Christmas

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The birth of Jesus Christ, described in this passage from the Gospel of Saint Luke in the New Testament, has been celebrated by Christians for more than 1600 years. Christmas (from Old English Cristes maesse or "Mass of Christ") is observed annually on December 25 although the exact date of Christ's birth is not known. The Christmas season begins on the First Sunday of Advent and ends on Epiphany.

Christmas is celebrated in many different ways around the world. In the United States and other countries, many churches and homes display a créche, or Nativity scene. These scenes include figurines of Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus in the stable. They are usually surrounded by the shepherds, angels, the Magi, and animals. Some churches also have a live nativity service. Such services originated during the Middle Ages when many people could not read Latin, the language of the Church. St. Francis of Assisi is generally credited with the idea of recreating the stable scene with a wooden crib occupied by a wax figure of the infant Jesus. However, local people played the roles of Joseph and Mary and the shepherds. Live animals usually completed the re-enactment.

Many Christians attend a midnight Mass or other Christmas Eve services at churches which are usually decorated with poinsettias, candles and greenery. These services are often followed by another service on Christmas Day.

Christmas is also a popular secular holiday which focuses upon the many versions of St. Nicholas and other traditions such as Christmas carols, mistletoe, Christmas cards, and giftgiving. Children write letters to Santa Claus and tell him what they'd like to receive for Christmas. With help from his elves, Santa prepares the gifts and then, on Christmas Eve, he leaves the North Pole in his reindeer-guided sleigh. Rudolph leads the reindeer across the sky and onto each housetop. Santa carries the gifts down the chimney at each home and places them under the Christmas tree. Usually, the children of the house leave cookies and milk for Santa.

Santa Claus is known by other names in different parts of the world. For example, in Germany, he is known as Kris Kringle (from Christkindle or "Christ child") while the French call him Pere Noel.

Many people celebrate Christmas with elements of both the religious observances and the secular rituals. However, some Christians reject the customs with pagan origins and many secularists discount the story of Christ's birth. Regardless of whether the celebration is religious or secular, the main spirit of the season remains.

funny pics

My Fav Songs @ the Moment

Has anyone heard the song “White & Nerdy” by Weird Al Yankovic? I love the song! It’s so funny and…catchy! I keep thinking about how he came up with all these ideas!


“I'm nerdy in the extreme and whiter than sour crème”.
I ROTFLOL (Rolling Off The Floor Laughing Out Loud)!!! It’s so funny.
My favorite part is:
I've been browsing, inspectin'
X-men comics you know I collect 'em
The pens in my pocket
I must protect 'em

Even though pen-pocket is meant to protect your shirt’s pocket so there won’t be any ink stain…but who care, it rhyme!
I am currently in love with Weird Al and have wikipedia-ed him and learned that he was famous for making parody of popular song…like “White & Nerdy” is a parody of “Ridin’” by Chamillionaire. And my other favorite song “Fat” is a parody of “Bad” by Michael Jackson.

Technology Brings People Together

You don't need to know French to love Quynh Anh's"Bonjour Viet Nam". It's the way she sings...with so much emotion in her beautiful tone. I first caught of this song when my dad played it every night (and day too) after his best friend from Viet Nam sent it to him via email. He later told me to listen to it and asked me if I understand.
I of course had no idea what she was singing…until I asked my friend Thuy who took French for three years in High School.
With her help, I managed to understand why so many people love this song.
This is one of the "pros" technology has brought us. We can all complain about sexual predators targeting our children through the internet and about credit card frauds, but we all have to agree that technology has make the world a smaller place that connect people together.
It was a little more than a decade ago that the only way for my parents to contact their family in Viet Nam was to make an expensive phone call once every few month or maybe write a letter once in awhile…And often friendship lost its spark and connection because of lack of contact. But now, the internet had managed to make keeping contact easier.
Every Viet knows that Vietnamese citizens were force to scatter around the world since 1975. From what I know, there are Vietnamese in America to Russia…and the only place I know for sure that doesn’t have Vietnamese is Antarctica! (I checked the names of scientists who stay there…and none of them had a Vietnamese name at all.)
This “Bonjour Viet Nam” song with the help of the internet had managed to remind Vietnamese citizen abroad why they love their little war-torn country so much.





