2007年12月17日 星期一

CHRISTMAS IS COMING!!!!

I love Christmas,it is not the present make me happy but the atmosphere is very jolly,and everyone are looking forward to the holiday.Christmas is an annual holiday that celebrates the birth of Jesus. The date of the celebration is traditional, and is not considered to be his actual date of birth. Christmas festivities often combine the commemoration of Jesus' birth with various secular customs, many of which have been influenced by earlier winter festivals.
In most places around the world, Christmas Day is celebrated on December 25. Christmas Eve is the preceding day, December 24. In the United Kingdom and many countries of the Commonwealth, Boxing Day is the following day, December 26. In Catholic countries, Saint Stephen's Day or the Feast of St. Stephen is December 26. The Armenian Apostolic Church observes Christmas on January 6. Eastern Orthodox Churches that still use the Julian Calendar celebrate Christmas on the Julian version of 25 December, which is January 7 on the more widely used Gregorian calendar, because the two calendars are now 13 days apart.
The word Christmas originated as a contraction of "Christ's mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.In early Greek versions of the New Testament, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ. Since the mid-16th century Χ, or the similar Roman letter X, was used as an abbreviation for Christ. Hence, "Xmas" is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.
After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the very early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as geol, the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival from which the current English word 'Yule' is derived.
The prominence of Christmas Day increased gradually after
Charlemagne was crowned on Christmas Day in 800. Around the 12th century, the remnants of the former Saturnalian traditions of the Romans were transferred to the Twelve Days of Christmas (26 December6 January). Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival, incorporating ivy, holly, and other evergreens, as well as gift-giving.
Modern traditions have come to include the display of
Nativity scenes, Holly and Christmas trees, the exchange of gifts and cards, and the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. Popular Christmas themes include the promotion of goodwill and peace.

2007年12月6日 星期四

A creative man

Dan Brown is a creative man and he is the author of numerous #1 bestsellers, including Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons, and Deception Point. His acclaimed novel—The Da Vinci Code—has become one of the most widely read books of all time. Why everyone love his novels?? Because he mixed the story with religion、science and art including historic monument. In 1996, his interest in code-breaking and covert government agencies led him to write his first novel, Digital Fortress. Set within the clandestine National Security Agency, the novel explores the fine line between civilian privacy and national security. Brown’s follow-up techno-thriller, Deception Point, centered on similar issues of morality in politics, national security, and classified technology. The son of a Presidential Award winning math professor and of a professional sacred musician, Dan grew up surrounded by the paradoxical philosophies of science and religion. I think these complementary perspectives make him creative and served as inspiration for his acclaimed novel Angels & Demons—a science vs. religion thriller set within a Swiss physics lab and Vatican City. Recently, he has begun work on a series of symbology thrillers featuring his popular protagonist Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of iconography and religious art. The upcoming series will include books set in Paris, London, and Washington D.C. And I am really looking forward to his new books.

2007年12月4日 星期二

It's miracle...A MAN WILL BECOME WHAT HE THINKS