Writing or Face to Face?

            There are some circumstances, we have to complain, or we better complain about something during the life time. Some people may argue that complaining in person is better than complaining in writing. However, I strongly believe that complaining in writing is way better that complaining in person because thoughts are better organized when it’s written. Also, writing is comfortable to some shy people.

            To begin with, because one can spend lots of time when writing, complains are better organized, and in more details when it is in written form. Especially when writing is compared to speaking writing’s benefits show tremendously. To illustrate, if one writes, one can fix and feedback one’s ideas. Not only that, if needed, he or she can conduct some research to back it up. This result in perfect set of complains with details. Contrast to these good aspects, various bad results follow, when speaking is used for complaining. Spoken words can’t be erased, and spoken again. In other words, there are no ways to cover speaker’s mistakes. Also, speaker is not able to get immediate information even though they are necessary. By those comparisons, it’s easy to realize that writing is preferable method for making complains

            Furthermore, writing is a perfect method of complaining for some people with shy characteristic. Some people may have no problems speaking right in front of a person. However, quite a bit of people suffer some problems, especially when they are shy. When those people use method of speaking, they can unconsciously make logical fallacies such as, circular reasoning, inappropriate generalizations, and more on. Moreover they can have some problem in delivering their ideas. They tend to speak in small voice, and pronunciation that is hard to understand. However, all those problems are immediately solved when one decided to write down one’s complains.

            To conclude, comparing benefits, and side effects of writing, and speaking, writing is better method of making complains in various aspects. Ideas are more strongly supported and perfectly presented in the writing. In addition, writing solves the logical, or delivery problems that can occur when it’s spoken. Therefore, writing is recommended if, someone has to make complains.

Moose

     My life has changed a lot after I got into "Rhyme Factory" one of performance clubs in KMLA. I never danced before. However, after I got into "Rhyme Factory' I got interested into dancing. Especially "b-boying' since I was b-boy in Rhyme Factory. As more and more I looked up many videos and tutorials about b-boy, more I got interested into it, and more cool it looked. Step up is one of those movies and videos I got interested in after became b-boy of Rhyme Factory Crew. And "Moose" is my favorite character in the movie. He dance so powerful, and he does various kinds of dance. From pop-pin to break dancing.

     I would like to introduce more about break dancing, since it is where I belong. The break dance is part of the genre called "Hip Hop". Hip Hop is culture that originated in 1970's in African american society of New York. Hip Hop culture is characterized by the four elements of rapping, DJing, breaking, and graffiti.

Top Rock

Foot Work

Nike freeze

     B-boying can be divided into two major moves. The style move, and power move. The style move is basic of break dancing. It is consisted of Top rock, foot works, and freezes. Top rock is dancing with your body stood up. The point is that you do one move at one beat. Before top rocking you should consider the most base beats under the music. One important part of top rock is up-down. You constantly repeat ups and downs often using your chest. The next moves are foot works. You get close to the ground and than perform your moves. You try to make big moves using your legs. In this case you also have to listen closely to the beats, and do your moves accordingly to the beats under the music. The last move is freeze. Freeze is freeze as it literally mean. You get into freeze position for few seconds. Usually freeze is used at the last part of your dance as big performance. Also there are various kinds of freeze such as baby freeze, turtle freeze, shoulder freeze, chair freeze, and so on.

Nineteen ninety

Head Spin

Cricket

     The Power move is probably moves that most of people think about when they say b-boy. It consists most hardest moves of b-boy. There are style movers, but indeed most of the b-boys are able to do some power moves, and power movers are the one who are  important in battles. And at least they look cooler to me. In order to perform power moves you need to have strength, and sense of balance beyond normal people have. Also, you need a lot of practice to master one power moves. And more time to create your own. The most basic power moves are probably windmill, thomas, head spin, cricket, and nineteen ninety.


I want to practice a lot. And be like one of professional bboys. And I am planning to do some cool things at the christmas party. I hope to be able to master those moves before the party.


To give you more sense of what b-boy is I'll put a little video (bboy battle) for you to watch.

