Log4 The Science of Being Great

 

So, finally we’ve come to the end of this mental journey. This is the last part of this long path. While, I don’t want to do a summary of conclusion of this book, because it contains more about the personal feelings and perceptions toward the things that author tried to convey to every reader. The things we receive can be various, can be widely different or just slightly different. Something you may not understand or accept the passages or lines, but either way is fine. Even I don’t fully agree with some conceptions or ideas that author gave. So, please feel free to read the brief version or I should “my” version of Science of Being Great. I will try my best to dig in this profound work.

 

Before we get into the things I would like to share today. Let’s recall the previous two articles about this book. We’ve discussed many about the ways to being great or having confidence, and most of the ways are delivered or completed by the inner parts of your minds and soul. Nothing is really related to the so-called science since the name of this book is quite scientific. I would suggest, just don’t stick to the word “science” too hard. If you have already given the visible frame or some prejudice to this book before you get to know it. You would just deny everything that this book is going to give us. You would abandon the important concepts or steps to experience the power of yourself. Although I am saying that you have better dispose of every thought that comes in your mind, I am telling you to put those ideas aside before you digest this book wholly.

 

The last part of this book makes a connection to the very beginning part of this book, threading the whole story. All men have the same potential to being great or being successful. We got the same abilities to fulfill our goals. We got the same chance and power to achieve our dreams, because we are all formed by the same constituents of intelligence and power, the same as gods. We are the gods of ourselves. While the very key to really activate this power is to gather every separated compositions of this power in the universe. Hold on. I know what you are thinking right now. Let me clarify that I not saying the sci-fi movie like “Star War” or “Avengers”. I am talking about you are the god of yourself, so the universe is actually inside your body too. The separated compositions can be morality, determination, and confidence. You have to believe in yourself deeply enough, having an absolute faith to meet the inner god, to meet the real you. And the rest is left by this world. Remember the world is good, the nature is good, everything upon this world is good. While it takes long time to realize this fact. That’s the reason why there are still a majority of people find themselves not successful, finding themselves still struggling to work, to live. We must think ourselves the highest, the highest in morality, in intelligence, in confidence. You may think it’s kind of ridiculous and arrogant to think in that way, but what I understand is, we have to hold the faith in our abilities, in our power. That’s no difference between thinking we are brave enough before we go on the stage. This “science” is just exaggerating in some ways. You can interpret it is nothing but a chicken soup for souls, a self-helping material. However, you can also think it as a way to value yourself, to value the thoughts dwelling in your mind, the thoughts that drive you to move forward. When you really see what is in your soul, you are only one step away from the so-called great, and that is not measured by the wealth, or the social status you have. It’s about the understanding of yourself and the fulfillment of your thoughts. 

Log 4 of American Psycho

 

Hello! This is Leo, and I'm back with fourth log of American psycho.

As I mentioned, although our protagonist enjoyed a life of luxury materials, his mind is actually a extremely desolate desert. Owning so much, while living so poorly inside drives him mad. In order to satisfy his internal need, he pursue his satisfaction through all kinds of dirty actions.

While suffering from OCD(Obsessive-compulsive disorder), he constantly took Diazepam, which is a medicine used to treat it, at a abnormal rate. Soon he realized this is far from enough to deal with the minor imperfections of life. Thus, he places his focus on cocaine. Although it will amplify the symptom, it seems to be his only option to greater content. 

And everything turned appalling since the abuse of drug, he became more selfish, absent minded and careless as his addiction become heavier. To him, strangely, he finally get to experience what tranquillity means. Illusions and side effects of cocaine is exactly what able to relax him from all the imperfections in life and sense of loss after losing face in another material competition.

Now, free from the chains of OCD, he finally get to play his true self-a psychopath.

Instead of ridiculing the hobos on the street, he choose to actually squat and give the hobo a lesson about being positive and helping him to achieve the success that he'll never be able to catch up. Sure enough, the homeless didn’t bother to care at all. Under the conditions of freezing cold and starving, goals and trophies are too lofty to get inside your ears. After delivering his great speech and find out that no one cares, he carries out a series of torture to punish them for not paying attention, then execute them, purging the pests out of society. Again and again.

Not only hobos, he also purges anyone who blocked his way. Prostitutes who'll only look at the bills held in his hand. A Chinese hostess in the laundry shop who messed up his suit because of her poor English level. A man who outrun him during jogging. Even his college who brag about having his own private tanning bed and reservation at a better, more luxurious restaurant with his girlfriend. Eventually, like drugs, he is also addicted to murdering. As time goes by, the rate become more constant and the targets become more unpredictable.

Actually, all of this could have been avoided as long as one person takes his crime declaration made between conversations seriously. But under his impeccable camouflage of elite, everyone is willing to believe that he is just a dark humor lover rather than a psychopath. After all, who would want to have their hand dirty when they are too noble for that, right?  

Everything I Never Told You

Your child is not your child. What do you think of living the life your parents arranged for you? Some parents think it's the best decision to pave the way for the future for their children t because they've had had hard time in school or work before. Sometimes they think it's right, but it's not, they might think it's the best life plan for their children, but they don't know that it is actually a very heavy burden on their children.

What kind of parents are your dream parents? Gentle or strict? No one wants their parents to be strict, do they? But for parents, their strict desire is to make us successful. When I was in elementary school and junior high school, my parents were very strict with me, especially in terms of grades. They want me to do well in academic, but sometimes when I can't meet their expectations, they get very angry. Every time I face their anger, it makes me very anxious and I don't know what to do. Over the long term, it put a lot of pressure on me, and in the followed days, my grades didn't get any better because of their anger, but rather, my grades got worse and worse under that pressure. They always say that they're doing it for my own good, but I find that it just put more pressure on me. I always wanted to be encouraged or supported by them, but after I was scolded severely again and again, I became timid and afraid to express my opinions. The more they want me to be the kind of person they want me to be, the farther away I am from what they think. And when they found out I was a failure, they immediately shifted the pressure to my little sister. At this point, my sister's unhappy life began.

A lot of times we think the problem has been solved, and we don't pay much attention to it, but it's actually been lurking around us, waiting for the best time to fight back. Everyone is a lonely individual, working in different places and in different fields. Sometimes, they like to come together to comfort each other. I am good at everything, and I can make myself to be the person that I want to be, but because of the expectations of parents and social stereotypes, I can only become the one that I do not want to become. A person is given too many labels, so much as to become a heavy burden of their own pursuit of dreams. Why can't I be who I want to be?

