Author Archives: Jichuan

Family Day in Edmonton

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The second weekend of February is the Family Day in Canada. This festival reminds people to cherish the time sharing with their families. Therefore, there are kinds of activities you can bring your whole family in. 

This year, the Edmonton Folk Arts Council (EFAC) held a dancing show named "Dance From Around the World" to celebrate the Family Day with families from different countries. Since I myself is my "whole family" in Canada, I also went to the Winspear Center at the downtown to watch people dancing.

theater

theater2

Althghou this show was free and opened to everybody, it was not crowded as I imagined in the theater. Look, there were even some empty seats at the second floor. 

lady

The lady said "Let's celebrate the Family Day!" So I would say "Let's look at beautiful dancings~" :P

openning

The first dance,  every dancing group sent a few actor or actress to dance in this part. Since they wears different traditional clothes, it looks like "People from all of the world are one family." That's nice~ :)

spain

Spainish dacing

chinese

This one...hmmm... the Chinese dancing, which is in Xinjiang style.

india

A Dance presented by India children. They are the youngest actresses in today's performance, but they really danced very well.  :D

I ... LOST... my homework

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Maybe most of us told our teachers some lies about our homework when we were kids,  such as "My dog ate my homework" or "I left it at home" , or even more simple one "I lost it". When a little pupil becomes a college student,  what would he say to his TA if he found he can not answer some questions?

When I was grading assignments of my students, I saw an answer to one question like this:

"I have no idea where to start here and I didnt go to my lab because Lost is on that night and we all know that Lost is god and if you dont take a holiday when it is aired the Island will smite you. If however you could send me an email about interpreting the word with more clarity than the question hint you would be cool and stuff."

I could not keep myself from laughing though I knew I was in the lab that should be a quiet place. It seems after years of school training, students can make much "better" excuses for their assignments, although sometimes these excuses make me feel a little ... lost.

Unfortunately, I had to write a comment to this Lost fan: I am afraid you will lose mark of this question because you are really LOST. :P

U.S. is a "small" country

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U.S. do be a "small" country, at least for its media.

After China won the women's gymnastics, especially beat the American team, almost all the media in States focus on the "underage problem" of Chinese women team. They try to figure out any possible "evidence" to prove that those girls who attended this competition do not fit the age limitation decided by IFG (International Federation of Gymnastics). To achieve this goal, some journalists even try to "trap" Chinese gymnastics athelets by their questions. Questions such as "Where did your 15th birthday party hold on?" were asked, which were laughed at by journalists in other countries.

It looks that Americans are really jealous of China's success -- the only thing I can infer from tons of "news", or actually I should say "stories", blaming Chinese athelets are too young to attend Olympic Games. It might be acceptable if it is a chick talk just between some American women athelets, but when it appears on so many headlines of American newspapers, I do think it shows some negtive attitude of Americans.

Like a former French forgein minister said, a country can be named as a "great country" only when its value are accepted by the world. At this point, I do consider this jealousness of U.S. makes it look so small. By the way, if there were two kids competing with each other and the youngger one won. How would you feel about when the elder one were crying and weeping "Mummy mummy, I cannot win this because he/she is so young~"?

Sunshine, storm, hail and ... sunshine

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7:05 p.m Edmonton,
I entered my lab. The sky was clear, the sun was bright. The light was too strong and I had to drop down blinders to block it out.

7:15 p.m Edmonton,
It's getting dark outside. I rolled up blinders. Oh my god~, just 10 minutes, the sun had been totally covered by clouds. A huge strom was attacking the city: lighting splited the sky, thunder sounds went through my thick glass window, and rains beated the whole building. But where did so many clouds come from? Amazing!

7:20 p.m Edmonton,
Seems my imagination still could not follow the weather here. Only after 5 minutes, the rain storm changed to the hail! Like thousnads of bullets, they dived from sky to the earth. Terrible.

7:35 p.m Edmonton,
What?? Sunshine?? Again? I was really really shocked to see the sunlight again and, the sky was totally clear. Everything was in peace. Like nothing happened before. How could that be! The whole process may even not be longger than half an hour.

This happened a few days ago. Now I am not so surprise about weather like this, because it happens a few times after that. Some friends told me they usually get this kind of stuff in summer.

I still remember that when I was in high school, my teacher told me people in English speaking country uauslly talked about weather for polite, but now I guess this reason may need to be updated. People talk about weather because it does change too fast, at least, in the summer of Edmonton.

Enough is enough

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I finally finished all my final exams and projects at last week, so I decide to have a "enjoyable weekend".

I slept 11 hours a day. I bought kinds of food at supermarket. I cooked. What's more, I spent all the rest of time when I was awake before my computer: watching soap operas and eating potato crisps, chocolates, crackers, and any snacks I could reach on my table. There were a pile of dishes waiting for washing in my sink, my bedroom was mess, and my carpet needed to be cleaned. But I did NOT care~ I just wanted to "enjoy" myself.

However, I stopped. It seems someone was shouting at me "That's ENOUGH!" Who was that guy? Mom? Anyway, impossible. She is in China, thousands miles away from me. So that guy was just myself. Yes, enough was enough. I stopped; I stopped in the mid night of Sunday. I threw away all the empty wraps, tided my bedroom, washed dishes, cleaned carpets, and finally I fell on my bed.

I am thinking. If I keep on eating, will I be obesity? If I keep on watching, will I be stupid? If I ... Fortunately, I stopped myself. It seems sometimes people going on with addiction. Like when we were kids, we eat so many candies until some adult said to us "Enough!". When we grown up, there are plenty of things like the childhood "candies": money, power, position, relationship and etc. They are shinning; they are luring. Sometimes we really do not know when is enough, and there will never be someone telling us, except ourselves. Even for some "good" things. Some people stay more than 16 hours a day in the lab. It may benefit to the development of technology, but harmful for their health. That may be why the dean in my department always says "You need to balance your research and life."

Yes, enough is enough. As an adult, as a grown up guy, I need to figure it out, not by someone else, but only by myself.

Hi everyone, this is Jichuan Shi from Edmonton

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Hi everyone,

I am a Chinese guy in Edmonton pursuing my Master degree. This city is not as famous as other Canadian cities like Toronto or Vancouver, but is a nice and quiet place.

I began my oversea study form this August at University of Alberta, majored in Computer Science. (Seems a lot of CS guys here. :P) I find that in my department there are so many Chinese graduate students. Sometimes I even feel I am still in China. Anyway, Chinese are never the minority in my departement.

It is very nice to join this website. Gathering people together and sharing feeling in English is an exciting idea. And also the experience of being an auhor will be wonderful.

Wish we all have a enjoyable time~

Cheers,

Jichuan

Jichuan