In this term, I did volunteer work in the BenQ hospital with Matt and Avery as a guide in it. Our task was to help those who did not know the routes. The hospital was very huge, and it was easy for patients to lose themselves there. Avery and I had never been to this hospital before it, so we had to follow Matt to get familiar with it. At first, we put up the volunteer clothes. It was a little white garment with the logo of the company of BenQ hospital. We three kept moving around to look for the patients who need help. During it, Mat introduced each place for us. There were only a few patients went there in that morning, so we seemed to walk for all the time. In the four ours we spent there, we only helped two people: one is a lady who did not know the way to the transfusion center, another one is an old woman who could hardly push her husband’s wheelchair, and we took her to the elevator. After 12 o’clock, the administrator of our volunteers gave us the lunch tickets. Though it was not delicious, I still enjoyed it a lot because it was the first lunch I earned.
On Wednesday, April 1st, all of our classmates went to Beijing Road Primary School to teach the little students there about English. We had prepared a lot in our planning class about the things we were going to teach, and most of us felt a little bit nervous about teaching the kids. When we arrived out of the classroom, we found everyone there were very excited. They shouted out of loud, and pointed on us and discussed about something.　( it was interesting, I do not know if I was like them when I was in that age　)　The teacher told me my student was the tall one sat in the last row. I went there, and I found him not so excited as others. I thought maybe he was tough to teach because he was not very outgoing. However, I changed my mind 1 minute later. He had preview all the book, and it was extremely easy to finish the task on his book. In addition, he had known half of the people, countries and languages. The reason why he was not so extremely excited may be he was more mature then his classmate. I was happy about him, but I also felt sad because he was much better than me in grade 5. Therefore, when he called me teacher, I told him to call me brother because I was a little ashamed. His English teacher told me to teach him the capitals of those countries when we finished our work early, but even I did not know then, how come I can teach those things I did not know? In the rest of the time, I talked with him about Nanjing foreign Language School and out Grand Canadian Academy, and he wished he could study in our school. At last I gave him my phone number and QQ, and he contact with me that day.

On Saturday, May 4th, I went to school to take part in Mandy’s service activity – to learn to cook a kind of western food. Cooking food, especially foreign food must be a useful skill to live abroad. I should arrive at school before 9 o’clock. However, I woke up a little bit late, and it was about 9:30 that I got to school.
The cook teacher in our group is Ms Hadley, when I came into the classroom; I only saw her and Ada there. She told me that other 5grouop members had gone out to by the materials we need, and then she gave us the teaching sheet to prepare for the cook. Our food is pancake. I have heard about it, but I have never tried it. The ingredients are flour, sugar, milk, sugar; salts, butter, eggs, baking powder and vanilla, or we can also put something else, such as chocolate or bananas. It is not hard to make pancakes. What we need to do is just to mix dry ingredients, and mix liquid materials, and then put them together. After that, we need to put some mixture onto the pan, and then turn it off when there are some bubbles on the top. Ms Hadley asked me to stir the solid, and Ada to mix liquid ingredients. When we finished our work, it was the time to fry it. However, we failed to cook because the pan was not suitable to fry the cake. What a pity! In the other hand, all the group members have already known how to make it.
A week later, Ada and I went to Mike’s house to cook pancakes. Mike’s pan was not suitable, either, but we made it in the microwave oven. Therefore, our pancakes were not ‘pancakes’ because they were all very soft, but some classmates still enjoyed our food!
Learning to cook is not only a happy time I spent at school, but also a useful skill for me to live abroad. Although our pancakes were not so perfect as we thought, but I still love them~

On May 1st, I went to the Chinese flowering crabapple exhibition in the Mochou Lake Park with Sky, King, Matt, Dennis, Chester, Jim, Claude, Rita, Ethel and two people from other classes. There were no tickets for the show, and we only need to buy the tickets of the park, but it cost 20 yuan. I do not know if there is some beauty in the park.
We met near the gate, and we were like a tourist group which went spring outing there. After about ten minutes long walking, we arrived at the entrance of the exhibition. It says “park of precious Malus spectabilis”. We took some photos there, and then went into it. To our surprise, we did not see any beautiful flowers there. Many old people sat there to test or read books. I thought there must be another entrance of the show, so we kept walking. However, we did not find anything like those I imagined. When we look around, we finally found where the show was. There are some plants beside the paths, and they were the Chinese flowering crabapples. It shocked me, I thought there should be many beautiful flowers in the show, but most of the plants only had leaves. Only a few plants there had flowers, but they were all withered. I did not know why, because it was not the suitable season to grow flowers or some one had destroyed them? I felt displeased looking at the labels beside the flora. They were introducing the plants, but I was no more interesting to read the details about how great they were.
Our little trip ended in this way, and it was really surprising. I felt like that I had been tricked, but I enjoyed the time with my friends because we had lots of fun together there.

