The Summary

In this semester, I started to write a blog which I have never done before. I have written only a few essays in English in the ESL writing class.  I am a math major student so there maybe not many chances to write something. But the several weeks blogs did help me a lot about my future career and the interest in math. I have knew myself better and I think the choice to change my major from business to math is wise. I did learn a lot of practical knowledge as well as theoretical knowledge in the math field. 

I wrote about the inner beauty of math and I find more when the time passes. Not only the secret inside math is fascinating, but also the way solving problems is interesting. Although many difficult problems need a lot of time to work with, the joy after solving them is boundless. So many scientists in various field had their achievements in math which shows the importance of math. We use math unconsciously in our daily life. I should keep moving on my math way and trying to achieve success.

The Inner Beauty of Math

When I decided to change my major from pre-business to math, my friends and my parents were not very supportive. They know math is a tough major and needs a lot of time to spend on. To me, it is interesting to study math and solve problems. There are so many challenges in the math field. We can't solve all the problems but we can try our best to discover new things. Many great men showed their compliment to math.

Einstein said: " mathematical reason than all other sciences are respected, one reason is because his proposition is absolutely reliable and beyond all dispute, and other sciences are often overthrown by newly discovered facts risk. .... Mathematics is a high reputation, another reason is that natural science realization theorems of mathematics, given some degree of reliability of natural science. " 

In China, famous mathematician Hua Luogeng said: " the universe is big, the micro particles, chemical rocket fast, clever, the earth change, biological mystery, daily numerous, nowhere without mathematics. "

Math is widely used in our daily life but we usually don't pay more attention. As long as we know the method to learn math, we will find the inner beauty of math and love it.

The Education In the Third World Countries

I have a dream of being a math teacher in the future so I cares about the status of education status in everywhere.There is a fact that as of 2012, 31 million primary-school pupils worldwide dropped out of school. An additional 32 million repeated a grade.In big and developed countries, the education is very advanced. People are highly educated. But the education in the third world countries is pretty backward.  
There are lots of factors cause this issue. A lack of funding of the education may cause the poor families not able to afford the tuition fee for their children.Not only the money problem, in many places, the lack of teachers or having untrained teachers is a bigger problem. Most teachers do not want to go to a poor place to teach so although there are some children, there is no efficient way for they to study. In addition, poor places may have few classrooms and learning materials. The problem of external facilities is hard to deal with.
So the education should not be develop fast only in the rich countries, people need to pay more attention to the education in the third world countries in order to make people their educated and happy.

The Math In The Animals

People can count different things and we know animals share a lot in common.So I want to discover whether animals have the ability to count. As the saying goes : Dogs are man's best friends. So I did the research on dogs first. There is an experiment to test whether dogs can count. The scientists use two bowls which they are put by different amount of food. They choose 27 dogs as experimental subjects in order to make the test can be more convincing. The result is that most of the 27 dogs choose the bowl with more food. So we can say that dogs have the ability to count.

Not only dogs, there are numerous animals smarter than dogs. Chimpanzees, which share most things in common with humans, can do the count and they can do a lot of things harder than count. Robin birds can also do the same thing. They have the ability to discern between small numbers, such as three and four and can train themselves to count all the way up to twelve. It is so nice to know the funny facts about the animals can learn math by their own way and we can train them to learn more.

Looking forward to the study in Oakland

Finally, I got the transfer acceptance to the main campus in Oakland. I could transfer to the main campus last year with a pre-business major which only required 30 credits last year. I did not choose the business major at first, but in China there is an invisible rule that most parents choose majors for kids. I changed major in my second semester exactly when I found that I did not interest in business at all. In the business classes I had learned, there was too much theoretical knowledge.To learn some more practical knowledge I changed my major to general mathematics.

After finishing 17 credits this semester, I can finally transfer to the main campus. I like the environment here but I think there are more opportunities in a bigger city. I like all the teachers here and my math teacher Professor Thompson is my favourite teacher. He taught me many different ways to learn math and encouraged me when I face difficulties. I love math and I think I made a good choice about changing the major. Although the choice made my transfer delayed one year, I learned more mathematical knowledge than before and I met so many nice teachers. I hope I could have more fun in the main campus and further my study.

The History of Mathematics and Famous Mathematicians

I am interested in all kinds of knowledge in the math field.This week, I did some research on the history of mathematics.  I found out that there was a funny fact that in the ancient era, there was almost no the title of "mathematicians", more of the researchers were only called scientists or engineers. Famous scientists known all over the world like Albert Einstein,Isaac Newton,Niels Bohr and many others can be searched by "Famous Mathematics" nowadays. Although they invented or discovered a lot of things, they still have contribution to the math field.

