Group work

        We were asked to work together for a common goal and work as a group. Many times teachers were like to put students into group to perform various projects and tasks. I think group work is sometimes a lot better than working just by myself. With group work, depends on what type of people you are working with, you can learn more from each other and enhance cooperation and social skills. In most of my group project, my group basically is pretty fair that we have peaceful discussion and each of us has equal amount of work and contribution to the project. Although sometimes I may contribute less or more depend on what type of people I’m working with, I found group work pretty interesting and cool. Sometime through group work, I can meet new people and get to know people better. In life, everything is group work. It is impossible for one to complete an incredible task just by oneself. Only through discussion and sharing of information can people achieve something great. Group work allows me to learn and take responsibility that in order for a job to be done, you have to finish things on time and cooperate with each other to arrange meeting time and other things. 

Language Use

How are new words created? Well most words are created through combination of words such as the common slang in junior PAS community “Bromance” which is the combination of brother and romance. It basically means friendship between brothers, nothing homosexual is involved in this (I hope). Anyway, when new words that are creative and happen to fit into a culture well, the word will stay and become popular which eventually become real words in the future. I guess this is how new languages are created. In the old days, people have no fixed grammar or syntax usage due to the lack of written record. As technology and communication improved, people started to put down their speech with alphabets or character that enable speeches to pass down from generation to generation. When people have slightly different accent for the same word, the way people spell it will become different and eventually theses words become separate and contain different meaning that is suitable for each different culture. Words are also created when people tried to simplify words, in now days due to text messages. We created words such as LOL, ROFL and other words that is basically an acronym for a phrase. However, as time move on with more people recognizing and acknowledging the meaning of these so call symbols, soon they will also become words and be put in a dictionary. 

Independent Reading Project Reflection

From the independent reading project, I learned a new book called the catcher in the rye. At first, I wasn’t really motivated to read the book because I thought I could have more than a month to read it. However, as the deadline for the project approached, I got very motivated to finish reading the whole book on time within less than 6 hours and manage to get my project on time. In this project, I did a 3D model of a scene in the book, or I will say it’s a diorama. Originally I was planning to do three scenes, but I was kind of procrastinating for the project, so in the end I only get 1 scene done. But I will say I did a pretty good job with the scene that it includes lots of details and it’s large enough for people to appreciate a scene in the book. I found this type of project to be fun and creative. It allows me to make connection of the book to other text, self or the world. It allows me to further explore the detail of the book to further understand the theme and the personality of a character. 

Archetype

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the word archetype means the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies. It can also mean the perfect example. For example, Superman is an example of an archetypical character that represents justice, truth and wisdom. Superman is some typical romantic heroes that save the day and defeat the villain. According to Carl Jung, in order to achieve mental health, one needs t realized our own archetype and make up stories with them in it. For example, in the movie Star Wars, the story is full of archetype. Luke skywalker represents owns own idealized self that we went through adventures in life. The archetype of an evil man is Darth Vader, who in the end is actually a reflection of oneself. An archetype of a mentor or a helper in life is Obewan Kenobe, who help Luke, the self, to achieve own ultimate goals. To make people an archetype, it has to be a model or a typical model of a certain thing. In literature, it often include archetype like the innocent self, evil opposition who gives you the conflict, a helper who give you advices and help you overcome your difficulty, and the ultimate goal of winning back and earning someone who loves them. 

Contemporary

 Throughout the year, we have looked at several literary movements in American Literature class. We have witness the Rationalism period. This is the time when literature contained element that believed that god created the universe and that people arrive truths by using reason instead of feeling. They believe strongly in religion that everything is a reflection of god and that we are ultimately predetermined in our fate since we are born and we work in this word seemly to redeem our sin. Moving on, we then have the Romanticism. This is the period where people started to move away from reason and believe that intuition and feeling valued over reason. Romantic heroes were created during this time and imaginative stories were created. However, as Civil war started, Americans finally realized the violence of war and were brought back to reality. In the Realist movement, people stopped to idealize the world; instead they focus on observing and characterized ordinary events and daily life, trying to portray life as realistic as possible. Then we came to the First World War where we move on to Modernism. In Modernism, artists and writers begin to look and explore the word with a different and unique perspective. In the contemporary, or post-modern, movement, we are willing to look back at the past and use them fearlessly to include culture diversity and all multiple meaning. 

Reflect on Your project

I did a project on the Handmaid’s Tale with Judy and Alyson. When I heard that instead of writing an essay for Handmaid’s tale, we were doing a group project, I felt relieved that I wouldn’t have to type essay again. During the first group discussion, Judy came up with an excellent idea by making a 3D display of the project instead of a conventional 2D poster. We decided to use three shoeboxes with each of the boxes to represent a category of connection including text to text, text to self and text to world. In each of the shoeboxes, we will place cards each with example and a picture of our connection. Each one of us will come up with an example for each category so it will be fair that neither one of us will have to do a harder category of connections. I feel lucky to have Alyson and Judy on the team, who stay till 2 in the morning in school making the poster. We work peacefully and cooperate well all the time. Although we have some sort of schedule problem with the meeting time, mostly due to me, we are able to get the project done on time. Great job everyone! 

A Horror Story?

Is “A Rose for Emily” a horror story? Yes I will definitely say it’s a horror story. Unexpected and horrific things happen at the end of the story. This type of horror story is often called a Gothic horror which combines elements of both horror and romance. This type of horror story is somewhat different from the horror movies of the modern error. Many horror movies or novels focus on supernatural event such as aliens or monster coming out of a corner of dark gloomy rooms. Horror movies often include violence and revolting scene such as blood spilled all over the place in a room or crazy monster that screams and have blood all over its teeth. In horror movies, with the story and the abnormal setting enables the audience to know ahead of time that something terrible is going to happen. As in “A Rose for Emily”, readers don’t really have a sense of fear as the only thing we know is that poor Miss Emily is overly protected by his father and has a crushed on Homer Barron, a Yankee whom the southerner hate. Puzzles pieces were slowly shown to us as we progress through the story such as Homer Barron never ever came out of the house again and the strange smell that lasted for week from Miss Emily’s house. The shocking ending is the final kicker that truly makes this story a horrific one to read. 

