The Last Lecture

  “It is not about how to achieve your dreams, it is about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you.” This is one of my favorite quotes from a world famous speech, The Last Lecture, given by Randy Pausch. This speech talked about how to lead your own life. The most amazing part of this speech was the reflective lessons that Randy had shared in his speech. His experiences have helped me find out who I really am and what I really want.

  What an inspiring man! That was my first impression of Randy Pausch. He had strongly touched me through his persuasive speech. I cannot believe that he was a man with cancer at that time; he had an extremely positive attitude toward life; and he spoke confidentially, and energetically.

  Randy Pausch talked a lot about his childhood dreams. He wanted to live in Zero Gravity, play in the NFL, and be a Disney imaginer. When he found an opportunity to be in the Zero Gravity, he hit a brick wall. That was one of my favorite lessons in his speech, the brick wall. It has encouraged me to be fearless and brave. Brick wall is something that shows how badly we want something. Many people have tended to give up after hitting a brick wall. However, people can achieve their goals and become successful only if they overcome their brick walls. We should pay more efforts instead of complaining. As an example in my real life, I have been a dancer for almost seven years; and I really enjoy it a lot. However, my first dancing competition did not end with a good result. That really hurt me; I had never felt that disappointed before. So, it became my brick wall at that time; but soon, I noticed that I had to get over it. I began pay more efforts in my dancing classes, and I made a more specific plan for practicing. At that time, I comforted myself that failure could not prove you a loser; failure gave you opportunities to improve. With that faith, I finally overcame my brick wall.

  We all have dreams, but how many can we actually achieve in our whole lifetime? No one knows. All things in the universe are unpredictable, and people definitely can’t control it. So, let us try our best to overcome the things that block our way, or our brick walls; and never give up on the way to achieve our dreams.

Conformity in modern society

  Famous writer, Mark Twain, once said, “It is rare to find an objective and independent viewpoint on style, literature, politics, or any other matter. Many people's opinions are formed through their associations with others. It is our nature to conform; conformity is a force that few can successfully resist. We give in to the human instinct to go along with the crowd and to have its approval.”

  I think people in modern society prefer to accept the opinions of others rather than try to develop their own ideas. People sometimes do not believe in themselves because they are afraid of making mistakes; they don’t want others judging them; they always want to make the right decisions; and they want everything in their lives goes well. So, listening to others’ opinions is a good option for people who are not confident.

  Recently, I have read a book named Stargirl, which was written by Jerry Spinelli. In the book, the protagonist, Stargirl, a mysterious girl, acts totally different from the rest of the students at Mica High. She does not conform others; she does not imitate the famous students at school; and she makes her own decision all the time.

  In contrast, Leo, the narrator of the book, cannot develop his own ideas. He is also an introverted boy, who is in love with Stargirl. He depends on others all the time. He is unable to make a big decision when he has to make a choice. He is so afraid of being isolated from the others. So, he always listens to others’ opinions when he is making a decision.

  In modern society, people are tired of making mistakes because they don’t want others judging them. They gain so many pressures through their works and lives. So, when someone gives them an authority or persuasive idea, they will be really happy to accept it. 

Personal appearance

  Is it really necessary for us to pay so much attention on our personal appearance in modern society?

  Admittedly, having a good appearance can be valuable to an individual in many situations, especially when a person is looking for a job. My sister is a person who really cares a lot about her appearance and always follows the trends in fashion. To be specific, she wears make up all the time and always wears the trendiest clothes. When she graduated last year, she tried to find a job as an assistant in a famous company. There were numbers of competitors; different competitors wore different clothes, and each had a totally different appearance. According to my sister, most of them wore classic uniforms in dark colors and wore no make up on their faces because they thought it would make them seem more professional. But in fact, they all looked the same, so they did not impress the interviewers of the company. In contrast, my sister wore a bright colored uniform which made her looked much more sincere and passionate. She also wore proper makeup. Her good appearance not only impressed the interviewers, but also made her more confident during the interview. As a result, my sister got the job at the company.

  Paying too much attention on personal appearance is a waste of time and money. This attention will only make people waste energy, which could have been used to do other more important things. My brother cares a lot about his appearance, especially on his hairstyle. He goes to the barbershop at least four times per week, not only to cut his hair, but also to wash, curl, and dye it. These extra events cost much more money than a common haircut; however, my brother doesn’t care. He spends almost all of his money working on his hair. Eventually, the attention that he pays on his appearance will badly influence his schoolwork. He will fail many tests and probably not finish his homework.

 It is necessary to care about your appearance, but we should not place too much attention on it.

New Year Resolution

  It is the beginning of a new year,  so I would like to set up three goals for myself, and try my best to achieve them in this year.

  I want to improve my English skills because I want to integrate into the Webb family. English is the common language here, so I have to learn it well in order to communicate with my friends. To be specific, I want to improve in my grammar skills because grammar is the basis of English, especially for people who learn it as a second language. In order to fulfill this, I need to focus in grammar class, so I can easily understand using various tenses in grammar when teacher emphasizes them. Practicing is also important.  I am the kind of person who loves making new friends, so I want to be able to make local friends here in the US. I need to try my best to be better at English.

