Friday, October 29, 2010

Reflective Essay

Reflective Essay
    Blogging on the web is one of my favorite types of homework styles since I choose my own topics to write about, but narrowing down to one subject per post might be challenging sometimes. Another problem I have come by when writing is writer’s block, or a period of time where you become stuck and can not think of new ideas. Blogging has definitely changed how I write, like how I can spill an essay out of my mind that also flows and makes sense. I love the idea of blogging for homework since I could think of the blog topics at the top of my head and just write them. Plus, I have noticed my areas of struggle, and how I could decrease the amount of times that I stop to ponder about my ideas.
    Usually, I respond to other people’s post that I can connect to and write about, but when I do a free topic, I would write about something we had a quick write on during class like my post about which superpower I wanted or a fresh new topic that I had ready in my mind to talk about like when I wrote about my all time favorite thrill ride. When I did my post about my quick write, I only took the base and idea of it since what I wrote in my composition book wasn’t a fully though out piece of writing. As for my idea for the thrill ride, I wanted to talk about something I enjoyed in my life, so what better topic to write about than roller coasters? Thinking of a new topic to write about was harder than having a brain stormed quick write or a self expressing response post, but it is definitely more fun to remember what fun I had back at that time, and how I long those days of summer days I had in Universal Studios.
    The thing that gets me to write is the clock that ticks every second, mocking me and my resemblance of a snail. My wait until the last day to do homework has been haunting me ever since I was in sixth grade for I hate the boredom of doing homework so much that my mind randomly picks out anything and everything distracting to keep me from concentrating. This constant distraction usually stops when I get my work rolling, but that takes too much time that I generally don’t have. This leads me into my problem with writer’s block.
    Stopping and Starting my work is an extremely inefficient way of working, but it sometimes happens without noticing. Normally I stop to think every time I need a stronger choice of vocabulary to choose to, so I always have a tab just for the thesaurus. I tend to dwell on this problem for a long time since it takes me a while to find my so called “perfect word” that fits marvelously inside the text. Sometimes I would go onto the thesaurus online and look up a synonym for the word, but my fastidiousness would have me traveling page to page, looking for a word that does not even exist in the English language. When this happens, I feel like a failure for I had spent at least five minutes trying to look for the word, and I ended up with the word I found in the first five seconds of the impossible search.
    Ordinarily, I get myself unstuck by zapping myself with a gun of realization, pulling me out of the never ending wild goose chase for intelligence in my preference of words, but sometime it would take me an hour or two to realize that I have totally drove off track. It would sometimes take me an hour or two mainly because of my quickness to get distracted by random things that suddenly become way more interesting than the original thing I was supposed to be doing, homework. I have figured out that my mind practically can not understand and process homework until about eight or nine o’ clock at night, with an exception of extremely important assignments that require an enormous amount of time like projects and essays. This would lead me to work until midnight or as late at three in the morning. Sleeping at three a.m. gives me only four out of the eight hours of sleep a normal human being my age requires when I wake up at seven in the morning to go to school. This procrastination leads to decreased amount of sleep which in turn leads to yawning during class all day and drowsy eyes that have troubles staying open, which in turn leads to poor attention towards class and lowered knowledge of vital information taught by the teacher.
    I love the idea of blog posting since this allows everybody in all of the classes to read, respond, and even share the piece of wordy art. Responses that other classmates post help give another point of view of the original piece like how I responded to Shiyun’s post about how people refer to each other as friends and how each friend is grouped and treated differently. I responded to her post by saying how I label people and how I, personally, treat them. These past two and a half months of weekly blogging has taught me how to go with the flow of writing, and confidently talk about any subject that is on my mind.
I have noticed how I can whip out three paragraphs of a topic easily within an hour.
    As for now, my main goal is to stop procrastinating on my homework, and I know that it will take way more effort to actually follow this rule than to simply say it. I think that without procrastination of homework in my life, everything would be easier. From waking up, to being awake and safe when biking to school, to paying attention at school, and to my own personal health, doing my homework earlier will only result in positive results.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Of Mice and Men Char. vs Fate

Of Mice and Men

The novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is about two men, Lennie and George, who always get in trouble. They are best friends that have been run out of their own town, and have moved to a ranch to work enough money to buy their dream house. Curley hates Lennie for being such a big person, and attacks him later on. In the process of beating Lennie up, Lennie reached out and crushed Curley's hand. It broke, only angering Curley more. Lennie's stupidity gets himself in trouble again with Curley's wife, but this time George can't save him. Curley's hate toward Lennie is so great, he wants to shoot him down to the ground. The central conflict in Of Mice and Men was character vs. fate because George and Lennie have always been destined to get into trouble before getting their dream house.

