Ma Fête Préférée Française

Quelle est votre fête préférée française ? Où passez-vous cette fête? Avec qui passez-vous cette fête?Que faites-vous à cette occasion? Pourquoi aimez-vous cette fête? Y a-t-il un rituel spécial?

1. Noël

Cet an, je passerai Noël chez mon petit ami et ses parents. J'adore cette fête parce que c'est une fête très importante pour les européens. Il y a beaucoup de rituels spéciaux: par exemple, les parents mettent les cadeaux dans les chaussettes des leurs enfants au réveillon. On décore le sapin ensemble, à minuit, on s'embrasse sous le gui, on trinque et on se souhaitent.

2. Halloween

L'Halloween est le 31 de octubre, c'est une fête veille. On se déguise, on utilise beaucoup de citrouille  traditionnellement pour décorer la maison. Les enfants aiment cette fête, parce que ils peuvent aller chez les gens pour ramasser des bonbon. Tout le monde fait la fête. L'ambiance est très agréable.

Mes Activités Quotidiennes

Alors, je suis nouvelle en français, mais je vais essayer de écrire mes activités quotidiennes.

Le matin, normalement, je me réveille vers sept heures trente, mais je me lève vers huit heures,  pas trop tôt ni trop tard. Puis, je prends une tasse d'eau chaude, et je me douche, je me maquille, et je me brosse les dents. Quelquefois, je me coiffe. Ensuite, je me prends le petit déjeuner avec mon petit ami, il est très mignon et doux, car il prépare le petit déjeuner à nous. Il se rase presque tous les jours.
Je l'adore beaucoup! Ensuite, je me prépare à toute vitesse pour quitter la maison d'aller à l'arrêt de bus. Voila c'est tout, enfin, je suis très heureuse!

My Writing Life

My writing life can be briefly described by two parts, my diaries and the poetry.

When I was a little girl, the first person that inspired and educated me was my father. He taught me a wide range of knowledge, and he influenced me in my writing life as well. For example, he used to ask me to write diaries. To be honest, at the beginning, it was against my will, so I did not like it at all. As far as I’m concerned, once someone requires you to do something, which is outside of your interest, you will not enjoy it as much. That was my case and besides that my diaries were checked by my father every day; that supervision was not my joy at that time.

However, I cannot simply deny my father’s intention in asking me to write diaries, only because I could not entertain myself too much doing it. I have to confess that, to a certain extent, it had a very strong and positive influence on my writing life.

And what was more, I even started to feel comfortable with it. So I began to record those unforgettable moments of my daily life. It could be some important events, some interesting activities, some different thoughts or just some simply routines. It might have seemed boring at the time, but it was a very good way to summarize what life was like, to remember the beautiful moments that once happened to me throughout those old days. 

Up till now, apart from improving my writing skills, I also consider that writing diaries can be a very useful way to release emotions. It helps to express feelings, happiness or sadness, ups and downs; to extract the negative sensations like stress or pressure. That is why I now carry my dairy notebook with me wherever I go, in order to be prepared for rescuing myself mentally from every possible difficult situations that may occur.

Apart from the diary, the other important factor that effects of my writing life is poetry. I love reading poetry in the languages that I can understand, like Chinese, Spanish and English. Reading those beautiful and sentimental words makes me feel good in a very special way. Not only reading, I also intend to write something with my best effort. I really do enjoy doing it, trying so hard to think of every single word that I want to use in the sentence, finding the perfect one from my dictionary according to the context I am creating.

When I am traveling from place to place, I like taking pictures just as the rest do in order to memorize the landscapes, the nice companions, or the lovely moments while strolling slowly on the way. Besides that, I enjoy writing down something with my pen, something related to the sights I observe, the thoughts I come up with, the feelings pop out through my heart.

At the end, in a nutshell, I love writing and I look forward to putting more effort on improving it.

Challenged My Dad

I still can recall this memory that once I challenged my father’s belief. The result was not pleasant, because of the punishment which came afterwards. However, I have never regretted.

