0730 what should you do when car accidents happen?

How should you do if you have a car accident when you drive? According to my friend’s description, a few days ago, my friend had a car accident while she was on the way to work. In the morning, she drove her car to hospital to work like normal days she did. While she switched her car from the inside lane to the outside lane, she almost cannot see the view in front of her car because of the glaring sunrise. Suddenly she heard a bump, so she stopped her car, and she realized she had a car accident. Another person who had accident with my friend is a 65-year-old bicyclist, and he was felt down on the sidewalk. Even though he was bleeding near his right ear, he still had consciousness. After about 10 minutes, one ambulance and one police car came, and the ambulance took the bicyclist to a hospital. The police officer asked my friend how this accident happened and took pictures. Finally, she got a simple accident sheet. The police told her to go home and fill out the online report.

When people have a car accident, the first thing is calm down. Calming down can help thoughts clear, and then you can deal with car accidents well. The second step is call 911. Telling to the responder of 911 the exact address where the accident happens and how many people get hurt is important. While the ambulance comes, you might ask ambulance men which the hospital the patient will be sent because you probably go to hospital to visit the injured people. When police officers come, they will take picture of the accident scene and want you to describe how the accident happens or answer some questions. Finally, you have to call your car insurance company you have a car accident, and ask them what you have to do next step. When the accident report comes out, police officers will tell you who have to take responsible for this accident. That’s all the processes of dealing with car accident.

0729 I will sublet my room in August

I will go back to Taiwan for summer vacation from August 9 to August 29, so I will not be in Boston twenty days. I think I still pay the house rental during my summer vacation, but I will not use it. Therefore, I decide to sublease my room to someone who needs a short-term furnished accommodation.

At first, I have to set my price which is not higher than hotel price but not lower than my per-day rental. I found most rates of two-adult rooms in Boston are more 80 dollars, but the rates of hostels are around 60 dollars for two adults. After knowing the room prices, I have to focus what kind of groups will be my customers. Only businessmen and travelers need short-term furnished accommodation, but businessmen prefer to live at hotels because they do not pay by themselves. Only travelers, especially backpackers or free individual travelers, can I focus on. I wrote down every detail and information about my room on the website through which travelers find cheap accommodation, I also emphasized the location of my house is really perfect, just in front of subway station.

It happened even I expected, a lot of travelers want to rent my room. In order to make maximum profit I can have, I choose some travelers who will live longer than the travelers who want to live two or three days. Today I check all the days I want to rent to travelers, and only 3 days are not occupied. I also counted the money I will receive. The amounts of the money I will receive just cover my monthly house rental.

0727 Reading: Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

After reading this poem several times in the morning and evening, I can gradually feel what this poem means to me. In order to understand it more deeply, I also wrote it down on my diary. A magic happened on me. The poem totally touch my heart while I finished writing it down. The poem seems tell me what my life is.

Before I decided to study finance, I was confused my career. I even did not know what job I could do in the future, but I knew I would figure it out. In the poem, the woods which are filled up with snow seem the process I tried to find what career I really wanted to do before. The woods are simple but difficult to go through, so I stopped going forward. At the time, I was struck by many defeats and frustrations, and it was the darkest period in my life.

The horse is like the people I sought to help. I discussed my career with my parents, friends, professors, and career consulters. Sometimes they reminded if I went forward on the right way. Sometimes I ignored their reminds because I thought I might knew what I want to do in my life, even though they told me the way I chose is tough. After I made a decision to come the US and started to major finance, I know I have no way to go back my pass, because I promise my parents finance will be my career. However, there will be a long way to keep going in my future.

