Response to Tiffany's Post about Love, and Vinh. (Wow... that sounds kinda wrong....)

This is something interesting that I found on Tiffany's Blog.

How is love an illusion? First of all, do you know what love is? What is love? When is it love? How is it love? IF you said it's an illusion that we want, then why do we want it? Love is not an illusion. Love is trust. I hope you believe that trust is NOT in anyway an illusion. Love has so many characteristics that there is no way it can be an illusion! Anywho, a dream is a visual of what your mind is thinking. Well, to me it is. What is the pressure you are talking about? When you learn the anatomy and physiology of the brain, you will understand. Do you think reality will be a dream since you said "only nothing but illusion is remain."

 This was something interesting that I found. It was interesting to be looking through Google Docs and to find something like this. Now, I do not really know what to respond to in this post and what part of the content, the part on love and emotions, or the part where it seems like an argument is taking place.

Now, for the section on love, I have many mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it seems that love is supposed to be this awesome thing that will make all of your anger and hatred go away, and when I look at some couples, I can see that taking place. When someone is really angry and they meet up with their loved one, it is noticeable that they seem to get less angry and get happier. That seems to be a very positive effect of love.

Now on the argument part, that was something that seems interesting and funny to me. I thought that it was uncommon to fin people arguing over what would seem to be sort of an online forum. However, now that it has actually happened, I am curious to see what would happen. Would the argument escalate? Or would it be resolved without more harm? What could be the “repercussion's” of this?

Response to Speak 3

The last part of the book speak was enlightening. In the beginning of the book, there was a lot of talk about why Melinda was such a weirdo, why no one liked her, why she seemed so creepy and why she was such a loner. Throughout the book, her personality is explored and we learn more about what happend to her and why she became the person that she is.

In the 3rd part of the book, they talk about her experience with her "party" and how she got raped in the party. It seemed messed up and really wrong that she got raped and she did not even know what was going on. Even worse is that she knows who the person who raped her is and tries to tell people, but because she called the cops on the party, she is shunned and hated at her new high school. In the last part of the book, it is revealed that the person that raped her is Andy Evans, the person that she has been calling the beast and IT throughout the entire book. Before it was explained, I always wondered why she called him IT, and what he could have possibly done to her to make her hate him so much.

The really messed up part in the book was when Melinda tried to explain to Rachel why Andy Evans was such a bad person, and why she should stay away from him. She tried to start a conversation up with Rachel and help her, even though Rachel abandoned her in high school and treated her like she did not even exist for the whole freshman year of high school. When Rachel heard that Melinda was raped by Andy Evans, all Rachel said was that Melinda was a liar, that she was jealous of what Rachel had, and that Melinda was a horrible horrible person for lying about being raped.

One of the funny and satisfying parts of the book was when Heather came back to Melinda. Heather had come back begging for Melinda’s help because she had been given an impossible assignment by the other girls in her group. Melinda felt that Heather was rude, selfish, and self centered, so she finally did something about it and told Heather to go away and refused to help her. That was a very satisfactory part of the book, because it was so nice to see that Melinda actually got revenge on someone that self-centered and selfish.

Response to Technology

This is something interesting that I found on Crystal's Blog:

This made me rethink my question and led me to agree with what my group members were saying. In the modern society were technology is commonplace and accessible, many of our decisions are based off of what computers tell us. Even our identities are controlled through computers through our social security numbers or ID numbers. These numbers are assigned by society in order for computers to easily keep track of information about each citizen that resides in a particular state or country. On a more personal scale, whenever a person creates a social networking account, they identify themselves on the net by what they choose to reveal or say about themselves. Then people around the world will solely identify that person by what they see on their computer and not take the effort to know more about the person other than what is written on their screen.

This is an interesting thing to think about. Many people think that technology has overrun the lives of human beings. I feel that this is true in some ways. For example, for jobs, you did not need to use much technology. All you had to do was you job manually and you were done. Nowadays, you have to use technology a LOT in the world of business. You probably cannot go a single day without going on the computer.

On another note, many people are addicted to games. So many video game consoles and games are coming out these days, and more and more people are getting addicted to them. One man has even gone so far as to marry the girl in his game. This is kinda of a scary fact. We even watched a video in Sutherland’s class talking about the video games usage in the human race, and how that number is increasing and increasing. At the rate this is going, the whole human species may become addicted to games. Also, as Crystal said, right now, even if there are people not addicted to playing video games, there are a LOT of people addicted to social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Response to Speak 2

We discussed a lot of interesting this about the book Speak in our discussion. This part of the book was longer than the other one, so we had more to discuss this time. One thing at the very end of our section really stood out though. There was more to the party that she broke up than just her breaking a random party up. Apparently, she got raped in the party that she went to. She was dancing with this senior and they went into a secluded area. He pushed her down and raped her. The next thing she knew, she was on the phone and the police were saying “Don’t worry, we will be there soon.” This is probably the cause of all of her problems, mentally and socially.

For example, when David was asking her to go to his house to celebrate the team winning. She rejected him because she was too scared of something happening because he was a guy. At that time, it was not clear what was wrong, but the last part of the book makes it clear. She does not want to go to David’s house because she is scared of him doing something to her. She is distrustful even when she knows that his parents will be there. The revelation that she was raped makes her relationship with her friends even more messed up.

Her friends did not even understand or try to understand that she was raped at the party, and just abandoned her because she broke it up. If they were her real friends, why would they not try to listen to her side of the story? Why would they just try abandon her and never try to help her again? That does not seem like something  real friend would do. Especially Rachel, her “best” friend. She did not act like a best friend. She does not even act like real friend at all.

The most messed up part of the book was when Heather abandoned her. Heather abandoned her because she felt that Melinda was too depressing and because she had a better group of “friends” This makes Heather one of the most messed up people in the book, because all Melinda did was help her out, and Heather repaid her by abandoning her.

Response to Sleep by Carly Cheung response post

This is something interesting that I found on David's Blog.

I can relate to her in so many ways. Typically on a school night, I would work until I finish the homework that is due the next day. Typically, my max amount of time that I usually end at is at 12 midnight. If I past that time, then I would not get the minimum requirements of sleep of 7 hours. If I do past that time limit if doing homework, I would feel sleepy all morning long. I don't really pay attention in class and always find myself daydreaming, but I never sleep.

