Learning

Experience in the Earthquake (Memory of Earthquake).

9:25 PM Unknown

May 12th, 2008 was a tragic day for all the Chinese people. It was one of the heaviest earthquakes in China. The earthquake happened in the city I lived called Mianyang at 2:28pm. And the center of the earthquake is in the towns called Wenchuan and Beichuan in Mianyang. I'll never go to forget it.

I still feel so bad when I recall this history. I was a student in a boarding school. When the earthquake happened, I was washing my face before going to school. I never experienced an earthquake before. And when it happened, I just heard some noises "DONG, DONG, DONG…" from the flat in school. Then I felt the building was shaking, and it was very hard for me to stand. Later I heard that one of the teachers in the building yelled " It's an earthquake, get out here". Then I run as fast as I can with several friends out of the building. But when we got out of the building, we didn't know elsewhere to go. It was all buildings around us, and they seemed to almost fall down. After several seconds, we got the idea that we needed to go to the nearest and biggest playground around us. But there was a building between the playground and us. We were very afraid of that at first, but knew if we didn't across the building, we would die anyway when the building fell down. Then we hold our heads and crossed the building. It was very lucky, that although we felt many breaks fell to us, we didn't get heavy injured. When we got the playground, we found many school mates were there. Some were crying others swooned on the ground. And I could see the ground fracturing over there.

After I got back home, I knew that the earthquake was 8 magnitudes and the middle of the city wasn't destroyed heavily. The real disaster was happened around the city. After the earthquake happened several days later, I went to the real heavy disaster area with my father. I didn't see any building stood there on the way to the heavy disaster area Beichuan. I could see half of the mountain was green, and the other half is sand because of the collapse. I heard that one mountain was divided into several mountains, and several mountains mixed together one mountain. I can't imagine what would go to happen to those people who travel to the mountains and live in the mountains. The roads we drove were broken because of the stones and sands from the mountains. And we found that we could only get the boundary of the towns because there was no way to go there. There were only two ways can get there, one is from the sky, and the other one is the road were just built for rescue teams.

All the Chinese really wanted to do something for the people who were in trouble. I brought all my pin money to the Red Cross. Later, I went to the sanctuary in my city and help them carry food and water to the displaced person. Although I felt very tired I still keep carrying, and when the people asked, I said I'm fine. I saw the people from the disaster area were full of mud and scars. Bloody people were in the hospital or somewhere else for cures. I also saw a line of children who were also from the disaster area without their parents. They were so small and even didn't know what happened and if their parents were still alive. Compared with their pains I found my pains in school, family and anywhere else are really nothing. When I saw the news from TV, I found that lots of the people in the disaster area were covered by the building. They didn't have any food or water, the only thing they had is the desire to be alive for themselves and their families. Because of the desire, I saw many miracles happened.

Although it's a very big tragedy that more than 20,000 people died in the earthquake for all the human beings, it's a very good lesson to the people who are still alive as well. We have nothing to complain compared with them. And we need to keep the desire to be alive whatever happened to us. I'll never forget that day.

Compare "On the Road" with "the Bean Trees" (Summary)

11:21 PM Unknown

Sep 16^th, 11

Paragraph to question B:

Sal and Taylor are almost two totally different people except their similar principles. Both of their principles are live in themselves. They just want to find a way they enjoy living, they don’t want to be trammel and got something similar to the beginning (live for themselves).

(b) Behavior: Their behaviors are very different. Sal followed Dean's prodigal way to travel on the road("But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue center light pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'"). But Taylor does what she wants to do without others at the beginning. She makes her own goals without others. She is sassy, wise and unflagging and moral. She helps others like Turtle and Lou Ann instead of following others or just enjoys her.