In a family, if everyone sees only what they want to see, they will never be happy. Marilyn became a mother early on, but she never knew what she really wanted. Based on her expectations of her life, she put all her expectations of her dreams on her daughter. She ignores that her children need to be comforted and seen, and it finally caused this tragedy.

Although the ending seems to be very happy and find their own destination, but in reality, really will be so? The damage that has been done is hard to make up, and even if you exhaust all your strength, you may not recover in a short time. Take Hannah, for example.。She already has a shadow in her heart, and no matter how much others value her afterwards, all her habits and behaviors cannot be changed easily, not to mention that she is more like a substitute for Lydia. To her, she is doomed to be unhappy.

The Result of Emily's Poor Memory

Why Marx Was Right

Terry Eagleton

  I have a weird habit of reading a book from the start again sometimes after reading for some time. It helps remind me why I am reading this book and strengthens my understanding of the concepts that the books wanting to bring out. In other words, I have very poor memory. I may have understood the concepts but sometimes I forget what has been mentioned in that book. 

  This week, a lesson of mine was cancelled so I took my time in the library to reread the book from the first line. This time, instead of focusing on how I thought Marxism is unrealistic, I focused on reading how supporters of Marxism, including the writer himself, criticized capitalism and the reasons. 

  Before going into the points related to capitalism, I would like to share a viewpoint that I find interesting from Marxism. It says that, although not intentionally mentioned by Marx, "Marxism reduces everything to economics. ... Art, religion, politics, law, war, morality, historical change: all these are seen in the crudest terms as nothing more than reflections of the economy or class struggle. The true complexity of human affairs is passed over a monochrome vision of history." In the beginning of coming across this claim, I was like "but aren't they correlated? Especially politics religion and economy." But that's the point of reading: it makes you think and question. As I think deeper into this question, I agree more and more to what I have just paraphrased. Everything is indeed a reflection of the economy. Before learning anything about the economic systems, when I came across the names of capitalism and Marxism, they all seemed like political systems to me. Yet, as I learn more, they are all just economic systems to begin with. The economic systems hold the power to affect our daily lives, some political groups even name themselves with names of economic systems, such as the Communist Party in China. In the past I thought of economy nothing more of a subject that I majored in. Apparently I was wrong and that it meant much more than just that. 

  Back to capitalism-related criticism, it claimed capitalism to be forged in blood and tears just as how Marxism was too, but the difference is that capitalism has survived long enough to forget about much of this horror while the case of Stalinism and Maoism happened to be the opposite. Although I talked about the problems of Marxism in the past, both Marxism and capitalism could not promise a certain outcome when implemented. People could only try and imagine the possible outcomes. Yet, people gave capitalism privilege. People said, "Let's wait and see" to capitalism but declined the possibility of Marxism immediately. Marxism did bring a lot of damages to the society in the past, but no one can guarantee it won't get better in the future. Capitalism did not do any less harm in many aspects, such as war, famine, inequality and much more. But people still welcome capitalism into their homes as if they were family. I came up with two possibilities for this situation, either it is that people see capitalism of a higher status than that of Marxism for whatever reason, or it is that people saw the flaws of Marxism with just one look since it was too obvious and just nonsense. For the first possibility, I don't see why we cannot discuss these two systems as equals to begin with; and for the second one, I see the flaws of capitalism too at first sight and yet I do not reject it. Perhaps I am not bright enough to fully understand the cause and effects of historical events on the values and perspectives of people, maybe finishing this book would help a bit. 

The courage to be disliked

   

        Hi, this is Jan and this log is about the 4th and 5th chapters of the book ”The courage to be disliked” and about the whole reflection about this book, as before, this book is written in the dialogue of the youth and the philosopher. After talking to the philosopher for several weeks , the youth seemed to accept the new idea of Adler psychology and came to meet the philosopher again to clarify what he was confused about.

Like I mentioned in the last log, I have the question of how we balance fulfilling life tasks well between keeping our world simple by discarding others tasks. What’s more, I found it difficult to practice because we can not ask others to do so as we finally achieve how to discard others tasks, but our life tasks are connected to others. The youth has the same questions and in the beginning of the 4th chapter, the philosopher answered that discarding tasks is only a starting point and the goal of interpersonal relationships is a feeling of community. In Adler psychology, all problems are interpersonal relationship problems and also interpersonal relationships are the source of happiness. The feeling of community can be referred to as social interest, and the point is to switch the attachment to self to the concern of others. The philosopher talked about people who are incapable of carrying out the separation of tasks and those who are obsessed with the desire for recognition are self-centered. Self-centered person in the community has the idea that people will do something for him, and when his expectation can not be satisfied, he feels disillusioned and even insulted, and starts to view people as enemies. As a part of this community, we can earn the sense of belonging by making an active commitment, and that is facing life tasks. Knowing the starting point and the goal of interpersonal relationships, the youth asked about how to build interpersonal relationships and at the same time we cooperate and act with each other in harmony, and this is about the concept of horizontal relationship and that is to advocate the idea of equality and then dig into the feeling of community can be conducted in three things : self-acceptance, confidence in others and contribution to others.

All of these thesis related to the theories they talked about before and the youth had nothing to argue with the philosopher, and agreed with Adler psychology gradually though the process of the talk with the philosopher. In these two parts, I think a sentence can greatly narrate the feeling of community, in other word, the happiness. “God grants me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom always to tell the difference” from the Serenity Prayer. According to the philosopher, people are aware of their worth when they are able to feel "I am of use to someone and the feeling is subjective, in other word, happiness is the subjective contribution to the community, in this way, everyone can get happiness. After finishing all of this book, like the subtitle, I think this is a thought-provoking read and how to let yourself be free, and you can get happiness. The reader can indulge into the conversation because of the character of the youth, and there is no profound background knowledge of psychology, which helps me a lot to understand the content. To sum up, I learned that being hated by others is the improvement that  you have escaped from the way to live and grow in the expectations of others. It's my first time to understand what courage is, and it also reminds me of a sentence I saw in another book several years ago, courage is a thing too great to have, courage is willing to start changing. Though I still think it is hard, I can practice thinking in a new way I learned in this book, and hope that even a little, I will have the courage to change to achieve a better myself.

A new environment, a new life?