I find that some of what David says is very true. If I do my homework and it takes until 12 midnight, then I find that I do not get enough sleep. When I wake up to go to school in the morning, I feel dead and I feel like a zombie, I just do not want to get up. When I get to school, all i think about is going to sleep, and it makes it really hard to concentrate when the teachers are talking. For example, when I am in Mrs.McCoy’s room for math, I get drowsy. In her class, she talks almost all of the time, and all we do is sit there and listen to her and take notes. Also, she turns off all of the ceiling lights and turns on these tiny lamps that do not produce much light so I feel extremely drowsy. Because of this I cannot concentrate in her class and all I want to do is to go to sleep and to forget about everything that has happened. This is not something that I want happening, because concentrating in her class is hard enough, and I do not need anything else to distract me from concentrating. Also, sometimes, I not only feel drowsy in math class, but I start to feel more drowsy in History, Writing class, and maybe even in Science class. This is a big concern for me too because I need to improve in those classes, and since I have no concentration, I cannot improve and will probably do worse.

Response to Speak

I learned a lot from my table mates. They taught me that there were a lot of things in the book that I did not catch and that there were a lot of things that may have been hidden in the book that I did not even realize were there, However, this part of the book was so short that I do not think there was enough things to discuss with my table mates. Our reading only had 40 pages to read, so there were not that many interesting things to discuss about.

One of the interesting things that we discussed about was how isolated she seemed in her life. (Melinda) We thought that she seemed isolated because she had no friends at all, except for the new girl that she had a one-sided friendship with. Also, in her family life, she was very isolated at home. She did not have much contact with her parents, and when her parents came home, all she would do would be to go upstairs into her room while her parents left her alone and watched t.v in their living room. She did not even see them that much because they were working when she came home, she lived alone from after school until they came home from work.

We felt that this was kind of sad and that this may be one of the reasons that Melinda does not talk a lot in the story, because she does not have that much experience relating to other people, whether they are her own age or if they are adults. Another example of this may be her school teacher, Mr. Neck. when she angers him and he asks what she is doing, all she does is stand there and not say anything. She may not answer to him because she does not know how to talk to teachers. She might not also be able to relate to angry people, because she does not relate to people most of the time.

Another thing that we discussed was the mirror in her room and why she took it down and made it face the wall. We said that this might have happened because she was afraid to see what she had become, and she did not want to see how she changed from last year to this year.

Garcia Girls, A Disappointment?

1. What was the author's purpose(s) in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved?
• Hint: If your book has an introduction, it's a good place to look for direct clues about the book's intended purpose and good quotes to include in your review.
  For what audience(s) is this book intended, and how can you tell? (In other words, for whom would you recommend this book?)
  1. What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?
  2. How would you describe the author's style of writing? What's your opinion of the style?
  • You must include a passage or two from the text if you choose this question.

How the Garcia Girls Lost their accents by Julia Alvarez is somewhat biographical book written in the form of many short stories and separated into 3 different sections, each talking about a different part of the sister's lives. The book starts out in the most recent part of the character's lives and continues on into the earliest parts. It is about the lives of the 4 sisters, and it talks about how their lives were in American, the Dominican Republic, how immigration had changed their lives, and how growing up as immigrants changed the way that they grew up and developed.


Immigration is a controversial topic. I feel that there were a lot of things in Alvarez’s story that talked about immigration and that there are many aftereffects, good and bad. I feel that this book was intended for everyone to read, but to have different affects on different readers. For example, if a regular person that was born a citizen of the country that they were in, they would have much different feelings about the book than that of an immigrant. A non-immigrant would not be able to relate to many of the things that happen in her book, such as the story of Yolanda, her experience in school, how hard it was to learn and speak English, and how painful it is when other kids make fun of your English and tell you to go back home because you are not “one of them”. An immigrant who has children who have experienced this before or were children themselves when they immigrated and experienced it themselves, then know what it feels like to be excluded because of how they talk, act or look. She could have been informing non-immigrants about how it feels like to be someone that does not belong, how much it hurts inside, and how much it changes a person, for better or worse. She also might have been telling the immigrants that they are not the only ones that face this problem and that there are other people that face the same things as them and that they know how they are feeling so they can comfort them. This sort of makes it more appealing to immigrants, because they can actually relate to the book.

I think that a weakness and a strength of this book is the was that it is written. For example, "A high concrete wall continues for about a quarer of a mile." (Pg 14)  We have no idea why having guards and walls are necessary. "Here she comes, Miss America!" Yolanda clasps her brwo and groans melodramatically as expected." (Pg 4) We have no idea if this is a common occurence in the character's life. We also do not know why the cousin is there and what purpose she serves in advancing the story.This is confusin because we have no background information of the main characters yet. "No, no senorita, Nuesto placer." (Pg 21)We have no idea what the Spanish words mean. Right now, I can assume from the context that it is a statement to deny and payment from being received, but then we do not know why the guards do not want any payment. She wrote this book in a complicated format, where you start reading in the end or most recent part of the character’s lives, but as you read, you slowly go farther and farther into the younger years of the characters. I think that this is a strength because it lets the reader find things out on their own and they can come to their own conclusions of the book with out someone telling them what they have to get from the book and what they have to know. This is also kind of exciting because all of the things are found out by you, so you have a sense of accomplishment from doing things on your own. I feel that this is a weakness however because this may be confusing for some people. Some people may be unused to this kind of writing however, because not a lot of people have read books like this before. This makes it harder for some people to understand, and it may annoy some people. This was true such as when our whole class read it. A lot of the the people in my group did not understand the book, so they did not enjoy reading all of it. This made the book a chore to read, and no one likes to do chores, so we missed a lot of details because we treated it as a chore.

This may have also confused so many people so much that they had no idea what was going on in the book. I for know, know that in the beginning of the book, I had no idea because the structure was so confusing. I was told that the book would get easier to understand the further you went into the book, but while I was reading the first part, I did not understand much. For example, when they were talking about the sister's past, and how their past had affected what they were like in the present, such as how one of the sisters had been kicked out of their home. "But the father kept to his revenge. For months no one could mention the daughter's name in his presence, though he kept calling them all Sophia and quickly corrected himself. When the daughter's baby girl was born, the mother put her foot down." (Pg.32) The girl had wanted to make things up with their father, but I had no idea what she wanted to make up to him, because I did not know what had happened, all I knew was that their father was angry at her and did not want to see her again, I found out later in the middle part of the book that their father was angry at her because she had fallen in love with a foreign man that their father did not know and did not approve of, so he threw her out. I feel that the structure makes it satisfying when you read along, because it gives more and more details to what had happened in the past the further you read, which is a good thing about the structure of the book. It is so confusing in the beginning of the book, because the beginning of the book is the conclusion of her life, which makes it seem like the conclusion of the book, people may give up reading the book after a couple of pages or chapter.

