Emotional Setting

The emotional setting of a story is different depending on the atmosphere of the setting. The relationship between characters, environment, or the general impression of the emotional aspect of the situation. It can be a happy emotional setting or it could be a sad emotional setting depending on the situations of different stories. Setting, without the emotional aspect can loose a great deal of details and making the story incomplete. When the reader reads an incomplete story with incomplete emotions then it can really confuse the reader. The setting in Of Mice and Man starts off relaxing because they are relaxing on grass and slept on the grass on their way to the ranch. Then when they got to the ranch the emotional setting got a little tense because they are worried if they can get the job and the ranch boss is also testing if they are qualified to finish the job. Then it gets more tense when they meet Curly because he actually show hostility rather than just being alarmed and because of that the situation was tensing. Then when he left, Candy soothes the situation down. The first time George and Lennie met Candy, the emotional setting was kind of a dog-eat-dog situation, every man for themselves because on the ranch, people do work for themselves and try to keep minimum contact with each other. However, they started growing a little spark of friendship because they started to know each other. Referring back to the previous journal entry, they understand more about each other so it is easier to be nice and like each other.

Base Theme

The base theme of a writing is the fundamental theme that the basis of many themes. According to John Steinbeck's journal, written in 1938, Steinbeck believes that there are only one base theme. It is the theme of understand others and through understanding others you would be kind to each other. He believes that no matter it's what kind of writing it is, as long as it is a honest writing, it would have the base theme of understanding the characters of the story and as the story end, characters will be kind to each other. In Of Mouse and Man, as we gradually understand more about the character, we are starting to condone their action because we feel that it is the right thing to do under their circumstances and background and it is easier to relate to their action. At the start, we doesn't condone George's action of taking the mouse away from Lennie because we feel that Lennie just wants something to per but George is just being mean. However, as we read on, we found out that Lennie used to kill mice when he squishes them too hard and it is pretty clear why George didn't want him to pet mice. Also, when Candy and his dog is first introduced, we would condone the thoughts of people wanting the dog dead because it's crippled, smelly, and blind. It is a useless dog that is a burden for Candy. However, as we understand more, we see that he had the dog since it was a pup and we can understand that he doesn't want to let go. Lastly, when George killed Lennie; if we didn't know the journeys of George and Lennie and how much trouble they've been in and how much George cared for Lennie, we would think that he is a jerk killing a friend that relied on him so much.

Magic Pictures

Pictures are lines and dots that reminds us of something. It's not the actual thing but it is a illustration that is made to resemble or represent something. Some pictures are abstract, so you can't really tell what the artist wants the art to represent, some are portraits and it would be very clear to know what it is suppose to represent, unless the artist that made the art was bad at art. The picture on page 356 is a ostrich in a house. At first glance you wouldn't feel weird. But then you think to yourself, why is there a ostrich in the house. This is the magic of magic realism, at first, everything is normal and ordinary because the story is in the ordinary setting that we are familiar of. Then, something unfamiliar happened, in this case, an ostrich. We only know it's weird after we give thought to it because the magic realism writing induce us into a familiar world that we would not doubt as being unreal but when we really think about it, it's awkward. In An Old Man With Enormous WIngs, we didn't seem to feel unfamiliar until the falling of the old man with enormous wings. This is because we enter the story through a familiar setting, a rural coastal area, but something unfamiliar happened and at first we wouldn't care much and be very surprised of the landing of a winged man because our brain is in the state that anything happens in this familiar setting must be familiar and ordinary until we give thought to it.

Magic Realism

Magic realism is the combination of fantasy and reality. This combination is like adding fire to water. Some writers mix them well perfectly and create a beautiful symphony. Others might have experience troubles  such as putting out the fire or evaporating the water. A good writer could write excellent work in the magic realism genre. This genre might be difficult and challenging for some readers because the mixing of two opposite element might be confusing and unfamiliar. However, it is the mixing of the fantasy and reality that creates a familiar sense yet an interesting experience. An example of magic realism from our textbook is the story, An Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabrielle Marquez, is a great example because it uses irony to help make the reality look and feel more real and that's what makes it so real and fictional at the same time. I take magic realism very well because I like a little supernatural events to spice up the conflict, plot, or setting. I also think that the reality part gets me more engage to the story because the more real it is the more I feel connected to it and the more I like the story. It's because usually you feel reality to be boring, but magic realism makes the average reality into a fantasy by adding elements of magic. I see why people might feel strange toward magic realism but I don't think it is that strange to not be able to understand and once you do, it is very fun to read.

