I started my essay as I thought I was supposed to, a five paragraph essay with an intorduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. I didn't get very far throught that process, and only made it to the first body paragraph. The biggest problem that I had with this essay wasn't that I was a really slow writer, because nobody writes that slow. It's just that the ideas weren't coming to my mind; I couldn't think of examples or supporting evidence to back up my statement: "all forms of media greatly affect people's thoughts and values". I tried to think of historical examples, because I like history, and events in history can't be denied, so it would be pretty solid evidence. But only one example came to mind and my essay was very obviously lacking in substance.
I guess I could have thought of my own observations, but then again personal opinions are highly subjective, and would not make the point that I desired. Although maybe I should have just concentrated on finishing the essay first. Then at least I could make full comments on my finished product, no matter how sucky. Maybe I should start reading more books, magazines, and newspapers because then I could take an outside opinion, and use it to support my own, and say "see, I'm not the only person who thinks this". Then my own point of view would be more supported an solid.
I know that Mr Watson said we should try not to take a yes or no approach to the prompt, because it doesn't have a yes or no answer, but that makes things way simpler and I would imagine it would make the writer sound less wishy washy. Maybe I'll try the indirect approach next time anyway.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Practice Essay (pretty incomplete)
The truth is that people living in urban and suburban communities are greatly affected by all forms of media. It should be known that media are just different forms of mass communication. For thousands of years, the forte humans have always had over other animals has been our abillity to exchange and process thoughts, and develop new ideas based on these thoughts. Although times have changed the way people communicate, the way that people develop and grow are through the same basic means.
History has proven this to be true during the Vietnam war when a new form of media was first being developed on a large scale: the television. For the first time ever, the horrors of war could be seen from a first person point of view, and the masses were shocked. This helped the Vietnam ear to coin the nickname, "the televised war". This was one of the reasons so many people were opposed to the war. This is just an example of how media has influenced the thoughts of many.
Umm, yeah, that's kind of all I wrote. Seriously this is all I wrote. Pretty bad huh? Should I have finished it? I'm a pretty slow writer too, so yeah, I'll blame it on my slow writing.
History has proven this to be true during the Vietnam war when a new form of media was first being developed on a large scale: the television. For the first time ever, the horrors of war could be seen from a first person point of view, and the masses were shocked. This helped the Vietnam ear to coin the nickname, "the televised war". This was one of the reasons so many people were opposed to the war. This is just an example of how media has influenced the thoughts of many.
Umm, yeah, that's kind of all I wrote. Seriously this is all I wrote. Pretty bad huh? Should I have finished it? I'm a pretty slow writer too, so yeah, I'll blame it on my slow writing.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Ode to Old Houses
This is my piece that's supposed to be as descriptive as hell or something. This is just my portrayal of my uncle's house (which used to be my grandpa's so it's really pretty old. P.S. I just like the word "ode"; only english teachers and writers know what the word actually means, and you can make anything sound cooler (or snoodier) by calling it an "ode to dis" or an "ode to dat" (without the dis n dat of course).
Did you hear that? The crunching of rubber on asphalt screams like the moans of canine guardians over the eves of mountains. Faces. Sledged mercilessly into the cascading falls rushing water pounding into cement crevices. Falling. As you rush to seek shelter from the endless night, its purple eyes follow you across a stretch of rocks ready to knaw at your tender knee caps and palms as your drops under the weight of malice. The creatures that lurk inside snap, as they reach for the chance to savor the morsels of you fingertips. Be careful. Spongy moist ground pulls your toes and sinks and springs the demonic screams that rebound off of the walls and gaping canyons break through the floor trapping you forever entangling the bits of limbs pierced by ancient punji traps.