I began to want to stop reading the book because I did not understand what was going on, who the characters were, and what the story was about. However, since I had to keep going on and on, I eventually found out the good points of the book, and that was exciting and made it satisfying to keep reading and to finish the book. The end of the book was also interesting because it summed up the entire book after talking about the beginning of the girls's lives. It made the book seem as if it were a cycle, that it was never ending. This was as interesting book, it may have annoyed people to read it, and it may have made some people angry, but it was a satisfactory read, and I am glad that I read it.

Garcia Girls Reflection 3

I felt that this part of the book was kinda of scary. I felt that this was true because when Yolanda went to the female artist to go and develop her artistic talents, she ended up meeting with a crazy sculptor that could not sculpt the face of a statue of the Virgin Mary. He ended up scaring Yolanda and she ended up breaking her arm. I felt that this was kind of scary because it is not often that you see a naked man chained to a wall straddling a inanimate statue in your life. It was probably something that affected her for a long time. It would have also affected her for a long time because she ended up seeing the statue of the Virgin Mary later on in a festival or a celebration with her own face on it.

It was also scary because of the Dominican Republic police that wanted to convict her family of some crime. They would go into her house and scare all of the residents because of what they represented to the family. Apparently, the secret police suspected her family of being rebels and suspected them of doing something “illegal” to the country, so “treason”. Their father was so scared of them that he ended up building a small chamber in his house that he can hide in when they show up. Whenever they would come and visit his house, he would hide in the chamber and get another family member to cover for him while he was gone.

When they were escaping the Dominican Secret Police to go to the United States, Yolanda was almost raped by one of the Secret Police Agents. This probably scarred her for life even if she only remember bits and pieces of it. This was a traumatic event in her life, and probably changed her irrevocably.

All of the events that happened early on in her life seemed to be traumatizing and they all seemed to have negative effects on her life and her as a person. This kind of amazes and shocks me because I find it unbelievable that people could have so many bad things happen to them and they can come of it for better or for worse.

Response to Drugs

This is something interesting that I found at Andy's blog:

   Drugs aren't good for the body. They can give you cancer or make you crave for more. But why do people consume the drugs in the first place? Sugar is a drug, but it gives flavor into our food and not harmful unless consumed in large amounts. Caffeine, which can be found in coffee and Coca Cola, is an addictive drug, but it helps keep the body awake, which some people need. But drugs like cocaine, mariguana, and cigarettes are even more harmful and addictive, so why even begin to use them?   Drugs aren't good for the body. They can give you cancer or make you crave for more. But why do people consume the drugs in the first place? Sugar is a drug, but it gives flavor into our food and not harmful unless consumed in large amounts. Caffeine, which can be found in coffee and Coca Cola, is an addictive drug, but it helps keep the body awake, which some people need. But drugs like cocaine, mariguana, and cigarettes are even more harmful and addictive, so why even begin to use them?

I feel that what Andy says is true, but only parts of it are true. When he talks about illegal drugs, what he is saying is true, because they were outlawed in the first place because they were too addictive, and they ruined people's lives. Also, when he talks about the legal drugs that we consume, it is only partly true because the government is supposed to limit the quantity that you consume so that you will not get addicted to it and ruin your lives from it.

When he talks about drugs in general however, I feel that he does not know enough about other drugs to be taking his position about drugs in general. I say this because there are legal drugs that you can take for certain problems within your body.For example, you take Tylenol, which is a drug, for certain problems within your body. For example, you take it if you have a fever, if you are sick, etc. There are also other drugs that doctors prescribe to you in order to treat some problems within your body. Those prescribed drugs are still drugs, which he considers "bad: but they can be taken for good effects in your body. I feel that drugs are neither good or bad, but it depends on how you use the drugs and what you use the drugs for. If you are using  it for recreational purposes, or if you are using it to treat certain ailments in your body.

Response to The Future

This is something interesting that I found on Shiyun's blog:

 What does future mean? What is the future that awaits us all? I have been thinking about my future recently and thought that there is no answer to what that will await me. There is no way I would know what my future will be like, for I have to decide that myself. For every decision that I make in life, there will be a result to things. No one can really change what they have done or go back to the past and start over again. We will also have to look at the road ahead and make better decisions.

This was interesting to me because I feel that a lot of people think about their futures during this period of their life. Right now, I feel that there are a lot of people right now within my age group that are thinking about their futures, and are wondering what will happen to them in the future. Such as, will I pass this class? Will I get into this college? etc etc. I feel that these sort of worries are sometimes stressful and somewhat annoying because they stress you out and they start getting annoying after a while. I feel that it is sometimes important however, because it reminds you of your goals in life and it keeps you in your "road to your goals" and it makes it so that you will never seem to lose your goals in life and so that you will never seems like an aimless person in life that just drifts around.

  There are something that I really regretted. Things that I feel that I should have done better, but there is no turning back. I have to create a new future and everything is depended on what decisions that I make.

Some times I feel that there are some things that I have done in my life that I really regret that I wish I could take back. This feeling annoys me sometimes because it makes me somewhat depressed because I start thinking about the things that I could have done differently and I get regretful when I think about what "could" have happened.

Garcia Girls Reflection 2

I felt that the second part of the How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was interesting, but somewhat messed up. It started off interesting, because it talked about the time period in the United States where there were a lot of hippies and drugs were not as restricted as they are now. 

Also there was a lot of racial tension between the Americans and the immigrants that had just arrived from the own country to the united states. I felt that it was messed up because they were being mean to someone just because they could not speak English properly because it was not their first language, and I know how that feels because English is not my first language either. If you grow up speaking a certain language and then you suddenly have to learn another one, then it is extremely hard because every language has different words and different ways of pronouncing each word. I dislike it when people make fun of how someone talks because they are not used to speaking in another language and are more used to speaking in their native language. 