“Jus' wanted to feel that girl's dress-jus' wanted to pet it like it was a mouse- Well, how the hell did she know you jus' wanted to feel her dress? She jerks back and you hold on like it was a mouse. She yells and we got to hide in a irrigation ditch all day with guys lookin' for us, and we got to sneak out in the dark and get outta the country.” (Page 11)
Since Lennie couldn't control himself, his addiction to soft thing always gets him in trouble. This leads into a problem for George since he promised he would stay with Lennie. George has to find a place to run and hide, like how they hid in the irrigation ditch, and save Lennie once again. Lennie's problems have always ruined Georges plans, and they were bound to happen again.

“Lennie's eyes moved down over her body, and though she did not seem to be looking at Lennie she bridled a little.” (Page 31) and “Lennie still stared at the doorway where she had been. “Gosh, she was purty.” He smiled admiringly.” (Page 32)
Lennie's experience in Weed, scaring the woman when grabbing onto her dress, foreshadows that Lennie will get in trouble with Curly's wife since Lennie can not resist himself from things he likes. Lennie is totally mesmerized by her, so his lack of control would convince him to do something stupid sooner or later.

“Curley's like a lot of little guys. He hates big guys. He's alla time picking scaps with big guys. Kind of like he's mad at 'em because he ain't a big guy.”(Page 26)
Curley hates Lennie just because he is big, and since Lennie can't help himself, he would probably get into trouble with Curley. Plus, since Curley is Lennie and George's boss's son, he could easily tell his father to kick Lennie and George out of their jobs. This would proceed into their lack of money needed for their dream house.

George and Lennie have too many problems that are working against their plans to live on their own land that it is certain they wouldn't get their house. Curley could get Lennie fired whenever he wants, and Curley's wife could get Lennie to do something stupid that would get him run out. When Lennie is run out, George is pulled with him, delaying their dreams.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Response to Andy Lau

I got these great quote from Andy Lau's blog:
I am not going to lie, I am addicted to Facebook. I do not know why, but I always find myself going on that website without a goal or a legitimate reason.
I will also admit that I have some obsession with this terrible time-sucking website. I will go on it just because it is the only thing on my computer, since I don't have games, that will keep me a little sane from my boring homework. I usually tell myself that I will just check that notification, and get straight down to homework, but this doesn't work out as planned most of the time. I end up failing myself, and looking at some conversations that don't relate to me in anyway. I don't waste as much time on Facebook, since it does get dull, as on Youtube. I would go on Youtube for the same reason as me going on Facebook, and look at a video. After laughing hard at one, I look at the related videos on the side, and remember such I laugh I had, so I click that too. This leads to hours and hours of time wasted just because I saw a video that gave me a grin. This also happens when I see a video that is extremely interesting, like animal videos. I watch hundreds and hundreds of videos lasting from three minutes to an hour long, but this does educate me about the creatures around me. These so called educational videos have absorbed so much of my time that I don't get to do the actual work that helps my current education.
I know that Facebook is probably one of the biggest reasons why my homework and projects is not top quality. I also understand that Facebook has kept me from getting perfect scores on tests. Every time I work on homework, projects, or study for tests, I find myself browsing Facebook for no apparent reason; totally distracted. Only if this distraction was not in my life, I would do a lot better in school.
 Facebook and Youtube have completely rearranged my priorities of work. They somehow convince me that that extra minute of browsing or watching won't hurt my abundance of homework time, but that extra minute collects. It collects by sixties and sixties, making hours of time cut out from my homework. I end up starting at 7 p.m. or 9 p.m. when I actually sat down to work at 5 p.m. This leads me to sleep at around 12:30 p.m. when I could have slept at 10 p.m. or even earlier if I had done my work as planned. When I wake up the next morning at 7 a.m., I don't feel like waking up and yawn continuously during class.

Facebook and Youtube are such grade destroyers that give me so less that it takes, but even though it totally hurts me, I can not let them go.

