The Xujiahui Catholic Church

On the April 26th, Xixi, Justin, Yuki and me went to Shanghai. When we arrived at the Xujiahui, the big church attracted us. There is a big fountain in front of the church, many people was taking photos there. It was a sunny day, the lawn looked great. We also saw two brides there were taking wedding photos. A cosplayer was dressed in gothic clothes, that looked like the comic character.
It’s a pity that the church does not allow us to take photos of the inner part. The church is full of travellers and a group of people who may be the guests for the wedding. It was silent, and the environment made us more serious. We listened to the guide’s introduction, the things in the church are all like what in the movies. There are many paintings, the guide said that all the paintings are the stories of catholics. I knew that catholic is part of the Christian Church ruled by the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). In the early Church the papacy exercised authority over all Christians. The differences between Christian and Catholic are that catholics believe in saints and Mary mother of God. While christian respect saints and Mary but do not worship them.In principle, Christianity is built solely on the Holy Scriptures, the written Word of God. The Bible is our only infallible rule of faith, being sufficient to give us the sure knowledge of the Gospel for our salvation and holiness.
The gothic church looks fabulous, so that many girls became catholics only because they want to marry in this wonderful church. All the believes are sacred, I cannot say which is the best, but the Xujiahui Catholic church is gorgeous.

The visit of Nanjing Museum

I chose Nanjing museum because it is the biggest official museum in Nanjing. On match 14th, Chester and I went to this museum at 2 p.m.There were many different exhibitions in the museum, Chester and I had different choices. Chester chose the exhibition of jade, and I went to the year of OX exhibition. When I came into the gallery, I saw many violet sand pottery OX. 2009 is the year of OX, and Chinese people believe to use more things with a picture of OX will bring them good luck. Red is the lucky color of China, and the wall is red,so it gave tourists a strong feeling of Chinese culture, that made me get into that exhibition.
There were mostly some artworks of bull’s history. Ancient people used ox as a transport in the HAN dynasty, because ox is a sedate animal, they moved quickly and smooth. Some artists use paintings, sculptures, and other different kinds of ways to describle their own thinking of oxes.My favourite artwork is a painting. It's about ancient cowhands live with oxes, their pastoral lives were calm and peaceful. It was a vivid painting, and I love that one.

Exactly, I don't like museum very much, it's so quiet for me, I felt a little bit bored. Finally I found a small store of some souvenirs of oxes. I had fun picking stuffs there. Museum is a good place to get more imformation of culture, it recorded the lives of our ancestors. I saw some foreigners taking photos there as well.Whatever, I enjoyed this exhibition.

Round Table Steak House

I went to a restaurant named “Round Table Steak House” to have lunch with Chester on March 15th. This restaurant is beside DQ in 1912. We went there at 12:30, there were already many people eating there.
The reason that we chose this restaurant is a game called “Knight of the round”, and “Knight” this word gave us an image of elegant. Luckily, we picked the right restaurant because the environment here was really good. Our seats were large and tall, like the seats of emperor. The main color of this restaurant is red, and it has glass roof. A man was singing French song. It seems to be a very romantic place. We both ordered Fillet steak. It was tender and tasted nice, with a little blood. Cesar salad was fresh with sweet sauce, the ham was in pieces. Their Chinese Mushroom soup gave me a strong impression. I’ve eaten many mushroom soups before, but that was the most authentic one.The Fruit Ice-cream with caramel was like the perfect ending, sweet but not greasy.
I like the taste of this restaurant. It’s a real western restaurant. The waiters here were polite and speak with good manners. They paid attention to every detail. We saw some GCA students eating there as well, but people eating here were mostly adults. Some lovers were dating there, and businessmen talked business here too. I recommend others come to this nice restaurant.

Club

I am the leader of swimming club, and also a member of Guitar Club and Movie Club.
Swimming is my favourite sport, and I’d love to group all of the swimming lover. Through the club, I have found 2 good friends, Sonia and Denise. Sonia has learnt swimming when she was very young, Denise has even been a lifeguard in Canada, they are professional swimmers. We swimmed together and talked about swimming skills. I only know the friends in my class when I am a new here, but I met more friends from other class, and we have a good realationship.In our club there were also have someone who couldn’t swim like Mike in 10-B. we tried to teach him, and maybe he wasn’t afraid of swimming any more. Yuki Justin Peter and Victor are also good at swimming. I remember that Peter and Victor had a match with Sonia and me, that was really fun. Swimming is good way to keep slim, and is good to the whole body. We got more friends and made our body healthier during the club activity.Unfortunately, we didn’t continue because of my operation, but in next term, hope we can swim together again.
I also attended the Guitar Club. Christopher is my good friend, I have learnt a little skills from my dad, Chris teached me a lot. I found that how magic the guitar is! Guitar only has 5 strings, but it can make many different sounds. It sounds orphean.We always have a show together but I was the dancer, so we hope next time maybe we can play guitar together on the stage. At first, the another club I wanted to attend is Drama Club, but for some reasons, I didn’t get the chance, so I attend the Movie Club. This year, we don’t have enough activity time, we were talking about the contect of the movie and the type of the movie. I wasn’t in charge of the story, but I was so happy that they chose me as the main character. It’s a love story happened in school. The leader is chosing the boy, and seemed that we will start to act in the next term. Everyone is looking forward watching this movie, hope we can get successful.
Club is a good way to collect people who have the same interests. Club activities are fun and good, I met a lot of friends through this way, and I decided to attend more clubs whatever in school or socialty clubs in the year 2009.

volunteer

I always think that voluntary work is a way of "Pay It Forward".