Homer's End

The end for “A Rose for Emily” is truly frightening that I was indeed very surprise by the result. After Emily’s death, the town people found a dried mummy of a man lying on a bed upstairs in a room in Emily’s house. The room seems to be untouched for decades that the room is filled with ashes and dust. Everything in the room is beautifully decorated as if it’s a honey moon room. The mummy seems to be Homer Barron that Miss Emily probably poisoned him with the arsenic, which supposedly to be used for rat, she brought in a drug store. Miss Emily probably poisoned Homer Barron because she wanted to marry him so badly that she is afraid Homer will leave her and doesn’t want to marry or settle down. Wishing Homer can forever stay with her, Emily probably put some arsenic in a glass of wine and tricks Homer into the bed with her. After Homer is dead, Miss Emily probably decided to leave Homer’s dead body along on the bed for it to decay for a couple of weeks, which causes an awful smell described in the beginning of the story. She probably later sealed the room for some reason and occasionally come up to lie next to him which later result of a gray strain of hair on the pillow next to Homer. 

Nobel Prize

In Faulkner’s Novel Prize acceptance speech, he urges young writers to tackle the old universal truth such as love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. In Faulkner’s short pose in A Rose for Emily, he seems to follow the write in terms of the old universal truths that he portrays the truth of love, pride, compassion and perhaps some sort of sacrifice that involve in some eccentric actions. In my opinion, the world today, there is no stuff that is not in the field of universal truths. Everything in the world is revolved around these basic truths. Even things such as the nuclear bomb involves with love, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Nuclear bomb is used for to sacrifice millions of lives to prevent billions of life from death and the continuation of war. Nothing in literature is averted from the old universal truths. Although poetries today seem to convey not such a clear universal truth, everything in the end is still connected to it. Everything in life or I should say big important things that motivate people are connected to the universal truth. People live to find truth such as love, to achieve pride, have compassion for others and sacrifice things for a greater goal. 

Eccentric or Crazy

In “A Rose for Emily,” Ms. Emily seems to be out of situation and still is living in the past for a long time. She seems not to understand the way things work such as the fact that she needs to pay tax or just in fact that she pretends not understand in order to avoid dealing with things she finds unpleasant and probably annoying. When rich people act this way, we often called them as eccentric. However if a person with a lower rank, we will often refer to their action as crazy. In my opinion, I found Miss Emily to be a bit crazy with some sort of psychological diseases. In the story, she keeps on repeating the phase “I don’t pay no taxes in Jefferson” She refuses to get help from the community and refuses to understand the fact that she is no longer rich with a high social status. Although people respect her, people pity her as fallen nobility who is still delusional that she is still the once respected woman. I think it is unfair when people from different social castes to receive different treatment. Everyone should be equal that no one should have any more privilege than any other. 

N word

Some of the greatest literature that America has produced should as To Kill a Mockingbird contains some of words that are considered as offensive racial words. Today these books are often banned due to the racist language in them or the offensive language is simply been changed into other word that is acceptable by today’s standard. For example, the N-word in Mark Twain’s books is now change to the word slave. As in my point of view, I found changing the original text of the book to be insulting to the writer that the language is not been used for discriminating against racial group, instead it is just been used to describe how people act in the past. People can’t just deny the fact the African American were once discriminated badly against in the past that the word can never be erased from history. Although people claim that these book should be banned so that children won’t learn to use these kind of offensive terms, with teacher or parent’s guidance, students should know the meaning behind these word and let them understand why these words were bad and discriminating instead of just trying to cover it up. These words are just used to portray the reality in the past. 

Retreat

In the story “a Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, the main character retreats from society in order to hid from a reality that she finds unbearable. This is what many of us have a tendency or urge to do under some circumstances. Why would people want to retreat from society? Is it something that is healthy to do? In my opinion, I found retreating society sometimes perhaps it’s a healthy things to do after an extreme traumatic experience. For example after the loss of a love one or a dear friend, one may need some time along to settle down one’s emotion by being alone for a while in order for someone to overcome the pain and move on to live. It’s necessary for one to be alone when one tries to grief for someone’s death and something unsuccessful in life. This only becomes a problem when this type of grief slowly turns into a negative virtuous cycle where one begin to trap oneself into a cycle of negative self-talk and eventually led to depression. When it reaches depression which may cause people to eventually become a recluse who hides away from society, this is when retreating from reality becomes a bad thing. 

Free Write

Mother’s day is coming up. The end of this semester and school year is also coming up. Lots of things have happen in the past few weeks. Things seem to have kind of slow down since I have finished all my AP exams. Before the AP exams, everything night and day I’m constantly worried and tried to cram AP materials in my head for AP Chemistry and Psychology. One may say that cramming isn’t a good way to learn things and it’s useless. I find that without cramming, I will probably fail my AP exams and spend the rest of my life depressed and guilty thinking why didn’t I tried to study for the test and hoping I have a time machine which can send me back and fix the mistakes. After getting the AP stuff all finished, I feel like I’m getting a bit slacking off and needed to get my focus back to catch up with the rest of my non-AP class which I usually spend less time on studying. Everyday seems as if there are challenges and works that I needed to catch up on. Never one day can I fully be relaxed and not to think about homework and studying. I guess this is the life to be a student.

I Hate Poetry

Without knowing why, many people complain, “I hate poetry! I never understand it.” I will say I was once that type of person when I’m ignorant and lack appreciation literature and artistic value behinds it. I know poetry can sometimes be so intricate and complex that people may be annoyed by the fact that it is too difficult for them to understand. They may find poetry to be retarded that none of the things make any sense and poets are just crazy to love creating this kind of literature where no one understands it. However as I grow up and come in contact with more poetry, I find poetry can actually be fun and inspiring to read. For example, Emily Dickenson poems include and inspire new aspects of life and death through the flows and intricate designs of diction. After reading the poems, it’s as if one is learning a new lesson in life that sometimes our thought correspond to the theme of the poems and it helps us express some of our inner thoughts too. Reading poem can really open one’s literature knowledge and skill. Poems may be frustrating to understand at first. However after through some deep analysis and understanding, one can find that poetry can have some curative effect like listening to a song. 

Horror

What makes a story scary? What elements contribute to a tone of horror? There are many ingredients that make a story scary. The most classic type of method is the used of suspension and then an unexpected horrific scene that creates fear within people. Usually the story will be set in a dark and quiet night, with squeaky doors and weird sounds that follow through the plot line as the protagonist walk through the hunted house. Usually the author will use descriptive adjective to make the setting vivid as if the audience is looks at in a moving picture. To create fear in people, author usually describe unusual event such as people never came out of the hunted house once they entered to give the audience a hint that things are not normal and it can go wrong any second. Also as the protagonist goes through the event, he or she will usually make some stupid mistakes that if the characters are travel in groups, one by one the character will be attacked by monster or disappear until in the end only the protagonist survive and witness the biggest scary event. The use of foreshadowing creates a sense of insecurity in our mind that we know for sure that nothing is going to work out right and it can happen anytime before we know it.  

