Journal 17: The American Romantic Hero

Romanticism is an era where literature and art work divert from the ordinary logic and corruption of the industrialized world. During the Romanticism Era, literature focuses on the nature instead of the corrupted society. Heros during the Romanticism Era tend to be innocent with reckless daring impulsive actions that usually result in victory. This is because during the era, the most praised characteristics are not logical reasoning and cunning tactics but boldness, bravery, and intuition. Believes in faith and intuition when searching for solution and is generally values feeling over reasoning. Heros, whether real or fiction today are people has strong reasoning that outsmarts evil or villain and finds a perfect solution that saves the day. We praise logic and reasoning more now because now, education has become more and more important and it is integrated into our lives. Captain America can be considered a hero that suits the criteria of the Romanticism Era because Captain America relies on instincts and bold actions to achieve his tasks. He doesn't do much planning because he can heal from bullet wounds fast and has strength that no other human can compete so his plans are usually just going directly to the enemy base and beat everyone up.

Journal 16: Intro to Romanticism

Romanticism is not challenging but not conforming to the idea of logic. Romanticism incorporates strong emotional appeals into the writing and places large emphasis on emotions because it is very crucial during the Romanticism. Feeling is of a great concept during the romanticism rather than logic and reasoning. Feelings such as terror and the opposite, awe, are greatly used for the emotions and the moods created by the painting and writings. Most of which creates a very strong mood that defines the literary or artistic work. Romanticism focuses on the emotional appeals and on the nature. Nature plays a big role in works during the romanticism. It bases on supernatural occurrence and the psychology of human. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, it focuses primarily on the mind of the characters. The guilt of Dimmesdale, the thought of Hester Prynne, the vengeance of Chillingsworth and the horror Hester feels about Chillingsworth's revenge. It also has an important role in developing the plot because it talks about Hester's moral uprightness that she thinks she should stay for the punishment and not flee from it because she has done something sinful and should live with the punishment. Chillings worth on the other hand died because he had no more meaning in life after Dimmesdale died because he is plagued with the idea of vengeance.

Journal 15: The American Ideal

in Ralph Waldo's quote of walking in our own feet, working with our own hands, and speaking with our own minds can be split and analyzed in three separate parts because each part expresses on American Ideal. Walking in our own feet means we follow our own footsteps, we have self-creation because everyone is original and can create our own path that suits us the best that will take us and lead us to success and wealth in America. Working with our own hands means self-reliance, means that we are independent and we rely on our own achievement. Instead of putting this in a tone that suggests everyman for himself and not helping each other, put this in a way that expresses the idea that we don't require and need help to achieve success in America because we are all capable and independent individual that achieve whatever we want just by ourselves. Speaking with our minds refers to the freedom of press and freedom of speech. This means that whatever we think we have the right and we should to say it out because what the people think matters and what the people think is what the country should think so we must voice out our concerns, comments, questions. This is an important idea because most of the European Monarchy system does not allow trash talk about the king or important figures.

Journal 14: Persuade Moi

What I want for my life is a good job, not boring, high salary, and not too exhausting. The reason for this is because I want to earn a lot of money but I am also lazy so I don't wish to do very exhausting work for the money I make. I would rather use mental labor than physical labor. I value money a lot because with money you can have an easy life and enjoy many things poor people cannot enjoy. I would need to convince a very powerful, successful, boss of the Human Resource Department that I am qualified for the job. That I am the person that can perform better mental task than other people. The thing about mental task is that it is irreplaceable. It is not simply a comparison how to what extent, but it's how and what you can do with your brain. It is intellectual property that other people cannot steal if it's still functioning in your head. I need to convince them of my critical thinking skills, my insight on the particular subject related to the job, and that I am the best choice for the job. For emotional appeal I would say something like, "Think of a kid, think of your son and daughter, that graduated right from college, packed with full curiosity and hope, entering society. The bubble of hope and dream is now in your hand, for you to embrace it. You could make a kid's dream come true." For logical appeal I basically list out all the skills I acquired in all my years of life and I would list out by how much I am better than other choices.