On Monday, April 27th, we had our GCA fashion show held in our school. All of the Grade ten and some grade eleven and twelve students went to the show with some teachers. The clothes are designed by us, and there are lots of crazy ideas.
The model of our group is Ms Chu, and we made a party dress for her. The dress was designed by Seven, and it was a blue silk one. Maybe Ms Chu thought it was too short, so she wore jeans trousers inside the dress, and she was not as sexy as we thought. The funniest one is Mr Shapour. He was dressed in a G-suit with a cap in his hand. One of the boys in 10-D was very interesting, too. He wore a dress, and put foam inside to make the shape of a lady’s chest. Cherry in Grade 12 is a hot chick among the ladies. Although she wore a long dress, and she was not as sexy as others, she was very elegant, and her action was like a real model. Most of the clothes of our class were great. Joe had a cool jacket, and he looked like a detector in the movie; Rita was dressed up in a colorful dress; Elva and Helen wore sexy dresses like a super singer star.
The show lasted for only nearly 1 hour. When I was still interested in watching more pretty clothes, the host announced that the show was finished. This show was meaningful because I saw the clothes made by ourselves on the stage, and that made me proud. I will pare even more effort in to making clothes next year.

the exhibition of the year of the Ox

On Saturday, fourteenth of March, I went to Jiangsu Provincial Art Museum with Dennis after lunch. There was an exhibition of pictures of bulls on the floor. We went upstairs to see how good those artworks were.

To my surprise, there were only five people and a supervisor there. The supervisor asked us if we are students form Nanjing foreign language school, and we answered him yes. He told us that there were several students from our school went there in the morning. We thought they might be GCA students. The name of the exhibition was exhibition of the year of the Ox. All the pictures were drawn by the members of the Jiangsu provincial flower-bird painting association. Most of them were made by one person called Ye Zongqiao. Some of them were vivid while some were not so good. I liked the picture of the couple of cattle best. The painter made this in a traditional way. The cow was pale while the ox was dark; they put their heads very close and face to face. I can get to know their love from their eye contacts. It seems that the painter used the technique of personification and the cattle were two lovers. I like the idea of this art work and some details in it.

Dennis and I went out of the building after about 20 minutes because the exhibition was extremely boring and there were few people there. I did not like the whole exhibition but I enjoyed some of the paintings.

LUNCH IN TAIRYO

On Saturday, fourteenth of March, I went to tairyo in 1912 with Dennis for lunch. It was the first time to go to a Japanese restaurant for both him and me, and both of us were a little excited before coming into it. We first took photos of the entrance and then entered it.

The waitress was very enthusiasm, and she took us to two empty seats. We primly sat there and read the menu. The food on the first part of the menu was very expensive and we were surprised. Then we found something cheaper. I order a plate of fried rice, a glass of coconut juice, and some pawpaw salad. In total, they cost me 65 yuan. At first, I thought the juice was tasty and I really enjoyed it. However, when I found the juice was exactly the same as that we can buy in supermarket for about 3 yuan, I felt bad. The rice was so so, but I can watch the cooker cooking the food. He was extremely practiced, and Dennis and I were moved by him. I enjoyed my salad, it was delicious and the pawpaw was absolutely fresh, but it was a little bit expensive, 20 yuan. During our dinner, I chatted with Dennis about Korea and hot chicks there, and we were happy about our conversation. After about one our, we finished our lunch and went to Starbucks.

That was my first time to have lunch in a Japanese restaurant, especially with a cute Korean. I do not the food was so tasty, but I enjoyed the tone and our conversation. In conclusion, I think that that dinner was not bad, but I want to go to a restaurant with more delicious food next time.

