As I Began to Love Myself (things to do on 12/1)

Dear all,

I shared this video for a reason, for we are going to begin our next project: transforming your narrative essay into a video narrative about yourself. I also shared it because the poem, by Charlie Chaplin (do you know who he was?), speaks to my heart deeply. I  like you to hold this wisdom when you are young. 

Then I'll give a brief presentation on digital storytelling about 'self' and why it is a valuable practice for our class, for you. Several examples from YouTube and from your seniors will be shown again for a practice to critique. Please remember to bring your 300-500 word script for your story to the class for peer review and suggestions. Storyboarding is a very helpful planning process for a digital story. I'll introduce the use of it in this hour. 

Next, we'll read a pro essay on comparing and contrasting: Mark Twain's two views of seeing a river using the Block Pattern. It's a nice read with very neat descriptions of the river at different times. From the sample essays we read together, you can definitely compare anything. Also, remember to bring your outline for an in-class discussion. 

See you!

Does the law really protect people needing help?

        

        The latest content I have read in this book, showing up a strange creatures called Vermicious Knids on the space hotel. Its appearance like an egg shape with green furry and red eyes. 

Afterwards, Mr. Wonka chased by Vermicious Knids, he had no choice but escaped back to the glass elevator. Because the great glass elevator is shockproof, waterproof, bombproof, bulletproof and Knidproof! Therefore, staying inside was the safest for Mr. Wonka at that time.

Later. The White House personnel had entered the space hotel. Similarly, they were being attacked by Vermicious Knids. At this emergent moment, Mr. Wonka was a bit hesitant to save them because the White House staff still believed that Mr. Wonka's group were aliens. If they went, then the scam would be made public, and they may be punished by the government after returning to the earth. Therefore, everyone was afraid to go back. However, when Mr. Wonka faced the situation that the other party was about to be killed, they still showed a sense of justice and chose to "save" instead of leaving them behind. I admire this part so much: sacrificing yourself to save others.

 

Actually, this makes me come up with many cases that people see someone in mortal danger, and do nothing to save them in our life. Let me take a piece of news I saw before: The victim of a car accident fell to the ground in desperate pain, but no one gave him a hand to rescue him. Instead everyone gathered in a circle, watching him. In fact, Taiwan is famous for the most beautiful scenery: people. However, it is because of Taiwan's laws, leading a such cruel scene. In Taiwan’s law, if you save a person but you cause the injured patient's condition to become more serious, you might need to bear the relevant criminal responsibility. This is why when someone needing help but everyone just watch with their arms crossed. This makes me think that the law is originally designed to protect the rights of the party in demand, but sometimes the other party abuses it in some way. I think the way the law is formulated has more we need to think about: how we can really formulate the law dose really protect the people who need help.

The Richest Man In Babylon

 

Hello, I am Cody. Today I am going to share a new book with you, The Richest Man in Babylon. The characters in this book are quite small, which almost hurt my eyes. While because I want to get rich, I can take this burden to read it wholly and share the tips learned from this book to you. For the starter, the tips I am going to share may be something really basic or well-known. But I still hope you guys can think them thoroughly and really apply them to your life. Undoubtedly, we all want to get rich, but to remember, the devil is in the details.

The book stars from a chariot maker named Bansir in the ancient Babylon, who lives a destitute life while working very hard. He always sits on the wall and watching the changes in this seemingly prosperous city, thinking of how to get rich. He puzzles about why he can’t be wealthy even if he spends lots of time working. One day his friend came after him and they set up a goal to be rich. They sought for advice from the richest man in Babylon named Arkad, which is a turning point. The richest man in Babylon wasn’t that rich either. He was a slave who worked hard as well, but his purse was still empty like his burden of jobs, never completing. Fortunately, the one he worked for was a rich, elder person, whose life was coming to an end. That person taught him the secrets to get rich. The first tip is “A part of all you earn is yours to keep”. This sounds quite straight forward, telling to save money not spending it all. However, it implies you not just to save, but also to spend. We need to eat foods every day; we need to wear clothes every day and we need to do some daily routines. That means a certain parts of the money we earn have to give to others. While the money we earn is ours. We can’t avoid those necessary expenditure, and that’s totally fine to not save all of the money we earn. We just need to save a part of it, and that part could be only one-tenth. We don’t feel guilty or suffering when we spend money. We don’t need to save them for “saving them”. Instead, only to remember, if you earn ten dollars, don’t spend more than nine. That’s the principle of saving money. How can saving money bring to us? Thinking them as your workers, or your children. The money you saved is your army. Making them bring a lot more in your purse. Only when you do so, can you truly practice saving money. You have to invest them and maximize their value. The small return and a safe one are more desirable than risk. Also, the fullness of your purse is not the goal we need to achieve. The continuous income flow is the one we are pursuing. Making sure you keep money, making sure you having profit in your investment, making sure you spend parts of them. The goal is to make cash flow moving, or if no one dares to spend, there will be no other cash flow to refill your purse. 

JANE EYRE

 

The book tells the story of a little girl's growth, which shaves his heart. At first, he was looking forward to his family and wanted to warm up the love of his family, but not everyone in the family could take their children for granted. Maybe sometimes that's the way it is, the more a person expects what he gets, the less he gets. Previous women had no place in economic or social status and had to rely on men. Jane Eyre was born poor and had to rely on her aunt, but at home he was not taken seriously and was often bullied. He couldn't get the love he deserved at home, which in turn allowed him to develop an independent personality. The headmaster of their school is also a mean figure, his heart is very biased, at the beginning he completely ignored her opinion, subjectively think that she is a bad child who loves to lie. Her childhood was miserable, and she didn't get any care or how to get along with anyone else compared to other people's. But then everything got better, but it was when she grew up. I thought I had a friend who was the eldest daughter of their family. The eldest daughter is a role for her parents to take care of others. Her parents didn't give her any care when she was growing up, and she was often harshly criticized. Her parents thought it was necessary for her to take care of her younger siblings, so they put a lot of pressure on her. She was often overwhelmed by stress and sometimes didn't know how to vent her emotions, so she suffered from depression. Her parents didn't think these things would make up her depression, but rather that she had a problem. It was very unscented, and in the end she became more and more ill and then tried to kill herself. Her parents have faced up to the problem since they committed suicide. But it was too late, and she was reluctant to open her atrium to her parents, and then she left home to study elsewhere. Maybe some people will say why she didn't resist. But in that case, she couldn't resist. Hope that no matter what kind of parents can try to understand the child's mood, not necessarily how they feel is how, sometimes she has her own reasons or reasons, if only an ambiguous crackdown on her, then she can never be understood. If there is time to have the opportunity parents must accompany their children more, do not let them live in an unhappy place. For children, they can't understand the adult's position, so in this case, parents can only pay more attention to their children and not let them have ideas that are ignored. This is a very difficult subject, but it is also an important issue, if they do not take good care of them, then they are easy to go. Although my friend's final result was bad, I also knew the importance of many things through her.