As I mentioned before, my adviser who is also my math teacher Thompson's favorite mathematician is Leonhard Euler.  He was not only a mathematician but also a  physicist,astronomer, logician and engineer. To my adviser, he is a mathematician but maybe in others' eyes, he can be someone else. The math history has many categories: prehistoric mathematics, Egypt mathematics, Chinese mathematics，Greek mathematics, Indian mathematics, Islamic mathematics, Medieval European mathematics and so on. That is a big work to learn all of the history. I have read few of them but I think I will know the history better when I attend more math classes.

The Mental Arithmetic

This week I watched a Chinese show that was called "Super Brain". The original show is from Germany which is called "Superhirn". The show is to find the most talented people particularly in brain. I was attracted by two children and a women challenged the speed and accuracy of mental arithmetic.

I am interested in math a lot so I try to do the questions shown on the screen. The six-digit numbers were shown only 1 second and then jumped to the next one. I could not even remember those numbers. After watching the show, I decided to search mental arithmetic and hoped to find something interesting. There is a website called windhoff.net/mental_arithmetic. People can practice mental calculation there. I tried several times but I had to use a lot of time to calculate big numbers.

I think there must be some more efficient and more accurate ways to solve the problems so I use the internet and there are many tutorials about training mental arithmetic. Most of the ways are about changing the order, add or minus from the original numbers and so on. It is impossible for us to calculate the addition of subtraction so fast without practicing. The prodigies in the show said he was trained so if we want to get that height, we should make sure that we have time to practice harder and harder.

The Research About Press Release This Week

This week, we had a new press release assignment. It was very fresh to me so I did a lot of research on the press release about math field. Although in the future I may not write press release, it is so funny to write something that audience cares about. At first, I searched the most important events about math happened in 2015. After reading many articles I still couldn't find my source so i changed the topic to Nobel Prize about math in 2015. But to my surprise, the Nobel Prize did not have the specialized prize for math field. So I had to find something new.

At Last, I finally searched a press release about President Obama honored outstanding mathematics and science teachers. Although this is not a prize in the whole world, it is still an important prize in the nation. Each year the award alternates between teachers teaching kindergarten through 6th grade and those teaching 7th through 12th grades. The awardees named today teach 7th through 12th grade. My dream is to become a math teacher, so they are the models that I need to learn from them and try to be one of them. 

The Dying Metaphors Examples

In Monday's class, we talked about the " Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell. The article is about how to write the article in a proper way and use correct words to make the passage clear, precise and creative. Orwell introduces 4 ways of misusing words in the article: dying metaphors, operators or verbal false limbs, pretentious diction and meaningless words.

I find an example online about the dying metaphors. The misuse was found by Michael P. Marks. In some articles, many people may write " the body of the essay" to show the main part of the writing. But now this meaning is known by everyone so that we can not find anything new from this phrase. It is meaningless to use this in the article to describe the importance of the article.

Lets see a more famous example by President Nasheed in 2009. He said in his speech:" I am not a scientist, but I know that one of the laws of physics, is that you cannot negotiate with the laws of physics. Three - Five – Oh is a law of atmospheric physics. You cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature. And we don’t intend to try.This is why, in March, the Maldives announced plans to become the first carbon neutral country in the world. We intend to become carbon neutral in ten years. We will switch from oil to 100% renewable energy. And we will offset aviation pollution, until a way can be found to decarbonise air transport too." In this paragraph, he used the phrase " Mother Nature". We always considered nature as our mom because she brings everything to us. The overuse of the term is boring and lack of imagination. We need to avoid this kind of problems in our writing and be creative all the time.

Chinese New Year

    February 8th 2016, is the Chinese New Year.In China, we have a special calendar which is called lunar calendar. Chinese celebrating their New Year are the same as Americans celebrating Christmas Day. People usually have dumplings at that day and have lunch or dinner with relatives and family. 

    Although I am studying in America now, UPJ has CSSA which we can enjoy Chinese holidays in the school. On Monday the school and CSSA helped our Chinese students to hold a Chinese New Year party. There were lots of food and drinks in the Cambria room. Many professors and international students came and joined us. To our surprise, there was not only traditional chinese food but also hot pot there. The food was really delicious and made me miss my home.