The Unexpected

The unexpected often happens when you have great big plans for something because it is when your expectation is the highest and when what happened fail you, you will feel the most disappointed. You have to be very quick in thinking to react to the unexpected event appropriately and it helps your critical thinking skills. Unexpected things happen to you at any time and at any place so you can't prepare that something unexpected is about to happen because it would defeat the whole meaning. People should see unexpected events that aren't that serious as a practice that will make you stronger and better. These practices are put into your life at times to test you and so you can practice on facing bad things and not just think to yourself, what a bad day, because that wouldn't help. In fact, telling yourself it's a bad day actually make you feel worse. You should always put up a smile because research studies have shown that your facial expression greatly influence your emotion and they both affect your feeling. This is because when you make the gesture of a smile, this gesture triggers something and will make you feel better. This is why whenever you are having a bad time or a bad day, smiling always make you feel better. Unless you are trying to get the sympathy of others which would also work. For example, you're having a bad day. You feel like only a free drink will cheer you up; so you act very depressed and sooner or later your friend will come and buy you a drink.

Ode

Ode is a kind of poem. Ode means you are praising something or someone using a form of a poem called ode. The famous symphony, Ode to Joy, by Beethoven, is a praise to joy. It is a happy symphony because joy means happy and praising joy should be even happier. An ode can be about anything. You can write an ode praising your dead fiancee, and the title would be Ode to my Dead Fiancee. Ode to something means praise to something in ode form, so the thing you are writing an ode about, will be called Ode to whatever you are talking about. Also, ode doesn't have to have a regular rhyme scheme because it is not like a regular poem. An ode should be quite long because if it's not long enough, you can't express your thought well enough or that the ode is not worth written about. Ode should contain strong descriptive words that help the reader or audience understand and visualize the thing. Also, an ode is normally consist of 3 parts, first being the introduction that introduces the thing to the reader or audience. Then, the second part would be the relationship of the author to the thing. Lastly, it would be twist that the audience or reader didn't expect or it could be a moral. I have a topic in mind and it is my journal. Ideas on this topic would be something like how wonderful it is, how wordy it is, how much I neglected it, and how much I wish I wrote on them regularly.

Another POV

I would like to use the scene of the policeman arresting Christopher. I think it would be quite interesting to show the police's point of view in that situation because although police deals with lots of weird and crazy criminals, Christopher is not exactly like them; Christopher is weird in a different way. Also, when the police first entered, it looked like he wasn't having a great time and wasn't enjoying life at that moment, so I thought it would be interesting for a grumpy, insensitive officer against a emotionally broken, insensitive teenager. A final reason of why I wanted to use this scenario is because Christopher took time describing the officer's nostrils and it would just be fun to picture the policeman and further elaborate on his physical appearances that Christopher had not touch on. I would like to make him a fat, sweaty, unshaved, properly dressed officer with a donut. I chose this look because it suits his personality perfectly. I got a bit of his personality from his reactions toward Christopher. He is fat because it portraits a person that doesn't care about anything. HE doesn't care that Christopher is weird and needs help and arrested him for assaulting him which might not even hurt. Also, he is dressed properly because he follows the law, he didn't put out a fight with Christopher out of anger, he simply cuffed him and sent him to the station.

Holiday Reality

Holiday doesn't always go with what you planned or hoped. In fact, most of your plans doesn't work during holidays because when you have hi expectation you usually fall harder when something failed your expectation even though it might just be that the hotel doesn't have a toilet made of pure gold. This holiday, I hoped I could go on a trip to Japan because it doesn't take a long time to fly there and Japan is an interesting place. I might also want to go to Hong Kong which is also near Taiwan and interesting. However, I didn't go anywhere, the furthest place I've been to is my grandmother's house which I have been far more times than Japan. Not only that, I have to study during Chinese New Year. I thought I didn't have to study as much but no I have to study the same length as school days. The Chinese New Year was a week, same as usual. But this time our family spent more time on family reunion so that means less free time. I thought I could go to my friends' house but that never happened mainly because I never brought it up and the rest being the break being too short. I really didn't expect a lot from Chinese New Year because it is a short one-week break and half of it would be family reunion. However, nothing came true and when I think about it logically, I wasn't surprised because it is just the way it is when we have tons of breaks but not the right length.

Holiday Plans

I would like to aboard an airplane to another country such as Japan or Hong Kong that's not that far away.
I also would like to go dine at restaurants that I normally couldn't go because we only go to expensive restaurants during special occasions. Chinese New Year would qualify as a special occasion because it is an important holiday and many Chinese people respect and honor it. I hope I don't have to do a lot of homework because I don't think holidays are for doing homework. Chinese New Year this year is going to be a little different because one of my cousin will be busy with his high school exams that he would not be able to come to the family feast that is held every year. This year, the family feast will be held in Taipei because every year it switches from Hsinchu to Taipei and then back. During Chinese New Year, we would also be visiting many of our cousins because we wouldn't have time or have a purpose to see them during other times. We would go visit my dad's side of family first. And then after we finish lunch with them, we would head to my mother's family's house for dinner. Not all of my aunts will be there because most of them lives in the States now and would only be back during long breaks such as the Summer Vacation. They sometimes came back during the Winter Break but that was quite rare because it is not long enough so a 16 hours flight would be seen as a waste. I look forward to this year's Chinese New Year as I did for all other Chinese New Year.