The End

Overall, I really enjoyed this class. Even though there was a lot of work to keep up with, and the papers seemed never ending, I feel like I got a lot out of it all. Going into this class I had several goals: to become a better writer,  to learn how to write and enjoy writing at the same time, and to understand writing in its essence. Looking over my progress throughout the semester, I feel that I have satisfactorily achieved all of these goals. The most important thing that I have learned though, is understanding reflection.

When I came to Uni, I noticed that a lot of papers asked for reflection, no matter what the topic was, and I simply did not know what that meant. I did not understand what this reflection was supposed to entail, and I did not see how I was supposed to stick in reflection into a completely factual history essay. But after a semester of constant practice, I have come to understand what reflection is, and most importantly, how to apply it.

Now I feel more confident in my writing. I feel that when asked to add personal opinion or relation, I will be able to add that. And I have also come to like writing. The freedom of topics that was offered to us in this class was great, as I could write about what was interesting to me, and the more interesting it was, the more fun it was for me to write. Typically, my writing is just to finish an assignment and get it out of the way. But in this class, I actually tried to write good essays, because the better I wrote an essay, the better I felt about it inside. Through the process of editing and revising, I could see the progress of my paper, and learned on my mistakes. In the end, I learned how, from the start, not to write a bad paper.

So far away....

A week ago, I was sitting here and thinking of how everyday seemed so busy. At the time, there were two weeks of school left, and it seemed that everything was just beginning. Homework was piling up as teachers tried to cram the rest of the material left before finals, and some of them started expecting more out of students. It seemed as though everyone was shouting from different corners of the world, “No, you need to be focusing on this!” and I felt like I didn’t not know where to turn to. I felt like I had to keep watch over everything, yet I could not. It was like being in a room completely full of buttons and switches with displays showing different levels for different things, and you just can’t look at them all the same time. And then, for a minute, all the lights would stop blinking, and everything would become quiet. It seemed as though time had stopped, and I would forget about my essays that I had to write, the tests I had to study for. I just sat there, waiting, yet not really understanding what waiting would achieve. But I waited nonetheless.

But now, all of the sudden, every thing has stopped. It is like, there are a few days of actual school left, and there is nothing to do. Until finals start, nothing goes on. No homework is due, there are few tests, and no projects. In fact, it is weird at first. Now I have all this time to do anything.... anything at all. And it is great! 

So this is what life is like: a sine wave of ups and downs, full of the most inconvenient surprises. But it is life nonetheless, and everything depends on how you view things. Last week, everything seemed to be going by too quickly, and now, everything is so slow and relaxed. This is what makes life exciting, the predictable yet unpredictable change in events. The good and the bad days balance each other out, and give each other meaning. Yes, I do not like bad days, but without them, I doubt that life would be interesting.

Battling Stick People

You know those days that you just don’t want to do anything? Anything at all? Usually after lunch, I will fall into that state of utter uncaring for anything, and lounge around, dispassionately looking for something mindless to do. That could be doodling, staring at the wall, going outside and watching people, sleeping, or finding someone to chat with. But today was different. The Mac lab was open, and not just open and full of noisy people, but it was empty. Completely empty. So I ventured in, seeking the portal to a mysterious world of fun, logged into a computer, and went online.

Now there are many things that one can do online. You can chat, shop, message, browse, stalk, play, etc. I decided that I would go on a game site, and see if I can find anything at least remotely interesting. After beating Snail Bob, losing interest in Disco Flirt and Animal Dash, not being able to load Dolphin Pop, and getting frustrated from Egypt Explore, I stumbled upon what might have seemed as an equally boring game: Territory War.

    In a couple of words, this game is a fight between your team of stick people (three of them) and the CPU’s team. You get to name your players and team, and go out and try to kill stick-figures Bob, Joe, and Jack (the CPU players). Your weapons are of highest quality: a grenade, a rifle, and a boot (which you can throw at the evil stick people of doom). There is one more, but I don’t remember what it is since I never used it. You take turns with the CPU and move your players one by one out to where you want them to be and take turns attacking the other people. Last team standing wins.
    I was set for this game. After naming my team the Ninja Poops, I went into battle and started throwing boots around and beating the life out of Bob, Jack, and Joe. With a barrage of angry words and frustrated comments in response to my own mistakes, I proceeded to unlock missions and boot stick figures around. And then, the bell rang... and everything ended. But I know, that probably tomorrow, if not tonight, I will go back to Territory War and avenge the casualties my team received.

Freaking Out

I hate the way parents freak out about everything related to college and school. People say that Asian parents are the worst, but out of what I have heard of other parents, I have come to the conclusion that at times my parents are no worse.

