Omniscient POV

An omniscient point of view is when we know what all the characters are doing and we can know what they are thinking about. In Through The Tunnel, it is written in an omniscient point of view because we know what Jerry the protagonist, the main character, and the main character's mother, Jerry's mother's thought. The first confllict we encountered was an internal conflict because Jerry is facing hagauii, which is the Japanese term for wanting to do something but he can't becasue he's not suppose to. Jerry face the conflict of wanting to go to the dangerous part of the beach because he crave adventure and wantas to grow up. Another side of the thought is tyhe sense of guilt he had for his mother because he doesn't want to make the mother feel all alone and helplessly aging and dying on the beach. Jerry still feels like he should go to the dangerous part of the beech because he decided that his mother can survive on her own without his protection. If it is not an omniscient point of view, we wouldn't know how the mother feel in this situation. The mother in this situation feels like he should let go because Jerry grew up and if she doesn't let her go Jerry would either rebel or he will leave, which are both bad for a parent. If we didn't know the part of Jerry's conflict and only the mother, we would think it is logical and sensible to keep Jerry safe because we don't know that Jerry is striving much for adventure and we shouldn't stop him because it will damage his childhood and he will grow up with mental disorder.

Film v Print

A movie is basically a finished work of a book with all the imagery painted nicely for you. A movie can be bad depending on the producer's interpretation of the story, sometimes it surprises you with a good effect, sometimes it surprises you and you found out it sucked, and sometimes it's almost the same imagery you had in mind when you read the story. But the movie could never be the same to the books because no two people has the exact same imagery. Also, a good movie would be short and precise and a good book would be sometimes very vague and other times extremely detailed. In a vague book, the movie can be very different from your imagination because it leaves lots of room for imagination for the reader and the reader would be the producer of the movie. If it is extremely detailed, a good movie would never include all details in the story because first, a movie could just show the scene without using elegant and educated language and second it wouldn't be long enough to include all unimportant complications and other elements. One thing a movie can do is called a Montage. It is a filming technique where it shows a series of short clips or pictures and usually merged with background music to show time, usually a long period of time, passing by and we see all the details through the flashing scenes. A book could not do this because if a book wants to express a passing of time, it would either have to explain them in a way without any sensitive details such as, "as time pass by, blah blah blah" or "He slept, ate, drank and went back to sleep everyday for the next 10 years". Or it could explain each passing of time with extreme care but that would take up too much time and a movie could just flash through it with almost the same quality but but with significantly short amount of time.

Shaped by Time and Place

Time and space is the setting we are in, where we are. Different time and place can shape our character traits, both physical and mental, into the traits best adapted to our environment. For example, If we lived in the medieval time in Europe, depending on our social status or our job, our clothes will vary from knight armor to peasant rags, and our character will also be dramatically different. Also, if we are rich, we would be able to read and write and be educated whereas the poor never had chance to formally learn to read and write. In this world, almost all are able to read and write because most countries have educational laws that states a certain degree of education for every citizen, the only difference would be the rich people go to private schools, the mediocre people go to public school, and the poor people would be funded by the government to go to small schools. Where we are also shapes who we are. For example, because our ancestors are from China with sandstorms and bigger sun than Europe, we have small eyes to prevent sands from damaging our eyes, darker skins to protect us from getting skin disease or sun burn. THis is the reason why Asians have small eyes and darker skins. Where we are also shape what food we eat and what food we eat when we are young shape what type of food we like.

