Entry 77, Why Take Risks?

People always take different types of risks. I believe the reason why people actually attempt to take risks is because they believe that the outcome could be better than what they currently have. By what I mean is that they are willing to sacrifice the things they could lose, in order to have the chance of possibility of gaining or wining something much greater later. There are risks such as stock market, or when you rob a bank, these could all result in physical risks, and the stock market could result in the loss of a great amount of money, but it could gain a great amount of wealth. I believe that Krakauer's rock climbing risk taking paragraph could also be used among common risk takers. When I took my risks of losing a great friend when I stole the girl he liked unfairly, I believe that I thought the gain would be alot greater than the loss. I believe the future relationship I could possibly have, would be so much greater than whatever I lost. It was great, it was the greatest risk I have ever taken and I believe that risk taking is a part of everyone's lives. What is fun about life, when you never take any risks right? The things I said does indeed match up with what Krakauer said, and I believe that everyone must take risks to make life more interesting.

Entry 76, Participation

 I believe that journalists should be completely objective when it comes to reporting to the social media. Being objective can make the report completely reliable, but so far no one can ever do it without any bias within them. To be objective and neutral with an event, it has to be an event overlooked by the journalist, the journalist can not be involved whatsoever with the topic. Once the journalist is involved with the topic, they would have opinions and produce biased reports of the event which makes the source completely unreliable.  I believe that  journalists should be completely willing to sacrifice anything for their love and passion of reporting the news. They are going to have to be willing to go into radio active grounds to report their breaking new story on the recent nuclear power plant explosion, or be willing to be in the middle of the rebels in Egypt reporting about the incident. Journalists cannot be scared of reporting the news, they can not be afraid of being in danger. Once the journalists becomes scared of the incident, I believe that they will eventually run out of good stories and eventually lose their jobs.

Entry 75, Humor's Role

 Humor can be used as irony throughout a sad novel. A sad novel or story is typically involved with a certain type of atmosphere that is not that lively, and with humor involved, the story can often times be brought up and have a better atmosphere to the story. Catharsis means the relief after a great amount of stress accumulates within the person. I believe that humor can act as the catharsis of sad stories, as things cannot get any worse, the author uses a bit of humor to help release the tension of the story. This would make the reader alot more happy when they read the story, so people wouldn't always be reading a whole story and being bored by its somber mood. Irony can sometimes be used as humor as well, when certain things happen and they are not suppose to, it is called irony. I believe that the story had bits of humor in the story, such as the part when Patricia is joking and mocking the sister Kerry with her voice, copying everything shes saying. Although this is not a type of irony, it is still considered humor used in this story. Humor has helped made the story more appealing to read and adds a bit more  interest in the story.

Entry 74, Sick

 I hope I would not have to spend alot of time in the hospital in my life. I have been to the hospital a few times, when I got stitches for running into a cabinet in the supermarket, or getting stitches for jumping off a set of three stairs and knocking my head on the floor. I have been in the hospital for my relatives as well, when my cousin was being born in this world, we stayed in the hospital for quite a while. I hate hospitals, the smell of the place simply can give me chills down my spine. It is just weird for me to think that in that building, there are people with missing limbs and the building is basically the bridge between life and death. Babies are being greeted the first time through this place, but at the same time, the less fortunate, are leaving this world, through that very building. Just the thought of having people dying a couple of stories away from me, simply frightens me to my very soul. I know that it is a place people go for to get better, but that place does not have the happiest atmosphere, families are being greeted by news of their relatives passing away, or anxious families waiting outside of the operation room for their relatives. Frankly speaking, I hate hospitals, the less time I spend there, the better.

Entry 73, Happy or Sad

 I think it is mainly equal. I have great memories of my childhood, with my family and going out and having fun. These great memories made me who I am today, I have learned how to be a better person, and learn that family is always the most important thing. People say that bad memories tend to stick to people longer, that is true in a way that when people hurt themselves, or when they get hurt, it is when they learn and gain experience and not to make the same mistake again. I believe it depends on different people, some people had a bad childhood, so all they could have were bad memories. Personally, I think that both impacted me greatly when I was a little kid. My childhood was great, filled with laughter, having fun with my family, going on trips and hurting my self. These memories are all equally important in my life, and both equally contribute to make me who I am today. The memories can develop experience, and I believe that my experiences so far, are very valuable and I thank my parents for such a great childhood.

