Ya Lun Sung
Ya Lun Sung was born in New Taipei City,Taiwan. When she was nine years
old, her dad went to China alone and began his career. Then, Ya Lun lived
with her grandparents. Five years later, she moved to Shanghai, China to
lives with her
dad and stepmother. Her sister was born when Ya Lun was fifteen years old.
She has learned English since she was six years old. In fact, she did not focus on what she needed to study. She failed her big test to enter the university, so her parents decided to send her to the United States. She went to Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago to study at the language school for six months. In that time, she met many different people from different countries , she learned about their cultures, and experienced many things that she did not do before. After she finished the course, she went back to Taiwan to prepare for the TOEFL Test for the next three months. She applied to five schools in the United States for business, but eventually decided to choose Widener University for Hospitality Management. Currently, she is studying at the International Study Group to help improve her English. She has learned many things in this program that other places will not teach you.
Her goal is to seize the moment in order to create the future.
dad and stepmother. Her sister was born when Ya Lun was fifteen years old.
She has learned English since she was six years old. In fact, she did not focus on what she needed to study. She failed her big test to enter the university, so her parents decided to send her to the United States. She went to Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago to study at the language school for six months. In that time, she met many different people from different countries , she learned about their cultures, and experienced many things that she did not do before. After she finished the course, she went back to Taiwan to prepare for the TOEFL Test for the next three months. She applied to five schools in the United States for business, but eventually decided to choose Widener University for Hospitality Management. Currently, she is studying at the International Study Group to help improve her English. She has learned many things in this program that other places will not teach you.
Her goal is to seize the moment in order to create the future.
Dear Readers,
I have begun to learn how
to write an essay or a paragraph recently. I did not know how to build a
structure to support my writing before. I tried my best to finish all of my
assignments the teacher gave us. It takes long time for me to write an essay,
not like others that quickly comes up with ideas . It is like I need to spend
all day sitting in front of the computer to organize my thoughts until some
ideas pop up. My favorite assignment is definition of love because it is a
topic that you can express all your feelings of love. We feel and express love
all around us. It motivated me to have more ideas, and want to write as much as
possible. I started writing more things and
the ideas came up faster than before. Seem like logical training. I
learned details of each sentences from reviewing essays. It is helpful for me.
I hope that this helped you to understand my portfolio easily.
Sincerely,
Ya Lun Sung
Sincerely,
Ya Lun Sung
Recognized Reading
I have three activities
that taught me how to read and write. First, when I was five years old, I was
watching Disney movies all day long. I was sitting in the middle seat of the
living room. I remembered that my favorite movie was Cinderella. When I saw the
princess in the movie, I thought about whether it was real or not. Did it
exist? I began to imaged the movie in small pieces in my in my mind. Even
though I just focused on pictures in the movies, I suddenly recognized patterns
to stories. I could understand what movies tried to tell us about the pattern
of the first, middle, and end. This is the method that help me to learn to
read. Furthermore, my parents let me read with them. I tried to pronounce that
many times. Even though I could not understand the words, I followed how to
read it and recognized the pictures. The pictures looked interesting. After ten
minutes, I opened the book again, and I could read it. I felt so surprised with
myself. How could I do it? I started playing around with books. In addition,
when we were in school, teachers also taught and modeled for you. They showed
you how to read and write repeatedly again and again. It is such a good time
for learning. Also, we played games. For instance, the teacher was going to
point out the pictures and we had to read it correctly. The person who could find
the answer could get candies. All of the kids started to compete with each
other. At that time, I tried to figured out the answer and reacted quickly.
Therefore, I practiced more, even though the result was not the best. I tried
my best to do it. To sum up, there were three ways that helped me to learn how
to read and write.
Different Kinds of Love
There are several kinds of
love. Love is a requirement of our life. Humans need to learn how to
forgive,respect,devote, and care. Everything is about love. Sometimes we need
to communicate with people that we love,so we need to talk or take action.
First, there is a family's love. A family's love is the strongest and will not
change. They will not give up on you and have a strong connection with others.
For instance,when I was a junior high school student,I rebelled against
studying and my parents. I made them so disappointed and worried,but they
supported me and tried to tell me how to identify right from wrong things to
do. Therefore,I changed my attitude because of love. Secondly,there is a
friend's love. We obviously all need friends. They will accompany you,hear your
feelings ,and keep you in mind. We share happiness and sadness all together.
