Romeo and Juliet Reflection

Last week, Mr.Dahl required us to memorize a paragraph of lines from the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. This was a very hard task to do, since the play was written in the medieval ages, the English language during that time was very different from what we have today. Therefore it increased the difficulty of the memorizing process. I personally myself did not do very well on this project. Before going up and performing, I could actually memorize the paragraph pretty well, but right after I got up, my mind just went blank. As I memorized five or six lines of the paragraph, I had to read with the paper for the rest since I could not remember a thing in the paragraph. Memorizing the paragraph was already a pretty hard task to do, and now having to go up in front of the class and present it out adds up the difficulty. After finishing the performance, I felt regretful for not spending more time on memorizing the paragraph. Since I guess I got want I deserved, not enough time was spent on the memorizing process which led me to this result.

Movie Cyclops Book Cyclops Comparison

When a book was made into a movie, there are always differences between them. In the movie of the Odyssey, there are several differences between the content in the book version of the Odyssey. First, in the book, when Odysseus and his men were inside the Cyclops' cave, they stayed there for roughly two days. In the movie however, they only stayed in there for about ten to fifteen minutes. Odysseus and his men blinded the Cyclops with a spear, but in the book, the spear that blinded the Cyclops was lit on fire. In the movie, it wasn't. Also, six of Odysseus' men were eaten according to the story. In the movie, only two were eaten. When in the cave, the book talked about how there was music performed by instruments when the Cyclops was drinking, but in the movie, there was none. All these differences are all not as crucial, since these doesn't really change the plot of the movie or anything. Whenever a book is made into a movie, differences like this are very likely to happen.

QuickWrite

There was saying that states "Appearance can be deceiving". In other words, it means that the appearance, or looks of something can contribute the actual information of that something. For example, if you see a person walking down the streets with holes in his t-shirts and jeans, you would be likely to believe that this person is poor and probably has no job. Even though you assume that is true, it might not be actually true, since wasn't holes in jeans use to be a fashion statement? There was once where I was looking through different models of computers in a shop. As I look around, I spotted some computers where I would expect them to have actual good parts in them, but they don't. In this case, the computers with horrible looking outer shells somehow all had extremely good parts and where also somewhat cheaper. Most people would first look at an object, by its looks, it would create a first impression about the object. By how it looks, even if in the inside, it is a wonderful product, if the appearance looks unappealing, it would be likely to create a bad impression to the person.

American History - QuickWrite

There is one moment in my life which I would never forget, it was the 921 earthquake. It was when I was only two years old. While in my sweet dream, suddenly, my mom woke me up and brought me up to her arms. All I could remember was shelves tumbling, chairs knocked down, and random items scattered all over the floor. Since we lived in an apartment, we opened the doors for emergencies and started to run down the stairs. As we escorted to the lobby of our apartment, there were also other neighbors who also escaped down to the safe spot. I slowly fell asleep and then thats all I remembered. As the next day I woke up, video clips of the earthquake were all over the news. Hsinchu was luckily one of the least damaged cities in Taiwan, unlike places in the south, things were bad. Houses destroyed, pipes broken, electricity down, and people wanting food urgently. Even now, the 921 earthquake was still one of the most terrifying natural disasters that have happened in Taiwan.

How To Eat A Guava - QuickWrite

One of my favorite fruit to eat are watermelons. Even though it is one of the hardest fruits to break open and cut into pieces, it is one of the fruits that I like eating. As you use a huge knife to slice the watermelon in half, you could feel the hardness of the shell, and then suddenly the softness of the fruit itself. After slicing the watermelon into pieces, it would be the time to eat. As you bite down onto the fruit, the richness of the juice would spread all over your mouth. The sweet, watery, and iciness of the watermelon can be one of the best thing you can get on a hot summer day. Eating watermelon during the summer would be one of the things that I must do. Since there is no other fruit that can be better than watermelons during the hot blazing summer. Watermelons can be as good wen in liquid form. After cutting them into pieces, throw it in a blender, and there you have a delicious and smooth watermelon juice. The same sweet, watery, and iciness of the watermelons would be in the juice itself, too. Since this is a fruit that can be eaten in more than one way, it would definitely be my favorite fruit to pass through the summer days.

Billy Collins' Poetry in Motion

In the five Billy Collins' poems in motion, my favorite one was The Dead. It talks about what the dead is always doing that we might not know or feel. According to the poem, it said that the dead are always looking at us at all times. When we are putting on our shoes, or even when we are making a sandwich. It also stated that they are always looking down at us from a glass-bottom boat in heaven. The dead also believed that we are looking at them at all times. This poem was interesting to me since it is talking about things that can't be proven. In other words, there can be countless ideas about what the dead are doing whenever they are. They way Billy Collins says it made the mood of the poem somewhat neutral, instead of what I expected to be a pretty sad and serious poem. The animation that was made for the poem was also very interesting. The art that was made expressed the poem completely. As it has the faces of the dead always staring down at the people below, it successfully expressed the poem. This was why I liked this poem within the other four that was made.