The Alchemist

        I randomly picked this novel in the classic novel area, and it turned out to be an interesting story. I personally think this is easier to than the last novel I chose. The story is about a boy, who is a shepherd, enjoys traveling to all different places and had learned a lot during the journey. Even though he didn't go to school for being a shepherd, he had learned three languages by traveling, and had the more knowledges than average people. He fell in love with a merchant's daughter when selling the wools, and that was the very first time he had that kind of feeling with someone. 

        So far, I think the storytelling is interesting and the atmosphere of the story is warm and joy, like the book's cover. In the story, when the boy tell his father that he doesn't want to become a priest, and that he wanted to be a shepherd and travel around the world. Out of my expectation, his father not only accepted his decision, but gave him a bag of money that he had prepared as his heritage to him, fulfilling his dream. I can be related to it, since my parents are both supportive to what I want to learn. Therefore, I had got the opportunities to learn most of the skills I wanted to learn. I am very grateful for my parents being so open minded and had done their best to give me the sources they have. However, I feel like I didn't seize the chance, and had wasted a lot of money from my parents and my own time. As I grow up, there are times I wish I can work harder on those the things I've learned, and maybe I would be a talent person. The one thing I really admire about the boy in the story is that he knows what he truly likes at such a young age. Most importantly he shows how eagerly he wants travel, and takes the chance to learn whenever he can. With such a determined and smart heart, I am looking forward for him to get together with the girl he loves. Even me myself want to be with him when reading this novel, hahaha.

       It has been a tough week, and I wish I can have more time reading this novel. Wish you all good luck for whatever your are facing with. Good night, my lovely friends, sweet dreams.

Things to do on 11/24

Dear all,

I feel I haven't seen you for a long time! I hope you survived well through the midterm week! Well, life goes on!

After reading your draft 2 of Essay 2, I decide that more lessons on thesis statement and topic sentence are required. So we'll begin with some examples from your seniors' essays followed by a little practice on turning simple statements into thesis statements.

From your two essays I also observe problems in your sentence style which has room for improvement. So, I'll walk you through some examples and talk about how we can improve those broken sentences to ones that are loaded with meanings.

For our essay 3, comparing and contrasting, you are going to write an essay that compares or contrasts two things, e.g., objects, ads, or situations. As your essay 2 is a preparation for your individual video making, your essay 3 may be a preparation for your group video. Please note that the essay should be completed individually, but the second video project (the creative project) will be conducted with your team members. More explanations will be given later. Let's not worry about that now.

In the third hour, Louis will come to our class to give a short presentation on how to create your personal video. Some tips of using free apps or other strategies will be given to help you with your video making.

See you in the morning. Keep warm!

Log 5

 

Hellooo, this is XENIA.

The paragraphs of the novel that I read recently “pride and prejudice” are talking about social events. In 18 century, balls were the best places for knowing new friends. Most attendees were intended to find a suitable partner for marriage. Thus, everyone would be dressed up and showed the most attractive side to others, and the parents were responsible for taking their children there and introducing them to others. On the other hand, there were a few elements of a ball, including music, drinking, chatting, and dancing. People would not only enjoy time with their own partners but also observe everything that happened there. For example, Mrs. Bennet, one of the main characters, observed EVERYTHING that happened at the ball, including counting the number of her daughters talking or dancing with others, how beautiful dresses someone wore, or remembering someone’s facial expression and speculating what happened at that time. 

It is interesting that I find the elements of a ball in 18 century are quite similar to the elements of a club in 21 century. Despite the different eras, two are both social occasions, and people all enjoy the atmosphere, drink, dance, and chat there. However, I think there are two differences between the ball in 18 century and the club in 21 century. 

One is the potential purpose. For those who go to balls in 18 century, most of them are intended to find suitable partners for marriage. Moreover, they might conceal some real sides of themselves because they would give others the chance of knowing them more. For those who go to clubs in 21 century, fewer people would find lovers from there because they might consider the place for only relaxation and enjoyment. What’s more, 

The other one is the attitude toward others’ behavior. Those who go to balls in 18 century, observe almost everything that happened there and even turn those observations into recent issues in town. Thus, it seems that people should notice their behavior to pretend to become the negative issues in town. However, for those who go to clubs in 21 century, there might be one thing people really care about, which is “being released and having fun”. 

The improved society makes everything much convenient and efficient, and it also lets us spend less time to know other people. However, is efficiency good in every aspect? I’m not sure about the answer, and I am also wondering whether it is better for us to be back to 18 century and spend much time knowing others sincerely. 

The Remains of The Day

 

    One evening after class, I gave the nearest bookstore in Gongguan a visit. I went straight to the basement floor to stroll around the shelves where the fiction books reside as I’m a big fan of fiction from an early age. Within the number of books in the bookstore, one book drew my attention. It’s The Remains of The Day. "Kazuo Ishiguro", the author, and “Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature” is written on the front cover. I was intrigued by the content of the book and the author himself as this is the first time I found an Asian author has received a Nobel Prize in Literature. Without a doubt, I purchased the book.

The Remains of The Day is a story about Stevens, a butler who has worked for a long time in Darlington Hall, a stately home near Oxford, England. His owner wanted him to go for a break for a few days as he always stays inside the house. At first, he refused. Later on, he changed his mind due to a letter from Miss Kenton.

