Journal 77: Pressure from Parents

Parents certainly have a lot of pressure and influence on the development and growth of a person. In Rose for Emily, the influence of the father on Emily is massive. First of all, the father is an aristocrat, therefore, Emily is also an aristocrat. Because of this title and status, Emily are looked with respect just because of her last name. This contributes to her character of being spoiled and which developed into a disregard to laws and rules and carefree personality. Emily also has pressure to keep up his title and status so she could not choose some Yankees from the north or he would be frowned upon. Her father also fend off suitors and that contributed to her desperate personality. Combining with her spoiled personality, he will want desperately want she wants and she could not understand if she could not get it or she would not allow the fact that she cannot get what is wants. This results to her killing Homer after Homer tells her that he is not going to be with her. She wants Homer desperately, when she can't have him, she kills him and sleeps beside him to have the illusion of having him around all the time and that he didn't reject her in the first place.

Journal 76: White Lie

White lie is essential in almost all circumstances. Whatever the nature of the situation, the condition, or the parties involved, white lie is almost always a must some time or another, just sooner or later. White lie is useful in many different purpose. Some white lies are used to avoid social awkwardness and to avoid sticky, difficult, or uncomfortable situations where further arguing would lead to trouble or if the truth would lead to enragement of another party or the truth is insignificant but is something bad. Other times, lies are used to conceal the truth because truth hurts. Has it ever occur to you that someone asked you a question that is supposed to be a esteem boost for them but the truth is actually counterintuitive because the truth is what the person doesn't want to hear. However, you would lie to them in their face because you know that he needs the lie and he knows that he wants the lie. Another kind of white lie is you don't want someone to worry too much. It's out of good heart, like all white lies are. For example, you're going to your girlfriend's house to study and maybe fool around a little. You know nothing's going to happen but you don't want your parents to get nosy or even forbid you to go so you lie that you're going to your friend's house.

Journal 75: Shadow of the Past

Emily in the story, A Rose for Emily, has its characteristics, life, actions greatly influenced by the events of the past. The events of the past influenced her by tormenting her with the presence of his fathers, her cousins, her family histories and the actions of the people before her of the Southern United States of America. Emily's character is most greatly affected by her family in that she looks down on people because she is a wealthy aristocrat. Also, people look up to her and let her pass inconvenience because of her high society status that makes her dependent and spoiled. Her father played a role on her action of not marrying because he refused and scares off all suitors of Emily because he doesn't feel like they're good enough for her and therefore Emily becomes unmarried til a very late age. The cousins of her have the same effects; They scared of Homer Baron. However, scaring off Baron wasn't just because of social class difference but also because of the cultural influence that made the Southerners look down on the northerners that came to the South looking for profit. They call them carpetbaggers and they don't like them. That is why Homer left and from this, Emily gone rage and killed him.

Journal 74: Poetry’s Social Function

Poetry in society can have different form. There are the sonnet and the haiku and the ballad. Different types of poetry takes on different forms and the different forms of poetry serves different purposes in society. For example, the Haiku developed y the Japanese served a purpose to express the feelings but also alongside physical observation. Observation and imagery is important in the haiku so it is not purely of images or purely of thoughts. Sonnets are rhythmic poems that are used in a variety of ways. Because of its acoustic appeals, it can be used in speeches or monologues but it can also be writing that appeals and persuade people. Sonnets can also be used to express thoughts and ideas and are too fancy to be explained or expressed through words. The ballads are the really long and story like poems. They are basically stories, whether short or long, sometimes can be extremely long that is almost like a 800 pages novel, but some can be a novel with just a few chapters. They serve to tell a story, usually of a hero's adventure to save the princess or defeat the monster, but a hero's journey nonetheless. Poetry in different forms serve different purposes and all are important.

Journal 73: No Ideas But In Things

Ideas in things have a certain quality of being infinitive and unique because ideas are thoughts that does not have to be in a practical form where things are materialistic of the formation of the ideas so in order to conform to the laws of physics the idea must be practical in order for it to take on a physical form. In poems and literatures, the fascinating things about them is that they are expressions of ideas in the materialistic physical world but it can still the the ideals of the ideas that have no specific practical ideas that conform to the laws of physics to exist in this world. The amazing idea of ideas needing to be expressed in a form of imagery, as the imagists proposed is that it completely destroys the whole purpose of creating ideas from literature. Literature are supposed to be the materialization of ideas that cannot take real action or form in the world but with literature is brought into life. Then the imagists came along and changed it into purely imagery and defeats the purpose of writing. We must change this form of writing back into the transcendentalists and surrealism and magical writing because that is the true purpose of writing.