0726 Unite the format of chargers.

~rewritten once~

Before I am interested in business, I was attracted by technological products. I was crazy to read a lot of magazines and news about computers, science and technology. When I started to use technological products, such as mobile phones, walkmans, and computers, I was glad to live in this high-tech generation because of the conveniences of these products. However, these high-tech products not only bring us convenient lives but also create a lot of disposals. The most easily abandoning devices are chargers. Every electronic product with battery needs a charger, but the chargers of different brands or types are not same. While people want to replace their electronic products, they have to change chargers. For example, most people purchase new mobile phones every two years. After they have new phones, they will throw away the chargers which are not for new phones but usable. This is a kind of waste. Therefore, some environmentalists suggested governments to regulate the united standard of chargers. This proposal has been promoted for several years. Finally, in the Europe Union, the union makes a regulation of united standard of chargers of mobile phones. The mobile phones’ companies will have to manufacture the same type chargers in 2010. For consumers, it is a good news, because the users of mobile phones will not be confused with the different types of chargers. For the environment protection, we will not dump a lot of chargers which can still use, so it can reduce the amount of trash. I hope the regulation will not only be practiced in Europe but also practiced in whole world.

0724 Green Energy VS Environment

Recently green energy has become the famous topic in the world. When people talk about green energy, they associate green energy with wind farms or solar panels. Compared to oil or nature gas, these two ways to generate electricity are clear and renewable, but wind farms or solar panels need more space to generate same electricity as oil or nature gas generate. Some experts propose to build wind farms or solar panels in coastal oceans or deserts. Before I read some reports which are opposite to these proposals, I thought the proposals of building wind farms or solar panels in coastal oceans or deserts are perfect and excellent. As I thought before, scientists use the sparsely populated area to product power by green energy equipments, they create the value of sparsely populated area. However, my thought was too simple to consider the complicated problems behind the proposals.

First of all, the areas of rare populations are often far from the areas which people demand a lot of power, so the cost of electricity delivery will become very high. Power companies also spend huge amount of money to build the power grids. According to the electricity, the longer the power transmits, the more the power loses. It is not a smart plan to build power station in the sparsely populated area.

In addition, Building wind farms in coastal oceans is another controversy. As everyone knows, the wind in oceans is stronger than the wind on the lands, so some energy experts suggest government or power companies to build wind farms in coastal oceans. They think that building wind farms in coastal oceans can lower down the cost of electricity delivery, and can have stable resources of winds. However, wind farms probably have negative effect on coastal ecology. For example, some of birds which have seasonal migrations inhabit in coasts, so they fly around near coasts in order to prey or move. Once these birds fly through wind farms, they will be a life threat for these birds. Not only birds but also marine life is affected by wind farms, especially during construction period. The disposal of constructions could be thrown into water and pollute coastal oceans. After the environments of coastal oceans are polluted, the oceanic fisheries will be deeply impacted.

0722 Report of A Medical Error Event

I read a Taiwanese news which is about a medication error yesterday. The news mentioned that a nurse gave penicillin to a patient who is allergic to it, and this mistake caused the patient fall into a coma. After the news was reported, most people start to talk about problems of medical system. Some experts also pointed out two flaws in the medical system.

First flaw is manpower shortage of nurses. According to the survey, the average working hours per week of nurses are 42 hours, and overtime is a common situation for most nurses in small hospitals. The ratio of patient to nurse is 10, even as high as 20 in the night. The long working hours and heavy work let nurses make mistakes easily.

In addition, the medical staff do not exactly follow standard operation procedure (SOP). Standard operation procedure is an important system which can avoid the mistakes and direct everything on the right way. I do believe that before a nurse gives medicines to a patient, the nurse has to check medicines and the patient more than once. Like train drivers, nurses have to confirm what they do by speeches and gestures, because action with voice and body language can be more aware than action by only thought.If the nurse had followed the standard operation procedure exactly, the mistake would not have happened.

I hope every serious mistake can be a lesson and will not happen again. Once experts find out flaws, the government or authority has to fix flaws immediately, or mistakes are always be mistakes, not a cornerstone of progress.

0721 Podcast: manufacturing of the US

This podcast chiefly discussed the manufacturing in the US has declined sharply in the past eighteen months, and Obama’s administration has tried to revive manufacturing by some economic stimulus package. Louis also mentioned that the manufacturing goods which are consumed domestically are more than manufacturing goods which are made in the US. It means the US has to import these goods for other countries. While these goods have lower price than goods domestically made, it threats the survival of manufacturing. Moreover, the Louis pointed out the key problem which cause sharply decline on domestic manufacturing. The artificial currency is the key problem. Nowadays, most products are coming from China, and the undervalued currency of China makes prices of these products lower than the products which are made in the US. Price is an important key of victory in business. Therefore the manufacturing in the US is deeply impacted.