Isn't that fun? No, actually I love that house, it's just that it's right up against a steep hillside, and when it's raining really hard sometimes, there's a waterfall in the backyard into a mini canal. Oh, and when I was a little kid before it got the cement driveway, I used to run around and always trip and stuff. You know, kid stuff. Oh, and it's painted like barney; green with purple windowsills. And my grandpa used to watch my uncle's dobermans during the day and sometimes into the night, and my dad just kept his malevolant parrot that hates me with a passions there. The floors are pretty creaky and always used to make me feel like a ninja too :)
Did you hear that? The crunching of rubber on asphalt screams like the moans of canine guardians over the eves of mountains. Faces. Sledged mercilessly into the cascading falls rushing water pounding into cement crevices. Falling. As you rush to seek shelter from the endless night, its purple eyes follow you across a stretch of rocks ready to knaw at your tender knee caps and palms as your drops under the weight of malice. The creatures that lurk inside snap, as they reach for the chance to savor the morsels of you fingertips. Be careful. Spongy moist ground pulls your toes and sinks and springs the demonic screams that rebound off of the walls and gaping canyons break through the floor trapping you forever entangling the bits of limbs pierced by ancient punji traps.
Isn't that fun? No, actually I love that house, it's just that it's right up against a steep hillside, and when it's raining really hard sometimes, there's a waterfall in the backyard into a mini canal. Oh, and when I was a little kid before it got the cement driveway, I used to run around and always trip and stuff. You know, kid stuff. Oh, and it's painted like barney; green with purple windowsills. And my grandpa used to watch my uncle's dobermans during the day and sometimes into the night, and my dad just kept his malevolant parrot that hates me with a passions there. The floors are pretty creaky and always used to make me feel like a ninja too :)
Globalize Yourself
To be quite honest, I kind of have a small beef with this concept of keeping an online diary of sorts by means of blogging. I know that the whole concept of blogging is to have an online, interactive way to chat and discuss ideas and such, but sometimes I feel that I just can’t be completely honest on my blog because I know that people other than my teacher will be reading my posts. I don’t need other people reading my thoughts and becoming my moral conscience. Well yeah, that defeats the point of keeping a blog, but I can’t help it. I’m just like that. As a result of the lack of honest and heart in my posts, I think that maybe I haven’t been writing as well as I could have. I guess that means I’ve been living an online lie huh? Or something like that.
Actually, I’ve been very honest with my posts. I’ll take back some of the stuff I said before, because the only post I can think of where I kind of made up stuff was my “This I Believe” post. I’m not sure some people understand, but to openly talk about and discuss your belief is so personal, you wouldn’t believe it. Especially for a guy like me. Like hell if I’m going to tell the whole world my moral code of conduct, or the embarrassing metaphor by which I live my life. You might as well conduct a strip search on me, even though I’m sure you’d rather not.
I think it’s because of the initial feelings I have about blogging. Generally, I think of blogging on a similar plane as other online web things such as myspace. The thoughts I reserve for bloggers and myspacers aren’t bad honestly, but say if I was talking story with somebody, and I found out about them that they daily update a blog or myspace, I would probably greet that thought with a kind of funny face and an, “uhh…that’s nice I guess”. I’ll tell you why I think this. If you have the time to spend hours on a computer wasting your time on something as trivial as a myspace account, then you must have many more hours to do more productive things with your life, when you really don’t have all that much time in a day to do what you want. In other words it’s a waste of time.
I’ve been trying to embrace each one of our posts with care, and in doing so I’ve noticed a difference between blogging and myspacing. A myspace is simply an online profile where sexual predators lurk (please don’t tell me we’re going to have to start a myspace now too), while a blog is meant to function exactly like a diary, but the online interaction adds a whole new element to it: primarily the style of writing. I don’t feel the need at all to use poetic elements, descriptive detailing, or any means of making my posts sound pretty (unless the assignment calls for it). There’s just no need for a commonplace post. I’m talking to you, so I’ll be blunt. Maybe here and then I’ll beat around the bush, but I’ll lay it bare for you to see.
Like my This I Believe, when assignments become so personal where I must think so deeply to understand my own belief or how my actions change the way I live in this world, I am pretty loathe to embrace the task. It’s just so difficult; actually it’s more like it’s impossible. Anybody who says it’s easy is either pretty damned wise, or pretty damned stupid.
I suppose I’m a pretty lazy guy, so I’d like to simply say change is a slow process, therefore my essential questions have not changed, but I know they must have changed somehow. I think further exploration is necessary to assist me in my search for more questions and answers.