Journal 72: War and Economics

Economic disaster can be caused by war or it can be fixed by war. War is a very peculiar thing, makes some people poor as dirt and some people filthy rich. One example is the armsdealer. The armsdealer profit a lot during wars and especially the armsdealer that sell weapons to both side. Although unethical, they profit a lot during wars by selling to both side. Another party that gains a lot of profit from war is the winner. They make treaty that kills the loser's economy and military and in turns gets millions and billions of dollars from the treaty. However, as homewrecking and hellish wars might be, wars can save the economy during a recession and depression. What happens during a recession or depression is that people don't want to buy products and so production dies down and therefore workers are laid off. What happens during war is that government is forced to buy weapons, steel, tanks, and people are put to work for the war effort, therefore driving the economy back to working and growing. Although people die, economy will be brought back up because increase in government spending increasing aggregate demand will increase real GDP and therefore lowering unemployment.

Journal 71: Historical Influences

The modernists came about after the realist and it's a whole new movement that revolutionized art and literature. When we talk about modern art, there are a lot of different kind because there aren't exactly a single sentence that can summarize the modern art. It is simply too broad and too much of a grasp for something to be able to characterize it sincerely. One statement people say about modern art is, "I can do it, but I didn't". This statement is basically saying that modern arts are a new perspective in seeing something. Seeing what people can't see. It's not about honing and mastering artistic skills such as being able to draw paintings that looks like photos from a digital camera. It is about seeing ordinary things in everyday life and inventing a creative look for the ordinary thing or idea or showing others how to view it in an innovative perspective. It is basically a poetic representation of what we see everyday, but modify to the extreme and creative and new, it is what we call modern art. Not anyone with great art skills can create modern arts, only those with a strong imagination and a keen observation can create modern art and each one is unique.

Journal 70: Social Influences – Entertainment

We can see from the internet and from oral histories of those that are older than our generation that the good old days without technological control of our mind have been long lost. From that, we infer that they live i na world where there are radio, tv but they aren't that widespread and they resort to other activities. Classic teenagers these days are the teenagers that sit in front of a computer and plays computer all day. It might not be represented of all of us but it can be equivalent to the people that played tic tac toe or chess with themselves in the old days. Computer games are so popular now not just because they're more widespread and more fun, it's because there is a whole new and wider social network in the gaming realm. For many gamers, they might have more friends that they shared more secrets to in the virtual reality and people across the world playing the same game at the same time than the people in his classroom because they felt more disclosed and confident when they now they cannot have an affect on their life with these secrets. Gaming has become socializing for some people and it is a problem because kids should be out in the field playing and chatting under the moonlit night sky.

Journal 69: Make It New

Art IS a joyous thing. I have to agree to that because an art that is portraying a smile, a warm family reunion, a laughter, or a feast can all be affecting our mood. We are highly sophisticated, empathic creatures, we can take on emotions of others and assume how they are feeling by their expressions or their actions. When we see a portrait of a laughing child, we don't just acknowledge that he is happy and that he is laughing. We search through our own histories and remember how the laugh and smile felt like and then we use that emotional history to assume that he's feeling the same way. Mirror neurons in our brain help us to identify other's emotion to better link with others. The reason we have these strong mirror neuron and emotional connection with other people, and also some creatures with an abundance of facial expressions, is because we are highly social creatures and these mirror neurons and the ability to help us understand and connect with other people's emotion can help us in dire situation or help us better survive or stand out in a crowd. Suppose I know our boss is angry and my colleagues that don't know about it makes a joke about his fat wife, he will be immediately fired, without income, and then eventually starved to death, while I would calm the boss down and get a promotion and have 65 babies due to my economic supremacy.

Journal 68: What’s His Problem?

Prufrock is scared of rejection because he felt like his time has passed for flirting with girls. He feels like he is old and not attractive and thus his low self-confidence is a contributing factor to his bad image as well. Sometimes, it is not about physical appearance. Physical appearance is part of it. However, confidence plays a major role in how one presents himself and how one presents himself plays a major and almost absolute role in how he is perceived. A confident average looking person might be more attracting to the opposite sex than a above average looking guy that constantly diminishes self-image and thinks poorly of himself is. Having a belief that you yourself is not worthwhile will generate the aura that spreads to other people carrying a message that tells them that you are not worthwhile. How fun is talking to a person who constantly needs assurance from people to tell them they're attractive and constantly saying bad things about themselves. It's like babysitting a depressed teenager, not very fun. It's also sometimes annoying just like how a person would be annoyed when a nerd that always gets 100 keeps on saying how bad she did on the test but always gets a 100 in the end. Very annoying and not very attractive.