Analysis on Lord of the Flies

     Piggy and Ralph meet up in an island. They soon realize their plane was attacked and they crashed down on the island where no one lives. Wondering rather other children survived, Piggy spots a conch shell, and tells Ralph how to use it to make a noise. Ralph does so in order to call other boys who might be there on the island who crashed down with the plane. Jack and his Choir, Simon, Sam and Eric and many other boys join in an Piggy and Ralph. Rules are set down, and Ralph became the chief. There is no one else on the island but the young boys, so Jack decides to take his choir out to hunt for wild pigs, although he is unsuccessful in killing a small pig with his knife. Ralph calls another group of children, and reminds everyone that they are
completely alone on the island, and there are no grown ups. Jack recounts his failure in killing the pig, and reiterates the need for skilled hunters. Several rules are made up. Unexpectedly, an unnamed littl'un with a birthmark on his face tells about a "beastie" that he saw somewhere on the island. The general consensus from the others is that there is no such thing, and it must be his imagination. Ralph then suggests making a signal fire, which would be necessary if they hope to get rescued. The boys gathered wood to build a fire. Unsure of how to light it they couldn’t start a fire. Thinking for quite a long time, they finally grab Piggy's specs and focus the sunlight on the gathered wood to ignite their fire. They were not careful, they couldn’t control the fire and soon the fire engulfed half the forest near the mountain. The little boy with the birthmark is noticed to be missing, swallowed up by the raging fire.

     Jack was busy tracking a pig and trying to catch it. But he fails to do it. While he was doing that, Simon and Ralph were constructing huts for home. On the beach Ralph complains no other boys are helping them making their shelters, but Jack tries to argue that hunting is more important. Again Ralph talks about the importance of signal fire in order to be rescued. Still, Jack argues the importance of hunting. Ignorant to the other boys, Simon picks some fruit for the littluns and makes his way into the jungle. He goes deeper and deeper and finds the place comfortable. Roger was knocking down the sand made by littluns and was intentionally missing the target. Jack ask for help in order to paint his face for pig hunting. Ralph and the other boys are swimming in the bathing pool later on. Smoke from a ship is spotted in the distance, the signal fire was out and was not watched. They missed their chance to be rescued. Later on Jack and his hunters come proudly marching carrying their first kill, trying to convey their excitement to Ralph. When Ralph yells that a ship passed them by and there was no signal fire going, excuses were made and Jack tries to say that hunting is the most important. The fight broke out and Jack punched Piggy. Finally, the fire is lit again, the pig is roasted, and everyone eats. The hunters celebrate the success of hunting, with a wild tribal dance and one boy acting like the pig. The Chapter three and four kind of make the reader think about the means of home. A safe shelter from beastie and others. Also it makes me question about the primaries. Jack and Ralph keep fighting upon the primaries they should do. Huntings and other things like making a shelter or lighting up the fire.

       
     Ralph mentions that work isn’t quite getting done, and the rules they set were not being followed. He worries that they might not survive before they go back home. However, all the young children weren’t that much interested in what Ralph says. They were rather interested in the beast, which they believed in as some kind of animal living on the island. Jack says that he's been everywhere, and there was no beast, and Piggy says that a beast can't exist scientifically. However, a littl'un still argues that he saw something horrid in the forest, which was, actually Simon returning in the dark from his peaceful area. Another littl'un says that there's a "Beast from the water,". Simon finally tries to settle the matter by saying that there may be a beast, but that "it's only us." However, they responded by mocking and joking. A dead man from the shot down plane falls down from the sky. The man was already dead, however, and the body and parachute float up to the island, eventually snagging on rocks. The wind continually grabs the parachute, lifting the body up and down was seen by Samneric. Terrified, they ran to tell about this "Beast from the Air," and an assembly is called. Almost everyone thought they were in big danger. Then Jack suggested hunting the beast down. Jack, Ralph, and a group of hunters set out to get the Beast, while Piggy stays at the beach with the littl'uns. They first checked Castle Rock, where they had never been before. Although they find nothing, Jack thought the place would work as a great fort. They keep on searching for the beast in the mountain.

     The beast takes the one of the most important part of developing the story. The beast at first seemed like just a representative of fear. The symbol of fear everyone was scared about due to lack of information. However, the beast in the story was not just a symbol of fear. It more importantly took a role as the trigger of human’s instinct of violence and rage. The beast didn’t exist, but children set the character in the island as a beast, and even they were scared of it, at the same time they were trying to hunt it down, and they slowly lost the judgment and they started to not care about what is the beast. Hunting the beast down became the primary problem. And it able us to guess that something tragic would happen because of lack of judgment such as killing one of themselves thinking that he was a beast.