 

    Hey guys, Felix again. The past few weeks are a little hectic for me, assignments were piling up, and lots of family problems surfaced, my physical and mental health have worsen, not to mention the midterm exams which I haven't prepared yet. All those things make me hate my procrastination more than ever, I just don't feel like doing anything, even playing my favorite video games. So I forced myself to read to clear up my mind just a little and even take this as a meditation, emerging myself into the plot, and try to believe I'm the main actor that stars this "lively" show.

    The story continues to talk about the life of both characters in college. Just as I mentioned in the previous log, the chapters I've gone through are all about how they adapt in an new environment and what did they do to deal with the changes. Nothing big happens between these chapters, but I do think the author is sooooooo good at describing the details. She is literally the translator of the character's mind, she can simply portrait the scene easily without using too many adjective. She's also very good at building the story by using dialogues, it's a very effective way to get the audience emerging in the plot, or I will drawn myself into the story. She deserve a Noble Prize, just kidding.

    Marianne was elected as the committee of the Debs fundraising, which are similar to a organizer of the prom or ball. This make her must be confident also comfortable talking to the guest, which I consider as a big change for her since she has a sensitive personality back in high school. But to my surprise, she did a absolutely great job. It seemed like she didn't force herself into doing anything, she said the feeling was all new to her, and she wasn't afraid of stepping out of her comfort zone for once. But on the other hand, she was kind of upset that after this, she'll maybe get into some troubles due to the attaching fame.    

    When I was admitted to college, the first thing that came up to my mind is how am I going to deal with new people and also the life of staying away from my family. The thought didn't stop bothering me until I finally start my college life. I said to myself, just don't make your signature cold face, be yourself and people will talk to you eventually.  But unlike Marianne, I didn't quite adapt well at the beginning. I didn't even know how to social with my roommates and seeing them getting along so well scared me even more. And it's not until one night when they were planning to have dinner together, they finally invited me and told me, you seemed scary with your blank expression, we both laughed and started to build a great friendship since then.  

    They helped me realize the more you think, the possibilities of you taking actions will be less. Just follow your heart and believe in yourself, people will judge you by your appearance and somehow the first impression you present will determine their willingness of approaching you. But that doesn't matter, friendship starts with chatting instead of thinking. I'm lucky to meet friendly people that helped me realizing this basic ideas, so I really admire Marianne. She's versatile, she can be an invisible person whom no one cares about, or being a popular human being that everybody chat about with friends. And the most incredible thing is that she didn't make any effort to achieve that, it just happens naturally. I think this is somehow a connection between her and Connell, the popular kid, and it's also the reason why they are fond of each other so much. It's their attitude towards life that ties them together. 

    I can't wait to see how things will happen for them since their love relationship is still vague and uncertain in the past chapters, I'll sue the author if they aren't married haha. Also, I want to thank anyone that had ever commented on my logs, I'm very thankful for that. As you can see in my logs, I'm a person who is extremely lack of confidence about everything, your advises and compliments mean everything to me. I hope I can still produce high quality logs for you and also for my grades^^.

    Thank you for tuning in, and I'll see you in the next log! Stay healthy and happy, and good luck for your midterm! love u guys 

If you can make anyone love you, what would you do?

 

The Fruitcake Special by Frank Brennan

     The Fruitcake Special is the story about the effects of a perfume on men. Every man getting a close whiff to the fruitcake special would fall in love and become crazy for the woman who wears it. Anna, a chemist who makes perfume, got into troubles with fruitcake special, which is made by her accidentally. In the story, owing to the perfume, Anna’s boss, Mr. Amos and a restaurant waiter both were fascinated to her and brought Anna into an embarrassed situation and fight.

     This is a small story from a second handed book I bought lately. At first, I just wanted to pick up a simple story book and read some interesting stories. Surprisingly, the connotation inspired me a lot. Through this simple short story, I found out the importance to be realistic. When Mr. Amos was showed interest in her and invited her to dinner, although she was surprised and also confused, she kept being skeptical instead of trying to lure him for his money or something else beneficial to her job. Merely based on this part, we can tell that Anna is definitely an honest and upright person. Moreover, after discovering the special effect of the perfume, she has never thought about utilizing it to take advantage from other people, or precisely, other men. If it was another woman who finds out the secret behind the fruitcake special, I believe it could possibly cause more serious chaos and more victims.

     A plot in this story also reminds me of an English proverb, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” In the former part, the pizza boy, Armstrong, was mentioned once by Anna’s mother, for he had delivered pizzas to her place two years ago. Although Anna had no interest in him, Anna’s mother likes him and thinks he was a nice guy with beautiful eyes. And in the last few paragraphs of the story, Armstrong showed up again, became to be an owner of a pizza company and revealed his feelings and love for Anna he had had since the first time he sent pizza to her house. At last, Anna accepted him and put out the last line, which is also my favorite one in the story, ‘Mom, get the man a drink.’ The author used this minor story line to tell the importance of possibility in everyone and everything. Perhaps Armstrong used to be a poor pizza boy, who was hard to draw women’s attention. However, because of his love for Anna, he decided to be a success and earn Anna’s heart. Eventually he succeeded, both in business and the relationship between Anna and him. This showed the potential in everyone and reminded readers that whoever we meet or talk to, we should always be respectful and with the politeness in our hearts, since we would never be able to anticipate and see through one’s true potential. If we treat others and express opinions carelessly, it could bring us aftermaths that are much more terrible than we could expect. Therefore, respect is undoubtedly one of the most important lessons everyone should learn.

Log 4

Hi this is Iris and I am reading the second book “ A Wrinkle in Time” ,although I haven’t finished reading “Pride and Prejudice”. This is because I have found that “Pride and Prejudice” is quite hard for me to finish before midterm.There are a lot of vocabularies and sentences that I couldn’t understand. I think giving up in time is also a beginning.

So, A Wrinkle in Time. This story is about Meg Murry,a high-school-aged girl who is transported on an adventure through time and space with her younger brother Charles Wallace,who is five years old, and her friend Calvin to rescue her father who is a scientist,disappeared so many years ago.During this adventure they got help from Mrs Whatsit,Mrs Which, Mrs Who and the Happy Medium.

Meg is unhappy with her physical appearance. She hates her mouse-brown hair, braces, glasses, and considers herself as a "monster" in comparison with her beautiful mother. When I was reading I found that she is very sensitive and pessimistic.She thinks everything is wrong and she is not behave good.She doesn’t see any of her own good just like a lot of us.I realized we have to change that mindset,overall everyone is unique.No matter you’re smart or not,and don’t feel bad about your life.Like Meg,she thinks everything was so wrong but her friend Calvin envy her because of her mother’s love to her.We have to find goodness of our life,there is no way that not to have a good thing.

