Alice's+reading+journal

Journal #1 The website that I look through everyday is [|www.kugou.com], a Chinese website for reading news about singers and songs and downloading all kinds music. This website also offers the latest news for concerts and coming out album shows and opportunities to get their tickets, which is of great efficiency. I'm a girl who cannot survive without music, since I'm really passionate about singing and listening to my favorite 'masterpieces'. When I'm joyful and dynamic, I press the hip-pop or DJ music in the categories to make me feel awesome; when I'm upset or depressed, I just choose any music in the gentle music category. For me, the breathtaking or heartbreaking music is better than a medicine or a simple word of comfort. When I'm interested in a singer, I can easily get all of his or her songs to listen to or read the comments written by audiences. When I'm about to take part in a talent show, I always seek for songs suitable for me on this website. Another thing is, I'm an open-minded guy who enjoy listening to songs from many countries, in many languages. There are new and old, fast or slow songs in Chinese, English, Russian, Korean and Japanese in my MP5. They are all fantastic songs that I downloaded from kugou, the amazing music website that enriches my life a lot.

Journal #2 The first sentence of the story also doesn’t make much sense to me:”His wife had often criticized his plots for being too complicated, but this one worked.” Words: villain: a wicked or evil person; someone who does evil deliberately godforsaken: desolate hitchhike: go by others’ cars. trigger: lever that activates the firing mechanism of a gun condominium: housing consisting of a complex of dwelling units
 * 1) Almost
 * 2) Lucy
 * 3) Her behaviors and thoughts at the end of the story.
 * 4) “After that it was just a matter of getting hold of a gun herself, and giving him every chance to prove her guess was wrong.”(In the last paragraph)
 * 5) What does the character “Gib Porter” want to tell us?
 * 1) I don’t like it since it’s a bit over complicated.
 * 2) This is a mystery. I rarely read this genre of book and I don’t like the entangled feeling it gives me.

Journal #4 From my personal perspective, stories from all fields are necessary for us to know about.It's beneficial to get access to all kinds of stories from murder field to romantic field. I won’t be impacted by this kind of storires, but others may be. This story show me that we need to be really careful with everybody beside us. According to ‘twins’, Lucy would be killed instead if she had not been sensitive and suspicious enough when she found the loaded gun, the wig and the make-up kit in her husband’s fish tackle box.

Journal #5

We picked a man found and was injured by a golden paperclip became unusual as our story starter and chose adventure as our creative genre. Here are three vital conventions for adventure stories. * Almost always  fast paced . The tale may start slow, but the pacing always builds toward the middle and end. The action pulls the reader along and into the story building toward a culminating event. * Violence  of some kind is always an element of an action/adventure tale, no matter how large or small that violent act might be. * The setting  is usually changeable, moving from place to place as we follow the protagonist through his journey. The setting is important because it underlines the sense of danger and obstacles to be overcome. I am the creative writer. I need to change the settings regularly, from rooms indoor to outdoor on the streets; I ought to make the plot-changing smooth and understandable; I also need to make the main character robust, gallant, and a little bit violent.

Journal #6 http://www.ehow.com/how_5140412_write-adventure-story.html

This website made the definition of adventure story clear to me, which can make my writing format clearer. Adventure is an exciting, thrill-filled genre that emphasizes suspenseful, fast-paced action. The website also introduces 6 points for an adventure story; I summarize them as exotic location, a hero or heroine, a catalyst, unexpected twists, a spellbinding climax (conflict or danger) and resolvent. After going through this website I figured out that the story do not have to be extremely complicated but should be appealing and easily understood for audiences. This 'eHow' website is very helpful.

Journal #7 As a creative writer in the group, I think I’ve got the most fascinating experience in these weeks, since I helped the newspaper script writer out, contacted everybody and asked for suggestions, acted as a passer-by in the short film, joined in the group negotiations, and get my creative writing done. As I had got so many things to work on, I had a tight schedule, and this may be my only problem. I obviously love working with my smart group mates this time. I would still like to be a writer next time, since I am a easily nervous person. What I have understood from this project is that divergent project has truly no restriction, all I need is to put my imagination, which has been sealed in my mind for ages in my home country, forward into an outstanding work.

Journal #8

1. infinitesmal: 'infinite-' and '-smal' 'infinite-' may means something that is not defined '-smal'..I don't know.. 2. '-ness' happiness, bitterness, sadness likeness may means 'alike' 3. the image of mystery and abyss 4. 'unfastened' may means 'no longer closed or locked'

Her eyes shine heart beat evoked. As her dream, that she has been long for for such a long time, is eventually unfastened. An infinitesmal sense of delight, likeness, a fragrant breeze, or a starry void, come towards her. She like this stage. This enormous stage, which now seems as if is especially set up for her to sing out herself, aloud.