Entry 72, Immigrant's Journey

        I believe that her experience of immigrating over, or having parents that did from India, I would not have any connection with the author mainly because we have never immigrated anywhere. I have not lived in the states, nor did my family ever did, so it would be hard to establish any connections between us. I believe that even if we didn’t move to different countries, we still have certain similarities as we both learn different languages other than our mother tongue. I believe that this quotation is very profound and I believe that it is true, that immigrating is hard as you leave behind your culture and your family, but I am more on the side of the fact that the rewards are much greater than what you have abandoned in the previous country you lived in. I believe that I don’t have as much connection with this as well because I have never immigrated anywhere nor have my family ditched a country for another. That is the main reason why I cannot connect with the author as well as other people because I have yet experienced this maneuver of away from our mother countries. 

Entry 71, Two Lives

         I have been living in the bicultural background for almost all my life. Being in an American school has been very fun, experiencing both sides of the world and seeing the differences between each. I believe that I have been effected most by my Chinese side of the family because everything I do today, revolves around it. I use the language of Chinese at home, I eat Chinese cuisines, and I celebrate Chinese festivals and holidays. The American side of me is just the side I study in, I go to school and I learn the language. This is what I thought of when I was growing up, but now as I get older and older, I realized that the American side is dominating my Chinese side, making a more equal division among the two cultures. I realized I speak English as my primary language, use forks rather than chopsticks and much more that I have changed just because I have been influenced by my school. I think if I were to be a writer, the American side of me would come out more, as I express my self better through the language of English and I think more in English than I do in Chinese.

Entry 70, My Style

Sometimes I think of myself as someone who has style. I don’t generally like to be cocky and arrogant about things like this but I think I have my own personal style that not everybody can develop. The style that I have developed today, I believe that it has been a strong influence from my friends of before. I believe that my friends are the main people of why I dress and talk like this. I would like to believe that I am a funny person, that people laugh at what I say and what I say interests many people. On the surface, I seem very immature, but I believe that I am a mature person when it comes to more serious things. I would like to believe that I am not a typical good kid but not a very bad one either. I would like to believe I am in the middle and I still know the rights and the wrongs. I believe that at the start, everything is developed as trying to be someone, but eventually this just grows with me and I eventually develop my own style that no one else has.

Entry 69: Magic Pictures

        The first picture has several kids crowding around a warehouse, with an ostrich that is sticking out of its gate. All the kids seems to be very curious and interested in the ostrich and would like to find out more about why it got there, who put it there and how it got there. The ostrich seemed like it was left there rather than it is being pushed out in action. The ostrich Is looking outwards and does not see the boys on the other side of the wall. I think the factory is somewhere that the boys are not familiar of, or that they did not think a fake ostrich would get there. The curiosity expressed on their faces can show that they are interested, but doesn’t want to get close incase it is harmful for them. I can relate to the story because as the angel falls, no one really knows if the angel will be harmful or not. Therefore there had been a crowd that had developed to see the weird creature, but is kind of afraid which then stays from away from it. I believe that this portrays the public’s attitude on the angel very well and is very related to the story. 

Entry 68, Magic Realism

        I believe that many teenagers has this tendency of trying to be cool and growing up. When teenagers are in school, they would not want to be known as the kid that loves magic, or things that are not real, therefore they would tend to not enjoy the genre of make beliefs, or potentially fake content. Some people with a lack of imagination could also have some problems with this genre. People are not going to be able to relate to the things the stories are talking about, they would not understand the concept of angels or supernatural things in the story. In order for the readers to enjoy and understand the stories completely, they have to be able to relate to the experience the author is trying to convey. Well for me, it is not that hard to understand magic realism because as I am a very superstitious person, so I believe that things such as ghosts and these supernatural things does exist. All the phenomenon that can not be explained by science that is expressed through Magic Realism, I still can have no problem reading this type of literature and being able to connect and understand the texts.

Entry 67 A Miracle

I believe that miracles have to be these very supernatural events that occur on somebody that is completely random and cannot be explained by science. A miracle always has to be a positive thing, such as your body magically healing from something with little hope to begin from, or cancer being cured, or the dead comes back to life again. These things all have one thing in common, it seems that god is mostly the answer to these things, and that these "miracles are all related to god, as he is the one that created and made all these miraculous things happen. These things are not explainable by science, so people tend to push it towards the religious direction and use that as the explanation of all these unexpected, weird events that helped them in their lives. Miracles are all appreciated upon, people all hope for miracles when something is almost impossible to go for their choice of outcome. I believe that miracles do happen, but these miracles are pure coincidence and luck, and I believe that no one should take credit for any of these things. I have never witnessed any miracles happen in front of my eyes and that is probably the main reason why I do not believe in these things.