    As of now, with the Uni period, I spend three hours at school doing homework as I know that I wont be home till 7 or later every day. Sometimes things carry over, and I have to work in the evenings, but most of the time, I just sit around online and relax. My parents see this as me neglecting my work, and always say that I could be working harder or doing something productive. This morning, my SAT scores came in. I got a good score and I was happy about it, but my parents weren’t. I did not get a perfect score, and it did not matter how close I came, it still wasn’t a 2400.

But what does it prove to have a perfect score? I still wont be the best, as there will be tons of other students out there that have 2400’s, and all that 2400 will give me is an end to the chance of improvement. Yes, if I wanted to go to a super selective school I would need to have the best of everything, but that’s not what I want. I want a normal life in a place that I will be happy in. Right now, to get that 2400, I would have to start a life that would take away my life as I know it, and in its place put a studious life lacking substance.  

I know and understand that my parents want what is best for me, but in the end, would they rather have a daughter that spends hours in her room studying the dictionary or one that is active around the house and being a normal daughter? Personally, I think that the later would be best for all, but that’s just me, I guess.

   

2012

People say that the world is going to end in 2012. I doubt that it will, and definitely hope it does not. There are so many things that I want to do in my life and not living to be 18 definitely doesn’t go into my plans. But I think that people are over-stressing. People base their fears on the slightest things. Just like people were freaking out about the change of the millennium eleven years ago, they are freaking out about the apocalypse now. My question is, why must there be an apocalypse in the first place?

    There are different theories of what exactly is going to happen next year: we will all burn up, natural disaster will wipe us all out, etc. But where are all of these theories coming from? An unfinished Mayan calender which sparked concern and paranoia?
    I was discussing this question with a friend a while back, and my friend asked me, “If you don’t believe in all of this, how do you think the world is going to end?” I laughed this question off, but several hours later fell into deep thought, perplexed over this new task; creating a theory for the world’s end. At last, I came up with a plan.
    Humanity’s hunger for advancement and discovery is going to be the soul cause of the word’s end. In my theory, there are an infinite amount of parallel times and “worlds”, where each world is a mirror image of the next, such that all of the worlds are the same. So as I sit here typing now, somewhere in a parallel world, there sits another me, typing exactly what I am typing now. As you are reading this, an infinite amount of you’s are reading this in an infinite number of parallel worlds, all at the exact same time. As scientists are making discoveries in our world, they are doing exactly the same thing in all of the others. The apocalypse will come when our scientists discover the existance of the other parallel worlds. Then there will be a collapse of time as each world discovers the other and the time walls keeping each world guided along its time frame will be breached. Everything will just end as our universe collapses from the chaos and explosions of time as the same moments collide with each other every second.
    This is my theory on how the world will end. What is yours?

Maximum Ride

Recently, I went to several book websites to find a new book to read. Aside from the Twilights there were many books trying to ride the popularity wave of Twilight; books with vampires crawling over every page, and basically screaming "READ ME I AM JUST LIKE TWILIGHT!" on the cover. I looked around for a bit, trying to find something different, when I saw a familiar cover amongst the others. It was the seventh book in the Maximum Ride series, a series of which I have read only one book, and hope to never have to read another.

Let me give you a little synopses of the first book. Maximum Ride is the leader of her “flock”; a group of 6 bird teenagers who have retractable wings. They are Iggy, Nudge, Angel, Gasman, Fang, and Max. Max tells the story of their fight, and flight, for survival as they are constantly pursued by the Erasers, were-wolf people made at the same laboratory as the flock. 

After reading the note on the first page I already had a feeling that this what this book was going to be like. The note said,

"WARNING: If you dare to read this story, you become part of the Experiment. I know that sounds a little mysterious - but it's all i can say right now."

This book has a feeling of constant pursuit and no chance of freedom. Everywhere Max goes, the Erasers are there. They always somehow know where she is and always create a surprise appearance. That bothered me. Every five pages, Max would say the reassuring words of, “there not going to find us here,” or “ we will be safe in this tree.” Then all of the sudden the Erasers appear in the next paragraph. The whole book follows a hopeless path of constant fleeing. And then in the end it gets even more so, as Max starts experiencing serious head pains and this voice appears in her head telling her what to do. This voice is even weirder than the Erasers; it appears on nearby computer screens, and not just in Max’s mind.

I found that there was way too much repetition of practically everything in this book. In particular, restatements of emotionally tense situations. Each chapter has a flow. It starts out with some tense situation and then quickly builds to the climax. The climax is usually the last phrase of the chapter. Practically every chapter has a dramatic emotional ending. Almost every single one. Usually these endings create the feeling of fear and terror or are just plain creepy.

