The Life Cycle of Salmon

The inset diagram briefly demonstrates the life cycle of a species of fish called a salmon.

First of all, every salmon's life starts from an egg, hidden under reeds or small stones in the upper river where water flow is relatively slow.

It often takes about 5 to 6 months for a fry to become mature enough to come out of its egg. The fry is usually very small, with a length of between 3 and 8 centimeters.

The fry tends to stay in the lower river area for approximately 4 years until it becomes a smolt - the stage before it's fully grown - with a body-length of between 12 and 15 centimeters.

After turning to smolt, the fish will move to open sea and stay in the area for around 5 years in order to become an adult salmon.

Finally, the mature salmon will go back to its birthplace, the upper river, to give birth to the next generation.

To find a perfect backpack

This Chinese New Year, my sister and I prepared to buy a backpack for my dad, so this week we looked around all of the shops, but still we could not find the perfect one.
Next weekend, I hope we'll find it.

TOEFL writing part: Is it better to have knowledge of many subjects than specialize in one subject

Study is one of the most essential parts of a person's life. However, there remains a problem as to whether having broad knowledge of many academic subjects is better than specializing in one specific subject. From my perspective, it is obvious that having knowledge of various subjects is better.

First, having other subject knowledge can be beneficial to the study of your major. Taking myself as an example, I am a student of chemistry but, when I entered university, I found out that I needed to finish learning calculus and physics before taking some more advanced courses, for the knowledge acquired in these elementary lessons were rather helpful for my further studies. What is more, the prosperity of interdisciplinary also requires us to know about different subjects, which makes it easier for us to communicate with researchers of other subjects. If we only focus on a specific subject, the study of our major will be largely limited and we may have problems when faced with projects about interdisciplinary.

Second, having the knowledge of other subjects can help us develop the ability to think creatively. Getting knowledge of one subject does not only mean gathering information, it also means learning the specific thinking mode. My professor used to ask me to think about how a subject deals with problems and I learned a lot from it. For example, mathematics taught me to think in a logical way and physics instructed me that hypothesis sometimes is a powerful weapon when solving problems. When it come to chemistry, I learned to build models to simplify the problems. In contrast, it may be hard for us to think out of the box if we only learn about a single subject.

Third, having a broad knowledge of many subjects can help students to identify which subjects they are really interested in. Not everyone has a clear dream in their mind when they are students, so a broad knowledge of many subject is quite helpful for them to make up their mind. My roommate learned physics first, but he also took part in many other classes. Then, he found out that programming was his 'true love' so he changed his major into computer science. If students only learn about a specific subject, they may lose the chance to discover the subject they really like.

Simply put, it is safe to draw the conclusion that having broader knowledge is better. By having broader knowledge, we can definitely harvest more than what we expect.

Cherry blossom

I went to the scenic area in Taoyuan with my older sister and grandmother today.
But I was really upset because I didn’t see any beautiful flowers there.
We planned to view the cherry blossoms but there weren't any flowers in bloom.
The weather isn’t cold enough this year so the cherry blossoms didn't bloom.
The wind was so strong in the scenic area that I was cold and had a headache.