Journal 13: Give Me Liberty or…

"freedom","self-reliance", and "self-creation" are vague words because just about every democracy capitalist countries share these three ideas. Freedom, meaning having a voice in the government and the government doesn't oppress and control the citizens. Self-reliance is direct synonym of capitalist idea because to be self reliant means no help from the government and from other people, meaning you make your own living out of your own effort and you're own blood earned cash. Self-creation is also capitalistic because it means copyright. We don't share our intellectual properties such as ideas because we make our own living and our ideas provide us with the cash we need to live. I think words that shape our cultures are words that are related to food with eat, stereotypes other people have of our culture, and other things or ideas that is specifically to our culture. For American, a few words would be "multicultural", "obesity", and "burgers". 'Liberty' and 'freedom' are very strong words and instantly I think of independence, fight, and bloodshed for victory. These words not only point out some desperate human need and desire but also has a violent revolutionary aspect in it.

Journal 12: ✞ SIN ✞

Sin is a religious word. It's not just breaking a law or doing criminal activity, nor is it doing something that is not suited for the norm or moral uprightness. To commit a sin, one must break a religious creed, religious custom and conduct and anything not depicted by the bible as a crime cannot be considered a sin. For example, the bible mentioned many sins, betrayal, murder, lie, steal, and many other sins. If one commits a sin, one will go to hell unless he/she redeems him/herself. Some of the laws in the world are not sins but is a crime considered by our custom and our long history of traditions. For example, it is illegal to seduce, flirt with a woman with "temptation, deception, arts, flattery, or a promise of marriage." This is an extreme example of one of the sins of lying because flatter, deception, and a fake promise are considered lies but of a very harmless and trivial importance. However, some American laws are drifting away from when it's during the colonial times when religious customs and traditions are intertwined and most of the times the same as the law that will get you arrested. Meaning that if you committed a sin, you are most likely going to go to jail, pay a fine, or even crucified, and then you are going to suffer even more in the Afterlife in Hell for all of eternity. But now because the United States bases many of its laws on precedent, the long history of Supreme Court Trials generated some absurd laws that under normal circumstances would not happen. For example, in North Dakota, it's illegal to dance with a hat on. In Colorado, it's illegal to throw missiles at cars. In Kansas, it's illegal to hunt bunnies from motorboats. In Montana, it's illegal to have more than 1 alarm clock going off at once. In Florida, it's illegal to keep a hippo on the roof of a building. In Minnesota, it's illegal to cross the border with a chicken on your head.

Journal 11: Fear as a Motivator

Fear is probably one of the greatest motivator of all. We often have a greater motivation and motivated action when it is motivated by fear because this is related to our survival. It is genetically benefiting if we do things because we are afraid because if we are motivated by fear that means whenever something scary happens that frightened us we will do anything possible to avoid and to rid of the fear. In the Sermon, he constantly reassures his audiences that only salvation and faith in Christ could save them from hell. He describes hell and emphasize on how terrible it is to be part of it and induce fear in his audience so that he can motivate them into believing in Christ. The main purpose of the sermon is to scare his audience so they would want to save themselves and he provide a solution to believe in Christ that would solve their fear. When we are motivated by fear we tend to do the things we think will save us, no matter how crazy it would sound when we are not put under the situation. The last time i've been motivated by fear is when the principal says the second consecutive late to school would have to write an essay and read it out loud to the whole student body during cafeteria. It's not a grace consequences or punishment but it is still intended to be fear-inducing to motivate people into doing what he wants us to do. Also deadlines that threatens to give late marks are excellent examples of fear as motivation.

Journal 10: Church, anyone?

