Blog 9: A Memorable Night in Clark Quay

This week is really an amazing week because I took part in a lot of activities. 
 My hometown is located in the northern part of China where not many concerts are held there, especially those concerts performed by pop stars. Before coming to Singapore, one of the reasons made me appreciate the place very much is that a lot of concerts will be held here. The first time I watched a real concert was invited by Ms Jenny Gan and it seems that after one live performance, I have already get addicted to live performances. Luckily, last few days, I had a chance to see a free pop concert at Clark Quay and it was a really wonderful night.

This concert is called “Music Matters” with “Singtel” as the sponsor. Two hours before the concert started when we got there, that square had already been filled with people. Those fans were shouting. It seems that they were all in really high spirit. At first, I felt too shy to show my excitement, but gradually, influenced by the environment around I no more pretended to be calm. We clapped our hands, waved our armed with the rhythm. It was the singers’ happy face made me realize that these actions are really meaningful to those singers. In the past, I watched some interviews of BigBang. In that interview, they shared their true feelings before performing concerts. They said that instead of being afraid or stressed out, surprisingly, the feeling is a mixture of gratitude and excitement. The feeling is so strong that it will drive them cry and change them to another passionate person. And that night I think really felt this kind of feeling. Some pieces sounded really different from the CD versions and sometimes I was so moved that I couldn’t help burst into tears. I don’t know why I can be such a fragile person in front of music. Although I may not understand what the original meaning the singer is delivering, I nearly had my own feeling about every piece. Sometimes, I think neither the lyric nor the melody is important because if it is really a good song it would be easy to guess the meaning from the atmosphere it creates. Maybe that is reason I like the band BigBang so much. I don’t understand Korean or Japanese and almost all of their songs appears to be really happy. But after searching the lyrics, those songs drove me cry actually have really sad stories behind. Music is really magic for me. I still remember in one song called “Play” of Khalil Fong he said that no matter where you are from, another country or another universe, music will always be the right way to get to know each other.

 Through this live performance, I talked to a lot of people and happened to find a person who has a music taste really similar to me. It is always really exciting to meet new friends. Besides, while shouting and jumping, I felt as if I have a real myself. All of us are living under a mask. We need to find a situation to let out our true feeling. And now I feel so lucky to have such a way to find myself. 

blog 8: Why Do We Need thrillers?

  Last few days I watched a video, this video is about a special variety show of some really popular stars' daily routine. This week's content is a group of Kpop stars called BigBang, who is now very popular among youths, paying a visit to the hanted house in Fuji Amusement Park in Japan.
 This hanted house is very famous because it is a lot more than a hanted house for amusement and it was recorded in the Gunies World Record as the world's most horrible haanted house. It was transformed from a real terrifying hopsital. In the past, the doctors and nurses in this hoapital manged to kill the patients who are in good health status and try to get their oragans in order to make more money. Thus, many healthy people died mysteriously here. Later on, the police noticed this strange phenomenon and gave strict punishments to this group of people. Also.this hospital was closed because of this incident.However, the buiding is still quite new, so it was redecorated and changed to what it is looked like now.
 After a brief introduction of this place, these five people started to begin their journey in this hospital. in this program, although only a very short period was recorded and showed to the audience, it is powerful enough to show its horror. The leader, who is always very tough in front of other people even couldn't move while seeing those so called "ghosts" trying to touch him. Another member kept crying out. At last,they had to get out from the emergncy exit half way. After getting out,  all of them felt extremely grateful that this all appeared just now wouldn't happen in the real life. Seeing their complicated face, I started to think, w what is the meaning of these thrillers and these haunted houses set in the amusement parks?
 I still remember in my high school, my desk mate was very addicted to watching thrillers. She started this interest after one exam, in which she didn't performed very well. Because of the bad results, she felt stressed out. In order to release this pressure, she decided to do something exciting in order to forget this pain. However, she was trapped in a wrong direction of watching thrillers. Once I remembered that someone told me that once you are getting used to the terrible scenes in thrillers, you will gradually get addicted to them. She unfortunately became a person like that. Thrillers have been a part of wasting time instead of releasing pressure. Her marks became lower and lower as the time goes by. She slept everyday in classes because she watched thrillers every night, which took up too much of her studying time. In this case, her grades fell even behind. So she need more thrillers to release her pressure.
 This is very typical vicious circle and it reminds me of drug addiction. As we all know a lot of pop stars are claimed to take drugs due to great working pressure, for example, Whitney Huston. In my own opinion, one should learn to face the pressure instead of escaping from it. Everyone has a lot to worry about, especially when getting older so it is very common to feel depressed once upon a time. What need to do is try to be strong inside. I still remember in one of my oral reports, I shared my ways of dealing with stress. I prefer some ways that can drag my attention out of the stress such as chatting or singing instead of some words which can comfort me. Because I think when we are comforting ourselves mostly it is telling a big lie.
 As for the ways of relaxing, I think traveling is the best choice. Along the way we see different scenery, get different feelings and learn to see things from another direction. But for most of us, we are not free to travel around whenever we like. In this case, I think listening to some music is a great way. At least it is a really effective way for me. Several days ago I went to see the "Music Matters" held in Clark Quay and that's a memorable experience. During that live concert, I shouted, jumped with a lot of music fans all around. I think I found myself in that event.



