Quickwrite: Reflection on the Soliloquy

The soliloquy we are supposed to memorize and perform is from the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet, a play written by William Shakespeare. So first I say what went wrong so that this blog post would end on a high note, or at least a happier note. So in the first week since Mr.Dahl first assigned the work, I was reading the wrong passage, the part where it started with "wherefore art thou Romeo?" I was told that's the right passage. I also thought it was that part I was suppose to memorize since I think it's the most important part and it also ends directly after the Romeo passage. However, I am sorry I wasn't paying full attention that I didn't acknowledge the part I was suppose to memorize as Juliet. So in the end, I wasn't really sure about the passage and I had to keep look down at the paper. Also, I was not so nervous before, however, the moment I got up stage, my heart starts beating fast. I'm pretty sure it's not the Romeo that made me so nervous, a Romeo is too cheesy for me to get my heart pumping so fast. I was just scared about it, I'm not a good actress on stage I guess. In the end, I was able to pull off a few lines loud and proud, but over all I think it's not great. but it's not bad. Though there were really those few lines that were so corny it still made me laugh on stage. "Dost thou love me??" > 3<

Quickwrite: Odyssey_ the movie and the book

The movie of the Odyssey was a bit different from the written epic poem by Homer. Take the part where the Cyclops first came out. the overall plot is about the same: Odysseus and his crew came on to an island, they went into the cave for shelter. Giant Cyclops came along with his sheep, saw the people and threatens to eat them. Odysseus used his intelligence to fool the monster, saying that he’ll be killing off all the magic and secrets of the world in him, just to buy them some time. Then, the Cyclops ate some of the people in his crew. Finally. He offered him some wine and let him fall asleep. During his nap, they sharpened a tree trunk and stuck it into the Cyclops’ one eye, blinding him completely. Then the Cyclops pushes the big stone that blocks the entrance away and the remaining crew of people went along with the sheep out into freedom. Odysseus ranted at the Cyclops as he got away. Then the Cyclops tattletale on him to his father, Poseidon, and also put a curse on him that ruined some of his lifetime. However, there are some changes in the movie. The movie went on very fast. In one day, Odysseus and his crew rescued themselves from the Cyclops, but in the book, it was over a 3 days time span. In the book, the monster ate a pair of men every meal, but in the story he only ate one or two a few times with no stable frequency. Also, the crew tied themselves on to the sheep as they went out the cave, so that the monster couldn’t tell if that’s a sheep or a human being. However, in the movie, they only ran out the cave with the sheep, but not tied on to them.

Quickwrite: Heroes

A hero is someone that devotes their lifetime to make great achievements to the society, or even the whole world. They may have different purpose, but they accomplished thing that can improve humans’ way of life. No matter if it’s an idea or an event, people can use or learn from, it is still great achievements to the world.I think Bill Gates can also be considered as a hero, because he devoted his time to the company full of workers and dedicated staffs. He made great achievements and inventions for the world. He made the world a better place by introducing a soft ware that helps improve humans’ way of life. He donated the money he made on his achievements to people that need money. Then, even after he retired, he continued making achievements to this world. I also think that MARVEL super heroes are heroic, because, well, they are heroes, and they also had different ways they sacrificed themselves for a greater cause. For example, Iron Man, when he was in the Avengers (a 2012 Marvel film), he flew all the way into the deadly portal with the atomic bomb just to save the people in New York from the bomb and the aliens. He was prepared to die for them, though he did not die, of course. So it was a happy ending and I'm sorry if I just spoiled the ending for a lot of the people that haven't watched the Avengers yet. :]
  

Quickwrite: The North Korea Government

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, a lot of things aren't the way they look. Some of just misleading, but many of them are just plain liars. The North Korea government may not seem like liars to us, but they are definitely brainwashing their people. If all of the North Koreans don't believe in their government, it's perfectly easy for them to start a revolution. However, it's impossible, because everyone in the country loves, or at least fears the government. There's no way one would simply stand up against the government. When a person wants to start a revolution, it's impossible to let this idea spread, because everyone is likely to betray you and inform the government of your rebellious plans. Also, the North Korean have been brainwashed by the idea that there is nothing to envy of the other country. They were taught to believe that North Korea was the most advanced and the wealthiest place on the Earth. For example, the United States have been providing food and medical aids to North Korea, many people saw the boxes that contains the food say that they're from the States. So many people asked themselves how come it's the States, their mortal enemy, providing them food. So Kim Jong-il came to tell us why this is happening. Those aids were actually taken away or captured by North Korea army from the United States. Then, their aids now became another tool for their deceiving propaganda.

