Journal 37: Why Be a Prodigy?

      Why be a prodigy? If this question was asked in front of a teacher, than the answer would be “because I want to learn more than others do.” However this answer was said only because this is what the teaches want to hear. By teachers, I actually mean, all those adults that would come to a kid and ask weird questions like this. If the same answer was asked between same age friends  the true answer would come out “because my mom or dad wants me to be”. Why does the mom or dad wants their kid to be a prodigy than? Just so they could show off to their friends? So they could have more face that actually worth nothing? I am not sure.

      In my life, I do had experiences about what I am going to do. thankfully that has nothing to do with my parents. The decision was made because the influences of my peers however I decided not to do it because I don’t like that idea, I don’t feel like I should do it and most importantly I want control over my own life and decision. My friends could give me suggestions about my final decision but they should not be the reason that I made the decision especially when I don’t feel like I should do it.

Journal 36: F451

     The movie was of course a lot less advance than what we have now. The only thing that would make the people watching the movie now feel like it is in the future is probably the train, it was really cool that he comes up with the idea of train upside down. Everything else was a lot less advance than what we have now, they are still using those old kinds of phones, the houses looks like something we had 10 to 20 years ago. Then the characters in the movie walk way too much, people today don’t usually walk that much. Also, people in reality now have their own computer, itouch or ipod but it wasn’t shown in the movie. However he did get one thing true, that is that people stare at the TV a lot now a days. The technology does a lot of things for us but at the same time was taking away our ability to do those things. The problem was especially shown in the memory we have, people now don’t memorize things that much now because the computers can do it all for you. It might be also true that people that come after us don’t read books anymore but that is not because we burn them all and wasn’t allow to read it, it is probably because people all use ebook or internet instead of reading books.

Journal 35: Being Pushed

    Being pushed, I believe most of people have experienced it before. As a child, all I want to do is play, why care so much about school work when you can run outside? This is when parents come into place and push us back inside. They would beat us up and we will subbed but turn to our homework. Now, all that above is stereotype, or maybe it actually happens to most of the people but not me.

        For me, I am a really self motivated kid, I am not sure of why, but I am always the one in my family that gets really upset over grades. In fact, whenever the report cards come out, the my mom and dad are usually saying things such as “the teacher is probably in a bad mood when he grades your final,”, “its okey, that means you have room for improvement,” or “its pretty good” to me instead of yelling and gets depress about it. However my parents did pushed me before, not on grades, but on my dance classes. There are those time periods when I just don’t want to go to my dance classes! I have to get there by myself and was having a really bad relationships with the classmates, than take the bus back. My parents pushed me for keep on going there and being on time all the time. 

Journal 34: Negative

     In my opinion, there are no actual bad influences except for bad habits such as drinking or smoking. It is because that everything is double sided, the bad thing could the good thing at the same time. People who braked your heart gave you a chance for learning how to heal it and people grow up each time they were hurt. I can think of a lot of people who have positive influences on me, that is everyone around me, every person who I value. People that I don’t really value don’t have positive influence on me because our life don’t intercept and how can the influence be good if there is no influence at all? However I think if people have negative influences on me, it will be a lot greater than the positive influences because the negative things are usually greater than the positive ones. Just like it is really easy to get fat but really hard to pull the weight down, no matter how hard you tried. Positive influences are like building blocks that leads to the path of a good person but the negative influences are like typhoon that blows over and take down the long-worked building if it wasn’t strong enough. 

Journal 32: Universal Experience

   There are a lot of different universal experiences that appears in “Where have you gone, charming billy,” such as: death, hunger, bad environment conditions, fear, and etc. The one I am going to talk about today is the fact that people faces strong fear when they are in a war. When people faces all those bullets that fly besides you and knowing that you may die any second, normal people feels the fear inside of them. The main character in the story was obviously really scare because it is his first day in the army. He doesn’t really know what to do yet and one of the bravest man just died of heat detect. The troubles he is facing also contributes to his fear, the army is not facing another army but a lot of enemies that dress like normal farmers. There are also a lot of traps in the ground, design to hurt but not kill the American soldiers. It is one of the few wars that American faces difficult situations like this. He tries to deal with his fear by not facing the truth and kept on laughing about things that happened around him. He laughed about the death of the bravest man for quite a while and was thinking about how he should concentrate during training while the gun fires are shooting beside him. 