For example,one of my friends, when she was extremely sad, was going to eat
lots of food to reduce her stress. All of our friends were going to buy food to
share it together. It was a time that we shared sadness together. Finally, I
think love is important for everyone. Some people think love is nothing,but I
think deep in their heart they have something that they do not want other
people to find out. Everything is connected with love,and nobody can deny it.
Sometimes humans' behaviors are harsh. Love can be harsh because they care
about it. Everyone has love that causes a strong connection to others,including
different kinds of love and meaning. Everyone has their own attitude about
love. To sum up, in my case,feeling love from others is the ultimate happiness
in my life.
Optimistic and Pessimistic
There are
three ways to compare optimistic and pessimistic people. First, an optimistic
person is nice, friendly, outgoing, and feels happy all the time. The perception
between the two groups are different. When something bad happens, optimistic
people will find a way to fix it. They think everything will be fine, so they
do not need to worry about it. Finally, I think they have a great family and
eduction. They did not face huge problems that they cannot handle. On the other
hand, a pessimistic person is an introvert, shy, upset, and thinks the
opposite. They think nobody is standing behind them. The perception of a
pessimistic person is negative. When they do something, they are afraid of bad
results. Even though a result is good, they still think something is wrong. It
is difficult to overcome this mental obstacle. A pessimistic person raised in a
bad family and lived in a bad environment thinks nobody cares about them ,or
they got a scare from others before. To sum up, an optimistic and pessimistic
person have totally different personalities, perceptions ,and backgrounds.
One of the Most Important Emotions
Everyone has experienced disappointment in their life. Emotions come in many
forms of feelings such as happiness, sadness and disappointment. Disappointment
is the strongest feeling for me. I say that disappointment is the strongest for
me is because I feel it as usual. I have no confidence of myself , and I do not
usually do things correctly, cause me have nature sensitive of this emotion.
Expectation,sadness, and elation are three ways to define disappointment.
Expectation, in my opinion, is when somebody expects that you can do something well, but you fail. Everyone has different kinds of expectations from others. At first, my family raised me and provided a good environment. They hoped I would do well in my future. For instance,my parents wished I studied hard or created a good personality. Unfortunately,I never achieved their expectation because my scores were always so low, and I did not work hard enough to do it. When I was young, I never brought my homework or books to my house. It felt strange to study in front of my family. At that time, I knew my family felt disappointed with me. I pretended I did not care about it. Moreover, my self expectation was always to do well without others help and be more independent. Even though I needed to learn more, I would like to try it. For example, One year ago,I came to the United States alone and felt afraid of everything. It was the biggest challenge for me. I could not understand the people around me and what they were trying to say. When I arrived at the airport, I thought the guy who was supposed to pick me up to take me to school said my name, so I followed him. Later, I realized he is a taxi driver without a formal driver's license. I am glad that I met a good person that helped me. In fact,I felt so disappointed in being foolish. My mood was full of sadness. Feel sadness when I am angry,disappointed, and extremely stressed. Sadness is a strong feeling that easily appears on our face. Even though you try to hide your feelings, your face expresses everything. My pet cat had round eyes,short feet, a fat body, and an innocent face. One |
day at night,
I heard many dogs barking at something. At that time, I checked my
house monitor, and it looked like they were bullying one dog. It
looked like it already died, so I could not sleep well. After we
went downstairs, I found out that dog was actually my lovely cat. The
sadness suddenly came out that I could not stand it. I felt so
disappointed that we did not save him, and the pictures kept repeating in
my mind. I felt lonely and nobody could help me to reduce my pain and I
cried all day long. Secondly, the most sadness from disappointment was from
my dad. At that time, my dad tried to marry another woman, but I was the
last one to know about it. Despite the fact I have never seen my mom, I
still felt sadness that no one cared about my feelings. I could not talk or
eat anything . I felt exhausted by all these things.
