Reflection

Today in English class, everyone in our class paired up into two and presented the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, a famous play by William Shakespeare. My role was Romeo and we had been memorizing the script since three weeks ago. When I was practicing yesterday, I was very confident about the memorizing part. I could memorize all the words and sentences without pausing or thinking. Other than memorizing the script, the teacher also told us to do some actions, like actually act it out whole we memorizing the words. This part is where I think I did a really bad job on. My partner was a shy person, and I'm not really a action kind of person. So we didn't do any movements at all. I was so nervous in the middle, I forgot one sentence in the middle. But over all, i think both of us did a great job on memorizing the lines, but we really needed to work on the acting part.

Absent

If a person is away from home for many years, it is going to be very nervous for him to return home. Unlike ancient times, it is very rare for people just leave home for many years and come back later, since the transportation today is very convenient. It only takes sixteen hours to travel to the other side of the Earth by plane. But in ancient times, there were no planes or trains. It takes much more time to travel from places to place. If a person is coming home from five years of separation. He is definitely going to be exited but nervous at the same time. Because he probably has to idea if there was anything happened to his family or not. Especially if the person has a chid. His child will not probably recognize him after so many years. Exited, nervous, scared and confused are his reactions. 

Odyssey

After watching the movie "The Odyssey" and reading the story, I recognized some differences between the story in the book and the movie version of the story. The first difference i found is that when Odyssey and his crew met Cyclops, in the movie, there was one man that got eaten by Cyclops. In the book, Cyclops caught two companions of Odyssey and beat their brains out. The second one I found was that in the movie, Odyssey and his companions used a wooden log with sharpen tip to poke Cyclops's eye in the morning. They only stayed in the cave with Cyclops one night before they escaped and Cyclops was drunk the night they met him. In the book, Odyssey didn't take action until the evening of the next day. Also in the movie, when Odyssey and his companions escaped, they hid under the fur of the sheep. But in the story, they hid under real sheep.

Hero

What makes a hero? There are some universal traits about heroes, but different cultures and societies may consider different people as heroes. I think a hero is someone that is important to the society. A hero has to have positive attitude to influence others, since heroes usually have some impact on the society, it is important for them to be a role model for everyone. Also, I think a hero should have some common traits with others to prove that he is actually part of the society, or else the person would be more consider as a god not a hero. There are many super heroes in the world today. Some of them are from comics and movies, some of them actually exist. Everyone can be a hero, a hero doesn't mean super power or god-like form. It is just a person that is willing to help the society and in some level willing to sacrifice for others. 

Appearances Can Be Deceiving

I agree with the quote "appearances can be deceiving." There are many examples of this. One of the examples are beautiful but deadly flowers. In movies, there are many scenes about  characters accidentally eat poisonous flowers, because the flowers are too attractive and beautiful. Of course, the result of eating these beautiful flowers is death. Lily of the Valley is very beautiful. It is pure white, and shaped like bells, at the same time, it is very deadly. All parts of the plant—the stems, the leaves, the flowers and the berries are extremely poisonous. The symptoms included reduced blood pressure and increased heart rate. Even though Lily of the Valley has very attractive appearances, but it is very deadly at the same time. 

Mislead

There is an quote, "appearances can be deceiving," means that things look different from what they really are. In movies, bad guys always look like bad guys. Every time when a villain comes out in a movie, we can always recognize him by his appearance. Bad guys or villains in movies have similar character traits, fierce eyes, big nose, and rarely smile. But this is just in movies, it is not the same in reality. Teachers and parents always say that don't judge a person by his or her appearance. When I was in grade three, there was a boy transferred to our class. He never smiled. He was very quite, and had no facial expression. At first, no one in our class went to talk with him, because he seemed like a person that was hard to get along with. After knowing him for a while, we realized that he was actual really nice. But just don't like to talk. 

Historical Moments

921 earthquake was one of the deadliest earthquake that hit Taiwan. I was only three years old when this disaster happened. I woke up in the middle of the night, crying, and ran to my parents room. My mother asked me what happened but I didn't reply. She thought that I had a nightmare, so she hold me in her arms, trying to make me fall back into sleep. After a few minutes later, the house started to shake. "Earthquake!" my mother yelled. My father quickly ran to my sister's room, checking if she was alright. Luckily, Hsinchu was not the epicenter, no one in our community got hurt or injured. I always remember my mother telling me that I am a detector, waking up before the earthquake.  The presidential election occurs every four years. When I was in second grade, it was also the year of presidential election. Even thought we were only about eight years old, but we kind of understood what was happening that year. Seeing flags and papers about presidential election, this election started to get into our class. There was one day, two of my classmates got into a fight. One one them shouted something that shocked the teacher. He said something about that the other student was a member of one of the two parties, that was why he was a bad person. As a child, I didn't understand this political things and why people are so intense about it. 

