When I looked out of the window early this morning, I was surprised and delighted with what I saw in the dim twilightt: The whole neighborhood had been covered with white snow! It had stopped already, and it must have snowed a whole night.

On the way I sent Frank to the bus station, we found the ground had been covered by  thick  snow.  The  fluffy blanket of snow felt so soft and it creaked when you set you feet on it. The paths in my community was so slippery we had to be very careful walking on it.  Our deep footprints had been left on the snow while we trudged over it. The snow was so thick that it easily covered my ankles, and my knees in some shallow craters.

The road

Frank, my son, went back from school yesterday evening and told me he couldn't go to school for a whole week from tomorrow. One of his classmates was said to have contracted A/H1N1 and was in quarantine now. As he was one of those sitting closest to the boy, he was ordered to stay home though he felt everything was fine.

From today, he has to study at home and prepare for the mid-term examination. Meanwhile, his teacher asked him to measure body temperature every day and report to her.

Gosh, over a month has passed since the last update. A lot has happened during the month. Everybody has been busy working, and sohave I.

Frank, my son, took part in the national day ceremony and the whole family were proud of him.  He played a part in the background display. I was fascinated when watching those changing patterns and slogans during the parade, and it gave me a sense of speciality: my son was there, even though I couldn't find him. I knew he was hiding behind one patch of the reds or yellows, or some other colors, or among one of the patterns that was formed.

It was hard work. He, among other around 80,000 kids, had been preparing for it for about three months. July and August were the  hottest in Beijing, and we really cared a lot for

These days, I picked up several interesting short sentences while watching English programs and reading. Some are quite useful in our daily life. Maybe sometime you find them expressing yourself very well. Here we go!

1. Give me a break!(别烦我！）

Wow, it seems you are bothered by someone a lot. So....

2. Knock it off!(闭嘴！）  

Equivalent to ' Shut up!', but you have another option to express the same feeling now, don't you?

The phrase 'to toe the line' means 'to obey the rules'. The following is some background about this phrase from www.phrase.org.uk:

                                                        Toe the line

Meaning

These days I've been busy entertaining one of our key customers and can barely spare some time writing something. But it indeed arrested ny eyes when I glimpsed over this phrase.

The phrase 'chicken out' has two different meanings. 

1.  to refrain from doing something because of fear or cowardice.   E.G.: I chickened out when I saw how deep the water was ( It is exactly the case for a guy like me who is not good at swimming at all.

2. To renege or withdraw:  You can't chicken out

I've subscribed CD mobile version since early last year and find it really interesting. Besides being updated with the latest news, I can learn some useful phrases and hot words from it. I'd like to share some of them with you from now on.

1. Mortgage slave(房奴）:  it refers to some young guys or couples who have bought their apartment on bank loans and have to pay the debt on monthly basis.  In the past years when the lending rate were soaring, those who had bought one had to pay more than before. In the current bubbling real estate market, more and more people cannot afford to buy an apartment of their own due to higher and higher housing costs; while those who have already bought one have to pay a handsome sum of of their income to repay their debts. Namely, they have become the slaves of t

  It's funny indeed: the more you try to evade it, the more likely you run into it. 

After no more than two weeks, I'm back in this city again. The reason is simple: the customer needs us here for an on-the-spot meeting(a weird translation found on some websites, just borrow it here）.

The express train from Beijing to Taiyuan is really fast, which covers over 500 kilometers just within 3 hours. Of course, speediness is achieved  at the price of something else: during the 3 hours, I couldn't use my cellphone at all. When the train stopped and I was in the wired world again, my cellphone suddenly rang crazily: too many missed calls!

The city is as crowded as before,

Time for another business trip...

At noon, I arrived at this small coastal city, once a beautiful place in my imagination, only to find a shabby small township in Liaoning province. The first time as it is to me, I've known about the city for a long time ( perhaps from the time I was in high school), partly because it is one of the important zinc mines in China.

I'm here for the same reason: to visit my customers and introduce our new product to them. To my regret, the guy I wanted to see was heavily engaged in meetings and couldn't spare a minute to see me.  I just had a brief talk with him over the phone.

In the evening, I had dinner with a technician, another local friend of

The city is now becoming one of my frequented places now.  Almost every month, I have to come here...to visit one of my customers. To tell you the truth, I don't like the city at all: dusty and dirty, and as crowded as Beijing. Almost everywhere there will be traffic jam: because the local government is trying to refurbish the city, maybe. Roads have been digged up, which has been quite some time since the first time I was here. The streets and lanes seem to be in such a mess you can easily get lost.  And what's more, I'm feeling quite uneasy with the strange accent of the local dialect.

Before I came here, I jus