A Journey

I don’t think Prufrock from the poem “The Love song of J Alfred Prufrock” experience a journey or quest that the hero starts in a happy state, is somehow forced to go through a difficult quest, experience some loss and gain and eventually returns back into happy state again. Prufrock seems to be stuck in the middle of the quest that he is undergoing a difficult quest of whether or not he should ask the question, which is probably asking a woman out. I can imagine that Prufrock is once a confident with high self-esteem that he from a relatively wealthy family who has afternoon tea session which other high social class member. Due to age, Prufrock seems to be extremely worried on how people will view his physical appearance and examine him like a bug specimen and nail him on the board. This aging process is seemly a quest for Prufrock that as a middle age man, he isn’t married yet. He is afraid to ask people out as he used to do when he is younger. He seems himself as relatively useless and is said that he is just like an observer in the story of Hamlet that he is not the hero.

Prufrock Revisited

In the poem “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock”, Prufrock’s stream of thought seems to demonstrate that people are spiritually empty and contemporary life is unromantic and unheroic. However in my point of view, the poem seems to only demonstrate that Prufrock only think of himself as spiritually empty that he rather be a paired of lobster claws than a human being. As the poem shows, Prufrock seems to be worried about how people view him physically that he has thin arms and white hair. Although in the poem Prufrock didn’t explicitly tell us that he didn’t dare to do and want to do, through inference we can kind of tell that Prufrock seems to be in love with a woman and he is afraid to ask her out, which is the question he kept worry about in the poem. Prufrock worried to further move his relationship with the woman to a romance type of relationship because he is afraid that the woman might say that is not what she meant. In a way, I don’t think Prufrock thinks of contemporary life as unromantic and unheroic. He is just one low self-esteem man who is afraid to take action and can’t take rejections of the world. 

Anti-hero

As a noted scholar Joseph Campbell once said, “The hero is today running up against a hard world that is in no way responsive to the spiritual need. Modern society has become a stagnation of inauthentic lives and living that evokes nothing of our spiritual life, our potentialities or even our physical courage.” The world we live in today is basically hostile to heroism that makes many people observers rather than participants in exciting adventures. I certainly agree that J Alfred Prufrock from The love song is an antihero, who is extremely egocentric and disillusioned. In the poem, Prufrock is a man of passivity. “Do I dare? Do I dare?” Unlike a hero, Prufrock is unwilling to take any physical action to pursue his goal. Instead he only overly worries himself over it which makes him depressed and lack of self confident. With such negative self talk, Prufrock wants to be a paired of ragged claws, scuttling across the silent sea as if he willing to become thin air and disappear from society. This kind of talk makes Prufrock an observer instead of an active participant who wants to contribute some action to the world. As the violence of war raged the earth, people no longer believe in heroes and believe the best thing to do in life is to sit around and do nothing.

What's his problem

What exactly is J Alfred Prufrock’s problem in the Love song by TS Elliot? The main problem Prufrock’s face is his lack of confidence and low self esteem. Prufrock seems to be worrying too much about how people will judge him like a insect specimen and examine every bits of his detail. “And indeed there will be time to wonder Do I Dare and Do I dare. Time to turn back and descend the stair. With a bald spot in the middle of my hair (They will say “How his hair is growing thin!” My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modes but asserted by a simple pin. (They will say “But how his arms and legs are thin)” Through his text, we can feel Prufrock that he is probably a middle age man who desire to have relationship (most likely with women) yet he is afraid the pain of being rejected and criticize for his growing age. Prufrock is probably just too nervous to ask someone out because he may be rejected before in the past. This negative self-talk of Prufrock leads him to go in the vicious negative cycle that will eventually bring him to depression and a state of stagnation that he will become a social outcast and fear social relationship. 

Poetry's Social Function

TS Elliot wrote “I think it’s important that every people should have its own poetry, not simply for those who enjoy poetry, but because it actually makes a difference to the society as whole. That means to people who do not enjoy poetry, unless people go on producing great authors and especially great poets, their language and culture will deteriorates and perhaps become absorbed in a stronger one.” I think his assertion maybe over generalized. I agree that poetry does in fact have some sort of social benefits that it allows people to learn the classic literature and their old way of using perfectly accurate grammatical speeches. However, it is too much of an assertion to say that people who do not end up being great authors may in the end causing our language and culture to deteriorate. In some form or another our culture and language are slowly engulf and overwhelmed by the increasing profanity and slangs that seems to dominate in current pop music and movies. Our society may end up rotten this way. However the purpose of writing is to express one’s inner feeling and voice to the world. If the author finds that only through swearing can best express his or her feeling and ideas, we shouldn’t be stopping them. 

War and Economics

What are some of the similarities between the last century and this century? Well, certainly there are lots similarities yet changes between them. As time move on, technologies improve, allowing new weapons and mass media communication devices to exploit the war with violence and propaganda. Although being through two devastating war, people never seems to remember the destructive effect of war that violence all around the world are still occurring without any easing. As for economic crises, in the early 21 century, we face a global economic down time that people all over the world are being unemployed and the stock markets are not doing so well. Although it was not as serious as the Great Depression in the early 1900s, this depression still causes a great amount of problem and issues around the world. In the future, historian may view our century as the century of rapid social network that internet and social network websites allow people to share information fast and globally that unify the earth together through a huge social network web. With search engines on internet, we no longer need big heavy books of encyclopedia to check information that maybe already too outdated. However, we will soon face new challenges as new issue evolve with improving technology and social network.

No Ideas but in things

One group of Modern poets called the imagists wanted to describe commonplace subjects just as they are. Different from most of the contemporary poets of the nineteenth century, who believed that poetry should be about certain lofty poetic subject, the imagists believed that poetry should try to describe things like a snap shot of common ordinary subject manner that can be visualize instead of some abstract ideas such as love or friendship. One famous imagist, William Carlos William wrote poems with scenes that can be immediately visualize through his simple description with no flowery allusions or metaphors. His descriptions often occur within the 5 senses and describe things through the point sharply and precisely. These imagists created an innovative way to write poetry that they accelerate the common. Their poems are usually short within 20 lines and can be about basically anything such as a note left on the refrigerator or simple description of an object. Their poems lack any strict meter and are in free verse. Today, we can see many poems like this that people wrote poems about common ordinary things. Although we usually stick to the old fashion poetry that we write ode to our favorite things or writing love poems, imagists created a new road allowing people to write poem creatively without any limits.  

