Mid Autumn Festival

There are many festivals in my country. The most important one is the Mid Autumn Festival on August the 14 of the Lunar year. This is a special festival for children. The festival starts at the beginning of the night, about 6PM. In this festival, children usually receive many many presents from their parents. Most of presents are cakes or a beautiful light. Sometimes some of them also like making their lantern by themselves.

In this festival, most families go to the pagoda at the village. They give many fruits to Buddha and wish for good lives. I also used to go there with my parents for Mid Autumn holiday and I met so many of my friends there. On this holiday, there is a Lân dancing performance (Lân is a great animal of Asian Legend, he looks like a lion). Children usually really like this performance so much that they follow it around the village. They come to every house, do beautiful dance and give their best wishes to all members in each house. Then they receive some presents from them, usually cakes or money.

The festival finishes at midnight, when the Moon is really full in the sky (it looks like a big silver disk). It's the time of the most beautiful scene I think. Then my friends and I come back home and have a deep sleep with beautiful dreams about childhood.

A story

That was 9:00 PM in the countryside where I was born and grew up. I was coming back home after my English class. I was thinking about my Maths exercises. I hadn't finished yet. The weather was so cold and the wind made me afraid. I felt something was not right.

Suddenly, I looked up at the sky and I saw a strange object. It was a big bright disk.

After landing, two aliens got out of it. They looked very tall with metal clothes and two sticks on their heads. "They may be his antennae" I thought.

- Could you help me please! - They talked to me in perfect English.

- Oh, oh, yes, yes, may I help you? - I tried to stay calm and answer them.

- Could you explain to us this point in Vietnamese grammar? We are studying Vietnamese but it's so hard and we could not do anything.

And for a long time, I answered many many questions about Vietnamese, also Maths. I thought about three hours passed. I was really worried because my parents did not like me to come home late. But I could not stop because they asked many things.

Finally, they said "Thank you! You will receive a present, a special present. Please wait a moment!". Then they got back in the space ship and flew away. I stood still for a while and then I turned round. That time, I felt very happy and immediately I solved all my Maths exercises in my mind. I felt more intelligent myself and I could speak English very well. I saw my watch, it was just 9:00 PM.

Which pet is the best for Zoe?

I think a dog is the best for Zoe because it is a cute animal and Zoe could play with him without being boried. When Zoe goes out for a picnic with her friends, her dog could go with. I think Zoe's dog could be beside her everywhere and all the time. Besides, a dog is a very intelligent pet. It could do many things to help his owner. To having a cuddly pet, Zoe should clean her dog everyday and she should look after it carefully too.

In my opinion, a dog is a good friend for Zoe. Perhap for a short time, her parents will like animal because of a cute image of her pet. Though, having a goldfish is also a good idea. But it cannot go anywhere with Zoe and she cannot reach it.

Finally, Zoe need a dog now. I have one, and I would like to present it to her.

Fit and Unfit

Toby is unfit and overweight. One day his wife gave him a surprise birthday present: one week at a health farm! There has a clear environment, and his wife hoped he would be better after one week there. When he came there, he still smoked so much. The trainer, a beautiful girl, showed him the "NO SMOKING" sign and said "Don't smoke, please!". Toby didn't like that but he couldnot do anything.

After that, Toby had to have a health test. He weighed about 95kg. His trainer smiled and said "Don't worry! You'll feel better after a week!"

At 1:00 a.m, Toby went to the canteen for his lunch. He had to go on a diet so he was given a meal with just a few vegetables. Toby was so sad and he said: "No, I cannot eat them! Some taster things, please!"

In the afternoon, everyone had a yoga class. Toby was very tired and immedietly he fell sleep. And so, while everyone was trying the yoga exercise, he was sleeping. In the evening, Toby was not able to stand his hunger. He phoned a fastfood restaurant for pizzas. He found a way to get out and meet the pizza delivery man in the street. He ate so many pizzas and felt very happy. "Oh, that's my lifestyle!" he said.

One week later, at the weigh-in, he weighted... 100kg. It was the result of eating so many pizzas every night. His trainer felt so sad and so angry. She said to him: "Why? What did you do, Mr Toby?". "Oh, I don't know!" said Toby.

(ILA)

What do you think about Taiwanese nigh market?

A character of Taiwanese culture I am very interested in is night market. I have had some opportunities to come to some night markets in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. In my opinion, night market is not only a Taiwanese cultural feature, but also a Taiwanese business symbol.

We say night market is a Taiwanese cultural feature because whenever we mention about this, we often think of Taiwan and vice versa. Some famous night markets are Shilin, Shida in Taipei, Fengjia in Taichung and Liuhe in Kaohsiung. In a night market, vendors sell many kinds of merchandises. Some games are also introduced. Specially, you can enjoy many delicious foods there and study further interesting Taiwanese cooking styles as well. Night market is also a place for families, friends and maybe lonely people to go there to relax at weekend.

There are many kinds of commodities shown in a Taiwanese night market such as clothes, toys for childen, aromatic spices, cosmetics and others. Most of Taiwanese bussinessmen know how to make customers pay special attention to their commodities. For the first idea, besides being made better, the commodities are decorated to be more beautiful. The second one is that vendors are known (famous) for good manners. They are very good at winning customer’s heart. It is a Taiwanese art of business.

If you have any opportunity to come to Taiwan, do not forget to drop in a night market. You will get better ideas about this beautiful island.

Performance Measures

The performance of a coded communication system is in general measured by its probability of decoding error (called the error probability) and its coding gain over an uncoded system that transmits informatin at the same rate. There are two types of error probability, probability of word (or block) error and probability of bit error. The probability of word error is defined as the probability that a decoded word (or block) at the output of the decoder is in error. This error probability is commonly called the word-error rate (WER) or block-error rate (BLER). The probability of bit error, also called the bit-error rate (BER), is defined as the probability that a decoded information bit at the output of the decoder is in error. A coded communication system should be designed to keep these two error probability as low as possible under certain system constraints, such as power, bandwidth, and decoding complexity.

(p. 15-16, Error Control Coding - 2nd Edition - Shu Lin, Daniel J. Costello - Pearson Education International)

Communication Systems

The goal of a communication system designer is to configure a system that transports a message signal from a source of interest across a noisy channel to a user at the other end of the channel with the following objective:

"The message signal is delivered to the user both efficiently and reliably, subject to certain design constraints: allowable transmit power, available channel bandwidth, and affordable cost of building the system."

(Commuication Systems - 4th Edition - Simon - Haykin)

Happy New Year 2011

Today is the first day of the year 2011!

I would like to say Happy New Year to everyone! Specially I would like to say thanks to my family, my love and all my friends who have been encouraging me in my study and my life!

Wish all you a Happy New Year!

Welcome 2011, welcome new journey!

Love all you,

LHH