6. The Dairy Day

I invent a new Dairy Day. (Although it haven’t appeared in public yet.)

To be honest, the initially reason of inventing this holiday is that I love dairy products!! However, the intention of this holiday is more than just a personal preference. It will be holding twice a year on the summer solstice and the winter solstice in countries all over the world. It is way to popularize dairy products in different seasons and show people about Dairy & Health. And of course, FUN! All the stores that selling dairy products will have a half price off saling event on that day which is like the black Friday on Thanksgiving. And there will be a dairy carnival with plenty of activities fit for people in different age to enjoy it. Also there will be some limit editions of dairy products on Dairy Day only.

    Moreover, another important theme of the dairy holiday is Health. There will be some public advertisements about dairy with life & health coming out that made by celebrity with non profit. Telling people about how does different dairies related to your body functions, and has effects on your health.

5. Procrastination

        I went to bed at 3am last night because there's a paper due this morning. I didn't finish it earlier although I spent the whole weekend working on it. Slept too late makes me feel extramely sleepy in the day time, and couldn't concentrate at all. Then I keep asking myself why it always happen to? Maybe I should really think about it. I've read an article online was talking about people who always delay the things have to be done which called procrastination. So am I one of them? 

       In order to explore more details about procrastination I start looking for resources on the Internet. While searching online there came out an self-testing website for people to know weather he/she has procrastination or just being lazy. It wasn't a professional psychology test website, at least it's worth to be consult. if you wanna try for fun, here's the link of the test page http://astro.sina.com.cn/t/2009-11-19/115265767.shtml (Sorry, Chinese version only)

So, what is procrastination? 

        Procrastination refers to the counterproductive deferment of actions or tasks to a later time. Psychologists often cite such behavioras a mechanism coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. [Fiore, Neil A (2006). The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt- Free Play. New York: Penguin Group. ISBN 9781585425525.  p. 5] Schraw, Wadkins, and Olafson have proposed three criteria for a behavior to be classified as procrastination: it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying. [Schraw, G., Wadkins, T., & Olafson, L. (2007). Doing the things we do: A grounded theory of academic procrastination [Electronic version]. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 99(1), 12-25.]

Procrastination may result in stress, a sense of guiltand crisis, severe loss of personal productivity, as well as social disapproval for not meeting responsibilities or commitments. These feelings combined may promote further procrastination. While it is regarded as normal for people to procrastinate to some degree, it becomes a problem when it impedes normal functioning. Chronic procrastination may be a sign of an underlying psychological disorder.

The cause of procrastination: 

        There are two main types of procrastination: the relaxed type and he tense-afraid type. Person who is a relaxed type really enjoy relaxing activities rather than task, he/she couldn't renounce the pleasure instead of facing the reality, doing things he/she unwilling to do. On the other, who is a tense-afraid type is habitually shirk responsibilities, because he/she's afraid being under pressure. He/she might usually have a plan which wasn't feasible. In particular, when the deadlines coming soon he/she feels over anxious.

Lastly, I summarized some tips of how to deal with procrastination, also for self-suggestion:

       1．To realize that there's no point of being procrastination, it couldn't help you to get your work done. Meanwhile, it's waste of time.

　　2． Write down all the reason of being procrastination.

　　3． Think about those reason carefully, and try to come over it.

　　4． Make a to do list then get started!

4. I miss the winter in Beijing

 
  Actually I don’t have a specifically favorite season. However in my memory, there are different seasons I like in different place I have lived. Back to my hometown Hunan, it's always raining. I can't even tell if there was a rainy season all wasn't, because it seems raining the whole year. Especially in summer, the weather was so muggy and hot. But I love the spring in Hunan which days are getting longer and warmer rapidly.
 
  Since I was 12 years old I moved to Beijing with my family. Then I quickly found out the winter in Beijing is so comfortable. Although the lowest temperature can drop to 15℃ below zero,  because of the dry weather you can't really feel that cold. Also the air conditioner is everywhere, once you get in a building you can take your coat off. Besides, In Beijing it's always windy and rarely rain. But the sand storm is getting worse nowadays.