During their adventure, I think they are very brave. “The Black Thing” during this chapter I see how terror their journey is. “All light was gone.Darkness was complete.Calvin was being torn from her.She screamed out, Charles!” I can see her fear through author’s writing.Also when they were lost from each other I see how much Charles care about her.Although he is just a five years old boy,he tried to protect her.In the first chapter of the novel Meg also fight with the person who called Charles “dumb baby” and got a big bruise under her one eye.Through this I see how families are willing to do to protect people they love.This is what we should too.

 

The world is not a wish-granting factory.

“Apparently, the world is not a wish-granting factory.” 

        The two cancer kids, Hazel and Augustus, were obsessed with a novel called An Imperial Affliction. In this novel, it ended abruptly without a specific ending, making Hazel and Augustus desperate to know what happened afterward. With plenty of tempts to contact the author, Augustus finally reached him through his assistance, and received the invitation from the author himself, telling them if they came to Amsterdam, welcome to visit him in person and he would answer all their questions concerning the novel. They were thrilled about the response from their respected author. Furthermore, fortunately, they were able to go to the Netherlands because Augustus made a wish to The Genie Foundation, which was in the business of granting sick kids one wish. Hence, they came to the author’s house with so much expectation and curiosity, imagining all the confusions would be figured out at this day, but it turned out that the author was an impolite alcoholic who ruined their hopes.

 

         Sometimes you realize the thing keeping you going might be a lie the whole time…it’s like the whole world collapses. However, is it others’ fault to let you down? Well, in some way, I don’t think so. Take Tess of the d'Urbervilles for instance. On knowing that Tess was not “pure,” Angel felt disgusted and thought the woman in front of him was another woman in her shape. In Angel’s imagination, Tess used to be a beautiful and flawless goddess. The reason why Angel felt disappointed and depressed was that Tess didn’t meet his expectation. From my perspective, it was Angel that had to take the consequence for placing expectations on others. For another instance, in The End of the F***ing World, a British programme I watched, the main character, Alyssa, finally found her biological father that sent her cards every year as her sanctuary while she was on her gateway. Yet, her father turned out to be a jerk that reported her to the police, and the cards were actually sent by her mother to give her comfort. Likewise, Alyssa shouldn't have relied on someone that she hadn't seen for many years and expected him to act like a responsible father. Her father wasn't wrong for being a jerk or betraying his daughter, but wrong for not letting Alyssa know and thus making her believe he was reliable. Still, Alyssa had to take the consequence on her own. 

        In all cases, they had one thing in common: they lived in a bubble and only believed in what they would like to believe. Hazel and Augustus imagined that the author was a sophisticated gentleman, but the truth is he was a rude alcoholic. Angel thought that Tess was a flawless goddess, but the truth is Tess was not pure based on the standard at that time. Alyssa believed that her father was someone she could depend on under emergency, but the truth is her father was a cold-blooded jerk. To summarize, it was not others’ fault to disappoint you. They were just being themselves. Instead, it was you that hurt yourself for reflecting expectations on others and requiring them to live up to your imagination. Maybe that’s the reason why people say distance produces beauty because the facts are usually cruel, unacceptable, and far from expectations. 

Log 4

    Hello! Everyone, I'm Quinn like your care. It's another great weekend passed by. We all need to face the fact that life is still going and all of us need to go back online and either write or read for another reflection! That's somehow upsetting but helpful, isn't it? It's just learning, or schooling, right? Leave your comment below about "your" opinions.

    First of all, as always, THE PLOT!(Spoil Alert). In the cassette B, Hannah mentioned two name. Jessica and Tyler! (you can see the photo above, Jessica is in the middle of the first line in and Tyler is the first one from right of the second line) They both have done something bad to Hannah. Jessica, because of the list made by Alex, she attacked Hannah and left her permanent scars. Tyler, he followed Hannah to her home and took several photo of her in her own room, which terrified her a lot that she wouldn't leave the window opened ever again. 

I can definitely relate the feeling of desperation when everything and everyone is against you. Sort of experience is really depressing and uneasy. It can surely destroy you as a person when you're still a teenager. It's no longer just about how slightly or seriously those things they did. But how did the person been treated like this feel about it. 

    "So how important is your security, Tyler? What about your privacy? Maybe it's not as important to you as it was for me, but that's not for you to decide." No one can ever image or experience any feelings from other people. We can be crazy, nervous, happy or vulnerable at any moment, you never know. If you just do things to other based on your own perception and assumption. That's just not fair to anyone, let alone any kind of bully. Just like Hannah said:" That's not for you to decide." You would never decide what we feel about anything and you can't. It's just not fun leaving other desperate and hurt for the things you did to them.

    You must have heard a line like:"It's not a big deal" said by other or even yourself. NGL, I, myself have. You can surely say it jokingly, however, sometimes it's just hurtful for someone who really thinks it's a very "big deal". That's more about respect, understanding and compassion, not a concept conflict about how do you think. It's what we all did wrong when we were still a kid, as a teenage issue.

    Lastly, I know it's not just for teenager but everyone in any age. We all need to learn that we do ignore other's feelings and emotion more than just several times, and we fail to understand people because our individual differences. Even though we all try to be good, but we usually go the opposite. Hopefully, after reading my sharing, you all can be more aware of other's expression about their thoughts than yours.

    And here is the question for today! Have you do something that you think it's okay but other don't? What you feel about it? Okay, that's the wrap-up! Bbye and see you after next weekend!

Pride and Prejudice

 

HEYYYYY, this is Xenia. 

    The book I’m reading recently is “pride and prejudice”. Some of you might know about it, or even already read or watch the movie. I’m no exception since I have watched the movie when I was a junior. However, I can merely remember the details now; therefore, I decided to read the novel to refresh my memory. 

