The meaning of Christmas to me

When I was little , Christmas meant I can have a special gift from Santa and a happy holiday .
Christmas meant happiness then .
And now , I have grown up .
There's no gift and holiday on Christmas ...
So ... it means nothing to me ...
Oh , that's not true !
I'm just kidding :P

Everytime when Christmas comes , Taipei will be turned into a very beautiful city .
Christmas tree is everywhere in fornt of stores .
There are Christmas ornaments all over filling up the city .
The colorful and sparkling light from little bulbs prettify the whole street under the night .
Even it is cold December , red color which is high and low warm people up .
I guess I can smell the happiness in the air , and it feels like something good is going to happen .
I love this atmosphere sooooo much !
Friends will send Christmas card or candies to each other , and sometimes we play a game called " little angle " .
The most important is - my brother's birthday is on Christmas Eve .
We families will gather celebrating for him .
That makes Christmas even warmer .



Christmas is full of joy :)
So , as for me , Happiness is the meaning of Christmas .

National Treasure - Book of Secrets

If you have ever seen National Treasure I , you must go and see National Treasure II !
At the begining , we were afraid that II would be terrible - just like many other movies which were no planed for a sequal at first , but this one is great !

The protagonist is still Ben Gates ( Nicolas Cage ) .
This time , his great-great grandfather, Thomas Gates , a Civilian Hero , was accused the mastermind behind the Lincoln assassination .
It's such a huge humiliation to Ben's father , since he believed that the story about Tomas Gates he had heard from his grandfather is definitely true - Tomas can't be the head of conspiracy .
As a result , Ben set out to prove the innocence of his great-great grandfather .

The polt is compact and has no awkward moment .
In order to find the clues from Book of Secrets - a book which contains documents collected by Presidents for Presidents' eyes only , Ben even kidnapped the President !
This movie combines exciting adventure and a large amount of humor .
Riley - Ben's friend , is really a funny person , who is smart but always say something stupid making people have belly laugh !
With this kind of character like Riley , the whole movie becomes more interesting .

Of course , the process they were finding clues is also splendid .
I enjoy watching them solve those tough riddles .
When the answer was found in a smart way , I always marveled " how amazing ! " .

National Treasure II is a good movie worth watching , recommending it to everyone :)

p.s. Nicolas Cage is going to have no hair , my god !

Celebration Dinner

We went for celebration dinner tonight , since we got the second place in drama competition .
How can this dinner be so high and exciting ?

When eating our spaghetti in the restaurant , someone suggested that we can have a game called " king hour ".
We used 11 poker - from No.1 to No 10 and a king , sending out to everyone .
The one who got king can command two persons to do everything .
For example , the king may order No.1 kisses No.2 ( but king doesn't know who is No.1 and No.2 at first ) .
It was so exiting , especially when a boy and a girl was told to do something such as kissing , nose touching nose , two persons eating one noodle !!

We also saperated ourselves into 2 groups and have a competition .
The charade was so fun , but it ended in a tie .
In order to find out which team was the winner , we had a PK game .
Each team sent 4 persons out , and another team had to guess that these 4 who drunk the super spicy water .
It's a kind of like acting trials !!
Everyone was good at acting !! It's hard to figure out that he/her did drink it or not !!
( No wonder we got the runner-up , ha ha :P )
All people were extremely high and crazy !



So happy tonight :)
We had a great time .
It felt so good to get together with drama guys .
God knows how much I like these people !!

Rising seas 'to beat predictions'

BBC News
Monday, 17 December 2007


The world's sea levels could rise twice as high this century as UN climate scientists have previously predicted, according to a study.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change proposes a maximum sea level rise of 81cm (32in) this century. But in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers say the true maximum could be about twice that: 163cm (64in). They looked at what happened more than 100,000 years ago - the last time Earth was this warm. The results join other studies showing that current sea level projections may be very conservative. Sea level rise is a key effect of global climate change. There are two major contributory effects: expansion of sea water as the oceans warm, and the melting of ice over land. In the latest study, researchers came up with their estimates by looking at the so-called interglacial period, some 124,000 to 119,000 years ago, when Earth's climate was warmer than it is now due to a different configuration of the planet's orbit around the Sun. That was the last time sea levels reached up to 6m (20ft) above where they are now, fuelled by the melting of ice sheets that covered Greenland and Antarctica.