My School Clubs Report

I have take part in two clubs in GCA: one is basketball club, the other one is game club. I really love basketball and games and they help me a lot. During last term, our club activities made me able to do better in them.
Before I took part in the first activity of basketball club, I thought our leader would let us play basketball and taught us some skills. Later, I found that I was wrong. Mr. Saxby asked us to run along the track for ten laps. He told us that it is important to run fast and have a good endurance. I used to be a runner and exercised everyday, so I did not find it very tough. However, many other members felt very tired about that and they often walked along the track. Almost every time, I was the first one to finish running. Later, Mr. Saxby asked us to run fast for 90 seconds for several times. This exercise requires not only a good stamina, but also a high speed of running. However, I found it even easier because I was just a dash runner. When Mr. Saxby said the first five runners could go home earlier, I was always in them. Those activities kept for nearly 2months, then we went into the gym and played basketball to choose members of our GCA basketball team. Mr. Saxby wanted me to join them because I can run the fastest. However, I refused him because I had to go to the sports school very often and had no time to practice with them.
The game club was really a fun club. All of our club members came together on Friday afternoon and played games with each other or chatted about games. I started to play GB when I was very young and kept it all the time. Now, like many of us, I play PSP now. My favorite game was monster hunter II. Many of us played it and we often joined together to hunt monsters. We also played other games, such as DJ Max, NBA Live 2008 and so on. Sometimes Joe brought his PS2 into school and they played it in our classroom. Though I did not know how to play it, I can watch them playing, that was also a funny thing.
Both basketball and games helped me a lot in my daily life. My body became stronger because of playing basketball and exercising for it. A healthy body is much more important than anything else. In addition, when I play basketball outside, I can make more friends. Game also helped me. Some people think that playing games are not good, but I do not think so. When I feel anxiety, I can play games to calm down. Playing games once a week made me relax. So I think that if we play games not often, we can be better in daily life.
Those are my club experience in the first term in GCA. Because of the clubs , I can do better in these two hobbies, and do better in many other things.

My Volunteer Work Report I

During the winter holiday, I did volunteer work for my uncle. He owned a big market in my home town. My duty was to help my cousin to get some vegetables and meat to sell in our market from the food market in the early morning. This work was a little tough, but I did my best in it.
On the twenty-second of January, I went on my work the first time. My cousin called me at about 5 o’clock to ask me to go down stairs and we went to the food market. I thought it was very early, but there have already been many people in the vegetable market. We parked our lorry near the entrance of the market and went into it. My cousin has done the work for almost half a year, so he knew where to buy the things we want. He went here and there to tell the vegetable growers what and how much we need. I found them unfamiliar, so I could just follow my cousin and helped remind him things he forgot. We spent about one hour and a half walking everywhere. Then, we went back to our lorry and waited them to carry things there. We sorted and counted the food with our list. At about half past seven, we got everything on the list in our lorry. At last, we drove back to our market and carried the food out of the lorry into our market. We finished at about 8 am. I felt very tired then and went back home to sleep again.
The next two days were almost the same as the first day, what I did was just following my cousin and reminding him. The fourth day was a little special, because it was the day before the spring festival. We got up at 4 am and drove two lorries to the food market. Though it was even earlier, the food market has been very busy. That day we bought much more meat than before. Because I became more familiar with the food market, I could do more things such as looking for the food and buying it by myself. I also helped carry food to our lorries. After finishing my work, my uncle gave me my salary – an one –hundred- yuan shopping card of the market.
My work was a little tough because it required me to wake up very early, walk everywhere, remember many things and carry heavy things. If I want to do a good job in the work for a long time, I should have diligence, good memory and strong body. My cousin has done the work for a long time, and he became much more careful, patient, powerful, and he is not like a child any more. In addition, we can make sense of how the unit- price could change because of the seasons, festivals, and so on. Therefore, I think it can also help us to learn business well.
This is my first experience of work, and I felt satisfied with it. I learned a lot from it, such as diligence, memorizing. In addition, I knew how hard it is to make money from my first work experience. I will use them in my daily life.

