ELISA ENGLISH's Blog 英語園地

My thought after reading the story of the start of the Make-A-Wish Foundation

My heart sank and I couldn’t stop crying as I read the story of how the Make-A-Wish Foundation started.  I was reading the visitor’s guide to get some ideas of what to do while we were vacationing in Phoenix.  I happened to come across a story about a seven-year-old Phoenix boy, Christopher Greicius, hospitalized with leukemia, who inspired the Make-A-Wish Foundation with his wish to become a police officer.  It was extremely sad and difficult for me to read stories like that since I am a mom with little children.  To imagine kids fighting for lives each day brings sorrow in my heart.    

This is just a journal of our recent vacation.

The weather is so nice at this time of the year in this location. It has been years that I have not sat in the balcony under the starry night. The warm breeze feels so soothing. I really enjoy not so much of the view of where we stayed but the tranquility of the nature. We stayed at The Westin Kierland Villas. It is odd but probably natural that not a sound of insects was heard, neither a cicada shrilling nor a frog croaking. Maybe, this land is just too dry for most insects to survive. I often wonder why people would spend millions building golf courses in this location. Water is scarce and precious here. A waste of natural resource I would say to water the greens and maintain so many golf courses. But then that is just my own opinion since I am not a golf enthusiast.

My Gratitude - A poem by Elisa English

So many to thank for

“Fewer” or “Less”? “One fewer” or “One less”?

“Fewer” is used with countable nouns and refers to quantities that you can count individually. 

I am not in a mood to write, not that I am in a bad mood but that I just feel exhausted. The brain is hard to function when fatigued. Anyway, I spent an hour last night talking to an IRS agent and finally got her to remove all the penalty and interest imposed to our account due to their mistake. What a relief! Maybe I will write something about it later. For now, you just have to listen to my mumbling. Hopefully you won’t feel bored in this seemingly dull place. Oh, if you are still waiting for an update to the fictional story I wrote, I am sorry to have to disappoint you. I am not motivated to write at this point. I did write a few words but I am not satisfied with the plot. I might rewrite the chapter about George. Anyway, what I have in mind to talk about today is the public school that my son attends.

More and more parents are opting for homeschooling or online schooling for the main reason to have a better control of the setting in which their children can learn and a better control of the people with whom their children will socialize. Those parents feel the panic that their kids are being held back by their classmates in the traditional classroom environment. They believe that homeschooling or online schooling provides their children an opportunity to learn at a more rapid pace. By the way, I am not passing judgment on which works the best. It simply depends on your need.

My two little silly geese - A poem by Elisa English

Written by Elisa English, 版權所有

On 3/23/2011 in Minneapolis

Have you read the book "Death by Government" or "China’s Bloody Century" written by R. J. Rummel?  I would bet that you will find his books extremely informative since the history of the ugly mankind has become such a hot topic lately.  With records of over 8,000 estimates of genocide and mass murders from over a thousand sources, R.J. Rummel, the former Yale professor and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, presented a telling picture of the disproportionate number of murders of their own citizens caused by their own governments than by war.     

You have probably heard the term “genocide”.  An example of genocide is the Holocaust, the extermination of roughly six millions of Jews throughout Nazi-occupied territory by Nazi Germany and its collaborators that took place between 1933 and 1945.  Its definition as described by the book is the killing of people by a government because of their indelible group membership (race, ethnicity, religion, language).  You might have also heard the term “politicide”; by definition of the book, it is the murder of any person or people by a government because of their politics or for political purposes.  An example of politicide is the 228 Incident in Taiwan on February 28th 1947, when the arrest of a cigarette vendor in Taipei led to large-scale protests by the native Taiwanese against the corruption and repression of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists, and later turned into an indiscriminate killing of roughly 28,000 Taiwanese in the entire Taiwan Island in two weeks. 

Mind your own business or even better kill them while you can?

Is this a good time to mind your own business as we see Japan’s nuclear plants erupted in flames?  If not for the sake of humanity, but for the sake of your own selfishness, wouldn’t you want to land a hand to Japan at this critical moment?  Maybe you would like to think that the radiation would not reach you.  Yes, we can all hide in our own shell and think that it will never happen to us.  Look at what kind of safety precautions are in place for Taiwan’s nuclear plants.  In addition, look at what China has put in place.  There are a dozen of nuclear power plants in China, mostly located on the southeast coast.  When its radiation leaks, it would reach Taiwan immediately, nobody in Taiwan would be able to escape the fate.  This event should teach us something, not just the civilians but the government officials in particular, other than empathy and humanity, that cover up is the worse approach and will subsequently lead to devastating results.  Wouldn’t you feel comforting to hear Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) assuring the Taiwanese that Taiwan’s three operational nuclear plants were “much safer” than those in Japan because they were “fourth generation” — something both Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) and the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) have said is wrong!  In fact, there was no fourth-generation nuclear reactor, not even a third-generation reactor in operation in Taiwan.  How comforting it is to have Wu Den-yih as the Taiwanese Premier! (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2011/03/17/2003498375).  Didn’t the unprepared rescue efforts from Typhoon Morakot teach us something?  Without plans for safety precautions, without an efficient government to mobilize the rescue efforts, and without a single department dedicated to disaster prevention and response, should another natural disaster strike Taiwan, the outcome would be even devastating.  Taiwan and Japan share similar fate with frequent earthquakes.  Can you bury your head in the sand and pretend that whatever happened in Japan will never happen in Taiwan?

Tragic news from Japan continues to roll when an 8.9-magnitude earthquake, one of the largest earthquakes in recorded history, was followed by a tsunami that ravaged its northeastern coast with breathtaking speed and power.  The impact is devastating when coupled with melt down of nuclear reactors.  My heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the people of Japan, especially those families that have experienced loss since the calamitous earthquake and tsunami.  Like many others, I also have a relative living in Japan.  My uncle moved to Japan when he was nineteen years old along with the Japanese soldiers who retreated from Taiwan back to Japan.  He settled there, married a Japanese lady and had a family.  Thirty years ago, my aunt finally located my uncle through the newspaper ad she placed in Japan.  He was the chef and owner of a Chinese restaurant.  I got to meet his family the first time and him the last time.  He passed away a few years ago, and is survived by his son.  I hope that my cousin is okay.  I don’t know where he lives.  It is so heartbreaking to see the catastrophic damage that Japan has suffered. 

I would like to offer my condolence to those families that have experienced loss since the calamitous earthquake and tsunami.  This is a poem I wrote to express my sorrow.

I am just being mom, like any mom, a typical mom worrying over nothing, am I?  By the way, there is nothing wrong my grammar here.  I am just being sarcastic.

How well do you really know your kids?  It is shameful for me to admit that I don’t know my son that well.  I judge him by how he behaves at home.  Though I know that our kids are well behaved at school and listen to the teachers, I didn’t expect my son’s behavior to differ much at school vs. at home.