Quick Write: Significant Events

There was one historical event that affected my life pretty largely. As we all know, before President Chen got reelected as the president in 2004, there was an assassination. He was shot by a random citizen who might even be one of his supporters. It was assumed by many people that he was shot to cause sympathy before the next election, so he can be reelected. The gun shot was ridiculous, he only got a scratch on the side of his belly, but people all over the nation fuzzed over it. However, president Chen was the Green party; my dad was Green, my mom is Blue. My mom hated that president, though my dad was not all that into Green as my mom is into Blue, it still caused a lot of argument in my family. My parents want to vote for the same president every time they vote, but this time they have a hard time deciding. After the long argument, my mom, being a lawyer, won the fight and we didn't vote for President Chen in 2004's election. Though he was still reelected as the president, my mind is already filled with the massive amount of Blue ideals. Also, right before the election I was sent to my grandmother's house for a month. She is even more Blue than my mother. I am totally brainwashed and I'm taught to believe the Green party is totally corrupted. After this event, my whole family is converted into Blue, even my dad.
The other event in my life was when I got a part of my intestine rotting. I'm not sure if that's really the word to describe the condition I was in. "Rotting" made it sound pretty disgusting, though it was actually fairly disgusting.  Imagine a part of you rotting inside, it might even infect the other parts of you. And this is not the first time I got this rotting in my intestine. I was 7 when I first got it, the second time, I was a rising freshman, I was 14. However, this time, I'm much older than I was, and I understood more about life after this event. I used to have this destructive impulse toward myself, cutting my finger and banging my fist against the wall. Not anymore after I got sick in the stomach, I changed big time. I saw more stuff in life and in other people, and most of all, I don't hate myself anymore.

Quick Write: Favorite Food

My favorite food has got to be curry. The moist but concentrated sauce is all I need to survive for 2 month. Maybe give me some rice or noodles though. The sensation when the hot juicy sauce collaborates with the perfectly cooked rice is just indescribable. The scent of curry is the first thing that attracts me to it. I can identify different kind of curry through their odor. There is a difference between real and fake curry. When you eat real curry you can taste the spices in different layers, but at the same time all in one single mixture. Fake curry, however, has a weird texture in it as if there was a cup of dust accidentally dropped in it, and has a watery sweet taste to it. Real curry's texture is stiff; it's a whole, just like a painting. A cow by itself in not a painting, a tree itself is not a painting. A tree and a cow is still not a painting, but when the two got a connection between them, it becomes piece of masterpiece, like a perfect plate of real curry. 

Quick Write: Animated Poem-The Country by Billy Collins

I've watched the five animated videos on Billy Collin' poetries. My favorite video was The Country. This poem tells a story of how the writer wonders when someone tells him not to leave matches on the floor or places the mice could reach. He was told that he should keep the matches in a safe place, because some crazy mouse could sneak in and take a match and go into the underworld of mice and starts a fire there. The theme of the poem is telling you that no matter how crazy the consequences seem, there are still possibilities that unfortunate things can happen. So people have to be always careful, not just sometimes cautious, because the unlucky things may be unlikely to happen. However, there is a saying in chinese"不怕一萬, 只怕萬一," this phrase means that things that happened for a million times don't scare us as much as those accidents that come so unpredictable. So we should always be careful so that no 萬一 will happen!

Quick Write: My Ballad Reflection

Allen and Jasper read my ballad about a knight named Cinori. Both of them had very similar feedbacks on my ballad. Both of them complained that I don't have a consistent rhyme scheme, and that some of my stanzas didn't even include rhymes. However, it is because rhymes are very hard to find when talking about a certain topic, I'm not a professional poet, I can't think of rhymes just whenever I want to. I didn't know that a ballad needs a consistent rhyme scheme so I just added rhymes I thought made the poem fluent. Jasper also mentioned that the my ballad was too long. It wasn't that long, Jasper, Mr.Dahl didn't set a limit to it so it was alright. However, I didn't plan on writing so much at the first place, I was thinking about a 20line ballad, and instead I ended up with 88lines. The plot of the story has different stages, and it is indescribable within 20 lines, that's why I had 88lines, and I even thought I could a few more stanzas in there.

Quick Write: Narrative Poem Research

To a Wasted Life

Here is to the end, a place we must all go. 

To the long narrative that went on and on

and now is gone. 

The songs the dreams and all the things 

that came and went in-between, 

are but dust now blow carelessly by the breeze. 

Your eyes filled with the color of your many 

lies now turned gray by our love

that has now died.