Reading through the first few pages, Kazuo Ishiguro’s use of words and sentences is very engaging. His way of describing a situation, an environment, a conversation, and the main character’s thoughts or feelings is clear and smooth I should say. For instance, “It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.” While if I write it, it will be “I think I’m going to take a trip.” In my opinion, further flips of the book will give me more inspirations and insights through literature and I’m very much down for it.

Curiosity came and I searched “Kazuo Ishiguro” online. Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist. He was born in Japan and moved to Britain when he was five. This explains his word usage such as, ‘thus’, ‘merely’, and ‘foresee’. Kazuo’s unfamiliar vocabularies written in the novel are numerous. “Unduly”, “notion”, “utmost”, and “chaise-longue” are some of the words I looked up online while reading. The Remains of The Day is not easy to digest. Nonetheless, the book’s word usage and sentence structure are the exact reasons why I love British authors’ works which include my previous choice, The Midnight Library. I hope I’ll have more time to read next week as I want to know more about Stevens’ trip.

Log 5

This is Leo, and here's my log 5, also the first log for fight club.

    Before reading the book, I've already known the author for his mysterious writing style. It seems like the story development is not according to chronological order, instead, it choosed to use a non-linear way to describe story.

    At the exact first page of the novel, many confusing situations are thrown at me for absolute no reasons. Our protagonist, who I don’t know the name, gender, personal information, is being threatened by a man whose name is Tyler. With the gun barrel in his/ her mouth, our protagonist stays extremely calm and start to describe the taste, shape, and function principles behind a gun silencer. Our protagonist is also at the highest building of the world, under the building is massive amounts of plastic bombs and cars filled with explosives that will explode within ten minutes. Usually, people would be panic, knowing that there’s a high possibility of dying either under a gun or buried in the debris. To my surprise, the protagonist choose to describe ten different minor things in the each minute he got in his last time.

    At the first few minutes, he choose to talk about minor things like how cold the wind is on floor 191, the grass is green, and the crowd watching them from the ground looks so small when he's so high. Later, he progressed on something more personal, saying names that I don’t recognize like Tyler and Marla. And Tyler behaves like a psychopath, he not only pointed gun in a person's mouth, crazy nonsense are also utter from his mouth "This is our world, now, our world.","and those ancient people are dead.","This isn't really death.","We'll be legend. We won't grow old." And Marla seems to be very important to both of them, since the protagonist says that without her, they are nothing.

    This kind of way to describe story is very confusing, but it successfully draw my attention and make me want to keep reading and find out what'll happen next.     

 

Love, Simon 2

Love, Simon by Becky Albertalli

Hello! This is Connie’s log! Previously on the former chapters of this book, Simon was blackmailed by Martin who read his email with many secrets of him and his pen pal, Blue. Since Simon was afraid of Martin telling everyone his secret, he had no choice but to help Martin put in a good word for him with Abby.

For the following chapters, Simon kept emailing and sharing his daily lives with Blue. When Simon faced setbacks, like failure in quizzes or in a dilemma whether to help Martin or not, he found comfort in emailing with Blue. It seemed that Simon felt lonely deep in his heart because he seldom shared his thoughts with his friends who he had known for years. Instead, Simon would always turn to Blue who he never met before to let off some steam. The more emails they sent, the better they got to know each other. In addition, Simon and Blue became closer and closer. It was not only because they shared secrets with each other, but also they found a sense of belonging or maybe a sense of identity from each other.

Different from the former emails Simon sent, he became more cautious in the content, and even the grammar because he started to care about how Blue thought of him. It occurred to me that if you cared about a person, then you would also cared about his or her thoughts. I thought it’s a hint that Simon had different affection toward Blue. On one hand, the points Simon cared about was not so important from my perspective. It may because Simon wanted to show the best part of him no matter how detail it was. On the other, Simon once imagined them fantasizing about sex, and I thought it would only happened on someone you had feelings for. Simon was so curious what it would be like to meet Blue in person, and what they would go straight into doing. The reason why Simon had sexual fantasy might because he wanted to meet his unfulfilled needs.

Since Simon and Blue were in the same school, they were both trying to recognize each other by the clues they offered in the emails, like the classes they adopted or the interests they had. I was confused that why they didn’t just reveal their identities, so they were able to meet each other in person. But, it then came up to me that both of them wanted to stay in their comfort zone, which meant that they didn’t like to change the way of getting along with each other. They might be afraid of breaking the friendship they had already built if they knew each other’s real identities. When they didn’t know each other, they would be more interesting because they could be anything they wanted them to be; however, when they knew each other, there were no limits to them.

In conclusion, I was looking forward to see how Simon would expressed his feelings toward Blue. Additionally, I was curious about in what way they would tell their real identities and whether they would meet in person or not. And what the difficulties they may encounter and how to deal with them.

Log 5

Hello everyone, this is Iris. My log 4 has introduced that Meg, her brother, and her friend were going on a journey to find her disappeared father. So, in this log, I am gonna share what they encounter and how they rescue him. First, let’s start with Camazotz (the planet that holds her father as a prisoner). Everything is identical here. When a boy on Camazotz tossed papers into the entrance, the paper flew in identically the same arc at each doorway, landed in identically the same spot. People who live on Camazotz also do not own their own thoughts, they are doing all the same things at the exact same time. This is because this place is controlled by a disembodied brain called IT  who is evil in this story, and he called that “equal”. 

After they arrived at Camazotz, they saw an embodied brain IT and Meg's father(in a large, round, transparent column). They can see him but cannot go into that column and save him. In order to save their father, Charles goes somewhere with IT but when he comes back he is not Charles anymore, IT got him. So even after Meg took her father out of that column with the help of Mrs.Who’s spectacles, they are facing a new problem, they lost Charles. What's worse Meg got an attack from a black thing and almost die when they escape from Camazotz.

In this story, Meg’s greatest faults are her anger, impatience, and lack of confidence. These all appear when Charles has gone. After Charles gone Meg got desperate and she made me feel very annoyed because instead of figuring out a way to save her brother she started to blame everyone, even her father, and wait for someone else to do something. Later on, it makes me think of myself. I am just the same as her, when things didn’t happen as I expected I will get angry and blame someone that is not responsible for that, now I saw this kind of action from another perspective and know that it is unacceptable.

