Nathan's Blog
看电影学英语
gone with the wind
Jul 6th
想多认识一些单词，自然读英文原版书是最好的办法。昨天下载了gone with the wind，准备花两个月时间(没想到有太多了共63章)三个月读一下。我会把每天的进度写在这里。
昨天看第一段就被华丽的生词搞晕了。形容一下斯佳丽的容貌就如此多的生词，哈哈。我只能心中默念，一切都是纸老虎。一切都是纸老虎。硬着头皮读吧。
The Road to Independence
Jun 21st
The ideas of liberalism and democracy are the basis of the U.S. political system. As the colonists built their new society, they believed more strongly in these ideas. Britain’s 13 colonies grew in population and economic strength during the 1700s. Although ruled by a distant government, the colonists governed many local affairs.
1) liberalism 自由主义
2) democracy 民主政治
3) govern 统制 管理
After Britain won a costly war with France in the 1750s, the colonists were asked to help pay for the war, and for Britain’s large empire. These policies restricted the colonists’ way of life.
1) costly 代价高的，花钱多的
2) empire 帝国
3) policy 政策
4) restrict 限制 约束
For example, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 restricted the colonists from settling new land. The Currency Act of 1764 made it illegal to print paper money in the colonies. The Quartering Act of 1765 forced the colonists to provide food and housing for the royal soldiers. The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed all legal papers, licenses, newspapers, and leases.
1) illegal 非法的
The Stamp Act united the colonists in an organized resistance. The main problem was that they weren’t allowed to participate in the government that taxed them.
In October 1765, 27 delegates from nine colonies met in New York. They passed resolutions saying that the individual colonies should have the right to impose their own taxes. This satisfied most of the delegates, but a small number of radicals wanted independence from Britain.
1) delegate 代表
2) radical 激进分子 someone who has new and different ideas, especially someone who wants complete social and political change
One of those people was Samuel Adams of Massachusetts. He wrote newspaper articles and made speeches. The groups he helped to organize became a big part of the revolutionary movement.
1) revolutionary 革命的
By 1773, colonial traders, who were angry with British regulation of the tea trade, were interested in Sam Adams’s ideas. In December 1773, a group of men sneaked on three British ships in Boston harbor and threw the cargo of tea overboard. This event became known as the Boston Tea Party.
1) harbor 海湾 海港
2) cargo ： the goods that are being carried in a ship or plane
The British Parliament punished Massachusetts by closing Boston’s port and by restricting local authority. Colonists called these new laws the Intolerable Acts and united to oppose them. All the colonies except Georgia sent representatives to Philadelphia in September 1774 to talk about their “present unhappy state.” It was the First Continental Congress.
1) the First Continental Congress 第一届大陆会议
Colonists were angry with the British for taking away their rights, but not everyone agreed on the solution. Loyalists wanted to stay subjects under the king. Moderates wanted to compromise and build a better relationship with the British government. The revolutionaries wanted complete independence. They began collecting weapons and getting men ready—waiting for the fight for independence.
Repeat exercise 001
Jun 10th
来自Dead Poets Society
Ladies and gentlemen, boys,the Light of Knowledge.
One hundred years ago, in 1859,41 boys sat in this room
and were asked the same question…
that now greets you at the start of each semester .
Gentlemen,what are the Four Pillars ?
Tradition. Honor. Discipline . Excellence.
In her first year,Welton Academy graduated five students.
Last year we graduated 51.
And more than 75 percent of those went on to the lvy League .
This-This kind of accomplishment is the result
of fervent dedication to the principles taught here.
This is why you parents have been sending us your sons.
This is why we are the best
preparatory school in the United States.
As you know,our beloved Mr. Portius
of the English Department retired last term.
You will have the opportunity later to
meet his replacement, Mr. John Keating,
himself an honors graduate of this school.
And who, for the past several years, has been teaching.
at the highly regarded Chester School in London.
COLONIAL PERIOD
May 18th
Most people who came to the British colonies in the 1600s were English. Others came from The Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, France, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. By 1690, 250,000 people lived in the New World. By 1790, there were 2.5 million people.
People came for different reasons. Some left their homes to escape war. Others sought political or religious freedom. Some had to work as servants to pay back the cost of their trip before gaining their freedom. Some, like black Africans, arrived as slaves.