Entry 66: Something Unexpected

Many times in stories or movies, the supernatural events are always handled very well by the main characters, they also do things as if a normal person would handle. The old movie of E.T. was a big hit when it came out to the cinema, and the kids in the film had gave me the feeling of "oh that is exactly what I would have done". Which is a great thing of course, as many movies and novels tend to be very dramatic and the content would be used over board therefore making the story very fake and less appealing and enjoyable to me. I believe that most movies these days and novels are very rational, by rational I mean that they know how to deal with these supernatural things as they encounter them in the movie. I feel connected to it because I feel as if that is exactly what I would have done if I were to be in the movie. Being from a very supersticious family, I am glad that nothing has yet happened to me, I hope nothing ever happens to me, but I have been told many stories of ghosts and spirits of our Asian world. I know that many people don't believe that, but as I get told the story over and over again, and as I follow the restrictions of what to do and what not to do at night or on certain times of the day, I get paranoid and I too tend to believe in these things.

Entry 65 Proving One’s Self

Last entry we had talked about rites of passage of certain people, and many times this rite of passage could include an event in which a person attempts to prove one's strength and ability to perform certain task. This is very common in our society as when people cannot fit in with the crowd, people will be laughed at, therefore everyone wants to fit in and become apart of the crowd. It is that feeling of being laughed at that mainly causes people to want to fit in, and sometimes, when the individual does infact prove themselves right, that moment, they have gone through a rite of passage, they have broken through their inner barrier and hopped over to the side everyone else is on. I believe that we have the need to prove ourselves mainly to fit in and also sometimes as teenagers, we would want to be able to be the best at everything, therefore we tend to try our best to prove to others that we can also do the things they can do. I have been through things like this, as in elementary school, I tried to prove to everyone that I was very good at soccer when I barely knew how to play, and being on the team just sucked because I was clueless of what I was doing and I failed at traveling through the tunnel to undergone the right of passage.

Entry 64, Rites of Passage

Everyone will go through certain types of rites of passage in their life. I believe this is just the milestone of certain important events in our lives. Things like getting a girl's first period, these type of natural, events marks the begining of adult hood for many girls, thus being a very important rite of passage for the girls to grow older. There are alot of rites of passage, things like graduating high school would be another rite of passage that many people experience in their life. There are also religious rites of passage, religious cleansing would be considered a rite of passage. I believe that this is the act of passing over the old part of ourselves and getting a brand new self after it is completed. I picture a tunnel every single time we are talking about things like this, I believe that it is like crossing through a tunnel, you pass through the important events in your life, and then you exit the tunnel a new person, not like the old person who entered the tunnel. These rites of passages all make the person undergo some type of growth, or changes that will stick with them forever.  Things like getting my first facial hair would be considered my first rite of passage.

Entry 63, Being Tested

 Siddartha is a very famous novel written about a journey of a young boy growing up seeking for the meaning of life. In the story he encounters many external as well as internal challenges, external challenges include the little money he had, the little resources he had, and the mental and internal challenges, were all his questions for the meaning of life, his search for enlightenment. I believe that at the end he had found the meaning he was seeking for throughout his long journey in life, after learning about love and lust, after learning about how to fast for days without food. I believe that everyone goes through a journey in their life, maybe they are not seeking for the same knowledge and experience Siddartha was looking for, but we all undergo some sort of journey, trying to understand ourselves better in our life. I am barely through my life yet, I have already gained some knowledge and experiences for certain things, but I have not found the answer to many things for my life. I chose this character because I think most of the people with goals can relate to Siddartha. In order to achieve a goal, you have to be determined, and Siddartha is the perfect example of a determined young man that was not scared of being poor or foodless, in order to find the answer to his questions.

Entry 62, Symbols of the House

 The whole story to me is full of symbols. I started to think that the house itself act as childhood, everyone in it are kids, the act of knitting would be a type of hobby the kid does for fun and the whole collection of knitting would be the experiences accumulated over the years of hard work and practice. I believe that the people taking over the house could mean that time is moving and they are forced to move on, they are forced to grow up and abandon their childhood and move on to another stage in life. The key getting tossed into the sidewalk drain is the end  of their childhood. I believe that everyone lived in a house like this when they were younger, they are not doing much everyday, carefree, and not much responsibility was involved in our lives. When they were living in the house, they had a very relaxing schedule everyday, no one that bothered them, and there really was nothing to do in the house, just like how there are not many things you could do being a kid. The knitting is the hobby that everyone loves when they were little, whether they are legos, car toys, barbie dolls, or basketball, and as they play on, they accumulate experience, and they eventually gain more knowledge about the thing they love doing everyday. This is my interpretation on the house in the story.