By the end of the book it seemed that many of the chapters would end by something said by the Voice. And whenever it did say something, the Voice would be saying some vague phrase that Max wouldn’t understand, and sometimes neither would I. And instead of explaining those phrases, the Voice would repeat them over and over.     

Overall, I found this book a little pointless. The plot seemed to have no progression, and by the end of the book, I felt like I was back at the begining all over again, except it was worse. I will not continue reading this series, and I would not recommend this book to anyone. 

And so, my attempt of an easy search for a new book to read was unfulfilled, so I will have to go to the library and dig up something that doesn't have vampires and blood all over it. 

O. Henry's Short Stories

    For many, there stands an impression that classical literature is uninteresting, boring, or just simply old. Many of us drop books simply because they seem too hard to read. Even though O. Henry has written several classical books, the Trimmed Lamp and Cabbages for Kings being some examples, I still find them quite interesting even if they are old. Rather than writing big long books, O. Henry has created collections of short stories. There is no one book full of his best stories; they are all spread amongst his work. One book in particular, the Four Million, has been noted as an excellent source for unexpected irony. In the Four Million, O. Henry portrays what could be an ironic miracle life of a civilian in New York during the twentieth century. These stories are short, therefore, making perfect bedtime stories.

    The stories all share the same sense of irony, but they still are written in a wide range of themes. For example, in “The Furnished Room,” a man seeking his love smells her perfume in a hotel room. He searches desperately for her, but after not being able to find her, he commits suicide. The landlady had not yet told him that a week earlier, his love had done the same thing. This story has a little bit of eeriness in it because of the ironic endings.

    Another story in the book is also one of O Henry's most notable stories, the Gift of the Magi. In this story, a couple wishes to buy grand gifts for each other for Christmas, but both do not have enough money to do this, therefore they both give up something dear to them in order to pay. It turns out that as she gives her hair, he buys her the pearl combs of her dreams. And as he sells his watch, she buys him a grand chain for it. Just like "Tobin's Hand", we see the witty play of fortunes and ironic ends. Interestingly enough, even though that o Henry uses this style repeatedly through the book, each ending is quit unique and unpredictable, even if you do know the general turn and expect an unexpected ending. That is the beauty of the book and the valued ability of the author.

    O. Henry’s writing style and his ability to create unpredictable irony is unique and entertaining characteristic. Almost all of the short stories have very ironic endings. For example, in the first story, Tobin’s Palm, a palmist relates Tobin’s future to him. Before seeing the palmist, Tobin tells about his lost love to his companion. After the séance, Tobin goes through a series of unfortunate events, as predicted by the palmist. At the end of the day he meets a man who was supposed to “bring great fortune to him.” The man seemed uninterested in Tobin or his companion until he decides that Tobin would be the perfect character for his story. In the end, Tobin and his companion are invited to dine with the man of fortune, and ironically, we find out that the man’s new maid is Tobin’s lost love.  

    As I was reading the story, I first thought that the great fortune prophesized by the palmist would come in the form of fame or material wealth. Therefore, I found the given end very surprising and ironic. The following stories are presented in a similar manner. In fact, the plots of the stories seem to follow a basic principal of a circle where the beginning flows into the end, which in turn comes back to something in the beginning.

Fox vs. Faux

I am an avid fan of real fur, and have quite a bit of it. But I have found that there are not that many people (amongst those that I know), who share my liking of it.

The majority of faux fans that I have talked to present only one reason against real fur: the fact that a cute little foxy was killed somewhere far away to produce a hat for me to wear. But in reality, faux fur helps cause much more deaths in the long run than the real fur industry. Pollution is a major issue as of now, and plastic fur adds to that already gigantic factor killing the Earth. Being of non-biodegradable material, the fake fur has to be thrown out into landfills along with other disgusting trash. Think about it that way, the faux fur on your coat is trash... it will be trash, lying next to a shattered ceramic garden gnome and a baby’s diaper that has been rotting in the landfill for dozens of years...

So why wear something that will end up lying around and leaking toxic chemicals into the ground when you can buy something that is not nearly half as bad?

The qualities of real fur by far surpass those of fake fur. Real fur is easy to look after, and lasts a long time. And, speaking of practicality, real fur is much warmer than its false counterpart. Haters may say that compromises must be made for the better good. But what is the better good? More pollution and trash to fill up our landfills? Why not just buy real fur, enjoy its comfortable softness that doesn't prickle you with plastic fibers, and then turn it in to be recycled?