came to the United States for three years, and she needs to adjust and adapt to the American culture. She hangs out with American and Asian so often, later she was being labeled as an Asian American, she was feeling more to adapt into American and Chinese cultures. Ultimately, she told me she felt she is having born in Hong Kong but feeling like an American. Suddenly I realized that I was a quite typical Chinese girl who was conservative, shy! I remembered first couple years I came to America, I did not know anyone in my high school, and I did not try harder to talk to others. Everybody surrounded me were speaking English. One time, my English teacher asked me how to pronounce my name, and I tried so hard to speak out loud and said “Qing”, and then the teacher couldn’t hear it. But I heard the students around me kept saying “Qee-ing”. I felt so embarrassed at that time. From that time on, I tried so hard to say my name in a easy way. I also tried to hang out those high school friends. Later I realized I was a little shy Chinese girl! Christine’s experienced in high school really taught me a lesson; I should always try new stuff, that also can improve my knowledge of learning also the education of learning.

Christine came to the United States also for the Education. She told me in Hong Kong, everyone is really competitive and hard working. Even in the high school, she needs to take at least more than seven subjects. In Chinese’s perspective, those Chinese people should be one of those stereotypical smart Asians who got perfect SAT scores. Most of Colleges in Hong Kong they required high GPA and High Ranks. But in Christine’s Perspective, she was more involved in other things as well. Her Unsatisfied graded in high school, but she never forgets there are more stuff interesting her. Back to the time I was in China’s middle school, I already needed to study a book in middle school. We also have homework everyday, and the worst thing was the teachers were really strict. Fortunately, I’ve moved to American since middle school. I know it is still so competitive in China, but I would rather prefer a good condition of education but less competitive.

In High School, Christine loves to swim and play piano a lot of time. She wants to become those swimming and piano teacher. She told me she was little stress out if she should try harder to reach her goals. It is because since she came to College, she felt so much stress more than in High school. She felt there is going to be so much works and so much reading to do. And I convinced her that since first time you applied for college, no matter how hard it is, you will try to do your best. After my suggestions, seem she released herself little bit. Now she is trying so hard to do her best to get into those chances to become a successful teacher. When I heard that I was so impressive of what she told me. And then I think she is like those stereotypical smart Asian girls who have a high expectation of them. No matter how much she pays out, she wants to reach her goal.

Overall, I had a good time interview my classmates Christine Lee. That is also my first time interviewed a person and analyzing their life style. I bet there is more about Christine, but I think that is good enough for me to know! I am so glade she is my classmate and she is my friend too.

[edit] User_talk:WinMi

[edit] My first reflection letter

As I’m entered late to the class, it is hard for me to write this reflection letter. However, I can still write some thoughts about it. To me, to be a successful writer, the most hard thing to do is to catch the audience’s attention, to convince them to support your thesis. I have no idea how to do this before taking this class.Later,I found out that in which way I can do it. The first thing is- you must have confidence and believe in yourself that you can do it. When I read this penguin handbook, there is a chapter talking about the Rhetorical Situation. To be honest, Roberto de Nobils success taught me a lesson. He taught me how to catch the audience’s attention. In his experience, he dressed like the Indian and he followed the culture in India. He realized that to gain respect he would have to respect the values of the community. In order to catch the audience’s attention, you have to respect them. This influenced me a lot in my writing, the first basic elements that you must have is- speaker, subject and audience. To me, writing is not just writing. Writing is the way that you can express your feeling, convince your audiences and make your own self to understand more about the world or the other people. When I looked though my writing, I found out that it is so childish as my writing before contain with no title, no reason and no thesis. These are very important to write a good piece of writing. I cannot say that I’m good at writing. However, I’ll try my best to think of a topic, thesis and subject when I do my next writing. As I keep on repeating to myself, writing is not just to write. It is the way to express and to communicate.