It has always been my strength to wander out of the topic. But whatever, I hope all of us can find the rights ways of dealing with pressure and live a healthy life both physically and mentally~

Blog10: I Love Old Songs

If you ask me what songs do you like best, I will give you the answer---old songs. Yes, it is not rock music, jazz, blue, countryside or something, I even cannot tell the difference between them. It is also not Michael Jackson’s songs, Wang Lihong’s songs or other singers’ songs. It is old songs. 

I loved music since I was four or five years old or even younger. At that time, I was crazy about listening songs and singing songs. To be honest, I was a good singer. People always said,” Oh, listen, how well this boy sings.” Certainly, as a kid, I would blush. I could sing most of the songs that were popular in that period. For those that I could not sing, I remembered their melodies. I really thought those songs sounded wonderful. 

I had a hobby of learning theme songs of TV series. I so loved watching TV series when I was in my childhood. Also, those TV series were very classic. For some of them, you could not just watch only once. As long as I watched a TV series, I could sing its theme songs.

After I entered middle school, I suddenly dislike music but I did not know why. During the three years in middle school, I never sang or listened songs. I hardly know any popular songs or singers. I did not have any equipment to enjoy music until I bought a MP3 in my grade two in senior high school. From that time, I fell in love with music again.

If you think I love old songs because they could remind me of childhood, it will be a huge mistake. I love old songs because they themselves sound great. 

I love old songs. Do you like them?

Blog 10: From the Beginning to the End of the Day

As we all know, the English bridging course is coming to an end. Almost all the assignments are finished. It is a relief to know that there will be no essays, oral reports and blogs any more in the course. As a result, almost all the students are becoming slack and lazy to some extent. Some of them may spend the whole night watching TV series until midnight; some may go out for recreations without studying for even an hour in the weekend. Is it good or bad for us to do so?

First let me tell you a story. It was reported that after the World War 2, the British air force once estimated the numbers of dead pilots. They found that the majority of pilots died when they landed their aircrafts rather than fighting with German fighters. It was very astonishing that a pilot could survive from his enemies’ attacks but fail to move his plane down onto the ground.

After some researches, scientists gave out the proper answer to this phenomenon. They believed that a pilot survived in fighting because he paid full attention to it; however, after he won the combat, he was so relaxed and happy that he controlled the plane incorrectly, and that led to the destruction of both the plane and himself.

Now let’s come back to our current situation. I think we are just like pilots who are about to land our planes. We almost succeed but we haven’t reached our success. So there is no any reason for us to relax entirely. We should not play with our phones in the class; we should not sit in front of our computers overnight. Once study is postponed, we will be thrown behind by other hardworking classmates.

Besides, the learning of English language can be a lifelong process. It will not terminate when bridging course ends. The view that once people pass the QET test, they don’t need to learn English any more is wrong. We don’t learn English for any test and we should practice it as more as possible in order to master it.