Rites of Passage

Rite of passage is a phrase that combines the words 'rites' and 'passage' together to form a deeper and more complex meaning. Rite can refer to ritual, both formal or informal. A formal ritual would be like an actual event where something happened and an informal ritual means that we interpret the event as a ritual. Passage means something you go through or pass through. People use the word passage for two kinds of meaning, one meaning is an actual road or route for someone to go from one place to another and a metaphorical meaning of passage is a spiritual journey one undergoes to go to another mental state or to achieve enlightenment. When combining the two words, the meaning of both words are mixed and forms the meaning of the newly created phrase, rites of passage. Rites of passage means a ritual, or an event that is thought as a ritual, that let you go to another place, or help you transform your thoughts into a different state of mind. There are many different kind of rites of passages. Some we all share in common is birth and death. When we are born into the world, the action of being born is the metaphorical ritual and the passage can be literal when you enter the world or it can be metaphorical when you mature your mind into an actual functioning brain. When we die, the ritual of dying let us go through a passage of going to the afterlife, reincarnation, or void, depends on different personal preferences. An example of an actual formal ritual is the actual rite that many religion or culture perform for boys to become a man when they are 13, 16, 18 or other ages when it is thought as the age when a kid becomes an adult.

Symbol of the House

In Julio Cortazar's House Taken Over, the main character and his sister Irene lives in a house left by their grandparents for years. They have a odd routine of life, Irene's routine is getting up, clean the house, then spend the rest of the day knitting supplies such as sweaters. The main character's life is getting up, clean the house, then spend the rest of the day either watch Irene knit or read French literature that has been read long ago. He goes out to buy supplies and look for French literature once in a week. This is a rather odd lifestyle, they have almost absolutely no contact with the outside world and they just live in the house, their little world. The house acts as a symbol in the story, it can be a symbol of their sanity. They've been living in their little world and at the climax of the story, their house is slowly taken over. This can mean that they are slowly going insane and they can't take it anymore. The house can also be a symbol of life, a rather boring life however. They've lived in the house since the start of the story, which is probably a very big portion of their life near the end of the story the house is slowly taken over, meaning they are slowly dying, leaving the world they never had contact with. The story is filled with symbols and because it is a magic realism so the story does not have to perfectly logical or even logical at all. This is what makes the story good. The readers have to interpret what the symbol is and there are no right answer for sure and because the story doesn't have to be logical, the choices of symbols become wider.

Being Tested

Test is an activity given for people to see whether they are eligible for something or if they understand something. In schools, we are given many tests and the objective of the test is to see if we understand materials we learned from class or if we are eligible to pass the course or skip the course.Tests are also given when you graduate to see where your level is and which college you can attend. We also have test in life to see if you are fit for the job. There are also tests that test your characteristic, whether you're brave, stupid, or any other quality. Tests in movies are such tests that characters go through to test their qualities, braveness, stupidity, etc. A test is usually faced by the protagonist, the main character, of the story and they must overcome the test to reach their happy place. The happy place is the protagonist's goal, desire and want and the test is an invisible wall, commonly referred to as conflicts, problems that the main character face that blocks him off the path to the happy place. In the Contents of the Dead Man's Pocket, the protagonist faced the conflict of working too hard. He is drowned in work all day and had no time with his wife or recreation. Then his note flew out the window containing all his hard work. He then intended to retrieve it so he climbed out the window and was standing 11 floors above on a side of the apartment. For a split-second during his time outside his house, he realized that family and enjoyment for life must not come second because he realized how fragile life is.

Proving One's Self

Young people feel the need to prove their strength, endurance, or maturity because they are trying to prove tat they are worthy to live among the pack. People live in a pack, a community, if you fail at proving your self-worthiness you will be devoured literally or metaphorically. Once a man is left out of the pack, one of three things might happen: a lost of sanity, extreme gain of weight, or death. Meaning, proving one's self is vital to survival and young people have the natural instinct of survival. Another reason for proving self-worthy is that survival is not the only reason to prove worthiness, but also reproduction. Everything about an living thing, it's behavior, appearance, whether it's camouflage or sharp claws, are all to do one of two things, survive or reproduce. People must at young ages prove their self-worthiness or it could endanger it's possibility of surviving or reproducing offspring to continue on the DNA because school is the most friendly environment a young person can ever get in competing. The reason for that is because of the teacher, which stands as a referee for fouls such as maiming others so that they are out of the game. In the adult world, the police act as the referee, but because it is a much greater environment, you can not expect a referee constantly looking out for you. That's why young people have the instinct that they must use their youth as a training ground.