Journal 67: The American Dream

The American Dream is what we would like to believe. However there's no such thing as the American Dream. There is a wildly held belief that if you're poor but you're hardworking enough, you can be rich like John Rockefeller. That might be true. Though anything is possible. You don't have to be in America to achieve that. You need luck, not some government provided opportunity. It is just an advertisement for people to go to the United States. Sure, there's stories of people going from extreme poverty to filthy rich. However, that is definitely not the norm, and that is definitely not how you should think. It happens everywhere, just not often. The reason why it's not true is because it's normal for rich people to get richer. Say the house appreciates every year. Everyone knows that there is going to be a boom in the value of houses, however, you are poor, you don't got no money to invest on houses while the rich people, who accidentally found out about the house value appreciation by random chance, decide to spend 1/50 of his asset in gaining two times the amount of money invested. This demonstrate no matter how smart you are or how hardworking you are, if you don't have the money to invest, you just can't prosper, only by chance.

Journal 66: Better Things?

A change might be good or it might be bad. The change from hunting to have surplus to developing cities,  industrialization, urbanization, are being argued both ways for being either good or bad. We really don't know what's a good change and whether advancement in technology sense is really for the best. True, our technology is getting more and more efficient. Efficient in doing what? Efficient in cutting down trees and  destroying our environment for a easier and more convenient life. Some people argue that urbanization is defiance of God and nature and we shouldn't exploit our homes like this. It's a shame that we are cutting down trees, digging into the ground for minerals and oil, and polluting our environment, but isn't that what we want. Even the activists that are against urbanization, technological advancement, probably live in a nice house, owns a car, uses public transportation or taxi, and has a smart phone or a laptop or both. I believe that urbanization is for the better because the world becomes more convenient, people's life become better at the cost of environmental damage. As a kid brought up alongside technology and convenience, I wouldn't just want to live at a place filled with green grass and trees because nature sometimes can be disastrous and very hot like an oven.

Journal 65: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

Women have come a long way since when women had no right. They didn't have voting right, they had little to no power in the society in terms of ownership and basic human rights and respects, they had no place in society except staying home and look pretty and care for the kids, and even after slaves, what was viewed as being possessions and tools, were freed, women still had not improved their rights. The black rights movement gave blacks a lot more right then when there were discriminated upon and segregated against based on their race. The women civil rights movement even came after black rights which came as a shock to many people, that women gain rights later than black people did. Women had no rights until very recent history. However, I believe women are gaining too much right now. We used to open doors, walk after, pull out the chair, lend our jackets to them when it's cold, but it's because we believe that we are superior and with great power (in this case, more rights) comes great responsibility. However, women now are gaining almost equivalent rights and it's time for traditional gentleman to end and when chivalry start working both ways.

Journal 63: On Impulse

The impulse is the uninhibited thoughts that drive one to do something that might or might not be socially appropriate. As Freud called it, there is an unconscious in every men's heart. They are not aware of their unconscious but all their decisions are a fraction of their unconscious and they act out of the balance of the two forces in their unconscious. The id is the part of the unconscious that desires lust, raw satisfaction, and primal instincts for optimal arousal. Another part of the unconscious is called the superego. The superego did not come from the person's own creation. The superego is injected by society, community, of rules and laws that govern one's social acceptable behavior. If the id is the child, then the superego would be the parent monitoring and regulating behavior and thoughts of the kid. The id is the true person and the superego is what the person comes in contact with. After the superego regulates and rid of all the unrealistic or unacceptable desires then it presents to the ego, the conscious part of a person and that's what the person acts on. The impulses that come out to play might be more superego than the id or it might be the opposite way around. Usually, the more it is leaning toward the superego, the more morally upright and socially acceptable it is, and the more it is leaning toward the id is the more ruthless carefree personality.

