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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Science
always have been developing and improving. As time passes by, rate of the
development of science became more faster. In this new century there would be
massive scientific innovation that ever before. I believe changes that new century
bring would be source of the energy, and better medical treatments.
This
new century will be using different energy sources. Fossil fuels are almost
used up. At this rate, in 45years there would be no fossil fuels left for us to
use. Not only that, usage of fossil fuels creates a lot of problems. Most of
environmental problems we are facing are caused due to the over use of fossil
fuel. One of the best examples of environmental problem caused by fossil fuel
would be global warming. Global warming is serious and global problems. Since
fossil fuels are almost worn out, and have a lot of side effects, in this new
century we will find different energy sources. The possible ones would be
renewable energy such as energies using sun, wind, waves and more on. Those
energies would be infinite and way more environmentally friendly. Nuclear
fusion or hybrid energy which is highly efficient also can be the upcoming
future energy. Since we can not suddenly erase our civilization and live life
in the nature, there will be tremendous amounts of demands for energies, and
fossil fuels would be replaced with our upcoming future energies.
Our
life style of living would also change tremendously due to the development of
medical science. Highly developed medical science would highly raise the
average age of human being. And also, we will be able to live disease-free
life. Cloning, and stem cells would be developed enough so we can change our
organs if we want to. Also almost every diseases would be treated. Due to
longer life span of human the cultures and laws would be changed. Since the elderly
population grows, services for elders would increase. Entertainments, advertisements,
sports, and TV programs targeting elders will grow in term. Moreover, welfare
system should go through big changes. Pushing citizens to look after growing
population of seniors would be impossible. There should be logical solutions such
as giving jobs to elders. Not only development of medical science would be enough
to lead to better society. Development of medical science followed by logical
changes in society to back up increasing elderly population is required to accommodate
the happy society we want.
There
would be many huge changes in this 21st century. Changes in
cultures, customs, habits and more on would follow. But the biggest changes
will be followed by development in science. Development of science will provide
solutions for status quo of scarce fossil fuels. Further more development of
medical science would lengthen the life span of human which will cause diverse
results in cultures, and societies.
Earthlings was full of disturbing
scenes such as puppy mills, slaughter houses, factory farms, primates in lavatories,
circus training facilities, and more on. Places that are not allowed
to film, and actually two thirds of films are taken undercover. Earthlings shows how cruel human can be
toward life creatures. Watching animals suffer, breathing after all the skins
took off, I was horrified, and even decided not to eat any meats nor wear leather
jackets. Rethinking about Earthlings,
however, I was more horrified about the fact that a single documentary can have
such power to change one’s idea.
cow slaughter
lion hunting
Let’s
compare those two pictures. What do you feel? Does anyone think lion is doing something wrong? How about the other picture? Does human who is
slaughtering a cow looks right? Many people would think about the first picture.
“It’s natural isn’t it?” On the contrast, not many people would look at the
second picture with smile on their face. In the first picture there is a cow and a predator
which is killing it and in the second picture there is again a cow and a predator
which is killing it. It is quite similar to each other, but why do we react so differently between these two pictures?
Everyone
has their unique values[1]. If there are many people sharing similar values or
ideas, it becomes widely accepted common sense, or public opinions. However, there
are no absolute standards that decide what is wrong and what is right. Indeed,
values sometimes clash to each other. These conflicts don’t mean one value is
wrong and the other one is right. There are no answers, just differences exist
between them.
Baring
this in mind, is Earthlings a fair
documentary[2]? After watching it, I couldn’t stop thinking about mankind’s mistreatments
toward animals. Thinking about its purpose, Earthlings
has served very well. However, I don’t think it was a good documentary. According
to the director(Shaun Monson), Earthlings were
taken to people to know the truth about what is actually happening to animals.
However, Earthlings didn’t stop at its
purpose. It went beyond, making biases into people who watch it. Documentary
didn’t taken form of neutrally reporting the actual truth. Earthlings uses way of pathos[3], showing animals suffer, die in
pains, brutally treated. All these scenes draw out sympathy. Sympathy towards
those animals change to horrify towards people’s behavior and this again change
to hatred towards those facilities, and behaviors of human. But the truth is, as I said
earlier, other people’s values aren’t wrong. To some people it can be shown
bad, maybe to some people it is something natural. There is no such thing as
wrong. However in this film, it keeps saying it is wrong. It keeps force you to
think it is wrong. It disables your abilities of critical thinking.
