Journal 31: Comparing Poems

Death in The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls and in The Cross of Snow the two death is directly opposing the main idea of each other in conceptual understanding and theme because in The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls the traveler's death was so insignificant that the ocean waves washes away his footprints, representing his contribution and changes to the world, nonchalantly, and nothing was altered or affected by his death; the tide still rises all the same and the tide still falls all the same. However, in The Cross of Snow, the cross representing the wife of the Longfellow is not gone and unaffected by weather or any other natural changes in any way and the Longfellow is experiencing tremendous grief. Contrary to the stranger's death, the death of the wife was not comparable with the stranger's death because the stranger's death was insignificant and when Longfellow refer to her wife using the word 'martyrdom' we know that she is very significant and her death was more than just any death. It is very sad when a love one dies and strangers die in hospital all the time but it's just like the travelor, it doesn't matter to the people who have no crossing of path with the person who died. "The death of one person is a tragedy, but the death of a million is just a statistic." - Joseph Stalin.

Journal 30: Image of Grief

Nature is an excellent medium for expression of emotions. For example, a happy mood can be represented by golden rays of sunlight shinning down on green grassland and flowers. An angry mood can be represented by an exploding volcano, a raging tsunami, or other devastating natural catastrophe. The expression of grief can have a lot of different take though because there are many kinds of grief. There is a a sullen, frustrating kind of grief which can be portrayed by the pouring rain in London in a dark night. The other kind of extreme grief with sadness and depression combined can be portrayed by a dying bird or even a dead bird. It can also be portrayed by the chill of a graveyard. The cross of snow is a symbol when he cross s symbol for grief and even the heat cannot take away the grief that the author, Longfellow, has for his dead wife because his wife is very important to him and her death was very meaningful, significant, and depressing. By the poem we can tell that the author was in agony because of the way he described the death of her wife as a "martyrdom". However, his description is different from grief that other people might think. When we think of grief, the natural phenomena we think of is usually something dark, like nightfall, twilight, rain, cloudy, or shadow, but snow is very bright.

Journal 29: Human Life: A Cycle, OR is it?

It repeat itself, life does, and as many would call it reincarnation. The cycle of life goes round and round. There's no knowing how it all started, when it started, or when it will end. All that is important is that we are in the loop that will not end, and there is a system here. We are all caught in this vortex and the only perceived escape, as many believe, is death, but it's not true. Death, as some might say, is the way out; however, some put it in another way, as the new beginning. The old end is a new beginning in the same vortex. Think of it like a train. We'r all on a train. A train that will take us far away. We know where we hope this train will take us and we see death as the end of the tunnel, but we don't know for sure. But it doesn't matter, because the train is going round and round. We would go everywhere not once, not twice, but infinite times. This is the idea of life. You will experience life not just this time and it will definitely not be your first or your last. We thought the train will eventually, after stops after stops, take us to the last stop, but there are no last stop. The perceived last stop, death, is merely the start of the same route that goes on the same route and stays on the same route. I think our lives is in an endless loop but I don't think we will reincarnate into other animals because the fundamental difference between us and animals are that we have thoughts and therefore no matter how distorted it becomes we will still be incompatible with other creatures.

Journal 28: Thanksgiving

I am thankful for a lot of things in my mind and I have a lot of people to thank for who I am right now because if it weren't for them I would never be who I am right now. Although some of the influences derived from negative experiences while some of the influences derived from positive experiences. An experience doesn't have to be pleasurable or happy moments to be influential, it just has to change you in some ways that when the same decision comes up you would make a different choice than before the influence. One of the people I have to really thank is my parents because if it weren't for them I really would not be like who I am at all. First of all, they put me through education. They provide all the necessities for me to attend a school, accessories for writing, calculating, and other school utilities. They also provide the fund for me to attend a school because when I was a kid until now I don't have enough money to pay for school's tuition and it would really suck not to have education. When I was small, I didn't realize how important school is and now I do realize how important school is but I still can't motivate myself to devout my everything to school. Maybe one day I can realize the importance of school and also be able to work hard at appreciating and not wasting the valuable resources my parents send so much investment for me to go to a top-notched school.

Journal 27: More Thanatopsis

What happened in the last journal entry; In the Thanatopsis poem it is mostly about the concept of death and what happens after death to the physical remain and the spiritual soul. Basically the traditional view of afterlife is that the physical remain is gone and the spirit remains either in the human realm or goes onto the afterworld of heaven or hell depending on the deeds one committed during life. Another view, mostly eastern, is that the soul goes into reincarnation where it gets reborn in a new body and then the soul is then recycled back into the human realm in the form of another life. In the Thanatopsis poem it is talking about how the spirit is gone and what's left to be recycled is the physical remain. In a way it is using the same idea of reincarnation but it is not reincarnation of the spirit but the reuse of the matter of your physical remain. This poem and burning house poem is different because in burning house poem it is about how earthly stuff should not be cherished too much because we eventually go to afterworld where nothing in your lifetime will matter. In this poem it is similar in that it is assuring that death is a start of something new and the earthly belongings will be gone but it's different in that you don't go to a afterworld but you go to a reincarnation of physical form where the soul disappears.