Journal 62: Romantics v Realists

Romantics and Realists differ in many many ways. In their thinking, in their literature, and in their lifestyle. Romantics like to embrace nature and see people as flawlessly bold, adventurous, strong, and invincible. However, the Realists portray human in a more negative way, highlighting not only virtue as the Romantics often do, but also vice. Realists doesn't believe in the altruism, saintlike, flawless characteristics of a perfect hero. They believe everyone has flaws, and why be afraid to show them. Every ordinary men has flaws, and to better connect the hero to the daily people, writers of the Realist period includes flaws that the hero must deal with in order to become a truly admirable hero. In the start the hero is usually faced with a dilemma caused by a heroic trait against a vice, greed, lust, etc. The hero then overcomes the vice through enlightenment after a spiritual or a physical journey, which is the main part of the storyline, and then became a true hero that defeated the dark side of his personality.

Journal 61: Mystery of Heroism

Some people argue that to be a hero one must achieve heroic deeds; Others, however, argue that to be a hero, achieving heroic deeds isn't the only thing, it might not even be the most important thing. The most important thing about a hero is that the hero is has innate heroic qualities, lots of virtues and little vice. Some people would go all the way to the extreme that a hero is all good and no vice at all. However, that would limit heroes to fictional characters because no one is all good and no all is all full of virtue and no vice. A realistic hero is one with both virtues and vice; the virtuous part of the hero does not have to be overwhelmingly characterizing of the hero but the hero must, according to his virtues, do the heroic deed in spite of his personal dilemma. To be a hero, vice is necessary, I would say. This is because only through vice and conquering one's own flaw can heroic qualities truly show. I don't think a person that is 100% selfless that sacrificed for others is the best hero and the most heroic. I think the ones that are tormented by his vice and evil thoughts that later overcome his own moral compass and dilemma that in the end does heroic deed despite his own interest is a real hero. He not only did heroic deeds for the good for other, but he also conquered the bad in himself.

Journal 60: Think About…

Civil War was the first photographed war. This really brings all the gory, bloody, violent sides of war to people for the first time realistically and graphically. People used to believe, like Henry Fleming in Red Badge of Courage, Henry fantasized battle as being a hard labor that involves glory and honor and no risk. That is because before wars are photographed and later filmed, people have no idea how horrific wars are. Wars are told by the people who returned, and although battered, the people that returned will want to tell a story that portrays them as heroes. Naturally, the stories told about war, though hard and tragic, are glorious and exciting. This motivates people like Henry to have silly fantasies. After Civil War became photographed and ordinary people began to be exposed to the horrific and terrible scenes of war, it's the first time that people truly realize why and to what extend the saying, "War is hell" is true. The realists began to portray the ugly side of war and the ugly side of people because everyone, no matter how good and how virtuous they are, they all have some kind of vice. The basics of realism is that a hero can not be all good because no one is perfect and being the hero simply means that this ordinary person performed unordinary deeds that combated his vice and eventually did good.

Journal 59: A Change of Heart

The Romanticist is different from the realist because from the words themselves, we see that the romanticists romanticize situations and heroes so that the heroes seems like invulnerable, strong, brave, and without flaw, and can achieve all possibilities. The realist however, tends to show both the good sides and the bad sides about human. Human are obviously flawed and realists tend to, with a hint of virtue, highlight the vice in human being, whether it is cowardliness or deceptiveness. In a romanticist work of art or literature, the hero, or main character portrayed is usually one of glowing light with a halo and all virtues one can possibly think of. Courage, strength, will to sacrifice for the greater good. However, in a realist work, the main character or hero might still do heroic deed or have heroic qualities like the ones in the work of a romanticist, but the hero would also be presented with human vice. This would allow different readers to interpret the hero in different ways so as to characterize the hero as a hero because of heroic qualities or heroic deeds or one can also characterize the hero in a way that he is nothing but a character that experience normal human dilemma and is troubled by human vice.

Journal 58: I Exist

Basically the quote is saying that us people are self-centered and we think that the world revolves around us. From the movie, King's Speech, the speaking instructor asked the king why he should listen to what he have to say. "Why should I listen to you?" "Because I have a voice!" We tend to think that we are important and that people are to listen to us when we think we have some brilliant idea. It doesn't take the most self-conscious person to declare that he made some changes in the world. Everyone feels that they contributed somehow to society and that they are important enough for everyone around them, everyone in the world, and the universe to hear what they think and what they ought to say. However, the world is a big place. The world is filled with a lot of people and a lot of different thought. To logically, through close inspection, think that the world needs to know what you're thinking out of all the other people and out of all the even more thoughts that every person has is simply too demanding. Unless a person of high eminence or importance or power, even people in the same community, same career, would be reluctant to hear what one another has to say all the time.