    At first, I read two chapters, and the great among of dialogues and words makes me sleepy a little. Despite there being some scenes and voices of characters floating in my mind, they are still vague and not so lively. Thus, I decide to put novel and audiobook reading together, and the outcome is astonishing. The video is recorded in a quite standard British accent; what’s more, the recorder will change her speaking tone according to different characters. Thus, I could imagine the scenes and characters including their facial expression and outfit while talking. Well, I think I find a quite suitable reading way for myself. And if you haven’t found a satisfactory way of reading, you could try putting substantial and audiobook reading together, it might also be suitable for you! :)

    Since the background is between 18 and 19 centuries, it reflects the many aspects of attitude including education, morality, marriage, and so on. As for the content of the chapters that I have read so far, the most impressive part is that almost every parent in the story is desired to let their daughters marry a wealthy man so that they could be proud or live comfortably. The concept is a little similar to traditional Chinese, which we have discussed in the poem “on children” last week in class. 

    Asia parents usually over concern their children and worry about almost everything, which is actually on the basis of love and care. However, sometimes, this action might lead to conflicts and make them prohibit children from challenging themselves or even doing many things. On the other hand, they might want to control (although they might say that they just provide opinions, they still want children to act the way they set up) many things. Especially when making those important decisions; for example, buying cars, buying an estate, and marriage. I believe you might hear about similar things from your friends, relatives, stories on the internet, or even it is your own story. We have no option of choosing our parents; therefore, the key point might be the way of communicating with each other. After all, we have to make decisions for our life rather than being controlled for everything.

Me before you

 

    Last time Will’s friends visited him, he was upset about his physical problems and became so grumpy that he swept some photos on the cabinet. Louisa can’t endure his bad temper anymore so she blurted out the true thoughts in her mind. She would work here is all because of money. Will realized that the girl who always smiles in front of him has a heavy burden of money which Will could never image, as Louisa could never know how suffering Will is. Since that, Will started to bare his soul and these two started to know each other better.

    Being hard to open hearts to others is not an illness. Some people consider it as a self-defense. The main reason that causes the situation is the environment you are in. Everyone has their own personality, even though some people act optimistic to others still have some depress sides in their hearts. There are many invisible burdens in daily life that might make people become depressed and don’t want to interact with others. The more you feel depressed, the more you need someone to listen to you. Talking to others about your depression is the best and fast way to deal with the sorrow. 

Lord of the Flies

        I have read a lot this time (comparing to the previous ones), the plot had become more and more interesting, but at the same time, a little creepy and sad. After they chose Ralf as the chief, Jack became the leader of the hunter. While Ralf is building up the shelter, Jack was busy hunting the pigs, and that the fire they made to be seen by the ship had gone out. Ralf blamed Jack for not being responsible of the fire, which led to a fight that separated the group of kids. When Jack put on the paint to disguise himself, and hunted the very first pig with his hunters, they however triggered the monster inside them and became more and more savage in the following story. The group was divided into two parts, one was led by Ralf, and the other was the tribe formed by Jack. While Ralf has always stick to the plan of making fire to create smokes, having rules (the conch) and being rescued, Jack was a hunter and gave out the promises to had them meet to eat and feast to have fun. At the age of such little children would easily be attracted to Jack’s plan and felt boring to always keeping the fire on, and so most of the kids joined the tribe. The only members remained in Ralf’s group were Piggy, and the twins, Sam and Eric. 

 

As the number of hunting increased, things had been more and more violent. They all painted their face with black, green, and bloody red, sing while they hunt, and even had people to role play the pig and hurt him. There was always a rumor that there was a beast in the island, seen by the kids, later when Simon, a quiet kid, found out that there was never a beast, but the evil side of themselves were the scariest part, when talking to the lord of the flies. He ran back to the tribe during the feast and wanted to tell everyone about the breaking news. However, he was eventually killed when the tribe became insanely crazy while dancing and singing the song for hunting.

 

“Kill the beast! Cut its throat! Spill its blood! Do him in!”

 

The song was terrified to me while I was reading the book, it came out repeatedly showing the fierce of the kids. At the point when they had killed Simon, they were not caring about hunting animals but lives, and it had led to the next level of savage. The tribe than stole the specs from Piggy at night, and group up on the rock castle. The next day, Ralf, Piggy and the twins brought their conch, which was the only thing they had, and went on the mountain to argue with Jack. Seeing the kids covered all in paints, and not really recognized them by their face anymore. They had lost their own identity. Then they had some fight, when Roger pushed the huge rock off the hill, it crushed the conch and hit Piggy to fell off the cliff and died with his head hitting the rocks. The scene was sad because of the distraction of the conch symbols to the irreversible broken rules, and another death of one of the main and smart characters. The scariest part is the Jack and Roger didn’t seem to feel bad about the deaths, but as a power of the authority. After the death, they caught the twins and Ralf had run away. Finally, the twins joined the tribe, and all the kids were hunting for Ralf. They burnt the island and seeking for Ralf. In the very end, Ralf bumped into a navy, ironically the navies had come because of the huge fire on the island causing smokes, and they were saved.   

 

I was shocked while reading through the book, especially in the last few chapters. The story starts with the kids on the island that has beautiful views and plenty of fruits and water for them to live. However, the dark and savage side had been revealed since there weren’t any adults on the island, that means no rules. I think the reason why the author picked 6-12 years old children to write the story is because that was the age they were not fully educated yet. Therefore, being grouped on an island without any rules and laws, the beast inside them had grown bigger and bigger. Even when they returned to the normal world, I don’t think any of them can live like they used to be, by losing trust in people. 

 

There was a common question about whether you think you will eat your friends on an island, if you need to survive. I could never give the answer, because I couldn’t imagine how hopeless the situation would be, and maybe, deep inside us are the beasts that we never would uncover in the world of laws. I later found out that the lord of the flies is actually a devil in hell, the legend has it that it caused the black death, his name was Beelzebub. The name “lord of the flies” came from the symptoms of the disease, leaving the body rotten and repealing flies to come.  In the period, plague doctors used an extreme way to cure the patients, by hitting them with their crutch, leading the death to people. People believed that the whole people killing people part was what Beelzebub really wanted to see. I think that’s why the book picked the title “Lord of the Flies” to describe the dark side of human. Therefore, this is an interesting and amazing book to read, even though I was a little scared after reading it, plus the story of Beelzebub is frighten too. I will read it, maybe years later, and see if I can understand more or have different interpretation about the book!!!

Love, Simon

Love, Simon by Becky Albertalli

Hello! I’m Connie. After finishing reading A dog’s purpose by W. Bruce Cameron, I started to look for other books which are related to the previous book. Wandering around in the library, I was appealed by a book with a handsome guy in an eye-catching red background on its cover. So, I quickly went through the back of the book, finding that the story has something in common with the previous book I read. As a result, I decided to choose this book, Love, Simon, as my second reading material.

