Life is either a daring adventure or nothing, and to get there, you need to open your mind and learn new things. Each year here was never a waste, it may have been torture but it helps you when adventure is calling.
During the years, I have learned that it doesn't matter if someone is different than everyone else, because what really matters is what they are in the inside, not the outside. Also working hard can be a real struggle but good things will always come out of it like Battle of the Books. People get into groups of 5 to learn as much as they can about 16 books. In a few months, each group in the country gets in costumes to gather and the battle starts. Question by question, everyone battles to get the prizes, either in sportsmanship, team name, costume, or the one which everyone desires, the grand prize for knowing the most about the books.
Talking about competitions, the teachers vs kids volleyball tournament was something to remember. Every kid and teacher in the school gathered into the gym. The teachers had one side and the kids, big or small, had the other. For two hours straight the teachers played against the kids class by class, grade by grade. The teachers won most of them, but having fun is really what mattered.
Teachers have made so many things that seemed boring at first, seen fun at the end. They also teach us so many things about the past, present, and future. That's why I would like to thank them for making our future brighter than ever before. The same goes for our parents. Without them, who would take care of you? Support you along the way? And that's why I'd like to thank all the parents who support their sons and daughters along the way. But you can't take on the world alone, you have to have friends, friends that cheer you up, make you happy when you are sad, and most importantly, friends that will always be there for you.
My advice is that in elementary school, it's all about getting prepared for middle school. Don't think that elementary is useless because going to middle school is a big difference and you will have to be prepared to take that giant step into a whole new world.
Ten Principles of Style: On Strunk & White
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第二周第二堂课课前活动
一个10岁中国女孩的获奖作文，题目是：
diversity means .....
Diversity means many things. If you ask me what diversity means and give me only ten seconds to answer, I would say that it means the difference between people’s skin color, eye color… basically, outward appearances. Still, what if there were twins that looked exactly the same, right down to their clothing, and I was supposed to figure out what diversity means, based on that? My answer would be different. I would answer that it isn’t just outward appearances and looks; it’s also about inside intangible things, too. The twins may look the same, but one could be a natural scientist, and the other might be the most talented artist in the family. They might completely balance each other out, one being introvert and the other is totally 100% talkative. On the other hand, two friends may look so different that nobody could mistake them for family, but are almost like copycats because they have the exact same talents, and the exact same likes and dislikes.
Diversity means the difference between looks and personality, or outward appearances and skills. If there was no such thing as diversity, we would all just be a big bunch of copycats in every single way. Diversity can also be the difference between jobs, and between religions. People just out of their teens could be found in MacDonald’s stores, flipping burgers, but their parents could be the owners or CEOs of various companies. Some people might be Jewish, but their neighbors might be Christian. Maybe others could also be Muslim, Buddhist, or non-religious. One girl could be left-handed, but that girl’s brother might be right-handed. Their mom could have green eyes, and their dad could have brown eyes, but wears tinted contacts and pretends to have hazel eyes. The sibling’s uncle, from their mom’s side, could be a voracious reader of non-fiction while their other uncle could in fact be the author of a great deal of fiction books.
In a way, diversity is the borders that separate our identities from others, from our names, to our likes and dislikes.
from http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/origin/717891.html
第三周第一堂课课前活动
《The quick and easy way to Effective Speaking》 by Dorothy Carnegie and Dale Carnegie
Effective speaking is more than "saying a few words" to an audience: it is the revealing expression of a human personality. Every activity of our lives is communication of a sort, but it is through speech that we assert our distinctiveness from other forms of live. When we are unable to say clearly what we mean, through nervousness, timidity or foggy thought processes, our personality is blocked off, dimmed out, and misunderstood.
Woodrow Wilson: "if you come to me and say, 'Let us sit down and take counsel together, and, if we differ from one another, understand why it is that we differ from one another, just what the points at issue are', we will presently find that we are not so far apart after all, that the points on which we differ are few and the points on which we agree are many, and that if we only have the patience and the candor and the desire to get together, we will get together."
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it (the art of communicating).
