Family Circle

又是一年,辞旧迎新的时候.外面灿烂绚丽的烟火.辉煌鼎盛.今年家里的春联写:”抬头见喜喜气盈门,举步迎春春回大地” 横批:吉祥如意. 喜庆的红纸映衬着热闹的光景.

每逢佳节倍思亲.给全家最好的新春祝福, 猪年吉祥!诸事顺利!

“Ha Ha Ha Ha! Let’s see if you can catch me, Rauzs!”
“*Pant* *Pant*. You know I can’t run that fast, Yojiniq.”
Yojiniq, Rauzs, and Jeshinmin Lliemen were extraordinary kids. They had special talents of their own. Yojiniq could read, speak, and write super fast in Greek, Chinese (all dialects), Latin, German, Vietnamese, English, and Tarlainian, the country’s language. He also could run extraordinarily fast. Rauzs was very slow in running, but he had remarkable memory. He recently remembered how to create the Trilenmentshai, a potion made to force the truth out of someone, and a list of phobias from A to Z, all in seven minutes. And as for Jeshinmin, she could play the Harp (all kinds), Piano, Violin, Cello, Trumpet, Tuba, Flute, Recorder, and French Horn very well.
When you hear the word “potion”, you might think of a wizard or witch. It just came to be that all of them had a special drop of witch ancestry in their blood, for they were the great-great-great-great-great grandchildren of Yaenhiz Larntondos, a brave and famous wizard. The trio was playing Sneak-Seek-Stun, a wizard game where it’s like hide and seek, except you have to stun them before you win. It was a very fun game, though it could only be played once a month, for you will be stunned permanently if you do it too much.
They were just about finished when their mother came home. She was a stout, pompous lady which you would expect her voice to be a croak. She would be extremely cruel to her triplets. Worst of all, she hated magic, which meant she hated them. She married a wizard because he never said about him being a wizard until after they married, and it was illegal to divorce in their world. “Time for dinner!!” she yelled. Spaghetti and meatballs for the triplets. Always. Never different. When they finished eating, their friendly dad would come home to a welcoming meal. You see, their mom never revealed the secret of the food, for she thought that the father would get rid of her in some way, like turning her in to a hot dog or a pack of fries to give to the poor. She acted very sweet to him.
Several years later, their mom could hold it no longer. She sent them to the beach, killed her husband, and got sent to jail all in one quick move. While they were at the beach, a police gave them a note. It read:

To Yojiniq, Rauzs, and Jeshinmin,

It has been faithfully and truthfully told that your Father was killed and your Mother, sent to jail. Your new supervisor will henceforth be known as Dr. Stephen R. Lectortz, Aquanaut, Off the Florida keys, Florida, U.S.A., N. America, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Local Group, Universe 72. He will be teaching you all he knows, and will give you food and everything else you need.

Cordially,
Police #90874532

The children sat dumbstruck and shocked at the message. Father killed? New supervisor? Milky Way? Soon, the police, who Rauzs thought looked suspiciously like their mother slowly walked to the police car, noted, “Made specially for Police #90874532, Martinda Larkshon.” She quickly vroomed away. Jeshinmin doubted the message. “I can’t belive it.” she cried. “Where do you think he is?” “Maybe he’s still in the house.” Yojiniq said. When they got back, the house was a total mess. Tables were flipped over, and lamp toppers were upside down on statues’ heads. Their father lay in a corner of the room, his face ashy gray. His chest had a hole on the left side, probably from a X900 laser. There was something bulging in his pocket. Yojiniq slowly took it out, shivering out of his skin. “The fla-”Suddenly, an arrow shot it and the item disappeared. Stuck on the arrow was a note. This one, done in scribbly writing, read:

