Friday, October 31, 2008

Culture Week: English Song Competition (October 30)

The English Culture Week finished up with an English Song Competition. Ten finals sang their English song for the top three prizes. A great competition which saw the Department of English cleaning up, winning everything!


The Masters of Ceremony for the event were "dressed to kill" and equally professional



I was one of the judges along with these who sat on my right.




The are the ten finalist for the evening's contest. Did a beautiful opening number they did!


Contestant Number 8 does a intro to get things started. She also happens to be none other than Grace Sprite from the Department of English's Class 3 Sophomore class.




This is Contestant Number 5 doing a short number as part of the introduction to the evenings contestant. Guess what? She is our own Department of English's Isabella. What? Did you think I would be taking pictures of people I did not know?


Contestant Number 1 is a good friend of mine from Tibet, Kevin. Someone told me he had won the competition the year before and must have gotten the Number One position because of it. He can sing!



I actually loved the beginning of this couples singing. Played a little violin and then began their duet. Unfortunately, they never did get to sing with each other and often grated against each other's melody and words. Beautiful start though.



Grace Sprite surprises everyone with her low, silky and sexy voice. She was very impressive as Ms. Vamp.



Giselle, one of our new freshmen English Translation majors, rocks big time! She is a real pro.



Isabella, another English major, came through with a great performance. She, too, is very good.




Three contestants from other departments in the university.


At the end of the show, the ten contestants gave a final encore.


Pete, standing next to one of the department bosses (Ms. Susan) on the right, received an award for organizational excellence.



Both Grace Sprite and Isabella won second place. We in the Department of Foreign Languages were excited with their win.


Giselle won the top prize. Her hip-hop/rock presentation was over the top in excellence. She is very good!


Group shot of all of us involved in the competition.


A couple of happy performers.


Dean Jiang officially closed the culture week for another year.

Halloween Party: Sophomore Class 2 (October 30)

Another class, another Halloween Party. This time the class is the number two section of our sophomores. Here Mr. Palace had the stick and set everything up for another fun party.



Halloween Word Search: Halloween Party





All the students were the contestants to find out who could come up with the most words from HALLOWEEN PARTY.



He got third place.


She got second place.


The big winner.


A skit that was a bit strange but it worked.


Ms. Piggy singing a Halloween song.

Bobbing For Apples


The contestant with an apple stuck in her mouth.









No water or tubs so we hung the apple on string and bobbed for them. The students supplied the apples after I mentioned about the tradition of bobbing for apples. Everyone seemed to have a lot of fun trying to grab that apple.


A group photo of the class 2 Halloween Party participants.

Culture Week: Final Debate Competition (October 29)

Another English Culture Week event - finals of the English debate competition. Accounting and Finance went up against our very own debate team from the English Department. The topic was - Individualism verses Collectivism. What an interesting topic for Chinese students to debate.


The moderator was tough but fair and made sure both sides kept within the time limits.


The affirmative side was from my own Department of Foreign Languages. From left to right: Kathryn, Nathan, Killua, Fay, Craig and Amelia.


The Negative side was from the Department of Transportation


The Affirmative side, collectivism over individualism, presents their initial argument.


The Negative side, individualism over collectivism, presents their initial argument.


The judges came from the ranks of the teachers. Kathleen gave the final judges wrap-up.


Participants in this years debate contest.


More presentations by our own Ms. Susan.


The Best Debater came from this year's runner up team.


The Runner up team.


The victors in this year's contest. Actually, it was not really that close as our team was loaded with the best English speakers in the entire university.