In the last chapter of the story, they decided that Meg should be the one who goes back to Camazotz to save Charles because she is the one who is closest to him. Before she goes Mr's Which strengthens that she can beat evil with one thing that she has and IT has not. Meg was very scared but she go for her little brother and finally figure out “love” is the key to save her brother, so she tell Charles she loves him again and again until she got him back. At the end of the story, they all went back to home, and everyone is immersed in happiness. Although Meg always gets angry and impatience, in order to save her brother she became braver and overcomes all those "faults". I think this story is trying to tell us that we can do everything with "love".

Me Before You

 

Most of the plots do not change too much, similar to what I read last time. Will and Clarke’s relationship became better and better, just like what romance novels or movies would have. At first, two people would hate and unwilling to understand each other. After a big fight, they would realize they actually had something in common and could understand some hardship behind what people saw. Then, they will start their romantic relationship.

      I really wonder why romantic stories always have the same formula. But think it in a opposite way, it just because people love this kind of stories. If the main characters love each other and did not need face any obstacles, that is too boring. If the characters hate each other and did not become friends at the end, they would logically not be lovers. Well, I guess I will keep reading and see what would happened, in my prediction or not.

What you can do or What you want to do

The Real Aunt Molly by Frank Brennan

     If you had a chance to be a better version of you by being hypnotized, would you want to be under hypnosis forever, or return to what you’ve been before and forget all the things that happened when you’re hypnotized?

     In the Real Aunt Molly, the narrator’s aunt, Molly, was hypnotized and accidentally became a more confident and thoughtful woman than the old version of her. Although everyone missed the old Molly who’s hardworking to raise her twins after her husband died, the new version of Molly impressed everybody. All her family, neighbors and friends immediately found how friendly, outgoing and active she had become, and started wondering whether they should keep her in this way or help her return to the old Molly with a recording of the hypnotist’s voice. Personally, if I was the aunt Molly, I would definitely want to return to my own nature. Like the story said, people can’t remember anything when being hypnotized, so, it means that what we are doing under hypnosis is all not what we truly want to do. In other words, when we are doing something unconsciously, we are just not us. We kind of become other people or another persona that live inside our minds. Also, if it’s possible for us to be whoever we want to be by hypnosis, then there would be no meaning for our existence. And we would be no difference from artificial intelligence. Therefore, if I was the one who’s hypnotized, I would never want to be trapped by the instruction of the hypnotist.

     Another part that inspired me in this short story is the difference of the old and new versions of Molly. When I saw how aunt Molly became more positive toward her life, I found that the way we live our lives is merely a choice we made. We may be able to achieve more accomplishments that seem difficult or even impossible for us, such as become the president or a millionaire. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with what we can do but what we want to do. Aunt Molly also didn’t expect that she could regain her confidence and positivism under hypnosis. So, this reminds of that we should always believe in ourselves. If we do, we would discover different versions of ourselves. And different from aunt Molly’s case, we would remember the process and make improvements eventually. It may seem like a common thought one life that everybody knows. However, after reading this story, I had a deeper insight into it and found the importance of it.

     At last, I hope you guys and also me myself can live our lives to the fullest like aunt Molly but not by hypnosis. Have a nice day.

Get out of my head!

Hello everyone~~ This is Tina and today, I want to introduce the book, GET OUT OF MY HEAD: Inspiration for Overthinkers in an Anxious World, to you! Following with the introduction, I will share 3 suggestions in the book I like the most.

Before starting, I guess many of you wonder what overthinker is. People who are overthinkers usually worry about everything too much and think of “What-if questions” all the time. It won’t become a problem until it start to hurt them and become a kind of illness with symptoms like sweating and dizzy. The author, Meredith Skrzypek, even created an online community, Beautiful Voyager, to make overthinkers, people pleasers and, perfectionists share and help each other. (If you are interested in this, you may click the hyperlink to know more) In this book, the author gave many suggestions to people who also struggled on it based on her experience and the experience from this community.

Another thing which is worthy sharing is the design of book.

To help foster calmness, it was designed to be full of serene visuals like the buoys on the waves by an artist, Lean Rosenberg who studied the connection between color and emotion. The author uses waves to symbolize the period of being overthinking and the buoys are something that you can catch for saving yourself like this book. Personally, I also like the design. I think the usage of colors are so interesting. Using the high-saturation colors to makes overthinkers feel calm and stable and using adequate blanks to decrease the possibility of being annoyed and stressed out. Also, this can be related to one of the suggestions that I want share with you, use color to stop the spin.

Use color to stop the spin. The experience of overthinking is like keeping spinning without an end. So, the book suggests to use color to stop the spin by naming the color. This movement is aim to help us get out of the spin and focus on present again since you should observe the surrounding first. In my opinion, I think it can be an effective way to do so. From my personal experience, I will think about many things at odd moments, but sometimes, it will make me be unable to listen to others’ voice and make some mistakes. While I’m thinking, I will stare at a single spot and build things in my mind. So, I think it is possible for me to refocus on present by naming the colors. I also recommend that you can take a deep breath to refresh yourselves. A deep breath can make your brain stay awake, which work on me when I’m preparing for the tests and worry about the tests’ performance.

Another suggestion is You can’t always please the people you want to. In the book, one of the overthinkers describes them as “running on a daily people-pleasing hamster wheel.” But the fellow of the community members uses her experience to suggested that we should not focus on the accuracy of words you say but focus on the tone of our interaction. So, do not want to fixate the details immediately; instead, try to wait for a minute so that many information will appear to let you know. I think it is a mean that is worthy trying. Pleasers will feel nervous and anxious when they cannot please others. It is good for them to calm down and stop for a while, which is not only good for themselves but also give others time to react.