[edit] Feedback: Christine1105 introduces WinMi

Hi Christine1105, I love the title you gave for WinMi's introduction! You have done something quite creative, you challenge the reader to compare themself to WinMi. (By the end, I realize that you are also challenging yourself. So, the title tells us

about you (as you compare yourself with WinMi, about WinMi (as a person of courage, worth comparing oneself to), and about each reader (who is invited to make the comparison). Impressive! We do have to correct the grammar, though. I can imagine two possibilities:

"Are you daring?" ~ which puts the emphasis on the action/activity of doing things that involve risk and thus require courage or "Do you dare?" ~ which puts the emphasis on the person (the self) instead of the activity. After you decide where you want the emphasis (on the person - reader, writer, subject) or on the action (behaviors, attitudes, experiences), then we could play with how to give the title the most potential impact. For instance, if you decided to emphasize the person, then the title might be, "Would you dare?" (If we kept "do," that makes the timing imminent, puts the action in the present, as in right now....which is the sense of of "Are you dare" in which you might be asking yourself and other students to be like WinMi right now, in the class, in your lives, everywhere. IF you want to keep "Do" - and you could! - then you have to include in the writing more specific detail about how/why WinMi lives with such courage right now today. You must teach the readers what that kind of courage looks like in the every-day of college life.)

If, on the other hand, you wanted to emphasize the action/activity of being daring, then the title might become "Are you so daring?" or "Are you daring enough?" Each of these versions casts a slightly different emphasis. Are you "so" daring invites direct comparison with WinMi, e.g., would/could you do what she did? Are you daring "enough" allows more room for the reader to find equivalents and measure their own courage/risk-taking according to situations that are closer to the chances their own life experiences have afforded.

For the rest of the feedback, I'll insert bold for grammar (only some of it, you need to stay aware that I am not going to worry - for now! - about every single detail), and italics for additional commentary.

Steph(talk) 14:17, 8 October 2007 (EDT) {feedback is not grading!}

[edit] [edit] brand new

The Statement Intrigues me where as I don’t know who the old Christine lee was. I don’t care for a Christine lee. I think the old Christine Lee wasn’t good enough there was something insufficient about the old Christine Lee. I think I would be able to understand what was wrong with the old Christine Lee and why they would change her and what they would do to change the old Christine. The sentence is quite clear and concise making it quite easy to understand. Therefore I don’t think that the comment is not too.

Patrick

[edit] Living under the Art Objects(Interacting with Art Objects)

If we are living in our own world, we cannot learn anything from the others. It is hard to achieve the goals, however, if we do not try, we are doomed. In Jeanette Winterson’s Art Objects, she writes that learning to look at art is like learning to speak a foreign language. Therefore, it takes practice and willingness to leave one’s comfort zone. As we all know that, practice makes perfect and I, as a second language speaker, is totally affected by the ideas that Jeanette Winterson suggested.

Jeanette Winterson wrote that, “Art, all art, not just painting, is a foreign city, and we deceive ourselves when we think it familiar. No one is surprised to find that a foreign city allows its own customs and speaks its own language.” she is trying to tell us that art is not as simply as printing. However, we are lying to ourselves and speaking our own language. Although we are located in a foreign city, we should try to adapt the new environment and the new challenges. We should learn how to speak other language as it will make us easily to live in the foreign city. When I first came to United States, I did not understand what people around me were talking about. At that time, I knew that I must learn how to speak English and this process took time. Finally, I can speak English and at least knowing what people around me are talking about.

Jeanette Winterson wrote that, “I have to work for art if I want art to work on me.”, she is telling us that if we want to speak fluently, we have to do something on it. At least, we can try our best to communicate with each other. I come up with a question at this point, does Jeanette Winterson means that if we try our best, we must get back the reward? I believe that the writer cannot answer with a definitely “YES”, however, if we try our best, we can get what we are deserved to receive. Before we say “I don’t like this picture” or “I don’t understand this poem.” we have to think more deeply, it is because it can show how superficiality we are. Every step takes time and we have to enjoy the process before getting the answer as we are learning from the process.

Looking at a painting can increase discomfort and distraction as we are not good at looking and we always get distracted when we think of other things. Looking at a painting can also increase invention and irritation because we may have a new point of view after spending times to learn. We come up with questions and we have courage to solve the problems. I agree with Jeanette Winterson’s advantages of looking at a painting, however, to me, looking at a painting can increase our patient because it takes time to look at the picture deeply and think how it can be connected to another objects and what the painter is trying to tell us. The writer also said that, “Art takes time. Art opens the heart. Love takes time”, I also agree with this idea because art, love and foreign language take times to practice and revise. With a lot of experiences, we learn how to be a good artist, we learn how to speak fluently and we understand that Love disseminate the love seeds through times. When you first fall in love, you won’t say you love that person, you will say the word “love” after a certain period of time.