Journal 26: Thanatopsis

Nature communicates back in a peaceful tranquil tone. The advice was about death. Nature is trying to comfort the thoughts and musing of the narrator about death and trying to pacify the feeling through an explanation on how the cycle of life works. The advice was painting death in a way that shows that death is no big deal because every living thing goes through the cycle or life and death and then reborn because matters and energy are conserved. If there is life there is death. This is because when you die, you go back to nature's giant pool of matter and then from the pool of matter, atoms are selected to become another life form. This is the whole idea of reincarnation. However, the traditional view was that your body dies and then your spirit has two choices. Either it floats around in the realm of man, selected to go to heaven or hell, or reincarnate to become a new life. In this view, the spirit was not preserved, instead, our body is preserved in the form of matter and then be used for another life form or non-life form. The romantic belief was that the world doesn't operate like a machine instead is like a living thing that we are part of. Romantics look into nature for lessons and in this case Bryant look into nature for comfort and concept of death and after death, the concept. People die sad and stay sad; people die happy and stay happy.

Journal 25: Natural Cycle

Starting from the puritans; they look for faith for redemption and a holy life. The Rationalists look for lessons from reasoning and logic that they derived from themselves. Their argument was that since God created the world, he must have left a set of guidelines that would balance out the world and let the world continue without its help but does not collapse at the same time. It's like the game League of Legends. First, the creators creates a map of League of Legends, Twisted Treeline, Summoner's Rift, and Dominion map, representing the universe God created. Then, the creator of League of Legends, created characters such as Twisted Fate, Shaco, or Jax that serves to be the dominant life form of the world, representing Adam and Eve. Then, the creators creates challenges such as wolves, golems, the Lizard King, the dragon, and Baron Nesher. Characters are rewarded from the overcoming of the challenges, in this instance, the killing of the jungle creeps, representing the challenges human overcome to get reward. Then, the creators lay back, after issuing a set of rules, in this instance, the balancing of champion skills, jungle creeps' statistics, and overall game's physical logic coherence, while representing God after laying a set of logic and reasoning lays back and watches the world unfold. Then, the transcendentalist is different in that they see everything in the world and the nature as a representation of God. This is because God created the world and that nature is the original creation and as civilization and technology advance it is moving away from God. It is like the case of modifying a game. When the race cars provided in the game is limited, you can mod the car so that it becomes a tank or private jet or you can hack to get a lot of money. They believe to understand God, in this instance, the game, you must play the game simply and originally without shortcut and playing to its original settings, or living a life closely related to the origin of world created by God.

Journal 24: Freedom and Equality

Freedom and equality are the two most fundamental idea of the American ideal and the lives of American people and is imprinted in every American's ideologies. In the Constitution, it is mentioned that natural rights are the rights given to the people of the United States to the right of life, right of liberty, and the right to pursuit happiness. The reason why these ideals are so fundamental in the creating of America and the ideology of the American people is because America is founded upon the ending of a tyranny, the English empire, so naturally, these three ideas are the ones that will be highlighted because not only are these three rights important, but also it is being neglected upon. The right to freedom is of the most essence because freedom is what they do not have under the tyrannical control of England because it is a monarchy and the king does whatever it likes and whatever it can within the boundary of the country so freedom is what the people want. In the Constitution it is stated that "all men are created equal" and that equality is a very important idea because the oppression from the English government is very overwhelming and the representation is also of a key issue. I think i live in a free society because although there are laws, we are educated to think that whatever is defined as criminal activity we don't feel comfortable doing.

Journal 23: Tom Walker and John Edwards

Tom Walker and John Edwards are actually quite similar in their work because of the fact that they are both of the Dark Romanticism technique of writing. In the Dark Romanticism they highlight the flaws and vice of the people instead of showing the virtue and superiority of nature or of the hero in the traditional romanticism writing. In the Tom Walker story Tom Walker is portrayed as a person with a very hungry and  greedy heart and wants a lot of money. However, his wife is even more greedy so the story foreshadow the punishment of being greedy by showing that his wife went to the devil and never returned. Tom Walker did not heed the warning and went to the devil. the devil took him away because he is still greedy and the greediness did not go. In the sermon delivered  by John Edward, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, John Edwards is giving warning to the people that if we don't take Jesus in as our savior we will go to hell and the only reason we are not in hell the very second is because we are saved by God's grace, his hands. He can take his hands away from us anytime and we would plunged in the darkness of the inferno and the only way to avoid that is to believe that Jesus is our savior.