'Robust' work
The researchers say their study is the first robust documentation of how quickly sea levels rose to that level. "Until now, there have been no data that sufficiently constrain the full rate of past sea level rises above the present level," lead author Eelco Rohling, of Britain's National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said in a statement. Rohling and his colleagues found an average sea level rise of 1.6m (64in) each century during the interglacial period. Back then, Greenland was 3C to 5C (5.4F to 9F) warmer than now - which is similar to the warming period expected in the next 50 to 100 years, Dr Rohling said. Current models of ice sheet activity do not predict rates of change this large. However, they also do not include many of the dynamic processes already being observed by glaciologists, the researchers said. "The average rise of 1.6m per century that we find is roughly twice as high as the maximum estimates in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and so offers the first potential constraint on the dynamic ice sheet component that was not included in the headline IPCC values," explained Dr Rohling. Last year, a separate study found sea level rise projections could be under-estimating the impact of human-induced climate change on the world's oceans. Stefan Rahmstorf, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany, and colleagues plotted global mean surface temperatures against sea level rise, and found that levels could rise by 59% more than current forecasts.


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Drama contest

The drama contest is came on on Sunday .
We arrived Taipei school area early in the morning in order to have enough time preparing .
That was a wonderful day - great weather , good mood , everything's so fine .
One of the most interesting part is when the actors making up for their characters .
Upper classmates applied so much cosmetics to actors face , making them ... haha .. looked a kind of funny .
But this is necessary , or the audiences can't see their face clearly .
We also repaired our stage properties , using a great deal of adhesive tapes to firm them .

At 3:45 , we stepped on the stage .
Light on , and light off .
When I backed to myself , we were already bathing in a brust of clap and cheer .
Suddenly , all the painstaking seemed gone , leaving only happinss .
We had done our best playing a perfect drama , so wheather be awarded the prize or not , we were always the best in our mind .

When waiting for other departments' performances over , we went to ECO office eating something . Rounding a turn , suddenly everyone started to say his/her feeling during this drama contest . It's so warm that everybody laught happily and we looked like a big family .

Due to this competition , I met lots of people , and we had become very good friends . In addition , we drama guys were so united that really moved me . I'm so glad I did join this activity , hence can have such a fantastic experience .



Oh ... I forget to say something important ...
That is ...
We ... Eco ... got the second place in this competition ultimately !!

A creative person

When it comes to a creative person , Hayao Miyazaki is the first one who flashes through my mind .Hayao Miyazaki ( 宮崎 駿 ) is a prominent director of lots of animated films which win universal praise , and also , a co-founder of Studio Ghibli .


Almost everyone knows some Hayao Miyazaki's works . My neighborhood Totoro , Kiki's delivery service and Princess Mononoke are all famouse animations when we were little . His works just acompany us growing up . With a mysteriously unknown world and lots of magical characters , Spirited away has become my favorite one . Always , Hayao Miyazaki put warm and fragrant elements into creations , thus touching me deeply in the heart .


Miyazaki ' s films are not only full of magic and marvellous things that make people's imagination soar , but also suggest some important common themes to audiences , such as environmental protection ( ex : Princess Mononoke ) , antiwar thinking ( ex : Nausicaa ) , or maintaining a pacifist ethic . This is what I believe the most important part . Through these works , he conveyed his concern to the world , telling us how vital environmental protection and anti-war are . Combining animated films with important issues is really creative . With his creative style , Hayao Miyazaki has already become a legendary animated film director .

Transformers

I've seen " Transformers " recently , and trust me , it is really an amazing creation !



Sam - the protagonist one day found his new car actually a robot , he and his friend than realized that they are in a tug of war between Autobots and Decepticons .
Autobots and Decepticons are two races of robotic aliens , and with the different faith , they have already waged a war for centries .
This time , the battle came to earth .
Sam had to work with Autobots fighting evil Decepticons , saving mankind's survival .

I at first thougt that only boys will love this kind of movies , and robots are so childish .
That was a terrible mistake .
We girl like it so much , too !
Those robots all have their own unique characteristics and emotions - just like human .
They act vivid other than stiff like a piece of iron .
I admire Transformors' animation manufacture , since they made those extremely complex actions so splendid and glorious .
The frame is so cool when they transform form car into giant robot .



This film really attracts me !
It also contains lots of fun plots making people laugh .
I like the word which Sam's father told him : No sacrifice , no victory .
I guess through this battle , Sam did come to realize the true meaning of this word .