     Ralph began pondering about their dirtiness and appearance while climbing up to the mountain. He would love to cut his hair. Simon sees Ralph and assures him that they would safely get back to home. Unlike before, Ralph actively participates in the dance, and their acts became overly realistic actually striking and hurting Robert. Finally, they move on towards the mountain. Jack found a moving creature on the mountain. When they see what they believe to be the beast they make haste to attack. Jack calls assembly and point out that Beast is something that must be hunted. Ralph was upset and called the hunters coward. Enraged Jack asks people about Ralph being chief. Since their signal fire is blocked by the beast they decide to move the fire to the shore. When they got there, they noticed that most of the older boys decided to abandon Ralph. After hunting, Jack realizes that they'll need fire to cook the meat so they steal fire log from Ralph’s camp. Ralph maintains that the fire is more important. Simon meets the lord of the flies. The black cloud of flies coating the head called "The Lord of the Flies." The Lord of the Flies says I’m part of you, we are going to have fun in this island. It continues to say that if Simon tries to talk to the others about the Beast, that he will be killed by everyone, including Ralph and Piggy. After all this situation Simon collapses.

     As we also talked about it in the class before the midterm test, Ralph ponders about their dirtiness, and desire to cut his long hair. Hair which represents civilization, has grown and it means that distance between boys and civilization has been increased. Beside that, Lord of the flies finally appears in the story. Lord of the flies saying “I’m part of you” can be inferred that those brutality of the hunters, their fears about the beast and all the other things something that was inside of them. Also from saying that “we are going to have fun in this island” it can be easily expected more brutality, more fears, and more severe incidences will happen in the story. Also every incidences are showing the civilization is diminishing really fast. For example the fall of Ralph means democracy which is part of modern civilization is fallen. Only Simon remains mystery. He only does not belong to the boys who are being more separated from civilizations. He also have the role of messenger, meeting lord of the flies.

    

     When Simon finally woke up, giant storm was raging in the island. Piggy and Ralph decided to check the pig, but there, Jack asked them to show loyalty. Ralph tries to persuade the group however he fails, and the group starts the ritual. As they were playing the ritual, someone comes out from the jungle. Everyone starts to attack it saying that it is the beast. Rather than the beast Simon is beaten to death. Jack keeps his seat and others show loyalty to him. Jack has a boy tied up and beaten, for no reason except to show what happens if anyone gets in his way. Later Ralph, Piggy, and twins finally leave the fire and go to their shelters. They woke up by some noises, fearing it is the beast. But it was Jack, and his group looking for the fire. They break into the shelter and begin to fight to get the piggy’s glasses.

      

     First, as expected Simon came to death after encountering the lord of the flies. Lord of the flies promised to have some fun with him meaning that Simon would get into some trouble. Some trouble came out to be the death. Also, death of the Simon means that the last civilization and ability to reasoning completely faded out from those boys. Boys are now completely savages, and acts as their instincts tell them to. It seems like violent giant storm represents the situations of the island and the behaviors of boys. Giant storm also plays a roll as erasing the evidence of Simon’s death by carrying his body away. Not only that, the last remnants of rules, and civilizations are destroyed or lost power. Conch shell which represented the rules, had lost it’s power completely. Also, Piggy’s glasses which represented the intelligence and the civilizations is also broken. The island is completely away from civilization.

    

     Ralph and his crews went to the Castle Rock to get Piggy's glasses back. However Jack denies their request of giving the glasses back. During their argument, Roger pushed a giant rock on Ralph but Ralph avoids it. However, the great rock landed on Piggy destroying the conch and Piggy fell from the cliff and died. Then Jack captured Sam and Eric. Ralph runs away and Jack tortures Sam and Eric to join his troop. Ralph found the skeletons of the Lord of the Flies. He grabbed a stake from its head. He went to the Castle Rock and saw Sam and Eric who were guarding the Castle Rock. Sam and Eric told Ralph that Jack tries to find him and kill him so Ralph hides in the thickets. In the morning, Ralph started to escape from the thickets because he smelled fire from the jungle. Jack had set the fire to burn the forest and fire Ralph out from the thickets. Ralph ran away from Jack's crew and faints in the beach. When Ralph woke up, he saw a naval officer who was staring at him and told him that he saw the island on fire and he thought there were people in the island. Ralph and the other boys cried with joy and got rescued. However, Ralph cried with grief unlike other boys. Naval officer first thought they were having fun and joy but were disgusted after he heard what happened.

     To start off, symbols of civilizations are all destroyed. Roger’s rock not only killed piggy who was the most smart and civilized kind of guy, but also destroyed the conch shell which represented the rules, and civilizations. Moreover, Lord of the Flies is also destroyed. By destroying those things, symbols that were left representing civilization are all gone. Now Jack’s troop acts more like savage. They killed the piggy, tortured Sam and Eric, and try to hunt Ralph at last. When Ralph hides in the bush, they even set fire to hunt him down. There is one more interesting thing I found in the novel. Reminding that those kids are survivors from crashed airplane, they were in war time. Keeping this in mind, the naval officer who was disgusted at their acts is probably a soldier. This is quite ironical, while he is the one who kills people like savage, he is disgusted and shocked how those kids could turn like savages so quickly. The boys in the island were kind of miniature of real world of adults.