Journal 57: Free Write

Again with the free writing journal. Free write is a gift, a present, because during free write we can write about whatever we want without the confines of academic field and educational purposes. It is a time for students to freely express their thoughts and not just to think about what the authority wants us to think about. Free write, although might be confusing sometimes, is actually an opportunity for students to practice free thinking. Some students are ripped of their creativity so much that they are incapable of thinking freely outside the box anymore. here is a box.
                                              
|                                             |
|                    O                      |
|                   -|-                     |
|                   / \                     |
Many people thinks inside the box but the true power of human imagination and strength lies outside the box. Free write exercise enables us to reach in deeper to the very element that makes human different from animals. Our thinking power and capacity lies outside of the box and the majority of brilliant ideas lies outside the box.

Journal 56: Power

There are different power structures all over the world, however, in every society there is some kind of social class classification that people are grouped into and sometimes referred to by their social class. For example, in India, the Cast System is very strict and there is an explicit grouping of population in India. There must be to marriage between 2 different class of the Cast System and lower classes of the Cast System aren't even supposed to communicate much with the higher classes. People are judged and looked at through an nondiscrimination eye that only sees different between social classes. In the feudalism system, the difference isn't that obvious and there aren't as extreme rules against classes however, there are still class distinctions, knights, nobles, kings, serfs, peasants, and other classes. Marriage between different class in feudalism society is prohibited and greatly discouraged and there are certain occupation and activities that are only available for certain high class. In today's society, there are different social classes, for example, blue collar and white collar labor difference, high class, middle class, and low class difference, business man, lawyers, and physical laborers. But the difference aren't as big and the rules aren't as strict.

Journal 55: Public Speaking

I used to have massive trembles when I go on stage because I am afraid of all the numerous possibilities of mistakes that I could make such as loss for words, stutter, or wrong pronunciation. However, after speaking more often in public, either to a class or to a crows of unfamiliar faces, I began to outgrow that fear. However, my physiological effects still last. I still shakes, sweat, and tend to forget what I am supposed to say, but I am not  as afraid as I was a few years ago. Public Speaking skills are useful in terms of getting your ideas across even when it's not a friendly communication. It boosts your self esteem and it strengthens your confidence little by little as you stand more often in front of crowds and take over the floor of a discussion and then later reassured by your peers or the audience a job well done. It is a good feeling when you project your ideas across the room, across the hall, across the park, etc. and then getting recognized by the crowd. It is a good feeling to feel that you're in power, that your speech makes sense, and that people are listening to what you have to say because what you say matters.

Journal 54: Nature's Nature

Nature has two sides. One side is the nurturing of all kinds of living things on the planet and a home for all nonliving things also. It nurtures the plants that grows on earth and in the soil; it nurtures the horses running on the grassland and the eagles soaring in the sky; it nurtures the fishes in the water and the worms underground. Everything is part of nature. Some would say that the human civilization and the artificial industrialization and urbanization are a violation of God's will or the code of nature and eventually people will suffer the wraith of nature. Some people also refer to global warming as the wraith of nature because nature is fed up with human polluting the environment. However, when we think about the skyscrapers and the cities and towns, how is it so different from ant hills and beehives. Surely they have less pollution impact but anthills and beehives still do alter the environment around them. To what extent does organism endeavors and product count as unnatural. Usually we think of unnatural as haring the environment. However, we do not know if the beehives and anthills had caused an effect in the world because nobody recorded the world before anthills and beehives for us to compare. All we know is we have altered the CO2 emissions in the world and as a result the world is getting hotter.

Journal 53: Slanted Truth

Slanted truth. Honesty is not the best policy. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, it's never definite. There are times when honesty is required and highly respected but there are also times when honesty would be totally disastrous and even more misleading than a white lie. Adults lie all the time to avoid hurting kids, unnecessary arguments, and misunderstanding. For example, a adults lie about Santa distributing presents. This obviously is a straight up lie. However, some might still regard it as a slanted truth because the essence of Santa distributing gifts, for a kid, is mainly that a good kid will be given a present on Christmas. This technique is for adults to provide an incentive for the kid but instead of just listing a rule that if you do good you get a gift on a certain day, they add a little flower and butterfly on the incentive just for fun. This could be seen more as a slanted truth because it's a slight distortion of incentive policy however it is also just a big fat lie. Another reason people lie is to avoid stuff. For example, people lie all the time about not having enough time when the truth is they have a lot more than enough to do the homework 4, 5 times with the given amount of time. Also, when asked to go to prom, the most frequent answer that means no is they already have a prom date and a lot of times it's false.