Narrative Poem Research

I chose the poem called At the Dance by Judith Pordon. In the poem, it talks about what each of the planets are doing at the dance. The poem was separated in a series of stanzas. In each stanza, it talks about one planet, especially on what they do. The author uses a couple lines, not many, to describe the planet's actions. There are no rhymes in the poem at all, it's just straight up narrative, like a story book telling a story. The style of the poem was pretty old fashioned, it's not the words that was used that was old fashioned, is the way the author uses it. The way the author uses it made the poem seem a little older than it was. The poem creates some imagery of the planets doing the actions that were described. For example when the author wrote, "Asteroids were dashing about daring each other to jump into the pool." It made me think of rock like creatures running everywhere and some are jumping into a pool. So in my point of view, it made a good use of imagery with its work choice. The author also gave the planets some human-like features which made the poem interesting.

Life Metaphor

As the character in the movie Forest Gump made a simile about life, here's a metaphor that I came up with about life. Life is a game of Call of Duty, you could choose to fool around and not stick to the objective, but of course would lead to a defeat, or a negative effect. In life, during your different stages, there are different objectives that you should be achieving. For example, as I am a student, my objective is to do good in school. This might change after a few years, after you get a job, you will not be in school anymore.  Therefore, your objective would not be to do good in school. By not following the objective, there would lead to negative consequences. By continuing the example used above, if I'm always fooling around in school and not handing in homework, I would not be getting a good grade. Therefore, not completing the objective by doing good in school. Of course, not doing good in school would definitely affect your future. This would lead to what collages you would be able to attend, and would also affect on your career possibilities in the later future.

Make The Connection - Quickwrite

If a person's life is divided into seven different parts, it would probably be the following seven: Birth, Preschool, Highschool, Collage, Career, Retirement, and Death. The first part of somebody's life is obviously the birth, the moment when you exist in the world. The second part is preschool. Preschool is when you will go to somewhere where your parents will not be helping you, and you would be in an environment with people who you might not feel comfortable with. Of course, this is where you learn your basic-of-the-basic knowledges. Next comes Highschool. Highschool is when things gets tough, and you can feel the transition once your in it. Workload would double or sometimes even triple as your teachers and courses becomes tougher and tougher, and this is all the preparation for the next stage, which is collage. Collage is a place where you pretty much redo the time you have in highschool, but twice as hard. This is when things gets serious and important, your performance during this stage would affect what your future would be like. After four years of collage, here comes your job or career. Usually the use of a job is to allow you to gain profit in order to let you live in a sustainable life. As you work for a period of time, it is time for you to stop, which is the retirement. Retiring from a job usually means you've passed the age of working. It is time for you to slow your life down and enjoy it as much as you can. Lastly, it is time for you to leave. Death would take you away from this world and bring you to somewhere else where nobody would know until they're there themselves.

Disrespected

There was once where I felt disrespected, it was when I was in a restaurant. I finished my cup of water on the table, so I put my hand up and tried to grab a waiter's attention. There was an adult who also had his hand up on the table to our far far right. In that case, I thought to myself, the waiter must come to me first since I was closer to him. In stead of coming to me, he looked at me, and then look away without saying anything or giving me any hand gestures then walk to the guy that was a lot farer to me. The fact how he looked at me and then looked away without saying or doing anything made me felt a little disrespected. I am guessing since I was still a kid back then, the waiter might think I was more unimportant comparing to the adult who had his hands up. It also made me felt unequal to other people since I was younger than the guy. To me the right way of serving in a restaurant was to see which customer was closer to you and then serve the person first. According to what the waiter did, he was seeing me as a younger person so decided to serve me later when there was someone who was older than me.

Make The Connection - Quickwrite

In life, there are different times where it is was your turning point. If might be that you achieved or accomplished a goal that you wish to achieve. Or it can be as simple as joining a sports team. Here is how I faced my turning point in my life. When school started after summer, I officially became a highs schooler. Which means that I could now have more choices to make in school, in stead of just following what the school wants you to do like when your in middle school. When it was time to choose clubs, for some reason, I decided to join the community service club. At first, I thought it was just helping the people with disorders where they have trouble doing things themselves, simple as that. After the first time going there and helping the people there, I found out that it was a lot harder than I thought it is. It's not just helping them, you still need to change the way you help or do things according to how they react. You might think you could do something in this way, but it might not work for them. After a few community services, I actually felt proud to be in it. Which then I felt like this was one of my turning points in life.