To what comes after!

by David Blake

This narrative poem I chose is short in length and also rhymes a little bit. Each stanza is very short, only one or two sentences in it. In the first stanza, the second sentence is a metaphor saying that life is a long narrative using a indirect metaphor. The second stanza is a long, direct metaphor saying that everything in life is now just dust and ready to be blown away by the breeze. The third stanza is an indirect metaphor of lies and colour that can be seen through eyes; and that love died, using personification. The last stanza would just be an exclamation in maybe a sarcastic tone, anticipating for the after life. The figurative language used in the poem, to me, is really fun. Mostly it's because it made rhymes and the poem goes with a meter that suits the theme of the poem which is a little bit slow and repetitive. With the imagery given by the poem, I can kind of see what the writer is trying to show about this wasted life.

Quick Write: Life

To me, life is a bowl of salad.
There can be plenty of ingredients in the bowl; but it always need the right dressing, and it is always about going green. The ingredients are you and the people in your bowl of life. The dressing is the kind of atmosphere that combines all you people together. There can be different flavor in this bowl of lively salad; it could be sweet, bitter, sour, disgusting, delicious, and all the other different tastes. The dressing is the thing that completes the whole bowl of salad and give it a character in your life. Also, now in the present days, everything is about going green and saving the earth. Maybe that's not really relevent to the metaphor for life, but it certainly tells an aspect in our life of the modern culture.

Quick Write: An Ordinary Day

On an ordinary day...

I'd probably wake up somewhere around 10 o'clock, and have brunch.

Then, I would lay myself on the floor of the balcony, and probably stay there until I got bored.

I would watch some TV and maybe tetris for a bit.

I would also chat up my friends, but it depends who was online.

I would leave my house at dinner time for some curry. However, I only leave for dinner, I don't like to go out when the sun is up.

After I'm done with the dinner, I would come back home and watch some House M.D.

My favorite part of the day is probably the looking into the sky on the balcony. It's not that I like being alone, but I really like it when everything is just quiet, and when I can't hear other people's voice. Like everything is just peaceful. I do like chating with my friends, but sometimes the simple the better a day can be.

My life is very unlike these two poems, as you can see, I barely do any work on my daily basis. Maybe when I am the age of the woman in the first poem, I'd be doing some of the similar things.

Quick Write: Selfless Sacrifice

I've done some sacrifices before. However, there was one sacrifice I did that I thought was really big. There was one time during the summer of 2011, all of my classmates in the my art class is going on an art trip. I was really excited that because I was one of the people that is handpicked by the director. The others have to fight for the places, or wait for some of the handpicked members to not go. In my grade, I have a lot of friends, but I don't know any of the people in the other grades. On the other hand, this girl, a friend of mine has a lot of friends all over the grades. She wasn't picked by the director, and she wasn't there when everyone was fighting for the last few spots. When she got back, I had to see her depressed, lonesome face every time I go to class. I really wanted to go, I need more landscape drawings, and I really want to go to that amusement park with all my friends. However, a week before they went on to the trip, I told the director that I can't go at that time, and I made up this really fake meeting, then I told him that I want my friend to take my place. I didn't regret my decision though. After they were back, they shared with me all about the fun they had. I was still one of them, and I felt like I did the right sacrifice.

Quick Write: Turning Point

I've always hated sports. Especially team sports, I really dislike them. I tried basketball and foot-ball. I do like soccer, but no one ever plays it with me. So last year, I tried something else, a sport that doesn't really need any touching between people. I chose badminton. At first, I really don't want to try it, since it's a sport. I didn't really want to move at all. However, after a few practices, I realized that I might be able to work out a lot more playing this sport. It was actually fun. The most important thing I gained in accepting a new kind of sport is not just that I get to work out, I also learned to accept a lot of other sports more and more. Then I became a lot more open to sport. I am now good at dodge ball, king ball, and hockey. Now I have a fitter body than I used to have, and I actually became a happier person. This is a pretty big turning point in my life. After 4 years of searching, I finally found a sport I actually likes to play.

Quick Write: Good for myself or good for someone I care?

I've done a lot of choices in my life. There are a lot of big choice I made, and I'd like to keep them private, as secretes. I had some small decisions to make. It wasn't exactly a choice between good for myself and good for someone I care, it was more of a good for me or bad for me decision. During expository writing, the ones that spoke Chinese that got caught by the teacher will have to read a poem at the end of the class. So my friend spoke Chinese while talking to me. She thought she said it quiet enough that the teacher won't hear her. However, our teacher was standing right behind her. However, the teacher wasn't looking this way, she only heard us, and she thought it was me that spoke Chinese. While the teacher asked me to put on the hat of Chinese, I noticed that my friend was raising her hand to tell her that she was the one that spoke Chinese. I had to chose to let her tell the teacher or I take her mistake before she confessed. Then I took the hat before she fully raised her hand. She immediately put her hand down after I start walking back to my seat, and I could tell she really didn't want to read that poem. So I chose something that was bad for me, it wasn't exactly good for her, but I guess I really don't want to blame something on someone else in front of everyone.