Journal 52: Hopes?

Hope is a very interesting aspect of human emotions. Some people can be greatly helped by hope; for example, when a person feels suicidal and feels like the world is hounding him and that there is no more incentives in living, hope can bring that person back up standing and escape a suicidal fate and maybe eventually get better and become successful. However, there is also a bad side of hope. For example, one can be hoping for something great to happen, maybe the arrival of a loved one or finding of a treasure, either way, the feeling of not getting what was expected is a feeling worse than simply not getting the same exact thing. The higher your expectation is the higher you fall. Expectation is like roller coaster, the higher and faster it is the better it is and the more pleasure you derive from the ride, however, if the roller coaster derails, if the hope and expectation wasn't the same as reality, the harder you will fall from the roller coaster, the more pain, the more disparity, the more agonizing it will be. Hopes sometimes can make you feel more pain or maybe it could alleviate pain. Another use of hope is in school. People always hope that they could do the homework with the same quality tomorrow so they never do the work the day assigned unless the due date is the next day.

Journal 51: Pessimism

A pessimist looks at a glass of water and says it's half empty. An optimist looks at a glass of water and says it's half full. A realist looks at a glass of water and says there's 50 ml of water in the cup. The opportunist apologizes for finishing the cup of water while the people are arguing. Pessimism is the tendency to expect the worst out of every situation and feel bad about any opportunity and situation. Some people uses pessimism as a defense mechanism. Expecting the worst result so if the result proves to be unpleasant he would have already guessed and prepared for it, but when the result is pleasant he would be even more joyous. However, this is not what a true pessimist think. Even though he might not feel the unpleasant event like a surprise that hit from nowhere, when the good thing happens he would inherently and instinctively think that the good thin will lead to something unpleasant and bad. Some people are then stuck in the vicious cycle of always expecting the worst out of everything and never enjoying life as they scrutinize every opportunity and fear every pleasant events. Sometimes I behave as a pessimist because I don't like getting my hopes up and then crushed. Also I believe that if you believe that something will happen then it won't so I try to tell myself that it would not happen so as to not jinx it.

Journal 50: Ze Soul

The soul in Emily Dickinson's poem refers to a person's emotional attachment. What she means by "The soul selects her own society" is that the soul, one's emotional attachment, will find what it believes in, what it loves, and what it wants to follow. She uses soul instead of logical thinking such as people, mind, or the brain because she wants to emphasize on the emotional part of the person choosing the "society". She wants to emphasize this because she liked two older married man and she wants to express that she did not think about it logically. If she had considered this with 'logic', 'consciously' then she would know that this will be an outrageous feeling and she would not tolerate it. She is saying that she loved these two men not because she had done a cost-benefit analysis but because her soul selected these two men and there is nothing she can do about it. Once she had fell in love with them there is no changing her feelings because "the valve" closed off like stone and is stubborn in that she cannot alter what she had chosen unconsciously. It is kind of defensive in that she tried to defend herself that she didn't mean to fall into reclusion and depression because falling in love with them wasn't her logical intention nor was she able to change her mind.

Journal 49: Tanka Poem

So about nature,
I like mountains and rivers,
Watch it as sun sets,
But what I really adore,
I like trains, I just love them.

I do the laundry,
Though sometimes I eat good rice,
I still do homework,
Lots and lots of pencil marks,
On my coffee stained notebook.

I don't always laugh,
When I do I laugh out loud,
It can be noisy,
I think you might hear it too,
But wait let me eat that cat.

Journal 48: Haikuu

So I kicked a dog,

Blood and guts splashed everywhere,

Death is part of life.

Today is sunny,

Yesterday was raining big,

Next day would be nice.

5 syllabus here,

Total 17 syllabus,

No way it's enough.

Journal 47: Real or Romantic?

Walt Whitman definitely is romanticizing the workers and the hard labors of the American society. No one of the working class labor is satisfied with their lives and with their work. They are constantly complaining about their job, urging the government to do more, and organizing unions to get more. No worker of physical labor is happy to leave off to work 7 am in the morning to get minimum wage that might not even be able to feed their family. Most of the time, people had to get two jobs in order to live and have a roof over their head and they are not happy with their life. With a few exceptions that people are happy with the way it is that they acknowledge that this is their life and they are willing to live this life to the fullest. However, no one does not want more. Another point is that Physical labor is tiring, exhausting, and low paying. Walt Whitman himself has never been part of physical labor and worked alongside ordinary workers so he doesn't realize the hardship of the people. He sees people sweating and chatting and thought that they must be enjoying themselves working with all their strength and stamina for minimum wage. Workers now would probably be more discontent with their lives because of the luxurious improvements made in the world that they cannot possess and the mass diversity of rich people and poor people that make them even more cynical.