Journal 32: Far From Home

     When I am in an environment with no one I know of, I usually feels nervous and more or less shier than I usually am. People usually be friend with the one that first helped them in the environment. Before the others help them, some people just stay in their corner, some people find the officers for help and others went up to people to friend with others. Yes I had been in a situation when I am thrown in a new environment with no one I know and have to find my way to get along. I was when I went to America and go to their local school. I have no relative or friends in U.S. and therefore know no one in the school. It was super freighting to an 11 years old to be in a strange environment with no way of commutating with others but with the language she know nothing of. I was hard to get along with others at first, than I was put into the ESL class which NO ONE’s English skill was better than mie. I found a Chinese girl and we become friends, mainly because we can communicate. However there is an other Chinese girl that is friend of the Chinese girl in my class that I really don’t like. I have no way of avoiding that mean girl because Chinese was sort of their little own group and I have no one else to be with other than them. So it was uncomfortable and uneasy to make friends in the new place and sometimes you have not much choice on which friend you will be with until you become one of those old, returning students.  

Journal 31: Author’s Background

        Yes, I think I do find the article a lot more believable if the author has experience the topic. I feel that way because, he experience it! It must be true if someone has experience the thing before. The authors or producers of the films use imaginations to functionalize true story for the readers because it usually makes the film or story a lot more interesting and accepted by the reader/viewers. Real life stories sometimes are just normal, honestly, no one would want to read or watch anything that are too normal. If I am reading a book about how somebody’s day was and there was nothing special about it, or not special to me, why do I bother to read it? I am experiencing the same thing everyday, you celebrate your birthday while I do the same thing and what is the point of reading that book then? Those stories from book or movie should be different from real life but yet connect to the readers. I totally think that most people would rather be entertain than informed, this is the reason why there is less than 100 views for history channel on YouTube but more than 1,000,000 views for Wong Fu Production or Kevjumba.

     I love it when authors take actual information and write an interesting book about it. First, I will not fall asleep reading those books and I usually read the fictional book faster than textbooks (No kidding and not mattering about the difference in length.) Second, I don’t forget those information after reading a interesting book on it.  Third, I just love reading book with conflict and plot so much more than textbooks.

Journal 30: Symbols of Heritage

      In my home, there are not much things that really mean a lot to us. However a really good example of artifices in my family would be my grandma’s house, not just the thins inside that house, the whole place. My grand parents have that house since my dad and uncles are young, they are younger than I am when they move into that house. We own that house and still have three paddy fields that still grow rice now. That place is full of memories our families share together, it is the place that all us gather and celebrate on holidays. We grew up running in those paddy fields and getting yell at by my grandpa when we step on the crops or made the field’s dirt dense(crops don’t grow well in dense dirt). My grandma mean a lot to me, and this add on to the importance of the house and fields. We are also being taught to respect those who are older than you are; to me, grand parents directly equals to power. All the memories relate to the house and the quality of my grand parents contribute in making the house an artifact for my family and I. 

Journal 29: Your Family Traditions

              In my family, there is not much of the culture conflict because the Western culture don’t have much effects on my family. In many ways my family stays traditional, the role of the elder and young is very important in my family and we are being expected to give respect to those older ones whenever and wherever we go. This is sometimes hard, as to those people that we are close with; it is hard to have the same amount of respect to them as the strangers.

       The time when I really feel the cultural conflict within my family is when the birthdays of us children come up. As any other kid, we all get excited for our birthdays but in my family, we stop celebrating birthdays after the kid pass 4^th grade. Therefore, we celebrate it with our friends and pay for the cakes ourselves if we want to celebrate this day. Our parent stop taking part of it, not celebrating it with us nor giving gifts.  In fact, I didn’t even get a “Happy Birthday” from my parents for my 15^th birthday. It is said in the Chinese old tradition that the day when you are born is the day when your mother has a big disaster and should not be celebrate. It is a day when you should be thanking your mother for handling all the pain, not a day to celebrate that you came to this earth.

         I had already give up that my parents would give me ANYTHING for my birthdays or for Christmas but it really bothers me when they forget my birthday and did not even say a happy birthday. This is how I remember the cultural conflict in my family  

Journal 28: Thanksgiving

     Thanksgiving, it is a day to give out thanks~!  People celebrate this day by having a hug feast and luckily, in my American School, we also have a big feast. I am thankful for my parents welling to send me to an American School. And I am also glad that we had chose this American School that turns out to be with a lot of nice people. Thankful for that not only my parents decide and welling to send me to an American School and also that so far they are able to handle the huge tuition feed. I am thankful that I have a lot friends in PAS and even more thankful that I gain a lot of heart sharing friends. Not everyone have friends to the heart that they can share everything with. How lucky I am that I have 4 friends like that. I am glad just that I am here today, to be able to sit here, to be able to type now my Mac Book Pro for my English class now. And I thank everyone who contribute and helped me for me to get to this point of my life. Thank you everyone, really thanks. 