Quick Write: Comparison Between the two Christmas Carol movies

There were a lot of movies made based on the novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The two movies I am comparing today is the one made in 1999 and the other more recent one, the Disney movie in 2009. 10 years, the same plot same themes, but presented in two very different ways. The new Disney movie is in animation, unlike the 1999 one. the two movie also shows how much the technology has improved in a 10 year span. The quality of the of the older movie was not bad, it is still an enjoyable movie, and it is more like what I've expected after reading the actual book, though I expected the main character, Scrooge to have a lot more hair, and a lot older, being such a miserable man.  The Disney animation in 2009 was very lively and was not really close to what I have expected. A lot of the things in the movie, to me, was a little bit exaggerated. I felt more related to the filmed movie in 1999, and I did cry in the end, which means an old movie can still touch your heart. The animated movie was a little bit chaotic for me, and I didn't cry at the end, maybe that is because I can't relate to these drawn characters.

Quick Write: Why do We Have Universal Education, and when did it started?

At 500 BC, education already became visible and known to many people in more civilized part of the world.People have education to know how to civilize and improve their way of life. Maybe human can still live with each other and sometimes get along, but to really walk toward a peaceful, conflict-less world is to first be educated and civilized. Actual public school were first set in the 10th century in England, it is where language became more important to the people. Once some people get to have education, others would fight for the right to have the chance to seek more knowledge, then more and more became educated and civilized, the problems in the world can be solved easily. If a person isn't taught the right way since they were born, they will grow in the wrong direction, and can lead to bad decisions that can cause damage to the world. Therefore, Education became a needed qualification to be a global citizen. 

Quick Write: My Most Coveted Possession

My most coveted possession is probably my ring. It is a necklace now because I don't want it to be stuck on my finger one day, and I also don't want people to think I am married. I've worn that ring for 2 and a half years now. It is not just a ring, it symbolizes me, and reminds me to not to trust people easily. Maybe you'll think it is just a wall between me and other people, but if I didn't have that wall I would've been dead a long time ago, not literally. I alway have it with me, I don't want my wall to weaken any moment, it has to stay strong. Maybe until I make a friend that can protect me like the wall did, then she can be my best friend forever, though I will still have this ring with me even then.

Quick Write: Workhouse

Workhouse is basically a factory-like places that employees people that are not able to find jobs better than this. The origins of the workhouse can be traced to the Poor Law Act of 1388, which tried to address the labour shortages by restricting the movement of labourers, and made the state responsible for the support of the poor. Then, after war with the French came the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution lead to new inventions and made many machines that changes British's life. The original Poor law is to help support the poor in the country, the new Poor Law pushes the people to work at workhouses. These workhouses first started developing in the Great Britain, then spread to the other countries that also started their industrial revolution.

Quick Write: Which ghost affects Scrooge the most?

I think the third ghost affected Scrooge the most. The ghost of Christmas future was the third ghost, it showed Scrooge his future. A scene of a lonely grave yard, Scrooge saw his tomb with the ghost of Christmas future. Having seen his future will end so tragically, it is the fear that motivates him to make a change and start being a good man. Seeing the past may make him even more enjoy his present of being the mean, cold Scrooge. Seeing the present has very little affect on a person like Scrooge. He is already a selfish man, why would he care that much about the others that he saw through the ghost of Christmas present. Usually fear is the one thing that pushes a person the most. If a leader have to choose between being feared and being loved, being feared is a better choice. Though that has nothing to do with a Christmas Carol, but it shows how fear is a very important factor to change someone.

Quick Write: Comparing Theme - Liberty and Exile

The story Liberty and the poem Exile shares a similarity. The main characters in these two different plots all have to leave their own country. They have the same basic topic, but the things the story and poem focused on was very different. Liberty is a story about their pet, Liberty, a pet with a symbolic name. Exile is about the family that was forced to travel at night to get out of their country. The story and the poem may have different plot, depth, and complications, but they have two same themes, that is leaving behind something can be painful and sad, and that anew start can be many opportunities. The first theme is more important the second one, since most of the stories is built on the sadness the theme caused.