Family Circle

I am thankful to see:

v A lovely, psychedelic tweeting bird in the forest that chippers away.
v Warm sunlight that brightens up every day in our lives.
v Animals so happy that they have undisturbed homes.
v Poor old men getting charity during holidays having a glumptious meal.

I am thankful to smell:

v The great aroma of baking Thanksgiving turkey.
v The fresh fragrance of a flower in full bloom.
v The wonderful scent of fruit juice being pressed.
v The fresh smell of pine in a deep forest in the afternoon.

I am thankful to taste:

v The mouthwatering, fresh cranberries that color our Thanksgiving feast.
v The delicious turkey gift of peace between two past worlds: Pilgrim and Indian.
v Yummy morsels of scrumptious pie.
v Sweet, ripe apples picked from the best vine.

I am thankful to touch:

v The soft, warm down of a newly hatched chick.
v Wet maple leaves midst spring’s soft showers.
v The rough texture of the cement-and-wood walls of my school.
v The bounciness of my mattress in the dark night.

I am thankful to hear:

v Children laughing in happiness while playing together.
v The loud cry of a big blue whale swimming deep in the ocean.
v The soft tweet of a blue bird in the backyard
v The soft pattering of feet from sweat-beading racers on a circular track.

The state of California is a great state. Lots of rivers, fresh air, flowers and mountains. But did you know that it has many capitals? Yes, it does. And I am going to tell you what they are.

In the early days of California, when it was ruled by Mexico, the official seat of government was Loreto in Lower California and Alta in upper California. Soon, the “Alta California”, or northern California, gained in importance and the capital got changed to Monterey in 1777. This was before California was a state.

Then, in 1849, The capital got shifted even north, to San Jose. Here people voted for California to be a state. The counters counted and counted and finally, California became the way it is today. Imagine if California wasn’t a state then! (We would still be living, but not living in this great place.) San Jose also became the site of the first meeting of the state’s governing body, known as the Legislature of 1,000 Drinks.

Soon, time passed and it became 1851. A no one-knows-who person dropped a slip on the govenor’s table while walking out of the building. It talked about making the capital Vallejo for some time. Why not? Council members thought. Let’s approve it. But when facilities there were found to be insufficient, they changed it again to Benicia.

Benicia was kind of a success, but it soon occoured that it had the same problem. Exactly. The council was not so happy. It was 1854. People were tired and annoyed. Every time they changed, it wasn’t right. What could they do?

Soon someone came up with a better idea. “It’s a place that everyone knows that won’t have problems.” The had a discoussion and It was done. “Sacramento it shall be!” they concluded. Everyone cheered.

Sacramento it was, and Sacramento it is. Sacramonto is a bustling city, full of cars and buses. You can see the great capitol building. It also contains the train museum and the state history museum. Someday you can come to this great state’s capital.

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Class project by David Xie, 2006.11.08, before going to Sacramento field trip, visiting State Capitol and Musuems.

SUITABLE MOMENTS FOR EATING PICKLES:

Sitting in a sturdy chair with nothing to do;
With nothing noisy in sight.
Being not hurried or raced,
Or while eating lunch.

UNSUITABLE MOMENTS FOR EATING PICKLES:

Right in the middle of class,
In a grand concert,
Or while someone is having a serious conversation with you.

TO BE AVOIDED WHILE EATING PICKLES

While doing homework,
While sleeping,
While doing a great piece of art,
Or while composing a magical piece.

TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS:

When someone is going to crash you in a car,
While one is bullying you,
While eating a shark
Or when it’s eating you!!

by: DAVID XIE

Alcohol, illegal drugs, and tobacco are unneeded. Unneeded and useless, not to forget bad. Drugs ruin your life, and you might become an alcoholic if you drink too much. It’s better to just say “NO!” to drugs. Here are some ways to help you live a better life, and stay away from drugs.

PHYSICAL FITNESS

Doing physical things such as hiking, swimming, playing basketball or soccer prevent you from getting fat and having a lot of colesterol. It also lets you hang around with friends and family, who hopefully don’t do drugs.