Last but not least, Immerse yourself in a hands-on project. The book points out that scientists believe that the singular focus for hands-on projects is good for your brain. It will help you turn your focus into others. Hands-on projects, like playing board games, can make those who are under stress relaxed. Also, they suggest that starting a new hobby is good for perfectionists. Since you cannot learn a new thing without making mistakes, it will be an opportunity for them to learn acceptance. However, I’m not a perfectionist, so I cannot feel this kind of feeling. If you are a perfectionist, you may try on this!

To sum up, the above are the suggestions for overthinkers, pleasers and perfectionists. If you considered yourself as these kinds of people, you can try these means and I hope that you can benefit from them!

The mysterious cemetery

 

    Although Louis wasn’t too surprised by Church’s coming back, he didn’t want to believe that Church was “resurrected”. He thought about a lot of other reasons to convince himself that Church’s coming back was not that weird, such as it must haven’t died when he buried him so it crawled out of the earth to come back home, or legend has it that cats own nine lives, so it still owns eight more. This time, I know it’s a surreal novel so I knew there was no other reason to explain this situation. CHURCH IS RESURRECTED!!! However, I still wondered how it was resurrected. Is it because of that place or something else? We couldn’t know the answer until Jud came home from his grocery run with his wife. In the meanwhile, Louis started to notice something different about Church. The way it looked at him, the way it walked, and the way it ate, none of these looked like the original Church. In addition, it gave off a whiff of stinky earth. Most importantly, its personality kind of had changed. It lost its original elegance, and it started to do things that it never had done before, such as catching and killing mice. And then I was thinking how Louis would deal with this situation. Would he get rid of this strange cat and tell Ellie the truth? (After all, he held such a positive attitude to death before) Or would he just lie about it and pretend nothing had happened? I was expecting the former but I knew the answer would be the latter because if he told Ellie the truth, this would be the end of the story. And of course, he chose the latter to do. What a slap in the face, again. But I can relate to Louis because even though he was all open-minded to explain the phenomenon of death to his daughter, it is still different when it truly happened. Additionally, now that the cat was back, unscathed, why bother hurting Ellie’s heart?

    After Jud came back, Louis went to Jud’s house and tried to figure out everything. And it turned out that the cemetery Jud took Louis to was a mysterious place where everything buried there would resurrect. But just like what happened to the resurrected Church, the resurrected wouldn’t be the same as they used to be. Besides, it is unpredictable how big the change would be after the resurrection. For example, Jud himself once buried his pet there and his dog turned into something more like a lifeless doll instead of a live dog. And someone in Jud’s neighborhood buried his bull there and his bull turned into a brutal one. This man ended up having no choice but to kill the bull by himself. After hearing these two stories told by Jud, Louis asked a question the same I wanted to ask, which is “Has anyone ever buried a human body up there?” And then Jud answered with a hysteric tone “No! And who ever would? You don’t even want to talk about such things, Louis!” Hey we were just curious and in my opinion, that question is worth asking. And Jud’s abnormal reaction made me believe that he must have been lying.

What in the world is a normal person???

 

Haha, it's the one and only Felix again :)

I know I know, midterm week (or I should say midterm month) got us craaaazzyyyy, I've never experienced the life of hecticness until this week. Lots of works piling up awaiting me to finish, not being able to play my favorite video games when I get home, and the worst part is, I can't even go shopping on weekends! As you can see, the hectic weeks are giving me severe stress and anxiety, so I thought to myself, why not read something to calm myself down. So I started binge-watching Normal People to ease my pain, and amazingly, I finished the whole book.

As soon as I read through the whole book, I got the feeling you would experience when you finished watching a movie at the cinema, the unrealistic moment that made you feel empty. This is a sign that tells you it's a great book! Because it cleared up your mind so that you can deeply immerse yourself into the plot then trick yourself that it's your own story. 

The story covers multiple issues, such as the perspective of a school bully, the purpose of life, romantic relationships, and lots of things that "normally" happen in our daily lives. These issues build a strong connection between the character and myself, helping me portrait a clear picture of what does my life actually looks like, and then, I had a deep debate on what does normal mean to me and most importantly, AM I NORMAL?

I think this is a question that will always pop up in my head when I go to bed after reading the book because I usually hear the comments whenever I do something that seems normal to me like, "You're so weird". Not until I finished the book that I realized, no one is normal and no one has the power to determine who is abnormal. Because the factor that makes us different it's our inner personalities and our perspective on things, and our society forces us to filter all the outstanding voices to maintain so-called peace and balance. Because of this restriction, we often fail to express ourselves and sometimes will even question ourselves if we will be accepted. This brings so much stress to me that I will always think if I won't be accepted, what should I do, it will always result in me abandoning my true self and ignoring my inner voice just to fit in the world of being normal, or in short, I'm losing myself day by day to a point that I forget about who I am. 

I hate the Chinese saying, "You have to be like water, so whatever bottles you fill will become your shape.", it just shows how toxic our society can be. This saying is lowkey stating that our values in life are determined by the comments given by others. I know it sounds dramatic but you can truly tell that this concept is embedded in our brains. The funny thing is, though I'm mad about the fact that we are constantly driven by the comments on us, I complied multiple times. Just like I mentioned in the previous log, I was scared to get into college because I don't know how to deal with people. And I have to abandon some of my personalities so that people won't think I'm a weirdo, but as time goes by, that part of me didn't come back, instead, it vanished, creating a hole in my heart.

Just like Connell and Marianne, they lose some of their traits throughout college life and work life, to a point that they don't know how to introduce themselves when they get to meet new people. But in the end, they understand trying to be normal isn't the key to surviving, is sometimes losing some parts but not your belief. Without it, you are not even close to becoming yourself. If you give up the chance to express your voice, then you just have to face the loss that will make you regret it for the rest of your life.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't listen to others, I'm telling you to not be driven by others. Their comments actually mean nothing at all, it's just their perspectives that you are not obligated to follow or even agree with. Your belief is the only thing that can affect your decisions, and you are the only master that can tell you what is best for you. Your value is determined by your inner voice, if you don't believe in yourself, how can you even make your potentials shine.

There are so many things to discuss for this book, but I feel like, during these hectic weeks, this log can maybe lighten up your days and pull you out of the self-doubting moments you're encountering when doing the midterm reports. And I truly hope you guys can just relax for a little, and ask yourselves, what can possibly be your value in life, and also ignore those negative comments that tell you that you're weird. You are not weird, you are too special and outstanding that people don't even think that exists.

