VIEW FROM NEW TAIPEI OFFICE (OCT. 7, 2005)
This was the day of the typhoon. It was incredible how the typhoon ravaged through the university campus and moved anything that was not bolted down around in circles!
posted by Robert E. Johanson | 12:05 AM
10 Comments:
Topic : Many students have to live with roommates while going to school or university. What are some of the important qualities of a good roommate? Use specific reasons and examples to explain why these qualities are important.
Do you know that your roommates could either save or ruin your life? It happened that I have the opportunity to live in my friend’s house as a roommate for a while. From this experience, I have found out that the roommates should mostly have the qualities of being alert and simple. Why did I say so? Please read on what my perspectives are as follows.
The first character as a roommate is alert. There are so many gas-leaking accidents happened, especially during the winter time. As a good roommate, we should be alert when there is someone who is taking the shower. Ignorance could be a primary regret for the rest of your life. For instance, there was once one piece of news reporting about when student A was enjoying a shower, his roommate, student B, happened to be at home and had saved him from the hand of the death. If student B wasn’t so alert (he could be sleeping during the time while student A is taking a shower,) both of them could have a reunion in the heaven now. Isn’t it?
In addition to the character of alert, simplicity is also a credit to be a nice roommate. That is, if your roommate has a very complicated relationship, you might be involved or influenced all the time. For example, I used to live with one of my friends. She told me that there was once a roommate long ago, who liked to bring her so-called “boy friend” home frequently, and her boy friend changed so quickly. It did cause my friend’s family some trouble and influence their life because of her “non-simplicity.” Especially, my friend has children who are confused with the value of relationship when they see this situation. That’s why simplicity is a very important quality for the roommate.
In conclusion, good roommates should have the qualities of alert and simplicity to reinforce your confidence in living with other people. With these 2 major characters as the standard while choosing your roommates, I believe everyone’s life should be safe and stable, the same as Snow White to live happily ever after.
Topic：If you could go back to some time and place in the past, when and where would you go? Why?
How long have you not kissed your parents? How long have you not enjoyed your family life? If I could go back to some time and place in the past, I would say childhood and sweet home are the most unforgettable time and place for me. Childhood is the golden period for cultivating good habits and developing interests. Sweet home is the most comfortable place for your heart.
The reason why I would like to come back to childhood is for the fundamental education. Children are so flexible that they could learn things quickly and find out what they like. It is not too much to say that childhood is the golden period to cultivate some good habits and develop interests. My brother likes to read, and he has been doing this since he was in elementary school. My skill of gymnastics is developed since I was very young. By doing the exercise as an interest, my health maintains well.
Sweet home would be the place that I would like to go back in the past. I could enjoy the time with my parents and siblings without worries. I didn’t need to be embarrassed to say “I love you” to my family since I was just a child. I didn’t need to worry about hunger or running out of toys. There was always someone to rely on in my sweet home when I got frustration.
In brief, childhood and sweet home are the most unforgettable time and place for me. As the time being, we are growing up. We passed the rebellious period in adolescent, which we sometime lost intimacy with family. We go to work, which always follows pressure and depression. Everybody needs to imagine that we sometimes go back to the childhood and sweet home where there is no worry.
Topic : Some people prefer to plan activities for their free time very carefully. Others choose not to make any plans at all for their free time. Compare the benefits of planning free-time activities with the benefits of not making plans. Which do you prefer─planning or not planning for your leisure time?
Have you ever heard your friends’ complaint about their unarranged and wasted free time? Most people always have trouble on arranging their free time well. However, if they make an appropriate schedule, they must not waste time and complain again. Therefore, I prefer planning for my leisure time because it makes me be sure what I am going to do and allows me to do things in order.
First of all, planning for my free time will cause the certainty on what I will do. Most people think that free time should be free and not in a fixed schedule. Nevertheless, a proper managed plan will contribute a good quality of moment. Before you have an overseas vacation, for instance, you must know where you will go and which hotel you will live. You do plan it though you do not plan it in detail.
In addtion to the certainty led by planning, planning for free time make things in order. If you go abroad to have vacation and have no plan at all, you might step into chaos. My uncle, for example, went to the United States last summer. He went there and did not know what to do. He just hanged around the city and did nothing. That maybe is good for someone who likes wandering. However, if he plans to go to museum or national park, he might have an educational and informative vacation.
In conclusion, people may think the leisure time should make us relaxed. That is right. If we plan it, we will feel more relaxed on the ground of the certainty and sequence of our plans.