Documentaries,
every one of them has message in it.[4] They are edited with background music, and
if needed with narrations. However, the purpose of documentaries should finish
at the stage of showing other perspectives, other possibilities, and new
thoughts. In order to do so, documentaries have narrations. Usually narrations
provide logos to the film. Also, it explains about the opposition side, too.
Using various devices, directors try not to go over the line. However, Earthlings went way too far. Narrations
which should provide logos didn’t play its role. It kept its pace with the pathos.
There are many old sayings in the narrations, and they just emphasize the situations without logical reasoning.
Not
only that, Earthlings shows only the
worst out of the worst cases. It showed stray dogs. But there are a lot of
happy, pleased dogs living with human beings. It showed milking cow in a harsh
condition. No space and daily routine life of milking. However, there are also
place where they stray the cows and let them play freely. Not only that, it
doesn’t show the benefits we can get from animals. For animal experiments in
the science lavatories, Earthlings
describes them like an unneeded torture that is done without any guilt under
the name of science. But you can not hardly imagine how much we gained from
those experiments. How much we developed. How we made medicines and new
treatments for diseases. Earthlings
just shows the worst parts, it just shows the contents they want to show in
order to make people have one thought in their mind. It is like a brainwash. It
completely changes one’s values, and standards. I am not saying showing other
perspectives of commonly accepted things are bad. What makes problems is that Earthlings, using way of excessive pathos, went too far.
Earthlings, they showed unknown sides of
animal treatments. But, did it show truth[5]? Like the director says, is Earthlings truth? Actually, it was more
like the world seen through the lens of director’s values. No such value exists,
which rules over any other values. They are just different. The differences may
have been caused by their cultures, environments, and educations. But we have
to respect and understand other values. Earthlings
is indeed well made film uncovering the animal mistreatment. However it can’t
avoid criticism that it’s too one sided, and too emotional.
When
I was 12 years old, I went to Canada for one year. My parents had a hard time persuading
me to go. Unlike now, I was really shy and afraid of new environments. If I go
there, I had to stay with a new family, and play with new friends. I really
didn’t want to go. However, I and my parents talked a lot, and I finally
decided to go. I can’t remember what it exactly was but my parents promised to
do something for me if I went.
Surprisingly,
it wasn’t that hard to adapt to new environment. Even though, culture and
language was different, and I was very shy, neighbors, and friends around me
were very nice, and tried to include me in.
One
day, there was a speech contest in the school. As I told earlier I was
extremely shy than anyone can ever imagine. So, I wasn’t thinking a bit about
participating but one of my classmates told others that it would be nice for
me. Everyone wanted me to tell them about Korean traditions, something new and
cool which they would like. I tried to tell them, I was never on stage before,
I am afraid of being in front of so many people, and I would probably screw up.
But they weren’t listening to me. They were all excited about the idea. With
the promise of my friends, they would help, I applied.
I
practiced really hard, and my friends did help. I chose to introduce
Tae-kwon-do. I thought it was a really cool martial art that represents Korea.
After I wrote the first draft of my speech, every friend came to me and helped.
They suggested ideas about the order and the vocabularies to put in, and
corrected some grammar mistakes. Just a day before the contest, I read my
speech again and again to memorize and talk in the best tone.
The
day had come. Waiting for my turn to arrive, one minute felt like one hour. My
heart was pounding so hard and my head full of a wish that I wanted to give up
now. But I remembered all my efforts, and friends’ help. I started to keep
murmuring “I can do it, this is nothing special.”
Finally
my turn came. I went up to the stage and with my legs shivering so violently I
somehow managed to stand behind the podium. Remembering from now, it was as
thrilling as bungee jumping. My brain went blank when I looked at the audience.
So nervous, I had a few big breaths, looked at my friends slowly. And slowly I
opened my mouth. I couldn’t remember how I did. But I realized I somehow ended
my speech and came back to my seat hearing everyone applauding.
Well,
I didn’t get any prize unfortunately. However, my friends had a surprise party
for me. It was the best party ever. If there were no friends at that particular
time, there would be no me right now. Thanks to them, here I am who can talk
and even dance in front of so many people.
Korean
has unique grammar rules about honorific expressions, called “Jon-dae-mal”.
