Author: VeronicaX

Today we read a science fiction written by Ray Bradbury. It talked about the human invent the time machine in the future 2055 and use it to go back to prehistoric times to hunt dinosaurs as an adventure. But there is a nervous guest, Ekcels kill a butterfly accidentally, that result in he can not go back to the primary globe. There comes one problem I want to talk about today. The time machine is good or bad?

In today’s’ world, technology is improving very quickly. The time machine is always the top dream machine that humans want to invent. Because we want to know what happened in the prehistoric times, why dinosaurs died out, and how the globe looked like at that time… There are lots of mysteries that we want to solve, so scientists and inventors study hard day and night to invent the machine which can help. But how can we promise that someone like the people in the story won’t use the machine to do bad things? What if they try to steal something from the past? We never know.

I admit technology helps us a lot, it makes our life much more convenient. The time machine is good or not, depends on how we use it. So the first thing we should do before the time machine invented, is that scientists should tell people this machine is only for research and study not for adventure. And I don’t think people should be allowed to get into the past, like walking or jumping at that time in that world. The world is connected, any change that happened in the past might change today’s world, to a large extent. So my advice is we can only use the time machine to see what happened instead of getting into that world. That might avoid some bad things happen.

Invent the time machine is a hard thing, but how can we use it correctly is much harder than that. We still need to study hard and improve human quality to make sure the time machine can realize its biggest value and truly help people to figure out the mysteries.

Today’s TED talk speaker, Kimber Lybbert, she stood on children’s side to tell adults how exactly children want grown-ups to treat them. So today I want to talk about it.

We need our parents to take care of us when we were young babies but we want them to trust us that we have the ability to take care of ourselves when we’ve grown up. We have our own thoughts and personality, we want to make our own decisions. So we want them to treat us like adults. But most parents still think we are kids and always plan everything for us. My parents also do that when I was 12 or 13 years old. I was thinking, I stayed in a residential school since I was in kindergarten, I had the ability to handle myself. So I always argued with them at that time. After a half year, they might think it was the time to be hands-off on somethings so I was being treated as a young adult. As time goes by, I do really think I can make some big decisions so I live in America by myself now. My parents more can’t interfere with my affairs since I came here.

The outside world is wonderful but loneness and helplessness are not. I didn’t think that was a big deal until I got a phone fraud and almost gave my money to them, I begin to be scared. I felt so helpless that didn’t know what to do. I called my parents and cried loudly. They finally realized I was still a teenager. And I also realized I still couldn’t handle all the problems, I still need them.

As teenagers, I totally agree parents trust us and give our own power but we always should remember parents will always be the people who we can depend on, no matter how old we are.

Today we learned the 10 rules of success from Elson Musk, who is very successful now. So today’s essay I want to talk about one of these rules.

The one of them is critical think. Sometimes our friends or parents do not want to hurt our feelings so they might not tell you about your disadvantages. Or they even didn’t discover your defects. So we might think we are okay and not work harder than before. I’ve had that experience before I came to America. My English grade was not bad in middle school in China. So I think I could pass the visa interview easily when I decided to go to America for high school. With that thought, I didn’t prepare much for the interview. Not surprisingly, I didn’t pass that. It was thunderstruck. I started to criticize myself. Did I work hard actually? Of cause no. However, I didn’t give up. I spent a lot of time preparing the interview and make sure everything was right. Every night I said to myself, “You’re doing not bad, but you can do much better on that thing or that thing…” After a week, I passed the interview. It confirmed the rule is right. We can not be cocky, we should always have a rational mind. Proper confidence is good for us, but more than that is not good. We can not be indulged in the success that we made before. We need to look ahead and keep improving ourselves.

I think I will remember this rule and always learn from it in the rest of my life because I used my experience to confirm its effectivity. And I hope I can learn more from the other rules in future days.

Today’s TED talk video was so impressive, I can feel that Morin has a strong mental strength through her words. She didn’t give up even she lost her mom, the first husband, and the second husband’s father. I can not imagine that if I was under that situation, how can I get through it? Then she told us the ways.

