小蝴蝶结又有心事。

新的分类也是我的alarm clock的名字，虽然每天闹钟响起的时候并没有受到多大鼓舞，按掉依然是举手之劳。以后打算把所以乱七八糟的writing assignments放到这里post出来。一是接受群众的眼光，有声音更好（虽然这里似乎没有群众可言…）；二是，我猜测，自我欣赏是每个journalist必备的职业道德，吧？

Assignment of "Advanced English for Journalism": Please write a 200-word paragraph in imitation of the first paragraph of Magic Mountain. You may choose any place you like, but you should use some of the writing techniques discussed in class.

Santa Monica—the name of which is already romantic enough to make you fall in love with it—is a coastal city situated in the western LA Country, California. With its agreeable weather and amazing scenery, Santa Monica has become one of the most famed resort town in the US. In most time of a year, the sun there shines brilliantly enough to make everyone in it guilty for not carrying a good mood. The entrance of Santa Monica Pier announces the starting point of a paradise journey. Stretching from a walkway with expansive seaview on both sides, the most fabulous part of it is actually the people and their richcolorful activities happening inbetween. Peddlers are selling every kind of souvenirs that you can think of, t-shirts, cups, postcards, jewelries, and even tattoo services. Always smiling to every passer-by who even just plays with those stuff insteading of buying them, their expression of satisfaction seem to be telling the fact that, enjoying life in an easiest way, but business, is the only thing they care about. Minstrels, another eye-catching group on the pier, are taking every single cornor, and turning them into their world of music. All of the selfless melody comes out of their vocal cords and instruments talks on behalf of them that, singing is their only way of living.

Assignment of "Writing for Business News": Write up a short story based on the release of Apple's new Nano. Feel free to look at what other news agencies wrote when this release came out a few days ago. Also, you're free to do your own reporting, such as asking Apple customers what they think of the announcement, the product, etc. In other words, use this release as a base, but also apply your creativity and analysis to it

Is it too fast?

By Ellen WANG

I still remember my excitement when I got my first Apple product—Ipod Mini—the most popular MP3 player to all Apple fans back in year 2004. Without any ideas that someday such a small device is even possible to carry a video camera inside it, I truly believed then that could be a life-long player of mine. Obviously, I was wrong, about both myself and the updating speed of music players.

In the so-called technology era, people are getting more and more familiar with numerous new updates coming up nonstopping. Notwithstanding, the release of the newest Ipod nano is still surprising enough, as in most people’s memory, the “old Nano” is not even old yet. Just like my Ipod Mini has been obsolete for years, the announcement of new Nano with its fabulous new features will certainly turn quite a number of existing Nano players, obsolete.

While lots of Apple users are still in the mood of enjoying their most fashionable Nano 4, the previous version, the new Nano with a built-in video camera carrying several special effect filters, a speaker, a built-in FM radio with live pause and iTunes tagging, and even a built-in pedometer, just landed safely a few days ago. To put it simply, the new Nano gets almost everything right. A more critical issue, however, is: How do the consumers accept it?  

The answer perhaps is not as pleasing as the new Nano’s impressive features.

Gill, a girl already has an Ipod Nano G4, an iphone, and a MacBook like any standard Apple fans, told me that she wouldn’t consider buying the new Nano. “I do love Apple products, but I don’t like so many overlapping functions within my electronic stuff.”She also told me that, the video camera feature was not really appealing to her while the built-in FM radio did seem a brilliant one. “But it’s just not strong enough a reason for me to buy it now, I’d rather wait longer for the next generation of it. Propably they will add still-photo camera or even wifi in the near future. It’s gonna be updated really fast anyway.”

“Of course I’d love to have the new Nano,”said another Apple user with an Ipod Nano G1 and an iTouch, Chloe, “only if someone is willing to buy me one!”she added. According to her, an iTouch is already powerful enough in the functional means and the old Nano also fulfills her need of a portable music player very well. “The new features are good, but paying another 150 dollars or so to get one is simply unnecessary.”

It seems that besides those die-hard fans of Apple, most of the users do their rational thinking when making purchasing decisions. Continuous updating is cool, but it can also easily be a waste, or even failure, if the speed of updating goes far out of consumers’ acceptance range. So, maybe slow down a bit, Apple?