The Obama’s administration has some way to solve this problem. First of all, the government focuses on the manufacturing of green energy. I think that is the right way. Green energy industry is a manufacturing which need high technology and key techniques, so it is difficult to produce in the countries which focus on manufacturing of supplies. Green energy industry can also create higher profit than the supplies industry. Second, Louis said that the Buy America clause in the stimulus package is another to revive the manufacturing. In this clause, government will favor to purchase American-made product for the infrastructure projects. I think it is the short-term solution. For the long-term solution, changing the product types of manufacturing is the best way to revive the domestic manufacturing.

0719 the sand sculpturing festival at Revere Beach

~reworte~

On the website Boston.com, I read an announcement of a sand sculpture contest held on Severe Beach, so I decided to go to see the contest. Even though the weather was cloudy on Saturday morning, but the weather did not destroy my weekend travel because the sun came out in the afternoon.

On Saturday, I went there along because I planned this travel suddenly. I took almost one hour to Severe Beach from my home. Luckily, when I arrived at the beach, the weather became sunny. At the middle of the beach, I saw many sand sculptures. I was really excited because it was the first time for me to see this contest of sand sculptures. I was deeply attracted by three of sculptures . First of all, the title of sculpture is Mirror which was made by Sue McGrew, Tacoma WA. There are one man and woman whose bodies near their hearts are broken like mirrors. They are trying to fix the broken mirrors back to origins by their love. Second, Afternoon Daydream which was made by Carl Jara, Cleveland OH, is another sand sculpture I like. This sculpture is a person whose body and head covered by a few pigeons sits on one bench. Every pigeons seem like every dream the person has. The last one is the biggest sculpture. Even though this sculpture did not have name, its topic and details are related to Boston, such as the marks of departments belonged to Boston government, the Boston hokey team mark, and the marks of companies which supported this contest.

In this festival, I really know how artists to make sand sculpture, what tools they used. The most important thing is that I know this beach is the America’s first public beach, because I learned American history a little more.

0717 Travel to Tainan in Taiwan

Tainan City is a city which is full of friendliness, delicious food, and historical buildings. While people plan to travel to Tainan City in September, I will recommend some places visitors should go and some food they should taste. Before I start to present these details of my recommendations, I have to introduce Tainan City. Like Boston, Tainan City is the oldest city in Taiwan, so many historic sites are conserved very well. Tainan City has a harbor, Anping Harbor , and there is also a river through Tainan City. Unfortunately, the government of Tainan City does not focus on improvement of rivers and harbors as much as Boston. Compared with Boston, Tainan has similar transportation system, city size, and historical signification.

First of all, Tainan City has different types of historical sites, because Tainan City was the colony of Dutch, China, and Japan. The colonists who came from these countries built many buildings in Tainan City. Confucian Temple is one of the important historical sites in Tainan City because this temple was the first school in Taiwan. Nowadays, the original classrooms in this temple are still maintained perfectly, so visitors can imagine the circumstance of 300 years ago classes. At some particular time, some narrators state the history of this temple and describe the school’s alumni who studied in this school and had contributions to Taiwan. Another historical site I suggest to visit is Anping Fort which was built by the Dutch in 1624. Before it was officially named Anping Fort, it had been renamed many times, such as Orlande City, Fort Zeelandia, and Castle for the Red Hair. Because the building was reformed in the periods of different colonies, it has Dutch style, Chinese style, and Japanese style decorations. Through this historical site, people can know the colonial history in Taiwan.