Topic: It has recently been announced that a new high school may be built in your community. Do you support or oppose this plan? Why? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
If it were announced that a new high school will be built in my community, I will very much welcome it because I believe it may bring couples of the benefits to us.
First, it will create lots of new business opportunities. For example, the increasing population of teachers and students will encourage more and more stores to open up. It makes not only our life more convenient, but also our community's economic development.
Second, the subsequent benefit coming by the large population is the promotion of our transportation system. When more and more residents and passengers come to or go through this area, it will urge our government to create new mass transportation system, such as the MRT, buses, and so on. We thus can enjoy the public transportation resource.
Third, more population will get more financial and social resource. For example, we may get higer governmental budget on social welfare.
Although sometimes a new high school entering into a community may lead to some new problems, such as the environmental or traffical problems; however, I would rather burden a little inconvenience from it than forsake what benefits it brings to us.
Topic: Some people prefer to live in a small town. Others prefer to live in a big city. Which place would you prefer live in? Use specific reasons and details to support your answer.
Traveling in a small town might be a fantastic project in holidays. However, when it comes to living, I do not think a small town is a suitable place to live. Although the housing conditions in a big city are not perfect, living in a small town seems to get more trouble. The transportation, public facilities and entertainments in a down town are always unable to satisfy people. This is why I prefer living in a big city than living in a small town.
When I was a child, I once lived in a small town in southern Taiwan. The public transportation is not very convenient there. Generally speaking, if you want to take a bus to downtown, you must wait for the bus for more than thirty minutes. When I studied in high school I must get up very early in order to catch the bus. I was very scared of missing the bus, so I became very nervous every morning. It’s not good for a student, but there were no solution. After moving to Taipei I never worried about missing the bus, because there are frequent buses running in Taipei. Nowadays, the MRT also improves the convenience of the traffic in Taipei.
Besides, the number of public facilities is much more than those in a small town. People who live in a big city can enjoy more public facilities such as libraries, stadiums, parks, museums, galleries, hospitals, etc. Through these facilities people can upgrade the quality of their life. On the contrary, people who live in a down town might get less resource from the government and that also results in poor entertainments. To see a baseball game, to join a concert, or to visit a museum are not convenient for people in a small town. People who are badly injured or have a severe illness usually can not get a good medical treatment in a small town. That’s what I can not stand.
In short, living in a big city is more interesting for me than living in a small town. I do not like the lifestyle of a small town, because it is so boring and inconvenient.
Topic: What do you want most in a friend--- someone who is intelligent, or someone who has s sense of humor or someone is reliable? Which one of these characteristics is most important to you? Use reasons and specific example to explain your choice.
It is more precious to have a really reliable friend than have an intelligent friend or the friend with the sense of humor. The first reason is that the friend relationship is built on Trust. Therefore, a friend who is reliable is most important for us. We can trust someone who is reliable. The second reason is that by trust we even can tell private secrets to a reliable friend. We can reduce our pressures by telling private secrets.
Do you trust the person only because he or she is intelligent or has humor sense? Frankly speaking, most of people will trust the people who are reliable. That’s because the characteristic of intelligent or humor sense is not equivalent to reliable.
For example, some of my friends are very intelligent. However, I never tell them my private secrets. I only tell my private secrets to real reliable friends.
We trust the friend who is reliable so we can tell all our private secrets. We know the friend who is reliable will not hurt you. Therefore, they will not disclose your private secrets to other people. In life we have a lot of pressure. By telling something and talking secrets to a reliable friend is very helpful to reduce the pressure.
In conclusion, reliability is most important characteristic.
Topic: Why Do I think airplanes has changed people’s lives
How amazing it is! We can fly in the air, just like a bird. Why? Airplane is the answer. In the past, people only rely on boat to travel the world, but the boat can’t take us to every corner of the world. With the invention of airplane, people can travel around the world. Airplanes has changed people’s lives
First of all, airplanes save people much more time than boats do. While it may take you from couple of hours to one day to travel to overseas by airplane, it may take you from so many hours to many days, it depends on your destination. For example, it only takes you around one and half hours to Hong Kong by airplane, but it will take you around five-six hours to Hong Kong by boat.
In addition to the fact that airplanes save people’s time, airplanes enable people to travel around the world. There is a lot of picturesque scenery in the world. Airplanes can take people to wherever they want to go. It shortens the distance among the countries, among people and makes the world a global village. When travel to other countries, people can know more about the destination country’s culture, and make friends with the locals.
In sum, airplanes benefit people a lot. As mentioned above, airplanes can save people’s time, shorten the distance among the countries in the world, make the world a global village and so on. It becomes the main transportation and people’s part of live.
