China Kid 2
by Clark Zhang
July 14th, I moved to Britain and excitement put me in an ultimate happy mood for weeks, I forgot the tiredness. I mingled with my dad and step-mom smoothly.
After half a year self English training, I was sent into a local high school. At the time I was exceedingly nervous. Students and teachers enthusiastically welcomed me and spoke to me with a 10 words per minute speed English, but I still hardly understood any terms came out of their mouths. They liked me, because I was pretty outstanding in the math’s class. During break times, the guys were gathered on the playground and shouted out "Clark come over here man!" Because there was a Russian guy who was well taller than me and they wanted to see how this live Bruce Lee could fight against a big Western. In the first round of the spar, I caught his little finger and slightly twisted it, so he had to follow my hand's movement, and therefore, I put him on the ground by a bare hand. Since then, no one ever made the second challenge, and I got to know that he was the strongest guy in the school. I was actually quite proud as in China I never had chance to be seen like this.
During the two years course in the high school, I frankly didn't achieve very much academically. The language put me down all the time. Needless to say, the British education system is very relaxing. I often found myself don't want to do as much work as before, it is terrific. The only triumph I had was a "Merit Award of Mathematics" at the end of the year.
Socially, I don't enjoy the British style of the off-work activity, pubs. In my opinion they are distant people, polite but conservative. In fact, I become more and more independent as a result of the odd culture.
Since year 2000 I've taken great interest in designing and maintaining websites. With a large amount of effort and a small amount of time, I managed to construct a personal web and launched on a free hosting server, with 3 pop-ups and 2 hidden adverts at the same time. I gradually acquired the sense of professionalism and redesigned my sites again and again, and the first award or the official reorganization was that my school put up my URL on their website as an example of the IT students' brilliance. Actually I hadn't even attended an IT lesson.
I progressed, as recent as 1 year ago; the Flash version of the site won a few official website design awards. And I even started a business of web design. Nowadays, I devote much time in pursuit of Search Engine Marketing, which is very critical to firms which heavily depend on internet sales. Of the science, patience and vast knowledge are required. I constantly seek help and swap experiences with other webmaster at Webmaster Forum.
While I am always keeping an eye on free resources of English learning materials on the internet, www.english-test.net drew my attention on the first day Torsten joined the webmaster community. I checked it out page by page, and was so impressed by its content and design that I sent an email asking to volunteer in his team. I was delighted when he accepted my offer.
Since then the website has grown bigger and more popular by an incredible speed and I think now the solid and hard work which Torsten, Alan and Slava have been putting in now comes to fruition.
After half a year self English training, I was sent into a local high school. At the time I was exceedingly nervous. Students and teachers enthusiastically welcomed me and spoke to me with a 10 words per minute speed English, but I still hardly understood any terms came out of their mouths. They liked me, because I was pretty outstanding in the math’s class. During break times, the guys were gathered on the playground and shouted out "Clark come over here man!" Because there was a Russian guy who was well taller than me and they wanted to see how this live Bruce Lee could fight against a big Western. In the first round of the spar, I caught his little finger and slightly twisted it, so he had to follow my hand's movement, and therefore, I put him on the ground by a bare hand. Since then, no one ever made the second challenge, and I got to know that he was the strongest guy in the school. I was actually quite proud as in China I never had chance to be seen like this.
During the two years course in the high school, I frankly didn't achieve very much academically. The language put me down all the time. Needless to say, the British education system is very relaxing. I often found myself don't want to do as much work as before, it is terrific. The only triumph I had was a "Merit Award of Mathematics" at the end of the year.
Socially, I don't enjoy the British style of the off-work activity, pubs. In my opinion they are distant people, polite but conservative. In fact, I become more and more independent as a result of the odd culture.
Since year 2000 I've taken great interest in designing and maintaining websites. With a large amount of effort and a small amount of time, I managed to construct a personal web and launched on a free hosting server, with 3 pop-ups and 2 hidden adverts at the same time. I gradually acquired the sense of professionalism and redesigned my sites again and again, and the first award or the official reorganization was that my school put up my URL on their website as an example of the IT students' brilliance. Actually I hadn't even attended an IT lesson.
I progressed, as recent as 1 year ago; the Flash version of the site won a few official website design awards. And I even started a business of web design. Nowadays, I devote much time in pursuit of Search Engine Marketing, which is very critical to firms which heavily depend on internet sales. Of the science, patience and vast knowledge are required. I constantly seek help and swap experiences with other webmaster at Webmaster Forum.
While I am always keeping an eye on free resources of English learning materials on the internet, www.english-test.net drew my attention on the first day Torsten joined the webmaster community. I checked it out page by page, and was so impressed by its content and design that I sent an email asking to volunteer in his team. I was delighted when he accepted my offer.
Since then the website has grown bigger and more popular by an incredible speed and I think now the solid and hard work which Torsten, Alan and Slava have been putting in now comes to fruition.
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