Entry 61, Taken Over

 I think the whole story revolves around the idea of moving on. Moving on with our lives has been a tough thing to do for many, especially when it is related to things or people with sentimental values. The story could have been about the couple actually are haunting the house, and the people moving into the house just means that they have to move out. They loved the house, they had many experiences with the house, and after they past, the ghost of the two people still seem to be lingering within the house they once loved. They could not let go, so instead, they chose to stay there, and live in the house that once belonged to them. As the new family came in, the sounds they hear are actually people trying to move in and making this house their new home. When they walk out with sadness and looking back saying how it was taken over, could have just meant that they simply had to move on because there are people trying to live there now. The idea of moving of is tough for many, especially for something that once gave you joy, made you feel like a whole new different person. They had to move on and let the other family start their journey in the house. This is what I think about the story and how I choose to interpret it.

Entry 60, Symbols

  To me, a symbol is an universal code, or an icon which represents many meanings behind the sign and icon itself. Like the logo of the company Apple, in modern days, their symbol represents innovation, trend setters when it comes to electronic developments. This is a type of symbol, and this is how the symbol functions. It's main purpose is to represent a certain idea, or many thoughts that is being represented by the symbol. Symbols must be well known across many people in order for it to become a true symbol. If only one person understands the symbol, it will not be thought as a universal idea and therefore no one would understand the symbol. It has to be able to connect through everyone, as having an universal feeling and thoughts toward it. I believe that symbols only occur naturally, as people could attempt to aim for a certain symbolism, but towards the end, it is how the people interpret it that counts. The swatika logo is a perfect example as it was not first designed for, it represented different meanings at the start when it was first invented before the Nazis came along and used it as their symbol. To many, this symbol represents racism, hatred for jews and gay people. To many people this is a sign of death, of the worse that can come out of man kind. Symbols are strong, as they can form permanent feelings for the individuals

Entry 59, Choices

 I honestly think I am not a very good guy when it comes to girls. Whenever I think about what I did, I just feel like a total butthole. I would do whatever it takes, for the girl I like to like me back. I basically betrayed one of my good friends and basically went against him and took the girl he liked. Well What  can I say? I loved her? I know thats not an excuse, but I truly did. Well I think this quote is true, I agree that choices, the ones we choose to make, rather than what we are capable of doing, is who we really are. It is what we choose to eat each day, that makes us who we are, not the things you are able to buy or able to eat, but the things we choose to eat ourselves. This quote is very well said, I have never considered anything from this kind of angle. I believe that this is a very legit statement and that it can be applied to everything. It is like getting into college, I could be capable of getting into Harvard, but that does not make me who I am. It does not make me a harvard student, It is the choices we make, that will make the difference, and that will count. I believe that it is a good quote, and that through my own experience, I had learned that, these are my choices, and the choices are who I am, not what I am ever capable of doing.

Entry 58, Free Write

 Well this is the first free write I have ever gotten from this English class. I always heard about the juniors getting free writes and study hall periods, well today, I finally got it! I feel as if our teacher gets more impatient with the junior class than us, maybe our class is just far more superior and far more responsible when it comes to school work. I am just kidding, you know that. Well today was very boring, I fell asleep at 8 and basically slept my way throughout the night and now it is almost 3 am and I am still here writing my journal. Sometimes I wanna ask myself, what are you doing with your life, spending every day, every hour and every minute slacking off. Well I don't want to face the responsibility of taking the SAT, or minding about my grades. That is why I have a C in algebra right now. I mean I still try, I have no Bs and everything are all As other than algebra. I don't know, sometimes I don't want to think about the future and just try to live under this moment and not having to care about anything else, but right now. Well tomorrow will be a good day I hope, with short periods and basically a completely free afternoon. What more could I ask for? Wow free writes are harder than I thought, I thought I would be good at it considering I kept a journal for English all of last year. Well night.

