Blog của xu

Những từ window, neck, book, table... còn có nghĩa gì ngoài cửa sổ, cái cổ, cuốn sách và cái bàn?

Cọng lông chim trên mũ, hay a feather in your cap, có nghĩa là gì và nguồn gốc thế nào?

Chuyên mục mới mở "Tui học từ" hôm nay xin giới thiệu cụm từ "pave the goat path" cực kì hay ho và khó dịch :-).

My assignment for the "American & British selected short stories" course at USSH - Vietnam National University.

Dạo này không viết được gì, để blog vắng hoe thì buồn quá, hôm nay post bài analysis môn American & British selected short stories lên đây, để sau này các bạn có học môn Intro to lit hay môn Selected này có thể tham khảo :-) Bài đầu tiên sẽ là bài phân tích irony trong tác phẩm "The verger" của William S. Maugham.

“Looking back on how it was in years gone by.”

One more week off, according to the latest schedule for the new semester. That means one more week staying at home, doing nothing but just sleeping, eating and sticking into Facebook. Then have to fake a smile and pull the nearby neighbor's legs by telling them "I've been kicked out of school", whenever they ask why I'm still messing around here. They all seem to start believing that I'm indeed an expellee. Ridiculous, but quite annoyed and bored! I was ablaze with anger when Puwa woke me up from my deep nap this afternoon, only to announce me of the newly-changed-for-the-hundredth-times schedule. I had received it the day before, and strongly believed (and hoped) that it would be the last and official one. Yet it was not. They have, for the 3rd time within 3 days, changed it. For this last alteration, they simply posted the new one on the website and do nothing else to let us know. They did mention this before, saying that we need to keep track of the website...

It’s you who can lucidly choose your other-half In the feudal age, arranged marriage is very common. Even some old-fashioned family nowadays still arrange their children’s marriage. Arranaged marriage is the marriage in which the couple are made, usually by their parents, to marry the one they may not know and may not want to get married with. Reality, together with a great number of surveys made over years, show that just a few couples amongst those engaged in an arranged marriage feel happy with their spouses. Such fact reinforces my view that one had better find his or her other-half themselves. No one but you yourself can know when you are ready for starting a love and getting married. This plays a very important role because loving and marrying someone is one of the most decisive turning-points in one’s life. You, therefore, ought to carefully consider finding the right time when You are full-prepared for your married life. If you agree on an arranged marriage, you will probably e...

Every early morning, Tèo, a twenty-year-old student, starts his new day by checking his email inbox, which is always full of messages from his friends all over the country and even oversea. He then read through all the new incoming mails and goes to school, leaving the job of replying those messages until late at night, before bedtime. Tèo, like a great deal of modern teenagers and youth nowadays, prefers sending email to writing letter. “It’s a waste of time writing and waiting for a letter”, as many of them claimed. Yet if they try, though just once, to write a letter instead of type an email, they may realize some spiritual benefits that this kind of traditional communication can bring. First of all, the preparation for writing a letter shows that you are sincere and really care for the recipients. While an email-sender merely need a computer to type what he or she wants to say, a letter-writer needs more than just pen and paper. He or she needs to carefully consider which kind o...

Why there is room for high standard coffeehouses to grow in Vietnam?

U.S. Public schools provide two education programs for immigrants, who are not proficient in English: the ESL and the bilingual. The ESL programs are taught entirely in simplified English and also include further explanation on the language. Meanwhile, students choosing the bilingual programs are taught in their native languages and also learn English as one of their subjects. These two education programs have created a debate on parents, who find it difficult to make up their mind on which program is the most suitable for their children. In my opinion, bilingual is better for immigrants. “Language reflects culture”, as someone said. One should learn and master his native tongue in order to preserve and transfer the value of his culture to the following generations. For immigrants, who have to live faraway from their homeland, mother tongue is of great importance. Young children should know how to speak native language so that when they come back to the country, they can ...

