My youngest daughter

Last week, my baby daughter was sleeping on her stomach next to me in bed when I woke up. I got up and changed her diaper. The urine leaked out of her diaper. It wet her clothes, her pillow, our sheet, and the bed. I wanted to give her a bath, but she was very hungry. I made some formula. She drank it before her bath.

fiona

Hu Nan

My name is Fiona. I come from Hu Nan. It is a famous state in China. A lot of famous people are from Hu Nan. The one of the most famous is Chairman Mao. I think a lot of people in the world know him. Several of the Ten Marshals in the People's Armed Forces come from Hu Nan. I forget their names.

China has eight main cuisines. Hu Nan style is one of them. Hu Nan people like to eat hot green, red, and yellow peppers. The pepper is curled. The taste is special.

Hu Nan has many tourist zones. I don't know all of them. I know just a few. I will find out more information about Hu Nan. Then I will write again.

We are very lucky

Hello class 101

I’m Alejandro from Mexico and I have been in the United States for only one month and a half. I am here for two reasons, the first is because I was very tired of the monotony where I was living, not because I didn’t like what I was doing. I love my country, my friends, my work and my family, but , after many years in the same city, with the same people, visiting the same places and having the same expectations, sometimes we need to take a rest and learn different things and experience other places. The second reason is that I want to learn to speak English.
When I first came to the United States, I was living in Berkeley with my brother and my almost sister in law, and I started looking for schools where I could study. Finally, after maybe ten days I found the Adult School in Berkeley, a big school with many classes and students from all over the world (maybe ten thousand), so I was very excited with my new school.

Exactly like in the Oakland Adult School, there are three different levels. After my test I stayed in the intermediate class. That class was just for pronunciation and it was only one hour each day, so I was bored and I was feeling that I was not advancing very much. All the students just sat in chairs to listen to the teacher. I never talked with my classmates more than ten words. All of us were only echoing the teacher’s pronunciation. I could not take a second class because all the different classes were offered in the same hour (stupid, no?).

For all these reasons, I think we are very lucky to be here in this school, and we are very lucky also to be in the 101 class, with Richard, somebody how really worries that their students learn to speak, read, and think in English. Thank you!

And I believe that we, as students, should be contributing in some way.We can offer ideas to do some personal or group activities. For my part, I propose we could learn some songs. I have a guitar and I could learn the chords and maybe somebody could play another instrument or something else. Perhaps Richard could dance to the song, no?

Alejandro Campa

My Job

My name is Deth (you pronounce it like the English word "date").

I work in San Francisco as a baker. I have to work seven days a week because I am the only one in my shop who knows how to make donuts.

I start work at one o'clock in the morning. I work until seven in the morning. On the weekends I work overtime from one in the morning until one in the afternoon.

I work hard but I also make a lot of money. I also work as a manager in that shop.

I don't really like donuts, but I have to eat them every day. I have to test to see that they are tasty.

Read for the Record

Read for the Record

Last Thursday I took my niece and nephew to the Read for the Record event in Oakland. There were over 200 children reading the same book at the same time with a VIP. In this case the VIP was Pat Kernighan, the district supervisor.

Read for The Record is a campaign organized every year by the nonprofit organization Jump Start. Through this campaign this organization teaches children to read books so they will be prepared when they enter kindergarten and be successful in school. The purpose of the event is to break the record of children reading the same book at the same time all across the country.

Last year 150,000 children across the country participated in Read for the Record, all reading the same book. This year’s event was so successful that over 250,000 children participated.

This year the book was The Story of Ferdinand. This story was written many years ago and in many languages; it was famous.

This story is about a little bull, which was born in Spain. His name was Ferdinand. The little bull doesn’t like to play and to fight like the others. He only likes to sit quietly all the day and smell the flowers. He had a favorite spot under a big tree.
Ferdinand grew and grew until he was very big and strong. One day five men came to choose a bull to fight in Madrid. They wanted the biggest, fastest and roughest bull to fight in Madrid.
While the other bulls showed their abilities, strong and fierce to be picked, Ferdinand didn’t care and went to his favorite tree to sit down.
But this time Ferdinand sat on a bee, the bee stung him, so he became crazy. He started to jump, ran around puffing and snorting. The five men saw him and they thought he was the biggest and fiercest bull they were looking for.
They took Ferdinand to Madrid, and the day of the fight Ferdinand ran to the middle of the ring, everyone shouted and clapped because they thought he was going to fight fiercely and butt his horns. But Ferdinand saw the flower in the lady’s hair and he just sat down and smelled the flowers.

we are very lucky

Hello class 101

I’m Alejandro from Mexico and I have been in the United States for only one month and a half. I am here for two reasons, the first is because I was very tired of the monotony where I was living, not because I didn’t like what I was doing. I love my country, my friends, my work and my family, but , after many years in the same city, with the same people, visiting the same places and having the same expectations, sometimes we need to take a rest and learn different things and experience other places. The second reason is that I want to learn to speak English.

When I first came to the United States, I was living in Berkeley with my brother and my almost sister in law, and I started looking for schools where I could study. Finally, after maybe ten days I found the Adult School in Berkeley, a big school with many classes and students from all over the world (maybe ten thousand), so I was very excited with my new school.

Exactly like in the Oakland Adult School, there are three different levels. After my test I stayed in the intermediate class. That class was just for pronunciation and it was only one hour each day, so I was bored and I was feeling that I was not advancing very much. All the students just sat in chairs to listen to the teacher. I never talked with my classmates more than ten words. All of us were only echoing the teacher’s pronunciation. I could not take a second class because all the different classes were offered in the same hour (stupid, no?).

