Respond to novel - Chap.2,3

By chapter by chapter, it is getting more interesting about figuring out about new words or the other new character , such as the words "Alethimeter", "Dust", or the new character "Mrs.Coulter" who appears in the end of the chapter 3. On Chapter 2, Lord Asriel makes Lyra to keep hiding in the wardrobe and listen to the every single word what Master says. Therefore, with no choice, otherwise she was also curious about the wine, she agrees to hide herself. During her uncle's speech, she hears all the things that the Master and the Librarian whispering, and she was also curious about one part of her uncle's lecture which he'd mentioned about the Dust.

However, on chapter 3, the author mentions about the whole history and rumor and the things people saying about the 'kidnapping group' called "Gobblers". According to the rumor, this is some kind of mysterious group who steals little children. Also, a beautiful young lady with her daemon golden monkey is the person who attracts the children. At that time, Lyra founds out that Rogers, who is Lyra's best friend in Jordan College, was also missing. She tries to find, but he is nowhere. However, at that time her uncle introduces Lyra ,few of the persons concerned to him, but there was a woman with a golden monkey whose name is Mrs. Coulter.

In my opinion, Mrs.Coulter could be the person who is suspected by the Oxford people as a "Gobbler". First of all, I can only guess by her appearence, because that is the only thing that had mentioned until chapter 3. However, it ended with her name, so I believe she might be the person who is the 'Gobbler'. I think Lyra would be the main character who solves and finds about Mrs.Coulter and about the things happened to her friend, Roger.

Understanding Behavior

According to the chapter in the text book, it was interesting to find about the variety sides of behavior.In the book, it also says that behavior is a very important part of the ecological role of any animal. It definitely affects them to survive and reproduce. Last, but not least the book tolds that the actions of the animal have the same motivation as the human being. However, we can't guarantee whether its motivation or directions are same as the human being or not. The animals may not have the same motivations unless we could figure out what they're thinking about.

For me, the most interesting part was "Human behavior",that "phobia" such as a fear of snakes isn't a natural(heredity) behavior, but a learned behavior. Actually, when I think of the days I was young, I had never been afraid of the bugs, flies or insects as well. I didn't react any differently than to other moving objects as it mentions in the book.

Girl Suicide

According to the article " Girl Suicide", which I've read today morning on the newspaper, the rate of teenage suicide is increasing rapidly than before. Surprisingly, The average age of the teen suicide is 15~16 years old. Moreover, the method of killing themselves also have changed. Recently, they are using their own firearms instead of strangling themselves. That means even the young teenagers can purchase guns or weapons easily than the past days. Experts are now in urge to solve this social problem , which is spreading fast to the whole country.

These days 'Teen Suicide' also has been a serious problem in my country, Korea. Unlike in the U.S, most of the teenagers jump down from the high building or the apartment. Usually , the reason is because of the grade(score) in schools or the pressure by their parents. From the research, Korean parents have almost the highest passion of education to their children among the other countries. This causes their children stressful and to be cowered. I believe that is why they choose to kill themseleves.

However, I didn't realize that this is also a big problem in the U.S. We should solve this problem quickly before we can't even deal with it. In my opinion, I think it's too easy to get a gun(firearm) in the U.S. The stores must have a limitation of a certain age of selling the products such as weapons or guns. Also, most of them who kill themselves just need a person to listen to their troubles in mind. If you read something on their face, I believe you should not just ignore and pass them by.

Respond to novel - Chap.1

The Golden Compass, which I am reading these days, is an interesting novel. Although I have read only few of the pages, I am very curious about the rest of the stories that will happen next time.

In the story, the girl whose name is Lyra is a very interesting character. From the novel, I found out that she like to detect and solve the issue what she had seen in the wardrobe. However, even though her uncle, Asriel, was fierce and even she had be punished by him, for some reason Lyra seems that she just doesn't want to ignore the thing that had happened while was in the wardrobe.

However, according to the novel I'm expecting that Lyra might be a person who would be a defenitive character and find a conclusive evidence for this case,as well.

My Strengths and Weaknesses in Writing

I have been studying English since I was in middle school in Korea. For this reason, English was always part of my life. Actually, English has been a 2nd language in my country even now. It is important to get a high-level job, as well. That is why I choose to come here and study abroad in U.S to improve my English skills, and it certainly helped me to improve writing skills by studying abroad.
However, my strengths in writing are vocabularies. Of course, I am not perfectly fluent as native speakers, but I'm getting much better in this part since I came here. Actually , I have lived in U.S for about 2~3years when I was a little child. Even though my memories in U.S are unclear, because I was such a little child, that experience in U.S really helped me improving English than before and it was much easier to understand than other foreigners in ELI. I believe my ability of making vocabularies have been set at that time.
On the other hand, my weaknesses in writing are structures. I always get confused which grammer that I have to use in a certain sentence. When I came here to learn English, I got more confused because I had to learn in English and I couldn't understand few of vocabularies and had to find the dictionary and translate all the words quickly. However, that didn't really helped me to improve my grammer skills. For that reason, to improve my structure skills, I decided to just listen and pay attention what the teacher was trying to say in class, and I studied alone after class and I only asked questions that I really can't solve by myself. It seems simple, but it took a long time and patience to study. Now, I believe I am getting better than before because of this method that I tried.