There was a day, after school just like normal days, my father asked me about what I learnt from the class. I replied him with my prepared answers. And then, as usual he asked me about more details. I told him from course to course. Finally we came to Morality and Philosophy material, and I casually mentioned about one specific idea that my teacher taught me that day, which was also written in the text book. It said “persons’ character can be somewhat altered in the future by the environment which is distinguished from the family background.”

As confidant as I could, I explained him the idea the way how the teacher did in the class. But I noticed his face getting serious, he chuckled and responded me, “What? It can be true”, with a stronger voice, he added, “Person’s character can’t be changed in the future”, as he continued, “Your family decides your character.” I could feel by that time, how rigid it sounded. As a 12-year-old little girl, it was my first time I determined to try to debate with my father.

I responded him, “Dad, but I think persons’ future behaviors can be influenced by the environment”, with more detailed, I added, “and your behaviors can somehow change your character.”

Certainly, after hearing that I was disagreed with him, he got irritable. He kept repeating what he believed, and tried to convert me. However, surprisingly, I persisted in my point of view.

That day by challenging his belief, no wonder, I ended up with a bad punishment. My father was like my mayor childhood authority, it was not easy for me at all. Nevertheless, I have never regretted. On the contrary, I still insist on what I believe.

A Camel´s Discovery

As a normal camel, Donk had something not normal on his camel´s mind. He was raised in a common camel´s family with an appropriate education. However, one day his parents shared with him a family secret, that 3000 years ago, one of his ancestors left a legacy somewhere in the desert. The ancestor had been an archconservative old camel, yet very wise at that time. Nevertheless, his parents mentioned that the legacy was a preliminary draft for a great invention for the human society in the future.

“But how did this have anything to do with our camels?” Donk had always wondered. Finally one day his overwhelming curiosity drove him to make up his mind. “I’m going to find out, I need to know it.” So right after his decision was made, he left home immediately that day, for sure, with complete preparation.

Bearing the intolerable weather, Donk passed through thousands of rough mountains for 47 days, with his iron will, on the 48^th day. He finally arrived at his destination. There was vast area of green trees with wild flowers everywhere. In the middle of the picture, there was a vivid river. Donk saw something very conspicuous in the middle of the river. He leaned closer, and he was very cheerful. “It is the legacy, this is it!” He repeated time and time again with satisfaction. It was a primitive manuscript. The content inside was not very legible; however, Donk found his way to read it, as it was completely unambiguous for him, in spite of its ancient scrip. Donk absorbed the idea of this gift from his ancestor. It was about how camels’ humps correlated to a great human invention.

As camels’ humps can restore food and energy, so can humans do the same thing. It described in details how humans can take good advantage of renewable sources, such as solar energy, wind, water etc. And how humans can absorb and later restore them and use them when necessary.

Donk stood stunned with his mouth wide open. He had learnt a bit about how human society now is short of energy and there are lots of environmental problems going on. So he decided to reveal his discovery to the humans as soon as he got back home. And no wonder he did a great contribution to the human society. And he won Nobel Prize that year, and he was the first camel who won Nobel Prize, and of course, he became rich and famous.

The Cellist of Sarajevo

The Cellist of Sarajevo, the novel is inspired by true events that occurred during the siege of Sarajevo in the nineties. The story starts with the cellist, who is considered as “the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra”; he is playing Albinoin’s Adagio next to a spot where people are waiting in a queue for buying bread in the market. All of sudden, twenty-two people are killed in a flash by a mortar attack. The cellist decided to play twenty-two days for each of them, honoring their memory.

Throughout those twenty-two days, there are different stories from four main characters: Arrow, Dragan, Kenan and the Cellist about what is happening in the city which is being besieged by the enemies on the hill.