    Like last year, no relatives come to America to visit me in the New Year, but I have many good friends and international students as well as professors having fun in the school. I love the environment here and I can also enjoy the Chinese holidays. My wish is that I can have good grades in 2016 and make more friends.

The Impact of TV Shows To Me

    In Monday's class, we read the review about the "Walking Dead". Although I am a Chinese, I love American TV series a lot.I remembered when I was in middle school, once after the school ended, I would go to my computer immediately to watch the latest American dramas. I did practice my English a lot in that way.
    
     I was attracted by "The Vampire Diaries" a lot that time. I was young and I did not even know what is love but that show has accompanied with me for almost seven years. I was hoping to go to America and become a vampire because the vampires had super nature power and were immortal. That was a nice dream to me. Since the American dramas so fascinating, my willing to come to America got stronger. But I really needed the help of Chinese subtitle to understand the complex words during the show.
    
    Now I am studying in America and part of my dream comes true. Also, with the help of the shows, my English has improved a lot. I watch many TV series now like " Arrow"， "The Flash", "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" and so on. The super nature thing is really attractive to me. Moreover, I don't need the subtitle now and I can understand more than 80% of the episodes. I think the dramas are really helpful. I can both relax and learn English in the free time. 

     

The Discussion In Class About The Paper

    In Monday's class, we had an interesting discussion about our first paper. I shared my paper with Michael and Victoria.Although we had a small group which was only 3 people, we had an interesting conversation about the paper we wrote. After the exchange of paper, I got Michael's. Michael's interviewee is his grandmother.His grandmother is a high school teacher and in that reason she can help him a lot in this paper. She told him how to attract the audience and catch everyone's interests. 

    

    Then,I thought about my grandmother. My grandmother is a teacher too. She teaches chemistry in the university. When I was in the middle school learning chemistry, evey time I had questions she would teach me patiently and point out the mistakes I made. Time flies, now she needs the help of the glasses and the educational books to solve the problems because she is quite old. I hope that I could spend more time with her but due to her heart issue she cannot fly a long time. I could only use online chatting apps to talk with her and I missed her a lot. I want to become a math teacher like her in the future and I think I won't let her down.

The Experience of Being a Math Teacher

    I am in college now so in summer vacation I would like to find jobs and gain the experience in the society. Like my grandma, she was a chemistry teacher in a famous university in Shanghai, I want to be a math teacher in the future. I have set up my goal since I was 10 years old. Although my parents helped me to find some jobs in the business field last year, my high school teacher offered me a math tutoring job in the continuation class in the summer vacation. I was so excited when I knew that I was able to become a teacher in a young age and my dream came true.
    At first, I thought it was easy to become a teacher and it was just a job to tell the knowledge to the students. But I was shocked when my teacher handed me three 400-page books and told me to finish reading it in a week. Fortunately, I have learned more than 70% of the knowledge in the book in high school and college. It still took me a long time to read these books and I started feeling the difficulty of being a teacher. I was so nervous in the classroom in the first class even I prepared a long time and made a lot of notes. I tried to be a funny teacher and the feedback from students was good.
    I have taught math a month and I find that become a teacher is not as easy as I think before. A teacher needs to do enormous preparation not only the knowledge in the books but also the questions that students may ask. The teachers’ responsibility is heavy. This experience made me respect every kind of job more and learn math better. I hope I can get more opportunities in the future.

Review of the Article And Apply to Myself

After reading the article “Who Are You And What Are You Doing Here?” written by Mark Edmundson in class, I learn some ideas about my future study in the college and I find that I made a wise choice about my major from his experience and examples. I am sophomore and math major now. My major was business management in the first year. That was my parents’ will that they want me to be a successful businessman in the future. Every year there are many Chinese students come to America and choose to learn business major. I do not like to follow the big trend and become normal. After finishing my first semester study, I decided to change my major because I would like to learn something challenging.

Like Edmundson said in the article, we need to fight to get a real educationI love solving problems and discover new things so I choose maths as my new major. To me, it is a new area but a more funny one. Comparing with the business class, there is more practice than theoretical knowledge. In the article, it mentions that the imagination is an important part in study. In mathematics, imagination plays an significant role and without it, there are fewer theorems than we know now. Moreover, Edmundson states that the end for students is a good job. There are so many famous professors in the maths area so I hope one day I can get a chance to reach that achievement. Rome was not built in a day. I will work hard on maths and other classes so I can realize my goal step by step.