Topic: Nowadays, food has become easier to prepare. Has this change improved the way people live? Use specific reasons or examples to support your answer.
From my point of view, food is to people what oil is to cars. Therefore, if food has become easier to prepare in daily life, people will live a better life for sure. Just like the car with better-qualified oil will maximize its ability. The following two viewpoints are the advantages contributed by the easily-prepared food and how easily-prepared food improve people live.
First of all, an old English proverb goes, "Time is money." Food is second to none in our daily life. Without food, people will do everything withoug energy. If people have to spend a lot of time preparing food, this will waste much time for people to do something more important and helpful. For example, thanks to the special breakfast culture in Taiwan, people can find breakfast stores everywhere and the convenient stores are also easy to find as well. Thus, people save great time not to prepare breakfast and have more time to concentrate on studies or works. If people are in rush, they also can go into the convenient stores to get themselves some fast food in couples of minutes. This also help people without enought time to look for food find the shortcut to solve the pain from starving.
In addition to the first advantage, time saving, mentioned in the first paragraph, the second advantage of easily-prepared food is to improve the life quality. With the development of food, more and more food is on the shelf for people to make a choice. For instance, the fast food, microwave food, instand food ,and so on. The more choices people have the more pleasure people have while they are in the meal time every day. People will not suffer from the rutine and unchangable food and they have more chance to decide what to eat and how to eat. The above will make people live happier and upgrade the live quality afterall.
In conclusion, since food has become easy to prepare, people will concentrate on some thing more important rather than waste too much time preparing food; furthermore,people could have more choices for food so that people will live a more splendid life. Thus, the easily-prepared food really improve the way people live.
According to the research, people spend approximately two to four hours surfing on the Internet. It is needless to say that information on the virtual space is various and countless. Some says to access so much information creates problems, but I believe information is innocent. Information itself won’t generate any problems. The problem is how people use information. Therefore, I agree that the Internet provides people with a lot of valuable information, as long as people properly use information, because we can absorb knowledge and be connected with the world.
First of all, Internet helps people to study. For example, every university’s website contains an online learning center section. From art to zoology, we can access any subjects and peruse the introduction of them. Although sometimes we are unable to read the details, the direction is pointed out. We can go to the library and continue the further study. Internet, the most effective tool, aids us not to seek without target.
In addition to helping people to study more effectively, we can keep in touch with the world by surfing the Internet. Internet provides news from every corner of the world. Scientist can contort the situation of bird flu. Businessmen can check the latest lottery numbers even when they go abroad. Information on the Internet is instantaneous. Not only people use Internet to obtain news, but people also use Internet as a communicative tool. There is no modern person who doesn’t have a e-mail account.
To sum up, Internet really provides us much information. Whether information is valuable or not only be determined by who needs it. As I mentioned before, information itself is guiltless. To most of us, we won’t be a murder; even there are thousands of web pages that teach us how to kill a person for fun. If we can make good use of information on the internet, there will be no problems and the internet will not be the scapegoat anymore.
Writing Topic: You have enough money to purchase either a house or a business. Which would you choose to buy? Give specific reasons to explain your choice.
This is a delightful question to think about. I would say a kind of money that big enough, which is owned by me will be paid for a house definitely. In the regards with a business, it never crosses my mine. There are two reasons making me so sure on my choice.
Firstly, according to a traditional Chinese idea ”A house or a lot is a fortune to heritage alone the generations of a family, It is kind of family bond”. For instance, me and my brothers still gather together in holidays at my parent’s house although we do not meet each other frequently. My parents want us promising them to get together routinely once they pass, because they will be able to see their children bonding tightly. We heritage not only a body of a house, but also a spirit of a house be I wish I have a house to be heritaged by my children.
Secondly, at the age of 45, I do not have any ambitious to run a business as I used to be. To purchase a business means to run a business. I am too old to be tied by a business. It is about the time to plan my retirement. I would love to be a happy landlord with a monthly income and freedom off course. Life is so short which can not afford to waste for me. There was an incident influent me a lot. One of my friends who are successful in business got a stroke lately. He told me in a painful expression that his hard working led him to a fortune but no time to enjoy it. Therefore I do not think to purchase a business is a good idea.
All in all, every body has different kind of dream. I would not say to be a boss is a bad idea. By means of that, you can make money from it, you can control people as well. You can be powerful and power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. In my own perspective, I prefer to enjoy my life alone instead of controlling somebody else or being controlled. Thus to own a house is better to run a business for the rest of my life, isn’t it?
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