Entry 57, Sea Fever

 I believe that I have a fever for sweets. I am what you guys would normally call a "sweettooth", I especially love to eat candy bars, to deserts after meals. I can never get sick of eating candies, I can just eat them more and more, day after day. I can understand the author in loving the Ocean so much, loving the sea, loving the sea breeze filling his pores like a whetted knife. I understand all this, but I just don't feel the same way about the ocean after this poem. I believe that this author did a tremendous job in constructing that vivid image in every reader's minds about the sea and his love and affection for the sea, but I just don't understand why would a man spend so much time and effort on the ocean? Maybe it is just me, or I have never been actually sailing, into the deep pacific ocean, living the vagrant gypsy life. The waking up to the sea breeze part seemed very appealing for me, as that seemed like a relaxing, easy life, waking up everyday, doing nothing but finding your way out of this giant maze. I believe that this poem was great, it was fantastically written by a brilliant author that captured my mind, but at the end of the poem, I still don't understand why he loves it so much. Maybe others cannot understand my love for sweets as well.

Entry 56, Public Speaking

 Public speaking is something I use to be very afraid of, and certainly still am under certain circumstances. I believe that public speaking skills is something developed along the way, you must learn how to over come the fear of speaking infront of so many people. This is a big reason why I chose to join MUN, I realized that I will eventually have to get up infront of many people to talk about work, or my ideas that I hope would help contribute to my future career, so I thought to myself, why not? It is actually getting more fun during MUN, as we actively participate in debates about world issues and perform constructive debates among each other in attempt to solve the issues at hand. I believe that everyone needs to be able to hop over that barrier, for me it was more like a "I don't give a crap" attitude that made me a better public speaker I am today than before. It is to a point where, you have to tell yourself, you will never see these people in your life ever again, then you will feel alot better about looking stupid infront of others. I believe that it is just the pressure that few hundred eyes are staring at you, having opinions about you that makes public speaking so scary. I still get nervous alot of times, and it is up to me, to train myself, and shape myself into someone who is confident about everything I say on stage.

Entry 55, Inspiration of Sounds

  I am a huge fan of electronic music. As a part of this new generation, I am just like everyone else, into the loud booming bass in my ears as I waltz down the street. Many people might find this annoying and hard to listen to, but as being a part of this generation, I can let you know that it is more than relaxing to listen to. Alot of times, I seek an escape way, to find other places to hide my emotions, where do I run? Into the world of music. This would be a type of inspiring as well as great sounds of the day, there is also the bad sounds of the day such as the yelling of our head of school, the horrendous school bell coming on every single class, it is just absolutely ridiculous. Now lets not talk about the bad sounds but rather the more ear pleasing pleasures of our day, music. Many songs can trace back to a period of time in my life, when I listen to a song alot, when I get a new song I really like, I tend to keep listening to it and eventually the hype dies out for me. But then after coming back after a long time and listening to the sounds that I use to love, it all added up, everything came rushing back into my mind, the vivid images of my ex girlfriends, the warm feeling when I knew that I could wake up tomorrow not being afraid, not being limited, the sounds are just a memory, as I am living in the present, and such images are gone. Forever.  

Entry 54, Travel

  Many people have bad experiences with transportation, as many had lost family from it, or almost lost themselves throughout the process. It is the most terrifying thing traveling in air, and realizing that your aircraft is currently plunging into the clouds. It is the most frightening thing, traveling home at night, seeing lights of a vehicle coming your way with no intention of stopping. It is the most heart-shaking thing, to see your boat, the one you currently travel on, is being devoured by mother nature. It is our minds, as a human being, to have doubts, to be scared at these ways of transporting. It is simply not ones fault, if they develop a bad image in their mind, as possibly they had lost someone to that sort of transportation, or they had went through a significant event involving that type of transportation. I had many types of fears regarding to transportation, as I have been in car crashes, and other types of events that triggered the fear I currently have today. I had been involved with a car crash over the summer, as my friend was driving, while staring at the beetlenut girls, who ran into another vehicle infront of us. more than one hundred thousand dollars of damage, that event shook me. Everytime I sense the car not stopping, my heart skips a beat.

Entry 53, Write a Sonnet

Plantation Ruined 

Shouldn’t people love mother nature?

As it has provided us with our homes,

Why should nature have to meet departure?

We need to seek answers like Sherlock Holmes

There are plants and animals disrupted

As we have no right to turn to the killers

Waiting for nature to soon be erupted.