Historical Influence

I’m quite familiar with the whole cause of World War I and how it ended which eventually led to the start of world war II. World War I started in Europe due to the assassination of the duke of Austria by the black hands of Serbia which led to a whole turmoil of alliance that brought the whole Europe into war. Ended in 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed after the war, leaving Germany to take all of the blame for the start of war and forced Germany to compensate for the losses in war. Eventually, this led to the Second World War with Nazi-Germany led by Adolf Hitler to fight against the Allies. On the other side of the world, Japan attack Pearl Harbor, leaving United States in no choice but to join this inevitable war. Besides war, serious of events also happen in the United States during these 30 or 40 years. For example, the first commercial radio broadcast in America was in 1920. In 1927, Charles A Lindberg completes the first transatlantic solo flight by airplane. In 1929, stock market crashed and led to the Great Depression. In 1933, President Roosevelt created the New Deal Program to counter the Great Depression by developing public infrastructure such as the Hover Dame. 

Social influence-Entertainment

For most people in the 1930’s, entertainments were not as versatile as entertainment today that they were limited to listening to radio or going to movies over a week. Their movies were like TV series today that people went to Movie Theater to watch episodes of films and enjoy cartoons or news of the war. The movies were black and white and are silent that people watched bunch of moving picture with actors having dialogue with only a few being shown on screen in subtitle. At home, people enjoy every night sitting on their couch listening to the radio broadcast. During 1930, over two-third of the American household own at least 1 radio. Unlike present radio, the size of the radio was as big as a TV. People relied on radio for mostly news and stories which are also played like TV series that stories are separated into episodes. As technology improves, entertainment has more and more variety that present day we can enjoy surfing on Internet, checking status on social network, chatting with people from all over the globe or looking at videos on YouTube. Digital games were invented that we play Wii or Xbox 360 over the weekend or simply flash game up on face book. We are truly lucky to be born in the 21^st century. 

Make it new

As Ezra Pound once said, “Make it new! Art is a joyous thing.”  We make art because we have fun and joy while making it. No one would want to look at art that are cliché with similar style repeating over and over again. We are constantly attracted to new things and want to be unique in a way that breaks away from conventional thinking or style. As technology improves such as the invention of camera, realistic painting began to lose its popularity that camera can always better capture the world exactly as it is presented. Although photographs during the early 1900s are still black and white with no color, people no longer need painter to realistically paint objects or person that photographs are much cheaper and faster to produce. Therefore artist began to make new art that diverge from realism. Entering modernism, artist began to paint abstract things and ideas and putting more of a personal emotion into their art. Instead of trying to be realistic, artist such as Picasso painted the world with a new and unique style that people or object look different from reality. These kind of innovative art attract people’s attention and allow artist to have more freedom and room to explore art with creativity.

Modernism

uring the beginning of 20^th century, modernism began to appear that people began a different movement from realism or romanticism. Different from other movement, modernism take bold experimentation in style and forms that it reject traditional theme such as romantic drawing or story. People start to view the world with new way of thinking that they reject sentimentality or artificiality. Instead of liking romantic hero who is ultimately strong and perfect, modernism favors hero who is flawed and disillusioned yet shows grace under these pressure and in the end develop into a strong character.  Modernistic literature revolves around the themes of individualism and how government, religion or other institution lied and oppressive individual expression. Some of the famous Modernist artist such as Picasso abandoned traditional thinking and conventional belief and draw painting with people whose has eyes on only 1 side of the head. Different from Romanticism, Modernism examines ordinary subject matter and interested in the inner workings of human minds. Different from Realism, Modernism introduce concept such as disjointed timeline where a story doesn’t necessary follow a linear strict chronological order that story and events may just pop out randomnly like how people recall their memory. Modernism experiment on novel ideas and style that don’t necessary are comprehensible to people when they first see it. 

American Dream

“America is a land of beauty, bounty and unlimited promises.” American dream is the basis that form American’s mind that America is a place of possibility and future. There are basically 3 parts of American dream: Land of future, progress and individual. With American dream, people believed that America is where everything becomes possible that there is no such thing as impossible. People that used to be oppressed and prosecuted in their old country are able to start fresh like a new person in America without having your past hunting you. People are so optimistic that they believe that in America, life will only get better and better that the world is going to move into an era of greater joy, justice and wealth. Also they triumph individual that they believe everything is possible for people who place trust in his or her own power and potential. They believe that individual will make a world a better place with democratic society where everyone’s opinion matters. However as modern era began, they realized that nothing is always 100 percent perfect that within a system there will be flaws and dilemma. Slavery is one of the problem that caused American Dream to be questioned. 

Better Things?

As Willa Cather had said, “Men travel faster, but I do not know if they go to better things.” As technology and the world changes, the dilemma of the modern age begins to rise to the surface. Should we sacrifice the rain forest and other natural resources for better technology and human living places? Should we abandon civilization and embrace nature in order to protect the world? There are tons of dilemmas we are facing in the world today. “No sacrifice, no victory.” In order to gain, we have to sacrifice some other things. However, is the sacrifice necessary in order for us to gain the benefit? Is it possible to gain without losing values alone with it? It is incredibly hard to reach a compromise that neither too much is lost or too less is gain. As some people believed, our society is improving when technology such as cars or internet develop. However, as we develop faster transportation, there are more death caused by car accident and leaks of private information due to insecurity in internet network. I believe as our society improves, more issues came along with it. In order to solve this dilemma, we should overcome the difficulties and come to a compromise so that neither side will be affected greatly.  

On impulse

Everyone has impulses, a drive, for them to do certain things, which can be “good” or “bad” thing. Most of the time, people can control themselves on whether or not they should actually act on their impulses. However, when people can’t control their instinctual impulses, most of the time their behaviors get them into troubles and legal issues. One classical example of impulses now a day for teenagers is the impulse to go on face book. We all know how facebook is interactive that it brings entertainment and social connection between people. People can chat, comment on people’s updates and picture and play games on face book. However, often times, facebook is like a maze that often times we got trap in it before knowing that we have wasted more than 2 hours surfing through people’s profiles and picture online. For example, when you see a new e-mail saying that blah blah has commented something on your picture, you will want to log into facebook and check out the message. However, your inner-self keeps telling you to ignore the mail because you may spend more than 2 hours online. However, the impulse is so great that you tell yourself that you will only spend no more than 5 minutes on it. Once you log in, new message keep popping out one after another on facebook that you couldn’t go offline. Once 2 hours pass, you regretted that you have once again fall into the trap of impulse.