This part of the book was also creepy because of the child molester that stalked kids in cars and targeted little kids that were alone. I felt that he had scarred Yolanda for life and that he was someone that should not be left in the streets. He acted creepily to Yolanda, and I think that he gave her a bad impression of American men and that he was one of the many bad examples of males in her life. 

I think that she has a bad impression of the police and that general branch of the government. I feel that was because she still remembers the times in the Dominican republic where the police were bad people that should be avoided at all costs because of they could and would do to you if they found you guilty of something. It was kind of sad because law enforcement is supposed to be something that kept you safe and gave you a sense of security in your life, not destroy your sense of security and make you feel threatened.

Response to Free write"jay's quiz"

I found something.......interesting..... on Peter's Blog:

  That is the basic of what the action potential does. On the quiz, there is one big section of filling the balances. This is a section which Ms. Ronit gave us a whole paragraph, and she left some balances for us to complete the whole process of the Action poential. Above the whole paragraph, Ms. Ronit put " The story of a Nerve Impulse" which describes how the whole procce that the neurontransmitters sent to the axon terminal. All in all, the full procce is talking about how the nerve impulses sent to the brains like when we touch, and feel the temprature of something, the impulses would sent to the brain in order to tell you move away your hands from something is damaging you. However, at the 4th side of the quiz, there is a short-answer question which asks: what is the name or tittle for that figgure? Jay Pan, the funnest sophmore I have ever seen, he wrote: The story of a Nerve Impulse"-- he was just copying the third page of the figgure for the fill in balance question, and the tittle is nothing to the question for the short answer!

I feel that this is very biased and unfair against me! I did not do anything wrong.... I think......  All I did was guess on a test answer because I did not know the answer, other people do that too! Just because "I" made a dumb mistake does not mean that I have to be flamed for it! Though he compliments me later on in his post, I still feel wronged and I demand restitution! I can not be blamed for making a dumb mistake that anyone can make if they are bored, tired, and / or lazy enough. Hopefully, no one else will read his post and know any more of what I did, because I know that a lot of my friends have already seen it and commented about how dumb a mistake it was. I do not really have high hopes in people not reading it and I feel that it is a lost cause.  I feel better because I know that this is just joke, I think...... and that he doe not really mean anything by this. I was just kidding in my post however, and you do not have to trust anything that I have said because I just writing things and I did not mean anything with them. I really do not care that he did this, but I am kind of glad because I now have something to respond to. Also, Mr. Sutherland, if you read this and think if is bs, please count this as a blog post.

Response to Freewrite: ShiYun's evilness

I found this interesting topic on Phuong's blog:

  This blog is dedicated to Shi Yun. Of course, you would think that I would say how nice she is and how friendly she is but I’m going to say the opposite: I’m writing about how EVIL she is (with her permission). Not to be mean, but everyone must be aware of her. She may look innocent and quiet, but that is only to hide her evil side. Her evilness started last year, where she slips with her “innocent” image. She began to show her evil thoughts toward her friends. She also began to develop many contagious “diseases”.

I felt that this was something that was kind of interesting and was kind of funny. I would have never thought of her that way if someone had no told me about it. I used to think of Shiyun the way that Phuong described, innocent and quiet. However, looking at what Phuong have said about her and what other people said about her,  believe that my opinion of her is changing. Now, I think of her of her a less innocent person and more as a person that can hide what they are really feeling and/or thinking inside.
Also, Shiyun, I'm sorry if this sounds mean, I'm not trying to bash you. =D

Her first disease was the Typo Disease.Her second disease is the Mispronunciation Disease. Her third disease is the Sighing Disease.

I felt that this is actually something that I see often in some of the people that she interacts with, and her friends. For example, when I talk to Phuong now, she will mispronounce some of the words that she says, sighs a lot, and when I talk to her online, she has typos too. I feel that this is interesting and something to be feared. I feel that this is something to be feared because I feel that Phuong has spread it to me. For example, when I type things, such as for an essay or in a conversation, I have a lot of typos and it annoys me because I have to go back and fix them. Also, when I talk now, I feel that I sigh a lot now, and it is annoying me because I feel that it is something unnecessary that I have to do.

Garcia Girls Reflection 1

I think that the authors purpose in this story was to show how the lives of immigrant Americans are different from the lives of regular Americans that were born here. I can sort of tell because she describes the lives of her and her sisters after they arrived in America. She talks about how America has changed them, and how different they seem from when they had first arrived from the Dominican Republic. I also feel that they have had a lot of bad luck in their lives. They have had a lot of bad relationships, and they have a lot of bad luck with the men that they choose. For example, Yolanda has had a lot of bad breakups and a lot of bad relationships with men. She also went crazy, got sentenced to a crazy house, and still managed to fall in love with a doctor working there. She had also previously gotten into a marriage with a man named John. She felt unsure when they had gotten married, and they eventually broke up. They had started out loving each other, but they eventually drifted further and further apart. They broke up when she found out that he had to make a list to decide whether or not to marry her. She also met this man named Rudy while in college. He seemed nice at first, but it turned out that he only went to her because he wanted to have sex with her. He spent a couple of months with her, and they had also written a pornographic manuscript with her. They grew very close, but then broke apart when Yolanda found out. Also, five years later, Rudy showed up at Yolanda’s house again, with a bottle of champagne, and all he said to her was “It looks like you’ve gotten over your old hangups, so Jesus Christ, lets just fuck.” I feel that this was one of the many parts of her life where men have really messed with her, and where she has had her feelings trampled on over and over. Sadly, this may not be the only time where such a jerk does that to her and messes her life and feelings up.

A Look, Into How I Write

Looking back at my Freshman year, my writing has changed and maybe improved a lot. back then, I did not really do much at all. I did not have to put much effort into the assignments that I had to do for my English class, and I had still passed the class with an A+. Last year, all I really had to do was write any random thing that came to mind, put my ideas together, and finish all of the final touches and I could turn it in and call it an essay. Due to that way of doing things, my writing had stayed the same for the last year. This year however, all of the quick writes that I have done have helped me overcome the writers block that I encounter during the stories and essays that I write. Instead of just rambling on and on n my essays and write many any redundant things just to take up space and to take up the word limit, I actually write things that make sense, flow well, and with new takes on things or new ideas so my writing doesn’t get boring redundant, or bothersome. When I started out, I had to grope around for things to say in my blogs, like this, I continued on with this idea here because I didn’t have much to write about and it was easier to continue on with this idea. It may have been the lazier thing to do, but it let me flesh out my ideas much more and it gave me a taste of how it is like when you write a bunch of stories in a series, such as a chapter book. I started out just writing random things just to fill out the quota of blog posts that I had to do. Later on though, I started writing about things that interested me.