Irony of Our Society (The Society Where Creativeness is Repressed)

     Now a days, we consider creativeness as one of the most important perspectives. However, at the same time our society has atmosphere which turns creative person into troublemaker. No matter how creative the individual is, if no one from society supports the individual, creativeness will not be expressed easily and creative developments would not happen easily either. Surroundings of the individual not only affects how well the creativeness is expressed but also, how creative the individual can be developed and improved.

  

 

     In fact, we can easily observe many people with potentials having trouble because of bias of others. Especially it is often that more the one’s social status is low more bad impressions people have towards he or she. As the result, even though a lot of students have high potentials of creativeness, their creative acts are seemed to be troublesome and off the rules just because of their low social status. Not only for people with low social status, it is found out that people have overall negative impressions on creative people. According to the research done on 2004 by Gallop, people thinks “creative outgoing people” as “one’s who only care about themselves and careless towards social duties”. Also even teachers, they tend to prefer students with high intelligence rather than students with high creativeness. And this tendency is kept until today.

     This status quo raise one question. Why modern society shows irony of wanting creative people, but at the same time having bad images on them? Many possible answers probably exist, but to start with it’s because we only focus on results of creativeness. Actually, many parents would want their children to have creativeness developed so they can create creative results. This focus of results would create unproductive competes. And these nonproductive competes and focus on results will just make things worth. Being more estranged with creating new innovations. Then what is needed to make appropriate society? People with eyes of finding and noticing creative people and creative things, and atmosphere that encourage creative works are needed. This two features may be more important than having creative people.

 

     Most of people think they are not creative enough and, outstanding innovations are only resulted by few talented people. Few people just give up trying to be creative because they think they are too old, and creativeness is something that youngs should have. These phenomenon is very miserable. In fact, if we look at few successful cases, we can easily find out succession was carried out not by creative people themselves but by people who noticed it was creative. This shows that society not only needs me as creative individual, but also as members of surroundings of a creative person. For this, we indeed have to work hard to be creative, but also have characteristics to admit other people’s work and have open minded. As coworker, senior, educator, teacher, or parents we have ‘duty’ to be open minded, flexible, and enjoy unique thoughts. With this ‘duty’ kept, we would not pass by something creative unconsciously, and be able to work result another innovation.

Hormones of Love

Introduction

           Whenever someone makes a girlfriend or a boyfriend, it makes you wonder. Is it possible to fall in love with just one glance? What circumstances make a highly emotional feeling called “love”? Isn’t emotion also occupied by hormones made in body? Can it be pheromone that makes people to fall in love? Which chemicals work in process of love?

           With many questions bear in mind, love indeed is something that seems mysterious. Love is one of the most important emotions for a human to have. And love is also one of the most enjoyed emotions of a human. Love is something so complicated. At the same time, love is something so natural to take place in one’s daily life. I came up with scientific knowledges to know better about love and its process.

Definition

           To start with, it is necessary to define the word “love”. The word “love” has several meanings. However, the word “love” we are going to talk about is interpersonal love between a male and a female. The word “love” we’ll be dealing with is defined as “a very strong feeling of affection towards someone who you are romantically or sexually attracted to”.

Furthermore, I’ll define the word “hormone” since hormone is the main concept to explain the process of love. A hormone is a chemical, usually occurring naturally in your body, that makes an organ of your body do something. And indeed, hormone is capable of creating emotions we feel.

Stages of Love

           Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust is the feeling of sexual desire. Attraction determines which partner to find attractive and pursue. And attachment involves sharing home, parental duties, and mutual defense. Three distinct hormones, and also three behavioral patterns, are associated with these three romantic styles.

ⅰ. Lust

           At the first stage of love, hormones called testosterone and estrogen participate. Those two hormones are the most influential after all. Testosterone and estrogen make us to have good feeling toward the other sex. Testosterone makes a man manly, and estrogen enables a woman to have beautiful body. Also testosterone takes part in concentration, memorization, and space perception. Estrogen takes part in numerous physiological functions such as boosting metabolism, decreasing muscle tissues, adjusting menstruation rhythm. Moreover it is quite surprising how similar testosterone and estrogen looks.

ⅱ. Attraction

           The second stage of love is when you become attracted to the partner. At this stage, we often say “You are fallen love.” You become impossible to concentrate on other things beside your mate. Moreover, you may suffer insomnia. In worst case, you may even lose your appetite. At this stage, you start to stutter and your heart starts beating faster in front of your lover.

