English Corner Debut!

Today was the first Beihua English Corner of the semester. I wish I had remembered to bring a camera! It would have been nice to post pictures of the English Corner. Alas! It went very well, though. I was really excited by how well the "Chatterbox Game" went.

For those of you who do not know, "Chatterbox" is a game where you give a person a topic and they have to speak non-stop for one full minute. They don't have to tell the truth about the topic (sometimes the lies are more fun!), but they can't stop talking either. They become a chatterbox!

Anyway, everyone did very well.

After English Corner, I came back to my room to look for some good pronunciation drills for class, and I found a very interesting website. http://www.elfs.com/MMz.html This website is full of tongue twisters! It's good, too, because you can listen to the tongue twisters and then repeat. Quite useful!

TV and Movie Recs

Hey all! Here's the list of TV show and movie recommendations that Lydia asked for. Sorry it took so long for me to post them, but my internet has been acting up. ("Acting up" is a common way to say that it has not been behaving well.)

TV Shows:
Full House- similar to 《家有儿女》
Friends- very popular, lots of slang
The Simpsons- cartoon that parodies the average American family
Smallville- Superman when he was young, good glimpse of small town life
Scrubs- lots of medical language, but very funny
The Office- business show that is VERY popular in the USA
The Amazing Race- Americans travel around the world in a race
Ghost Whisperer- have never seen, but a friend likes it
Hannah Montana- show about high school life
Law & Order- advanced show about the American legal system
Psych- very funny show about a detective
Buffy the Vampire Slayer- older show about high school girl who kills vampires
Doug- cartoon about high school life

Movies:
12 Angry Men- lots of dialogue, about men trying to solve a murder
Mrs. Doubtfire- a man dresses as a woman to be closer to his kids, very funny
High School Musical- very popular movie about high school
Simpsons Movie- cartoon
The Incredibles- SO EXCITING! if you have not seen this movie, you must see it!
Amistad- I have not seen it, but Kevin loves it
Apollo 13- movie about the space program
Dead Poet Society- good movie about high school clubs
Elf- funny Christmas movie
Meet the Parents- a man meets his girlfriend's parents and everything goes wrong
My Big Fat Greek Wedding- a Greek-American tries to marry an Irish-American man
The Producers- funny musical about Broadway
Rear Window- again, one of Kevin's favorite movies
Shrek- very popular cartoon, funny
The Truman Show- an award-winning movie, but I cannot tell you the plot; it's a surprise!
The Wizard of Oz- a classic movie, EVERYONE in the USA has seen this
When Harry Met Sally- a sweet romantic comedy

Hope these help a little bit. :)

Obama at Notre Dame!

So exciting! Today I heard that President Obama is going to give the commencement speech at my alma mater! SO exciting!

For those of you who don't know, my alma mater ("alma mater" is Latin, and refers to "the college I graduated from") is the University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame is famous for American football, its golden dome, and very good academics. Every year, my university invites a famous person to give a speech to the graduating seniors. This speech is called the commencement speech (or sometimes it is called the "commencement address").

And as I said, this year President Obama is giving the speech. How exciting! I'm so jealous! I wish I could be there to see it!

_______________________

Oh, well. Obama is in America and I am in China. Such is life. At least I have better food :)

Also, thank you to Bryan from Jilin City's Medical College for sending me pictures of Halloween English Corner. I'm putting a few pictures at the bottom here. Thanks, Bryan!

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe!

In my Oral English classes, I occasionally have a problem finding volunteers to speak or perform dialogues. Last semester, I would solve this problem by simply out-waiting my students. This semester, however, I only have my students for two hours each week. There is no time to waste! If there are no volunteers, then I must be able to make a quick selection of which student will go first. I choose the students using a traditional and common rhyme called "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe."

The rhyme sounds like this:
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Catch a tiger by the toe.
If he hollers let him go,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
My mother told me,
To pick the very best one,
And that is Y-O-U are it!

So if you are indecisive, like me, this can be a very helpful rhyme :)

Just for a little extra color, I'm going to add a picture of one of my classes below. Yay freshman!

Long Time, No See!

Wow! I haven't posted any stories for a long time. Sorry for being so lazy! I have a new goal: I will post one blog every week, even if I have nothing important to say. Kevin says he'll help me, so it should be okay. :)

It's good to be back in Jilin. I love to travel, but non-stop travel really wears me down. By the end of the trip I was so tired, all I wanted to do was come back to my apartment and sleep for a week! Instead, I had to come back and clean for a week- my apartment was so messy!

I am going to add some pictures from vacation to the blog entry. My favorite pictures are the sunset pictures from Vietnam and the pictures of my friends in Taipei. Next week I'll write about seeing my friends in Jilin and my new classes (with familiar faces). See you later!