Another assignment on the Academic writing, still at second year. ---- In almost every office computers you can easily find many small games such as Dynomite, FeedingFrenzy, Lines, etc. These are called mini games, as they are easy to play and don’t take much time to finish the whole game. Therefore, they are preferred much by Vietnamese white-collar workers, who usually don’t have much task to do in their work time. Considering the game play, i.e. the way the game is played, there are three types of mini game: card, action and puzzle. Card games, as named, are games in which playing cards are used. There are a great variety of card games, including those are played in casino; or such traditional types as the Poker or the Bridge. Some games even help you to play mahjong, a Chinese game played with small pieces of wood with symbols on them. The noticeable feature of this kind of game is that it is none of complexity, i.e. it is fairly easy to play, as long as you catch the rule. Th...

This is my assignment in the Academic writing course, second year.  --- Since the advent of cable television, there have been more and more fascinating programs sticking viewers, especially children, into the screen. This, therefore, creates certain complaints that it is wasteful your time watching TV. However, with all the benefits it provides, television is really worth watching. One of the strength points making television much more preferable than other means of information – supply, such as newspaper and radio, is that it can provide news together with animated pictures and lively sounds. Thus, viewers can get more details of the news and enjoy it much more than reading lots of words in newspaper or listen to voices on radio only. Moreover, thanks to the contemporary techniques, television can now provide live programs, which are broadcast to people all over the world at the same time as the events happen. Tired of watching news, people can relax themselves with an eno...

Dear M, How are you these days? I’m very sorry for not writing to you for a long time. I hope you understand that it is just because it’s now the middle-end of the summer vacation, my family is trying to carry out some last activities to finish the holiday within next week in order to be prepared for a new school year. As a result, I am so busy with helping my family serve in the two death-anniversaries of my grand parents and joining a trip to my hometown last week that I just found time to write to tell you something interesting I had in recent days. It’s about my dreams, strange ones. As you may know, the weather these days is not so good. There’s a severe storm in the North, and HCMC as well as Tay Ninh my town are also affected by several heavy rain. The rain and cool climate make me sleep better than ever. I love to roll myself in the blanket, reading my favorite book and wait for the sleep to come. Usually, I have many dreams when sleeping in such an idea...

 This is an assignment when I was at first year.  ---- While students in almost every university are coming to the end of their summer time, first-year USSH students are now really enjoying what is called “summer”. After a four-week-course of Military Education, they are now planning for their short summer vacation (about one to one and a half month). There is a range of choice on what to do in this summer. “Summer time! Yeah!”, shout D., a student of IR. “I will”, he continues, “ enjoy a great holiday with my family in Nha Trang, I’m longing to this for years”. Like D., going on a holiday to some hot pot is of great choice of many students. But there are also other options. “I have to help my father take care of our farm in the countryside”, says D.L, from Education Faculty. Besides helping with family’s work, many students choose to find a part-time job, not only to share the cost burden with the family in this “price storm” time, but also to earn life experience for thei...

This is an assignment when I was at first year.  ---- Men and women equality has long been the controversial topic for many discussions for ages and lots of struggle for women’s right also followed it. However, can there be complete equality between men and women? Or is there always a border which women can never get over? To me, women nowadays have reached the equality with men, and the border, to some extent, also does exist, but it depends on your own concept, not the whole society’s. In the past, or more exactly in the feudal age, there was little or no equality between men and women. Men were always of “upper level” to women, and women were to follow and obey men. There was large gap between the two in all aspect of life. Just take education for example. At that time, going to school was somewhat very “luxurious” to women. Never could they be allowed to receive education. Girls had to stay at home, helping their mom doing chores, preparing meal, or, terribly, just to b...

This is an assignment when I was at first year. --- Group work is the most appreciated working method for students nowadays. But to Vietnamese students, this way of working’s still too strange and they find it hard to perform well in teamwork. So do I. Now I have to do teamwork almost every time on class, and being a team leader, I encounter certain hindrances. First of all, none of my team members and I is familiar with group work. In high school, we usually did everything on our owns, rarely did we cooperate with others to perform a task. So we hardly know how to cooperate each others. In discussion time, we say next to nothing. The leader just ask his members to raise ideas about the topic they are discussing, then the members respond with some opinions, and the leader doesn’t seem to know how to do with the members’ ideas. he doesn’t know how to summarize them, nor he know how to criticize those. So the first obstacle is that the leader doesn’t know what he should do, he isn’...