ACTIVITIES TO HELP YOUR COMMUNITY

Activities with friends such as raking leaves, picking up trash, or planting plants are fun, educational, and helping the environment. Sitting in front of the T.V. may be fun, but you might become a couch potato! Ovbiously no one wants to be that. So you can spend your time doing fun activities instead.

FOOD CHOICES

Good food choices matter too. if you eat too much fries or hamburgers, you might have a build-up of cholesterol and have health problems. But too much of a good kind of food can be damageable, too. So eat a little bittie of everything. Build-ups are bad and should be avoided and if you have one, you should be on a diet or exersize a lot. Remember to eat healthy!

If you aren’t doing these suggestions, try to do them. If you are, great!

PEOPLE HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN DRUGS!!!

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By David Xie, 2006.10.24

p.s. This article was a class project in “Red Ribbon Week” - Say No to Drugs. It has been chosen to be video-taped for Murwood News Network (MNN).

ps:This “篆刻” was found on the net.I like it very much.I just can’t translate it into English.Maybe I can get help from here : )

by Junyu Mai

Aric is no longer interested in cartoon costumes, so this year he chose a really scary one – a vampire costume. When he was walking on the street with his friends for trick or treat, he noticed someone wearing the same kind of costume walking past him. That kid is a little shorter than Aric, jump over the step stones, waving a purple light stick. Aric is not very happy to see he is wearing the same thing as somebody else. But, what can you do, the store is selling hundreds of them. And many people just have the same favorites.

As Aric was thinking, the boy suddenly fell down and his purple light stick was crashed. Aric went up to help him stand up.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes. But my light stick…” The boy was almost crying.

“Don’t worry. If you like, you can have mine. It’s orange color though.” Aric felt he instantly grew up a lot more.

“Oh, thank you so much!”

“You are very welcome!”

Aric quickly caught up with his friends and they visited the houses on the street one by one and got lots of candies. Strangely, that boy followed them all the way.

At the end of the street, behind a huge oak tree, there was a dark house with only a dim light at the porch. A basket of candies was outside the door. Apparently nobody was inside. When Aric was just about to pick a candy from the basket, the door opened by itself. It was totally dark inside.

The boy following Aric quietly entered. Aric could only see his orange light stick glowing.

“Come on in!”

The moment Aric stepped inside, the door shut closed. All of a sudden, he realized that the house was actually full of light and color. The living room was two-story tall, filled with all different kind of toys from the floor to the ceiling. There were robots walking on the floor, airplane models flying in the air, and fishes and crabs blowing bubbles inside a huge tank.

“This is my home. Would you like to stay for a while?”

“Wow!”

The boy began to show Aric how to play all those fancy toys. Aric was amazed.

Feeling a little bit warm, Aric took off his mask.

“Why don’t you take off your mask too?” Aric asked.

“I like it this way better. You know it is Halloween…”

Aric turned his head to the troop of automatic hotwheel cars jumping through a waterfall and didn’t pay attention to the boy’s words.

Aric tried all the toys and suddenly realized it was getting late. Fortunately, when he left the boy’s house, his friends were still waiting for him outside. Aric tried to tell his friends what a wonderful time he had, nobody believed him because,

“You had only been inside for a minute!”

…

The next morning, Aric couldn’t stop thinking about that boy and his toy house. Who is he? He must be in the same school as me. Maybe we can play again. So Aric asked his Mom to take him to the boy’s home.

To Aric’s surprise, that was a shabby one-story house. When an old woman answered the door, he could see nothing special in the living room. After Aric’s Mom explained their purpose, the old woman looked puzzled,

“Are you sure it is this house? Only me and my old husband are living here.”

…

On the way back home, as Aric was thinking about every toy he played last night, the boy’s voice flashed back together with the hotwheel cars,

“You know it is Halloween, my favorite holiday. It’s the only day I don’t need to wear any costume.”

