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.