There are three ways that could rob our mental strength, unhealthy beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about the world. So if we want to get the strength, we need good habits and give up some bad habits. We should remember that everyone is special. Morin said, “The only person you should compare with is the person you were yesterday.” That’s true. If you always care about what did others do and how good they are, you will feel bad and lost hope and want to give up. Before watching this video, I was always comparing me with my former classmates who are studying in China now. They are always working so hard, which makes me feel nervous. But after watching this, I change my mind. I am in a different learning environment from them, I should compare with myself or my current classmates. For the last part, I also believe that if I work really hard, the world will give me rewards. But it’s not always right in the real life. You can barely get anything although you work hard day and night. That’s always happening. But we both forgot to look at the small change every day. Like I failed an English Word test, of course, I felt bad. But I remember 30 new words every day, that definitely can help me some days. That’s the thing that I can control and improve myself.

All in all, I think we should be ourselves and work hard for ourselves, We should create our own value. Our lives are in our hands, we must control it instead of letting fate take its course.

We talked about the bad tradition in ‘The Lottery’ today. That reminds me of one tradition in China, which is not good but not dangerous.

People like to urge guests to drink and add many dishes into guests’ bowls when they are having a big dinner together. Most people will think they are displaying their enthusiasm and being polite to guests. But I think it makes guests, especially foreign guests, embarrassed. Because some guests may not good at drinking but they do not want to be impolite, they only can drink much even though they are not feeling good. The tradition still has many followers in some traditional families to this day. And this tradition even shows on job markets or workplaces. When you are doing a deal with some big bosses, they said if you finish this glass of wine, I will sign the contract with you. You know you are not good at drinking but you do not have choice because you need to do your job. There are lots of people who damage their health because of this.

I think it’s hard to change that. But what I thought is we should not force our guests or cooperative partners to eat much or drink much. They have their own options. We can display our enthusiasm in other ways like we can prepare more dishes that guests might like. Or we can ask the partner if he can drink or not and treat each other equally.

To change some bad traditions is always a hot topic of debate. The older generation might think they follow the tradition for their whole life, there is nothing wrong with that. But we don’t think so. That’s called the generation gap. All in all. I think we should find a good way to change the bad tradition and make it become a good tradition.

Racism has always been a hot topic from history to now. According to the video, Dr. King stood out for black people and appeal to America to stop racism. His voice and words were so powerful. He was very determined, maybe because he thought this issue would be solved one day. But honestly, I don’t think it solved.

As we all know, an American police “killed” an African- American several days ago. Then the revolt started. Many African- American paraded through streets. They have attracted the attention of the world and also caused some problems. In my opinion, there is no difference between people who have different colors of skin. We all live under the same blue sky, breath the same air, and share the same home, earth. We can not always have a stereotype that black people are not friendly. We can not judge a person with our first impression. Only after we know what kind of person he is, we can define he is good or not. We should treat others as friendly and fair.

All in all, I think racism is still a big problem. I hope everyone can realize there is no difference among people in the world and make a better and harmonious place together.

Today we talked about two different teaching ways that showed in the short story. Coincidentally, I was educated in both ways.

I was studying in China until I came to America for high school. Honestly, most teachers in China, they prefer Miss Orville’s way. Because there are a lot of students in China, teachers can not care about each student at the same time. And the competition between students for places at good schools is fierce, which makes them stressed. Only their teachers are strict to them and give them punishments when they make mistakes, they can get good grades and go to their dream college. When I came to America to study, I find teachers here are much more different from teachers in China. They don’t have much homework and will not give much stress to students. They care more about the class and how to make students enjoy and understand the lesson. They will have quizzes so that we can review what we learned recently, rather than review a lot of stuff to prepare for many big exams.

Both ways have thier own advantages. The strict way can help students improve much more quickly and get better grades. It also can help students develop habits and become much more independent. However, the other way gives more space to students so that they can enjoy studying and be more creating. And also students will not have much pressure.