Journal 46: Work Songs

What Whitman is trying to express is that Americans are happy working laborious, repetitive, low paying jobs and that the workers joyfully enjoy their work as they sang song of praise to whatever they are doing; whether it is the carpenter measuring his plant of beam, the mason's routine work duties, or the girl sewing. Whitman sees that the ordinary working class people, and women, are the real heroes of America, they represent the essence of America and America represents the people at the lower end of the social pyramid. In his poem of praising America for being America, he expresses that the people of America are truly happy and that life here is amazingly good. However, I think that Whitman's point of view of the laborers and the lower class people are not accurate and that Whitman's optimistic view of the workers and of life in general is very much different from most of the people of low status. Whitman has never worked as a low class worker, earning money from sweat and hard physical labor but all he sees are people around him, working as hard as they can trying to get by and he believes that this is the true American way of living and that the people doing their job, the reason they do it, is because they love their job and they are happy with their lives.

Journal 45: Acrostic

Being lazy and easily distracted is frustrating,
Ending with emptiness after time wasted,
Nostalgically longing for the carefree and optimistic childhood,
Scared of the future that my actions foretell.
Occasionally achieving enlightenment of how to live a good and fulfilling life,
Not for long my perfect plan consumed by laziness,
Hence, time flows like water in a stream,
Sinking in the depth, all my goals and plans.
Unlike video games, life does not restart.

Journal 44: Barbaric Yawp

Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson are considered mavericks and nonconformists of poetry. Many critiques dislike Whitman and Dickinson's poetry because they don't see free verses as a form of poetry. They believe that poetry defines a strict and rigid form that conforms to the traditional rhyme scheme and many other poetic rules that unless obeyed, does not qualify as poetry. Whitman and Dickinson challenges this idea by not conforming to the idea of having a set rhyme scheme or having a regular pattern for the sentence structure or length and this is called free verse. There are no rules in free verse poems except that they should include some poetic elements. However, critiques believe that simply including a few poetic techniques does not make writing poems. They believe that poetry is a delicate form of writing and that not following the rules means not writing poetry because the most important essence of what makes poetry unique is the formality. Whitman and Dickinson's free verse opens up a new door for future poets to write in free verse because the pioneers have experimented and challenged the idea and that this act of not conforming to the original strict idea of poetry prompts future writers to experiment on new ideas.

Journal 43: What Singing

If I am to describe people joyously doing their everyday work I would say criminals. However, I am not referring to burglars or rapist because they actually live a very hard life. They are driven by their inner bad desire to do bad things and usually people who commit crime out of incontrollable desire of lust or wealth are people tormented by these desires and cannot help but perform these terrible acts. The criminal I am referring to are people at the top tier of an organized crime, Mafia, drug lords, and other bosses of an organized crime society. They live a very comfortable life and they usually don't suffer from consequences because the mules, thugs, and other low class criminals would take the blame. It is very hard to trace back to the bosses because they usually don't leave traces and they usually don't take part in the dirty work themselves. Also I am referring to people committing fraud and earning tons and tons of money from honest people and getting away with it. People that created a fake stock company to earn lots of money by ripping off people and telling them to invest in nothing. They go to work everyday and get money easily and then retire and get away with it. That is the best life, life is unfair, but when they get caught they will stop singing their joyous song. But for now, they sing them with great joy.

Journal 42: Elements of Poetry

Elements of poetry are very different from the elements of a story because in a story the necessary elements are plots settings, characters, resolutions and conflicts. Elements of poetry are related to imagery, figurative languages, rhyme, meter, assonance, alliteration, and a lot of techniques that gives the poetry a better flow and more appealing to acoustic sense. The objective of poetry and a story is very different. Both being as works of arts, story is used to illustrate a story and the elements in a story are to stimulate images and vivid imaginations of the reader's mind. Usually, in a poem, it is to express a thought rather than telling a story. Even when the objective of the poem is to tell a story, it is usually told in a very vague and ambiguous way relating to symbols and other poetic techniques. Poetry is a very delicate piece of writing because it usually does not have a distinct setting and/or character characterization, but it usually expresses a conflict or the thought of the author. In I Hear American Singing, the setting is in America, characters are from a list of ordinary working class people, but there are no conflicts. There are no conflicts because the poem is expressing the joy of the ordinary working class people and how the ordinary working class people work really hard but the works are fulfilling. It is expressing celebration of work in a lyrical sense and this is what a poem do.

