PLEASE GO TO khuong109.blogspot.com TO SEE MY JOURNAL ENTRIES IN LEVEL 109

Again, khuong109.blogspot.com

COMPUTER - one of my hobbies

When I was young, once I had a thought that how kids in the past can live without computer games. I played computer games not very well but I did very much. My father first bought a computer when I was 11, and from that time until now, computer is one of my closest friends. With my computer, I can play games, listen to the music, chat with my friends, make some funny softwares or solve maths' problems. Almost all of my music is stored in my computer, nearly 500 albums of all artists in the world. One thing I like very much is to solve informatic exercises and math exercises on my computer. That's why I won the second prize at Vietnam's national olympiad in informatics for students. I used to spend at least 3 hours a day on my computer, although I knew that it was very harmful to my health. Now I still love computers very much but I have to stay away from them temporarily because I must concentrate on learning English to go to United States and pay more attention to aviation - another hobby beside computers.

My TET holidays' diary.

I flew to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh City in Friday night, February 4th. At that time, the weather in Ho Chi Minh is warm and very nice, but Hanoi is much colder. I arrived at Noibai Airport at 1h30 AM. When I came home, I slept immediately. The next day, I played computer games with my friends and relatives. At 6 PM, some friends invited me to go to a party which has my teachers at APU, but I couldn't go because the party's location was very far from my house, and it was raining very hard. On Sunday, I and my family went to my hometown by car to meet my grandparents but my mother couldn't go because she was sick and she felt very painful. On Tuesday, I came back to Hanoi and enjoyed Tet there. On Wednesday, I went out with Nam - my closest friend - who is learning at Faculty of Information Technology at Hanoi University of Technology, and we celebrated a small party to congratulate Tu, who has just won a scholarship to study in a Japan's university. Thursday is a boring day because I must stayed at home and cared for my house while my parents went to my hometown. Only two people visited me, they're Tuan - my roommate at APU's dormitory - and his girlfriend. So I killed my time by writting essays for Alison's class and watching CNN to improve my listening skill. On Friday, I visited Tan, a friend who learned with me at HUT and then played PlayStation2 with Thanh, my old friend who is fat and very good at English. On Saturday, I went visiting Tuan with some friends in APU and prepared to come back to Ho Chi Minh city. On Sunday, I flew to Ho Chi Minh city to continue learning at APU.

Art and music shouldn't be mandatory subjects in secondary school.

Students are now learning too many subjects in secondary school. However, some people still want them to learn more, including art and music. In my opinion, we should not force all students to study art and music in secondary school.
Studying art and music in this period is a waste of time. I think 5 years in primary school is enough to provide them the basic. It is also enough to determine who have the talent. Students who are interested in art and music can specify in the area they really like by learning from other sources and parctising in clubs. Those who are not interested will have more time to learn the subjects they like. They will make a better decision on choosing a job in the future.
Moreover, requring all students to study art and music in secondary school is unrealistic. It is the fact that there is a lack of thousands of teachers in schools. This number is certainly increasing because the number of teachers in those subjects is incredibly small, but it's still very far from "enough". Whereas this problem remains difficult to solve, there is another one to face. The problem is that we don't have enough money to support all students, especially in rural areas. In many areas, where people can't afford to buy even a radio, studying music or art is a luxury.
In brief, art and music should be selected subjects in, at least the
next ten years.

The most being-awaited match in Champions League 2004/2005

Champions League 2004/2005 are coming to the end. We have 16 teams for the 1/16 round. They're all the best teams of the continent. There are not many surprises at the first round, so football fans all over the world are very lucky to see most of the greatest at the second round, and they will create many interesting mathces at this round. Real Madrid - Juventus is the match that let us imagine about 11 cups that the two teams have won in the past. Arsenal - Bayern Munich is the match between the defensive team with the offensive team. Chelsea - Barcelona is another exciting match because now they are considered to be the strongest teams in Europe at the moment. But with me, the most exciting match is AC Milan - Manchester United. First, it is because my favorite team is AC Milan. Second, my father's favorite team is Manchester United. Third, they've never been in a cup match for over 30 years. And finally, they are the two most famous teams in Vietnam.

Unfortunately for me, AC Milan is not very strong at the moment although there are not many players who are injured. Conversely, Manchester United is getting stronger at the moment, and their position in English Premier League is better after each round. They have very dangerous strikers : Wayne Rooney - English prodigy striker and Van Nistelrooy - the world-class forward. But AC Milan has the same dangerous strikers, although one of them - Filippo Inzaghi - has been injured and cannot play this match. They still have Andriy Shevchenko, who won the European Golden Ball 2004, and Hernan Crespo, the Argentinian quick striker.

