9/14 學寫英文---新聞生活隨筆

Products shortage and price increasing are issues people are facing now.  There are bunch of reasons for it, labor shortage, globle supply chain,material cost and freight increasing, etc, even experts don’t know when will the products price be moderated. The inflation rates in June and July were historically high in twelve years based on what I heard in this morning’s radio news. As a reckless person, I was not aware of the inflation much, but i heard it quite often from news. I felt the inflation from the soaring price for lobster. before the pandemic, periodicly there were promotions on lobster. the price would drop to $8.99/lb, sometime even $5.99/lb. When the pandemic brokeout, the price has been staying at $17.99/ $14.99/lb, there were no promotions at all. now it is still the case.   

 

The collapse of Afhgham government in 11 days was not predicated. Even 116,000 people were evacuated just in 2 weeks before Aug 31^st, the deadline of the US troops’ withdrawal, there are still roughly 1500 Aemricans  may still await Kabul evacuation. Given Taliban’s extreme features, these people are in danger. as an American's narrative, his whole families are still in Kabul, they have trouble to go to airport to escape from the country. “We will be used as barging chips for diplomatic issues.”this middle-age American guy fired off in a tone filling with anger and frustration. Relating with what I heard from yesterday, Taliban are checking every home, trying to find any evidences that people used to work for Afhgham government in pervious years. One previous officer was found and dead. The withdrawal was a failure and have got criticism from people in different political groups. “14.2 million women and girls will living in highly oppresed enviorment, don’t expect Taliban changing by executing what they promised“  a politician said.  

 

 Now the delta variant related Covid-19 cases spiked in some areas. New York City school district was hit hardly in 2020-2021 school year, since quite amount of schools didn’t offer in person learning at all during that preriod, a lot of kids have been struggling on distance learning either from their inferior online learning skill or they didn’t have stable wifi facility at home, or they even had no homes of their own at all. It is the 3^rd week since the school reopening for 2021-2022 school year. even the Covid-19 cases spiked in NYC in the past a few weeks, the school district refused offering distance learning.  It looks like the leaders of NYC school district don’t want to go over the same road as they did last year. 

 

there are state-wide school bus driver shortage in CT now. the superintendent advocated kids and parents show respect and gratitude to the school bus drivers by handing over gratitude cards with a few words on them.  

 

昨天和一個朋友聊天 ，她的一個女兒博士數學係畢業，去年被蘋果錄用，年薪10萬。以蘋果的名氣和女孩的學曆，這個薪資比我想像的要少。

早上問兒子是否要幫他給另一幅動澷畫加個畫框，他好掛起來，他說好。另外我告訴他還會買幾個小牆釘，他可以把另一幅卷軸動漫畫掛起來。想想自己這點，也算是OPEN-MINDED MOM。 但我也曾為他遊戲上癮擔心過。我和他談過此問題，讓他評估自己。他意識到他有此傾向，但還沒達到上癮的程度，因為他沒有因此而不想上學，不去參加運動。我說記得你為什麽哭嗎？那是你在STRUGGLE。 若不是我堅持，你哭過後戰勝了內心裏的另一個我，你是有可能會滑向那個深淵的。當外，這也和我與你的談話，你自身不傻有關，知道上癮意味著什麽。所以我有幫你，你也在幫你自己， 這通過你想學吉他，學電子畫，參加課後運動表現出來。等以後你的功課逐漸多起來，你也沒什麽時間玩了。

 

其實他也從玩遊戲中學到了不少。他與我的信息都是用的中文書寫，有些奇怪，這麽多年沒用中文的話，恐怕都該丟得差不多了。問他，他說他一直都有在學中文。因為他愛玩的一款遊戲是上海的一家遊戲公司設計的。從這款遊戲，粉絲遍布全球，特別在日本和中國很流行。那家公司半年就盈利0.5BILLION。他和世界各地的玩友一起玩，他們相互交流電子方麵的知識，相信他參加了很多的論壇，隻是我不知道。7年級時，他的老師說以他的背景，能達到目前的英文水平，讓他非常吃驚。現在回想起來，很可能是和他在玩遊戲時與他人的交流有關。他的誌向也很明確，COMPUTER ENGINEERING。 所以我還會讓他繼續玩，是社交，是學習，也是放鬆，就是要控製玩的時間。

 

而一位媽媽和我提到她14歲的兒子時是這樣說的：去年9月，因為我們擔心病毒，就讓他在家DISTANCE LEARNING, 等到11月我想讓他去學校HYBER LEARNING 時，他拒絕去，說如果他去了，他就無法保證他拿到全A， 他隻能拿到C。 今年9月他被迫隻能去學校上課，但他拒絕參加任何的課外體育活動，鋼琴也不彈了，也不和鄰居與他一起長大，一起玩的同齡朋友玩了，就是玩遊戲，唯一他就是能把作業寫完。我問她孩子有沒有誌向？她說沒有。我說你要小心，這很像是VIDEO GAME addiction。 一定要幫他把過來。去年一年多的疫情造成了很多問題，其中一個問題就是DRUG ADDITION 和 BEHAVIOR ADDICTION, VIDEO GAME ADDICTION 是BEHAVIOR ADDICTION的一種。