run away at once you hav touced some thing toop seret do not go to earth

“Wait! I’m remembering something weird!” Rauzs shouted. “Police #90874531, often known as ‘The Last Policeman’, was bad a-”
“Isn’t ‘Martina Larkon’ or something one number after?” Yojiniq interrupted.
“Why do I always get interrupted? It’s Martinda Larkshon and you’re right, but the police station doesn’t not let any new police come in. And, The Last Policeman was bad at spelling. Wait. I just saw a man-or rather, woman looking into the window. See, that window.” He pointed to the window at his right. “You can see the woman’s hair!”
“Shhhh!”
“You shhhh!”
“Quiet!”
Everybody wondered who she was, but Rauzs remembered the hairdo from Martinda Larkshon. Everyone was thinking of something, at least. Rauzs wondered if they should still go to Earth. Jeshinmin pondered about the strange hairdo and how much it seemed like, well, someone familiar. And Yojiniq thought about the strange note and the item in his father’s pocket. While they were sitting and staring into space, the woman disappeared.
It took a few minutes until Jeshinmin finally gathered her spirits. She woke the others up and they ran from the crime scene. They reached a broad shopping street full of people and Yojiniq finally asked, “Should we still go to Earth? I mean, we didn’t get the money, but Rauzs could maybe assemble an aircraft to shoot us there.” Rauzs gave him a serious look. “What?” he asked. Yojiniq gave him an unassuming smile. “Let’s go to the fitting rooms, where it’s more private.” Jeshinmin said. “Anyone can hear us now.”
In the end, Rauzs finally objected to building a spacecraft from a book he had read from the library six years ago. They hurriedly rented a free apartment when there was space and started building. They traveled far with their sinuous bodies to get the strange ingredients for the flexible material. Soon, it was ready, and it looked like a standing octopus.
“Hmmm… this needs to be started in water at extreme speed, then it will take off. There will be no gravity helpers, and it will shoot us straight to Earth! Now, how are we going to shoot it through the water?” Everyone looked at Yojiniq, who was dancing around. But the Lleimens were looking because of a different reason. His feet could kick terribly fast, which would propel them through the water. So, they carried the aircraft to Kalmias Beach, and set off for the daring journey. At first, it was all calm waters, but an enormous wave swept them away, just before liftoff. They flew out in a different angle, and they had reached the point of no return. Trying desperately to shift slowly to the right to be on the road to earth, Rauzs succeeded. But he forgot to include the control for going left when he was a bit too much on the right, so he whimpered.
Suddenly, a strange shape overlooked them. It was mostly a circular shape with a pinkish-bluish-orangish gooey-looking substance in the middle. There were small details on the bottom and top, and when Yojiniq saw it, he thought it looked like a bubble blower, and Jeshinmin thought it looked like a metallic hula-hoop with soap in the middle. But the worst thing was that they were headed toward the middle!

To be continued…

In David’s chess class, the instructor asked students to arrange “8 queens” on a chess board, without any queens attacking each other.

In other words, it is a game of positioning 8 pieces on a 8 by 8 board. On any row, any column, and any diagnals, there should have at most one piece. (If more than one piece, they are fighting with each other.)

You can try it to see if you can find any such positions. If you can find one or two such positions, you are pretty good. But if you want to figure out how many possible positions there can be, that is for sure very challenging. You must be a genius if you can figure it out by pure analysis.

I has coded a program which can tell you all the possible positions in a second. You can download the zip file queengame.zip. It will show you a total of 92 positions.

Our family had a vacation in Hawaii this month. This time, we visited island Oahu, staying at Waikiki area. Comparing to our last visit to island Maui years ago, Oahu seems to be crowded and too commercialized. But it was still a great Hawaii vacation, especially for David and Emily. We visited Diamond Head, Pearl Harbor, Hanauma Bay, Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center, Chinatown, Sea Life Park, and lots of beaches: Waikiki beach, North beach, Kailua beach and Lanikai beach.

Tingping has moved forward from his previous position of the Principal of Songyang Normal School to the vice Dean of College of Education, in Jinhua.

谢廷平已经辞去松阳师范学校校长和党委书记之职, 转而赴任教育学院党委副书记. 恭贺就任更大院校的领导岗位!

To all of our family members and our dear friends: Wish you have a great Holiday season!

We invited many friends to our home for Christmas party. Sure we ate a lot from noon to late night, and we played foosball, basketball and cards. And there were quite a few enthusiatic singers. David, Emily and friends played their own games.

As usual, we have setup Christmas deco around home; and David and Emily were very happy to receive great gifts from Santa, since they were doing so well the past year……
David has been great in school work, story writing, swimming, and playing the Piano. And Emily likes dancing, writing, drawing, and could count to 100!