Usually, when I write, I write in response to things that other people have written. I do this because it is much more interesting and fun for me to first look and what someone else has written, and then try to write something to agree or disagree with what they are trying to say. I am also inspired when I see, read, or hear about something that I believe in or that I feel about being talked about by others. Since it is sorta of a controversial topic for me, i have a lot more ideas and other things to write for it.  For example, this was written for a topic that had really interested me. Crystal had written about a theory about alternate worlds, which is a subject that changes the idea of the way you think of the world. It also made you rethink how you made some of the choices that you have made in life, such as if they were fated to happen or if you actually have “free will” in life.   Since I was actually INTERESTED in doing the work, I felt that I HAD to respond to it, I had fun doing so., and did a much better job then before. I feel that I do much better work if I am motivated to, interested in the work, and if I do not feel like I am forced into dong the work. Another example of writing for a topic that interested me would be this. This was a blog post that was written by Phuong as a response to a video that we had watched in class about video games. It was a very interesting and motivating topic to write about. I had a lot to write about for it because the video and Phuong’s Post had so many interesting things to write about and to respond to.

I feel that the open ended writing that I do for the blogs is much better than the more structured pieces of academic writing, but at the same time, I feel that it is harder to write for and more complex. For example, for this Reflection essay, there are so many things that I could write about and still be within the bounds of this assignment. This makes it much more fun and interesting BECAUSE I can write about whatever I want to and still be within the bounds of the assignment. On the other hand, it is hard to come up with ideas of what to write about for the essay, because there are so many possibilities of what I could write about. For example, for the Reflection essay, I could just ramble on and on about the things that I have done and about the things that I have accomplished for the essay and I would be within the requirements of the essay. On the other hand, I could write about the writings that I have been assigned to do in class and talk about how they have changed me, made me a better writer, etc. etc. Also, like I was talking about earlier about the blog posts, it is much harder to come up with something to write about when there are no instructions about what to write than to write about a topic that is already given to you and all you have to do is write and write within the bounds of the instructions for an essay. For example, in the first couple of blog posts that I have posted up, such as this and this, took a long time to write and I encountered writers block many many times when I tried to write for it. On the other hand when I had to write an essay about the book “Night” by Elie Weizel, it was easier and took less time to do because all I had to do was follow the instructions that were given about the essay, and when I had followed them completely, I had pretty much written up the entire essay. Since the assignments are so open ended, it is a pleasure and a challenge to write for it.

Change- For Better or Worse

People change a lot though out their lifetime. In the story Night, by Elie Wiesel, Elie recalls and retells what happened to him during the Holocaust. He talks about what  he witnessed and encountered in the concentration camps. Because of that, he changed, for better or worse. During the story, he struggles with his inner demon. He doesn’t understand himself anymore and rediscovers himself throughout the story. He loses his faith in God and his childlike innocence.

In the beginning of the story, Ellie is a very religious person. He faithfully believes in God and that God can do anything to help anyone. However, as the story progresses, he begins to question the existence of God and starts to become an agnostic. “Where is God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him: Where is he? Here he is-He is hanging here on this gallows.” (Wiesel 62 ) This shows that his faith has is getting shaky and isn’t as strong as it was before. Instead of believing in everything that God does, he starts to doubt that God exists or if God is omnipotent and all benevolent. He also starts to “reject” God in his life, and he does not do the things that he used to believe pleased God. “I no longer accepted God’s silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against him. And i nibbled my crust of bread.” (Wiezel 66)  In the beginning, he was a very religious youth that wanted to become a rabbi, however, by the middle or the end of the book, he become agnostic and either doesn’t know or doesn’t believe that there is a God in the world.

Around the middle to the end of the story, Elie loses hope in life, and hope in escape of the labor/concentration camp. In the beginning of the story he and the people in his villiage are really hopeful about the camps. They were thinking that it would only be temporary, that it would be over before you know it, and that everything would be all right, everyone would be safe. “People said: The Russian army’s making gigantic strides forward...Hitler won’t be able to do us any harm, even if he wants to.” (Wiezel 6) This shows that in the beginning of the story, when the Germans were almost about to arrive or already arrived in Elie’s village, the Jewish people we still unconcerned and still had hope that they war would end with them escaping unscathed. Even when they are put into camps, they still have hope that other people will come and rescue them. However, as the story goes on and on, they start losing hope of a rescue and they feel like they will be kept in the camps forever. “The camp was to be sent further back. Where to? To somewhere right in the depths of Germany, to other camps; there was no shortage of them. “When?” “Tomorrow evening” “Perhaps the Russians will arrive first.” “Perhaps” We knew perfectly well that they would not.” (Wiezel 78) “I learned after the war the fate of those who had stayed behind in the hospital. They were quite simply liberated by the Russians two days after the evacuation.” (Wiezel 78) This showed how Elie and his father had given up hope that they would be liberated. For example, in the first quote, the prisoners were discussing how the Russians were coming and that they camp was being evacuated. They didn’t even have the hope that the Russians would come in time and rescue them from their tormentors.In the second quote, Elie and his father had run away from the infirmary that they were being kept in, and they had run back to the German concentration camps. Even though they knew that the Russians were coming and the Germans were gone form the camp, they didn’t have the hope that they would survive in the camp long enough for the Russians to arrive. The sad part is that they Russians actually DID show up two days later and liberated everyone there. He had turned into a less hopeful and less trusting person.