Journal 27: Doing The Right Thing

       A lot of people go around and ignore their own principles or the principles of their family/tradition to get what they want. Unfortunately these kinds of people occupied most of the population around the world, and this population is growing as time pass. It is tougher to survive now a days, weather you are living in city or in the countryside. When you tasted what it is like to left hungry and know what it is like to barely survive, you will do anything to avoid being in that like of situation again. In Taiwan, and around the Chinese culture, I think there are more people who follow the principles compare to the rest of the world. The Chinese culture have a very strong morals and believes that are pass from one generation to the next. Therefore Chinese population value the principles a lot more than the other race.

     For me, I think I am the kind of people that will follow my own principles even though that means I have to sacrifice some things.  I would not pursue my desires at any cost because there are some that I just cannot afford to lose. There are some things that is irreversible once you lose it and when you calm down and think about all those things you desire, they might not even worth to pursue. 

Journal 26: Conflict Avoidance

        Of course most people try to avoid conflicts in their life. Conflict usually means fighting and you are unable to reach to the goal you want. If you can get to the goal easily, why would you want things in your way?

    When you are standing in fort of someone you are really mad at for whatever reason, it is the best to avoid the conflict, by walking away, if you could, or at least by not picking up a fight. This is one of an example for the conflict that is best to be avoided because usually nothing good comes after a fight. However conflicts are also essential to a person’s life. Everyone has experience some kind of conflict in their life at one point or an other. If a person has never experience a conflict, it is likely that this person take everything for granted, because he or she always get what they want. It is kind of sad when people take things for granted because than they don’t realize that the thing around them and the things they have are precious. Also those people are likely to get disliked for their personally and the way they take things for granted are usually not well-like. 

Journal 25: Heritage Revisited

      When I think of the things that benefit me and contribute to me being who I am, my religion is usually the first thing that comes into my mind. It always give me strength when I am at my weakest place, fill my heart when I feel empty and it is one of few things I will never lost and I can bring it wherever I go. People often ask why I am a vegetarian, I usually answer as that my parents are vegetarian. Actually my religion is the main thing, than it is all about health my family being vegetarian is one of the least reason why I am a vegetarian. I just don’t want other people to see my with colored eye for unnecessary reason. Being vegetarian is obviously a big benefit in my life and I am proud of it, it is one of those thing I will never regret for doing. I also inherited the positive thinking style from my family, no doubt that is indeed a benefit.

      I am proud that I have pure black hair from my dad, and also I am proud that I inherited my dad’s height instead of my mom. Most of all, I am proud of being independent, it is one of characteristics of being at my family, exception for my little brother. My brother and I are both independent because of my mom who don’t really want to spend too much time on us and don’t usually pick us up when we have other way home, don’t usually cook after I learn how to cook and my brother and I also share out the work around the house.

      About the things I am somewhat ashamed of is that I have a lot of hair on my fingers and legs which I really don’t like.  

     When it comes to the things I inherited that get in my way, I could think of none. 

Journal 24: Crossing the Rubicon

          Passing the point with no return, or crossing the Rubicon usually happens in the story to increase the tension. Situations such as when Bella in the story Twilight has to decide weather or not she will turn herself into a blood seeking creature in order to be with her husband forever. An other more common and non-fictional example is when people decide weather or not he or she should go out of country to study or work for a period of time. Or when a child, facing devoicing parents, is deciding should he or she go with their mom or dad. These are situations when things were forever change once the decision was made.   

           Obviously people hastate when they are facing situations with no turning back. They tend to think and rethink about their choices, value and predict each choice because every tiny thing must be include when face the no turning back situation. Yes I had facing one of those situation before, when I have to decide should I or should I not leave this school to go to a local school. Knowing that the two paths are completely different and my future will be greatly effected by this decision. When I was in that situation, I also try to think in different aspects making sure my decision is the best for all. I listen suggestion from all my friends, especially those ones that are not bias. 

Journal 23: Influence of Childhood

         Of course an author’s childhood would affect the writer’s writing. I think the author’s writing style would be the main thing that is affected by their childhood. I think my unique experiences in my life are the best sources of inspiration for a story. Those experiences are very special, they are like my personal library which stores all the information I need for a new exciting story. For the simple reason that I went through the events myself, I am able to describe them as detail as I wanted. If I want to, I could also make changes to them and form a fictional story basing on my own experience, every thing is easier with an outline, especially the outline I know my heart.