Romantics VS Realists

The main difference between romantics and realists is that the romantics are idealistic and realists are realistic. The romantics believe that people can find truth and tranquility in supernatural, imaginative inner world. They tend to escape reality to an idealistic world where everyone lives happily and the evils are always defeated by the good. Probably these romantics want to avoid the sadness and pain of the world. On the other hand, realistic stay true and embrace reality. In their novels or poems, realists portray ordinary common things using everyday speech and stay true to reality without being pessimistic or optimistic of the world. They tend to just portray everyday life as true as possible without taking sides. Realists avoided heroes or extreme villains portray in dark romantic’s novels. Romantics writing tend to be filled with emotions where the events are extreme to both end that they can be extremely optimistic or pessimistic. As mention earlier in previous blog, the emergence of realism in America is mainly due the American civil war where writers discover that they can no longer portray the world as idealistic as before. Facing all the violence and ambivalence of evil or good, writer decides to portray the world they see with realistic perspective. 

Think About

As civil war progress, American writers and poets responded to it by writing novels and poems that portray on the realistic aspect of the war. At about 1865, when the civil war ended, the American realism began to spread that writers abandoned their romantic values of the world which portray romantic heroes and events. One of the most representative novels of the civil war, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane portrays a regular rookie soldier who experiences extreme terror in the war. Instead of depicting how heroic the protagonist is and the glorious victory of the battle, Stephan Crane portray soldier’s one victory of a battle is so insignificant to the overall war effort that realistic portray the cruelty of war and people’s nature fear of death during battle. One of the aspect of Realism writing is the used of common, everyday speech pattern to show how people really talk instead of florid and ostentatious speech. Aside from Realism, naturalism became to come about at the same time. Different from realism, naturalism forces on the philosophical aspect of the world. Realism tends to portray an event and situation where as naturalism shows how human are powerless in controlling their own fate and destinies that everything is determined by environment or genes.   

You've Come A Long Way, baby

As a twentieth century teenager, we tend to accept and assume that all man and woman are equal and received similar privileges. However, only when we look back at history, we can see that women have only received these rights for less than 60 years. Women throughout human history are usually inferior to man both physically and mentally. Women were discriminated and treated as if a property of man. Women were born to do house choirs and forbidden to get educated. Women merely serve as a servant for man and a reproductive tool for society. In many cultures, male tends to be in favor over female in family that only man can prove useful and be successful. For example, King George once killed over 6 of his wives just because they can’t give him a male successor. Male tends to be the dominator of the world and expected to do better than women. With such expectation, women tend to accept themselves as inferior to men and perform laboring jobs. Only until recently in the late 1900s those women begin to be able to take man’s job and have voting right and the right to express their opinion. Even though in many countries such as Congo and some other African countries women are still treated unfairly, our world begins to work toward our goal of equality.

A Reprieve

From time to time, I felt myself to be living in a set routine of cycle that often bores me out and drives me crazy. Everyday seems the same to me, without any major differences between each day. I would always wake up 7 in the morning, feeling tired and get dressed for school at 8. Then I will have class and eat lunch at 11. After lunch, I will have more class till 3 and I will either stay at school for team sports or go home and sleep. Then I will eat my dinner at 6 and watch some TV till 7:30. After 7:30, I usually take a nap if I didn’t do so at 3 and then start doing my homework at about 9. After homework, I will take a shower and go to sleep at about 12. My life is boring and mundane. Nothing really special will ever happen. To break away from this seemly boring schedule, I will some time allow myself to have time to relax such as chatting with friends on messenger or doing some exercise such as playing basketball or tennis with my friend. People always say that being student is the easiest period in life, but for me, being student is no necessary that fun. 

A Change of Heart

During the romantic period, people were idealistic and have optimistic view of everything they sees. They portray romantic heroes, who fought for justice and save the beauty after defeating the bad guys. The heroes were all selfless and brave. However as we move on to the next period after the civil war, people’s view begins to change. Realism begins to rise that people stop being idealistic and think about the present instead of the bright optimistic future. Poets and thinkers started to realize the cruel reality of the world. They viewed civil war as a bloody and merciless battle between brothers instead of victorious battle against one another. As shown on the painting, it illustrated the after math of a seemingly battle at a forte. As the evening approach with the sun setting, we can see that only a single survivor seems to live through the battle holding a torn flag up high on a forte. Ruins of cannons, walls and mud covered the background, showing the ugliness of war. This painting is an excellent example in showing how Americans started to shift into realism, realizing that war don’t tends to be as heroic as many books portrayed. We live in a cruel world that many things tend to turn out to be negative.

I exist

A man said to the universe: “Sir, I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.” This quote from Stephan Crane shows how human is so insignificant compare to the whole universe. Americans during the Romanticism were extremely optimistic and cheerful. Since their victorious Independence war, they think of themselves as unstoppable and a strong nation. People were idealistic and thinking the future was bright and clear for them. Only until the American Civil War come around about in 1850s that Americans started to realize that their nation which they are so proud of being democratic and fair was instead filled with racism and slavery. Due to whether to abolish slavery or keep it to continue America’s economic strength, Americans divided themselves into the North and South, which broke out to be a bloody battle that Americans were faced to kill their own brothers. This poem portrays a feeling that American may be so proud of themselves that they are independent from Great Britain and create the first democratic government. Yet, the world doesn’t really care about their existence that compare to the universe and the whole galaxy, humans are really nothing. 

Power

The power relationship in The Handmaid’s Tale seems easy to tell that the commander is on the highest level of control, then wives, Martha, Handmaids and the unwomen. For example, the commander is the fearsome man who controls everything in the household and holds absolute power. However as we look deeper into the story, we find that maybe commander doesn’t necessary always held the most power. In a secret relationship between commander and Offred, the handmaid, even the commander himself is afraid of the relationship to be discovered by his wife. If the commander really does obtain absolute power, the commander can possibly do anything one wants to do, such as loving the handmaid as a secret wife and wanting to do anything he wanted to do in the household. However, there are still limits to the power. The wives tend to be the second in line for power that they control the Martha and the handmaids. They can order the handmaid like a slave to do whatever she wants to do. However, they are somewhat in some way inferior to the handmaid that they are unable to have love with their husband and force to see their lovers making love with a stranger. They are like old ladies who are jealous of these young handmaids.

Slanted truth

“Tell all the truth, tell it slant. Truth must not be given all at once raw, for they may come as a tremendous surprise like lightning to an innocent child.” I agree that for some truth, such as the reason for your brother’s death or the truth of your parent may sometime need to be given little by little, so we can take it in bits by bits without getting overwhelmed by the surprising truth at once. This kind of slanted truth is not a lie, which one is still telling the truth, except not a whole truth. One may want to know the whole truth at once because one thinks he or she can take it in and absorb it. However, most people with a fainted heart may be unable to take such a shock all at once and result in mental breakdown. Truth such as telling a person that you are adopted may be hard to understand for kids. Often time the truth may be misunderstood that the person can’t absorb the whole truth and missed some of the truth. I personally agree with Dickinson’s point of view. Some truths are incapable to be delivered and understand all at once. The best way is to take your time and say it indirectly so that your subject won’t die before you are finished telling the truth. 