The opposite of disappointment is elation. When you do something well and are satisfied with it that is elation. Elation is an essential emotion for humans. I always feel happy and try to make my life happier. At first,everything could attract my attention and curiousity. For instance, I saw strange things in front of me, and maybe I was going to watch it all day and make fun of it. Elation is the best expression to bring to others and to try to be happy everyday. Secondly, when you achieve your goal, you feel enjoyment. For example,I was learning how to drive a car ,but I had so many problems with my driving. I practiced about one month. In fact, my coach thought I would never pass the test,but I did it. In my life,I have had no confidence in myself ,and that was first time I felt I did something right. To sum up,I think expectation is the main factor to cause disappointment. Different people have different kinds of expectation from others. Sadness also cause by one of the reason is disappointment. Disappointment relate many emotions. However, there are three ways that I try to define it. |
Who Has Tattoos?
One day, there were many young boys who were wearing school uniforms in the
corner of an alley. Their voices were so loud and attracted strangers' sight.
When I looked closer, there were a few people surrounding a little guy who
looked nervous. They were threatening him to give money to them. First,
one of them hit the little boy's nose and his nose kept bleeding. I saw
the situation and I called the police to tell them what was happening. After
few minutes, I saw a man who had several tattoos on his body cross by the road.
His face looked frightful and nobody had the courage to see his eyes. He saw
the situation ,and as he walked by said " Do not do the things
that you will regret." The young boys saw he had many tattoos and then they ran away without saying a word. This stereotype associated with tattoos can be analyzed by groups of people,irresponsibility, expression, and the need for change. "Generally, people's thoughts about a tattoo stereotype is that tattoos are for bikers and gangsters. A long time ago, there was a time when mostly the bikers and gangsters used to have tattoos but then there was also a time when only pirates had tattoos” (L.Pommells, personal communication, October 25,2013). People always see tattoos and think whether they are violent or criminals. Their existance gives other people a scary feeling and leads to the continuation of this stereotype. “Another common tattoo stereotype is that only [irresponsible] people have tattoos. This is the same reason why tattoos are often associated with teenager.” They think teenagers follow the trend and without thinking(G.Johnson, personal communication, October 25,2013). Sometimes they are drunk and get a tattoo. In fact, people with tattoos need a lot of thought of where to have it and what they want. For example, one of my friends wanted to get tattoos which represents her personality with a unique pattern. Also, she thought about where to place it and the consequences. If she got one in a visible place that her family saw, she might be kicked out of the family. You need to think a lot before you want to get tattoos. The stereotype exists because of old generations thinking and because of what we see in the mass media. When we live in this world, people who are surrounding you, are always telling you something , and you will have a concept, whether you do not see it or not. For instance, when you see a young lady with tattoos, what pops up in your mind ? Is she a play girl, biker or doing drugs? She might be a bad girl. Her parents |
may have
given up educating her and let her to do something bad. This kind of
conception keeps remaining until now. One possible reason that stereotypes
still exist is because no one
has found a way to stop this kind of stereotype. Even though the people's values have changed slowly, the stereotype still exist. There are positive and negative effects. The positive effect is that we feel it is an expression of who we are as a person. Everyone in the world is unique. Tattoos can contain feelings, emotions, and relationships. For example, one day I saw a picture of a guy with tattoos on his back of his girlfriend. In that time, I felt shocked and yet thought this man was courageous to do this. Those tattoos are like a promise that he loves her forever and will not change. It is a romantic behavior! Negative feedback is also very common when someone gets a tattoo. To be tattooed was a stereotype of being in the class of people who had been in prison, or in trouble. Also, It is very difficult to get a job because no one will hire people if they have visible tattoos. For a long time, many employers did not hire those with tattoos because they believed they went associated with bikers, criminals, and bad crowds. The times have changed. If the worker is suitable for the job, then it should not matter that they have tattoos. There are several ways to discontinue the stereotype associated with tattoos. At first, tattoos are body art that need a long time to make and gather ideas together. We need to spread there ideas to everyone. We need to educate this art to everyone in the school and teach them about tattoos origins, and the process to get one. Each pattern means one story of a person memorial. It is not a problem to get a tattoo that expresses their own memory. Also, nowadays many people get tattoos because of fashion. People are like sheeps, we imitate and affect each other easily. Spreading this conception to everyone is the fastest way to discontinue this kind of situation. In fact, the world has changed it slowly. I believe the stereotype is going to one day disappear. To sum up, people with tattoos have always been misunderstood by others for a long time. We think people with tattoos are bikers, gangsters, and irresponsible. In fact, the world is changing, and we think tattoos are body art and fashionable. Most people get tattoos because it is trendy. |