Dr. Sun Yat-sen once said, “The revolution is not yet completed, all my comrades must struggle on.” So let’s work hard to realize our dreams from the beginning to the end of the day!

Blog 10: My favorite novel

Among the novels I have seen, the Note Book of Robbing a Tomb is my favorite one. Though it is neither written by a famous writer nor be widely advertised, it stands out in the ocean of contemporary Chinese Internet novel. It is because it has so many unique advantages, Firstly, the description of people’s mentality and language is very appropriate and vivid. The novel is based on modern society, so it is easy for us to know whether what the people think and say is proper. When reading it, I can hardly find out what is improper or false. Conversely, I was totally attracted into the plot of the story and felt as if I was beside the stars experiencing the adventures together. I also admire the writer’s intelligent mind because the relationship of gains and losses between different characters in the stories are very complex. So the writer has to think out what the people may think in different situations. Secondly, the imagination of the writer is very excellent. The writer combined the history and imagination perfectly. He used some Chinese ancient mysteries, such as Nvwa, Chiyou and Huangdi’s stories and the real history of Country Lu in Zhou dynasty and Wang Canghai in Ming Dynasty which makes his imagination seem very rational and convictive. He also creates many different kinds of tombs with ingenious and grand designs with many kinds of zombies and many different ways to defeat them that you can never think out. Last but not least, the story is not superficial but has a very big hidden truth. The thought of the writer is so grand that I can hardly recognize it at first. The writer gives us clues in many details and lets us guess the truth gradually. Actually, after the first time of reading it, we will have a lot of questions so we have to think and infer through what we have known. This strongly increases the interest of the novel. That is some reasons why I love this novel very much. Actually, it has many other advantages that need you to appreciate. Only if you read it by yourself, can you feel that. Hope you can read it and have a good time.

Blog 9: An Amazing football match

I saw the final of the UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) Champions League on the morning of May 20th from 3 am to 6 am. You may not know what it means. I will make a comparison to explain it. If the winner of the World Cup is the best football team with players from the same country, the winner of UEFA Champions League is the best team with players from the same club. So the final is very important for football fans and the two teams actually gave us a great treat both in sight and in thought. The two teams were Bayern Munich and Chelsea. On their way to the final, they defeated many strong teams, such as Real Madrid and Barcelona at the cost of losing many important players, especially Chelsea. Four important players could not get on court, so the experts all thought that Bayern would win the match. Actually, they guessed most of the game correctly. Bayern controlled the match from the beginning to the end and they got a goal at almost the end of the match after wasting a lot of good chances to goal. After seeing the goal, I almost wanted to go to bed because Chelsea could hardly get any chances to goal. However, the scream of the football announcer told me that Chelsea had made a marvel that they drew the score at the end of the match. So I had to stay up. Actually, in the overtime, Bayern got a penalty, but Robben wasted it. After that, they had to play penalty to decide who the winner was. You can hardly imagine that four years ago, Chelsea was in the same situation, but they lost the shootout. However, this time, they won with great morale and confidence, though they did not have any advantages through the match. From the match, I know that even if you have great advantages, you are not bound to win the match. The one who can seize the few chances but not the one who wastes a lot of chances is the real winner. The one who drags himself out of the tragic history and cherishes today’s opportunity can win. Because of the persistence of Chelsea, it became the champion and made me go to sleep 1 hour later with a wonderful dream

Blog 10:When you meet mean people

There is an element of truth that we need to believe that a lot of nice people are around us. However, we also have to admit there is a time when we meet those mean people.When it  happens, we need to know what is the right way to do.

There are people who come with their words like knives and they use them against us. There are people who come with their voice like nails on a chalk board calling us out. There are people who come with their switching sides and their wildfire lies and their humiliation. They like to point out our flaws again and again as if we have not seen them yet. I try to block them out because I know I can never impress them. Sometimes I may even come up with the idea that they will be scolded and will feel cold, but the cycle should come to an end. I do not want to be turned into a mean person like them.  All I need to do is to be strong enough so that they cannot hit me anymore. I just need to prove that they are wrong and that they know nothing about me.

This is how I should fight back.