Symbols

Symbols may refer to illustrations or words. The words we are saying really are just nonsense sounds because we have a universal understanding of what the sound represents it is a symbol for what it represents. For example, the word 'dog' is a symbol for a four legged mammal with a tail that barks. 'dog' is meaningless to people that doesn't know English because they only recognize it as a sound. A symbol of a picture is like a heart. When people see heart, they think of love because it is generally taught that heart is a symbol of love. Someone that have never learned this concept would interpret it to other things and would often be different than what we think. Symbols come both naturally and artificially. When a country shows other countries its national flag, the flag automatically becomes a symbol for the country and people would understands this would see the flag and know it represent the country. Symbols also occur naturally, when you see a elephant stomping a man to death with absolute strength and brutality, you will find that when you see an elephant again you will think it represents strength and power. Symbols are what we see the symbol represents and it doesn't matter what the speaker or author wants the symbol to represent but to make the audience understand the symbol the same way the author did because symbols without understanding or recognition is just a concept without any meaning except for itself.

Choices

Every choice we make is very important. Even a simple choice of vegetable or chocolate, or, HBO or movie theater, can show who you are because the choice is made by you. Our choices reflect who we are because it is who we are, our personality and intelligence that decide what to do and what choices to make. Eating broccoli rather than chocolate can reflect on you as a person that you care about your weight and since chocolate has higher calories, you decide not to eat them. It might also lead to false interpretation and this is inevitable because there are too many ways and points of view to view a simple decision as choosing between a broccoli or a chocolate bar. Maybe you just feel like eating broccoli because it tastes better, which in common understanding would not be the case and so this would lead to false interpretation. Choices are important because sooner or later everyone needs to make one or more choices and usually more than one. The only people that don't make choices are either influenced by physical disorder that prevents him from making any decisions, influenced by mental disorder that does not have the ability to make decision, or dead. These are uncommon and so we should all be prepared to make decisions in our lives. Every decision has consequences. Everything you decide is going to have an impact, whether small or huge, on you or the people around you. Shooting Lincoln was a decision made by John Wilkes Booth, so we are led to believe, is a very major choice to make because it affected thousands of people and he himself. It is also important because choices are judged by other people and because of this decision, he is considered a bad person. It is also led to believe that a small decision of being an actor would result in that he was the most suitable person to assassinate Lincoln.

Welcome Back

I love my winter vacation because I went to Japan and see snow for the first time in my life. The Monday after I got back from Japan, I watched a movie with Eddy Tsao and Jimmy Chuang. The movie we watched was Tron: Legacy. I found the movie entertaining and good so I liked the day. I also saw 4 red cars passing down the road in front of Fe21 where we watched the movie so I knew that the day would be a Good Day. During Christmas me and my mother, my father, and my sister went to a Chinese restaurant with my aunt, another aunt, uncle, and a cousin for dinner to celebrate Christmas. We chose a Chinese Restaurant instead of a Western restaurant because it is easier to get a reservation in a Chinese restaurant and because it was a holiday, most Western restaurant would be full and we couldn't dine there. Another reason we dine there might be because my two aunt and my uncle prefer Chinese food over Western food. We had many food there and had dessert at the restaurant. One bad thing about it was that we didn't have drinks so after the meal I was thirsty. After the dinner, we headed back home and do homework. I have to do homework everyday of the vacation doesn't matter if there is homework to do or not. After doing homework, I watched a movie with my parents and I forgot what movie we watched but I think I enjoyed it. The rest of my break wasn't that excited compared to the first half of the break. I didn't go out and stayed at home during December 31, 2010 to January 1, 2011 because I was too lazy to go out.