Journal #9 Both the man in the video and Boo Radley are mysterious men living in a dark old house, hiding for a long time, out of the public's sight. They did not come out and thus have no friends, dogs, or kids. It was said that the man who was building something had an ex-wife and used to have a consulting business in Indonesia, and Boo Radley was a man with popped eyes, yellow teeth, scar on his face and blood over his hands since he have squirrels and cats for food, but those are only rumors. The man who was building something had been heard pounding nails into a hardwood floor and moaning low, while Boo had been seen fleeting quickly through his house's window and heard scratching other house's windows. This seldom appearances makes them more mysterious. This got Dill and other people's curiosity because it is a true hidden, scary person, not a devil in a film.

I think the mysterious man in the video might be building a grave or a storage. And Boo might just be a sluttish and rebellion man who looks very messy, instead of a ghost or a devil.

When I was in the middle school, my Chinese teacher usually asked us students to remember some classical articles or poems for homework and to be able to recite it in front of the class the next day. I dislike reciting very much since I have a terrible memory and I am pretty lazy thus I sometimes did not do this homework. One day, I was punished to stand at the back of the class for one hour because of this. The problem is, the teacher picked me to recite again the next day and found out that the only improvement I had was that I could recite two sentences, and she got really mad because I was not a bad kid in her eyes but I did not give her revere back by not doing the homework for two days. She told me to copy the article for 20 times and stand at the back of the class for two hours. My parents thought it was absolutely my fault and told me I should stop blamming on the strict teacher and finish copying and memorizing the article soon. Comparing to Scout, I think my experience is not as horrible as his; since my trouble is totally caused my my laziness instead of others' misunderstanding, but hers is the teacher's fault. Scout was just born to be smart like this, but the over convergent and starch teacher only thought in her conservative way and misunderstood Scout. Misunderstanding is really depressing and oppressive.

Journal #10

Burris Ewell laughed rudely when Miss Caroline saw a bug in his hair and told him to go home at once for a bathe, since he would never afford to do so. I reckon that I have also had a similar experience when I was in the junior school. My teacher, Miss Zhang, found out that I painted my nails into various colors with highlighters and made my mathematics draft on my hands on an assembly. She stopped speaking, frown and told me, in front of everybody in my year, “Get out of the hall to have your hands washed; they were too filthy, 'ya hear?” I was extremely embarrassed and mortified; thus went out straight forward without a word. I did it for fun instead of made this mess deliberately, but I knew that explanations could only made Miss Zhang angry and other kids sneering at me. But obviously, Burris' behavior and ending was totally different from mine because of our different living backgrounds and characteristics. He was a year one kid and only spent one day at school for each semester, thus he did not know dealing with the teacher with respect and a leaving the teacher a good impression's essence while I was already in year four to be mature enough when my event happened. He lived a countryside surrounded by farms while I grew up in a big city and got far better education from the moment I was born. He was Ewell, thus he had no choice but being filthy, but my parents were knowledgeable and told me to keep myself clean and tidy as a girl. In short, I was a good and well-educated urban girl but Burris Ewell was a poor, reckless and immature rural boy, which made a huge difference.

Journal #11
 * 1) b. From my point of view, Boo Radley was urged to keep staying in his house because of what has happened before is so shaming. His father is such a ‘sincere’ foot Baptist that he banned Boo to be like this, reckless that this had made Boo very shy and lonely. If I were him I may also stabbed my father because being restricted inside a house for decades can really render me rebellious towards this strictest man in the whole world.
 * 2) Last year, after the earthquake happened in Japan and most of Japanese’s nuclear factories broke down causing severe diseases among the civil, some Chinese people acclaimed and celebrated in delight for the Japanese’s sufferings.

Journal #12 I think evil come from the social environment and the horrible feeling of being teased by others. I, as well as most people, am not perfect; so love and hatred exist at the same time. In other words, I certainly have a little bit of darkness inside. Journal #13 Both Ms. Dubose in “To kill a Mocking bird” by Harper Lee and Florence Nightingale the pioneer nurse are courageous heroines. From my point of view, both of them are outstanding because they chose to do something right but really hard for their conscience’s sake. For example, when Jem was obliged to read to Ms. Dubose every afternoon, her head made its regular sweep towards the kids, but when Jem asked “Ms. Dubose are you all right?”, she did not hear him(Lee 143). Ms. Dubose’s hardship in combating her addiction does good to herself but made the kids suffered. But Florence Nightingale, the woman who was born into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family, chose to be a pioneer nurse in the ruthless Crimean War. She chose to be unprivileged than any working class woman because she considered cruelty as a sin and her passion for medicine and nursing. Analogous from Ms. Dubose, Nightingale’s behavior made herself ramshackle but did good to numerous soldiers. Still, both of them are heroines because they want to be helpful and virtuous toward themselves or the others instead of living as it was in peace. In conclusion, I think people's own belief and conscience make their career and life journey courageous. And a Chinese proverb is descriptive toward brave people like them, as it goes: “going deep into the mountain, knowing that the tigers are in there, is so called a hero”.