Though I can't cover all of the issues included in the book, I do think that I can manage to slip all the things I've learned into the future logs. I hope that my log will give you guys some inspiration and get to know yourselves better. See you guys in the next log~ love u

Explore the New World

 

Hi, everyone! This is Judy’s last post regarding the novel “Brave New World.” Since the topic of utopia has been shared for weeks, I will attempt to share something different this time.  :)

Today, I am going to discuss one of the main characters, John, in the novel “Brave New World.” John is a very special person because he is the only one born naturally of a mother. All of the people in “Brave New World” except for him are produced from Hatchery. Due to utopian society, the authorities need to control people’s ideas and thoughts by producing nearly identical human beings. However, owing to John’s mother, he is influenced a lot by her mother from the World State. Since his mother always describes it as a paradise, John is eager to see the World State. But once there, he considers the culture of this world immoral, infantilizing, and degrading to humanity. John thinks that a worthwhile human life requires suffering and danger because discomfort and the pain are essential parts of freedom.

According to these chapters that I have read, I wonder what “humanity” represents. From my own perspective, humanity should involve our understanding and kindness towards other people. Human beings are herd animals. We should listen to others’ opinions carefully instead of ignoring them. We should treat other people sincerely rather than make use of them. Take my personal experience as an example. I had ever known a person who always made friends with purpose. She always pretended to be kind and polite to ask when she needed others. She always “asked others a favor” in a way that others might be hard to reject. In other words, those who were asked almost had no choice but acceptance. What’s worse, after those people helped her out, she would just disappear and even not express her gratitude at all. I am quite disgusted at the way she treated her so-called “friends.” In my opinion, to her, those friends are just her useful tools when needed. They are not her true friends. They are just servants dominated by her. Or, to put it another way, she doesn’t have “true” friends. She might not care about friendship at all. All she cares about is what the best for herself is. After knowing such a person, I always wonder what humanity towards her is and where it is. As far as I am concerned, I would advise that If you meet such a person, all you need to do is to kick those “who make use of you when someone wants to” out of your life. As the saying goes, “sincerity and truth are the basics of every virtue.” In my eyes, it is just what humanity is.

In addition, after reading this novel, I can truly feel how strongly the environment and era impact people because this novel is written at the time equivalent to World War One. In such chaos and anarchy, people pursue a stable and systematic society. Accordingly, another major issue displayed in this dystopian satire is the extreme obsession with stability. They eliminate individual freedom, intelligence, creativity, and diversity. It indeed leads to several disadvantages beneath the surface. For example, people are subjected to others like robots. Besides, because everything has already been arranged, people will not suffer from the pains and setbacks. But actually, pains and failures can be a kind of strength rather than an annoyance. Hence, losing personal identity and freedom is the most severe problem in this novel. Like the passage written by Aldous Huxley, “We are not our own any more. We did not make ourselves, and we cannot be supreme over ourselves. We are not our own masters.”

So, if a civilization where suffering and pain have been eradicated at the price of personal autonomy, are you interested in living there? I suppose that this novel implies that pain is necessary for our lives to have meaning.

Log 5

 

    Hello! Everyone, this is Quinn. I've been a really slow reader. Lots of plots and details are hard to consume. However, it's totally great! It means that I've been also learning something new, and even something that people might not know! So it's now kind of a bitter-sweet situation for me.

    Anyway, let's get to it!

    I know that all of you who have read through my logs would know roughly about what's happening by now. To those who are new here, you need to catch up real quick because things are going down from here. In the front side of the cassette 3, the most inspiring part for me, she met the girl named Courtney. They had shared a naive friendship together until Hannah found out who she really was. She was vicious inside, sweet outside. She faked to be good to other, yet, talking behind those people she treated friendly. The friendship between Courtney and Hannah was never real, it's just a way for Courtney to gain other's respect and affection toward herself as a popular one in school. And Hannah was hurt, she was hurt by the faking, pretending, and deceiving. She was told that Courtney was talking something bad behind her, then their friendship was never the same. It turned to a shady relationship between girls.

    So here is a question for what happen in this part of the story, since all of the things are so unbearable for her that she put those stories in the cassettes, why it seemed to be somewhat "OK" for everyone else? Faking friendship, being gossiped behind your back, having a bad relationship with someone with power, all of these are not that hard to process, are they? And that's also a question for myself, why am I so "Ok" with it? All the people have all the rights to have their own feelings and perceptions toward things. However, some common perspectives or major concepts are drowning other uncommon ones. It's not Hannah's fault to be so vulnerable, but how different can feelings be.

    In my last presentation this week, I talked about emotional invalidation. It's necessary not to deny or reject other's feelings, thoughts or actions since it's so toxic that it might leads people to doubt themselves. Through this, people can lay their arrogant opinions down, and listen to other's sincere thoughts. That's how I perceive this part of the story.

    Let's put our opinions aside. What do you see about Hannah's feelings toward Courtney? What I see is that Hannah is sensitive about friendship. Betrayed by a friend is not an acceptable thing for her. And what's more is that she had enough pretending in her life. It might be "OK" for you, but it doesn't mean that it will always be accepted by all the other. Emotional awareness is important for all of us, and it's obvious that we are so far from a qualified good listener or even a accepter tested by this story. And to your surprise, Hannah isn't too.

    She also denies other feelings, oppressing her sad thoughts upon all the other. Ignoring all the opinions from people who have hurt her, she became so self-centered in her own moods. I guess that's also a reason why she's dead by now, and the fourteen reason is herself. She rejected to face the feelings people have over her, and that's also an act of emotional invalidating, paying tribute to her death.

    I hope that all of you, who is reading this can learn the term of EI "Emotional Invalidation". It is usually overseen and unaware by us. We tend to do this all the time, lacking of the knowledge of it. So just make an inspection about yourself next time, see if you're qualified for a good listener.

The bonds of our family relationship

 

Hi, this is Maxine reading the book “The Perks of Being A Wallflower.”

