Last summer, my parents encouraged me help my grandparents harvest rice. Frankly speak, I had never done it before. But guessing it will be fun, I agreed. So I went to one of our grandparents’ rice fields to cut down rice. In the beginning,   I was excited, but soon I found the job tired. Besides, my arms were covered with several small painful cuts causing by the rice’s leaves. In the spite of these, I didn’t give up. Together, we spent four days gathering the crops, during that we chatted on fun things and laughed joyful. The experience made a deep impression to me.

During my last summer holiday, I go to the countryside to enjoy myself. I saw mother bird in her nest in a big tree, watching some of her baby flying away. I thought she must be very proud of her children, that were able to find her own food now. But she might also feel a sense of loss since they wouldn’t need of her day-to-day care any longer. For my parents, things are many easier. We have set up our family blog to posting our photos and journals. Once I leave for college, we can convenient share our experiences but support each other. Their “nest” will never be empty.

You cannot imagine how exciting I was, when we had such a precious chance to do some picking on a local farm, for we had expected it for long time. The farm, what is about one hour’s drive from our school, cover an area of 6 times the size of our school. We devoted the first 2 hours to collect tomatoes as well as eggplants but spent another 2 hours gathering strawberries. And at dinnertime, the food materials gathered by us becomes a wonderful meal, much to our surprise. This activity not only enriches our knowledges, but also lets us to get so close to nature. I look forward to enjoying much more similar activities in the future.

Travelling abroad, you should follow the customs of the country you were visiting. When you are invited, that is good manners to refuse or accept the invitation either by writing and by telephoning. If you go to a party, it is polite to arrive on the time. It is good manners to shake hands to your host. You can take a present if you like, possible a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates or some flower. However, it is not bad manners to take nothing. It is not polite stay too late after the other guests have gone. Also, it has suggested to write or telephone a day or two later to thank our host.

I’m sitting in the warm night air with a cold drink in my hand and reflecting the day- a day of purely magic! I went snorkeling on the reef offshore this morning and it’s the most fantastic things I have ever done. Seeing such an extraordinary beauty, I think every cell in my body woke up. It was like discover a whole new dimension of life.

The first thing I become aware of was all the vivid colors surrounding me – purples, reds, oranges, yellows, blues or greens. The corals were fantastic — they were shaping like fans, plates, brains, lace, mushrooms, the branches of trees and the horns of deer. And many small, neat and elegant fish were swimming in and around the corals. The fish didn’t seem to mind me swimming among it. I especially loved the little orange and white fish what hid in the seaweed.

Last year I attend a study tour in Scotland. The family who I was staying with was so friend. One day they took me to place that is called Loch Ness. I learned that "loch" is a Scottish word that mean "lake". There are stories for a Loch Ness monster(怪物), called Nessie. A famous photo of Nessie which was taking in 1934 kept the story alive. There are still reports from people who say I have seen the monster because they can clearly to see its huge long neck. For several hour we sat by the lake and enjoyed the picnic what we had brought. However, there was no huge monster to be seen!