The story tells the normal life of a sixteen-year-old high school student, Simon Spier. He looks the same with others but there is a large secret hidden in his mind, that is, he is gay. It’s a secret that he hasn’t revealed to a single person expect for Blue. Blue is another gay teen in the closet and Simon’s pen-pal who he met through Tumblr. However, Simon has no idea who Blue is. As they keep emailing each other just about every day, Simon turns out that he can’t stop but falling in love with Blue. But, one day, Simon is approached by his school’s class clown, Martin. Martin blackmails him into helping him date one of Simon’s new friends, Abby, after finding Simon’s emails on a school computer because Simon forgets to sign out of his email account. If Simon refuses to help him then Martin will tell the entire school he is gay.

When I finished reading several chapters, it came up with me some ideas. Simon is a gay in the closet, and when he made up his mind to come out, he chose to tell Abby who he just knew for six months rather than Leah who was his best friend for almost thirteen years. Sometimes, it’s more difficult to tell the truth to someone you are very familiar with. Instead, you may turn to tell a stranger or someone you are actually not so familiar with, just like Blue to Simon in the story, since it won’t concern you that how they think of you. And if it’s someone you are quite familiar with, you may be worried about whether the truth will lead to the change of the relationship between you.

Based on my own experience, I used to have a friend who was very close to me. We always shared everything to each other no matter it was joyful or sorrowful. And when I was in a bad mood, she was always the first one to support me. At that time, I considered me and she to be the best friend ever. Feeling so lucky to find such a girl who has a lot in common with me, I really appreciated the friendship between us. However, everything changed when she confessed to me that she actually did not take me as a “friend;” instead, she had a crush on me. It was not until she told me the truth did I realize that she had different affection for me. To be frank, she said that she had hesitated for a long time, considering if it was a right choice to confess her true feelings to me though it was destined to fail because she understood that I was heterosexual. And if she did so, our friendship may break down. But, she just not able to hide her feelings anymore. After her confession, it turned out that we couldn’t become a couple, we were not able to be friends, either. From then on, I lost my best friend; as a consequence, my heart was torn into pieces. I sometimes wondered that if my best friend didn’t tell me the truth, could we continue being friends?

Back to the story itself, I can totally understand why Simon is not able to tell his best friend the biggest secret on his mind. Sometimes, it was even better to not tell the truth if you were uncertain for the outcome because it's impossible to withdraw our words or undo their effects once they have been spoken aloud. I consider that Simon was extremely worried about the change of his friend’s attitude toward him and then lead to the break of their relationship. But, from my perspectives, I do believe that no matter what happened, you can always got your best friend’s support. In addition, your best friend must have already known you well, so he or she can give you the most appropriate suggestion based on the situation you face with.

I’m pretty looking forward to the following chapters to see how the relationship between Simon and Blue will change. Additionally, I'm wondering whether Simon will stop emailing with Blue to prevent him from being revealed and blackmailed or not. And how will Simon deal with Martin’s threat to protect himself as well as Blue.

the continuance of the magic world and things we can think and learn.

 

This time a read the stories about Dudley's birthday and the letters from Hogwarts.

 In Dudley's birthday, Dursley family would go outside every year without Harry. They would leave Harry to home of Mrs. Dursley’s friend who always treated Harry badly. But this person couldn't let Harry in her home this year. There was no choice except taking Harry together to avoid that Harry breaks their house by his uncontrolled magic power. Dursley family decided to go to the zoo with Dudley's friends and Harry. Harry met a snake there and talked to it, he even made the glass disappear. The author used this detail to reveal that Harry was different from us readers.

 After this accident, there was a letter written for Harry, and mentioned the cupboard. Harry didn't get and read it because Mr. Dursley didn't give it to Harry. However, Mr. Dursley made Harry change his room from the small cupboard to a room which used to be used as Dudley's second room. I suppose that the action that Mr. Dursley did was because someone knew that he let Harry sleep in the bad place and treated him meanly. Mr. Dursley was afraid of that these things would be known by somebody. Who made him scared? We all know that's wizards.

Although Harry got a better place, he wanted to know what the content of the letter is. How can he get the letter hidden by Mr. Dursley? Don't worry, because after the day the letter first be found, the letter or letters would be in mailbox everyday with twice the amount of the day before. Yesterday Dursley family got one letter, they would get 2 today, and they would get 4 letters tomorrow. Mr. Dursley felt annoyed by these letters, but he still didn't let Harry get anyone of letters. To avoid more and more letters, Mr. Dursley took all families and Harry to leave their house. They went to hotel but letters still came. Finally, they stayed overnight in a boat in a lake in a storm night.

From this description, we can understand clearly that Mr. Dursley didn't want Harry read the letter which about Hogwarts. But there was a question. Why didn't Dursley family just sent Harry to Hogwarts then they could get rid of Harry who was the son of Lily and James? The author didn't mention it. I suppose there are several reasons. First, they wanted Harry stay to run errands and do housework for them. Second, they didn't want Harry learn how to use magic power because Harry would be more powerful than them, or because they think magic would make people bad as Lily to aunt Petunia. In my point of view, I suppose that aunt Petunia hate Hogwarts instead of Lily herself because Petunia didn’t hate Lily until that Hogwarts sent a letter to Lily, after that, every thing changed. Petunia’s parents thought that Lily with magic was more special and loved her more. It made Petunia hate Hogwarts and everything related to magic. When I think of this, I feel upset. I would become self-abased and started hating my sister as well If I had an excellent sister who was much better than me, our parents compared us every day, kept saying she was so great that she made them proud and never mention that I made them proud. Although the author didn’t focus much on the relationship of aunt Petunia and Lily, we can still learn something by thinking of it ourselves.

From the story, I not only learned something from the relationship of Petunia and Lily, also from Dursleys. I know they didn’t like Harry and they were afraid of wizards, but they still treated Harry badly. To me, this was a kind of self-destructive actions. If you don’t want to be punished by wizards, then don’t treat their hero badly. Though they were lucky for being not punished, the appearance of Hagrid also scared them. I don’t want to be this kind of adults.

Individualism and Collectivism

Hello, everyone. It’s James. Glad to write this log and share my thought with you again on “The call of the wild”. I’m going to share other interesting points coming up to my mind while reading this novel. And this time my sharing focuses mostly on some concepts or theories, which some of you might consider it boring; but I’ll do my best to write them in simple words and convey them by some points you can relate to. Hope you can read them at very ease.