       Sometimes my own story might not be as good as the ones on the shelf even though they might be similar. However, if I would think of my own experience when I am reading the book, the author had succeeded in making the story more realistic. This is why there are so many books about love, everyone experience love sometimes in their life. Authors take this advantage of common experience and make thousands of stories out of them. Readers feel connected to the story and are able to feel that they are part of the story or understand the character’s feeling because they had experience the similar things sometimes in their life.

Journal 22: Your Character

People revile their character to others by how they react to each situation. The character of someone is shown in day to day life, everything, how they act, say, react, think, respond. To be honest with their own character to their self is harder to some people than others. To me, it is not too hard because i am one of those weird kid who talk to myself all the time. Therefore i pay attention to the character I actually am. My character is different to those who understand me really well, normal classmets, nod-head friends, and total stangers. The way I see myself, I think I am the outgoing kind of people. I love reading and read for enjoyment but I am also really playful, quit sportive (since I am in both cheerleadning squad and basketball team), and I don't think I am the shy kind. I consider myslef as some how humurious but to some people who don't know me well, they might think I am serious. I sometimes is in a bad mood or is just really tire and don't want to say hi all around the school. If I am super trie I might also not reply when other people say hi. I think my personality does not change too much in front different people. 

Journal 21: Bullies

          The bullies pick on other people to make themselves feel better, or special. A lot of bullies pick on other people to get attention from others, mostly who they admire. The people being bullied are scare. They are scare to tell other people or the school what has happened to them. Not just the fact that the bully can pick on them because they are stronger than the one being bullied in some way, not necessary physically. It also make the person who is being bully seems weaker than they already feel they are. They do not dare to stand up for themselves because they think they are week and is scare, that is why they can be pick on at the first place.

     The meaning of bully can stretch to a wide range and include many different types. One would be physical bully, the ones that goes around hitting and bumping others. This one happens more commonly in boys than girls, probably because they are stronger and more physical. When you add money into part of bullying, it is a different thing. There are some bullies not just physically or other ways lowering the victim’s self esteem but also taking money from the victim. The type of bullying that is most commonly seen is the exclusive type of bullying. In this case, there are not much physical movement involve, the whole process is rather verbal. Usually among group or groups of girls who purposely exclude someone and make them feel alone. Things such as no one would be with that person in a group project to no one wanting to sit beside them, those little things are the things making people feel lonely and friendless. Although this type of bullying might seem to be the calmest one, it is the most harmful and common one. 

Journal 20: Character Questions

•                Is the character believable? Why or why not?

           The character I pick to describe is Rukmani. She is very believe able because she describe all her feelings, including the bad ones and the feelings she don’t want to share with other people. She does not do anything that is abnormal or have any sort of magical power. Rukmani is just a normal women live on farms.  

•                What are the character’s traits?

The character is from a wealthy family, and at first was not used to the farm life. However, she is a fast learner, could fit into new environments well, hard working, and know how to be a good wife.

•                What motivates the character?

The motivations for the character is just to live down, to raise her children.

•                Is the character a protagonist or an antagonist? Explain.

What conflict(s) does the character experience?

      She is a protagonist because the whole story was told in her point to view. She is the one telling the story of her life, so she is one of the most important characters in the book. The character has to deal with difficulties in life. Such as food supplies and having no son, at first. 

Entry 19: Nectar in a Sieve

“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

And hope without an object cannot live.”

      The epigraph gives me an impression that the main character is going to suffer over losing hope or having only hope and nothing else. Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve, you can get some of the valuable nectar especially when you work really hard for it, but it will not stay. If all you have left is hope, it is meanness too. All you have is hope, but what does the hope do if you have nothing to hope for? What does the hope do if you are only hoping and dreaming it instead of working for it?  

       To me, the least thing I would ever want to do is having regrets. You never know if you can make up for that regret, even if you think you have that chance, the future is uncertain, nothing is. This sort of explains why I am more of an outgoing person, and trying new things, I don’t want to let my fears be my reason to regret. This is life, you only have it once, so don’t leave it blank. Life without hope is meaningless, that is probably the biggest blank you can make in THE life. Hope without work is meaningless, hope does nothing if no actions are taken because of that hope. So life, hope, and work are link together, losing one will drop other’s value. 

