Goodbye highschool...

I would like to summarize my last post with a reflection of the Grade 12 English Class. This year, we had read four novels; "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Stranger" by Albert Camus, "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett, "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller, and "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos. The books we had read this year was very different to the books I had read in previous years. This years books are more cold, emotional, and soulless.

The most interesting and motivating book was "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos. The reason is because his life was so surreal and it was simply easy to read. "The Great Gatsby" wasn't bad either. Although I thought Jay Gatsby was a pretty sad man who had no life, the story line was entertaining. I also didn't mind "The Crucible", only the fact that the words were so small to read from. Since it's based on a real story back in the 1692, (and since I think history books are quite interesting) I thought it was beneficial for my education.

However, I had some that I didn't like. I couldn't understand "Waiting for Godot". As I was reading it, I didn't feel like it had any motives and emotion in its story. Well, I guess since it's theme is that there is no meaning in life, the story is suppose to make the reader believe in it. But no matter how hard I tried to read it, it didn't make me want to read more. "The Stranger" again, was pretty similar to "Waiting for Godot", but more realistic. As I was reading it, I was actually feeling some emotion inside me; fear, sadness, shock, etc.

Overall, I was really REALLY REALLY happy that I was in Ms. Collins' class because thanks to her, we were able to have a bright and fun class that I would never forget! Studying in English class became more motivating thanks to Ms. Collins. Sorry for being such annoying students at times... Thank you for teaching us this year:)

Civil War in Bankok?

I think everyone is aware that there is great violence occuring in Thailand at the moment.

The problem is this. There are the "Red Shirts", who are the anti-government protestors, calling for Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to call new elections to support former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Therefore there are violent protests that are held out all over Bangkok, and thousands of people have died because of it. Both sides (Red Shirts vs. Government) aren't showing any signs of giving up at all, with continuing sounds of gunshots and smoke, filling the air of the streets. Apparently there are many places shut down to ensure the safety of the public. The government had ordered schools, offices, shopping centers, and embassies to be closed down temporarily.

I don't know the descriptive story of this event, however, seeing the numbers of people dying innocently is just making me frustrated. My Thai friend, Lace, also seems angry everyday, telling me that the president should do something about it. I heard that the president and the government aren't taking any actions to this mess, and don't seem to try and improve it. They are only providing security and showing patience for the violence to calm down. I don't really know how this will make things any better, but I'm hoping the government knows what they are doing.

Many of the Thai people are trying to evacuate from Bangkok to get away from the incredible mess. My dad even told me that there is a possible chance that Thailand will have a civil war. It's really weird for me to hear this because I always imagined Thailand as a peaceful place. I just hope that everything will settle as soon as possible, and that the people who have died will rest in peace.

Hole In My Life

The last book I read in my senior high school year is Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos, which is an auto-biography which refers about the power of books and reading. Gantos refers books as both beneficial and detrimental throughout his life. In times, books were there to comfort himself through troubles, and it also allowed him to reaffirm his future as a writer. However in other times, books became something like a drug, misleading him into sneaking hash into the U.S. However overall, the books he had read had given great impact in his life.

Since I don't read books in my own time, it's pretty hard to say what books have given impact to my life. Therefore, I'll be introducing books that I have read in my high school english classes.

I realised that novels with stories of political events are both beneficial and detrimental because they give the reader the character's view of the event clearly. By obtaining a view of an event, the reader benefits some certain knowledge of the setting. However, we have to remember that the novel would probably be bias, therefore making few errors of the events. I would like to introduce few novels that I thought were beneficial and detrimental to me.




The first novel I'll introduce is a novel I read in my junior year in high school. The novel is called "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress", by Dai Sijie. This is a semi-autobiographical novel that is set during the Cultural Revolution of China's Chairman Mao Zedong. The story is about two teenage boys who are sent to be 're-educated' at the Mountain of the Phoenix of the Sky, because their parents have been called the "enemies of the people" by the Communist state. I thought that this novel was one of the best novels I had read so far, and had actually made me want to read more of it. This novel was beneficial to me because it made me learn deeper into the Cultural Recolution, through a teenager boys' point of view. It also made me understand how life is so much deeper than how we simply really see it.

The second novel is my favourite novel of all times. It is called "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini. This novel is about a story of a young boy called Amir, and his friend Hassan, the son of his father's Hazara servant. The story is set through various events, from the Soviet invasion is Afghanistan, the mass of refugess to United States and Pakistan, and the rise of the Taliban. Through all of these events, the two boys have a complicated relationship because of Amir's mistake in their childhood. This novel was beneficial because it made me realise how hard it is for one to confess their mistake to another, and how terrible you feel to commit a mistake. The tragic story of the novel allowed me to value the things I have right now.

