Blog for max

We are so lucky that we could have Aaron Gilchrist, who is the anchor of NBC Channel 12 News, to give us a lecture or exactly is a forum. He is really a nice guy and I think he is a little bit handsome.

Aaron Gilchrist with a toothpaste smile
Here, I am not going to talk about him. But I want to talk the question he had asked in class which I don’t know how to express at that time. He asked what is the China’s TV news like now. I’m not really sure about the entire country, but I do have some feeling when I watch local TV programs.
First, actually now we don’t often watch news on TV, instead we look it from the Internet. Because we realize that there is much more all-around information for us to look for in the Internet if we are interested in some specific news. And also you can see more different views of the same event from the Internet than we watch from TV. What people would like to see on TV is to expose something bad or negative in our surroundings. Some trifles but not very important ones. Now people begin to focus more on the event happened related to our daily life.
Another big change in recent years is that many programs would like to make their shows be more communicational between the anchors and the audience. They make it through the Internet or the cell phone messages. During the program, there are always a lot of messages exchanging. People may hope that their messages could be read in the show. And on the other hand, the program company could benefit a lot from it. So it is a kind of reciprocal benefit to both sides. Why not do that?

One of the most attractive things of this summer program is that it provides us lectures involved in different domains. No matter whether we are major in it, we could have the chance to get in touch with that we are interested in. This morning, we were so lucky that we could be given a painting lecture by the professor of VCU Arts School.
Painting is always my interest regardless how old I am and what I’m doing. When I was a kid, it was my hobby, my interest and also my dream. My dream was to be a clothing designer in the future. I learnt drawing almost about eight years added up. But in order to have more time to study, I gave it up. From then on, painting was just my hobby. When I had spare time, I would stay at home and create some works. I could draw a whole day without doing anything, even forgetting the meal. Actually, When I was in middle and high school, I always help my class to do something related to art. Such as painting some posters or designing some logos. Admittedly, I might had more passion on doing this kind of job rather than study our daily lessons. And the most proud things I could remember in middle and high school was not when I got a high score in a certain exam, but when I was successful in doing some arts’ work.
Arts can make me excited and passionate. It sparks me a lot. When I feel sad, it could help me to release. When I feel happy, it could double this happiness. When I feel anxious, it could make me calm down. When I want be more peaceful, I could also do it. The most perfect moment of the world is to enjoy the art.
In contrast, as age became older and older, I found that arts would better just be hobby rather than a career or living. Because it makes people passionate, people may have the possibility that they couldn’t control themselves. Thus, it may lead to insaneness. By that time, people lose reason. World becomes messy.
Anyway, it is the best way of relaxation. I love it so much.

Today, we went shopping again. In order to have more time to travel in New York, I decided to buy something and not to delay to the end.
To most visiting Chinese, we would like to buy some famous brand in the world that would be cheaper than in China, such as Nike. I’m also not an exception. Sometimes, it’s a kind of rule.
But when I bought a pair of Nike shoes at a shop, my friend Kathy asked me why I had to buy Nike. Other brands’ shoes were also nice and might be much cheaper. I was shocked. I’d never thought about this question.
I still remember. The first time I bought Nike shoes was at the beginning of high school. Because our school gave us a discount card for several sport brands (actually I don’t think it cut down the price a lot), my mum allowed me to have one pair of Nike shoes. I wore them for about three yeas until it didn’t fit my feet. Then, I didn’t know why, I became to buy Nike shoes one and another. Just like an addict. Up to now, I’ve already had five pairs of Nike shoes. To me, it’s a kind of habit. Whenever I wanted a pair of sneakers, I would go to the Nike part directly and unconsciously. I’ve never thought of the reason of this behavior. Maybe because I don’t want admit something.
Now, I have to admit. It is a sort of vanity. I always hold the belief that vanity is human’s nature which born with. I don’t believe there can be someone who doesn’t have any vanity. Also, I’m not an exception. Maybe not serious, but indeed I have. At this point, I don’t think it’s ashamed to admit.
In my view, the definition of vanity could be expended. Not only the negative aspect, sometimes, it can be neutral. People need some vanity to make other people respect you. It’s really a practical problem, because other people have vanity. In some circumstance, to make our appearance nice is really needed. Not only respect others, but also respect ourselves.
I’m not finding excuse for my behavior. This doesn’t mean I could buy whatever luxurious I want. To my case, maybe I should make some changes.

