#7 English Song

                                                                             "Win"

Dark is the night
I can weather the storm
Never say die
I've been down this road before
I'll never quit
I'll never lay down, mm
See I promised myself that I'd never let me down

[1] - I'll never give up
Never give in
Never let a ray of doubt slip in
And if I fall
I'll never fail
I'll just get up and try again

Never lose hope
Never lose faith
There's much too much at stake
Upon myself I must depend
I'm not looking for place or show
I'm gonna win

No stopping now
There's still a ways to go, oh
Someway, somehow
Whatever it takes, I know
I'll never quit, no no
I'll never go down, mm, mm
I'll make sure they remember my name
A hundred years from now

[Repeat 1]

When it's all said and done
My once in a lifetime will be back again
Now is the time
To take a stand
Here is my chance
That's why I'll...

[Repeat 1]

Mmm, I'm gonna win

I chose this song because the lyrics has a deep meaning. But first, I'll tell you about the singer itself. He's called Brian McKnight, an American singer-songwriter, arranger, producer, and R&B musician. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays eight instruments including piano, guitar, bass guitar,  percussion, trombone, tuba, flugelhorn and trumpet. He is one of the very few leggero tenors in pop genre. McKnight is perhaps most recognized for his strong falsetto and belting range, and is widely regarded as one of the strongest talents in the adult urban contemporary R&B genre.

He has written a lot of songs and most of them have a great meaning. In this song, he encourage us to have faith in every problems we faced. Do not ever give up even if we are facing the biggest problems. There will be a way to go out from it. Although, we should fall once, but we have to get up and try again. Just never quit.

Whenever I listen to this song, I'm so inspired and so encourage to never give up on things that perhaps I'm struggling on. It is just like a reminder for me to do better, instead of quit. Whenever I felt that I can't pass the test in this university and I thought that I just want to go home, however I remember about this song which told me to keep faith and never give up. This song really has an influence to me.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

"Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle."




Last week, we have watched the Jobs' speech at Stanford University. I was so inspired because of his speech. He said some stories about his life and I really agree with his words above. It is true that we have to love  what we do because if we love what we do, everything feels like there is no burden. We should not lose our faith to find what we love, just keep looking and do not settle.


You can see full script of Jobs' speech and also the video on the link below :
Steve Jobs' 2005 Commencement Address

# Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab HW

For this week's assignment, we were told to listen to two audio clips and write down some words and their definitions.

#1  College Life

a. hectic (adjective)
very busy; full of activity
Ex:  1. Today was too hectic for me.
       2. I am going to face a hectic schedule next week.

b. fortunately (adverb)
by good luck
Ex: 1. I was late, but fortunately the meeting hadn't started.
      2. Fortunately for him, he was very soon offered another job.

c. tuition (noun)
the money that you pay to be taught, especially in a college or university
Ex: 1. When I started college, tuition was $350 a quarter.
      2. He can't afford to pay the tuition fees for next semester.

#2 A Story to Remember

a. bizarre (adjective)
very strange or unusual
Ex: 1. I can't believe we're getting involved in something so bizarre and so treacherous.
      2. He was at ease with the bizarre discussion.

b. sighting (noun)
an occasion when somebody sees somebody/something, especially something unusual or something that lasts for only a short time
Ex: 1. This was the first sighting of the comet for 1000 years.
      2. The sight of her right now must fill him with disgust.

c. saucer (noun)
a small shallow round dish that a cup stands on; an object that is shaped like this
Ex: 1. Only a few flying saucer advocates spoke from the fringes with a positive slant.
      2. I remembered the flying saucer analogy.

#3 Google Syntax

This week we learnt about Google Syntax and I would like to give some examples.

1. Search for an exact word or phrase - "search"

"Katniss Everdeen" - About 4,870,000 results (0.26 seconds) 

2. Search for either word - "OR"

world cup location 2014 OR 2018 - About 600,000 results (0.35 seconds) 

3. Search for a number range - ".."

camera $50..$100 - About 265,000,000 results (0.68 seconds) 

4. Search for pages that are similar to a URL - "related:"

related:gucci.com - About 38 results (0.13 seconds) 

5. Search for pages that link to a URL - "link:"

link:youtube.com - About 4,610 results (0.14 seconds) 

Homework

It's almost the end of day,but I hope I'm not late to do this homework. Lol.

For this week's assignment, Miss Sally told us to read an article 'Walk or cycle for a happier commute' from BBC News. She also wanted us to look up 2 phrases or words that are new or confusing for us.

Actually, I don't find any difficulties in understanding the article but I'd still write down some phrases which I think they are a little bit unfamiliar for me.

1. a necessary evil (idioms)

a thing that is bad or that you do not like but which you must accept for a particular reason

ex: The loss of jobs is regarded as a necessary evil in the fight against inflation.

2. face up to something (phrasal verbs)

 to accept and deal with something that is difficult or unpleasant 

ex: a. She had to face up to the fact that she would never walk again.

       b. You have to face up to your responsibilities.

I chose the Oxford Learner's Online Dictionary to look the words up. Personally, it is easier to use and you can also search the definition of idioms, phrasal verbs, not only the vocabularies. It is much better than the book one. It can save so much time because we just need to type the words we are looking up to, rather than turning the page one by one. I can easily understand the meaning of the word because it uses simple explanation and example. 

#1 GREETING POST

Hi....

I am Santy from Jakarta, Indonesia. Actually, I am an Overseas Chinese student
and I have been in Taiwan for about 3 years.
I was studied at NTNU (overseas Chinese student program) for 2 years.
Now,I live in Taipei and I am studying International Business degree in NTUB.
Well, it is not easy for me to get along with
new environment, culture, friends and especially language.
It is such a tough path to go through due to my first language is not Chinese.
 But I'm sure I can make it through and make my parents proud of me.