By the end of the story., his opinion of his father starts to change. Instead of loving him unconditionally like he did before they went into the concentration camp, he starts to wonder what would happen if he abandoned his father,how much more freedom he would have, and how much longer he would live. He starts feeling that his father is holding him back and that he would survive longer and better if his father was gone. “Its too late to save your old father. I said to myself. You ought to be having 2 rations of bread, 2 rations of soup.” (Wiezel 105) Also, he did not want to give his father some soup even though his father really wanted and probably needed it. “I gave him what was left of my soup. But it was with a heavy heart. I felt that I was giving it up to him against my will. No better than Rabbi Eliahou’s son had I withstood the test.” (Wiezel 102) Before the concentration camp, he would have done whatever his father told him to do, since it was his father. Now however, he doesn’t even want to give him soup without a heavy heart and an unwillingness. He also sort of abandons his father in the end. When his father was clubbed in the head by a SS guard because he kept moaning Elie’s name, his father was sent to the brink of death. His father was calling Elie’s name, summoning him to his side, but Elie just sat there and looked at his father as he died. “He went on calling me. The officer dealt him a violent blow on the head with his truncheon. I did not move. I was afraid. My body was afraid of also receiving a blow. Then my father made a rattling noise and it was my name “Eliezer”. I could see that he was still breathing-spasmodically. I did not move.” “Bending over him, I stayed gazing at him for over an hour, engraving into myself the picture of his blood-stained face, his shattered skull. Then I had to go to bed. I climbed into my bunk, above my father, who was still alive.” (Wiezel 106) The concentration camp changed his relationship towards his dad. While he used to respect and love his dad, now, he contemplates letting his father die, doesn’t want to give him food, and wonders how his life would be if his father was gone. His thoughts about family and his previous loyalty to his father and family was shaken. He is now a boy that simply want to survive on his own with out anyone else dragging him down, such as his aging and sickly father.

People change a lot throughout their lifetimes, for better or for worse. All of the things that Elie has witnessed and experienced through out his time in the concentration camps have changed him into a different person, with different hope, dreams, idea, beliefs, etc. Because all of the atrocities  have changed him for the worse more than for the better, we have to make sure that none of the things that have happened to him or he witnessed happen to any other people. The things that he witnessed and experienced were cruel and inhumane, and will change many people.

Response to Treasure

This is something interesting that I found on Vincent's blog:

When people hear the term "treasure", the first thing that usually come to their head is gold coins and jewelries. I think the reason for this is probably because many people love money. Our modern sociality has imprinted a image of money to be our number one priority to have a happy and fulfilling life. For me, that is complete nonsense. Money is not everything, and I can definitely name many things that I rather have over money. When I hear the term "treasure", I think of something entirely different.

I feel that Vincent has a point in his post. A "treasure" is defined as something that someone cares about a lot and does not want to get damaged. A treasure does not have to be money, it just has to be something that you want and will feel a sense of contentment when you have it. For example, you could treasure something that a close friend gave you. it might not be valuable to other people, but it will be valuable to you because it is a treasure to you, is it precious and valuable to you, even if its only sentimentally and has no monetary value at all.

Treasure can come in all shapes and sizes; it can be anything. Different people treasure different things for certain reasons. Some of the reasons that I would treasure something are either that someone really important give it to me or it is something that I can't live my life without. One thing that I treasure is my friends because I don't think I can live life without them. They are my pillar of support that pushes me to move forward in life. Without them, my life would be really dull and would go absolutely nowhere at all.

I feel the same way about some of the things that Vincent says. A friend will always be a treasure to me, because they are precious to me. They are people that have a relationship with you. Just because some people think of money, jewels, gold, etc when they think of treasure, it does not mean that treasure is simply that. I also feel that my friends are a treasure, because they support me in my life. They support me in the things that i do and the things that i need help with/in, and I treasure them for that reason. 

Response to The Word "Friend"

This is something interesting that I found on Shiyun's blog:

In the dictionary friends is defined as a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard. This is equivalent to what I think friend is, but I kind of disagree with the meaning that they give in the dictionary. It does not fully define what this word mean. To me, friend is defined as a person that we treasure, appreciate, and someone who we think is trustworthy. It is also someone that we can ask for help and support.

I feel that Shiyun has a good point.  A friend is supposed to be someone that you can trust, and someone that you feel will be there for you. Now, sometimes I feel like I am not a good friend, but I still feel that to be a good friend, you have to be there for someone. You have to be willing to invest your time into someone else's life and to help them through their problems. You cannot just expect them to go and help you all the time. You also have to be willing to give something back. A friend ship is a mutual thing. As I said before, you can't just expect someone to always be there for you without doing something back for them, you have to be willing to spend time to help them when they are in need too.

Does "friendship" also have the same meaning as "friend," or does it have a different meaning? I think they have a specific meaning, but it is just my own opinion. Subsequent when we meet someone new, we usually become friends later on. This is what I define friend. A friend is someone we kind of know and someone we just talk and learn to trust each other later on. The other word "friendship" shows a deeper relationship with our friends. I don't know if there is a difference to others, but to me they seem like two very different words.

I also feel the same way. I think the two words have different meanings. I use the word friendship when I have a closer relationship with some one than a relationship I would have with a stranger or a acquaintance. I would only say that i have a friendship with someone if they are someone that I could trust and would help them with their problems while they help me with mine. A new person that I just meet but end up getting along with pretty well would be a "friend", but they wouldn't be someone that I could trust with things until they have proved to me that they can be trusted. 

Response to Video Game Response

This is something interesting I found on Phuong's blog about video games.

    Prior to our vision getting worse, the games that she introduced in the video aren't really attractive. No one would want to play a video game that requires it to be part of a daily life habit and have to post a blog about it later on. It sounds more like homework than a game for people to play. Moreover, because Mr. Sutherland explained one of the games from the video, I have an understanding that the game only requires focus rather than moving the mouse or clicking which doesn't sound really fun. The only result from the game was our experience from pretending a scenario.

I feel that what Phuong is trying to say is true. Most people do not enjoy playing games that seems pointless. If you make something mandatory to do, then a lot of people will be turned off by that. People like to do things because they choose to, they usually do not do things that they dislike doing. They do not like people controlling certain aspects of their life. Also, when a video game requires people to change some of their habits, it implies that the video game is trying to change people's lifestyles. Some people do not like change forced on them, and they will try to fight change from happening to the very end.

 She was talking about how we play 3 billion hours and that we need to increase it. The moment she said that by increasing the time playing video games can save the world, I immediately disagree with her. Playing video games use too much energy. The television and the lights (to keep the room bright) require electricity. It also damages the gamers' eyes. If we expand our time of playing games, we would be in a century with every single one of us either wearing glasses or contacts. It would then be rare for people to have 20/20 vision.