Pessimism

Why is Emily Dickenson so pessimistic that she wrote poems with topic such as death, loneliness and isolation? Given her background story and personality as a recluse who may have faced emotional obstacles, we can probably why Emily will be such an unhappy person. Emily Dickenson may feel that she has no personal control of her life. There is nothing she can do to help her to get the man she wanted and compensate her emptiness in her heart. People may attribute that Dickenson may just enjoy being a recluse because she naturally is an introverted person who feels uncomfortable with people’s presence. However, this is definitely a wrong assumption that she hated to be so lonely so that’s why she wrote so many poem about death and isolation to relieve her feelings, wanting to communicate and share some of her feelings to the rest of the world. The author of the book The Handmaid’s Tale is actually kind of pessimistic too. In the book, she portrays a future world where woman’s rights have been taken away and oppressed by man. Being a feminist, the author wanted to show the world that this kind of future should be avoided that man and woman should share equal rights. 

Speculation or Sci-Fi?

I believe the “Handmaid’s Tale” should be speculative book. This book is speculating what United States and the rest of the world will be like in the future. Unlike most science fiction novels, Handmaid’s Tale contains no real advanced technologies from the future. The story can happen now, future or even in the past. A speculative novel portrays an alternative scenario in history or future that expresses the author’s speculation of the world. In this book, the author speculates about what United States will be like if it is under a totalitarian, theological government that women are oppressed and with different social rank with different specific jobs in the community. To be a real science fiction book, the novel has to contain specific advance in technologies such as flying vehicles or space ships. In the Handmaid’s tale, no advance in technology is mention yet. Instead, it seems like the technology in the book stops in the 1980s that people don’t have computers or television that can monitor people. It is still stuck with the notion that people are under surveillance with spies hiding among the normal citizen. The technology may even go backward that people buy stuff with tokens instead with paper money or coin.   

The Soul

Do most people select their friends using their logic or feelings? I will say most people chose their friends base on their feeling. When they meet a person for the first time, they usually based people on their appearance and how they feel about it. They will look at their clothing, looks, manners and overall impression of them. For example, if a guy who smokes, with tattoos or earrings and piercings on his nose, ears or lips, a person may want to keep away from them because they doesn’t like how they feels. People tend to make friends with people that may have similar personality or interests as them. Only until one have spend time with a person, one will then use their logic to see if this is the friend they really like. For example, a teenager may want to make friend with people who smokes and acting all cool by having ear piercings and tattoos. They may feel that only through these practice one can be mature and acting super cool that they are unique and different from others. However, after spending more time with these kinds of friends, one then realize with their logic that having tattoos and smoking are bad habits and bad impression for others. People mostly make friend with people they feel like they want to be with without any particular reasons.

Real or Romantic?

Is Walt Whitman romanticizing and idealizing the workers? I think this is true based on what I have known about these American workers. The workers who are portrayed in the poem are probably mostly over worked with little salaries. The scene in the poem probably take place in the late 1800s that America is only just started to become industrialize. True, American loves to sing chants and songs when they work, but not necessary all of them do. Walt Whitman is an optimistic man that the people he sees are mostly ones who are devoted to their work and love their job. The boat makers sing songs together although their job is dangerous and tough. House wife sings song and shoe maker whistles. This reminds me of early Disney cartoon where all the characters wake up early in the morning and happily get to work. To show how great America is, Walt Whitman probably proudly exaggerated some of the facts and makes it seem as if Americans are all happy and diligent working. Whitman is an optimistic man that he looks at people’s joy and romanticizing events. Who will want to see a sad poem when one wants to portray the greatness of America?

Work Song

In “I hear American Singing” by Walt Whitman, Whitman celebrates the American enterprise in all of its work force through vivid description of men and women who take pride in their occupation. In every occupation, people sing chants and song while they work and take pride of their work. With Whitman’s description, the working class of America is happy and everyday starts out happily. Since this is a time before the industrial revolution when America’s economy starts rapidly become the lead of the world with factory and boat making, the work force describe in Whitman’s poem is mostly related to these worker instead of politician, lawyer, doctor and etc. Probably in Whitman’s view, only these working force truly display America’s nationalism and identity that the foundation of the nation is based on these people. If I were to write a poem to celebrate Taiwan, I would include work forces such as farmers, factory worker, fisherman, night market people and etc to demonstrate Taiwanese spirit. It is these people that make up the culture of Taiwan and make us unique. Although these people may be less significant compare to doctors, lawyer and politician, without our working forces, our nation can never sustain itself. 

Ode to my watch

In this ode, I will write an ode to my old friend, watch, which I have for almost 7 years. It’s solar powered and high functional. Never one day this old dear friends have giving up on me. Sometimes it blacks out and need to be recharge under the light but the recharging process takes only like a minute or two. With this clock I never need to worry if it is going to run out of battery. No matter how much I scratched him, banned him hard on the ground, it never gives up on me. It never gives complaints and does its job effectively. This watch is basically my time keeper that it keeps me in the game and keeps me focus and aware of the world by helping me to keep my time. I remember one time I almost lost this dear friend while going to my swimming lesson. This poor guy was left alone in the changing room’s locker for almost a week before I went back and found him. For a week I feel emptiness in my heart and a sudden weird sensation that nothing is sitting on my wrist. Although I replaced him with another watch, it never feels the same. When I finally retrieve him, I was glad and joyous as if having a friend reunion. 

Oppression

In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, women are oppressed and striped away from any of their rights. The women in the Handmaid’s Tale are classified into many different rank and position, which each different class serves a different function for this totalitarian and theocratic world of Gilean. In today’s world, such as in America, women have a social status quite equal to men that they received and protected by similar rights. As in Taiwan, women and men also have a similar social status that no one has significant advantages over one another. In our generation, we are taught at school to an idea that women are just as capable as men. However, despite all the ideology that women and men are the same, physically we are different. Men tend to be more athletic and physically more powerful than women. People may say this is sexist and oppression that this statement servers to show that men are superior over women. However, I don’t think this is a form of oppression that only by separation like in sports league and competition, the game can be fair that a woman wouldn’t be competition against a man. If a woman wishes to compete with man, I guess then it’s her freedom to do so. 