Here are the lyrisfor the song "Bonjor Viet Nam". On the right is the translated version. Listen and read and understand why Vietnamese love this song so much!

Racontes moi ce nom étrange et difficile à prononcer Que je porte depuis que je suis née. Racontes moi le vieil empire et le trait de mes yeux bridées, Qui disent mieux que moi ce que tu n'oses dire. Je ne sais de toi que des images de la guerre, Un film de Coppola, [et] des hélicoptères en colère ... Un jour, j'irai la bas, un jour dire bonjour à ton âme. Un jour , j'irai la bas [pour] te dire bonjour, Vietnam. Racontes moi ma couleur, mes cheveux et mes petits pieds, Qui me portent depuis que je suis née. Racontes moi ta maison, ta rue, racontes moi cet inconnu, Les marche's flottants et les sampans de bois. Je ne connais de mon pays que des photos de la guerre, Un film de Coppola, [et] des hélicopt ères en colère ... Un jour, j'irai la bas, un jour dire bonjour à mon âme. Un jour , j'irai la bas [pour] te dire bonjour, Vietnam. Et tant que les Boudhas de pierre pour mes pères, Les femmes courbées dans les rizie`res pour mes mères, Dans la pri ère, dans la lumière , revoir mes frères, Toucher mon âme, mes racines, ma terre ... Un jour, j'irai la bas, un jour dire bonjour à ton âme. Un jour , j'irai la bas [pour] Te dire bonjour, Vietnam (2 fois).

Tell me this name, strange and difficult to pronounce That I have carried since my birth Tell me the old empire and the feature of my slanted eyes Describing me better than what you dare not say I only know you from the war images A Coppola movie, (and) the angry helicopters Someday, I will go there, someday to say hello to your soul Someday, I will go there, to say hello to you, Vietnam Tell me my color, my hair and my small feet That I have carried since my birth Tell me your house, your street, tell me this unknown entity The floating markets and the wooden sampans I could only recognize my country from the war photos A Coppola movie, (and) the helicopters in anger Someday, I will go there, someday to say hello to your soul Someday, I will go there, to say hello to you, Vietnam The temples and the stone-carved Buddha statues for my fathers The stooping women in the rice fields for my mothers Praying in the light to see my brothers again To touch my soul, my roots, my land. Someday, I will go there, someday to say hello to your soul Someday, I will go there, to say hello to you, Vietnam (twice)

thankful

After checking out my partner's weblog and reading the posts. I was surprised when they talked about technologys help in the medical field. I didn't even think about that part yet! I know that technology help a lot in medical field and continues to improve our daily life. I feel so thankful to live in this century and in United States with all its cool tech. Technology continues to improve so that I can't keep up with it.
Especially the computer.
Computer components quickly get updated every six months and I can't afford to keep up with it any more. It's the dreamer in me who think I can afford to have the newest, most advanced computer!

shopping time

OMG!! Today everywhere it was so crowed. People going shopping to get ready for Christmas. I can't go shopping because I have to go to work early.
My friend had been saving her money since the end of summer for Black Friday. She is crazy! She and her brother planned to be shopping from midnight to morning!
She told me she got to Gilroy Shopping Outlets at midnight, but because of traffic, she didn't get there until 12:30 am. And because of that, she had to wait in line to get inside Banana Republic.
They had 40% off and because she is a VIP member, she got an extra 20%!
The line wasn't as long like they had at the PSP3 madness, but it took her two hours of waiting in line to get in because the security guard only let people in when there were people going out.
The temperature was about 35 degrees! It got colder and colder as the night passed. And poor Thuy, she couldn't buy a cup of tea or coffee from the coffee shop at all to keep her awake and warm.
She has a bad habit of going pee every half an hour if she sips one of those drinks! I was laughing out loud when she complained about that!
Nevertheless, she was happy with the purchase. She bought $600 worth of clothes and only paid abour $200!
So, she's happy!
She then hit Fry's! They opens at 5 am so she had to race from Gilroy to Brokaw Street in half an hour.
I told her that she was lucky that there was no cop on 101!
I am glad my friends had fun even if I didn't.
I might save money and do the "Black Friday Bargain Hunting" with my maniac friend.

