Entry 37, Why be a Prodigy?

Coming from an Asian family, I have yet experienced the craziness of the parents who wants their kids to excel in every possible subject and talent. I was never pushed to learn the piano, I was never pushed to really work hard or anything, my parent's attitude were always just about giving your best shot. In the story of Two Kinds, Jing Mei was pushed into doing alot of things and countless attempts of discovering her talents, sadly, they did not discover any. Her motivation was just to please her mom, just to be the little obedient girl the Asian culture always promoted. She wanted to also try to see if she is a genius at a certain subject as well. The feeling of not being able to achieve such goal has led to the rebellious act of Jing Mei. She thinks that she is nothing like what her mother wanted her to be, and therefore she did not want to keep trying to be something she would never be and never achieve. The change bitters the relationship with her mother as she had became rebellious and opposing the orders of her mother. This story acts as the differences of American culture and Asian culture fighting against each other. I often change my mind about many things. It all depends on the experiences of the previous events. I believe that many factors can pressure people into changing their mind, mostly peer pressure from friends and family, basically outside forces

Differences of Movie

 We have watched two different types of of same movie of Cyrano and Bergerac. One was more based in the time of the story was written in and one was more of a modern movie. The modern movie has some crucial essential elements to the movie that makes it Cyrano and Bergerac, but you would need to observe very closely to find out. Both movies include the character of Cyrano, the man with the abnormally big nose. The movie that was based on the 1800s of France, had used French throughout the movie, but through the translations, you would be able to tell the dept of the language of English that is spoken, which uses more complicated language structure along with some deep meaning behind sentences. The Cyrano and Bergerac movies both includes one scene that left a deep impression in my head. The scene is when someone in a big crowd of people openly insults the big nose on Cyrano's face. That insults him, but he withheld his anger and rather than making fun of the other person, he uses different ways of describing his gigantic nose. These two movies both has some differences but mostly still similar. This story is very fascinating but I still prefer the Modern one better, due to the easier dialogue. 

Legend

 My favorite lengend come to think about it, would have to be The Oddyssey. Due to my history with reading novels, I don't think I have ever came across any other famous legends in my life. I believe the Odyssey was pretty interesting and sparked up a flame in me for legends. I am a guy that generally does not enjoy reading books, and this story actually amuses me. Which was caught to my surprise. I believe some legends I have read are just far too creative, I would say, far too many things that would not happen in real life. This story however, was a story with alot of imagination written through the ink, but also has some interesting plot lines that attracted me. The story of Odyssey was an Epic that was written by Homer. Many say this guy is far too great to be true. I believe this guy was just as real as Shakespeare and many other great poets and writers out there. I hope there would be more and more legends like this we could read in our class later on.

Nice Little Thing in Life

 Heroes, to many people, a stereotypical hero with superpowers would pop into their mind. There are many heroes in our society, from the fictional comic book characters to the brave soldiers working for the nuclear powerplant explosion in Japan. In my dictionary, I would consider anybody with an abnormal ability that could benefit the society, or simply just a person that tries their best in saving a tough situation. You could be thinking, many people has those traits, does that mean they are all heroes to me? Honestly, yes, to me, giving a dollar to the homeless, saving a cat from drowning, recycling bottles on the ground, all could make one heroic. Maybe not to the society, but to an individual. These traits are shared upon all the heroes of this world. Every hero has traits similar to such. Personally, my hero, would have to be my parents. I cannot believe how hard my dad works for us to keep a living, pay for our tuition, and put food on our table. A self made man he is, makes me look up to him, as a role model, and as well as a hero of the family. My mom, handles all of our laundry, all of our chores, and she still has time to relax and take care of the family? I am utterly amazed at her abilities on the street, and as well as at home. Heroes make our society feel like home, makes us have something nice in our life, something we don't realize, but something that could make all of us smile.

Animal Farm Differences

 There are many differences between the book and movie. I believe that the movie was very nice, but just not as detailed and as nicely put out like the book. The book had alot more little details that the movie did not cover. When that happened to some of the scenes, I was shocked at how some things were different. It was a difference when old major died right after the song in the movie. In the book, it clearly stated that he died many days afterwards. That was a little shocking when he died that soon, right after the song. The book also did not have the mother dog die in the book. In the movie, that was also something very new to me. It was never stated that the mother of the dog would die. The horse also kills a boy in the book, which the movie did not have.It is small things like this that builds up all the differences between the book and the movie. Althought it had differences, I still enjoyed the movie more than the book. Due to not having to read myself, everything just gets shown to me.

Judging by its cover?

 Over the course of many years, especially after hitting puberty and growing long hair, I have always been misinterpreted by many people. Many people thinks of me as a very mean person who likes to tease people alot and probably gets crap for his grades. That is judging the book by its cover. Just because I enjoy having long hair and just because I have alot of friends does not mean that I am a person who likes to play alot. Just because of that, it doesn't mean I snort crack all day and go vandalizing all over town. I have been misled by many people before. I have also misled many things as well myself. I have saw many people on the streets with tattoos and a white wife beater, the first thing that came to my mind was that they were probably gang members and I better stay out of their way. But after getting to know them, they are very nice people who respects others alot.
I think people gets misled is because they don't take time and think about the person's story, or the background of the object before they judge it. I think it is human's nature to think that we know everything already. After getting to know the person, or the thing, you would actually find that it was not how you first thought of it as.

What is Bullying?

 There are many types of bullying. People at least will eventually bully someone in their lives. There are ways of bullying that doesn't even need to be verbal. Physical bullying has been popular among the teenagers after disagreements. Bullying mostly consists of trash talking, which is verbally abusing the other person for how they look like, how they dress, how they talk, their ethnicity, all these things would be included when getting bullied. When people bully, it is normally because the person getting bullied was someone special, someone that stands out and someone that is different. People tend to pick out the people who act differently and look differently. When there are some people that does not blend in with the cultural group, they would normally be left out and made fun of. I have to admit, I have bullied people in the past, and maybe I still do sometimes. Bullying to many people is considered a big issue, but I don't see what is so bad with bullying. I was bullied when I was younger, that doesn't really mean anything. When I bully people. I don't normally hurt them as bad as you think. I know, I know, bullying needs to stop and everyone needs to live happily by each other's side. When I was in elementary school, I have been bullied ever since I remember. I moved to Shanghai and went to the American school there, coming from a Chinese Speaking family was very different from everyone else. Everyone had perfect English but me, everyone shared the same culture but me. So I turned out to be the fresh meat people often pick on whenever I made a mistake. One afternoon, I was minding my own business eating my lunch. I happened to compliment on how great the grilled pork ribs were with poor English. "This rib good" I said. A little boy from another side of the table with hair as bright as the sun questioned, " do you know how to speak English?" That was in third grade, my English was poorly developed. I froze infront of all the kids and stared at him while he laughed at my badly spoken English. That kid was mean, but I ended up being the popular crowd in middle school and eventually got him back. To me, bullying is when a person or a crowd picks on a person or exclude them for being different, being special, and trying to stand out from the crowd.