Response to Tiffany

I have quotes from Tiffany's blog that I can terribly relate to, shamefully:
First of all, why do we swear? We swear to get our anger out. Usually I would swear because of things that can be ridiculous to me. I remember one time I was watching Mythbusters about something of why we swear. It said that we swear to release stress. So that answers my second questions, we swear to release stress. Some other people say, that they swear because it gives them pride. What pride is that? If I had a habit of not swearing, I would be happy.
 My bad habit of swearing has offended everybody around me, including my relatives, teachers, friends, and their parents. The swear words I use just have a way of running out of my mouth. They sometimes sneak out even without me knowing and noticing for a few seconds. I think that people like me swear because it seems like such a simple but effective type of way of speaking your mind. Most people know it, and it is so easy to say, that it becomes used everyday. Ordinarily, I swear when I am really irritated or hyper into the extreme. When in those stages, my mind tells me that I can say whatever I want, and to anyone I want. Shamefully, I used to use swear words as a way to show that I am mature, but now that I know that this is just plain childish. The habit I had has stayed with me, even after trying to abolish and commission it to leave. When out of school, my medial curse words amount to 4-10 per minute. This may seem a lot, but I could regularly fit at least two swear words in a sentence. I admit they don't make sense to normal people, but they sure make sense to me.
Instead of saying F*** you, why not just say forget you? 
 Normally, when I am with people that are easily offended or I don't know, I use words suitable to all ears, but when I get irritated at someone or something, some curse words slip out. I usually have a way of not swearing in front of most parents, children, and girls, but I have such a close relationship to these simple words that it might accidentally slip out of my mouth. I don't speak foully in front of parents for they might get offended and judge me for a rebel. I would never intentionally swear to children since I know how these are words that should never be learned , and bear that my habits are the reason a child is cussing to people, thinking it is cool. For some weird reason though, I don't use cuss words when I talk to most girls. I have noticed that I contain some kind of switch that turns my swearing off when I talk to people I first meet. I think that in my brain, I know people generally don't like others cussing, so it temporarily erases swear words out of my mind, letting me talk in a nicer tone.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Response To Billy

These great quotes came from Billy's message to Justin Bieber's haters on his blog:
I really need to talk about something VERY important. Everyone knows who Justin Bieber, but why does everyone hate him. Mr. Bieber is a regular normal teenager (just like all of us) who has an amazing voice and is very popular.
 I don't dislike Justin Bieber, and you have a good point, but I think the main reason people are hating on him because people think he is overrated. People think that too much attention is centered into this one boy, and the attention should be evened out more for other people, maybe even greater than Justin Bieber, to come forth to fame. They believe and know that there are singers way more talented than Justin Bieber, and that other singers or people with special talents need room to rise to fame too. I, personally, think this is why some other famous singers, like Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne, are being disliked.


1. He sings like a girl, because he has not cracked his voiced yet
His voice is AMAZING right now. I actually hope he doesn't hit puberty, because he will not be popular anymore. How do you think how most of his songs became popular? If he sang in a lower voice, I bet he will not be as popular as he is now.
 I think that most of the people who are complaining about Justin Bieber's high-pitched voice are actually disliking it because they are not used to that type of music. Different people have different preferences of music. Some people like rock, some like rap, and some like pop, what Justin Bieber's style is. You couldn't expect someone who liked extreme guitar solos and loud drum beats like a young pop star that is getting more popular than their favorite band. So in defense of their bands, they create hate messages degrading other people, like Justin Bieber, of their fame, thinking it would help dilute the popularity of their victim. Since teenagers nowadays like following their fellow peers, some of them copy this trend of hating on Justin Bieber, creating giant grenades of hate exploding everywhere.

Though disliking someone or something publicly is a terrible thing to do, people should have their own choice of showing what  they like and dislike for everybody to see. This is why there is both a like and dislike for things like Youtube, so people could show their inner feelings for what they watch or read.

Response To Shiyun

I got this really eye-opening quote that got me thinking from Shiyun's blog:
  Do we every classify our friends and put them in different groups? Maybe you would say no to this question, but later on you would understand what I mean. Have we thought we constantly use our friends just to make us feel better like they are tools to us. Are there some friends that are just your friends because you want to know more about them so that you can spread rumors? To notice the initial stages of a fake friendship you would notice that he/she would not care much about your feelings and they would be the one that is mostly taking control of you.
I noticed that I,personally, classify people in different groups of personalities and treat them accordingly all the time, but everybody has their own unique combination of them. Some friends are easier and more fun to talk to, and some are not. Some of them could be nice or mean, or even two-faced.. Some friends are helpful and studious, and some could just be unhelpful and lazy. Some people in your life might be easily taken advantage of and abused, but they might also be the people that are trustworthy and you could call a friend.

I have taken a few people for granted, and asked for some of their time when I didn't need it. But I only did that to them because I knew they were trustworthy and warm-hearted. They are the people that I would in turn spend my time helping since they helped me. These people are the people that I would label a true friend. Entity of trust is what helps build a helping mutual friendship.

For the people that I have around and are sometimes, but not always honest, I would still label them as a friend, just not a true and reliable one I would depend on. I believe that for one to be trusted, they need to be trustworthy in the first place. It should be a give and take thing, where the effort you put in is the effort you receive. Reliance is necessary for a true friend, so for the people who aren't repaying your efforts, they don't deserve your time and should be simply ignored. All they would do is aggravate your life, so they should be labeled as a fake friend, and ranked to the bottom of your list.