(c) Value: Sal's value gets changed in the future and sometimes depends on his emotion. When he tries to sit on the banks of the Mississippi River and is stymied by a chain-link fence. There is also a darker side to its vastness which he acknowledges. To him, there seem to be two sides to everything. To him, west of America can be either filled spirit or emptiness. For example, On the one hand, he met his girl Terry. A pretty Hispanic worker Sal loves in California, on the other hand, the suburban teenagers that shout at her from their cars. At first, Sal thinks East is intellectual, but wrapped in the old and the west is open and new. But after he traveled across the West, he thinks the East is brown and holy, west is whitewashed, empty. But Taylor keeps her value all the time. She always thinks she is lucky that she doesn't have a father. So she doesn't want to be a pregnant or gets a father for her child (What she said was "Why not, my daddy'd been calling me a slut practically since I was thirteen, so why the hell not? Newt was just who it happened to be. You know the way it is." I told her I didn’t know, because I didn’t have a daddy. That I was lucky that way. She said yeah.The Bean Trees. Page 12.) She is very self-respectful and doesn't want to betray her friends. When she finds that she loves Esteven, she tries her best to get away from Esteven, although she wants to stay with Esteven forever. She just doesn't want to hurt her friends Esteven's wife. And she knows Esteven loves his wife very much and doesn't want to interrupt them.

(D) Relations: The relations always get change in Sal's story(From a quote: "I was beginning to get the bug like Dean. He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him."

- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Ch. 1). They actually become real friends at the end. And at first, Sal can't live without Dean, even he knows that Dean is not really honest to him. In other words, Dean plays a very big part in Sal's life. There's also another part, that when Sal first finds Dean, he acknowledges that their old friends don't like Dean anymore. However, the relationship of Taylor doesn't change much. She has a very stable relationship with Lou Ann, Mattie and other friends. But her relationship with Esteven is kind special. She loves Esteven, but can't live with him because of her high self-control and morality. She doesn't want to hurt the relationship with Esperaanza either.

(E) To be honest, I admire Taylor more than Sal because she is altruistic and moral. When she meets problems she tries to solve them and her friends are her great supporters too. All of her friends who include her are just like rhizobia. They try to help each other and help the bean trees grow.

Is Advanced Placement "Worth It" For College Admissions?

8:29 PM Unknown

Is Advanced Placement Worth It For College Admission?
Guidance counselors often encourage students to take AP classes. Are they right?
It's almost considered a truism: Advanced Placement courses and subject tests can only help you in your quest to enter the best colleges.
Not so fast. AP classes have advantages - but there are drawbacks as well.
The Positives of Advanced Placement

Taking an AP class will usually get your GPA knocked upwards. Depending how your particular school rates them, AP classes can be worth a full grade more than their regular kin - that's how some students end up with GPAs greater than the theoretically-perfect 4.0. And even if your school doesn't inflate AP grades, many college admission offices will do it for you.

Good AP scores can reduce your eventual college course load - and, potentially, your time in college. Generally speaking, a high score - at least three, but often a four or five out of the five-point Advance Placement test - will equate to one semester of the equivalent test. So, if you place out of four courses - you could skip out of an entire semester of college - saving up to $25,000! Even placing out of one or two classes can lead to a semester of part-time student status and, hence, significant savings.

AP classes show initiative. By taking the more challenging path, schools know you aren't scared to push yourself. In addition, since AP classes are supposed to be college level, you are showing schools that you are fully capable of doing the necessary work.

The Negatives of Advanced Placement

Your AP scores have zero bearing on your admissions. That's a whole lot of work that may not have much to do with which college you get into - especially if your colleges don't inflate grades according to the difficulty of courses.

Not all colleges accept AP scores for course credit. If you wind up applying to schools that don't accept AP scores and don't bump up GPAs for AP classes, then you'll have done a lot of work for absolutely nothing.

AP classes and study takes an inordinate amount of time. It isn't unusual to have two or three hours of homework out of an AP class. That's time you can't pursue other studies, can't devote to extracurriculars, and can't practice for the SAT - all things that definitely will help you get into college.

The long and the short of it is this: AP courses can pay off in the long run, but there are no guarantees. And, in the short run, they are certain to make the rest of your life difficult.
If you are most concerned with getting into the best colleges, AP courses aren't much help at all. If, however, you are confident you'll get in somewhere good, and want to roll the dice that they'll take AP credits and you can save by graduating early or as a part-time student, AP courses are worth their weight in gold.
As always, the answer depends on you. One thing is certain though - when deciding whether to pursue AP courses, at least find out how your favorite colleges deal with AP credits. If there's no hope of placing out, then it isn't worth your time.
To your family's successful college pursuits,

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