What I've learned and thank you

In these past few months, I did learn a lot in this program and also feel that I was improved. For example, I learned many types of essays and knew how to write them. Especially, reactive essays are very useful for me in the future because I need to write many passages about business cases. Therefore, I like this semester more than last semester. There are still other things that I learned from my instructors in this program, and I would like to explain some of them here.

Firstly, I learned a lot of slang. Even if I cannot use them in my academic essays, I can use them in daily conversation with my friends. Using slang makes the conversation with friends more interesting. Unlike academic essays, daily conversation should be fun and interesting, so I try to use slang which I learn from this program. Probably, some of them are considered as somewhat dirty, but I think that it is okay for friends because they know what I mean.

Secondly, I definitely learned so many skills of written and spoken academic English. Moreover, I also learned several words in other languages which are not Chinese and English. Although, this is a English program, it is easy to learn other words in other languages because my classmates come from many countries around the world. For example, Sunny explained many Korean words for me. Even if I could not remember them all, I still picked some of them up. It is useful when I go to a Korean restaurant because I can at least say “thank you” in Korean to waiters or waitresses.

Thirdly, I learned many differences of teaching styles between American instructors and Taiwanese instructors. In Taiwan, all that instructors need to do is lecture. On the other hand, American instructors really focus on interactions and students’ participation which not only means students have to show up in the class but also need to do something in the class such as asking questions. This concept is really useful for me because I will enroll in a MBA program in August. If I get used to this class style, I will be fine in my new school.

Finally, I want to say thank you for my classmates and instructors. I did learn a lot from them. In these months, I made many good friends though many of them were not in ALP or in my class. I want to thank Sunny, Ryoko, Sandy, Jupiter, Jasmine, and Jin because they are with me for two semesters and they help me a lot no matter in academic performance and personal troubles. For those who are not in ALP, I want to thank P, Nadia, and Prang because they are all very general and kind people who also help me and make me happy, and I miss them so much. In the end, I want to say thank you to Mr. Rubin, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Snavely, Mr. Simpson, Mrs. Chong, Mr. Carr, and Mr. Cochran. I really appreciate them not only because they are outstanding instructors but also help me a lot in many things about my graduate school. I have to say thank you for Mr. Rubin, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Snavely, and Mr. Simpson because their good recommendation letters attribute to my acceptance of my MBA program. Besides, they checked my applying essays carefully, which took them a lot of time. Also, Mr. Cochran taught me so many things about the U.S. culture and linguistic. Actually, most of my slang comes from him. Even if I am not sure how exactly I use slang, at least I understand many young Americans’ daily conversation. I think that he is a really awesome instructor in ALP. All in all, I really appreciate all of my friends and instructors in ALP and I wish them would have wonderful lives in the future.

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I read Sunny's and Ryoko's blogs.

Baraka

Baraka is an amazing film because it demonstrates a lot of views in many fields in the world. In the film, we can see beautiful scenes of nature, various cultures, industrialized life, wars, and religions. As the scenes of this film goes, we can feel our emotions going up and down. Among all of these scenes, my favorite one is the beauty of a waterfall.

When I saw the great amount of water pouring down, I feel that the power of nature is so enormous that a human may never conquer it. Besides, I reminded the contents of "The Art of Travel" while I was seeing this view. There is a chapter in the Art of Travel, which is mainly illustrating the concepy of sublime. The view if the great waterfall matches the term, sublime. The waterfall is sublime because it has the great power to destroy anything that challenges it. However, the water does not have the will to hurt anyone even though it contains dangers for many people if they fall into it.

The other reason why I love this scene is that I saw several colors in this view. There was not only the white of the waterfall but also other colors in the fog, sky, and even water. Actually, if you see carefully, the color of the waterfall was not only white but also yellow and brown. In addition, the fog on the water was relatively light grey. Within the fog, we could see a little rainbow, which was so colorful. The light grey of the fog made the colors of the rainbow stand out. In fact, these vivid colors added gentleness into this unyielding and majestic waterfall.

In conclusion, I love this view because it reminds the book that I read, and I start to feel the contens of the books. Facing the sublime is an amazing feeling. Actually, I have ever seen a view containg such a great amount of water except the Pacific Ocean. Besides, the colors of this scene are also fantastic. Even if it is a waterfall, it contain differnt colors. Moreover, the fog and rainbow make this view more colorful. Thus the waterfall is not only breathtaking but also attractive. These are the reasons why I was absorbing into the film while I was seeing this great waterfall.

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I read Sunny's and Omar's blogs.

Confucius' quote

Confucius confirmed that “Find a job that you love doing and you will never have to work a day in your life.” It means that if people can enjoy their jobs, they would not feel that they war working. This sentence really makes sense because when people feel happy they may not feel bored or even painful if they are doing the jobs that they do not want to do.

I totally agree with this quote because when I listen to metal music and put comments on my blog, I do not feel that I am writing an article; instead, I feel that I am talking to my friends and music. That is really fun. On the other hand, when I do something about accounting, I just want to do as fast as I can and I do not care if answers are correct because I hate accounting even though I know that accounting is very important to my academic performance.

I cannot tell people who are really enjoying their jobs because most people hide their emotions very well. However, if people do show their hatred toward their jobs, it means they rather wasting their time than doing their jobs. For example, my friend’s father is a pharmacist, but he wants to retire since the very first day that he was doing this job. As a result, he does not get any promotion in his hospital because he has no passion.