Holiday Reality

The holiday is similar to what I’ve expected, except its better! I thought I will be playing Wii the whole time, but instead I was playing X-box with its new game system called Kinect. It was awesome in a way that the game requires no remote controller. Instead it just needs your body. Kinect uses camera to capture one’s body motion and simulate our motion on the surrogate in the game. It feels as if I am in the game that I can wave and jump in the screen without pressing any buttons but simply just jump and wave in front of the TV. Other than Kinect, I pretty much spend my holiday the way I have expected, going to night markets, shopping and hanging out with my cousin. Toward the end of the break, I even got to play with firecrackers and fireworks, which is pretty intense. Overall the break was satisfying that I didn’t do any of my homework until the last day and nearly slept till 10 o clock in the morning everyday during the break. I ate tons of food and didn’t exercise at all except playing on my Wii and X-box. As usual, my red envelope was taken away by my mom even before I have the chances to check how much money I have received. 

Holiday Plans

What should I do during the Chinese New Year break? I suppose I will be again spending a 3 day trip with my family along with my grandparents down to the southern part of Taiwan such as Kengting or Kowchoan. I think I will first spend the first 2 days of my holiday playing Wii for the whole time and keeping my eye on the television for 24/7. Then, my cousin might bring some new Wii games and I can further destroy my eyes with more video game playing. I will have a wonderful dinner with my family, drinking lots of soda and eating lots of food. The next day after the Chinese New Year Eve, I will then spend my whole day sleeping during the car ride down to kengting and watching movies off of my ipod. When we get to Kengting or Kuaochoan, I will probably spend more than 4 hours shopping and eating Taiwanese fast food in the night market. Also, I might be able to play some night market games and win some cheap prizes. This is probably all what will happen during my Chinese New Year break and I’m not expecting more. I’m keeping my finger cross and hoping that it will be a wonderful break.

Justice?

What exactly is justice? Is it someone’s name? Justice basically means the moral rightness of something. Nobody really receives any justice in To Kill a Mocking Bird. The main victim of the story, Tom Robinson, didn’t seem to receive the justice he deserves to prove his innocence. Although Tom Robinson receive some form of justice from Atticus who is willing to defend despite such great disadvantages and impossibility of wining the case, Tom is still convicted as guilty and eventually end up dead trying to escape from prison. Also, did Boo Radley receive any justice from his community that he is not some crazy lunatics? Throughout the story, the children have been suspecting the existence of this man by peaking into his house and asking stories about him. After some of the events, it seems to give Boo Radley some justice that proves him to be caring and warm hearted. Although Boo Radley killed Bob Ewell toward the end of the story, he did to save Jem’s life. Boo Radley received recognition from the children and some respect from the adult that he is not really that crazy as they thought. Did Atticus receive any justice? I don’t think so. Yes indeed that Atticus won many respect from his children and some members of the community who support African American. However, Atticus face threats from some of the racist town members.

Film vs Print

Books and writing art work has excited for thousands of years, yet movies have only been around for 50 years. Movies and books are extremely different in ways that movies are animated, with animated characters who talks and with awesome imagery and actions. “A picture worth a thousand words” With just probably 10 seconds of a scene in the movie, it would probably take an author to write 10 pages to describe with similar details and feeling. The tones and facial expression by the character often convey emotions that are indescribable through words. Despite all the advantages movies have over books, movies often have some flaws too. Movies limit our imagination in ways that we are only imagining and interpreting the world through the director’s perspective. With books, it allows people to have different interpretation of the story based on people’s own imagination and past experiences. With many movies such as Harry Potter that are derived from books, the audience often find them disappointing in ways that the character may be different from their own imagination and important detail of the story may be leaved out due to move’s time constraint. Books will probably still be popular for the next decade or so, however there’s a trend that teenagers start to read less book but more movies and moving pictures.

American Poetry Today

Today, poetry can still be found yet it’s not as popular as before comparing to the past. Poetries today tend to be free verse and less restricted  than in the old days. If we consider song as another form of poetries, I’ll consider that poetry is still popular today. Songs are like poetry in ways that it creates a beautiful rhyme scheme in its lyrics with combination of beautiful melodies. Although most of the words are not really rhymed like the ones in poems, the feeling we get from poem and songs are essentially the same type. We recite it and enjoy the melody and the up and down mood of the music. Although not as many people read and write poetry today, people start to create a new type of rhyming art called rapping. In many pop songs, people incoporate rapping to add varieties to songs. Although I do not like most rapping songs, but it is a new way of expressive poem that also uses rhyming, metaphor and other figure of speeches to express one’s feelings. Is poetry important to me? Probably it’s not that important to me right now because I haven’t really understood the deeper meaning underneath the poem other than its literal interpretation, but when I grow older and read more of it, I will probably find poetry to be really important.

Letter to the world

“This is my letter to the world/ that never wrote to me” These words demonstrate how Emily Dickinson has a relatively pessimistic view to the world. Being a recluse and introvert who dislikes being around people, Emily Dickinson strongly disagreed with the society around her. Probably a result from her failure to have a relationship with her clergyman, Dickinson disliked the world and felt as if the world was limiting and setting unreasonable expectation on people. In many of her poems, Dickinson often criticized how people praised and value extrinsic beauty and appearance of luxury instead of valuing knowledge and people’s individual mind. Dickinson felt that although she had wrote so many letters complaining how this world should be improved and had indentified the flaw in it, the world never seemed to reply her back. Instead, she probably felt being rejected and isolated. In her life, Emily Dickinson’s poem was continuously rejected and forcefully revised by her publisher. Her talent and art was not recognized until 70 years after her death. I sometimes share the same feeling as Dickinson, feeling that I have been rejected and unrecognized by the world. However, this is the reality of the world. Only with some good luck and perhaps by destiny, we will  soon be recognized for our unique talent when the time comes.

Boot soles

Walt Whitman, one of the greatest American poets, wrote, “If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.” What exactly did he mean by this quote? It probably means what it says literally, meaning that a person might be under one’s boot soles. Although this may sound awkward, it probably can be possible in some weird circumstances. For example, if a person is trapped under the rubbles after a serious earthquake, the rescuer may literally be standing on top of the person beneath him without knowing. In this sense, the person can say to the rescuer, “If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.” But I think with this kind of quote, it’s impossible for it to be taken literally. Instead, this quote may be used to express unfairness and mock your opponent who is like standing on top of you and treating you like dirt under you boot soles. Also, it may just mean that this person is dead and buried underground. If one wants to look for this guy, one has to dig under one’s boot sole and find him. There can be so many different interpretations for this quote. To be exactly sure what it meant, we really got to look under our boot soles and ask Walt Whitman in person.