As no one is born with the intelligence of drawing, Jeanette Winterson said that, “He has to recognize that the language of art, all art is not our mother language.” Winterson tells us that all the art are not the original art, the artists learn how to paint before they paint. Same as learning to speak a foreign language, the foreign language is not from the original and we have to learn it before speak it out. I agree with Winterson’s idea because no one can speak foreign language when they were born, the only thing that we can do is to learn from someone else and we should not lost confidence because learning new language takes courage to achieve the goals.

While Jeanette Winterson was walking through the museum, she hoped that, “Someone fluent in this strange language and its dialects, who had spent many years in that foreign city and who might introduce me to the locals and their rather odd habits.”, In her points of view, she thinks that Art is odd and we should use difference ways to look at painting, we should think more and trying to receive messages from the painters. The people who speak fluent second language are still odd to her because they have brought cultures from their own countries. I agree with the writer because she is telling us that no one is perfect and everyone should learn from the others. We should not discriminate the minority because they are working very hard to adapt in the new environment.

To conclude, my past memories came back after I read Jeanette Winterson’s Art Objects. It is because I have the same feeling as Jeanette Winterson.She made good comparisons between Art, Learning to speak a foreign language and Love. They both need times to achieve the best. Also, she gives us a whole new sight to see paintings, which applies to our daily life. She leaves us with questions and makes us to think more deeply.Furthurmore; she cheers us up by using her courage to adapt into the whole new environment. Jeanette Winterson is setting a good example on how she is willing to accept challenges. I agree with her idea on how much you give out, how much you will be received as she said, “I have to work for art if I want art to work on me.”.

[edit] Living under the nightmare

To all the people who do not concern about SARS,

“Remember to wash your hands and wear the mask before you go outside, otherwise, you may get infected by SARS.”(SARs history) was our motto during the SARS period. 2003 was the most unforgettable year for all of the people living in Hong Kong. The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiration Syndrome (SARS), a fatal illness, made all of us live in a nightmare. SARs could be easily spread out through the airborne, for example, it could spread out through coughing. SARS was not only affecting the people who live in Hong Kong, it gave the world a new sight of Hong Kong. SARS affected us in many ways: social problems, economic problems and health problems. SARS, not only brought us problems, it also left us with many questions and mistrusts between the government and the public. Until now, parts of the questions have not been solved yet.

SARS spread out in our community within a short period of time. The outbreak in Block E of Amoy Gardens apartment alerted everyone’s concerns; around two hundred Block E residents got infected by SARS. People started to realize that SARS was not only spread though the droplet transmission and the government realized how emergency was the case, so they decided to isolate the residents in Block E of Amoy Gardens. The government did not let the residents go outside and they were forced to stay at home. The government provided the daily supplements to the residents in Amoy Garden. However, in the residents’ points of view; they were living in the prison. As the residents in Amoy Garden reported to the media for not having choices in food and drinks, the public blamed the government by criticizing them. The government ignored the public voice and a week later, the residents were forced to move into the concentration camp and the government explained to us that the residents had to be isolated as there were more people got infected by SARS; most of them were from the Amoy Garden. We started to suspicious the government in the way that they handled the emergency case. When the World Health Organization announced a travel warning to the global and named this disease as Severe Acute Respiration Syndrome (SARS), they also said that SARS was threatening the globe’s health. SARS became a global issue and it started to spread out in Asia. The mistrust’s gap between the government and the public became deeper. Afterward, the World Health Organization announced another travel warning to the global again and warned the travelers not to travel around Hong Kong and the districts of Canton if not necessary. At that time, the public could not do anything but just blaming, we were forced to trust the government under this dangerous circumstance. During the SARS periods, there were thirteen thousands people lost their jobs, four thousands companies closed, thirteen thousands of flight’s had been cancelled and we lost about seventy percents of the travelers. (SARS story)

After SARs, the public totally lost confidence on the government. The government carried out a lot of campaigns to cheer up the public, for example, the cleaning campaign, the temperature measurements for the travelers and they also evaluated the report for the outbreak of the Block E of the Amoy Gardens. In order to resurrect the economy, the government of Hong Kong also carried out the “saving plans”, which would be benefited to two million families. The plans included: taxes return, free license fee, free water fee and free garbage fee. The government also offered the temporary job opportunities to the public. The People’s Republic of China gave us a lot of supports. For example, they signed up the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) with Hong Kong and decided to build the bridge between Hong Kong and Zhu Hai. In addition, the government of Hong Kong has provided free visa to the people living in the mainland China which is benefited to the third industries such as service industries, travel industries and sales industries. On the other hand, colleges, elementary schools and kindergartens were all requested to close due to the SARS. (SARs History) Students suddenly had a long vacation. However, we all disliked this vacation because we were forced to wear masks when we went outside. I still remembered that my high school was the first school to close because it is the nearest school to one of the spreader’s place. I thought our principal did a good job in handling the case because she did her best for not letting us to get affected.