Volunteer is not a job. It's the name of a group of people who spend their time to do things for others or the world for free. I am pleasure to be one of these people. In 2008, my first voluntary work experience was to go to a small temple to help them pick up nuts. It's in the countryside, seldon people support their, so they sold nets for living. There were many trees with nuts, our job was to pick up them into the plastic bags and carried them to the gate. There were also some people came from other places to help them, they told me that they saw the notice on the webside, they are really nice people. The nuts on the ground were easy to take, for more nuts, we climbed trees, it was fun. From that experience, I got more friends and more happiness. In October, I did some other voluntary work as well. At that time, mum and I both went to a famous temple :LingGu Temple. Casually, we met some masters from Taiwan and Singapore come here to communicate with mainland masters. Mum and I cleaned the seats and decorations. After doing the cleaning, the mainland master chatted with me. He is my mother's master, and he likes me. He also invited me to do the translation for him in November someday. I looked forward for that day. I was so nervous, but a woman from Singapore chatted with me a lot during the lunch time, I became her friend, so I did myself that day and without overstrainThough my English is not as good as some translater, but my positive attitude reconciled the embarrassment of us.

The last thing I did was a little different from the work I did before. It's a work. During the winter holiday, my uncle bought some wine, and he couldn't get them in time. That company said there was not enough people to send. My uncle recommed me to do the work, and their manager accepted me to try. I rode a bycycle to send the wines to a man. After finishing this little work, the sense of achievement made me so happy, and a big suprise was, the manager agree to let me work here in summer holiday.

physical activity

Activities is one of the reasons that why I choose GCA.
Actually I think that chinese students' physical strength is not good enough. In china, Math,Geography,Chemistry, Physics are more important than Physical Education. But I am a sporty girl. I can't bear lifes without sports. My favourite sports are swimming and baseball, that is why I made a swimming club.But I couldn't do sports for 3 months after the operation of appendix. So I did a lot during the winter holiday.It's winter now, though the Olymipc Stadium turned on the air conditioner, it was still cold. My body is full of passion, it's my first time to swim in 2009, but one thing really made me sad was my strength get lower because I didn't have any exercise for 3 months. I made a plan for the winter holiday. I run 1.2 kilometers everyday, swim with my father once a week, dance 5 hours a week and have yoga sometimes as well. Running is the easiest way to exercise, it's can make me freely breath. I seldon eat breakfast, it's makes my belly worse. Running can get my life in my control. My legs' mucle get exercise. Swimming is a systemic movement, My whole body stretched. Dancing is my work, I sometimes dance for some show and got money, so I was thinking of the action at home. I also tried the Indian dance, different type has different feeling. My body can not get balance, like I can not stand with one foot for 1 minutes. Yoga can keep me calm down, my yoga teacher told me if we are in a good mood, and breath with no worry, our body will keep a balance.My routin makes me healthier and be in a good mood. I even called my friends and teachers in EF to play baseball. Baseball is my favourite group sports, play this game needs more than 9 people. It is good game to practise our coorperation and reaction force. Unfortunately, I didn't get a home run, our fielder did not get the ball, what a pity! I had been to a place to do some sports for proving my bravery. We do the avtivities in 14 meters tall, we needed to jump to another bridge. It looked easy when you are on the ground, but when you are in the sky, you will breath hardly, and have no idea. Happily, I did at last. It was a very meaningful step, I am brave!

In our life, we have many things to do, and the pressure from everywhere will make us nervous. Sports is a good way to relax, whatever things happened, enjoying life and having a good mood is the most important

One day out for western meals

On the December,20th, we went to Jack’s Place with grade 12 students. Our class divided into 2 groups. One wanted to go to German restaurant, one wanted to go Italian restaurant. I am in the Italian group. We went to Jack’s place with Jessica, Susan and another boy. We saw much unique Italian food on the menu. I ordered spaghetti with mushroom. Eleanor, Susan, Sarah and me ordered a pizza together. I’ve been to some western restaurants before. It doesn’t taste the same. Some other restaurants changed the style, they integrate the Chinese style with western style.
A boy in grade 12 chatted a lot with boys, and took a lot of pictures. He is a good photographer. Susan in grade 12 looks like our Susan. They became good friends. We learnt a lot of skills, it’s good for our study.
Most of the Italian food is made of cheese, when I was in France, I thought that French dishes pay more attention on refinement of the dishes. French dishes always use a big plate to have a little food. Italian food makes me have a good appetite. Italian restaurants are a good place for friends to have meals. It’s a relaxant place.
I enjoyed these experiences, I know more about the culture of western food. If I have time, I will try other western food.