The English team midfield is very strong, with the captain Roy Keane, the famous left winger Ryan Giggs and the wonderkid Cristiano Ronaldo. They also have attacking midfield Paul Scholes, who is very hard-working and very dangerous with creative long shot. The Italian team doesn't have such a strong midfield like that, but it doesn't mean their midfields are weak. They still have Clarence Seedorf - who has won 3 Champions Leagues with 3 different teams, Gennaro Gattuso - the most tenacious midfield in Europe, Andrea Pirlo - the team's bridge between defending and attacking, and the Brazillian attacking midfield Kaka - who has won the Italian Serie A best footballer 2004.

Manchester United has some problems with their denfensive system because they don't have a good defender except for Rio Ferdinand. Other defenders usually make serious mistakes that cause the team to loose. Their goalkeeper is also a weak position, 'cause both Tim Howard and Roy Carroll sometimes make stupid mistakes. But with AC Millan, defending is a strong point. All of their first-team defenders are of the 10 best defenders in the world. They are Paolo Maldini - the team's loyal captain and also the best defender in the last 10 years, Alessandro Nesta - the best central defender in the world now, Jaap Stam - the captain of Dutch national football team, and Cafu - the right defender and also the captain of Brazillian national football team who won World Cup 2002. But the problem with them are their age. All of them are more than 30 years old, except for Nesta, and therefore they maybe not as quick as their opposite team's strikers.

Both teams have some strong points and some weak points but in general, their strength are equal. And they will create the most exciting matches in the whole season.

20 best Heavy Metal albums - in my opinion

I've said that I couldn't rank my favorite albums, but now I'm trying to rank only my favorite Heavy Metal albums. It's very hard to choose the list that I feel most comfortable 'cause there are some CDs I like very much but it doesn't appear in this list. Anyway, I think this is an rather good list for me. At first, I only wanted to list 10 albums, but then I realized that 10 is not enough, so I decided to choose 20 albums. If you are a traditional Heavy Metal fan and you do not have one of these discs, you should buy it as soon as possible and I promise it would not let you down. If you are new to Heavy Metal and want to learn about it, you can choose any of these discs and try listening, perhaps you will feel terrible at the first time, but soon after that you will understand why many people, not only I like it. All of these discs deserve every pence I've spent. Here is the list:
1. Cowboys From Hell - Pantera

2. Ride The Lightning - Metallica

3. Appetite For Destruction - Guns 'N' Roses

4. And Justice For All - Metallica

5. Vulgar Display Of Power - Pantera

6. Fear Of The Dark - Iron Maiden

7. Streets - Savatage

8. Van Halen - Van Halen

9. Use Your Illusion - Guns 'N' Roses

10. Hysteria - Def Leppard

11. Master Of Puppets - Metallica

12. Blizzard Of Ozz - Ozzy Osbourne

13. Hell Bent For Leather - Judas Priest

14. Bonded By Blood - Exodus

15. Skid Row - Skid Row

16. Shout At The Devil - Motley Crue

17. Rust In Peace - Megadeth

18. Reign In Blood - Slayer

19. New Jersey - Bon Jovi

20. Keeper Of The 7th Key - Helloween

Reading Books is a good habit

Books are one of the main sources of our knowledge. They are also our friends, sometimes our lovers. We can see everything in the world from books, therefore books are very important to our life although we cannot understand everything only by reading books.
A book may give us more consciousness than an experimental person does. Books contain everything, from the things we use everyday to the complex things such as a spaceship or the love. Reading books is also a way to relax and have fun because many books attract us with their exciting content that we can't drop it down when we start reading. Books give us more information than everything else, but it cannot replace the role of practical expreriences. You can know about a culture by reading about it but you must be contact with that culture to be aware about it. Everyone reads books, especially Japanese people. They read books everywhere, even when they are in the underground railway. It's one of the reasons why Japan now is a very developed country.
In conclusion, books have a very important role in our life, but it cannot replace the role of practical experiences. Anyway, books are the closest friends of people.

European Soccer

Soccer is considered to be the king of all sports in the world nowadays. It is played all over the world with and has more fans than any other kind of sports in the world. And the heart of Soccer World is European football, which has all of the best football teams and the best football matches.
The biggest leagues in Europe are Italian Serie A, English Premier League and Spanish Primera Liga. They have many famous teams and earn more money than any other soccer league. Clubs like Manchester United, AC Milan, Real Madrid are very big and very popular, not only in Europe but also in Asia, Afiraca and South America. And every year, soccer clubs form all over Europe take part in a huge league called Champions League, where the biggest teams play the biggest matches. Most of the winners are teams from Italy, Spain, Germany or England because they own the most famous players. The most successful teams are Real Madrid - 9 cups, and AC Milan - 6 cups. The players are usually millionaires, with high salary and high-respected. Almost everyone knows Ronaldo,Zidane,Figo of Real Madrid; Henry,Vieira of Arsenal; Shevchenko and Kaka of AC Milan. Every year these players give the audiences the interesting matches with lots of scores.
So European soccer is very interesting and complicated.Nowhere in the world has a developed soccer like that and that's why all of us like it. It gives the happy and relaxed moments to our mind.