- the End -

October 26, 2006

“Oh, please don’t be sold,” June cried, I love you!” She was crying to Beauty, a horse. But the next day, Beauty had to be sold. Beauty didn’t want to and whinnied but somebody bought her. June’s father said that the buyer was mysterious. June cried until there was quite a big puddle of her tears. She stared into it. Something was different. She blinked. Her reflection was gone. June looked around. She almost fainted when she saw her reflection standing next to her. “You want your horse, do you?” asked her reflection. “She’s in the house.”
What house? June thought. She looked in front of her. An abandoned house, about eight hundred years old, stood in front of her. A black cat rubbed around her knees. She moved her hand and accidentally knocked over salt. She was forced to walk under a ladder. Something was telling her not to go in.
But she did go, and surely, there was bad luck. She slipped on a banana peel and fell into a trap. She knew that the horse had fallen in also because Beauty was fighting an army of skeletons. June tried to help but her legs were glued. June squirmed and squirmed and she finally got free. They fought and fought, but it was almost impossible to defeat those skeletons. They finally destroyed the army. A friendly vamp came in and helped us out. He changed into a giant bat to bring them out. “Thank you very much,” June said. “Goodbye” He shouted after June and Beauty, for he was leaving. June’s reflection arrived when she came out. “Did you buy the horse?” June asked. Her reflection nodded yes. “Good-bye” said her reflection. June and Beauty were reunited at last.

- By David Xie and Richard Stone

In an evening, a boy was reading a book to his dog. “Once upon a time,” he started,

“A boy called Lleiven Tonsharr had gone out to a mysterious house for trick-or-treating. He slowly walked up the door. ‘KNOCK, KNOCK!’ An echo bounced around the inside of the house. The door slowly creaked open. ‘Commme innn, Lleiven Tonsharr!’ a voice wailed. ‘H-h-ow d-do you know my name?’ He stammered. ‘Commme innn!!’ Exasperating, he slowly walked in. BAMM! The door slammed shut. ‘Helllllp!’ He cried. He tried to open the door, but no matter how hard he tried, the door wouldn’t budge.

Frightened and lonely, he sat on a couch and cried. ‘You’re not scared, are you?’ A queer voice questioned. Lleiven looked up. A girl, about twelve, was staring at him. ‘This will help you’ She handed him a paper, encoded in strange words. ‘Elnqo Ynmux Cwopc Fwzsz Ygatz’ ‘Huh?’ ‘You’d better run,’ she said, ‘or something might happen to you. By the way, I am one of the most powerful creatures in this mansion. I’ll be following you, just in case.’ This didn’t make sense to him at all. Suddenly, the girl mysteriously disappeared.

While he was studying the page, a gruesome laugh sent shivers up his spine. Slowly, he looked up. This message probably means to go up the stairs, he thought, there might be an exit. Very slowly, he walked up. Lleiven was mesmerized by the strange voice. “ Come, my child, and get ready to see your fate!!”

It was a dreadful laugh, unearthly, hideous, and repulsive. It terrorized him, cackling and grotesque.

He soon saw what was making the noise. A cursed epitaph, titled “THE VOODOO GUIDE TO REIHIEDEIS” was speaking into an intercom. The book was opened at a bizarre angle. Next to the book was the girl. She snapped her fingers.

Suddenly, a coffin swept over him. Another code was above him, shining. ‘Gcibn Tjjvu Giupa Kfbnz’. Lleiven thought and thought, not knowing that it read, ‘Free the ghost of Lor.’

‘ CREATE A CHART IN YOUR MIND,’ the book said. Lleiven thought of this:
Gcibn
Tjjvu
Giupa
Kfbnz

‘READ UP TO DOWN, NOT LEFT TO RIGHT!’
‘Gtgkcjifijuvbvpnnuaz’, He whispered.
‘SUBTRACT THE LETTERS BY YOUR BIRTH’
Lleiven remembered that his birthday was 12/26/92, ‘Hmm… G-1=F, T-2=R’
‘AND THAT SHALL BRING YOU BACK TO EARTH!’
After a few minutes of continuous cackling from the book and thinking from Lleiven, he shouted, ‘FREE THE GHOST OF LOR!’