I've seen many religious advertisements since I was small. Flyers, brochures, emails, texts, and even huge posters. Mostly the catch phrase of all these advertisements are Jesus Loves You or 神愛世人 which means God <3 the people of the world. Every Sunday I would go to tennis class and when it's over at noon, on my way home I would see groups of Philippines leaving Churches along the way. Usually they would go for KFC or McDonald and going to fast food is probably the worst idea during Sunday lunch because it would always be packed with Philippines and the wait to order would take normally 30 to 60 minutes. I've been to a charity place where we have to play/teach/feed mentally handicapped people. They look like children and kids but actually some are older than us. There's a little boy that we would normally guess he's 8 years old but he is actually 21 years old. It was a good experience except when they spit their food on you or when they drool all over the place. Because it is a Christian established charity organization, we need to pray before we eat and we also listen to religious music sometimes. The volunteer work I did in Thailand was also a Christian organization and before eating we have to pray and sing a song. It's called Operation Dawn, they take in drug addicts and they try to recover them by believing in God. Christian organizations and people are very spiritual and they have real faith in God like we have faith in our closest friends and our most trusted mentor.

Journal 9: Motivation

Most of the motivations of the Puritan Era is motivated by church and religious ideas. This is because during the era, there is a very strong sense of pious and devoutness in everyone's mind mainly because the only reason they left England was because of religious reasons so if religious reasons were so strong so as to make them leave their home country, it must be a very important part of their living style. Also, because everyone of the Puritan Era in the America is a puritan, there is a huge puritan influence on the society, making the government and town heavily influenced by Puritan sense. In the Puritan society, the rules are intermingled with Puritan ideas and customs because the legislature believe in the Puritan value and would set rules and laws according to their custom and moral judgement. However, there are non conformists like Hester Prynne in the society that doesn't just want to live in the box and live their life in an extremely conservative fashion. They didn't want to conform to the stringent orthodoxical living style of the Puritan society because they believe in freedom. This is what motivated Hester Prynne. I don't think Hester is very into love and she is desperate so she had to commit adultery. I think she didn't go against his husband but she went against the system, she committed adultery just for the sake of breaking out of leash and felt a thread of freedom.

Journal 8: Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet v Sor Juana

In Anne Bradstreet's poem, her main focus is on physical belongings on Earth and how they are so insignificant and matters so little comparing to a Puritan's final goal, going to heaven. She expresses her sorrow in the beginning of the poem but then quickly shifts his mood into a pious Puritan, praising God and actually thankful because God could have taken her life but instead showed mercy. He understands that everything on Earth is temporary. However, contrast to Sor Juana's poem, she focused more on physical objects and possessions while Sor Juana focuses on the contrast between knowledge and wealth and beauty. Knowledge is forever and can not be robbed of while wealth and beauty are materialistic desires that are temporary and easy to vanish. Sor Juana tries to value vanity as little as possible because to her, she believes that vanity is not worth a dime. Both Anne Bradstreet's poem and Sor Juana's poem make good use of metaphor to make the poem sound powerful. In Anne Bradstreet's poem she compared a house to heaven and in Sor Juana's poem she uses personification in her title that the world is hounding her, basically meaning that the world is against her. They come in different backgrounds but nonetheless there are similarities in their poem and they both used bible as their philosophical bases.

Journal 7: Hounding

To be hounded by the world means that the world is onto you, that the world is going against you, that the world is trying to break you. This title is very powerful because immediately it gets the reader thinking about the world and how every time something bad happens it's not just bad luck, it's because the world is intentionally harassing you and trying to make your life miserable. At first, the first impression of the reader would be that the author must be a very pessimistic person and a paranoid person because a person that believes the world exist just to give one person a hard time is clearly paranoid and thinks that everyone is out there to get him, that bad things happen not because of coincident, but it's a conspiracy to get him. However, further reading the poem and actually understanding what the poem is about shows that the author is actually pretty optimistic. It's a sonnet. Like Anne Bradstreet's poem, she began by talking about the event but then eventually understood and show understanding that she must not dwell on earthly stuff, that she must look for a place in heaven that only a devout Christian can have that God has given out of mercy.

Journal 6: Poem About Loss

I lose stuff, it was rough,
Stuff I lost made me sob.
Why did this happen to me.
Rage is what i feel,
God roll the dic an I lost the game,
Deprive me of fortune and dame.
I hate you God,
You're a fraud.
Give me my stuff back
or my friendship you will forever lack.
Take this whack on my head,
Enormous quantities of tears shed,
Still my stuff are gone forever more,
And I ain't gonna cry no more.