What would you feel if you were living in the dead city? When I dated my friend to karaoke, we realized that we were the only one to go there. Also, I felt so terrible when I watched the news everyday because I saw the increasing numbers of the infected people and the number of death only. How would you feel if you were living in the dead city and everyone was worrying about getting infected? It is definitely a nightmare to all of us. I still remembered when I was watching the news, I heard one patient told her husband that, “I am feeling so painful, I can not breathe at all and the nurse cannot teach me how to breathe.”(The story of 2003) I heard from another nurse saying that she did not know how long did they still have to work in this danger place and how many of her friends still had to sacrifice. I was crying when I heard that and I asked myself when we could overcome this outbreak. When I walked outside, I saw a dead city. Can you imagine that? Luckily, we still had a lot of medical staffs sacrifice them to help patients who were in need. Numbers of doctors and nurses died in this outbreak, but their message of sacrifice were deeply in our heart. Although they located in a danger situation, they could quit at this point but they decided to stay and helped. The news told us that even the staffs were off duty; they still went back to the hospital and helped the patients. They said, “I have no choice but save the patients.”(The story of 2003) I want to thank them sincerely.

To conclude, SARS almost destroyed our lovely Hong Kong. Because of our hard work, Hong Kong has been reborn into an amazing city again. During the SARs period, the chairman of China went to Amoy Garden and supported the residents. Some famous Hong Kong artists hold a charity concert and gave all their incomes to help the SARS victims. In the concert, we all cried and showed our supports and cares to the people who were still in the hospital. Also, the public raised a lot of money to help the victims. We tried to cooperate with the government. After SARs, the government fired the staffs that were responsible for SARs as they did not perform their duties well. I believed that if we were told by the government earlier, we would not have so many people died in this disaster. If the government and the world concerned more about this issue, I thought that SARS would not spread though out the world. The government should be blamed in this issue. However, I thought they did a good job in resurrecting the economy. Although this disease cost a lot of death, it also alerted us a lot of things. SARs reminded us how fragile our life is and how importance our families are. It reminded us that money is not as important as our family reunion. Furthermore; SARs reminded us the spirit of cooperation. During the SARs period, we had a song and the lyric was, “We shall overcome, we shall overcome if we can cooperate with each other……” (The story of 2003). At that time I thought, we could make it and we made it finally. I believe that Hong Kong becomes invincible when we are all co-operated with each other and help each other. At this point, would you start to think of how SARs made you to change and how to become a better man? Or would you start to learn how to communicate with each other even though you are living in the environment without any war or disaster? We should treasure everything that we have and I believe that we all will have a better life once we learn the way to cooperate with each other.

Sincerely,

Christine Lee

Work Citation:

1. “The Story of 2003” TVB. dualman 2006. 6 Nov.2007.<http://youtube.com/watch?v=p3A1UtzdN-A>

2. “The Story of 2003, Part 2” TVB. dualman 2006. 6 Nov.2007 <http://youtube.com/watch?v=JghFHqK9aPU&feature=related>

3. “The Story of 2003, Part 3” TVB. dualman 2006. 6 Nov.2007 <http://youtube.com/watch?v=rf1eIKV2vYY&feature=related>

4. “The Story of 2003, Part 4” TVB. dualman 2006. 6 Nov.2007 <http://youtube.com/watch?v=9aZuYSm2ii0&feature=related>

5. “SARS history”. Unknown .2005 7 Sept 2005. 6 Nov 2007 <http://www.hkmms.org.hk/SARS/sIndRight_3-1.htm>

[edit] ever hopeful (Annapolis)

Is peace ever existed??There is a lot of questions that I get confused.What's wrong between Palastian and Isabeli.I mean why don't they choose a better way to solve the problem but ended up with violence.It is true that it is hard to achieve the goal.However, I think they are all human being and they should have their own thinking.So they should understand what they are doing.