In addition, Taiwanese food is another characteristic sign in Tainan. For my suggestions, going to night markets is the best and easiest way to eat delicious and various Taiwanese foods. However, it is hard to have all food at one night, so I strongly recommend visitors to eat stinky tofu and bubble tea. The smell of stinky tofu is the same as its name shown, so people who have never eaten stinky tofu are afraid of this food and do not believe it is delicious. After tasting this food, most of these people deeply love stinky tofu. Because of the reason, I think stinky tofu as a magic food. Bobble tea is famous in America now. Its origin is coming from Tainan. Bubble tea is made of milk tea and tapioca balls whose diameter is near one centimeter. Bubble tea is really common in Taiwan, and almost Taiwanese people have eaten it. When people suck the bubbles through straws, people can feel the movement of bubbles in the bottle. The bubbles are as chewy as chewing gum, but it can eat. Owing to satiety after eating bubble tea, some Taiwanese people take it as a meal.

As I know, food and historical sites are the two most characteristic symbols in Tainan. If visitors want to understand Taiwanese food and history thorough, Tainan City is the best city they have to go.

0715 What a Good Deal, Dell in Taiwan.

There was a business news of Dell reported in Taiwan. The news described that the Dell's online store had made wrong prices twice in the past one month.

The first mistake happened on June 25, and the LCD monitors whose cost were 250 dollars was priced 34 dollars on the Dell online store. After ten days, Dell's also incorrectly priced the two-thousand-dollar laptops at six hundred dollars. While the consumers who bought those products wanted Dell to make the deals, Dell cancelled the deals by the reasons which error of the online store system occurred. Therefore, those consumers appealed to Fair Trade Commission, because they wanted their purchased products back. The consumers said that Dell cannot cancel the deal just because of the reason of the computer system error.

When this serious event which deeply impacted the image of Dell was reported on the news, the Dell Company did not react immediately and make a stop-loss point to protect its brand image. The general manager of Dell Company in Taiwan held the press conference after two days of the news reported. On the day of the press conference the general manager did not state how to reimburse those customers, so some critics said Dell has no ability of the crisis management.

Finally, the Dell Company confessed the mistake, so the Dell Company will give every customer who bought the wrong-price products 7oo-dollar value coupons in order to show the sincerity. However, the some customers said that the Dell Company tried the use the event to make its brand more visible, and some customers also indicated the coupons are fake reimbursements. Those coupons can be used only for specific products and only on Dell online store. The current prices of the specific products sold on the Dell online store are higher 700 dollars than the prices of the products sold in other stores. Even though those customers get the high value coupons, they won’t truly receive the compensation.

0713 reading assignment

~reworte~

The news mentioned that Kennedy is in charge of the health committee, but he has the brain cancer. After having the disease, he cannot go to the committee meeting personally, but he still tries to work at home and tell his colleagues what they should do by phone. Even though he calls his colleagues often, his colleagues misses him very much because he has special skills and talents to negotiate with people and to deal with the political details.

There are two views of the healthcare plan in the Congress. One view is supporting public insurance. Some Senators thinks public insurance could increase competition in the insurance industry and let private insurance lower the premiums. The other Senators is opposing, because they said that the act could heavily damage the private insurance industry. Moreover, the healthcare bill is expensive, so government has ways to solve it. That is taxes increase or surcharge on the wealthy people.

After reading this news, I think Kennedy has a crucial position in the politics. He does not force the opposite party to agree to the legislation they do not want. He seeks a compromise or consensus which both parties agree with, so it is why many politicians respect him. When he has disease, some people want to talk about his disease, but he just focuses on the healthcare plan. He does not want people just to pay attention to his health, because making the healthcare success is his goal.