We need to stay strong and act like pillars

To spread awareness among the people

And show love for our poor mother nature

Protecting things from apple to maples

Setting up laws in our legislature

Individuals take nature for granted

As we all do, With minds that are slanted 

Entry 50, Tanka Poems

Brown and Yellow Plants

Strong wind blows by like daggers

Piles of racked up leaves

Scarfs being wrapped and shorts gets chaged

Children jumping into leaves

Excitement within

Barks of love as well as welcome

Licks you on your face

Greets you with its tiny paws

A genuine man’s best friend

Transparent Ocean

Calm waves slowly meets sea shore

Reflection of sky

Beige sand dominates ocean floor

Aquatic creatures form cities

Entry 49, Cinquain Poems

Tree

Boring, Steady

Blooming, swaying, shading

Dominating, lack emotions,

Plant life

Nails

Dirty, pointy,

Scratching, protecting, blocks

Unnecessary to paint colors

Girl’s Nails

Chairs

Embrace, Comfort

Structuring, providing,

People sit on when they are tired

Supporting

Entry 52, Respond to Shakespeare

Dear Shakespeare:
  I cannot express the love I have for you as well. I am deeply flattered as butterflies conquer my stomach, hearts swarmed my mind with nothing else but your name in it. I cannot express my emotions at this time, for such a staggering poem. I feel as if I cannot match up to you, I feel as if we were in separate classes of people, we are people from two different places. I know I am more beautiful and better in everyway than summer, but it is just wrong, we are just not the same people, people would not accept our love right now. People would look upon us as if we were freaks, we would then be isolated in this world. William, your charming charisma is absolutely unavoidable, the way you look at me in the eyes, the way you treat me, the way you tell me "you look beautiful tonight", you melt my heart completely, as you have all of my heart, all of my soul. You know I belong to you, but this is simply wrong. We cannot continue like this William! I know this letter is short, this letter may be dreadful for your passion for me, but we cannot be together. No one would ever accept us and understand how we feel about each other. This is simply wrong. Sorry

Entry 51, Heart!

 She used alot of rhyming in her poem. This poem is talking about the act of losing love and how moving on would be better and right now she has to forget that person. I believe that she used this device to again emphasize her heartbroken, hollow body as she is feels dismay towards her lost heart, her love. I believe that it is utterly difficult to separate your feelings and thoughts all together. I believe that the way you are feeling, would be a type of thought. I believe that under circumstances in which you wouldn't care about your own feelings or feelings for others is when you separate your thoughts and feelings. Things you do without considering the consequences, taking drugs, driving home tipsy, these are all things I believe that you would separate your feelings and thoughts. I personally have not yet experienced such feeling as I honestly don't understand how it should feel to separate your thoughts and feelings. I believe that these two are closely related and that it would not be right or okay to separate them. It is also impossible in my opinion. I believe that it is like between chimpanzees and monkeys, they are so closely tied together that I believe that you cannot just separate them. These are feelings that are stuck together, and they need to be stuck together in order for our body to function.

Entry 48, Diamante Poem Birth/Death

Birth

Beautiful, Beginning

Moving, Started, Relaxing

Carriage, Hospital, Coffin, Funeral 

Protected, Achieved,Experienced

Painful, Depressing

Death

Entry 47, Day in Your Life

  The preposterous smell of oily cafeteria food haunts my dreams as I step inside to the cafeteria for some nutritious free lunch. Students lined up like prisoners, one after the other, picking up plates and passing them to the people behind them, ready to devour some "fine" Asian cuisine. As the prisoners pushed along, our plates would be slathered with some crimson blocks of animals onto our rice. The atmosphere of the cafeteria unlike a prison, is filled with happiness. Tables gossiping, people discussing or even duplicating certain homework for the next class. We then indulge ourselves in our food and chattered on throughout lunchtime. School ends, as Tchaikovsky rattles through our ear, we knew it was time to get out of this hell like building. All of us, my friends and I would be going to the pool hall, downtown next to the ambassador hotel. Iron core balls, in the color of the rainbow, are lined up to be bullied by the cue ball. The asparagus colored table tops acts as a playground for us for the next two hours. This is the life I live, countless days spent on our playground, countless days of friends, and countless days of oily Asian food. People always asks us, don't we ever get bored? Not in a million years my friend.

Entry 46, Acrostic Poem

Beautiful in heart, Masculine in structure,
Remembered by his sense of humor and attractive looks
Awesome personality, and
No one else can be like Brandon
Dude
Only person in English class who is
Never late and turns in all the work

Loving student, person, friend, and not
Ugly at all


Chief of army in Cuban Revolution
Helps Fidel Castro achieve the Impossible,
Endless legendary stories of such great man

Guerilla warfare throughout the South America
Utilizes fire arms and maximizes the amount of supporters
Eliminates nation leaders and
Very aggressive and ambitious
An ordinary doctor who accomplished beyond his obligations
Restores communism
Angered governments and got captured in Bolivia

Entry 45, How do Images Convey Mood?