The Sound Effects in "The Raven"

In “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe, the poem is full of many different rhyme schemes, which make the poem sound extremely good and interesting when being read out loud. For example, Poe loves to use rhyming with every stanza ends with the word “Never more” and nearly most sentences that end with “ore” sound. This makes the poem flows smoothly. Also, alliteration is used to make the sentence to have similar constant sound being repeated throughout the sentences, allowing some variation within the poem. As the student in the poem kept repeating Lenore, the bird replied back by saying Nevermore. The rhyming not only makes the poem fun to read, but also creates the story’s atmosphere that the student is having a conversation with the raven. Without the sound effect, the poem might be boring that it will turn into a short story instead which the student is just mourning for his wife’s death with a lot of figurative of speech and long boring description with a lot of adjectives to describe the bird. The repeating echoes of the sound and the rhyming allow this poem to become one of the most popular poems during Poe’s time and is repeatedly read aloud as if it’s a top hit pop song today.

Symbol of Raven

A symbol such as a flag can mean just an object flag, but it can also mean something other than just being a flag. In Poe’s poem “The raven”, the raven symbolizes more than just being a black bird. The bird can also be symbolized as the messenger of heaven or soul. However, since the bird can only say “Never more” when the student tried to ask question to it, the student interpret the bird’s answer as the truth that he will nevermore unite with Le nore’s soul again. I think Poe choose a raven to be the character in the poem because a raven in European’s mind often symbolizes as a evil, devilish being like a crow. Since the raven is black and feeds on dead corpse, the raven is considered an evil spirit. Also, raven, like a parrot, can talk. It allows the bird to have interaction with the human character in the poem and make it as if they are having a conversation. This dark bird allows the poem to have a style of dark romanticism. With a man talking to a talking bird and taking the bird’s answer seriously, we can clearly see that the man might be just insane or the bird really is the messenger of the devil.

Ugly Reality

Generally I’ll say that it’s usually bad for children to be in court, especially with Tom Robinson’s case. First of all, the children at the age of around 9 or 10 shouldn’t be exposed to violence such as sexual assault, murder, etc. Unless the children are like Atticus’s children that Atticus is willing to explain the whole event to the children without hiding facts, children often time misinterprets the case and the case may forever change their perspective of the world. I personally agree that children should sooner or later realize that no one in the world is always nice and friendly. The racism and discrimination between people always exist throughout the history of mankind. Children will therefore mature faster that they will understand the relationship between each other and realized that people do ugly things to destroy one another. However, with this Tom Robinson case, it may be too much for the children to absorb. In the court, a strong racial discrimination is explicitly and directly shown that Bob Ewell kept mentioning the N word, which may have bad influence on Scout. However, since Scout is already kind of mature that she understood what the word means and the reason for it to be a harsh word, it is unlikely that she will learn to use this kind of word to insult other black people. I think the appropriate age for someone to be able to see court case should be at least 18 since this is the age where people are mostly mature enough to have enough knowledge and understanding of the reality of the world.

Licked

“We were licked a hundred years before we started.” I think Atticus meant that they are already in a disadvantage that it seems like an impossible mission to defend Tom Robinson. Since the creation of the nation, African Americans are discriminated even after the Civil war ended. In a case of sexual assault, it seems impossible for Atticus to win the case for Tom. Unless there is an alibi or a clear evidence that Tom couldn’t have committed the crime, Tom will never win the case. Even if Tom is innocent, the prosecution will probably use witnesses’ and the victim’s biases testimony to convict him. I think Atticus is a courageous man who takes this impossible case in defending his honor as a lawyer and a man. He hopes to defend his moral rightness and proves this poor man’s innocence. In my opinion, the accuser of the case is probably just paranoid to accuse Tom just because he is a black man. Probably the accuser tries to cover up her own adultery by using Tom as a distraction to the public. If I were Atticus, I probably would do the same thing as Atticus, trying to prove someone’s innocent despite being called a traitor to defend a person who has a different r ace from me.

I dare you

“I dare you to do __ and ___. If you don’t do it you are a coward!” Out of boredoms, people often dare each other to do things that they may feel uncomfortable of doing it because it’s dangerous or embarrassing. Personally, I think daring people is an immature act. Immature people often take daring as fun and amusing, but instead it’s just an excellent way to ruin one’s day. I never quite remember myself being dared and accept to do it. Often times I’m just a bystander who watches a poor victim of a daring game embarrassing himself in front of his friend. I remember once when one of my friends dares me to cross a street when the stop sign is still green. I of course rejected the offer and instead dare him back to do it. To my surprise, this person actually accepted the offer and went across the street. He was almost hit by a bus and if he was like a second ahead of himself, he would be in the sky by now. After he successfully crossed the street, he was happy and dared me to follow him. I rejected the offer despite being called a coward or a chicken. I hated people when they take dare lightly. Some dares may result in a unexpected consequence and ruin one’s life with life and death situation.

Welcome back

        What did I do during my winter break?? I pretty much slept for the first week of my holiday. Every day I would stay up til 2 o’clock in the morning and slept till 12 in the noon. I didn’t do much, besides doing my math homework and some other subject’s assignment. I went to play basketball at UMC with couple of friends and watched a movie called Megamind. It was really awesome. I went to Japan on the 23, and it was great fun. I went with my family on a tour. The first day was pretty much spent on the plane and bus ride to the hotel. However, the hotel has hot spring and the dinner was awesome. The second day we visited an extremely famous temple, which the temple is cover with gold foil and beautiful drawing and carving. The next day was horrible. I was stuck on the bus for like 9 hours because of the snow and traffic jam. The highway was close and the road was blocked due to traffic accidents. It was said to be the biggest snow they have seen for the past 10 years. We missed a lot of famous sites however we got to have snow fight while waiting on the sidewalk since the bus is not moving at all. The rest of the trip was awesome. I did tons of shopping and eat tons of Japanese food (No Chinese food by the way). I didn’t do any New Year countdown.

America

        American dream!!! “America is a free nation full with opportunity and fortune. Everyone has the same chance as any other to succeed!!” Everything occurs by chance, but is it really possible that EVERYONE has equal opportunity as other to succeed. I strongly disagree! The world itself is cruel and merciless. Everyone is born into different families with different social status, wealth and background. Those who are luck to be in a rich family are more likely to succeed. You will have a great advantage from the beginning of your life compare to other little babies who are born in family that is not so rich. You will be given extremely good education, learning environment, and good nutrition. Although rich family may not necessary have that good of a family relationship that the baby, often times, is raised by his or her nanny, this baby has great advantages in a sense of education and opportunity. With a better education and relatively good wealth, the kid is able to go to a better school, being hired into jobs through parent’s relationship with big business owner, etc. Although you may argue that often time these rich kids are not as hard working as those poor kid that they have no motivation to work hard that they already have a perfect life, these poor kids will have to work extra hard in order to achieve what the rich kid can with a relatively small amount of work. Life is unfair, nothing is fair.