  I want develop a new hobby. Photography is interesting because it can helps feel and express my feelings. If I take a picture of a cold color scheme, I can express unhappiness or disappointment. If  I choose the light color scheme as the main color of my photograph, I may be able to express my happiness or delightful. To achieve this resolution, I have made a specific plan. I have to travel around a few places to widen my horizon in the first place. After that, I can try to photograph some of fantastic sceneries. I can ask for other's opinions about my photos and figure out what others' feel toward my photos.  out what others’ feeling toward my photos. Do they feel the same way I do when they are looking at these photos? With all these useful opinions and my progressing personal view, I believe that I can comprehend the keys in photography and enjoy it. 

  My last resolution for 2015 is to become more confident, in no matter under what condition. I have to know the reason why I was not confident before and think about how it was an essential reason. Was it serious enough to influence me and to make me unconfident, or was it just an excuse for my shyness. I need to make a change. I will try to communicate with others more frequently. I also have to be louder I am speaking in public. More importantly, it is necessary to expend my views by reading books and traveling. I will have more conversations with different people, so, I can gradually become more and more confident.
  These are my resolutions for 2015, and I believe that I can achieve all of them in this year.

  I pledge my word of honor as a Webb lady that I neither given nor received help on this assignment. 

A wonderful cheerleading experience

I was cheered for the school football team as a cheerleader last Friday. It was my first time participated in an official game since I have taken part in the school cheerleading team.

  As a new cheerleader of the school team, I have to memorize all those cheers in a short time and do every movement correctly, which means I am not allow to make any mistake in the game. It is because, if one cheerleader were to make a wrong move, the whole formation of the team would become irregular. So, I worked really hard on memorizing those cheers and practiced them every night in the dorm after I finished my homework. I watched the videos of the previous team’s practices and learned those steps one by one, then repeated those cheers for at least three times until I could totally memorize it. Luckily, this did work and I had all my cheers in my mind in a week.

  On the game day, we left Webb at 2 pm and headed to the competitor’s school. All cheerleaders were excited, and I could feel the strong passion in everyone’s heart. We practiced the cheers, chatted with each other, did some make up, and took selfies on the bus. After we had arrived the match court, we did a quick warm up, such as extensions and stretching. Before the game started, the captain of the team gathered us together in a circle. All of us pulled out our arms and folded our hands in the center of the circle, then we yelled our team cheer out loudly, “ Webb feet dominate, say Webb feet dominate! Yahoo!” Finally, the game started at 5 pm, during which the temperature was the highest of a day. We stood under the burning hot sun. All of us got wet in a few minutes, but no one complained about it. We all persisted with our faith. With this positive faith, we really did a great job in that game. All the players were inspired by our cheers, and the atmosphere was absolutely exhilarated.

  Unfortunately, our team lost the game. Nevertheless, we gained things that were much more valuable than the result of the game, such as a closer friendship; a positive attitude toward life and the ability of persistence. Those are the things that we should be proud of!

First day in School

   Finally, the school started the day before yesterday, which means my brand new school life in USA had begin! That was completely excited! Everything in the new school are fascinating, such as the new campus, my new classmates, roommates and teachers. And more importantly, I can feel love and warm at Webb, in every corner of the campus. In a word, if I can use just one word to describe the first impression that Webb had given me, it will be “family”.

  Now, I want to talk about my first school day at Webb. Every girl in Rand got up at 7 am, I was extremely excited for the first school day, I got all my uniform dressed, did some makeups and stood in front of the mirror staring at myself. Honestly, I felt really unbelievable at that moment, and I started questioned myself, am I ready for a totally different school life in a foreign country? Can I understand those lectures with no misunderstanding? Will the classmates and teachers likes me and willing to help me? A lot of thoughts just appeared in my mind. But, I do know that no matter how hard the future will be, I have to go through it with all my courage and faith!

  The classes in the first day are pretty easy, because all the teachers were talking about their class rules and the standard for grades in each quarter of the semester. I found out that there are a lot of differences about the standard for classes between the American classes and Chinese classes. For example, in the American classes, students do more rather than just reading the textbooks, and unlike the examination in Chinese classes, the American students have little quizzes very frequently so that can make sure that students will review the new knowledge every single day, instead of to pile up too many knowledge and review them before one big test, that can really make our study more efficient.

  The last part of the school day is afterschool activities, I chose to cheer in the cheerleading team. As a new team member, I first learned all the cheers, and the most impressive cheer I had remembered is “Webb feet dominate, say Webb feet dominate!” What a powerful cheer! And I will also learn some interesting lifts with the whole team in the future practice time.

  New school, new environment, new people and new goals, although everything is new for me, I will try my best to be fit in this Webb community as soon as possible!