0712 podcast: oil price fell again

~reworte~

This podcast is that Jad Mouawad chiefly described that the crude oil price fell down to 60 dollars a barrel from 72 dollars a barrel last week. The mainly reason that the price decreased was that the economic recovery was not optimistic as people thought before. Jad Mouawad also mentioned that before we wanted to know why the oil price slid, we had to realize why oil price soared in the beginning of this year. The highest oil price, 145 dollars a barrel, was recorded in July 2008, and then the price dramatically crashed to 33 dollars in December 2008. The collapsed price resulted from the economic crisis. However, the oil price started to go up in the first six months of this year because some signs showed the economy would recover in the end of this year. Recently, the new economic data have been revealed, and the economic situation probably recovered more slowly. This reason impacted the oil price. There is a proposal which is planned to curb speculation trade in energy markets because the government tries to stabilize the energy markets. Some economists think this proposal will cause the less liquid in the energy markets, so that the energy markets become more volatile. Another idea was discussed in the podcast. Jad Mouawad said that the oil price is not determined simply by the demands and supplies. The oil price is controlled by some counties which produce crude oil. The oil markets are also not transparent, so it is difficult for investors to understand and predict.

0711 Tall Ships trip

~reworte~

The weather was sunny today, so I planned to go out and relaxed the tension which was caused by the accounting midterm. In order to find any activity I can participate in, I searched the information on the Boston.com. Tall Ships, which professor Berman mentioned, was the big festival in this week, so I decided to join this activity. After collecting the map, tour price, and schedule of Tall Ships, I went to the Boston Harbor with roommate.

While I was taking subway to Aquarium Station, I heard some people were talking about the activity of Tall Ships. They said it was an important event in Boston and many people who live in other cities or states also came to Boston to enjoy this event. When I arrived in Aquarium Station, I was surprised at the scene I saw. There were many people walking leisurely along the shore of harbor. I thought if I followed the direction which crowd walked to, it was not difficult to find tall ships. It was not expected that I saw the first tall ship after walking several minutes. This tall ship came from France. Even though this ship was not the biggest one, I was amazed at her beauty and spectacular. Like most tourists, I took many pictures of her. I spent all the afternoon to browse all tall ships, and finally I saw the biggest ship. It was berthed at the wharf which was near the world trade center. A lot of visitors boarded on the ship and take a view, but I did not do it because the ticket of visiting the ship was 30 dollars. It was too expensive for me. In this trip, the most exciting thing was that the flag of my country was shown in this activity.

0709 Pets Business

~reworte~

After I arrived in the US, I liked to compare the US with Taiwan, especially the business. Recently, my friend owns a cat, and he wanted someone to take care of his cat when he went back to Taiwan on summer vacation. My cousin agreed to help him take care of his cat, and my cousin charged him 300 dollars a month plus the cost of the cat's supplies. My friend also agreed with that. When I heard my friend accepted this high charge, I was surprised because most Taiwanese people do not spend a lot of money on their pets.

First of all, the rate of pet ownerships in the US is higher than the rate in Taiwan. The high rate resulted in the common pet care business, so people who own pets are more willing to spend money on their pets. The economic situation is the second reason, and the incomes of Americans is higher than the incomes of Taiwanese people. Taiwanese people have to pay most part of wages on diary expense, such as the education fee, food expense, or utilities, and deposited the remainder, so just a few Taiwanese people want to spend a lot of money taking care of their pets. Finally, Taiwanese people spend more money on entertainments more than on pets. People have fixed entertainment budget, so when they spend more money on watching movies, shopping, and having parties, the expense on pets is eliminated. Based on those reasons, I know that it is difficult to develop a pet business in Taiwan.

0706 Accounting class

I will have a midterm of accounting, and I felt nervous, even though that will not be the first test of my master classes. My major was not business when I studied in the university, so accounting was a subject which I have never learned before. Unlike some of my friends in the US, they learned accounting, so they can handle the subject easily. In order to keep up with those students who have already learned accounting before, I not only spent a lot of time on previewing and reviewing but also made accounting into my life. The simple way to practice my thought was be bookkeeping for my personal finance.

Before I began taking accounting class, I had found the free accounting software which I liked and felt easy to use for a long time. At first, I wanted to operate accounting software on my ipod touch, but its functions were not sufficient enough. Therefore, I started to find software which can be operated on computers. Finally, I found the accounting software, Microsoft Office Accounting 2009 English Edition, published by the Microsoft Company. After downloading and installing the software, I took one week to learn how to use it because it was really complicated. Now I am so glad that I can use what I learned in my life.