 Also, as like Phuong said, playing so many games for so many hours a day will hurt a lot of people. First, it will use up too much energy, like Phuong said, and to generate energy we have to do things that will damage the environment, or we have to use clean energy, which no one uses right now. Also, when the speaker said that her data shows that playing games for so many hours will save the world, it makes no sense. Even when she talks about people having a sense of Victory from playing games, it is too hard to achieve that feeling in the world, it is too hard to try and satisfy everyone in the world virtually simultaneously. A serious point is that playing video games for so long every day will seriously damage people's personal health. If it will damage everyone's health to do it so much, then it should not be something that we do so much for so long. This is why I think that her points have no validity.

Response to Some Crazy Theory Part 2

 I found something interesting on Crystal's Blog:

Decisions is basically what molds our life. Who we are and what we become are all dependent on the choices we make. Sure, the petty situation described above might not influence our lives as much, but if one takes a look at the situation from a broader perspective, the acquisition of this knowledge will lead to demise. For example a person who intended to work hard and strive for their goal might give up and think that his 'alternate self' will accomplish what his current self is not doing. This will put the society that exists in this dimension into critical danger because there would be not enough people that have the intelligence and capability to maintain it.

 I feel that what Crystal is trying to say has an important point. People are made of their decisions. Even if there are alternate universes, people will still be different because of the different choices that people have in their lives. For example, if someone had made a decision early on in their life that had a big effect on their life, then you could develop into an entirely different person because of what happened.

If a different universe is created after every decision that you make, then there will be an infinite amount of universes with you in them. Since you make many different decisions during your lifetime, you could develop into completely different people in every universe that you visit. For example, if in one universe, one of your family members that you were close to decided to smoke and ended up dying of lung cancer, than you would be a completely different person than if that family member had decided to not smoke and was still alive. The universe with the dead family member would have a different version of you.

Another example of this could be a simple decision, such as if you decided to turn either left or right. In 1 universe, if you turned left, you would have encountered different things than if you turned right. The different things that you encountered could affect you in different ways. You would develop into different people depending on what you encountered. Such as if in 1 direction, you met a group of muggers, and the other way, you encountered police.

"What is Q?"

Throughout both of the stories "The Aquatic Uncle" and "The Dinosaur" Q shows that he is an anti-social person that ends up being left behind.

In the beginning of the dinosaur story, Q starts out being alone, "I spent many, many years on those deserted plateaus. i had survived... but i was alone."(Pg.97) I feel that this kind of shows how much of a loner he is. He is a dinosaur, an individual within his own race, but his race soon becomes extinct. He had survived all of the attacks, starvation, nature, etc.... but he was alone, he did not survive with anyone else. He either leaves everyone else behind as he escapes the extinction by running away from everything, or he GETS left behind by everyone else as THEY run away from everything. He is kind of a relic of the past, something that some people revere, and something that some people hate, but all in all, he is something that is forgotten by everyone else and has little importance in the real world. He is also left behind by everyone in a spiritual way, because when everyone dies, they leave him behind in the living world as they all advance to the afterlife. They leave him in a world where no one trusts him.

When Q first meets with Fern-Flowers brother, Zahn, the each have a bad first impression of each other. Zahn talks about how “In the plains, our bunch takes turns keeping watch, day and night,. But there we can trust each other; we don’t take in characters we don’t know...”(102) I feel that this quote shows how left out Q is when he talks to other people, and how bad of a first impression he makes on people that he first meets. Right when someone meets him for the first time, he is so different from other people and is so strange, the he is almost always left out. Someone is always disgusted by him and seems to want him gone. An example of that is when the villagers first meet him, and he immediatly earns the nickname, “The Ugly One” because of his looks. He is seperated from the “group” as soon as he arrives. No one seems to really “like” him or want him to stay as soon as he arrives. He leaves the village to “scout” out the enemy, but instead, the village leaves him. And in the end, he has a son, but he leaves him and his “spouse” for a new life somewhere else.

In the Aquatic Uncle story, Q is left out even more. He is a creature that is in the middle of evolutions, and has a reptilian girlfriend/fiancee and a fish-like grandfather.His fiancee loved him and they both loved living on the land, without any intentions to live anywhere else. However, while the story progresses, his fiancee, Lll, seems to drift farther and farther away from him. In the end, Lll ends up leaving him for his great-uncle to live in the sea together. “And with one of those rapid climbs of hers, the last... and let it go in a dive.” (Pg. 81) Lll, was his fiancee, a girl that was about to marry him, a girl that loved him, and a girl that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life with. And yet, she leaves him for his great-uncle, to live a life in the sea. His great-uncle is not even part of the same species as she is, while Q is. He might have just sucked at relating to Lll, but he was most defiantly left behind by her, for a person not even of the same species.

Response to Superman Can't Fly

This is my response to Peter's Post.

  Back to the topic, what happen to a superman if he can't fly? Would he still try to help people out even though it is more dangerous than before? What is the definition of a "superman"? My own opinion to it is that a guy who does good things and contributes a lot to the society. To fight some bad guys and save people from the detonation and fly away is just the cartoon version which is unreal in our life. It is cool and we all hope for this person comes to us, but it is impossible, at least sure for now.

I feel that Peter's opinion of what a superman is is true. I feel that a "superman" is sort of a good Samaritan.

A "superman" in the way that people think of it, is a hero who has super powers ad can do many things that a normal person cannot. They are sort of fairy tail figures. They are the people that only have the good qualities in people, while the villains only have the bad qualities. A superhero to them, is a person who can perform superhuman feats, and will never be tempted by "evil". On the other hand, the villains are nonredeemable criminals/ fiends who only have the bad part of human qualities and seem to have no other purpose in life than to make the lives of other people miserable.

On the other hand, the people that Peter is talking about, the good Samaritans are just normal people. They are normal people who have the kindness in their hearts to help a random stranger that is in need. They have both the good and bad side of humanity in their hearts, not just the pure "good" and the pure "evil" of the superheros and villains in the comic books, fairy tales, etc. 

The Most Annoying Day Pt. 2

When the judges got there, I was worried that I would screw up. When we were going through the court process, they had a lot of questions to ask. I was afraid that i would mess up because some of the things that we would be doing in that court process would be new. There was something new that they had just introduced to us, and told us to try it out. It was time consuming and some of us thought that it was sort of pointless. Some new thing that we had to do was to read something that gave a sort of overview of that the crime was and what it consisted of. For example, if the crime was petty theft, I would have to read off a piece of paper what petty theft would be considered as. It was very time consuming and I did not think that it made much of a difference in the court process.