Journal 22: The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker by Edgar Allen Poe is a work of the dark romanticism and is by the anti-transcendentalist, or dark romanticist, author. It is considered a work of the dark romanticism because it portrays the vice of the main character, in this case, greediness. In the traditional romanticism work, the hero is portrayed with virtue and will overcome the villain, or antagonist in the story. It also is very close to nature. However, in the story, the nature was a swamp, usually seen as a dark side of the naturalistic world.  Not only does the author portrays such a dark setting for the story, he also expressed the dark side of human. Tom Walker became an usurer, a person who loans with abnormally high interest rate, usually to people that owes a lot of debts and can't get a loan from a normal bank. He took this job because the Devil at first asked him if he wants to use the treasure of the pirate to become a slave trader. He is not a very evil man so he turned down this request resolutely. However, being a usurer is not so bad, or so he thought, because he thinks that people who borrow money from him agreed to pay the hight interest rate so there's no felony or criminal activities involved. However, he wasn't able to redeem himself and he was taken by the devil.

Journal 21: Darkness

The dark romanticism is a bit different from the traditional romanticism. The difference between the two groups grants them the name of anti-transcendentalists or dark romanticists because transcendentalists are people who embodies romanticism ideals and dark romanticists are called anti-transcendentalists. Dark Romanticism is often conflated with Gothicism or called American Romanticism. It is a literary subgenre of the romanticism because it is not a huge difference from the genre of the Romanticism style. It has been suggested that Dark Romantics present individuals as prone to sin and self-destruction, not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom. In The Devil and Tom Walker, Tom Walker and his wife is portrayed as having the vice of greediness. Wife is more greedy than Tom Walker so when she first met the Devil, she never returned. Then Tom, after accepting Devil's deal becoming a loaner with huge interest rate that destroys one's financial stability became filthy rich but the money he earned aren't from a good source. He shouldn't do this because this is a dirty way of earning money. However, because of Tom's greediness portrayed by Edgar, the author, he becomes the loaner. Then, we was taken by the devil because of his bad deeds.

Journal 20: Compare ze Heroes

The heroes nowadays in movies are very diverse because our literature work and movies are all either inspired by past literature work or direct remake of previous movies with a new director, a new interpretation, or with new and better technologies. There are less and less original work because we use previous works as foundations of new projects of works or we simply reuse the same plot but with a different point of view. There are two kind of heroes and the villain revolves around these characteristics too. Heroes of the Romanticism Era values feelings, intuition, and hunch and act base on pure intuition and raw force. When the hero possess these characteristics, it is usually that the villain, or the antagonist, of thestory would be a sly, calculative person that has evil plans for his bad deeds. The story is often resolved with the hero defeating the villain through raw power, exterminating all the bad guys. Then the other kind of hero fights and wins using wisdom and intelligent plans for good deeds. Usually the enemy is someone that is more powerful than the hero or is much more ruthless and menacing but the hero outsmarts the villain with his intelligence. These two types of heroes are radically different in that they think and resolve solution withradically different approach and usually with very different settings. I like heroes with knowledge because raw power is risky and stupid and there's nothing we can learn from these heroes because the only reason their approach could work is because of their superhuman physical attribute and bravery. We can learn more from intelligent heroes because we can learn from their calm and critical thinking techniques that suits our society better if we want to be successful in this modern society.

Journal 19: Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths and weaknesses are hard to measure because there are no agreed unit for strengths and weaknesses because we don't know how to measure skills. Although skill is not objective, the best we could do it calculate by efficiency. For example, a person that can perform a task in 5 hours compared to a person that can perform a task in 10 hours is by this scale two times more skilled. However, the tricky part is also quality over quantity. There are qualities in performing a task rather than just the speed of performing a task. One can perform a task five times in a minute with 50% work and another can perform three times with 100% perfection in a minute. This is hard to calculate because we need to consider the impact of quality and the impact of speed and how to weigh each portion in assessing one's skill. For example, wrapping a box can be crappy quality because quantity matters a whole lot more while manufacturing a car requires quality over quantity. One might choose a Lambourghini instead of ten Toyotas. In another scenario, one might choose ten ugly boxes rather than one decorated boxes with a red ribbon over it.

Journal 18: Rational or Transcendental

Both rationalists and transcendentalists believe in one almighty God that created the world. However, the two different group have different ways of interpreting the world and the world's event and different ways to view the world. The Transcendentalists believed that all things in life is a mere reflection of an actual higher world in which God has created and resides. This means that they view the nature, the world without human civilization influences as a close representation of where God creates and the more we live our lives in the nature without artificial influence the closer we are to understand and be with God. This is why most transcendentalists resides in the countryside; they give up their properties, and sell their belongings and lives at the countryside to be close to nature. The rationalists on the other hand are people who believes that God created a world and sets a set of rules and then watch as the world unfolds. They believe that we could use reasoning and logics to figure out the rules set by God and by doing that we can be closer to God. They don't go together because transcendentalists believe in instinct and feeling over logic and reasoning.