Letter for future English 110 student....

Dear future English 110 students,


Hey fellows, welcome to English 110 class! As far as I am concerned, English 110 is one of the required GEC course here for all buckeyes. It’s obvious that there is no way you can escape from it. So, just embrace it, no matter what you may here from others about it.

I was a new student at OSU at the beginning of this quarter. Actually, I didn’t hear much about English 110 for the fact that I don’t know many people here. All my feelings before starting the course is intimated by the idea to write essays in English, as I am a foreigner. After the first class, I felt more intimated as Lauren said things like” I know you have heard of horrible things about English 110, it’s not that difficult.” That’s when I decided to work harder on the course. As the quarter goes by, I got more sayings about the course. Some even say that English 110, CSE 200 and ACCT 211 (as I am a student in fisher) are the three deadly courses. I was told never to put any two of these three courses together in one quarter. However, now, as the course is ending in two weeks, all I want to say is that there is no need to worry about the terrible sayings about English 110 just before it started. Everything will be fine as long as you stick to it. That’s my first advise, just trash all the rumors and get yourself into writing.

As a matter of fact, sometimes I even feel the course is simpler than other GEC courses. I don’t have to remember concepts or do experiments, I don’t have to take a bunch of notes and try to figure out what I have wrote back home. The best thing is that there is no midterms and final for this course. I hate exams! In my story, all things have to be done here are just read and write. As long as you have a point or an argument, it’s not that hard to write. After all, you are just expressing yourself. Although there still be times that I was stuck or times I was trapped by the grammar sentences issues, I can always get help from others. Teacher is nice here, classmates are friendly and the writing center is great. So every trouble will be out of question in the end. And you may find yourself pleased and surprised about the final work as much as I do. Of course, this all built on one base condition, that is to work hard. So my second advice is to relax and enjoy the whole process.

Last but not the least, it is important to follow the schedule the teacher has set up. You are left with three days or a week to do a certain draft or reading. It doesn’t matter whether you like to do everything during the first day so you don’t need to go in a rush or that you like to write it on the last night before the deadline because you can squeeze more thoughts under pressure. As long as you have had your own plan under the circumstances of following the teacher’s schedule. In this way, you would definitely feel so worried as you have done all the things timely and well. Of course, this include attend every class as possible. Each minute you spent will pay off finally.

Well, I seemed to have typed so much. Just hope that you will enjoy yourself and feel relaxed. Go buckeyes!

Common place--We r coming!

Finally, the RAP is done and we are moving to the common place.

As I go through some of the passages in common place, I find them are all good public writing. They are not as formal as the essay we turned in, but also too random. They all have a clear thesis and strong arguments. The passage structure is read-friendly, and the sentences are precise. Even the passages are not very long, they all have pretty good primary and secondary sources as back up their arguments. The topics are easy to attract attention from people of my age. And also, the tone is pretty different form the pervious essays. Some sentence may even sound like daily conversations. That’s a lot different from the RAP assignment, I think, as the RAP may avoid using “we” or “you”.


To me, the similarity between works on commonplace and RAP is that both of them are focused on a topic and use secondary sources to argue the author’s view. The difference may lay in the priority. The RAP is something like pick up a primary source first and analyze it. Then find the related argument and argue it with backup of secondary source. At this point, there are a lot of analysis in the RAP. And the argument goes closely with the analysis. But for the commonplace, it’s more like idea oriented, but not source oriented. That is to say, there isn’t so much analysis in commonplace papers.

As for my RAP project shifting to common place, I think I may pick up a topic that is more interesting and appealing. Maybe talk about the influence of technology or phones on youngsters. I may talk more about my ideas than analyzing the primary commercials. A summary instead of more details of my RAP’S primary and secondary source may serve better. The resources may share the proportion of the paper rather than one focused. I may add my own daily life experience as example since that maybe closer to life of people of my age. As for timely, I think talk about the newest electronics and technology may also help. I haven’t form a clear idea of how to reshape my work. Hopefully, I will find my way.

It’s common sense that technology or phones has affect out daily life a lot. People talk about it all the time. It’s really something that is closely related to our life as well as this era. All I hope is just to talk about it with my peers and add another powerful argument to the topic.

All in all, I hope we all can have wonderful experince with common place.

In class blogging

As I go through my writing and revising of my RAP, I think the most mistake I make besides grammar is getting lost. It's just that I may get out of the thesis as my revising and sometimes write something just may have only little or nothing to do with my thesis. And I don't know whether it's a good thing or not that I even change my thesis three times during the whole project. I guess there is a lot of editing work to do for me. I would definitely go to the writing center to have someone to look at my paper and help me through it. I may also have my friend look at it and get the feedback. I think that will help a lot for the fact the everyone think of the same thing from different aspects and there is always some suggestions or ideas useful that others provide for my final paper.

Some thoughts about my life here in US

Time flies! I have been here in the US for almost two months and half of the quarter has gone.


Coming to another country to study was one of my childhood dream. I used to imagine staying in another country and experiencing a different culture. At some time, this seems far away from me since it needs a lot of effort to come here--both academically and financially. And now, here I am, realizing my dream.