These symptoms are caused since several chemical compounds are actively made. Those chemical compounds made are called monoamine. Norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine belongs to category of monoamine. Norepinephrine and serotonin make you excited. And dopamine makes you feel happiness. Thus norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine are called compounds of love.

           An anthropologist from Rutgers University, Helen Fisher warns that there are some antidepressant drugs that facilitate production of serotonin too much, patients can rather find trouble having a romantic love. Helen Fisher says you are able to fall in love when amount of serotonin in your body is relatively low.

ⅲ. Attachment

The third stage of love is the stage of attachment. In this stage, beyond feeling the attraction, you feel satisfaction of being together with your mate. In this stage of love two hormones take an important role. Oxytocin and vasopressin are those two hormones. Oxytocin and vasopressin are nanopeptide. Nanopeptide is a compound of nine amino acids connected to each other.

Oxytocin increases attachment between lovers. Because of its ability, oxytocin has nickname called “compound of hug”. Also for female, oxytocin helps uterus shrinks while delivery, and ables breast feeding. Moreover oxytocin manifestoes maternal affection. Oxytocin in the blood increases regardless of sex, when they feel orgasm. Oxytocin is made in neurons of hypothalamus then moves to axon of pituitary gland and finally released to blood.

           Another attachment inducing hormone is vasopressin. Vasopressin also has a nickname called “compound of monogamy”. Only three percent of mammals are capable of instinct monogamy. Unfortunately human aren’t included in three percent, sometimes making marriage complicated. Rats are kind of animal that keeps monogamy, most of the results of the research on vasopressin are based on experiments on rats. After a male rat has copulation, in order to protect its mate, the male rat becomes really aggressive and they keep their attachment toward its mate. Since amount of vasopressin in their brains are relatively high while those actions of male are taken place, vasopressin is believed to take a vital role in maintaining the attachment of a mate.

           Since vasopressin is made in the same place as oxytocin is made, two hormones must be closely related. Even if we look at its chemical structure, only two of nine amino acids differs each other. Furthermore endorphin (an anodyne that our body makes) also is believed to be related in keeping the attachment. 

ⅳ. Conclusion

           It’s really impressive that totally different hormones work in the three stages of love. This means that our mental state can be read by compounds of chemical made in our body. Although, current technologies are still far away from reading our mental state accurately with compounds of chemical, there are numerous possibilities of improvements.

           By understanding which compounds of chemical have effects on our emotions, we can cure lots of mental diseases. Status quo, mental diseases aren’t easy ones to deal with. Surgery is too dangerous, and drugs have many side effects. Not only that, by understanding hormones we may be able to understand more about each other. We can know how they feel, how they think, and about their ideas. By stepping into one’s shoes (understanding each other) is the way that we can truly solve problems. We can truly change the world.

Body Ritual Among the American

           When I first read about the Body ritual of the Nacirema, I thought this essay was badly written. Overall essay was looking down on a culture of the Nacirema. Since I thought we should respect other cultures even when they are exotic and unique, the essay was full of biases about Nacirema. However, after I knew that “Nacirema” is actually “American” written backward, I realized the essay did not intended to look down on a culture but was intending to criticize the modernized culture of America.

           After realizing “Nacirema” stands for “American”, I was soon able to find numerous metaphors in the essay. “Shrines” was metaphor for “Bathrooms”, “Medicine man” for “Doctor”, “Herbalists” for “Pharmacists”, “Scraping face with sharp materials” for “Shaving”, “Laptiso” for “Hospital” and more on. The essay was actually criticizing the culture of American rather than looking down on a barbaric culture.

           I was amazed how I had absolutely no doubt on our life style. I thought it was reasonable for hospital to get fees for treating patients. But I found myself thinking how cruel Nacirema is for not treating patience no matter what if they didn’t have the gifts. I thought it was fair to do birth control. However I found myself thinking negatively towards how Nacirema avoid pregnancy and how they taboo natural phenomena. Our culture which we live in thinking how it’s so modernized, rational, and advanced had so many irony inside.

           When I first read the essay I wondered how such cultures including pain could developed. Since naturally people are built to fear pain and avoid it. In the essay it is told such culture is held due to absolute faith of people. This motivated me to rethink about our development. Our what we called science that we have absolute truth in it. People who don’t have belief in science is considered uneducated. Since science is believed to be so logical and reasonable, educated, normal people should have faith in science. Well, maybe isn’t our belief dangerous? Maybe science is having too much power in modern society. It is true science is logical and reasonable. It is also true it helped our development. But now it’s time to slow down a bit and rethink about it. Science indeed helped us have technological development but is our moral and culture following up the development? Not only advance in science is important, but advance in social awareness must follow.