Journal 41: American Poetry Today

Poetry now can be mixed up with rap because there's a an increased number of people that advocate free verse. Although poems still have to have basic poetic rules to make it a poem, for example, stressed and unstressed syllabus, meter, rhyme schemes, or anything that a basic poem has. Simply reading in a poetic and with a sense of expressing it like an art can make a piece of writing a poem. Poem does not have to be associated with background music however it can be a delightful add-on to a poem. Some people nowadays consider rap because raps often have rhyme schemes and stressed and unstressed syllabus or a lyrical meaning and figurative language. Raps also does not need a beat or background music to go with because rap itself can be music. Poems nowaday is classified into many different groups including sonnets, haikus, free verse, and etc. but they all have the basic fundamental characteristics of being a poem, or at least one of the fundamental characteristics. Of all the poems, free verse is of the most controversial because many critiques of poems doesn't view free verse poem as poems due to its lack of respect for the long lasting traditions of poems. I think free verse counts as poem because some poems, in order to follow strict rhymes or rules, became so cryptic that ordinary reader had to decipher the poem in order to understand it. Free verse allows emotion, if it's a lyrical poem, or events, if it's a narrative poem, or both, to flow and is easier for the reader and it's also easier for the author to express his feelings. Although poems that follow strict rules sounds more classy and intelligent, free verse poems are still a form of poem for ordinary people.

Journal 40: Whitman and Dickinson

Some would say that Whitman's poems are very similar to rap in that raps are similar to poems but not as classy and not with exact and strict rhyme scheme or meter and does not strictly adhere to conventional poem rules. Also, Whitman's poems are related to the everyday working class of America, which is at the bottom of the pyramid, meaning that it appeals to the most people. What he mean by his quote is that his style of poem is for everyone and is the true American poem so if people want to look for him his spirit will be within the American soil. Also, he uses boot because boots re for the lower class people and it's just like his poem written for the lower class people. Dickinson quote of writing to the world is probably referring to her thoughts and not being accepted by the world. She likes a married man of the older age and is not accepted by the world so she shut herself in solitude. She shuts herself away from the rest of the world because she felt like her request to the world  is not answered. She also thinks that the world is unfair and that the world is cruel to her. This quote suggests that she feels that the world is against her and that she's not welcomed.

Journal 39: Young Again?

Sometimes a second chance helps, sometimes a second chance doesn't help. The question of being young again is not a simple one. There are lots to consider, if time itself went backward to when we are young then it would be a pleasing proposition because then I wouldn't be young without my friends with many good qualities. I think if i am to be young again all by myself it would be really strange. Everyone of my classmate looking down on me, thinking, "that wimp that can't face life and decided to escape from reality."If I could relive my childhood with all the knowledge I possess now, it would be so much easier and life would go so smoothly. It's hard not to learn from mistakes and apply it to the same exact situation because if the result of your action was terrible there is no reason you would repeat again especially if it's the same exact situation where the same action would yield the same result. Usually at wrong decisions that's always a right decision that you thought of but didn't choose. If i possess after-knowledge of once choice and that one choice being a bad take then there can only be one alternative that I thought of which even though might not be the right decision but may still be different from the original fail decision that got a bad ending.

Journal 38: Winter Holiday

I went to Japan the last winter break. However, this time it was better because instead of going with Derek, who I am not very familiar with, and Jason, who..., I went with a lot more people and a lot of these people I went with are people I am familiar with and are actually some of my best friends. No matter where I go, it is more important to be with friends. Whether it is MUN, skiing, or camping. As long as I am with my friends the days can't be that bad. The first week of winter break was a great success and also a great thrill. I also went to Austin's house for Christmas and that was fun. We chatted til very late and we drew on Patrick's face because he slept too early. We exchanged gifts and that was fun. Eddy gave a gift that's cookies in an iphone box and we all thought Eddy was giving Brian an iphone. That was funny and the night ended well. The worst part of winter break was when the second week come, when all the fun ends and winter break becomes a buffer for start of school. I never really understand how I work harder during winter break than I do during school days. But because I had too much fun in the first week, my mom doesn't allow me to have much fun in the second week so the second week was just mindless studying and finishing of homework.