Different attitude towards athlete

This evening, I had dinner with my friend and her families in our house. Her younger daughter was so energetic all the time. We had fun with her. My friend told me that she has almost 9 different sports classes to go every week. At first, I was surprised and she instantly justified that it only because of her interest. So she let it go.
I admire her daughter. I had been an athlete in China for almost 13 years during which there were troubles and  happiness. I really like sports, all kinds of sports. But I still remember that all my academic teachers in junior and high schools had a negative attitude towards my interest just because of my unsatisfactory academic grade even if I broke the national record and won a lot of awards.
Now, I am in the US. I saw a lot of people doing great at sports which take a big part in their school life. I like it for the reason of they have supports from teachers and all sorts of choices available on sports.

Learning English from life

 It happened a lot during my English learning that I rarely use or hardly remember the meaning of the words which we saw a lot during my daily life. Today, my friend told me her funny story happened on the street in our district. She kept saying "bump ride" several times. At first I did not figure it out what the meaning of that. I did not ask her to explain until I was still in confusion. Then she explained it explicitly. Suddenly, I found, Oh, it is "BUMP"! There are a lot of large signs "BUMP" on the ground of streets, and I see it everyday. What is wrong with me! I thought about it; this phenomenon did and does exist in my English learning. Fortunately, at least I noticed it.
  Another word confusing me is "xing", the sign on the yellow guideboard. I know the meaning it indicates that there are people might going across streets. But when I checked a dictionary, there is no its existence. I wonder why use this word.

A way helping kids develop a reading habit

By helping a child develop a reading habit, you can instill in him a love of books that will last him a lifetime, and which will bring him wonder, joy and knowledge. I was told this by one of my friends who was a volunteer in the church to help people who are old or disable mentally and in need of something. She told she used the way educating her children home to read books to help those children who are disable mentally in different extent. A boy she taught is called Jim. Because of the child's uncontrolled and unconscious behaviors, she, at first, just read calmly to him in first one or two months. Gradually, the subtle influence of the reading is imperceptible to Jim's mind development. She told me that the boy's mother was so excited that she heard the boy said a complex sentence with difficult words when he saw beautiful flowers in their garden. She thought the reading had worked well. Then She transferred the one-person reading to the reading in turns even if it was difficult at first to get the boy to read. Now the boy can sit there for almost one and a half hour quietly and read books.
When my friend told me this story, I felt touched. She said this way will work better on normal kids for they having better comprehensibility. First listening will help kids get interested in plots, and then they would read curiously, which intrigues their inner thoughts to read more. I will try this by myself.

Memory and thinking on past family education

    The more close to have a new family member, the more nervous and thinking on the future. After dinner, I suddenly recalled a few things happened in my high school life. I always think I am a person needing encouragement from others, especially from those whom I am familiar with. When I talked to my mother something that I had got a huge improvement, I couldn't remember what it was exactly, my mother's reaction was out of my expectation. She rejected to give a compliment by raising her eyebrow in disdain and said " it is only a small thing, cannot compared to others who were really good at "the thing"." I can still remember the feeling that I was so depressed and angry but I could not do anything except crying. I expressed my grievance, yet she did not think it is a big deal. Actually, it did influenced me in a negative way that I barely knew how nice it is to give others compliment until I found the failures on personal relationship in past working experience.
   The reason why I want to write this experience is that I really want to give  a good education to my daughter. I learned a lot from my American friends who taught her seven children in home before  they get into junior school. All children now have their own families now in happiness with bless from God. In my opinion, it is a cultural thing that really lives deeply in our country. We barely say thanking or loving words between families. Sometimes, we think it is too embarrassed and emotional to say those words between families. However, children need that.
   So, for my new daughter, I need to get improvement on my learning and be bonded to her growth.

Listening improvement as walking

    When I first learned English in college, I struggled to understand and improve my English listening. I consulted a professor who told me a way that I could follow the recordings and speak sentence by sentence simultaneously as I am listening an English recording. I tried at first on a slow speed which really worked well. I practiced in this way day by day and the speed of recordings was faster and faster.
    The reason why I want to recall this is that I do this again with a new app on mobile, Librivox. Since I am interested in some British literature, I listen some audio works as I have a walk at every morning around the hill back my house. I already finished Emma (Jane Austen) even if I listened it almost three times for I did not catch and understand at first time.
     This app is really good which offers sorts of collections, such as adventure, fairy tales, literature and so on. You have a wide range to choose. Also it won't take much time from your daily life. Last, it is really beneficial for English learners to improve their English listening skills.

First California rolls

Yesterday, I made California rolls on a whim. Actually, thinking of what to eat takes amount of time on my every single day. I prefer learn different food from webs or books. California rolls are usually taken with soy sauce and wasabi which I really cannot try... too spicy. At least, I got praise from my families. They like it.

Dumplings are my favorites

Dumpling, Jiaozi, in Chinese, is a traditional food in China. In past, only in New Year, some people had chance to take it as a symbol of everything going well in the coming new year. I am really into this food. Choping up meat and vegetables and mixing them together with sauce is the main part of the process. Then I will take much time on flour and make them into small pieces. I am really slow on cooking. Once I decided take dumpling as dinner, I would prepare it three hours ahead. But it is really good.

Failed Sponge Cake

Cooking is one of my favorite activities during my spare time. I think maybe I am a food lover, so I'm willing to learn how to make food by reading recipes from books or watching cooking programs online. After coming to America, I rarely cook American food and even do not make use of oven in my house. Today, I tried to learn how to make a sponge cake which I have tried twice before. I watched the cooking video from Youtube which has been being my cooking teacher. After buying all the tools and materials, I got it started.
I followed every step with the excited emotion. You know, how excited I am! I told to myself I must make it successfully. However, I was too excited to put baking powder. Thus, the cake came out like good on its appearance but bad on the inside.