Quoc Nguyen
ENG 100 5/10/2017 Assignment: Hiraeth Narrative Daft #2 A day with Grandpa On december 18, 2010 in a small country located at northeast asia, a country known as Vietnam, was a day full of joy with a hint of sadness. I sat down on the stiars of my house’s porch looking up at the sky and pondering. A sound of cicada has made me remember the time when my Grandfather and I used to hang out. The sky seemed to get darker and darker to the point that I could see the stars sparkling in my eyes.There were little kids were running around my yard screaming like a bunch of zebras running away from the lions. A feeling of anxiety and fear surrounded me when the clouds covered the shiny moon. Perhaps, I was worrying about not being able to see my loved one ever again. My Folks were happily inside talking with my relatives one last time before we move on to a new jorney. As the sun begun to set, the time we have with my relatives slowly drained. The last day until midnight, we spent most of it packing, and wishing our Grandfather was there. As time passed by, we packed our belongings into the minivans and drove all the way to the airport. From there we said our goodbyes to our relatives and friends one last time. In middle of july; it was an ordinary day as usual, my sisters were preparing for dinner, my older brother was upstairs playing on his computer, my dad was outside fixing our black bike, and I was all alone in the corner playing with my coins while my other siblings were watched TV. Suddenly, the silence covered the whole house when the phone rang. My sister picked up the phone call from my uncle and went outside to talk. By the time the call has ended, my sister was really scared and terrified as the tears running down on her face. Her tone suddenly changed as well. I was scared and desolated after hearing something that I've never wanted to hear. When I looked around, the smile were all gone. When my sister informed us about our grandfather's condition, we rushed to our grandparents’ house. The wind was stronger as we were trying to go across the streets that lead to their house. The memories of my grandfather were flooded in my mind. It was the moment I started to realize how much I loved him, even though my family and I didn’t see him much because we were busy working on our immigration paperworks. I started to remember how he taught me to read a book and helped improve my handwriting. I remembered one time when I was a little kid, my sister was mad at me for getting a bad grade in writing class; I was scolded by a teacher when I wrote number nine as a letter G in the alphabet. It was embarrassing to get yelled at in front of the class. On Sunday afternoon, my Grandpather and I Got to hang with each other. I was not entirely happy at all that week. My Grands’ looked at me and asked: “What’s the matter little guy?”. “My handwriting is the worst Grandpa” I replied. “Don’t worry little guy, you can get better at it if you keep on practicing” he happily said. As the time went by, my Grandfather bought some books and read them to me every day in his tiny room. The color of the room was blue. The air condition in the room made it chilly during those summer nights. I loved his room so much that I wouldn’t able to leave. The bed with four legs was placed in the corner. My grandfather and I looked into each others’ eyes while sitting on the wooden chair with a dark brown wooden table in front of us. A yellow pencil and a piece of paper laid on the table ready to be used. My grandfather was getting older as I looked at him. His hair was really white and there were a lot of winkles on his face. He looked at me and said “I’ll help you with your handwriting”. I was a really quiet person back then, so I didn’t say anything much. His voice got softer and softer as he began to speak. We spent a couple of hours trying to improve my handwriting. He said “your mother and I used to have meaningful moment with each other like we are having now”. I asked him, “Did my mother have a bad handwriting like me?’’. He smiled, and said “ No, your mother and I used to walk home together and I waited for her when the school has ended and your mother were really excited when she saw me”. He kept on talking and talking until he had nothing to say. The atmosphere in the room was chilly like winter, those moments were warm and unforgetable to me. During our break time, he stood up and walked towards the closet; it was full of clothes and candies. He looked at me and said, “Would you like some candies for your reward today.’’? I jump up excitely said “Yes”. There were variesties of candies: strawberie candies, chocolates, lolipops, and much more. I took a handful and went back to my seat with him. He told me to write slowly and to feel my fingers when im about to write.... As the conversation went on, we started hearing the cicada making noises outside the house. Suddenly, he stood up to open the windows wide open and told me to look outside so I could see the beautiful landscape behind his house during night time. The sky was covered in darkness as the moon brighten the houses. The sky was full of stars, as he looked up above, tiny sparkle appeared in his beautiful eyes. That was one of the best moments of my life with m Grandfather, a person I loved the most is now in heaven with God. Even though I wasn’t with him during the last minutes of his life, I bet he would feel the same way too.