My first question was, “How does the way we live our lives affect others”. Maybe I should ask easier questions, because there’s no way to answer this. In one of my first posts, I have already said all I have to say concerning this question. I’ll reiterate a few things. The people we affect on a daily basis are obviously our family and friends. But should we by trying to affect people outside our daily contacts? Is it an obligation?
Oh wait, I thought of something else. Among the people we affect, are they all affected personally? I just heard this History International commercial on the TV, and it said that we should know about people across the globe because what happens there affects us here. How? In a historical context, humans have a knack for having bad ideas and making mistakes. And to never make them again, we must know who made them in the first place. The context, the reasoning, and all the other factors that led to this mistake. In the end, we as human beings serve a small part in the world. As far as I'm concerned, we only believe behind one thing when we die: our history, our legacy.
Actually, I’ve been very honest with my posts. I’ll take back some of the stuff I said before, because the only post I can think of where I kind of made up stuff was my “This I Believe” post. I’m not sure some people understand, but to openly talk about and discuss your belief is so personal, you wouldn’t believe it. Especially for a guy like me. Like hell if I’m going to tell the whole world my moral code of conduct, or the embarrassing metaphor by which I live my life. You might as well conduct a strip search on me, even though I’m sure you’d rather not.
I think it’s because of the initial feelings I have about blogging. Generally, I think of blogging on a similar plane as other online web things such as myspace. The thoughts I reserve for bloggers and myspacers aren’t bad honestly, but say if I was talking story with somebody, and I found out about them that they daily update a blog or myspace, I would probably greet that thought with a kind of funny face and an, “uhh…that’s nice I guess”. I’ll tell you why I think this. If you have the time to spend hours on a computer wasting your time on something as trivial as a myspace account, then you must have many more hours to do more productive things with your life, when you really don’t have all that much time in a day to do what you want. In other words it’s a waste of time.
I’ve been trying to embrace each one of our posts with care, and in doing so I’ve noticed a difference between blogging and myspacing. A myspace is simply an online profile where sexual predators lurk (please don’t tell me we’re going to have to start a myspace now too), while a blog is meant to function exactly like a diary, but the online interaction adds a whole new element to it: primarily the style of writing. I don’t feel the need at all to use poetic elements, descriptive detailing, or any means of making my posts sound pretty (unless the assignment calls for it). There’s just no need for a commonplace post. I’m talking to you, so I’ll be blunt. Maybe here and then I’ll beat around the bush, but I’ll lay it bare for you to see.
Like my This I Believe, when assignments become so personal where I must think so deeply to understand my own belief or how my actions change the way I live in this world, I am pretty loathe to embrace the task. It’s just so difficult; actually it’s more like it’s impossible. Anybody who says it’s easy is either pretty damned wise, or pretty damned stupid.
I suppose I’m a pretty lazy guy, so I’d like to simply say change is a slow process, therefore my essential questions have not changed, but I know they must have changed somehow. I think further exploration is necessary to assist me in my search for more questions and answers.
My first question was, “How does the way we live our lives affect others”. Maybe I should ask easier questions, because there’s no way to answer this. In one of my first posts, I have already said all I have to say concerning this question. I’ll reiterate a few things. The people we affect on a daily basis are obviously our family and friends. But should we by trying to affect people outside our daily contacts? Is it an obligation?
Oh wait, I thought of something else. Among the people we affect, are they all affected personally? I just heard this History International commercial on the TV, and it said that we should know about people across the globe because what happens there affects us here. How? In a historical context, humans have a knack for having bad ideas and making mistakes. And to never make them again, we must know who made them in the first place. The context, the reasoning, and all the other factors that led to this mistake. In the end, we as human beings serve a small part in the world. As far as I'm concerned, we only believe behind one thing when we die: our history, our legacy.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
This I Believe (completely re-visioned)
Growing up is depressing. So is the nostalgia of memories of loved ones and cherished moments. It may seem immature, but I don't want to grow up. I want growing up to take as long as possible. I loathe change. I wish the only way to achieve your goals wasn't through hard work, because I'm just going to end up doing it for the rest of my life. No, monotony drains the soul and chains it down onto the earth. Realism is painful. I do not believe in a life that will always be as easy as following a yellow brick road. Idealism is for people who can't face truth. Nor do I believe in days of constant gloom, drear, and foreboding. Pessimistic notions are no better.