I’ve never thought that my most wonderful moment here in the U.S. could be so peaceful and short. I should have thought that I may have the most wonderful time in the Busch Garden or Virginia Beach, maybe shopping as well. To my surprise, it came so sudden that I couldn’t prepare for it and being excited for such a long time even after it finished. It was the home visit.
Another reason of this excitement I had to admit was that I couldn’t know what would be happened before. ‘Life was like a box of chocolate. You never know what you are going to get.’ Exactly. Because I hadn’t expected it and even supposed a bad result, I could get an unanticipated consequence.
The owner of the house that we were going to visit was called Melissa. Before it, I asked our director who she was, and he even didn’t know. I felt more uncertain. On that morning, my friend and I waited in front of GRC anxiously. Finally, we saw a mother with two lovely girls came towards us and picked out a sheet on which wrote our names. It was them. Then we got on their blue Volvo SUV. They were pretty kind. We were so lucky.
It was a ‘big’ happy family. There were eight members of the family. Mother, father, three beautiful daughters, two dogs and a cat. Unfortunately, we were both a little afraid of dogs, so they had to put them into the room. Mother was an elementary school teacher who loved children very much. The oldest daughter was about thirteen years old. She just came back from a trip of China which made us have more topics to talk about. She was still very excited up until now. The second daughter, a little rebellious from my perspective, was also an active girl. The youngest one, maybe the cutest one, was naïve and lovely. The whole family was very kind and friendly which made us feel very comfortable and happy.
The first activity we did was going to a swimming pool party. We swimming with these young girls and showed our swimming skills to each other. To our surprise, they did a pretty good job. They could swim all the four styles. The second daughter was in the swimming team of school. But, suddenly it began to rain. I’ve never swum in a rainy day. The youngest girl said that if we dropped into the water, we may feel better – a great answer.
Having come back home, we had a wonderful dinner and a perfect talk. Being so close to a completely unknown foreign people was the first time to all of us. We were all excited. When we had to leave, all the girls didn’t want us to leave and we swore that we would visit them again before we leave U.S. This is the most wonderful time I have here.

I’ve played ping pong for several times since I came here. I really enjoy playing it. Actually, I have taken some course of ping pong for some years, not continuously. My advantage is that I have standard forms because every form I learnt needs to be practiced hundreds of time in each class. While my weakness is that I didn’t have much experience of competition. I’ve only played it with my parents and my coach. So I’m not good at games. Last time I played with one of our interns and finally I lost the game.
Besides the game, I found that there is also a difference between U.S. and China in playing ping pong. There are two ways to hold the ping pong racket. But I don’t know how to say it in English. If you hold the handle with all your fingers around it except the forefinger, we call it HengPai. And if you hold the handle like the last three fingers below the racket and thumb and forefinger are above the racket, we call it ZhiPai. I noticed that most of our Chinese students would tend to use ZhiPai rather than HengPai which is just the opposite with American students, except me like whom get some formal training. It might seem very simple to others. Only because different habit maybe. But I think, after being trained for some time, I feel that HengPai has more assaultive power than ZhiPai which focus more on defense. That make me relate it to different personalities we have. Maybe there has nothing to do with it. But I just couldn’t help thinking like this. We Chinese more like to fend rather than attack. It is really like our Chinese character.
All the things seem to have some correlations from my perspective, if these correlations are not fallacies.