0 Comments
Fast Food is the cheapest alternative for parents because their children love to eat it and also most of the parents don’t have time to cook homemade meals due to the fact they are too busy, therefore, the only option was the fast food. Since fast food is known to be inexpensive, children could go to McDonald, or any fast food restaurants to get meals inexpensive prices. Obesity is not medical: it’s the effect of eating more than recommended. Most teenager nowadays want their body to be attractive since most people find thin body attractive. Some wants their body a little thin but not too skinny. Therefore, most of them would argue that fast food would get them fat because there are a lot of fat, sodium and calories in each food and they contain many ingredients we as a consumer don’t know about. Fast food restaurant doesn’t show us the ingredients, warnings, or the percentage of fat, carb and protein in each food. Therefore, parent and children are unaware of what is inside their food whether it is bad or good for their bodies. If fast food is being consumed regularity, then it will eventually lead to obesity and there would be no one to blame since it is the consumer’s choice to eat it. People can use fast for not showing warning labels but the can use those restaurants for making foods that are not for their bodies since they chose to eat it.
Quoc Nguyen
ENG 100 Assignments: Academic Mindsets Argument Draft #2 There are many students who have different mindsets compared to others. There are two main mindsets which lead to debates merits of education, one of them is Growth and the other is Fixed mindset. In the article “Teachers, Parent Often Misuse Growth Mindsets Research” by The Hechinger Report", it mentions a person named Carol Dweck, who has claimed that students who have Growth mindset performs better than those who have Fixed mindset. In a similar article, the perils of “Growth Mindset” education: […] by Alfie Kohn, who says that we should fix the system instead of focusing on growth and fixed mindsets. He believed that Growth mindsets isn't a best way to make students performed better. In my opinion on this debate, I think that Carol Dweck makes a strong point about growth mindsets help students learn new things by embrace mistakes and never give up, but Mr. Kohn also points out that students need to obtain the right attitude in order to accomplish things instead of focusing on mindsets. Growth mindset help students explore and expand their knowledge even further where the universe is waiting. A growth mindset and fixed mindset have influenced in many ways. However, growth mindsets continue help me to conquer challenges that the world wait for me such as improving my English skill and embraces my mistakes for the better. Căn a person be allowed to have both mindsets? Because I’m a person full of curiosity, I want to learn new things that are often neglected in the world, but sometime there is certain thing that I don't want to do. Mrs. Dweck said that “people who have Growth mindset often ask questions and try new things” instead of doing the same thing every day, which isn’t working as they expects. In contrast I am not a person who like to ask questions frequently because I want to try on my own before I ask thêm. In my high school career, I had so many questions and problems that I wanted to ask other, but instead of asking questions, I need to answer them before I asked. So would I be considered a Fixed mindset? It is because I don’t ask questions frequently? Jame Clear pointed out that "The benefits of a growth mindset might seem obvious, but most of us are guilty of having a fixed mindset in certain situations. That can be dangerous because a fixed mindset can often prevent important skill development and growth, which could sabotage your health and happiness down the line". I’m not a person who are afraid of challenges, even though I don’t know what am I doing, but I’m actually like to try and embrace the results whether it’s good or bad. Life has different destinations for everyone, and human beings always have their own goals. It’s like the paths which students take, each student has their own path that was predetermined for them. Being a student is like a traveler, the one who goes on a journey to discover the new places. In the beginning of their journey, they have to decide which path they should take: The path of knowledge or illiteracy. Sometimes I feel very excited about new things and places that I’m going to face, but sometimes I feel scared of getting lost in a mindset of unfamiliar things. At a young age, I had to leave my home, my community to go to a new place. My middle school friends almost we're not here. I was living in an entirely new environment when I moved to this country. I remembered imagine myself being a student facing many challenges: Everything changed about me ever since I moved to the States. I had to overcome challenges such as adapting to the American culture, learning the English language and getting through a day without any unwanted attention. Perhaps the most difficult challenges I had to went through were mainly from school. I was a shy kid and I was afraid of everything. The thoughts of losing my accomplishments, not being able to master English, failing classes in school and being isolated in a place where no one looked like me dominated my entire