Even though I just said I'm not an idealist, life should be experienced like your favorite TV drama. It would be no fun if you knew a show would follow a sequence of events like power rangers, right? Power rangers good—bad guys evil. Good over evil. People live for twists and turns and sudden plot developments. Sometimes spontaneous action is the key to a great show. Maybe like family guy (but not quite that random and stupid). It's quite ironic then, for someone who loathes change to say that change is the key to a great life or drama or whatever you call it. But that's the truth. It wouldn't be the Wizard of Oz without the cowardly lion, heartless tin-man, brainless scarecrow, or wicked witch of the west.
Change truly is life's only constant, and I am thankful for that. However, as an individual, you have to know what would be better to retain. I come from a pretty traditional Japanese family, with rock solid values, beliefs, and practices. Every Saturday after Christmas, our family and friends from all over the island and sometimes even mainland relatives gather at my grandpa's house to carry out the Japanese tradition of Mochi pounding. The bowl that we pound the rice in has been with our family for over a century, along with the steamer and method of cooking the rice. Even though I am a fifth generation Japanese in Hawaii, I'm not into all that samurai death to reclaim honor or whatever. It's just silly. But the point is that the wisdom to know how to change is as important as change itself.
I live everyday of my life as happily as I can. What's the point of being sad? Most importantly, I try to be spontaneous. I don't mean stupid things like jumping off buildings or whatever, but I try not to hang out with the same people everyday at school, and rather maybe talk with this bunch of friends a bit more today and this group tomorrow. If I just stayed in the same place, it would be boring.
Change can be painful and shouldn't be taken lightly either. But it should not be feared as a bringer of death and destruction. Life, when lived to its fullest holds a lot in store for us. But when change is suppressed, all of life's great potential has gone to waste. That's why I loathe change. I want to do as much I can, but I wish change would stop for awhile so I could do more.
I'm still waiting for my endless summer in the sun. But maybe everyday should be like an endless summer. Don't let change get the better of you. Be your own saving grace. Dip your toes in the water and be sure honk as you take your place when the blue of your backdrop changes.
Even though I just said I'm not an idealist, life should be experienced like your favorite TV drama. It would be no fun if you knew a show would follow a sequence of events like power rangers, right? Power rangers good—bad guys evil. Good over evil. People live for twists and turns and sudden plot developments. Sometimes spontaneous action is the key to a great show. Maybe like family guy (but not quite that random and stupid). It's quite ironic then, for someone who loathes change to say that change is the key to a great life or drama or whatever you call it. But that's the truth. It wouldn't be the Wizard of Oz without the cowardly lion, heartless tin-man, brainless scarecrow, or wicked witch of the west.
Change truly is life's only constant, and I am thankful for that. However, as an individual, you have to know what would be better to retain. I come from a pretty traditional Japanese family, with rock solid values, beliefs, and practices. Every Saturday after Christmas, our family and friends from all over the island and sometimes even mainland relatives gather at my grandpa's house to carry out the Japanese tradition of Mochi pounding. The bowl that we pound the rice in has been with our family for over a century, along with the steamer and method of cooking the rice. Even though I am a fifth generation Japanese in Hawaii, I'm not into all that samurai death to reclaim honor or whatever. It's just silly. But the point is that the wisdom to know how to change is as important as change itself.
I live everyday of my life as happily as I can. What's the point of being sad? Most importantly, I try to be spontaneous. I don't mean stupid things like jumping off buildings or whatever, but I try not to hang out with the same people everyday at school, and rather maybe talk with this bunch of friends a bit more today and this group tomorrow. If I just stayed in the same place, it would be boring.
Change can be painful and shouldn't be taken lightly either. But it should not be feared as a bringer of death and destruction. Life, when lived to its fullest holds a lot in store for us. But when change is suppressed, all of life's great potential has gone to waste. That's why I loathe change. I want to do as much I can, but I wish change would stop for awhile so I could do more.
I'm still waiting for my endless summer in the sun. But maybe everyday should be like an endless summer. Don't let change get the better of you. Be your own saving grace. Dip your toes in the water and be sure honk as you take your place when the blue of your backdrop changes.
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