footsteps in my daily life
A baby was baptized at the Mass today. His parents looked very happy. And so did the rest of the participants. As a part of the ritual, all the participants were expected to respond to the priest's questions by saying "Yes, I do." as follows for example: "Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints?"-"Yes, I do"... Although catholics say the Nicene Creed every Sundays, confirmation of faith in the ritual of a baptism seems to me something special and solemn...
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Later on I took P-san to several places in the town. I was glad to meet him since I had not seen him for quite a while...
I had been doing reading assignments almost all the time until 3pm, when I had an appointment with M-san at the student center. After I talked to M-san, I went to a class at 5pm. The points of today's class can be roughly summarized that the purposes of reading determine the styles or processes involved in reading, that in addition to linguistic factors, external factors such as a reader's past experiences or even social environment can play an important role in developing reading skills (cf. sponsors), and that reading comprehension consists mainly of two processes: lower-level processes and higher-level processes. The former one is rapid and automatic while the latter one requires higher cognitive abilities such as interpretation or drawing inferences...
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To become a fluent L2 reader, one needs to achieve "automaticity" in the lower-level processes, which can be obtained by putting him/herself into enormous amount of exposure to print.
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I talked to C-san on the phone after a long while... He seems to have had good time during his trip.
I took a group of Korean students to a grocery store. After that I visited C-san at his house, where he shared with me the stories of his travels. We then had lunch together.
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Later on I went to J-san's house. Since she would leave for Korea tomorrow, N-san asked me to join her for J-san's farewell get-together. J-san cooked Korean food, N-san cooked Thai soup, C-san baked a cake, and I just brought with me ice cream for dessert... Foods were all delicious, and we had a pleasant time. Each one of us has our own individual path to follow, and none of which must be the same at all, however, I believe the friendship we cultivated here will always be the same for years and years to come...
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I then attended the ISC meeting.
I stopped by the resource room in the Ling. Department to borrow some more books for a material review assignment. In the mailbox room, I talked to K-san and P-san.
Today was a kind of hectic day. In the morning, I took a Korean student to a bank. I then went out for lunch with C-san. After that C-san and I went to a copy provider to dupicate some documents. I then finally finished up sending in a report that I had been required to make out... Later on, I picked up C-san at the library and went to a couple of places to buy some necessaries. And so, I had dinner with C-san and his housemate at his place.
I joined J-san, A-san, and many others for a party to celebrate Chinese New Year. I enjoyed delicious hot-pot dishes and had a good time with pleasant friends. We played card games as well as a game called "Truth & Dare". It was almost 4am when the party was brought to a close.
The space shuttle Columbia blew up in the air and seven crews were all killed by the accident. I was reminded of the space shuttle Challenger's accident at the scene of the explosion. The world was filled with grief today... I cannot imagine how much sorrow the victim's family felt at the tragedy... I wish that the lives the deceased sacrificed in the mission will bear fruit in the future, and that the sorrow of the people will be healed soon...