To briefly recap and introduce “The call of the wild”, this novel was a story regarding how Buck ultimately got back to the unfamiliar and completely primitive would, the specific essential how he achieved that could probably only by detaching from his group and surviving on its own. However, actually in most of plots, Buck was usually obedience to his master or those who gave him a task; therefore, Thornton’s rescue was basically seen as the most important transition in this story, which was also a start for Buck’s mentality of individualism. Despite the fact Buck had still been dedicated himself to Thornton later on, but his longing for mysterious wildlife ended up dominating him. He became the whole individualist and only listened to his own voice.

Individualism, one of the thought-provoking traits of “the call of the wild”, also is the theme of this log. But some of you might not fully familiar with that, so before talking about individualism, I want to bring up the other concept “Collectivism”, which is more familiar one in most Asian countries.

In most of Asian countries, the collectivism was rooted in every kid’s mind, especially in school education. We always taught to be considerate for group, taking group as priority. And it’s quite interesting that in many times some student (including me) would sacrifice my opportunity to get extra points just for the sake of groups or other classmates’ right.  Despite how active I was for my personal points; teacher would still tell me that I should give this chance to those who hadn’t answer. As a result, when I was kid, (more specific, when I was in school), I was brainwashed that I was not supposed to deprive others’ right on the basis of my personal interests.

This is very interesting question, why children being active in class or in any competition would be seen as not right or not acceptable? why we should yield our chance to others? And why this confusing phenomenon especially happened in Taiwan’s school? Compared to western countries, take American education for example, the naming way of their class is by teacher’s name instead of by number order such as “class 8 grade 6”. Moreover, based on what I saw from a video talking about difference of education, it surprised me that there are few relay race in America school, which is the most interesting activity in Taiwan’s school. This is probably why when we talk about individualism, people often associate with western countries, and also why individualists are mostly western people.

They, as individualist, usually take their interests as priority; personal autonomy is the central value for them. However, as far as I know, although there have been lots of positive example of successful individualists; there seem to be more disadvantages in individualists. For instance, those who conducting individualism would mostly lead to selfishness, shallow consumerism, and even the breakdown of society.  To name an extreme example, in the last plots of this novel, Buck completely showed what “individualism” was, he no longer trusted people and followed them, he started to being mad and violent. He took people’s life without any exception in the snowfield; all of these were just for surviving in the wild. This also occurred to me that whether individualism is immoral or whether it doesn’t conform to my existing logic or concept to some extent.

Individualism is like the double-edged sword, the more growth of independence and autonomy, the more decline in interdependence and solidarity. It is not only applied to individual, but also education, society, and even a country. As individual, we should ponder more when some concepts contradict to ours, understanding more on the reason behind them instead of criticizing. In my opinion, individualism and collectivism must have something to do with a country’s religion, civilization, and history, they are not merely simple principles. If we just follow without understanding, we probably bring about negative effects.

Last but not least, stay moderate. Overly inclining to one of them will make you unable to see the virtue of the other one. Furthermore, these two principles are not absolutely on the contrary, they can be conducted simultaneously. In story, Buck actually was either individualist and collectivist, he killed other’s life for feeding himself up but meanwhile he also lived with Thornton and followed his commands. In our life, there must be some situations that we can not only earn our personal interests, but also win glories for our group. So, next time, if you work as a group, based on your own grades and group’s glory, try to contribute to your group . Last, I’m curious about what kind of person you are, an individualist or a collectivist? What do you think to these two terms?
Share any of your thoughts below (if you want) !!!

The Midnight Library

 

        The Midnight Library written by Matt Haig is a fiction book that tells the story of Nora. It’s set in England. The main character, Nora Seed is a woman in her mid-30s living alone in a small town called Bedford. A few important roles in Nora’s life were her mom and dad, Joe, Mrs. Elm, Ash, Dan, and Izzy. I accidentally found this book at the bookstore. I tried to read the first few pages and was captivated in no time.

Nothing ever works for Nora. Everything went wrong and there seems like no way out. She felt cornered and made an extreme choice. From here, the story started. She arrived at the Midnight Library and got the chance to select a new life to live. Offering life to someone who just ended her own life? Good God, Nora just doesn’t want to live! Can’t the universe just give her what she wants? Well, yes, and no. The only answer she got was a journey inside the Midnight Library. Her trip through the ups and downs, choices, and regrets were captivating. This book is one of a kind. It starts with a suicide and ends with the lead character screaming, “I want to live”. What happened to her and for what reason she wanted to live are the interesting aspects discussed in this book. 

        With the continuous talk on time, life, and death, it’s an engaging book to read at least once. Reading through it there are a couple of difficulties I faced. First, there are new vocabularies for me here and there. It’s challenging and enchanting at the same time as I collected never before heard words. Second, Matt Haig used many pop culture references. As someone living in Asia, I can’t quite relate nor grasp the point of what he's delivering unless it’s completed with some research. Other than those, there were no other obstacles. After reading this book, my head was filled with so many thoughts. I understood the outcome and knew ‘the answer’ Nora was searching for but this book’s messages just generate many more questions for me. I found myself questioning my life’s choices and regrets. I genuinely recommend this book to the 10-30s. Either you have found yourself in a crossroad full of choices or stuck on a cliff with no other way around, turn the pages of The Midnight Library and go along Nora’s journey. 

It's all about death

The second book I read is “Pet Sematary” written by Stephen King

    The whole story started from the day the Creed family moved to Maine. There were four members and a cat in this family, Louis(father), Rachel(mother), Ellie(daughter), Gage(little son), and Church(cat). They moved from a big city to a suburb due to the new job of Louis’s to run an infirmary at the University of Maine. In front of their new house was a big road where a lot of big trucks ran through, and behind was a path stretching far away to a wood. Both the road and the wood played such an important role in this book that everything that happened in this book had something to do with them.

    Jud Crandall, the Creed family’s new neighbor across the road, in my speculation, must have been an important role given the fact that he was the only neighbor who was mentioned by the author in the first two hundred pages. He was an eighty-five years old man and had a wife called Norma. Jud and his wife had been living there through their whole life. When Jud saw a new family was moving in, he came across the road to offer help initiatively. Even though Jud not only helped deal with Gage’s sting by a bee but also accepted Ellie’s request to navigate their way through the path behind their house to take a look at what it looked like inside, I still feel iffy about this man because the way he grinned described by the author seems eerie to me.