      Previously in this book, the main character called Charlie became more easygoing after meeting his neighbors, Sam and Patrick. He also mentioned his Aunt Helen, who treated him well but died from an accident a few years ago. In the last blog, I assumed that all of the characters had their own secrets since the author has revealed that Patrick is a homosexual. Guess what? I am right! In this reading section, he gave more details about what Aunt Helen had been through when she was alive. Also, the following secret was about his sister’s unexpected pregnancy.

 

     Aunt Helen was molested by a stranger when she was little. However, no one, even her parents, didn’t assist her. It resulted in her deviant behavior, including taking drugs and dropping out of school. She idled away for a long time until she found the right doctor to help her figure things out. Then, she moved into Charlie’s family and spent most of her time taking care of Charlie along with his siblings. Sadly, she died in a car accident because she wanted to buy Charlie a second gift as both his Christmas and birthday present. As for his sister’s pregnancy, it changed their relationship a lot since his sister relied on him for the first time. She cried out loud in his arms and asked him to cover this secret to taking her to get an abortion. That was also the first time that Charlie felt how close a family could be.

 

    Both of the two stories are related to family relationships, and they make me think of the differences we treat our family and friends. Actually, most of us tend to hang out with and feel more unrestrained when interacting with our friends. We neglect those friendly reminders from our parents since we have listened to them hundreds of times. However, when facing difficulties and not knowing what to do, all we tend to do is to count on our parents. They will attentively listen to our laments and tenderly comfort us. In fact, it is until we encounter those hardships that we discover that how important family members mean to us. Just as in Charlie’s story, he began to smoke in an attempt to escape from the sorrow for daily trivia. When his sister saw it, she said to him, “I love you so much, so I don’t want to see you smoke and hurt yourself.” Seeing this dialogue, I feel so touched that it is so authentic. Although using different ways to express their love toward us, our family members indeed care for us. They are the ones who will support us for good and never leave us alone to fight for hardship.

      After reading these chapters, I started to introspect the relationship between my parents and me.  I seemed to be mean to my mom because I always considered her words as nonsenses. Therefore, I never listen to her carefully and pay attention to what she likes or dislikes. Before college, what in my mind is to quickly run away from my parents and to live a life full of happiness and freedom. But now, I think it is time to make up for the crack between my mom and me, so I called her right after I finished reading these chapters. The first sentence was as usual, “Is everything alright for your college life.” Although I heard it more than 100 times, this time was quite different from the past since I knew the importance of family bonding. I said, “Of course, I still can handle it. Take good care of yourself, Mom.” In fact, I want to say “I love you” in the end, but it is hard for me since I am not that good at expressing love. Yet, I still make an improvement to tell my mom that I care about her and wish her health and happiness. Perhaps she secretly feels surprised at me saying such caring words. To sum up, I feel great after showing my love to my mom, and I truly appreciate what the book teaches me!

The Paradox: Technology is progressing, but we still stagnate, not keep up with it.

 

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, my friends. Now, you’re in James’s log 5. It’s finally that we get rid of bugbears of midterm (actually, I’m don’t). This time my sharing will explore another novel, which is far more interesting than the former one to me. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of a term called “Metaverse” recently in social media. It really leads to a worldwide sensation. So, I tried to understand what is Metaverse and thus I found out this book “Snow Crash”, which is the origin of the term “Metaverse”. Without further ado, let me bring you to see this whole new world.

At the beginning, the author pointed out the background of this world. I’m not quite sure which years it is but it’s in the 21st century, when we’re living now. However, in story it was a bleak, empty, and over-developed world. People there seldom go on the street; they stay home and used a goggle-like device (aka AR headset) to enter the virtual world. Because most of tasks could be done in the virtual world, people were gradually no longer interacting with others in reality. As a result, an occupation was rising dramatically, deliveryman. Deliveryman was seen as a supreme job at that time; people relied on them to eat food without going out. The main character, Hiro, was one of the deliverymen, he delivered things to everyone’s house. But one day, he met a girl who saved him from hunting by Mafia in the countryside. Affected by that girl, he starting his venture on virtual world, returning his original profession, talented hacker. His adventure starts now, which was regarding the process of stopping the unscrupulous company from spreading extremely dangerous virus.   

(So, the above was the introduction of this novel’s background. In fact, I’ve read more than that, but I’m not going to tell you the following in this log because I want you to remain your curiosity. 😊)

As far as I read, I roughly have a scene of the future with VR technology. To my surprise, what VR tech brings is not the increasing human interaction but a whole gloomy and indifferent world. This kind of novel can be categorized into “Cyberpunk”, which stands for the topic that technology is well-developed but people’s living quality is worse than before. A sparkle city with neon light and gleaming signboard while the sky is always dim and cloudy. It occurs to me why our future would look like this, why our future seems to be out of our control. What if our future also become the world as the one in novel, then what do we need to do? Technology is a double-edge sword; its motivation is to make life more convenience, make people be together. However, I somehow believe that kind of world in novel would really take place in our future; we seldom pay attention to the use of technology, not to mention those rising ethical problems. Although it seems to create a perfect alternative world to bring people together; but it’s exactly because it is perfect, can we snap back to reality again? Since virtual world can be determined by users themselves, no one would like to face the reality which is sometimes mean and imperfect. The world in this novel was the most suitable demonstration. People tended to stay in virtual world; while the reality was full of gun violence, sexual exploitation, and poverty. What’s more, it was lack of human interaction (in real world), it lost its human warmth and original vitality. I firmly don't want it to happen, I don't want to see our world can only be enlightened by neon light instead of sunlight.

Last, in addition to the world in novel, our world is also faced with the growing period of this tech. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that Facebook would become the subsidiary company of Meta, a company aiming to create a completely virtual world to let people do everything in this world: work, education, sports and so on. Most of us have Facebook accounts; if the prospect of Meta is really realized, this factor would make us more likely to get into the virtual world. On that occasion, can we withstand the consequence of technology brings? Or would you be willing to join the world consisting of 0 and 1? I’m not saying that I oppose to the concept of Metaverse, but I do consider that we should pay more attention to what our world are changing now and we really need to find out a path where won’t be affected by new developed technology. Otherwise, chances are that we would be eliminated by the development of tech. We major in language; however, the virtual world is also composed of computer language. If one day our language is replaced by computer language, what are you going to do?