  With the weather is getting colder in Minnesota I start missing the winter in Beijing so badly. Even here isn't that cold than I thought but it's still going to be hard to get through.

3. Last Weekend

  My last weekend was begin with an unfortunate Friday, then end with a study Sunday. But luckily I had an amazing Saturday!
  Before I went to bed at Thursday night, myphone was almost run out of battery while I couldn't find the charge. Then I set up an alarm clock, shut it down and went to sleep. When I woke up in the next morning I found it was 10 o'clock which means I was totally over sleep and had no class left on Friday. It was unbelievable! Finally I found out iphone’s applications wouldn’t work when the power off, even if it was an alarm clock. I felt down the whole day because I was unintentionally absent for two classes that both attendance required.

  On Saturday, I went to Valley Fair with my friends. It was a sunny day, the weather was pretty good. When we get there, I found there are many different kinds of rides and attractions I have never tried.For example, power tower and several roller coaster in the challenge park.All the rides are different in height, speed and the figure of the track.It was really terrified in the beginning, but later on when I've played more than 2 rides I couldn't stop trying the rest.Those were very addictive. Besides, there is another Soak City Waterpark which is closed for season.

 Last but not least, there is a new Halloween season------Valleyscare opening soon. I’m so exciting and looking forward to go there again.

2. My life in U of M

  Remember last summer when I first came here I moved into University Village which is one of the on campus apartments. I was living in a 4 people apartment with single bedroom. Two of my roommates are Americans and there is another Russian. We got along very well and that was really helpful to me since I was living with some native speakers in my first year in the US.
  Before the semester started, I involoved in freshman orientaion & welcome week. That was a great chance to know all the resources on our campus and to meet people in my college and community. I would definitely say to all the freshman never miss the orientation, also take part in the activities as many as you like. Like me, I made a lot of friends in the welcome week.

  With the school starting, I found the most difficult parts of academic life for me is wirting. I rarely read English book other than textbooks back to China. Because under the pressure of the college entrance examination, students would hardly ever have time to do out school reading. Back to my freshman year, I took a physics class with writing intensive in the first semester, the textbook wasn't hard but I wasn't familiar with writing lab report neither paper in American style. Fortunately, I got through it.

  Besides, another part of my favorites in American life is the holiday. Since I was back to China during the Christmas break, Halloween becomes my favorite holiday. Everyone would be whoever or whatever they want at Halloween. The following picture was taken on the light rail. There were a group of people make up looks like zombies.

  As for the winter in MN, I would say it will be fine if you don't go out in the early morning or late night. Otherwise it would be freezing! I love U-Pass. That was a great deal for people who take buses more than twice a day. I dodn't have to worry about the balance left in my card then just take the bus anytime. Especially during the winter when I was too lazy to walk maybe just three stops. I was clearly remember the first snow on October10 last winter that was quite surprised me. I've never seen snowing in October before.


 



mini snow man



  There is no doubt that I miss my parents and especially home made food. However, in this summer I got one more thing to think of---- my dog HanGe, a four-month-old puppy as a new member in my family. Everytime when I'm talking with my dad on the phone, he says "Say HI to your sister". But HanGe has never done that. haha

  In a word, my freshman year was really colorful and I hope this would a good beginning of the second year of my college life!

 

1. Hi, I'm Yuki

Hi everyone! Welcome to Yuki's blog, written to you from the third floor.
Because of the late registration I'm new to the class.
My name is Yixuan Xie, I'm from Beijing, China. You can call me Yuki. I'm in CLA and now planning to major in mass communication.
This is my second year in college also the second year being study abroad. Fortunately, having gone through with the winter in Minnesota I found it wasn't as cold as I thought it would be.
I love to make friends in class!!
What I like to do in my spared time is hang out with friends, go shopping and sleep.
By the way, I love music, especially singing. I also like sports even though I don't exercise weekly. I play tennis, go skating and you might not know I'm also a snowboarder. (I can't wait to snowboard in Minnesota!!)
That's all about me. Feel free to leave comments.
I will see you guys in class^_^