The third novel is "Lord of Flies" by William Golding. The story is about a plane which was evacuating a group of schoolboys from britain, and had shot down at a deserted island. Through their survival in the island, there are countless of violence and savagery. While reading this, I was able to compare the story to our society today. Bullying and suicides happen everyday in the world, and it helped me realize that our society needs to be more aware about the violence that goes on. However, it could be detrimental to the readers because the story is exaggerated with extreme violence between the children. If the readers were children, they could easily get influenced badly.

The fourth novel is the "Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story is portraying the American society in the 1920s. The main character, Jay Gatsby, lives his life from a rag to a wealthy New Yorker in order get his love back. This story is beneficial because it helped me realize how money and "materialism" doesn't solve everything. Our society today is similar in a way that people use money to get benefits. As we see in the novel, Gatsby did all that he can to get Daisy (his love) back, however in the end, the story finished with a tragic ending. "Great Gatsby" is also detrimental, and that can be seen in the scene where Gatsby is killed by Tom Buchannan. By killing him, it reflects how people think death is an easier way to get away from troubles, and that is wrong.

The final novel I'm going to introduce is called "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. The main character, Meursault, is an emotionless and unpassive person who spends his life with very little motivation. One day, he visits the beach with his friends, and gets into a fight with some Arabs. This led him with the penalty of death after shooting an Arab. However, Meursault seems remorseless in his life in jail, and even on the day of his execution, he is excited about the day when everyone will cheer for his death. The novel is beneficial because "The Stranger" is also detrimental because Meursault's attitude can easily be influenced or agreed to the people around the world, who are just like Meursault. It can make teenagers think "Oh, well if life is so pointless, why am I trying so hard?". And we wouldn't want students to question their life like that. However, the novel can be beneficial because when I read it, it made me reassure how life is important with the comparison of Meursault's life. I think majority of the readers will think the say way as I did. "How can Meursault be so inhumane?". And I think that question reinforces our attitude and values of life.

The Stranger

The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is a novel that is heavily influenced by philosophical views such as existentialism and absurdism. The main character, Meursault, is an emotionless and unpassive person who spends his life with very little motivation. One day, he visits the beach with his friends, and gets into a fight with some Arabs. This led him with the penalty of death after shooting an Arab. However, Meursault seems remorseless in his life in jail, and even on the day of his execution, he is excited about the day when everyone will cheer for his death.

I was surprised to hear that this novel has been read by thousands of people around the world. To me, it seemed that its themes of the irrationality fo the universe, and the meaningless of human life, had made it quite boring for me to read. There was an interesting article, http://www.slate.com/id/2147662, written by John Dickerson, where he explains that the past president George W. Bush had read The Strager. Since it depicts that George W. Bush's relations with the French weren't going very well, it could be possible that George W. Bush read it and made it public to aid his relations with the French. It seems that by George W. Bush reading The Stranger, he's trying to gain a better image on his enemies. Since I'm not a politician, I can't say what I'm saying is correct. But by how John Dickerson is speaking, it seems that George W. Bush is only reading The Stranger to only impress others. It is actually rather hard to say what George W. Bush would be able to benefit from reading this novel. To me, it seems more as if the life of both Meursault and George W. Bush contradicts one another interestingly. As John Dickerson says, "The main character, Meursault, spends much of his life as the young George Bush did, engaging in escapades that demonstrate little drive or motivation."

It is hard to say whether reading The Stranger is beneficial to the readers or not. I feel that the majority of the people will take the novel as something beneficial. The reason to this is that by reading this novel, people who have moral values (which I believe many people have) would oppose towards Meursault's lifestyle. This novel will allow people to distinguish sharply, what is right and what is wrong. Then again, there might be the minority of the people who see Meursault's moral value and think that that's the life they want to have. They want to be free and have no stress about their life. This may cause people to act against law and commit crimes, just like how Meursault did with the Arab.

No matter what, The Stranger has given the readers a great impression.

Reality Check

As most of my friends know, I started to work at Forever21 in Ginza. It was my dream store to work at! Since I'm interested in fashion business, I decided that it's a good opportunity to get some experience for my future. So when I got accepted to this work, I was all excited and hyped up.

My first day was on April 27th. We had school on that day, and so I wasn't at school mode all day. I started to worry about all the possible things you might question. Since Forever21 in Ginza had opened on the 27th, I knew it was going to be packed and crazy. Plus, it was the first day of golden week.