"Why We Blog"

According to "why We Blog" by Bonnie A. Diane J. Schiano, Michelle Gumbrecht, and Luke Swartz, there are five major motivations for blogging: documenting the author's life, providing commentary and opinions, expressing deeply fets emtions, working out ideas, through writing and forming and maintaing communities or forums. These motivatons are by no mean mutually exclusive and can come into play simutaebously.
To me blogging it really helpful after reading an article or a book I can put my comment about what I read and try to express my feeling of the reading.
out of my mind
Ann Mai

What is a Weblog?

According to the article" Weblog: A Definition" weblog, or *blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first (see temporal ordering). Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal. Weblogs first appeared in the mid-1990s, becoming popular as simple and free publishing tools became available towards the turn of the century. Since anybody with a net connection can publish their own weblog, there is great variety in the quality, content, and ambition of weblogs, and A weblog may have anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of daily readers.
Example of weblogs are confessional online, diaries to logs tracking specific topics or activities through links commentary. Though weblogs are primarily textual, exprimention with sound, and video has resulted in related genres wuch as photoblogs, videoblogs, and audioblogs.
Before I read the article I was wondering what is the weblog. Now I finally know how to make one I will try to write my daily activities in my blog. It will helps me to improve my writing skills and I wil have fun exploring it!! Thank Ms. Patton for introducing this to me!! I'm so happy to have blog at my diary!!!!!
Yeahhhhh!!
Ann Mai

Debate

The debate on Thursday was really very interesting and fun. I really like that our class has such different points of view. Some of the classmate brought up ideas and opinions that had never occured to me. Nevertheless, I still stick to my opinion to support the space program.
I had often wondered why our government spent billions of dollars on NASA while there are thousands of homeless and Katrina victims as well as other national and international crisis…a.k.a. Iraq. But I am mature enough to realize that there will always problems and crisis in front of us and to say that we will worry about the space program when all the problems in the world are solved is to say never to the space program.
As we all are fully aware about Global Warming, we know that our planet won’t be a good place to live if we continue to live the way we live (like burning fossil fuel and obsession for energy). Another point I like to point out is that our sun is a medium-size star. It won’t stay this way forever. As we know, it will grow bigger and will burn hotter. And when it gets bigger, our beautiful planet Earth will become an Inferno…like Venus. It might not happen for a few billions of years, but all scientists know it will happen. We all want the human race to survive for as long as we can and so, we must search for a different planet…preferably in a different solar system…to live.
Another point I want to bring out is that we need more land!!! Populations in China and India are frighteningly huge! And land is always the same, so are our natural resources.
Again, I truly support the space program if it is use to find a new planet for my probably great-great-great-great-great…grandchildren to continue the human race. I paid my taxes so I should have a say in how it been spend…and I say that some percent of my tax should be used in finding me another home for as well as my latergeneration.

Few more post to write!!!
Ann Mai

Hybrid Work For November 10-19

I think Defeneres' essay is funnier than the Onion's "New Technological Breakthrough" because "This is How We Live" is mostly talking about our daily life. It makes me feel closer and I can really understand. However, in "New Technological Breakthrough" I can't understand what the author talking about. The "High Tech" stuff is too difficult for me. I enjoy reading " This is How We Live" but not the other one.

I agree with the automated toilet that flushes entirely on their own schudule. It happened to me couple time when I'm at the mall. I went in and sat down. I didn't even stand up yet and it automated flushed and water splashed all over my butt.

I disagree with Degeneres because usually the lazy people invent new techonology because when they lazy they are think about designs to help them.