0705 The July 4th firework

It is the Independence Day on July 4th in the United States, and there were many celebrations in many cities. Boston also had the celebration and firework. Even though I will have a midterm of my accounting class, I still decided to see the firework on July 4th because that was the first time that I participated this celebration. I knew I should go to the Esplanade earlier and enjoy the concert, but I cannot leave the midterm away, so I stayed home to review accounting until 8:30pm. When I was on the way by my bicycle to the Harvard Bridge, where I chose to see the firework, there were a lot of people sit and wait beside the Charles River. The government also blocked part of the Storrow Dr. to get more space for citizens, and it was my first time to ride bicycle on the Road only for cars.

After arriving in the Harvard Bridge, I was surprised at the crowed people because my friend told me it would not be crowded on the Harvard Bridge. I walked to the middle of the bridge. The view of the Charles River was so beautiful that I almost forgot the midterm. There were also some yachts, and I thought it was better to see the firework on the yachts. At 10:32pm, the firework began. Although the firework was late 2 minutes, it was spectacular. I also heard some Americans said some shapes of firework were like the trademark of Pepsi. At the time, I thought if it is possible to use firework to advertise. If some companies use this way to advertise, it might make people impressive.

0703 The rehabilitaion of Boston Bridge

There was a public meeting about the Boston University Bridge rehabilitation Project on this Tuesday, and this meeting had two main parts. First part is that the host of this meeting simply presented the whole project of Boston University Bridge rehabilitation. Second part is that people who came to this meeting questioned or gave suggestions to this project.

At the beginning of this meeting, the speaker showed the accelerated bridge program and the Boston University Bridge project. He not only presented the goals and size of the program but also mentioned the details of the Boston University Bridge project, such as the project goals, the history of BU Bridge, and the details of rehabilitation processes.

First of all, the Program had five goals. The first goal, also the main one, was improving the condition of the bridges in Boston area. Stimulating the economy and creating the jobs is the second goal. Third, the sooner the project was completed, the less money the government spent. Forth, by the advanced technology and science, the government planned the can complete the project efficiently and innovatively. Finally, the last and important goal of program is transparency and accountability. The size of this program is very huge. The MassHighway was in charge of 2.078 billion dollars and 205 bridges, and DCR was responsible for 906 million dollars and 50 bridges.

In addition, the project of BU Bridge was the major topic in this meeting. At first, the speaker introduced the BU Bridge’s history. This Bridge was built in 1928 and renamed BU Bridge in 1949. This project also had its goals. First, the bridge had to restore under the structural integrity because its structure was damaged heavily. Restoring the bridge historic structure was the second goal, so the bridge will be fixed by following the original design. The third goal was protecting and enhancing environment, such as the modern drainage which was instead of the old one. Final goal which most residents cared about was improving the pedestrian, bicycle access, and vehicle flow.

Third, there was three phrases construction. In first phrase the west side pedestrian and current lane will be closed, and there will have one southward lane and one northward lane. In the second phrase only center part of bridge will be closed, and there will be a lane and pedestrian on both directions. In the final phrase the east side pedestrian and current lane will be closed, and there will have one southward lane and one northward lane. Under the construction period, the environment protection will be considerate, such as noisy abatement, dust collection, and traffic management.

The last part of the meeting was the time for questions and answers. Most questions and suggestions can be classified to 4 parts. First of all, the public meeting did not make a lot of people know it, so it cannot get most residents’ suggestions. They hope this meeting could be hold again in Cambridge or try hard to attract people to participate. Second, there were conflicts at the intersections of both Cambridge and Boston sides. They suggestion the authority could solve this problem by changing the design. Third, more people cared about the pedestrians and bicycle lane, so someone said the BU Bridge could be allowed only for bicyclists and pedestrians. Another one suggested the bridge can be added more constructions for the space of pedestrian and bicycle lane. Finally, some people mentioned that the traffic situation at BU Bridge was terrible during the baseball season. They suggested that the traffic authority can separate some cars go to Cambridge through Mass Ave or Harvard Bridge, so there will not too many vehicles to use BU Bridge.