鷹揚空

It's been pretty busy since the end of this May. My classmates and I went to Hokkaido for graduation trip during Dragon Boat Festival vacation. It was really fun and we all enjoyed the environment there and of course the delicious food!!! However, there was a problem with my skin. On some day, I found an area of uneven bulge appeared around my left eye. After coming back from Hokkaido, my skin condition got worse... Right after the trip, we went singing for 6 hours. Then on the same day, we bought alcohols for the graduation party two days later. In the graduation party, there were plenty of activities and performances. And for the first time I sang a song in public. After the "official" party, we graduates drank together. And that's the tradition of our department. However, I didn't drink at all because I was bad at drinking. It was funny to see everyone drunk. Ha~ So it was obvious that in these days I slept little. Perhaps bad quality of sleep was the culprit. Fortunately, I finally went to see the doctor and now it's getting better.

On Facebook, there is a quiz "What is the soundtrack of your life?" My result is Elizabethtown and my song is 'Learning to fly.' So, I was very curious about this movie. Then I just watched it during dinner time! The leading characters are Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. Actually, I found I already watched it before, but I forgot that I had watched it! Well, simply to say, I like the movie a lot!!! I like the opening "someone once said there's a difference between failure and fiasco. A failure is no existence of success. Any fool can accomplish any kind of failure. But a fiasco----A FIASCO----is a disaster of myth proportions. A FIASCO is a folk tale told to others that makes other people feel more ALIVE because IT DIDN'T HAPPEN TO THEM!"  It's true, isn't it?

A man, Drew, was fired by a famous shoe-making company. First, he wanted to kill himself. However, right at the time when he was about to kill himself, he got a call from his sister. His father passed away. He had to picked him up from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. On the flight, he met the flight attendant, Claire. Then the story began...

Today is my team presentation whose topic is introduction of cultural differences between America, Japan and Taiwan through McDonald's. My part was to introduce McDonald's in America. There are many characters created by McDonald's. Actually, McDonald's worked with Disney before ,so in our childhood we could see a lot of Disney toys in Happy Meals. However, after Disney dumped McDonald's, McDonal's started to work with other business. For example, Mario Brothers come from Japan. Thus, even in the U.S. there is a Japanese cultural diffusion. Next, it's the food. Bagels are Ameirca. But the point I'd like to say is that most of the time the American menu of McDonald's often put emphasis on their meat of burgers. This is kind of different from Taiwan and Japan. Let's go back to the 1970's of America. I found two ads on the Internet, but actually they are the same because the words on them are exactly the same. Why McDonald's made two different versions of the ad? Obviously, one is for the black and the other is for the white. I did a little bit research online. Though desegregation and civil right movements had risen at that time, perhaps there might be a quite strong concept of racial segregation. So, perhaps this was one one of the reasons why McDonald's made two different versions of it. Here's a commercial of Great Taste of America. In fact, this commercial has different versions for different places, such New York hip pop, Amazon rock, California classic and here we have Texas cowgirls. From this video, we know that America is such a broad continent that each local place will develop its own customs, values and lifestyles. America is called a melting pot because it contains many elements, different ethnic  groups of people and different religions. This is very different from Japan, which is a homogeneous country. In addition to historical backgrounds, I think geographical factors may be one of the reasons why America features individualism and Japan features collectivism.

I did a mini-presentation in the English class last week. The topic was about women and babies. Liza, the president and founder of Expecting Models Inc., produced a reality show called "Runway Mom." I watched a couple of times on Travel and Living channel in Taiwan. Aactually, I was totally in shock when I watched it for the first time because there was a real birth process in the show. Basically, I stongly recommend that everyone should watch it once in a while if you have free time. There are many tips for prenancy you can learn, no matter you're women or men. You know, in preparation for the future, just in case, if you want a baby. You will also find that expecting moms can also be very energetic, sexy and beautiful as usual. And I'm sure you will be very grateful for your mother after you watch the show. By the way, Mother's Day is right coming up. Why not try to watch it with your mom at home?

The second thing is about the issue of breastfeeding in the U.S..  There was a news video on the Internet. A woman posted her breastfeeding images on Facebook. However, the images were taken down by Facebook due to the violation of terms of use they claimed. Then it became a hot debate on Facebook. Many other women standed on her side and uploded many breastfeeding photos on their profile on Facebook to protest against the rules. A woman even started a group called "Hey! Facebook! Breastfeeding is not obscene!" on Facebook. In the video, this woman thought this was uniquely American phnomena since she got the most hateful messages from the United States while got encouraging messages from south America and central Europe. Well, I don't know whether it is uniquely American phenomenon or not, but I do think it is very natural and normal things for women and babies to do. It's a baby's instinct to eat milk from a breast. In Taiwan, I seldom see people breastfeeding babies in public, but I did see once on a train a  woman breastfeeding her baby with a cover of clothes or towels. I thought it was ok. It was fine with me, though I just couldn't help but notice the baby's reaction while it was eating. It was really cute.

Actually, now I'm supposed to write my argumentative composition, which is my plan tonight. But you know somehow you're not in the mood for the things that you've planned to do. So here I am. Still typing in English might soothe my guilt more or less.

This Sunday I'm gonna meet an important person in my life----Stefanie Sun.

I'm wondering whether I should write her a letter.......ha! Perhaps I will do that. I always think she is just like one of my friends so I never say "She is my idol" or something like that. It may sound silly for other people. "You actually don't know her and she doesn't know you, either!" That's what probably they would say. Yet, you know what. It were her and her music that accompanied me for the last seven or eight years. For me, she could be the most familar friend. Seeing her smile and listening to her singing makes me feel happy. The lyrics and the words make me think. The truth was that we grew up together. Now I'm 22 at which the same age when she entered the showbiz. Time flies fast, doesn't it? Somehow I always feel a sense of connection to her, mentally or spiritually, I don't know.

This spring vacation, I did nothing. Really, NOTHING!

I thought a lot about one thing which came to bother me for no reason. I wondered why people always jumped to the conclusion by the result rather than by the whole process. It seemed that the pitiful one got the greatest justice. As for those who spoke up bravely, they were regarded as the causes of the chaos and the turbulent of the tranquility. It was unfair!!! If it was called the justice or the right conclusion, I wouldn't approve. 

It is great to escape the rainy weather at school! It rains a lot.......

I bought the ticket of Stefanie's concert and I'was very very very very exciting!!!!! I think it is going to be the best memory I've ever had. As far as I'm concerned, she is a very familiar old friend who walks me through the ups and downs in my life. I don't regard her as an idol or superstar actually. She is just human and an ordinary person like we are. I don't care what the media say and I don't like the over-commercia package, such as the poster.......But, you know what. It doesn't matter. As long as she is still who she is........it will be enough for me. Yes, people change. change with time. Or frankly put it, with age.  Perhaps she is a little different from who she used to be, but we all are, aren't we? Well. all I really want to say is "I'll be there with you! Dear Stefanie."

A week ago, my friends and I went to see Warhol's exhibition in Taipei. Since we didn't know about getting ear sets for explaining the works in advance, we had to follow the narrator closely from one work to another.

Andy Warhol is Godfather of Pop Art. I have seen some of his works, such as Marilyn Monroe, Mou, the banana, Campell's chicken soup. As far as I'm concerned, getting to know about the artist intrigues my enthusiasm about his works more. To my surprise, Andy had plastics surgery on his eyes and nose. I thought artists wouldn't care much about their appearance. Besides, westerners had bigger eyes and taller noses than those we had.