[edit] Second Reflection Letter

My topic is SARS. Although the topic SARS does not have a real effect to the Americans, as a foreigner, still want to bring my hometown issue and trying to use it as an example to alert all the people the important of co-operate and to appreciate the works that the people did in Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a village before, after became the British Colonial. Hong Kong, has soon developed to an amazing city, SARS, ruined our city again after the first disaster in our Hong Kong—Cholera. At first, I did not come up with any of topic. I have thought to write about war or others. Luckily, my friend gave me a good idea; he told me that I should write something that I’m familiar with, so I decided to write SARS. If the government could care more about the SARS suspicious case earlier, I believe that we can control it. Government realized the problems of SARS after it spread out to the community, which was threatening our life. Government, at this point, had to be responsible for that, I hope I can analysis the problems of the government and the advantage of the government through this disaster.SARS, at this point, helped us to define the true meaning of a “Good government”. However, during SARS period, we could see how disorganize was the government. This was disspointed.The people that sacrifice their life; I believed that they are the medical staffs. They knew how danger their situations were, but they still go for it. They had no way but trying their best to save the patients from danger. When I watched the video in youtube,I almost cried when the nurse said, “I didn’t know how many of us still had to die before the SARS could be fully controlled.”.I felt really sorry to her. And also, when I was watching the video, another man said his wife called him from the hospital, she told him that she couldn’t breathe and the nurse could not teach her how to breathe. I was trying to imagine, how bad the situation in the hospital.SARS was affected us in many ways, it led to thirteen thousands people lost their jobs and many people lost their life. Although the government wanted to cheer up the people by using a lot of campaigns, the public still lose confident to the government and in the first of July, half million people went to the assembly. They charged the government for a lot of issues.SARS, unemployment, and not passing the number twenty third in basic law. However, the government still thought that they did a good job. They did not care about what we wanted. I hope though my paper, my audience can know what was going on in Hong Kong and how disorganize when we had a bad government. Also, I want my audience to know how important is to cooperate with each other during the special period.

[edit] Citation Exercise

1) Duffin, Jacalyn. Sweetman, Arthur. SARS in context: memory, history, policy. Canada: Montreal, 2006.

2) Kleinman, James L. Watson. SARS in China: prelude to pandemic?. United States: California, 2006.

3) Abraham, Thomas. Twenty-first century plague : the story of SARS. United States: Maryland, 2005.

4) Greenfield, Karl Taro. China syndrome : the true story of the 21st century’s first great epidemic . United States: New York, 2006

5) Brookes, Tim. Omar, A. Khan. Behind the mask: how the world survived SARS, the first epidemic of the 21st century. United States: Washington, 2005.

[edit] Third Reflection paper

Final Words

Here comes to the end of the semester. When I first decided to take the English 112, I had no idea what I am going to do in this class. Soon or later, I found out that the main theme of this class is learning through writing. I admit that you have to write a lot in this class, from a piece of blog entry to an organized big paper. However, I’m proud to say that my writing gets improved through the writing process. As we always say that, “Practice makes perfect.” I fully understand this motto finally. Thus, this class brings up new and good teaching method, which is learning through communication. We leave feedback and receive comment through the blog; it means that there is an interconnection between us, Steph and the junior communication class. It makes me understand that writing is not just through a piece of paper. In my latest research paper, I changed my topic twice. At first, I would like to write about how cigarette and alcohol affect the college students. However, when I was watching a story happened in Hong Kong 2003 online, it made me remind of SARS.In 2003, the people in Hong Kong(included me) had experienced our most unforgettable memories. I could not say that there is a direct relationship between SARS and United States, what I wanted to bring out is the mistrusts between the government and the public and how did we cooperate with each other. I thought I made it finally. Moreover, I still think that my paper was not detail enough. I wish I could have more information in my paper. I really want to give this letter especially to the one who lives in Hong Kong but was not there during the SARS period, to the government and hence to the public. I always dream of become a nurse in the future. After SARS, I do not think that I can be a nurse because you must have courage to face the harshest situation. No one knows that there may be another disaster which can kill a lot of people. In this moment, I just want to enjoy every single second in my life and cherish things that I am having. I realized that people’s goal will change after their experiences. No matter the change is good or bad, we are still what we are. Enjoy our college life, everyone!