For me, my favorite job is a history professor because I really love to study history. Moreover, I do very well in history. Since I started to study history, I always get A even A+ in those history classes. For instance, I am a business major student but I also took history classes when I was an undergraduate student. Actually, I usually get B in most my business subjects. On the other hand, I always get A in those history classes. Unfortunately, my parents do not allow me to be a history major student. Therefore, I may not have the chance to get my magic job.

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I read Sunny's and Ryoko's blogs.

Mom, I want to change my major...

Dear mom, this is Kurt.

Mom, I have one thing really important to tell you which is that I want to change my major from business administration to history. I know you may disagree with me for many valid reasons. However, I want to tell you what you are worrying about will not happen.

First, you may think that if I change my major, the time that I spent in the past six years is wasting. It is true in few extents, definitely. However, my background knowledge can help me in this field, especially in the business history. Therefore, I do not waste my time that I spent in my college. It can be given an example that the famous writer, Wang Wen-Hua, changed his major when he studied at his graduate school, but his business background knowledge helped him write many famous fictions which were related to business world. Thus, as I mentioned above, it helps me in several ways.

Second, you may argue that I am already 25 years old, so it is too late to change my major. Nevertheless, I do not think I am too old to do what I want to do now. In fact, there are a lot of people who change their majors around my age, even older, but they are still successful people. For example, my cousin, Jeff, changed his major five years ago and at that time, he was 25 years old,too. He studied laws for seven years and had no background knowledge about accounting. Uncle Sam also opposed him, but he became an professional accountant in the end and earned a lot of money. On the contrary, many of his classmates are still cramming for tests. Thus, if I really study hard, it is not too late for me.

Third, you may claim that I would not find a good job, if my major was history. Of course, you are correct because there only a few jobs for history major people. Therefore, I may find no job in the end. I really understand you and what you think is also true. Nonetheless, there are still some solutions to solve this problem. For instance, aunt May works in a textbooks publishing company, and I can ask her to work in this company to be a history textbooks writer. In addition, I have business background, so I can help this company to increase its profits. Although your opinions are really valid, I still can have a nice job in the end.

Mom, I really hope you that you can support my idea. As I described above, I think I will still be fine if I change my major from business to history. I hope this letter can remove your concerns, and I know you will support me because you are the best mother in the world.

Sincerely yours,


Kurt.
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I read Sunny's and Ryoko's blogs.

Analyzing arguments

Krugman P. (2009, April 9). Making banking boring. The New York Times. Retrieved April 10, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/opinion/10krugman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion


The thesis of this passage is mainly about the movement of banking industry in the U.S. and the ideas of solving the U.S. banking difficulties. Paul Krugman argues that the only way to solve the financial problems in the U.S. is to add regulations on the U.S. banking industry (par. 15). The methods that he makes his argument strong are logos and ethos. In terms of logos, he mentions the movements of banking history, which are three main eras. Moreover, he points out that the U.S. economy was thriving because of more lending regulations (par. 8). At that time, banking industry was boring which was very different from that before 1930s and after 1980s. In terms of ethos, he contends that several financial experts foresaw the economic disaster coming such as Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund (par. 12). The author use history events and data as evidences of his arguments. For instance, he contrasts the movements of the three main eras of the U.S banking systems. Besides, he also examines the amounts of debt in the U.S. banking industry to conclude that high ratio lending can lead to a depression. Through these ways, the author makes his argument strong and logical.

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I read Ryoko's and Sunnny's blogs.

Summery

Perez-Pena R. (2009, April 3). Times Co. Said to Consider Closing Boston Globe. The New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2009 from http://www.nytimes.com

This article said that The New York Times Company threatened to end The Boston Globe if its labor union refused the diminishing payment and pension because The New York Times suffered a great loss from The Boston Globe. Although the executives of The New York Times Company rejected commenting about relevant information, it seems that this issue had been discussed for several times.

Actually, in 1990s’, The Boston Globe was a very profitable company and received around one billion dollars in 1993. However, recently, the substantial declining of the amount of advertisements and the harsh situation in that area leaded this company to the downturn, though it claimed that the newspaper circulation was still good last year. As a result, the revenue dropped near 17%. Therefore, The New York Times Company wanted to regulate other costs to sustain the business by cutting 5% payment to its employees and terminating several specific employees’ lifetime job guarantees. Moreover, it was starting to sell its asset and borrow money to obtain cash in order to pass this crisis.

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I read Sunny's and Ryoko's blogs.

The first research resource

Levinson, M. (2009). The economic collapse. Dissent (00123846), 56(1), 61-66. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.lib-proxy.fullerton.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=36407227&loginpage=Login.asp&site=ehost-live&scope=site


The author of this article is Mark Levinson. In this article, he explained many causes which contributed to the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009. Moreover, he also illustrated specifically the reasons leading to the causes of this crisis. For instance, the defects in U.S. banking laws leaded to many problems among a lot of banks. Banks did not help mortgage brokers and companies but they handle most money which set for assisting subprime mortgage guidelines from the federal government. Since one of the goals of my research is to find out the main cause of this financial crisis, this article does provide much useful information for me to analyze and comprehend my paper.

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I read Sunny's and Ryoko's blogs.