My Phisical Activity Report

I like to do sports and I used to be an athlete. When I was a junior in my junior high school, I started to play basketball and got interested in it. Now, I do not go to the sports school any more, but I still keep playing basketball very often. I have been in two basketball teams, one was set up by friends from the same junior high school, and the other one was set up by classmates in GCA. Now I nearly play basketball everyday, and basketball becomes an important part of my life.
I am the best basketball player of all my classmates because my body is stronger and I can run much faster than anyone else. So when our team mates play basketball together, I can teach some skills of advance and defend. Sometimes I am like a coach of my team. However, some team mates do better in some skills than me, for example, Claude did better in three-point shot, so I can learn it from him； Avery is a better defense than me, so I can ask him to teach me to do better in defending. We improve profiles of ourselves.
Remember that ‘It takes five’, so when we play, we can also learn to make good pass, jump phase to create chance to advance, and make assist for team mates, etc. We are all very weak in this, but we learn them quickly. I am happy to see that each team member has made a great progress.
On the sixth of February, I went to school to play basketball with some of our team mates. We said that we could meet at 1 pm, but I was doing my homework and forgot the time. When I hurried up to ride my bike to school, it was about 15 minutes late. However, I only found Claude on the basketball court. The other 3 team mates – Sky, William and Chester were even later than me. They 3 did not come until about half past 1 o’clock. Then we played with one of my classmate in middle school. On that day, my state was quite good, and I had a pretty high shot probability. Later, some other grade 10 or 11 students in Nanjing Foreign Language School came and played with us. We divided us into 3 groups; I was with 2 fat boys. We all thought that we might be the weakest group of all, but we won a lot because of my great state. Even I could not believe it. At last, I felt tired because I had lost much energy running while playing. When the others played, I sat beside the court, and shouted to them to tell them my suggestions. Am I like a coach?
Our team mates are all from my class, and our class has the most people to play basketball of all the classes in grade 10. We team mates teach together, enjoy basketball, improve our skills and learn team spirit. I hope our team will be better and better!

A sculpture exhibition

On the fourth of December, our class went to Wu Weishan Cultural Figures Sculpture Gallery of Nanjing University with 10-C. There were only some contemporary sculptures made by Wu Weishan shown on the exhibition. That was my first time to go to a sculpture exhibition and we saw many great artworks there. I found this exhibition interesting.
Wu Weishan’s artworks are mainly about parents and the famous people in Chinese history. We saw the famous sleeping baby (this artwork which made Wu Weishan famous immediately), laotzi, Xu Beihong, mother and baby, lunxun, and so on on the exhibition. Some of them are quite realistic while some are not. In enjoyed many of them.
The A Bing in the moon light is one of the best one, I think. It was made by Wu Weishan in 2007. This artwork includes circles, rectangles, and triangles. Wu Weishan used straight lines, curves, and parallel lines in it. It is all dark brown or black. He cut the shape of Erhu in the sculpture. A Bing’s clothes were blown by the wind. I do not know why the dark color and parallel lines look cold. That may be because it gave me an idea of a dark night with terrible winds.
I feel lonely and cold when I saw this sculpture. I think about A Bing standing near the river in the moon light and played Erhu by him self with crying. The strong wind made the weather very cold. What a lonely man! The loneliness reminded me of my life in 2000, when I studied in a boarding school and I could see my parents only one time a month. During that time, I often thought of my home and parents and cried a lot. This artwork relate to many homeless people and the beggars. Wu Weishan made this sculpture to show his compassion and respect to those people.
I liked this artwork because it is very vivid. When I saw this sculpture, I knew who the man is right away. Many of my classmates do it, too. I also feel cold when I saw it because it seems that A Bing’s clothes were blown by the strong wind. The parallel lines give me the idea about how strong the wind was, and how thin A Bing was. I think others may also feel this way, because we can feel this way easily when we see the vivid sculpture.
During the exhibition, we met the famous artist, Wu Weishan. That made all of us very excited. We asked him to sign for us and took photos with him. He is very kind that he was always smiling to us and willing to sign for us. I got his signature on the back of my sketch book.

That was my first time to go to a sculpture exhibition. I found those artworks very great and I became interested in it. I hope to have more chances to learn more about art, it will improve my ability to appreciate.

A Dinner with Grade Twelve Students

On the twentieth of December, most of our classmates went Tacos on the Zhujiang Road to have dinner with the grade 12 students. Our dinner started at 5:30 , and finished at about 7 o'clock. That was my first time to eat dinner outside school with so many classmates, and I had a good time during the meal.
Before our dinner started, my old brother called me because he forgot to bring keys of our house with him. I ran quickly along Zhujiang Road and met him. When I came back to Tacos, almost everyone has arrived there. There were more than 20 grade tens and 3 grade twelves and each of us ordered 1 or 2 things. I ordered a plate of noodles with seafood, and a cup of milk tea. Those so much food made it in a mess. The folks are not enough and the waitress did not know whose food it was. We waited for the food a long time, but it was not very boring because we chatted with each other or played games together happily while we waiting. After our food was put on the table, we ate it in a very short time and started to chat again. After dinner, some of us went to a KTV to sing. I did not enjoy my noodles at all because there was too much tomato paste in it. However, I liked the dinner because we spent a great time chatting with each other before and after the meal. That was my best dinner.