I’d have to say, I prefer the second way, that’s one reason why I came here to study. But sometimes I miss that time I studied in China. The strict way make me become a self- disciplined person and gives me opportunity to creat my better future. Well, whether nice teachers or strict teachers, they are always good for me.

Today we learn about the story of Beethoven, the first thought that came to my mind is being successful is not easy for any person.

As we all know, we all want to be successful. But we also know, that is not an easy thing. Behind all the gorgeous, has survived numerous dark night. We can see how confidence Beethoven was when he was playing the piano. We can know how amazing his music was. But we can never know how much time and energy he spent on it. I think that is the way how can a person be successful. You need time, energy, and patient. There is a person I know who is crazy about dancing to hip-pop. He went to Korea to learn dancing when he was 13 years old. He couldn’t speak any Korean, so he spoke English. He kept practicing dancing in all his free time and he did a very good job of dancing. He also learned how to speak Korean. After 3 years, he became a pop star. Unfortunately, not all people like him. Some of them even tried to hurt him. They slandered him online. He needed to bear all of those when he was 16. He didn’t give up. He worked much harder than before. Sometimes he even forgot to sleep and eat. After 4 years, many people started to notice him and discover the shining points of him. He became a household name. He succeeds.

The truth I want to point out is there is no shortcut to success, no pains, no gains. The things you can do is work hard, don’t give up, and be modest. You must be successful one day.

As everyone knows that not everyone can be a hero, but I think everyone still wants to be a great person. We always are not satisfied with our life that we have now, we want to be better, be richer, and so on. So then we have our dreams. The dream can be a huge dream, like to be a president. How big is the dream is not the most important thing but how much time did you spend on your dream is.

Most people have a huge dream, but they just daydream because they gave up without even trying. They said they don’t have time and money, and we are normal people, we can not be that successful like Abraham Lincoln. Well, what’s wrong with a normal person? Can’t a normal person have a big dream? That’s not true. Every successful person was a normal person before he succeeds. Even some of them are not “normal” people. For example, Beethoven, one of the most famous pianists. He was a little kid from a poor family. He had an ear infection when he was 26 years old. Everyone knows how important ears are to a pianist. But he didn’t give up. He still keeps practicing hard every day and communicates with others by writing on papers. He “listens” to the music by hands and heart. Finally, he becomes a household name in the nineteenth century.

Learn from that, we can know, if you truly spend time on your dream, you will get a chance to achieve it. But if you don’t try, it can never be achieved. We are all normal people, but since we have our dreams and work hard for it, we become different. Dreams themselves do not shine, but we do. So give yourself a chance, also give a chance to your dream. Just do it!

The speaker taught us three principles that can help us change our behavior. After watching it, I was thinking about how can I use these three principles? These below are some of my thoughts.

Let’s create a hypothesis first, I am trying to improve my English so I need to change my behavior and make some goals achieved. The first principle is social incentives. Most people care about the “eyes” of others, when some people are doing something good but you are not, you will feel nervous. So I will find out how do other people improve their English and make a table or something that can show their ways. Then I will find a way that fits me. The second principle is the immediate reward. I used to make a big goal that takes me a long time to achieve, then I would give myself a reward. It made me give up halfway easily because it made me feel the pressure and I couldn’t feel happy during the progress. So the best way is to separate the big goal into some small goal. For example, I used to say I want to memorize 200 words a week, but now I will say I want to memorize 30 words a day. The second way even makes me memorize many more words but it works well than the first way. I can watch a show or do something I like after I memorize the words every day, instead of waiting for a whole week to get a reward. The third principle is progress monitoring. When we are trying to achieve some goals, we can not only focus on the result. The result is unpredictable, but we can control our progress. Focus more on what we are doing instead of what will happen if we doing that. Like maybe I memorize a lot of words that I don’t use them in my daily life, but I still keep doing that every day, I believe they will help me one day. And enjoy the progress of memorizing which can train my brain.

All in all, the three principles can help us a lot. But the most important thing I think is to act now instead of talk only and you must be sure you turely want to change your behavior, if you don’t sure, the best principle won’t change you.