Arrow is a young sniper, who is assigned to protect the cellist throughout those twenty-two days. She is a person with a good sense of justice.  Although it was not her dead father’s will, neither hers, “It’s just something you do because life is a series of tiny, unavoidable decisions”. She does her job for the sake of protecting the innocent people and her city. She finishes her assignment pretty well at end.

Dragan, a 64-year-old man, works in a bakery, gets bread for his relatives. Before the war, to protect his family, he sent his wife and son to Italy, and he chose to stay in the city even though he is afraid of death. During the story, he has interaction with Emina, his wife’s friend, who is on her way to deliver medication; unfortunately, she gets injured in the middle of the way, and Dragan does not help her. She is taken away for medical care. However, at end, Dragan takes away a dead body from the scene of the camera, which will probably be published in front of the whole world. He is trying to protect the social image of his city, and the honor of a dead person.

Kenan, a middle-aged father of three kids, is risking his life for getting the water for his family during the war, which is considered one of the basic needs of life. Also, he tries hard to be generous and kind-hearted to his unkind neighbor Mrs.Ristovki, who gives Kenan some water bottles which are not easy to carry. Anyway, Kenan keeps his promise, showing a strong sense of responsibility.

Despite of separate description as small vignettes of four characters, the novel is well-organized in great detail. Nevertheless, there is a connection among them. No wonder, it is the cellist, which is also emphasized from the title of the novel. The story draws Kenan and Dragan into the orbit of cello music.

At very end of the chapter, Kenan has an encounter with the cellist, which changes his mind about the cellist and his music. At beginning, he doesn’t understand why the cellist plays every day on the same spot; he thinks “it was a foolish gesture, a pointless exercise in futility”. Then after he listens to the cellist’s play, he starts to “feels himself relax as the music seeps into him”, observing that “the cellist’s hair smoothes itself out, his beard disappears. A dirty tuxedo becomes clean, shoes polished bright as mirrors”. Everything around him turns into another way, clean, bright and organized. Even the building behind the cellist “repairs itself, and windows reassemble, clarify, and sparkle as the sun reflects off glass”. Kenan feels his city “heals itself around him”, with the cellist’s music continuing, he even sees his lovely family again with whom he walks, holding hands with joy, love, and hope.

 And the brave sniper Arrow is protecting the cellist throughout every single day of these twenty-two days. “She stays where she is. At four o’clock the cellist comes out and her finger tightens around the trigger”, in spite that she realized the feeling of hatred that grows into her gradually without notice, which she doesn’t like any part of it. For her, “The Sarajevo she fought for was one where you didn’t have to hate a person because of what they were”.

Music has a magnificent effect on this specific situation. It relieves the tension of the war. While listening to the music, people may start to think about the bright side, seize the positive part of life, and get more mental support and strength.

The city is being besieged, and there are shells, mortar-attacks everywhere in the city, especially in the intersections. Under this utterly different living condition, people’s life style has dramatically changed. There are no safe streets for a normal walk, no easy access for the water, no stable electricity supply, no working, no school…just for buying a piece of bread, for crossing the streets, for getting a bottle of water, you could lose  your life. There is no dignity in being a normal human being; you can be considered “a guinea pig” for reassurance of other’s life.

To a certain point, the nature of humanity can be revealed thoroughly, like fear of death: when Emina gets shot in the middle of the street, Dragan wants to help her, “but his feet don’t move, around him everyone is alive with frenzied energy, but he hasn’t stirred an inch”. He can’t move “because he is afraid”, “he isn’t built for war. He doesn’t want to be built for war”; like selfishness: businessmen make profit during the war, they increase incredibly the price for food in the market when normal people don’t have income anymore, life become harder not only because of the war, but also because of these greedy and selfish people make the situation even more difficult; and like responsibility: Kenan, at beginning, left Mrs.Ristovki’s bottles in the middle of way, at end, he find his way back to get those bottles, although they are hard to carry. To Kenan, “a promise is a promise”, he tries his best to keep his word at risk of losing his life. Moreover, there are generosity, cowardice; sense of justice; and bravery.