Leave some comments below and share with me about your thought if you want. Thank you for reading this log. 😊

 

Being remembered

     

        Do you fear oblivion after your death? What impression would you like to leave on the world? The concept of oblivion is discussed three times in this book.

The first time is Hazel and Augustus’s first meet. Asked what he feared, Augustus answered oblivion. Hazel, on the other hand, thought that all human beings will be forgotten at the end of the world, maybe tomorrow or after a trillion years. Until then, all of us will become a speck of dust, so there’s no need to worry about oblivion. The second time is when they went to Amsterdam (the movie version: after Augustus’s cancer deteriorated). Augustus said that he feared that he was not able to lead an extraordinary life, leave a mark on Earth or die in exchange for some service of good, which irritated Hazel. Augustus was too obsessed with the idea that he wanted the world to remember him and admire him, while Hazel believed that he got love from his family, friends, and her, and that was enough. The third time was at the end of the book, Augustus mentioned that he thought Hazel was special for she chose to love deeper instead of being remembered wider.

The concept of leading an extraordinary life has been rooted in our minds. Since we were children, we have been taught to become successful people. For people’s birthday wishes or New year’s resolutions, becoming a better person or living a better life are common hopes. Indeed, if you become an extraordinary person based on social standards, you may become an influencer, and thus possess the power to change the world as well as leave positive effects. However, is it a blessing or a curse that we are desperate to pursue being extraordinary and being remembered? From my perspective, I don’t quite agree with this idea, but I have to admit that this idea is correct in some way.

Throughout my life, I keep expecting myself to become a better person, so I always do my best on academics, attend many extra-curricular activities to enrich myself, and be responsible for all things in my life. However, sometimes I feel so exhausted that I just don’t feel like doing anything, and feel so helpless and unmotivated toward the overwhelming tasks. Furthermore, it fluctuates my emotion and thus impacts my productivity. Then, I realized that my obsession with becoming a better person turned out to be an invisible but heavy pressure on me. This reminds me that, while the intention of becoming a better person is good, too much force can lead to a negative influence.

          On the other hand, while leaving a mark on Earth can be easily associated with being successful, it can be done in another way. At the funeral of one of my family members (sorry but I still don’t have the courage to reveal who he is), the sorrow could be easily told from every participants’ face, showing their unwillingness for him to leave the world. I also heard many people talk about how kind he was as well as how sincerely he treated his friends. That’s his way of being remembered, not by the whole world but his own little world. Maybe the science of being remembered is not about living a grand life and having huge effects on society, but being a kind person in your limited life and living forever in your loved ones’ minds.

(Optional to read)

Finally, I’ve finished my first book! Although I thought reading books, particularly written in English, may be a tough and tedious task at the beginning, it seems that I gradually find my interest in reading, thinking, and writing down my own reflections!

I would like to ask you guys if you have any recommendations for my next book. Rather than science fiction or romantic stories, I prefer books that help me review myself or contain the philosophy of life. Comment your recommendations pleeeease<3

Or have anyone here read a book called, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry(一個人的朝聖)? I’m interested in this book, but I’m afraid that my language proficiency would not allow me to choose it haha. Please tell me something about this book if you have read it before! Thank you!

the 4 houses of Harry Potter

 

photo from: https://my.liveyourtruth.com/dyt/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Fun-Type-the-Hogwarts-Houses-915x610.jpg

The Dursley family didn't let Harry get the letter from Hogwarts, So Hagrid came himself to tell Harry things about the magic world and Hogwarts. Hagrid let Harry take the first step to the magic world by taking him to Diagon Alley. They went to Gringotts then went to get books and clothes, finally they were in Ollivander's wand shop. 

When Hagrid took Harry to buy the uniform and left for a moment, Harry met a boy there. I didn't remember and notice this boy until I read the book again. The feeling he gave me was quite like Draco Malfoy. He said something bad about witches and wizards who were born in the muggle family, and said some bad rumors about Hagrid. He said that he would get a broom from his father although first graders couldn't have their own broom and said he would be in Slytherin. 

Slytherin was said that almost all dark witches and wizards graduated from it and they were arrogant so someone told Harry that Slytherin was bad, which caused Harry didn't want to go there. Although in the end of the Harry Potter story, Harry told his son that Slytherin was not a bad house as people say. From there, we can see that the stereotype of Slytherin has existed from the time that Harry just enrolled to Hogwarts to the time that Harry's son just enrolled there. In spite of this stereotype of Slytherin, this little boy still wanted to be one of Slytherin. Pure-blood, maybe. To me, Slytherin is the house that I prefer most in spite of those bad stereotypes. One of the reasons is that the characteristics there are similar to me, such as shrewd and arrogant. Another one of reasons is that some Slytherin students were very powerful such as Voldemort. The other reason is that my favorite character was a Slytherin, Snape. I was influenced and moved by his story. Also, professor Slughorn was a kind and clever Slytherin. Draco Malfoy became a good wizard as well at the end of the story. Moreover, the common room of Slytherin was under the Black lake which caused the light green in the common room, that's pretty beautiful.

However, I suppose that the house which was misunderstood most is Hufflepuff rather than Slytherin. Everyone thinks Hufflepuff students are stupid, Evan Hagrid said so. Nevertheless, they are just too kind to fight with people. One of the representative people of Hufflepuff named Newt Scamander was a clever Hufflepuff. He studied fantastic beasts and achieved great achievements. The other representative person is Cedric Diggory. he died at a young age but he was selected by the Goblet of Fire, and people evaluated him as a person full of advantages that people expect from Hogwarts students. He was a wonderful person.

Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin have been an interesting element in the Harry Potter story. People like to figure out what house they will be in, sometimes by doing tests like asking you some questions then telling you which house you would be in. People enjoy it, me as well. These 4 houses are charming which made the whole magic world more and more fascinating. If you are reading my Log 5, can you tell me which house you prefer and want to be in?