I got there and was so surprised by the ammount of people going crazy over clothes. Everyone pushing, guards shouting, etc. I met the floor manager and I was assigned to put back clothes from the changing room and pick up clothes that were on the floor... for the whole five hours. Since it was my first day, I didn't expect to do anything big. However, it was so much more painful than I had ever thought. Customers asked me thousands of questions such as "Where is this clothes?" "What is size S in japanese size?', and I wouldn't even know a single answer to them. I was running around picking up clothes and putting them back. My legs were sore, I was hungry (I didnt eat anything for 10 hours), plus I had no coworker friends that were nice to me. They all demanded me to this and that, and it was mentally really frustrating and tiring. I guess what I want to say, is that things may not be the way you think they are. Maybe dreams are better off as dreams. That's when I decided that I couldn't take this work anymore.

Yes, it was my first day to work at Forever21, and I quitted. I used to work at a convenience store, but there were too many problems going on in the store, that I decided to quit. That was when I found Forever21. After knowing how it's like to work at Forever21, I really miss working at a convenience store. I was able to make so many nice coworkers friends, and I really miss them right now.

That is why I am finding a new convenience store to work at. And I am hoping that I can make amazing friends there, and be able to enjoy my work :)

The Crucible

The Crucible has a hard hitting "moral of the story". What is it? Do you think this moral is still applicable to today's world?

The crucible is set in a small town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and is based on a real story of the Salem witch trials. The book is a tragic story about 12 girls accusing innocent towns people of witchcraft in order to get attention. The whole town goes insane, and their moral gets distorted.

The moral of The Crucible , is that the world is not just "black and white". The world and its people are far more complicated than ever. All sins aren't created equally, and people lie in order to please themselves. The Crucible clearly reflects this through the main character Abigail, and the other 11 girls. Since the girls were dancing in the woods, they knew they would be punished badly. The girls started to accuse other towns people in order to receive less painful punishments. This had changed the strict Puritans 180 degrees. The towns people believed in witchcraft, and had their moral distorted. When a mass of people believe in something, other people tend to believe that the fact isn't false. This is how humans unconsciously think. If a majority of people believe in something, you would want to believe in it because you don't want to be left out. I think this could apply to the people of Salem. Through the story, we find that morality is thrown into chaos, and that telling the 'truth' becomes difficult. The moral of the story is clear; the world isn't perfect.

The moral of The Crucible definitely applies to today's world. Our world is full or war, discrimination, crimes, and lies. More importantly, all sins in the world aren't made equally. We all live in an unequal society, where chaos and unfairness can fall on us easily. Just like it did in The Crucible.

According to The Great Gatsby, what is it about the past that draws us both forward and leaves us stuck where we are?

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, we get to see Gatsby and Daisy's love relationship of the past. Jay Gatsby becomes the person who can't go forward, and Daisy becomes the person who draws us forward.

So the story goes like this. Daisy was a beautiful young girl in Kentucky, and all the military officers were in love with her. However, Daisy fell in love with Jay Gatsby, who had later left for the war. When Gatsby had to leave for the war, Daisy promised to wait for him, but later broke the promise and married Tom Buchanan. Yes, it was a very sad love story.

After Gatsby had come back, he works hard to get Daisy back on his side. He participates in organizing a crime to receive great amounts of money, buys a great mansion on West Egg, and holds weekly party at his mansion. He had done all of this to get Daisy back. Gatsby lingers on about his past relationship with Daisy, and she becomes the single goal of all of his dreams. Gatsby is the character who gets stuck in his past, and can't move forward.

However, in Daisy's case, she already has a family. She lives with Tom Buchanan and two children in a fancy mansion in East Egg. She behaves differently towards her family to hide her pain from the past with Gatsby. Therefore, she has many different sides to her personality throughout the story. She keeps her daughter around her as a show toy. This is what defines her life. When no one is around, she is a bored house wife. Although she wants to go back to the joyful time with Gatsby, she believes that her dream won't come true, still clinging on to hope that it might come true someday. The problem is that Daisy is not a dreamer like Gatsby. She lives her life by certain rules, and is frightened to break free from it. She somehow tries to forget about Gatsby. Daisy is the opposite from Gatsby, and she is the one who is trying to go forward.

The old love between the two has separated them now. The past drew Daisy forward, and Gatsby stuck in the past. Daisy's betrayal towards Gatsby causes her to try to move forward. She is scared to break free, and runaway with Gatsby. However, Gatsby has the courage to fix his old love with Daisy. He would do anything to get Daisy back.

...Such a sad love story ;(