Christmas photos:

	Christmas tree, 2006.
	Home decorations for Christmas
	Emily is riding a pony! (Emily likes to ride pony and horse - David being the pony, and Dad being the horse).
	David and Emily are cuddling in the Christmas morning… posed right before opening gift boxes.
	… and here you go … what do you get from Santa ?
	Christmas Eve in Walnut Creek home … Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm, All is bright…

所有的烟火,交织着美丽的心情.在最好的时候,盛大光景.

Best wishes to everybody : )

Merry Christmas and Happy New year!
In China,today is Christmas Eve.
Today I have just finished the CET-3.En~~Just so so.CET-3 is as difficult as College entrance examination.I think I could pass.
The photos are my practice in summer vacation.
He is the teacher of anchorperson.It is a music program.

This is the room of broadcasting live
She is another teacher of lead broadcast

A few days ago, I had a week-long trip to warm, tropical Hawai’i. I went to mant places, including beaches, parks, and aquariums. I even went to the DOLE plantation, the headquarters of the DOLE juice company. Yes, I did go to a lot of places, but the one I liked best was the PCC, or Polynesian Cultural Center.

The PCC is a place where you can learn about the Polynesian Islands, the islands in the Pacific. You can explore from the hula-ing Hawai’i to the twisting Tahiti.

There were seven exhibits, Hawai’i, Aotearoa, Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji, Tonga, and Marquesas, though we only got to see three. Each have different traditions and different ways of living, but they all share many properties. I am going to tell you about them.

HAWAI’I

Aloooha!! Hawai’i is a mystical place, full of adventures of every kind. They invented hula dancing and lei making. Did you know in ancient Hawai’i, kids wouldn’t wear any clothes at all until eight? You wore clothes when you were expected to help out and work. If ancient hawaiians stepped in to the future, they’d be awestruck at all the “responsible eight and olders”. Still, you could play Ulu Maika (Hawaiian bowling), Konane (Hawaiian checkers), and Pala’ie (A loop-and-ball game) anytime.

Aotearoa

Kia Ora and welcome to Aotearoa, “The Land of the Long White Cloud”. Did you know that this is the only Polynesian island that has noticeable four seasons? They speak mainly Maori and English, but there are actually many small ingredients that make up the people’s languages that they speak there. Also inventor of the “Poi Ball”, two balls connected to stringsand twirling them so they hit you on the head and each other in perfect rhythm.These helped males in war with weabons, because they aim and rhythm. Also, in wars they would tattoo themselves brightly on the face and stick out their toungues every once in a while.

Samoa

Talofa,(Hurry up, respond with Talofa Lava) and welcome to Samoa, where optimistic, happy-go-lucky samoans dwell.They depend mostly on coconut for a diet. Men climbed trees, made fires, and squashed the milk and juice out of the coconut while women weaved. Long ago, they also had tattoos, bright tattoos of nature.

Tahiti

Iaorana and welcome to the island of Tahiti, home of the fast hip-shaking dance, called the Tamure. don’t get confused with it and the hula! The island is pretty clear, but if you want to go there, pack up with hundreds upon hundreds of language teaching books, because there are a lot of languages spoken there!

Fiji

I say Bula, you say Bula Vinaka. Fiji is directly at the side of the Polynesian Triangle, a triangular shape where all the Polynesian Islands lie. They have strange ways of living. They say that their heads are sacred, so they don’t ever wear hats. Hair was a symbol of manhood, so so you’d be kept bald until you were eighteen! But with their cows, when europeans brang them, the cows went “moo” and “miiee”!

Tonga

Malo ‘e Lelei and welcome to Tonga, where King Taufa’ahau IV, the last remaining monarch, ruled. The island is located smack-dab on the international date line, so they get to “drop the ball” first. They love language and sound, so they play drums and sing songs on New Year.

Marquesas

Ka Oha.This is one of the not-so-famous islands of Polynesia. Marquesans believe that sicknesses are made by supernatural forces. If you did something bad, you would get sick. Healers track their patient’s recent actions to determine the reason of sickness. Usually, they would massage them to relieve their patient’s sicknesses. If they got bitten or hurt, they would hit the wound with a stick so the blood would rush out and “cleanse” the wound.

This is a Choose a meeting pair in our college in November.It almost had 160 broadcasting stations,Television station and companies.I am a reporter of broadcasting station in our college,so I went and gather material. There have some pictures of that.