life in school. I was living with constant fears and struggling to find out who I really am on the inside. It took me a long time to take up the courage to ask myself this question “should I stay contained like this forever or go out of my comfort zone and explore?” Thanks to that question, I was able to develop a new mindset on my life. If I stop myself from trying new things, then I would stay in the same old spot for the rest of my life. I realized that I should go out and explore new challenges that life has offered so I could make mistakes and those mistakes will help me become a better person. Marelisa says that "the “growth mindset”–promotes the taking on of challenges and resilience in the face of obstacles. People with this mindset believe that effort is what makes you smarter". I remember when I was in high school, I have many struggle learning English because it is the most difficult subject for a migrant like me. However, growth mindset helps me embraces it and have me continue with my learning. According to the article(mindsetworks), it pointed out that “When students have a growth mindset, they take on challenges and learn from them, therefore increasing their abilities and achievement”. Growth mindset help me improve my learning because of my motivation of becoming a better English speaker. My goal to speaks as good as an Englishman to help my family with every day’s life, such as medication, translation, and etc... Even though,I failed to achieve that goal of better speaker but I will continue to learn more. If I only try harder and finds my mistake that I made, someday eventually I would get it. "In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it"--Carol Dweck, Stanford University Sometime I feel like I’m in fixed mindsets at some point because in my math class at my high school, I tend to think I’m smart enough to have a good grade in the test but I’m not. My teacher usually asks students to answer problems as he lecturing, but I’ve never been able to answer it because I’m afraid of my answer will be incorrect. According to mindsetkit, “[Student are] more concerned with proving that they are smart or hiding that they're not. And that means they tend to avoid situations in which they might fail or might have to work hard.” People with fixed mindset tend to think that they are smart enough to do things, but they are afraid of challenges, which they could make a mistake out of it. However, I’m more of growth mindset because I like to try new things and I’m not afraid, even if it incorrect but I embraces it. We could learn a few things from our mistake because it is the way to lead us to reach our goal in life. Once you’ve done it and know what you did wrong, you could actually avoid the same way had happened to you and try the different way next time. It more like practicing, when you doing it wrong, you keep repeating until it become absolutely right. Looking back, it has been 6 years since I left my country, I had the opportunity to become friends with foreign students who had the same experience as me during my ELL years. I learned to adapt new things and changes in life. I became more involved with my community which in turn granted me a best friend that motivated me to do things that are “impossible” in my life. I felt fearless and happy for not giving up on trying things. I believe that I can do anything if I set my mind to it. School had not been my final destination on my journey but it was a foundation that laid out the path of discovering new places, where I could grow and improve my mindset. Work Cited Jame, "How Your Beliefs Can Sabotage Your Behavior" Behavioral Psychology, Self-Improvement. May 10, 2017 Marelisa, " Succeed by Cultivating a Grwoth Mindset" May 10, 2017 https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/23/teachers-parents-often-misuse-growth-mindset-research-carol-dweck-says http://www.salon.com/2015/08/16/the_education_fad_thats_hurting_our_kids_what_you_need_to_know_about_growth_mindset_theory_and_the_harmful_lessons_it_imparts/ https://www.mindsetworks.com/science/ https://www.mindsetkit.org/growth-mindset-parents/learn-about-growth-mindset/research-how-mindset-affects-learning In my math 210 class, I had to pick either “How to lie with Statistics by Darrel Huff” or “Naked Statistic by Charles Wheelan” to make a report about either one. After thinking back and forth, I’ve decided to go with naked Statistic by Charles Wheelan. It is because the word “naked” made me curious about the book. In my mind, whenever I think about math, it is always a tough subject, not fun at all. However, this book has changed the way I think of math. The author did a great job on bringing the fun, practical examples to talk about using statistic method to solve the problems instead of using Statistic formula. I find his writing method make me understand his book easier and also make me understand the class in a better way. As a student, it helps me understand when and how I should use it, more importantly, helps me to catch up lecture in class faster.There are 13 chapters in this book. One of the thing I like about this book is that it does not teach me too much mathematics, nut more important, it makes me understand what I am doing and when I am doing Statistic. By this way, I would remember about statistic long. It would be very helpful for me in real life in some point.
|