Through the well-developed narration of each story, we can understand more about war, about life, and about human nature. It shows us a vivid scene of every aspect. No doubt, it shows lots of valuable qualities of human beings. Nonetheless, a big event like a war can change the person in some way, both negative and positive. It can make people cherish more about what they used to have, which even seemed so simple and insignificant. 

Austin & Vegetarianism

Sadie Smiles, 23-year-old graduate student in University of Texas at Austin, is originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania and has been in Austin for about one year. She has been a vegetarian for more than ten years.

 

“Austin is a great city to experience both traditional American culture and newer and more diversified elements of society.”

Austin, the capital of Texas, is soaring in its development both economically and culturally. It is one of the biggest cities in the United States. Compared to other big cities, Austin has most of the common features of being a big city; nonetheless, there is something unique in it.

Like Sadie mentioned, “Austin has to do a lot with sort of hip, urban, new-age, sort of like everybody wants to be healthy. I think Austin is sort of like this cool, modern, and healthy city. ”

Apart from those modern terms she applied to describe the city, she mentioned couple of times of “healthy.” No wonder, being a faithful vegetarian, she should be paying more attention to this aspect than other people might. In her words, Austin is a “healthy city.” It stimulates my thoughts, how come?

 

“I think the food here is awesome. Since I’m a vegan, it’s like really refreshing to be in a city where there are a lot of vegan options.”

Considering the aspect of food, although it is well-known that Texas is famous for its barbecue; Austin, being the capital of the state, has wide-open arms and shows hospitality and more tolerance to the people who come here, who stay here, and who decide to live here.  Though it might seem inconsequential, Austin has provided more options to vegetarians.

As Sadie remarked, “Although some may argue that eating animals is natural, I think, the way we raise animals for food is unhealthy. Since we get most our meat from factory farms, the food industry is way more industrial than ever intended.”

Many other vegetarians propose that, to besiege and raise a large scale of animal in farms or factories, is immoral. Humans are at a higher level of the food chain, which is the reason that we recognize that it is part of nature to eat less intelligent animals. But the way we treat animals has changed. Before, our ancestors were using arrowheads, knives and tools that were invented, to hunt animals in order to get the meat. But look at present, people force animals into cages or farms, give them hormones or other chemicals in order to make them grow faster and bigger. The business drive leads this to happen which is not part of nature at all.

Like what Sadie mentioned, “I think that our growing population has led to bigger and more problematic methods of mass farming, and people are turning to vegetarianism as a way to combat this.”

There are actually significant vegetarian residents in Austin corresponding to the statistic I found from the US national Public Policy Polling Survey 2013. Austin ranks the top 10 vegetarian cities in the United States and the whole percentage in the country for vegetarian is thirteen. It is a big number with no doubts.

 “Americans face large increase of obesity and heart related issues and eliminating meat from a diet is a good step to improve your health.”

Certainly we have not found any strict proofs yet to demonstrate that lots of crucial diseases have a direct link to the consumption of meat. However, the scientists confirm that meat definitely contains more fat than vegetables, especially saturated fat, which the human body does not need too much for daily intake. And the cholesterol is only found in animal products. Apparently, those facts can increase the risk of developing these diseases: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, kidney stone, arthritis etc.

“The more meat we raise for food, the faster we deplete a lot of natural resources. We also use a lot of unhealthy gas when we transport large quantities of meat across the country.”

It seems to me, Sadie got enthusiastic explaining to me her point of view on vegetarian topic. To be a listener, I can absolutely feel her strong emotions towards this.

Nowadays, when we are talking about the environment issue, we talk about the climate change, the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide. But she put forward to a new perspective of this topic, which I feel very excited about.

 “Being in Texas, Austin is lucky to have access to a lot of local farms. Grocers are able to get organic food without traveling far; therefore the amount of healthy vegetarian food in Austin is plentiful. The culture of Austin makes these organic options popular, so it has become a city that welcomes vegetarians.”