For all these reasons, I think we are very lucky to be here in this school, and we are very lucky also to be in the 101 class, with Richard, somebody how really worries that their students learn to speak, read, and think in English. Thank you!

And I believe that we, as students, should be contributing in some way.We can offer ideas to do some personal or group activities. For my part, I propose we could learn some songs. I have a guitar and I could learn the chords and maybe somebody could play another instrument or something else. Perhaps Richard could dance to the song, no?

Alejandro Campa

Hello, Classmates

It is nice being in this class with all of you.

I will write more tonight.

I promise!

Hi, Classmates

Hi,
This is my first post.

If you want to know more about the young Australian girl, Pumpkin, click here.

Summer Vacation

Over summer vacation I took my children to swimming classes. A couple of days, I took them ice skating.

Just a few days before school started we went to the State Fair in Sacramento.This fair begins about August 17^th and ends on Labor Day. .I've been there three times. You can have a lot of fun with your family.

At the State Fair there is a lot of entertainment for little kids and for adults, too. I rode on ride called "The Experience". I didn't want to go on it, but my daughter wanted to go and my son said that he wouldn’t ride with her. I decided to ride on it with her.

Oh my God! We were upside down. I thought I was going to die. It was a very bad experience for me.

Also, there were animal exhibitions, horse shows, an American rodeo and many others things you could see and do there.

My first job in Qing-Dao

I graduated from Ji-Lin University in 1955. I was assigned to Sun-Dong University in Qing-Dao. I took a train to Qing-Dao alone. When I arrived at the school, I took a letter of introduction to the teaching affairs office, then I went to mathematics’ office.

After a few days, I became a professor’s assistant. I listened to the professor’s course. Then I taught a math practices course. The first time I taught the course, I was nervous, because I was so short. I needed to write some questions on the blackboard. I had to stand on tip toes and stretch my arm to reach the blackboard. I corrected students’ homework. After a couple of years, I taught a course in basic math for two years.

The first year, I got wage ¥47(yuan) for a month. The second year, I got to raise to ¥55 (yuan). I was very happy.

In 1958 Sun-Dong university separated into two parts. One part moved to Ji-Nan, It is called Sun-Dong University. The other part is called Ocean University in Qing-Dao. I stayed at Ocean University. Now it is called China Ocean University.

meifang

To Visit My Brother

At the end of June this year, my family and I visited my younger brother who lives in Los Angeles.

We rented a van. On June 28th, we started to drive at 2:00 a.m. from home and we anticipated we would arrive at brother Lai’s home before 9:00 a.m. We hoped that we could enjoy breakfast together in Los Angeles.

My youngest son drove the car. He drove along Highway 5 southbound. When we approached Pyramid Lake, it was daybreak. The highway was full of travelers. Many cars cruised beside our car. The drivers seemed to be very happy because everyone felt that they would get to the destination very soon. Suddenly my youngest son saw an unknown object in front of us in our lane. It was impossible to change lanes. He made an emergency stop, but the car couldn’t stop before hitting the unknown object. Bang! Our car jumped up.

We worried about what might have happened to the car. My son drove the car onto the shoulder of the road. We got out the car and saw that a stream of engine oil was flowing from the bottom of the car and some smoke appeared from the rear of the car. We knew that we couldn’t continue to use this van to get into Los Angeles.

Almost at the same time, three cars also stopped on the roadside and turned on their emergency lights.

My son called with the car rental company. They promised they would send another van for us within half an hour. We had to wait!

While we were waiting for the other van, a police officer drove up. He asked us what had happened and he told us that the other three cars also hit the same unknown object and had different problems.

We waited for a half hour and, then, for another half hour. Finally, after two hours, a driver brought the replacement van to us.

Originally, the clerk of the car rental company told this driver that we were near Pyramid Lake on the Highway 5 northbound. When he discovered that we were actually going southbound, he had to spend a lot of time circling to the right place.

By the time we got to my brother Lai’s home, it was nearly 11:30 a.m.

A breakfast became a lunch!

A Dog Story

This is one of the "This I Believe" oral essays on National Public Radio.



Check it out:
This I Believe

It is the story of how a dog changed the life of a bachelor.

IN QINGDAO

I traveled in Qing-dao for six days.
Here are some pictures for you to look at.

This is China Ocean University. It was my first job place.This is a picture of my colleagues and I.

This building was built by Germans. It is a historic building at the Ocean University.

This picture was taken at my other colleagues’ home.

Forty four years ago, we lived in this pink building on the second floor in Qing-dao.

This is the Olympic sailing boat racing area.

The Trestle Bridge is an important building. The octagon pavilion is five hundreds meters in length.

Mei Fong Can't Sign in The Blog.

Richard, our classmate Mei Fong can't sign in the blog with the her last user name and her ID which you wrote down for her.
I have tried to sign in for her with her user name and ID. However, it was unsuccessful.
Please check it and tell us what happened. Thank you.

How do you feeling?

How are you doing? Teacher, Tomorrow is the first day of Adult school,right? How do you feeling? I think you are very flutter with excitement and happy. Because tomorrow You can meet your students again. I think everyone miss you so much!

I come to Laney, before, I think I can study at your class in the afternoon but I have a job in the bank now, that why I feel sad. If I have free time I can go to school meet everybody and specially meet you Teacher, because You teach very interesting I can learn a lot of about everything at room 101.

Teacher, Where did you go for Labor Day? I went to San Francisco with my family by BART because you know the Bay Bridge close of Labor Day and came back by Boat that was very interesting.