1) political 政治的
2) religious 宗教的
3) servant 仆人 雇员
In time, the 13 colonies developed within three distinct regions.
The first settlements were along the Atlantic coast and on rivers that flowed into the ocean. In the Northeast, trees covered the hills and stones filled the soil, but water power was available. The Northeast was called New England, and it included Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The economy was based on timber, fishing, shipbuilding, and trade.
1) soil 土地
2) timber: trees that produce wood used for building or making things
The middle colonies included New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. The weather was milder and the countryside was more varied. People worked in industry and agriculture. The society was more diverse and sophisticated. People living in New York came from all over Europe.
1) diverse: very different from each other
2) sophisticate：having or showing a lot of experience and knowledge about the world and about culture, art, literature, etc.
The Southern colonies included Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina and South Carolina. The growing season was long and the soil was fertile. Most people were farmers. Some owned small farms that they worked themselves. The wealthy farmers owned large plantations and used African slaves as workers.
1) fertile 肥沃 富庶
2) plantation 庄园
The relationships between settlers and Native Americans (also called Indians) were good and bad. In some areas, the two groups traded and were friendly. In most cases, as the settlements grew bigger, the settlers forced the Indians to move.
1) force :to make someone do something they do not want to do
As time went on, all the colonies developed governments based on the British tradition of citizen participation. In Britain, the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689 limited the power of the king and gave more power to the people. The American colonists closely observed these changes. Colonial assemblies claimed the right to act as local parliaments. They passed laws that limited the power of the royal governor and increased their own authority.
1) participation 参与
2) royal governor 皇权
3) authority 权利
Disagreements between the royal governors and the assemblies continued. The colonists realized that their interests often were different from Britain’s interests. At first, the colonists wanted self-government within a British commonwealth. Only later did they want independence.
1) interest 利益
2) commonwealth 联邦
Early America
May 17th
这是美国国务院提供的一本帮助英语学习者学习英文和了解美国历史的书。很短，只有72页，配有mp3有声素材。速度慢，清晰并且很好听。书中也对一些重点词汇进行了解释。但我在阅读中发现，我不认识的单词明显比书中提供的多出数倍。所以我一一查阅了词典。我把单词写在每段话下面，放在这里，做个备份，也希望对像我一样笨的人有所帮助。原文地址：点这里
The most recent Ice Age was about 35,000 years ago. Much of the world’s water was frozen into big sheets of ice. A land bridge-as wide as 1,500 kilometers-joined Asia and North America. By 12,000 years ago, humans lived throughout much of what now are the Americas.
The first “Americans” crossed the land bridge from Asia. Historians believe that they lived in what now is Alaska for thousands of years. They moved south into today’s mainland United States. They lived by the Pacific Ocean in the Northwest, in the mountains and deserts of the Southwest, and along the Mississippi River in the Midwest.
1) historian :历史学家, 史学工作者
2) Pacific Ocean 太平洋
These early groups are known as Hohokam, Adenans, Hopewellians, and Anasazi. They built villages and grew crops. Their lives were connected to the land. Family and community were important to them. History shows they told stories and shared information mostly by talking, not writing. Some used a form of picture writing called hieroglyphics. Nature was important to their spiritual beliefs. Some groups built big piles of earth in the shapes of snakes, birds, or pyramids. The different groups traded with each other, but they also fought.
1) crop 作物 庄稼
2) community 社区 社会 团体
3) hieroglyphic 象形文字
4) spiritual 精神上的
5) pyramid 金子塔
6) trad 贸易
No one knows why, but these groups disappeared. Other groups, Hopi and Zuni, later came to this land and prospered. By the time the first Europeans arrived, about two million native people lived in what now is the United States.
1) prosper 兴旺 繁荣 if people or businesses prosper, they grow and develop in a successful way, especially by becoming rich or making a large profit
Historians believe that the Norse may have been the first Europeans to arrive. They came from Greenland, where Erik the Red had started a settlement around 985. In 1001, Erik’s son, Leif, explored the northeast coast of what now is Canada. Remaining pieces of Norse houses were found in northern Newfoundland.