I like my life back in China, surrounded by my friends and family. I also like it here. It’s great living here, especially in OSU. Abandoning my previous college degree to come here was a tough decision for me, for the fact that I have spent two years and a half in college back in China and I probably will still be working for my undergraduate degree while my friends have already enter graduate college or work. But now, I’m glad that I made the decision to come here.

I like the campus life here, everything is at hand. The place is not too noisy or too quiet. I used to go to a college which is one hour drive from the downtown area. Life is pretty inconvenient back that time. But here, I can do almost everything I want on the campus. It’s fabulous.

It’s really helpful that people are all friendly here, both classmates and teachers. I can get a lot of help. That means pretty much for a new settler. In fact, I took my high school education at another city by myself. Although the both cities are in China, the living habits are quite different. I had to accommodate myself into a different environment. But it was easier at that time. After all, I can speak my native language and everything is different but has something in common. In comparison, this time is harder. I find myself inadequate to express myself well. Sometimes I find myself even become shy. Luckily, I can get help from a lot of nice people just like you guys. Hopefully, situations will get better and better.

The best things I like about here is people’s attitude towards life and other people. People can always be tolerant, thus makes this lovely place a place of multi-culture, all kinds of thoughts and people are embraced. Also, it’s amazing that people here can keep study and leisure time separate pretty strictly. It seems to me that things can mix up and study would take leisure time back in China. So it’s amazing that people can do such good job without losing leisure time here. Actually, I hope I can be like that someday.

Well, that’s all for my third blog. Maybe it doesn’t sound like a real public writing. It’s just that I want to share my experience and thank all your helps.

Shanghai EXPO--fascinating!

When I chat with one of my friends on Internet the other day, he asked me whether I am going back China this summer for the 2010 Shanghai EXPO. Although I intensely want to witness the huge event by myself, the summer course keeps me here. In order to comfort me, my friend sent me some pictures of the pavilions. From the first glance of the pictures, I got astonished. So I thought, why not talk about?

The China Pavilion at Shanghai Expo is designed by Jingtang He, a man who also designed the Badminton Hall and the Wrestling Hall for the 2008 Beijing Olympic. As known to all, China has a long history. What I would like to say is that this pavilion definitely well represent Chinese culture and history.


The building is located in the centre of its exhibition area, in its square shape. Just stand there, dignified. This may well remind people of other significant building in China, such as the Forbidden City. As a matter of fact, the Forbidden City is a place that everyone comes to China should visit. So if you come to see the Shanghai Expo, the China Pavilion is the building you can’t miss.

As you can tell from the first sight, the color of the Pavilion is Chinese red-- a warm color but not so bright. No doubt that this representative color of China delivers a sense of history and make people want to come into the pavilion to know more about the country. For years, Chinese people fight their way to where they are today. The nation has a history of blood, a history of red.

Now take a look at the upper side of the building. It looks like a cap and the material just cluttered up layer by layer, just like the Chinese culture, accumulated through 5,000 years from less to more. It’s continues, every dot is connected.

While on the other hand, the lower part of the pavilion is just like a up-side-down cap. The biggest part is on the ground and get smaller on every stage. Obviously, what the designer want to express is that a good foundation is essential no matter for the building of a pavilion of for the building of a country. Besides the cultural meaning, the two opposite parts express great illusions of volume and space

Last but not least, the fences around the building attract my attention. If you are familiar with Chinese culture, you will recognize that they are old seal words. But if you are not familiar with Chinese culture, don’t you find it fascinating that what the fence represents is actually words with meanings?

All in all, I hope you get interested in the Shanghai Expo after seeing this. There are definitely pavilion for America wait you to find the American culture expressed by it. Be sure come to witness it if you have the chance, no doubt it will worth the trip.

Try again for public writing.

Well, to be honest, this is not my first attempt to write a blog. I tried once in my high school. Unfortunately, things didn’t work out well. I used to treat blog like a more personal thing, writing things like diary and just express personal feeling. But as a matter of fact, it turns out that people sometimes may try to make things sounds better when they intends to go public. And there are times that feelings can be too personal to share, even I intended to. These are all reasons that held me back from keeping a blog running. Right, sometimes I got lazy and forget what to say afterwards. That’s another reason. Maybe this blog can be a more public one, I don’t know, just hoping that everyone can enjoy the process. It sounds fun, right?
Talking about other public writing experience, I had one before. It was interesting and challenging. In the summer of 2008, I went to the AIDS Village with some of my friends to do some research. We went to a small school where AIDS orphans are supported by the government. After spending two weeks with them, we had a close view of their life and made friends with them. After I came back home, I wrote an article describing the very experience as well as expressing my feelings during the whole unforgettable trip. Then, the article was posted on the school’s newspaper as well as on the websites of a couple other newspapers. The whole process was exciting, hoping that people would be intersted in my article, checking from times to times for feedbacks. I think I was lucky for actually having people’s attention in my work and got several feedbacks. It felt good to let other people know things from what I wrote, especially knowing that some people did things like donations to help the orphans after they had read the article.
That’s it, my short public writing experience. Hope you didn’t get bored while reading it.