    As he had promised, Jud took the Creed family walk along the path and up into the wood. There was a pet cemetery located in the wood, and its arch said “Pet Sematary”, which was misspelled by children. The visit there was the first time Ellie touched the issue of death. After they got home, Ellie started to ask Louis tons of questions about if Church will also die one day and why it cannot live as long as humans do. I noticed that Louis had a positive attitude when being asked these tough questions by his daughter because he as a doctor, thought that death is as a natural phenomenon like birth. Therefore, he answered these questions as honestly as he could. However, when Rachel heard Louis’s conversation with their daughter, she was totally pissed off. I was pretty shocked by how overreacting Rachel had been. I understand that some parents’ concerns about telling the truth to a young kid about death, but the degree of Rachel’s reaction was totally out of my imagination. It turned out that Rachel’s unwillingness to face death problems had something to do with her older sister who died young. I haven’t read the details about how Rachel’s sister died and how did this affect Rachel’s perspective of death, but I know this incident must have traumatized Rachel seriously.

    Here comes the main part of the story, when Rachel bought Ellie and Gage back to her parents’ home on Thanksgiving while Louis decided to stay due to his unpleasant relationship with his father&mother-in-law, something bad was going to happen. “There is a dead cat lying on my lawn. You may want to come over and make sure if it is Church” Jud said when talking on the phone with Louis. Oh my, this is out of the blue. A few days ago, Louis was comforting her daughter with an assertive statement that Church wouldn’t die within these recent years after his daughter knew the fact that Church would die one day. What a slap in the face, I thought. When I started to think how Louis was going to tell his daughter and how disastrous the process would be, how the plot proceeded was totally different from what I was thinking. Jud offered to take Louis to go somewhere in the wood to bury Church. Surprisingly, this “somewhere” wasn’t the Pet Sematary, where nearly all dead pets were buried, but was somewhere far deeper inside of the wood. What’s the point walking all the arduous way through the wood to another cemetery, I wondered, so did Louis. During the process of their march to that cemetery, I felt Jud suspicious again, due to the unclear purpose of doing this. It looked like to me that Louis was likely to die any minute on the way. After Louis buried Church, he asked Jud the purpose of bringing him here, but Jud didn’t answer directly. Wasn’t that worth suspecting?

    The answer revealed itself the next morning with the return of Church, the alive one. It didn’t surprise Louis too much because he had more or less figured out by himself that something like this would happen. In contrast, I didn’t expect this at all, which was ridiculously interesting that I was more excited than Louis. 

    I’m looking forward to getting to know how this incident would change Louis’s life and how the story would proceed.

A New World – Embrace it or Criticize it

Hello, everyone! This is Judy’s new post – log 4. Since I finished reading the novel “Pet” a few weeks ago, I am going to share a new book called “Brave new world.”

It is written by Aldous Huxley. The topic of this novel is the same as my last novel which is about “utopia.” Nevertheless, there are still a lot of extremely different descriptions and points of view among these two books.

At first, I wonder what the exact definition of utopian and dystopian literature is. I personally suppose that whether the novel is utopian or dystopian depends on how you think because perspectives vary from person to person. Even if the author writes in the tone of sarcasm, readers may be unable to recognize it. Hence, from my own perspective, I think that this novel “Brave new world” is a dystopian story.

“Brave New World” was a science fiction novel published in 1932, which was between the time of World War One and World War Two. At that time, themes of the literature in the aftermath of World War one centered on serious issues, especially political and social aspects. After reading some information regarding this dark time, I found that the aversion to war, a fight for something such as tyranny, and abuse of technology were actually the popular topics for the writers. Basically, at such sorrowful time, there was no so-called happy ending like the story of hero-and-heroine rescue, and this novel I was about to share as follows was no exception.

At the beginning of the story, the setting of the story timeline was in the future. It was a world beyond our imagination. The authority made every effort to create an ideal society. They regarded “stability” as the most crucial element to accomplish it. First of all, they made use of genetic engineering like artificial wombs to control the number of newborn babies. Besides, based on intelligence and labor, they also automatically divided all citizens into five groups before birth called the caste system. The higher level a baby was designated, the brighter future he or she would have. At such a level, s/he would be cultivated as a future authority who had the supreme authority. In contrast, the lower level a baby was, the less power s/he had. They were bred to be menial laborers. Secondly, to achieve a stable society, the authority still needed to control people’s ideas. This was still not too perverted to believe. What’s worse, they even adopted a disgusting strategy of making people lose the ability to think and judge such as the obstruction on the transportation of oxygen to the brain. In short, the authority thought that not until they controlled the general populace’s interests, hobbies, occupations, and so on did they dominate a society.

After reading a few pages of this novel, it occurred to me that there was a similar unequal caste system in our real world in India. In terms of the Indian caste system, each level of people had corresponding occupations they needed to do. In my opinion, such an injustice and discrimination couldn’t be eliminated completely even though the policy had been abolished by Indian law long time ago. When it comes to the disadvantages of the caste system, most people should be able to come up with a few viewpoints. For example, people at the lower level were excluded from a lot of things. What’s worse, the lower level of people was likely to be pushed to a state of lower than of an animal. Enmity and hatred had increased gradually amongst the members of high and low caste. Nonetheless, wasn’t there any merit of this system? I suppose not. To some extent, the caste system had provided a definite professional career to each individual. Everyone basically got at least a job whether he or she liked it or not. Apart from this, other scholars had claimed that the caste system was the main cause of stability and contentment. Thus, back to the story, I would like to ask myself “in comparison with the caste system in the real world, was the caste system in this story suitable?” I would probably still answer no because a number of demerits indeed needed to be solved and improved. Besides, there still should be another acceptable way to create a stable society.

When it comes to the power of the authority in this novel, I personally considered that the authority just wished for their own happiness by causing pain to others. They enjoyed dominating and controlling others. In contrast, the lower level of people was born to be inferior to others. They did hard and tough work as well as relatively unskilled manual labor. They felt neither happy nor satisfied; instead, the authority was happy but “never” satisfied. Everything was destined. Nothing could be changed even if people at the lower level were hard-working.

To sum up, in terms of the descriptions of this novel, I strongly feel the fear of losing individual identity. In addition, with the advancement of technology, such technologies as artificial wombs mentioned in the novel might appear in our world in the future. As AI has appeared in our world and replaces a lot of humans’ jobs, who knows what technology will also appear in our future.