Those rules about honorific expressions are applied to Koreans’ everyday life. Honorific
expressions are used in various situations. For example, those expressions are
used to elderly, stranger, or anybody who you want to show respect. Extra rules
of grammar may make things more complicated and tiresome. However, there are
certain merits about using “Jon-dae mal” in routine life.
To
start with, we can show respects to people by using “Jon-dae-mal”. The best way
of expressing feelings would be by directly telling them. There indeed are many
situations that we better show some kind of respect. And in this perspective “Jon-dae-mal”
is the perfect grammar rule that able us to show respect to people easily. Example
of respecting others by using honorific expressions would be respecting
elderly. Showing respects to elders are showing respects to their past
experience and knowledge. It is true that society is changing continually and
rapidly and elders’ ideas may not fit in to current situations. However, there
is always something to learn from the past. Since elders had experienced more
and know more they can be best advisors for young. Beside the fact that there
are a lot to learn from elders, also the reason that we can exist, and live in
this country, culture, and home is all thanks to them. In these aspects it
seems fair to get some respects. So, Korean uses “Jon-dae-mal” towards elders
as showing respects, and to others if it is needed.
Moreover,
using “Jon-dae-mal” makes us to think one more time. Not only that we use “Jon-dae-mal”
to express our feelings, especially respectfulness, Using “Jon-dae-mal” works
other way around, effecting us in positive ways. For example, if lovers use “Jon-dae-mal”
to each other, “Jon-dae-mal” would effects their attitude, they would think one
more time before they say something, and they would be more respectful to each
other. Those will be lower the rate of being in trouble. Not only the
relationships between lovers, but in many kinds of relationships, using “Jon-dae-mal”
would help out a lot. It would help them to maintain good relationships since
using “Jon-dae-mal” makes you think one more time before they actually say it. More
importantly “Jon-dae-mal” has basic feature that makes the listener feel good.
It is quite obvious since “Jon-dae-mal” includes the speaker’s respect towards
the listener. Since in today’s society we get to make various relationships, in
online, and in offline it is really important to make good relationships and
maintain it well. And as I introduced earlier, using Korean “Jon-dae-mal” would
be very effective in maintaining and having good emotions towards each other
when we make relationships.
To
conclude, usage of “Jon-dae-mal” is a Korean tradition with various useful
features. Language indeed is really close to our life. Every second, in any
place, in order to communicate we use “language” to express our emotions, and
ideas. And the change of language usage would tremendously effect one’s life.
Usage of “Jon-dae-mal” in this case, would surely change one’s life in positive
ways. As I listed few positive features about Korean “Jon-dae-mal” above, “Jon-dae-mal”
is a custom from my country that I would mostly like people from other
countries to adopt.
I tend to lack creativity in my writing. I always come up with similar method to approach the problem. Since, I always come up with similar ideas, similar way of thinking, similar details, I feel like I am like a printer. I get the question, and results comes out from my hand. No difference in each paper. During this semester I wish to add different colors to each paper I write.
Also I have hard time writing specific details to support my idea. I don't know why, but I always want to generalize the details, and facts. I want to fix this tendency and make my writing more logical, with many specific ideas, and examples to back up my topic sentence.
Last but not least, I make quite lots of grammar mistakes in my writing. Such as articles, word forms, and sentence structrue. I hope that I would be able to lessen my grammar mistakes this semester.
Well, My name is Park Jinwoo. And I am a 17th waver in korean minjok leadership academy. I am "frosh" here, spending my second semester. I was in international class during the first semeseter, but I changed to domestic class for the second semester. I thought a lot about my career and I decided that domestic would be much more helpful for my career.
I have not decided my dream yet. I enjoy science especially physics, and biology. Still, I am also intereseted in various fields, such as economics, and group psychology. I am looking for a job that would suit me best, and most enjoyable.
My favorite sports are playing basketball and snow boarding. I really really love snowboarding during the winter. Just because that I can do snowboarding during the winter, winter is my favorite season.
I'm also participating in various club activities. I'm doing various campaigns and camps in the MUNESCO. In SIGMA I go to elementary school every week to teach math and science. And I take a role as a b-boy in Rhyme Factory. For 전야제 our crew practiced a lot, and danced.
Those are brief introducing of myself, and I hope now you know better about me than before.
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.