Entry 18: Character in Painting

1.     1.    The subject of the painting is a young woman and a man that is older than the woman. The man is playing with his finger while the woman is looking at the man.

2.    2.    The foreground is purple without any other color or patterns. In this way, the man is outstanding. The background is with three yellow lights balls , mix with orange and yellow lights. The background sort of being mix with the woman’s yellow shirt. This give that girl the feeling of she is young, bright, with good family background or coming from a good place (better than the situation of the man). However the mixing of yellow shirt and yellow background also make the girl, who is already smaller than the man for being at the back, even less noticeable.

3.     3.      The girl is young, outgoing, rich, pretty and is in love with the guy. The coloring gives the viewer the feeling that she is outgoing. Her youth and prettiness are expressed on her face, skin and they way she dress. The big diamond ring on her finger shows that she is rich. Young girl’s facial expression, looking at the guy, and the way she is playing/sorting out her hair (trying to make herself look better) clearly shows that she is in love with the guy.

       The guy is not as rich, I can tell from the way he is dress and how he has a beard. The beard also shows that he is older. He obviously is NOT in love with the girl, because he is playing with his finger. This guy didn’t even pay attention to the girl, the young female probably don’t mean anything to the guy.

4.    4.    In this painting, the coloring play a big part of giving the reader that the two people are coming from different world. The bright color in the background stands more for the background of the girl while the pure purple in the foreground stands for the situation of the man. 

Journal Entry 17: My Favorite Stories

        I know that ever since I had memories I am a total book lover. People might consider me a rather sportive person now but I spend all my childhood reading books. Just for entertainments, nothing really related to the school. I am still a book lover now, just that I dot have enough time to do so. Believe it or not, even though they are not real think ones, I finish at least 20 books during this summer. To consider books I really love when I was young, I can remember that that I really love. I can recall a lot of books I read or some of books I like but I don’t know THE book I LOVE.

        I read everything when I was young (preschool to 4^th grade), from destiny stories to dictionaries. When I grew older, I am more into science fictions, detective, adventure novels, and novels that are interesting while contains a lesson, novels only. I think the plot of the story attracts me more than anything else. I don’t like plots that move too slow because too many descriptive details are sometimes unnecessary and they bored me. I also like novels that contains a certain useful background because then I can learn knowledge while having fun.  For example “The fifth Sally” tells about a girl with multiple personality disorder. The story is chain by Sally trying to fix her disorder, the story itself is interesting and memorable. On top of having a good time, after I finish that book I know a lot about multiple personality disorder, and I will always remember them. This way of remembering knowledge fits me a lot more than normal lecture. Because, first, I will be welling to “study” and second, I will probably remember the knowledge probably ten years after it. 

Journal Entry 16: The Influence of Others

  People who influence my life that is all the people I know. Everyone around me influences me and makes me who I am. The biggest people who have positive influence on me is my family. They raise me up, teaches me to tell right from wrong, and all others that I could not name. I consider myself as quit a independent person, and I have to thank my family for all that. To be honest, I sometimes dislike them for making me know how to be independent so early. However, that is also a good thing, learn to rely on yourself as early as possible so you don’t have to ask others for anything.

     In my opinion there is actually rear people who would have pure bad influence on you. Everyone who hurt you, taught you how to held your wood and what to avoid in the future. The ones who insult you let you know what is tolerate. Thank your first lover who might hurt you the deepest because he/she taught you what is love. What ever that might seems like “bad” in most people’s eyes at least taught you the experience and tell you what to avoid in the future. So, how would anyone be bad influence to you if you are already busy thanking them all? 

Entry 15: characters

     Characters, what are characters?  They are “character is a printable symbol having phonetic or pictographic meaning and usually forming part of a word of text.” So, what make those words seems like a real person to us, the readers? On the top of my head, I am going to think of some characters and list the characteristics of those characters down and see what do they have in common or what are the differences. SpongeBob! That is one of my favorite carton, and I sometime still watch it if I can. What makes SpongeBob real? Why would anyone want to watch a sponge in the bottom of the sea? Well, Sponge can talk like real human, act like a human, it have eyes, arms, legs like human, it is very childish and the things it do was not too smart. The dogs in 101 Dalmatians can also talk, act like human, it is very loyal and the things they do aren’t too smart either. The talking tea pot in the monster and beauty also talk, act like human, with eyes, legs and arms like human, and it is very caring, that tea pot was not very smart, too.

    So I think by giving those non-human “things” human characteristics such as having eyes, arms, legs, can talk and act like human, with human emotion and thinking ability. The author makes the characters seems real to the readers.