The lid flew off, and Lleiven was free. A piece of paper drifted on to his head. ‘The ghost of Lor is a prisoner of the skeletonys people. They are not skeletons. They carry swords, daggers, guns, shields, et cetera. They are located in the east room’s lobby. The ghost is kept in a cage in the east room’s kitchen.’ It read. Lleiven looked over the page and noticed a page from the book flapping wildly because of the stretch of the spine. It ripped off, and floated above Lleiven’s head. He grabbed it, and it was the map of the house. Soon, he found that he was in the west room’s bathroom. In half a bat minute, he got to the east room’s lobby. The girl followed him. Then, he saw a skeletonys. It was a bloodthirsty, slime oozing, foul creature. It had an eagle head; ten arms, each holding a weapon. It had countless tentacles for legs and stunk badly. Lleiven noticed that someone had tried to behead him, but failed, for he had a cut in his neck. Another slid into view, even bigger and smellier than the first. Lleiven spotted a shield and picked it up. Immediately, they began to fight. After a lot of dodging, hitting, running, slashing, ‘Ow!’ing, and ‘oh no!’ing, Lleiven prevailed. He found the key from the skeletonys’ belt and freed the ghost of Lor from the cage.

‘A wise decision!’ The ghost said. But the ghost was not what it seemed. The girl’s soul got sucked into the ghost. It turned to a great size, thundering with every word it said. The ghost cursed Lleiven, and he became the first vampire. The End”

Finished the boy. He patted on the dog, then turned off the light and went to sleep.

The next day, he was late to school. He came in the classroom when Mrs. Schouenbergen was taking roll.
“Marley Reghetti?”
“Here”
”Marta Lovelace?”
“Here.”
“Lleiven Tonsharr?”

- By David Xie, 2006.10.20

思念在即，回家在即。

轻数着日子，然后等待。家竟然是一种这样的想念。时间最厉害。我们试图淡漠一些东西的时候，它就鲜活的跳出来。提醒曾经给我们的印记。一年，在这个北方城市，习惯了狂风，习惯了干冷，甚至习惯了满眼的荒芜，可是我知道，时间告诉我，我不属于这里。印象中杂花生树，莺飞草长的夏季，潮湿温润的细碎石子铺向街巷。都是可以微笑并温暖的。

可以这样描述，无论喧嚣或安静，所有的声响和气味会聚成一个海洋。城市。家.骨子里都是浅淡而安宁的气质。一种平和自然的状态和安静的呼吸，是值的所有人去交换的。可以很勇敢，也可以与世无争，清丽或洒脱，简单的选择。

一种安宁的姿态思考，家的感觉。从来都不需要很多话，不需要表白，它就是那个样子，很好的驻守在那里。但是，无可憾动。曾经用决绝的姿态要离开束缚，其实，身上早有线，牵在家的旁边.

会用很多时间想念，南方岁月。柳枝下的垂钓，稻草堆里的欢呼雷动，或纵横交错的河流里酣畅的游泳。这些辉煌的，精彩的年少时候，被折叠起来，很好的藏在一个地方。翻开它们，是可以温暖并微笑的。当心里最软一点被牵动，那毫无疑问，就是它们。刻录的幸福和誓言。听说过一句话，不为彼岸只为海。

一直在行走。也一直相信环境是一种历练，一种过程。在这里，依然会微笑，依然很简单的生活。直至现在，要回家去。往南方岁月去。

ps: This little essay was wrote before the summer vacacation.And not long ago I found a new place for keeping my own writings. http://xbing.blogbus.com
It’s just not easy for entering this web site.

• Autonomic Computing
• Information On Demand
• Rational
• Radio Frequency Identification
• Service Oriented Architecture
• Web Service

There is a series of “How It Works” topics I found on IBM internal sites, which are very entertaining and educational. Hope you guys like reading them.