It took almost 500 years for other Europeans to reach North America, and another 100 for them to build permanent settlements. The first explorers did not know about America. They were looking for a way to go to Asia from Europe by sea. Other Europeans who arrived later-mostly Spanish and Portuguese, but also Dutch, French, and British-came for land and the riches of the “New World.”
1) permanent 永久的
2) explorer: someone who travels through an unknown area to find out about it
The most famous explorer was Christopher Columbus. He was Italian, but Queen Isabella of Spain paid for his trips. Columbus landed on islands in the Caribbean Sea in 1492. He never reached what is now the United States.
In 1497, John Cabot, an explorer sailing for England, landed in eastern Canada. His arrival established a British claim to land in North America.
During the 1500s, Spain explored and claimed more land in the Americas than did any other country. In 1513, Juan Ponce de Léon landed in Florida. Hernando De Soto landed in Florida in 1539 and then explored all the way to the Mississippi River.
Spain conquered Mexico in 1522. In 1540, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado wanted to find the mythical Seven Cities of Cibola. He started looking in Mexico and then traveled north to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and into the Great Plains.
1) conquer 武力征服
2) mythical 神话中的
3) plain 平原
Other Europeans, such as Giovanni da Verrazano, Jacques Cartier, and Amerigo Vespucci, explored further north. The two American continents were named after Amerigo Vespucci.
The first permanent European settlement in North America was Spanish. It was built in St. Augustine in Florida. Thirteen British colonies to the north would later form the United States. Virginia and Massachusetts were the two earliest.
1) colony 殖民地
It wasn’t just explorers who settled in the New World. People started to come to the New World to live. These people were immigrants from Europe.
1) immigrant 移民
My first web app for iphone
Apr 18th
今天写了第一个iphone版本的应用程序，当然我写的是web app 不是native app，用来JQtouch的库模拟了大部分的效果。包括翻页，滑动，取消等等。
感觉真不错。谁说苹果很封闭啊，我一个.net 的程序员也可以写个自己的应用。很好玩。
My first Google chrome extension
Mar 21st
做程序员的好处就在于，有的时候可以写点儿代码来为自己服务。而且在给自己写代码的时候，压力最小，够用就好。不用去太在意写的是不是周详、是不是优雅。也许就是几行代码，就可以给自己带来很大的便利。我最近在学英语的时候就碰到一个问题，因为我认识的单词比较少。所以在看东西的时候，总是免不了要去查单词，经常用的有3个在线查词的网站，google字典、Longman Dictionary、金山的爱词霸。于是呢，我就需要在看文章的时候在几个窗口间不停的切换。虽然这也算不上有多麻烦，但是切来切去总是觉得不是很方便。重要的还有一点儿，就是查过的单词没有记录，想复习的时候往往也不记得都查了什么单词了。
与是就有了现在的这个想法，给google chrome写个扩展,好处就是在遇到不认识的单词时，只需要点击一下地址栏后的按钮，就可以在当前浏览器窗口弹出一个浮层，完成查询的操作。同时我还可以用一个ajax的异步操作把单词记到数据库中。方便日后复习和统计。说干就干，查了几篇资料，一会就搞了一个出来。效果图如下
感兴趣的同学，可以自己也动手做一个哦。 为了简单起见，我没与搞的那么复杂，直接在search之后插入一个iframe解决搜索结果的问题。这里是一个getting started tutorial看一下就可以明白了。
我的代码：
$(document).ready(function(){
$(“#btnSearch”).click(function(){
var keyword = $(“#keyword”).val();
$.getJSON(“http://localhost:8003/Handler/Save.ashx?keyword=”+keyword+”&format=json&jsoncallback=?”,
function(data){
$(“#result”).html(“<iframe width=’500′ height=’400′ frameborder=’0′ src=’http://www.google.cn/dictionary? langpair=en|zh-CN&q=”+keyword+”&hl=zh-CN&aq=f’ scrolling=’yes’></iframe>”);
});
});
});
相信我你并不孤独
Mar 11th
这是一个非常要紧的时候，坚持下去，突破自己才是最重要的。回过头来你会发现，这是考验自己的时候。懂得忍受寂寞，有耐心的做应该做的事，才是最重要的。我想谁都会有这样的时候，觉得自己都听了那么多了，也看了那么多了，怎么还跟以前一样，还是啥也不会呢？ 坚持、坚持就对了。