Favorite Food

My favorite food is absolutely tempura. Tempura is made of surimi. There are many different ways to cook tempura, fry, steam and grill. There are also different shapes of tempura, rounded shape or a long and thin shape. I like all different kinds of tempura. The reason why I like tempura so much is because of the feelings I get when I bite it. Tempura can have different tastes depends on how you cook it and the sauce people put on top of it. Tempura is all around Taiwan. Because it is very easy to make, you can find a tempura store almost on every street. I like tempura no matter how the store cooks it or what they put on top of it. One other reason why I like tempura is because my father. My father loves tempura too. He took me to eat my different kind of tempura. His favorite one is steam tempura with special sauce on top. Because my mother doesn't like tempura, so my father and I sometimes secretly go to eat tempura ourselves. 

Billy Collins

Billy Collins is a poet, who turned his poems into animation. I think it is actually a very good and interesting ideas. Because now a days, people are not the interested in poetry anymore, but animations. After watching five animations of Billy Collins poems, my favorite one is The Dead. This is the fist one I saw, probably because of its title, The DeadI, which is very attracted. I really like the drawings, I think it really brings out the mood and the emotions of the poem. But I don't like how the person read the poem. He has no emotions in his words. He really sounded like a zombie. Other than that, I think the clip is very good. The drawings really suit the poems, they actually let the audience to see the images that Billy Collins was trying to say in his poem. 

Narrative Poem Research

A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story and has a plot. Narrative poem tells a series events using poetic devices, such as rhythm, rhyme, and other devices. Many of the elements in a short story and also included in a narrative poem, such as plot, character, setting, and conflict. 
The Highwayman, a famous poem written by  Alfred Noyes, is about a nameless highwayman. He is in love with Bess, a landlord's daughter. The highway man escape the ambush from Tim, a jealous man, when Bess sacrifices herself to safe the highway man. This poem has a clear plot. The readers can clearly understand what the author is trying to tell us. A poem like this, which has a plot, is a narrative poem. 

Extended Metaphor

My life is like an ocean. Sometimes there are big waves crushing onto the shore or whirlpool twisting all the water into a big black whole. But sometimes it is like the Pacific, calm and tranquil, nothing happening. There are sunshine in my life, but also typhoons. The ocean is very big and endless, some as my life. I would never know when It will end. Life is very unpredictable, just like oceans. You can only see the bright blue surface, but never know what is deep inside.  

Seven Stages

According to Jaques, a character in Shakespeare's comedy, there are seven stages of a person's life. I think the seven stages of a person are, baby, young child, teenager, young adult, adult, older adult, death. The first stage is baby, it is the stage when a person is born and to the age of five. The second stage is when the baby slowly grows up and now knows how to walk and speak. The next stage is teenager, this is the time when the child now has his or her own opinions and wants to grow up. The fourth stage is young adult, now the person don't need his parents anymore, he can take care of himself, which he will eventually find a soul mate of his life. The next stage is adult. In this stage, the man will create his own family, and give birth to the next generation. The last stage of life is death. After all these six stages, now is the time to face death. 

Disrespect

There was one time that I felt very disrespected by a stranger. About two or three years ago, I went to a dumpling store to buy lunch. Because I wanted to buy take out, so I stood in front of the  counter waiting for the waiter to come. While waiting, there was a old fat woman wearing a helmet came and yelled at the waiter saying what she wanted to order. I was very angry and told the waiter that I was here before the woman, she should stand in the line. The waiter didn't really listen to me about my complaining, she just asked me what I wanted to order. I thought that the waiter get my complaining, so I didn't say anything after she let me ordered. After waiting for five minutes, the waiter brought a bag of food out and handed to the old woman. I was very pissed, because I was there first, they should give me my food first. Just because I was a kid, so they didn't respect me or treat like they treat others. After I got home, I told my mom about this, and I said that would never go to that food store ever again. 

A Blessing

A Blessing by James Wright is describing two ponies. The speaker and his friend was driving on the highway to Rochester, Minnesota, and saw two ponies. The author uses a lot of imagery on the poem to describe the scenes. In the second line of the poem, "Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass." Those seven words well described the sunset and how the sunset interact with the grass. "They bow shyly as wet swans, They love each other." This two sentences describe how the ponies bow, which is very gentle and soft. "She is black and white, Her mane falls wild on her forehead." These two lines are describing the appearances of the pony. The second sentence vividly describe the pony. In the last stanza, the author beautifully describe the scene. "And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear. That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist." 