  We all use sensory details in our writing to make them seem more vivid, so we can relate to the things the author is talking about and finally realize that it actually looks like that. It helps us paint a vivid image in our mind and helps us structure them better. Colors help the writer sketch a mood in the reader's mind as certain colors to us already displays a certain mood. Blue for example would be the color of sadness and gloominess and red would be the type of color that would stimulate your appetite. These are all the things that could effect a reader's mood as you use colors in your writing. Sounds, words like onomatopoeia which are words that sounds like the action, will help the reader understand the severity of the situation. Explosion words like bang, boom, can help the reader imagine the magnitude of the explosion, or the jealousy inside a women's heart as she sees another lady holding onto her man as they paraded down the street. Both these things are great when you are describing things in real life. So how do these affect mood in real life? Colors like purple in a room could make you want to kill yourself more as you live in the room, blue can make you more sad, red can stimulate your appetite. These are all the ways it effects my life as we talk about sensory details.

Entry 44, Images, Emotion, Mood

  Some say it use to be comfortable, and some say that it is use to relax our buttocks in different countries. The L shaped, man made creation was designed to make our life better, but does it really in our classroom? The circular holes forms a triangular figure located where our trunks are located is primarily used for us to play our anal acoustics better. When it moves slightly, as it glides along the floor, the waves of pain rushes through our ears and attacks the eardrum, we then all go deaf. We all know this, after being in PAS for long enough, its our legendary blue chairs. The cheap, blue and black craftsmanship was designed to put our comfort at first, but it ends up destroying our ability to hear, and breaks our back as we indulge our brains in the interesting on going debate between the teachers and the students. These backbreaking seats are found nearly every corner of our school. Every room divided on the third floor of what we call "school", has these chairs to secure the students in place as they listen to the interesting lectures of the talented teachers of our school. These chairs do provide one positive thing though, it sure keeps most of us from falling asleep on these things. Its like sitting on sharp metal, its not very comfortable and you cannot keep using it.

Entry 43, Elements of Poetry

  Poetry and normal everyday writing is very different. Different in the style and structure as well as many times the word choices of the two. Poetry has been very popular for a very long time and they have been passed down from generations to generations. After so many poems, I believe that not all of them have to have the exact pattern. Many of them decides to follow a certain rhythm to keep the whole poem organized. Many chooses to use rhyming in their word choices so that they will have better sounding sentences. The structure of the poem is being written in stanzas, which are short paragraphs. Also, the poem sentences are often cut off in the middle to the next line and poems aren't read with the sounds of it, they are read for the punctuation and the rhythm of it. I believe that the word choices are essential to creating a good poem. A good poem expresses sensory details through the five senses and so the author has a goal of letting the audience process the words they are given, into painted, vivid, pictures of what the author is attempting to say. Poems are different than short stories, take a comparison at the short story of Harrison Beurgeron and comparing to Robert Frost's famous poem, "The Road Not Taken". The two poems both tell stories but one uses strong word choices to help the audience visualize the poem.

Entry 42, Poetry

  Poems are not particularly my favorite type of writing. I believe that poems are just often times another very shortly written story on describing a certain thing. I myself is not a big fan of poetry as I often times do not understand the profound meaning in many of the poems. I believe that poems are different than everyday writing because they use stanzas, the format of the essay is different, as well as things like, word choices that forces you to paint a more vivid image in your head and often times words that rhymes. Many times, a song turns out to be poetry, but not all poetries are songs. Many songs use words to describe things and makes the audience get a better idea of what they are talking about. Poems are particularly great at describing a certain thing very indepth, a simple smile of a child could be written with beautiful words in a poem. Often times, poems are used in many places in the world, things like advertisements, to the slogans of certain shops could be a type of poetry. I believe that poems cannot express things more clearly than regular writing does and there are not many things regular writing can have that a poem cannot. I believe one of the only things that poems cant have other than writing is the format, as poems have stanzas and writings have paragraphs, and simple listings of objects. I do not like poems alot, I find them very boring

Entry 41, Analyzing Visuals

   I believe that the visible lines and the bold color schemes and choices are all things I notice first. The color differences are the first things I notice as I look into this photo. The surface of the dragon as well as the sea can be a bit bumpy if you look at it. The dragon has scales all over the body and the ocean waves have stripes and waves splashing. The color was the first thing I had noticed as the author had used orange for the dragon and blue and white for the ocean. The color choices have a big contrast within them therefore causing the dragon to be popped out. The only repeating patterns are the scales on the dragon's body as well as the ocean waves behind the dragon. I believe that the artist is trying to show that the vast ocean is all the same so therefore he uses the repeating patterns. The orange and blue choices of colors makes the picture stand out, makes the dragon appear before us rather than blended into the background. The stripes on the ocean waves also reveals that the ocean waves are not very smooth as it forms a triangular shape and repeats itself after again. I believe that the artist is trying to show that the ocean, after miles and miles, every single wave is still the same. One after the other, splashing against each other. The picture makes me feel slightly scared at the dragon, it seems as if it was going to pop out of the picture and eat me as I am very scared of both snakes and dragons.