Make The Connection - Quickwrite

I have never faced a decision between having to choose something that is going to be good for me or for something good for someone I cared about. From the story I just read, "The Lady, or the Tiger", I could imagine how hard it can be. In the story, the princess has to face with the decision between the person he loved being killed, or him married with a woman than she hated. Since the princess loved the guy, of course she wouldn't want the guy to get killed. On the other hand, if the guy stayed alive, the only option is that he would have to marry the women that the princess hated. Which is something that would make her feel extremely bad. The fact how the princess loved the guy, she would rather led him live and live through perhaps a happy and enjoyable life other than being killed. It is sort of the act of sacrificing yourself in order for a person you cared about get something good. For this to happen, both the giver and the receiver would be bonded with a strong friendship. Since normally people would not sacrifice for someone you don't know well with.

Cherished Item

If my house was caught on fire, and I only have the time to run in and save one item of mine, I would go in and save wallet. You might immediately thought about the money that I would want to save, but actually, its not about the money. In my wallet, I don't just keep my cash in there, I also keep cards of stores, coupons, or gift certificates. And the most important one, some photos of my family. I keep small photos of my family in my wallet for...some reason that I'm not even sure of. By keeping a photo of my family in my wallet just let me feel secure at all times perhaps..? Since everything is going to get burnt down, why not save something that means more than the others? Of course, your never going to spend all your time with your parents. It might be because of school, or even situations where you don't want to be. With photos like this, this can be one way to prevent you from missing them. Why I kept the photos in my wallet? Since my wallet is one of my things that I would be carrying whenever I go. I would always have it with me, and it had also became a habit. This way, I would always have the photos with me.

Which Ghost Affected Scrooge the Most?

In the novel, A Christmas Carol, there were a total of three ghost from the Christmas past that had visited Scrooge after the ghost of Marley has warned him. To me, the third and the final ghost has the most impact on Scrooge. Since when the third ghost showed Scrooge what would happen to him if he continues to act the way he was. When the ghost took Scrooge, it first took Scrooge to a London Stock Exchange, where a group of men were talking about the death of a rich man. Scrooge was then very desperate to know the identity of the dead man. The ghost then took him to a grave yard, in front of a grave stone. On the stone, it says EBENEZER SCROOGE. Scrooge was horrified by what he had saw with his own eyes. He then begs the ghost to redo what he had done, and promised that he would act the way he should be. To honor Christmas the way he should. Everyone would be afraid when they see their own death, and if they were given a second chance, of course they would take it. It's a second chance for your life! This was why I believed that the third ghost has affected Scrooge the most.

The Victorian Workhouse

In the 1800s, people who were poor could barely afford their own food and clothing. Workhouses contained people who were poor and had no jobs. There are also orphans, elders, and people who were physically and mentally sick or disabled. Usually workhouses were often large and feared by the poor and the old. Since non of them would want to be in them. The main purpose of a workhouse is to provide a place to live, work, and earn money for the poor. With free medical care, food to eat, clothes to wear, and a free education for children, also trainings for a job. What I found was surprising to me was that, in workhouses, almost everything that will be needed was onsite. Things like chapels, bakeries, laundries, and even small farms can be found onsite. Even though these things that were provided might make you believe that workhouses were not so bad at all, but the quality of these things are not as good as what you may think. In workhouses, families were spilt up and would be punished if they even try to speak to each other. Educations in workhouses were not the best at all, children who were in them were not educated on how to read and to write, which were two important skills for a person to have. Also, children may be sold to other factories or mines unexpectedly.
In the novel, A Christmas Carol, Scrooge might have not understood how people felt in workhouses. Scrooge has not yet experienced the state of being poor. Since he has all the money that he needed, he did not even bother to care about them.

Theme of Exile and Liberty

The theme of the story Liberty is that some sacrifices are needed in order to get better things. In the story, the narrator got a dog named Liberty, she loves the dog very much. In the same time, her family was trying to get visas so they could move to the States and have a better life. On the night when they were about to leave for the States, the narrator wanted to bring Liberty with her, but sadly, her parents refused and said we have to keep her here. One of her family members told him that, "you will get her back when you get there". Since her dog's name is Liberty, her family member was trying to say that you will get liberty, or freedom when you get there. She got freedom by giving up Liberty, which supported the theme of this story. Sacrifices are needed in order to get better things.
The them of the story Exile is somewhat similar to the theme of Liberty, both stories are talking about a family immigrating to another country, which is the United States. Both of these stories can have the same theme, where sacrifices are needed in order for better things to come true. The family in Exile, had to leave their homeland and move to a place where is meant to be better, but confusing to them at first. Since everything is different.