Some new thing that probably helped however, was a sheet that they gave to the jurors in the deliberation room to help their minds start working. It was pretty much a sheet where it asked them what they case was about to try and see if they were paying attention, and other various activities. I am pretty sure that it kept them busy because when the other jurors went in to deliberate the case hearing that had just happened, the jurors that were deliberating the previous case were still in the room discussing various things. I think that it kept them busy. After a bunch of cases that took a long amount of time, I finally got to take break. After a while, all of the cases were finished and i went back down to the ground floor to meet up with everyone else. Apparently, my courtroom was the second one to finish out of the four. I got bored so i went back up the elevator to check on the other courtrooms. I went to one where most of my freinds were in, and it turned out that they were almost done, which was a good thing. However, one of my freinds had to leave, so I ended up filling in for him for the last case that they had. It didn't really take that long, but it was a sort of a pain in the ass to do that.

Later, i got home around 9pm. I came home, and went on the computer. I started doing homework around an hour later. The thing that really  pissed me off was that when i was about to go shower, my water pipes blocked up. They were working fine half an hour ago when my dad went to shower, but right when I decided to go, the just had to block up. It pissed me off to no end. Eventually, they finally worked for a bit when my dad worked on the water pipes, but it was not really that "smart" to go and use water before we got them fixed for real.

Resonse to Quickwrite:Video

Here is something interesting that i found on Phuong's blog.

We have something to aim toward and we will use our own strength. We can always challenge ourself and when we are imperfect, we can give challenges to ourself as to what we want to change. If we are completely perfect, then there won't be any challenges; we have nothing we want to improve on.

I think that what Phuong is saying is sort of true. During the quick write, there was a question that they asked which was: are human's evolving? if so- how? Since we humans have limits/challenges, as Phuong said, we have to try to overcome them. We evolve as a species when we have to overcome certain hardships that we have, such as weather, food supply, etc. If we were "perfect" then what would be the point of being human? Human's are flawed, but they will always try to find "perfection" and they will try to better themselves. Also, what would be the point of a "perfect human"? What would they do and what would they be like? Is there a point in being human if we have nothing more to improve on?

 Yes, it is cool when we can change our legs and make it do anything we want but doesn't that mean we are replacing a part of ourself? Because we are humans, we have limits. To make our life fun, we work our hardest to exceed those limits and create new limits for us to continue exceeding. If we rely on technologies all the time, doesn't that make us cowards who doesn't like ourselves so we change it?

Also, as Phuong has said, even if we do change our body parts and make them do whatever we want, doesn't it mean that we are changing a part of ourselves? If you want to give yourself fake limbs, what would that mean for you? Sure, its cool because then you can adjust your limbs to suit your needs and can adjust them to do whatever you want, but then, what would that mean for you as a person? You have just lost a part of yourself, a part that can never grow back. Also, if you grow to dislike the operation, how would you put yourself back together? Cutting off one of your limbs and putting a fake one on is impossible to reverse unless you had the access to technology that could theoretically regenerate your limbs.

Also, we as a human race has grown in the face of opposition. We have grown stronger through every conflict that we have been in. We have adapted to everything that has happened to us, and we have gotten stronger from it. If we rely on technology to make everything that we have to do easy, what would that mean for us? Would we have to even use our brain anymore? Would we have to think to overcome opposition? And finally, what would happen once those technologies are stripped from us? How would we survive without them if we have to rely on them to do everything in our life?

My Vocabulary List

1.Contract   2.Data   3. Aspect  4. Computer   5. Institute  6. Civil    7. Imply   8.Validity  9. Regime  10. Ration

The Most Annoying Day Pt. 1

Tuesday, was one of the weirdest and most annoying days that I have had so far. I started off going to school, without getting enough sleep. I almost ended up falling asleep in math class right in front of Mrs. McCoy. After school, i had to walk to Walgreens to buy something to sell for a fundraiser. Then, by the time i got home, i had to get ready to go to McCullumn Youth Court. I was not prepared to do much and i was tired.

When i got there, the tables were already set up, but we did not have any of the sign-in sheets at all. We had to wait for Shawn to go and get some more from the office, but when he got the big blue bucket that we keep all of them in, it turned out that we had no more copies. So, we had to improvise and make new ones by crossing the titles off of a sign in sheet for people that want to take the basic law class. While doing that, we had to set up a fundraiser selling food on a table right next to where everyone was signing in. We were also short on staff, so it got that much harder to do.

When we got into the courtroom, since we were short on staff, there was only 1 clerk in each courtroom, so if 1 of us could not make it, then i do not know what would happen. We were also short of baliffs, so some of the courtrooms only had 1 baliff. So, for most of the time the courtroom was in session, I had to take the place of the bailiff and try to do two jobs at once, because the only bailiff we had was helping the jurors out in the deliberation room. Also, I think I screwed up because I did not know a lot of what a bailiff had to do. I was worried, and was wondering what could go wrong.

Death Penalty, Pro

Opening Statement Edit

    Today i would like to talk to you about a controversial topic that comes up around the world and is legal is some place in the United States. The Death Penalty is a severe punishment to the worst of criminals who have committed crimes so gruesome that they do not deserve to live. People who commit multiple murders and have been proven guilty will be most likely sentenced to many years in prison or life in prison. For example. If a forty year old man kills five innocent people and has been proven guilty of the crime, that person will most likely be sentenced to life in prison. This man will stay in prison every day until the day he dies, which could be anywhere from ten to fifty year. The man will be guaranteed to spend the rest of his life in prison. Every day that this man stays in Prison, he will be using taxpayer money. Instead of him dying for his crimes, he will sit in prison for up to fifty years knowing that he will die. The difference between that man getting the death penalty and life in prison is that he will be wasting fifty years worth of taxpayer money and he will have to spend years alone and be tortured with the things that come with being in prison such as bad food, small living spaces, and loneliness.

If I were to grow up and commit five murders and have the choice of the death penalty or fifty years in prison,  I would much rather get the death penalty so that i know i am no longer hurting the citizens of the United States. Prisons are overcrowded enough and instead of building even more prisons for the people who have committed these crimes, some people would much rather prefer the death penalty and not have to suffer the rest of their lives in prison. The death Penalty could be regulated and put into use for the punishment for the criminals who can no longer fit into society and have no hope of being released from prison.