Entry 40, Poetry and Imagination

 This was very well written. Sometimes I hope that I could become writers that could make words dance and appear the way they do as this author did. I believe that this was saying that he needs to read poetry, like how he  would be eating something he loves, and he would be devouring the poems with enjoyment and sparkles in his eyes. This was written to describe how much passion and how much the poetries meant to the writer. Imagine, a hot summer day and you are sitting on the curb infront of your house and you got this juicy slice of watermelon ready for you to devour and as you are eating it, the juice drips off the side of the mouth and you enjoy it more than ever. I believe that poets use these metaphors to paint a more vivid imagery in our mind as poems are suppose to paint a picture in our mind and metaphors like this can help us understand how much this meant for the writer. It is very hard to come up with something this great as Mark Strand is a professional writer. I hope I am able to come up with such strong and vivid language in near future. 

Entry 39, Sacrifices

  Sacrifices happen all the time around the world. There are indeed many different types of sacrifices, from common religious sacrifices which is commonly some sort of food or meal of some sort for the god and goddesses, and there are other sacrifices where we make for each other as human beings. Small sacrifices would be something like, letting the pedestrians cross first before you zoom your way across traffic, or not eating as much lobster at the buffet so other people could have the chance to have some. These are all very common sacrifices people as a society share and do. I have made tons of sacrifices, I believe that I actually sacrifice the most in a relationship. People don't normally see it, or people can never picture it, but throughout all my relationships, atleast the more serious ones, I was the one who would have to be the slave, getting stuff for them when they don't want to, brushing off the pepper because they don't like their food spicy. But, I still was willing to do it and I still am willing to, because at the end of the day, nothing beats the feeling of having someone love you, someone care about you. I think the reason behind sacrificing for others in a relationship is just simply because that I want to baby them and make them feel loved. I don't regret doing it and I  will continue doing it no matter how old I am. That is just one sacrifice I will continue doing for the loved ones.

Entry 38, Winter Break

  I did not do anything especially amazing this Winter Break. I just stayed home for the whole time and hung out with friends. I went out with a lot of people during the break to hang out, sleep until the afternoon, and just live a lazy life. I guess people are right when they tell you to enjoy the moments where you can just relax, as you get older, those chances lessens as you are piled of loads of work. I know I don't even have so much work yet, but I just think that I have to take advantage while I still can. Two weeks, I spent it everyday with Ingrid, nearly every single day I guess, people might think that's boring, but I never find any of those dates boring. I love spending time with her. For two weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking about future careers, I have came up with nothing eventually. I guess its never too early to start thinking about what you are going to do for the rest of your life right? I admire those people who can just know what they are destined to do. I hope that there are jobs out there that are suitable for me and I hope I can find a correct direction of career approach. I also went back to my grandparent's house in Gao Shong and came back on New Years. I had the best New Years this year with everyone I love. My friends and all my family. Much love for them, Happy 2012. May this year be more amazing than last year.

Entry 37, Why be a Prodigy?

  Coming from an Asian family, I have yet experienced the craziness of the parents who wants their kids to excel in every possible subject and talent. I was never pushed to learn the piano, I was never pushed to really work hard or anything, my parent's attitude were always just about giving your best shot. In the story of Two Kinds, Jing Mei was pushed into doing alot of things and countless attempts of discovering her talents, sadly, they did not discover any. Her motivation was just to please her mom, just to be the little obiedient girl the Asian culture always promoted. She wanted to also try to see if she is a genius at a certain subject as well. The feeling of not being able to achieve such goal has led to the rebellious act of Jing Mei. She thinks that she is nothing like what her mother wanted her to be, and therefore she did not want to keep trying to be something she would never be and never achieve. The change bitters the relationship with her mother as she had became rebellious and opposing the orders of her mother. This story acts as the differences of American culture and Asian culture fighting against each other. I often change my mind about many things. It all depends on the experiences of the previous events. I believe that many factors can pressure people into changing their mind, mostly peer pressure from friends and family, basically outside forces.