Turning Point

There was one choice that really changed my life. Before fifth grade, I studied in local Taiwanese school. One day my father asked me about transferring to an international school. I told my father that I don't want to, because I had no idea what is international school. The next day, my father took me to visit the school. The teachers and staffs were all very nice, also my neighbors were teaching at the international school. They told me how good to school was and what was the differences between local schools and the international schools. After long deliberation, I decided to go to the international school. I am really glad that I made this choice, because I like the system and the school a lot, also I really want to go to USA for college. This is the best choice I made in my life. 

Selfless Sacrifice

Did you ever have to make a choice between something that was good for you and something that was good for someone you cared about? 
I really hate making choices, because you can't predict what would happened next and people often have to face the consequences of their own choice, even if it is a very easy and basic decision. There was one time that my friend and I went to a bicycle camp. We basically rode bicycle everyday and to different places. We all had a water bottle with us. The coach told us in the first day that don't drink to fast, or else we would run out of water. Because normally there was no place for us stop and fill out our water bottles in the middle of the trip. But my friend didn't listen to the coach, she kept drink her water. Her finished her water half way through the day. She asked me to give her some water. Even though I know that If I share her my water with her, I would probability be thirsty later, because the water was not enough for both of us. As a friend, I shared my water with her. 

A Christmas Carol Movies

After reading the book A Christmas Carol, the teacher showed us town different version of A Christmas Carol. One is the cartoon version, which was produced in 2009. The other one is from 1984 with real people staring the characters. I personally like the cartoon one more and I don't really like the old one. Because the old one was from a while ago, so the movie is kind of fake. When the ghosts come out, it is just real people hiding behind the curtains and pretend to be a ghost. But it is very fake and ludicrous. On the other side, the cartoon version is very cool and the effects are way better than the old one. But it is also bias for me to say that I like the cartoon version, because I am a fan of cartoon. So that is probably an other reason why I chose the cartoon one as my favorite. 

why do we have universal education

Why do we have universal education? When the teacher asked us this question, the first thing I thought about is to have a better environment. Children having school is mandatory in Taiwan. We are required to have 12 years of education before we go into the society.  The reason why we go to school is to learn. We learn how to differentiate the rights and the wrongs, how to cooperate with people, and basic things of live. A hundred years back then, there is not public school. Education was for the rich people. Most of the children at our ages had to go to work, boys need to help the family to farm, while girls were taking care of the youngs. Since they didn't go to school, they are very easy to believe in people, because they don't have the ability to know what is the right and wrong. My grandfather didn't go to school when he was little. Every time he heard something, he believes it. When he got sick, he didn't want to go to hospital. He trusted the people in the small clinic. Of course the people there would just tell him to take the medicine and he will be fine. He didn't even know that he had cancer until the last moment, because he believes that his illness would recover by eating those medicine that he randomly bought from the store. We should have education to help us learn things that we should know. 

Cherished item

My most cherished possession is a necklace. The necklace is a shape of a butterfly. It is a gift from my aunt. She lived in America, we only see each other once or twice a year. Even though we lived far apart, but she always called us twice a month. I can talk to her for an hour. I loved to listen to her stories and funny anecdote when she was in college. I would go to America to visit her during summer time. But she died two years ago. The last time I saw her was when she gave me the necklace. She told me that she saw the necklace at the airport and thought that It was very suitable for me, so she bought it and gave it to me. The necklace is the first thing I would safe if there is a fire. 

Which Ghost Affected Scrooge the Most?

In the story, A christmas Carol the main character Scrooge met three spirits, they were the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Each of the ghosts took Scrooge to different places and showed him the past, the present and the future. I think the Ghost of Christmas Yet to come affected Scrooge the most, because the ghost showed Scrooge the grave of himself. After seeing his own grave, Scrooge started to beg in the ghost to undo all the events in saw in the visions and also he promised to honor Christmas. So I think that the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come affecter Scrooged the most. 

The Victorian Workhouse

Victorian workhouse were where poor people who had no job and home lived. In order to live in the workhouse, these poor people had too work in the workhouse. Also there were orphaned and children that were abandoned by their parents. The people in the work houses were mentally or physically sick. I think that the idea of a workhouse is actually good. Because the workhouse provided the poor people a home to live, a place to work and earn money with free medical care and free education for children. I also don't think that Scrooge understand what it would be like for people to be live in a workhouse. No one would want to live in a workhouse if one's has the ability of taking care of himself. The workhouse was for people who has difficulties in living, which most rich people can't imagine. 

Theme for Liberty and Exile

The theme of the short story Liberty by Julia Alvarez is that people often need to face  separation. In the story, the main character got a new dog.  He likes the dog so much. But because of their family issue. They need to move to America. And he was told not to bring the dog with him. The main character has to face he struggle of leaving his beloved dog behind. In the poem Exile also by Julia Alvarez the family was leaving their home to America. The theme is also that people often face the separation.