Style

Stylish basically means a kind of way someone does something. For example, when we we talk about stylish in clothing and outfit, we mean that they are wearing clothes that is famous and fashionable of the year or of the month. This is because the fashion of the year or of the month is a trend, which is what style means. When we talk about style in writing however, everyone is different. There are no trend of writing and two people, when examined and analyzed closely, can never have the same style. Everyone who writes has a style in writing because they are all different and it is their own way of writing. I wouldn't say there is a difference between a "bad" style and a "good" style because in the fundamental level it is just a different way of writing. However, if we really have to choose if a writer has a bad style or a good style, the only way to judge is if the style he used in writing is pleasurable for the audience or the reader. This is because a good writing means it's good and pleasurable to read and a bad writing is a writing that gives people a bad, disgusted, bored, or any other unpleasant feelings when reading that causes the thought of giving up on the reading. This is how we define a good style and a bad style. It's like asking how a cook arranges the look and appearance of the dish he made for a fancy restaurant. We can only decide by the result, if we like it or not.

Daring Adventure

I don't quite understand the quote. I think the quote is saying that we can change our lives and our lives are not controlled by anything or anyone. I think the quote is suggesting that the will of the people are stronger than what events are predestined to be and that we can either do something that can change our lives or follow the chains of cause and effect. A "daring adventure" is what shape our life and is what break the chain of boringness. I believe there is no such thing called fate because I believe that our lives are filled with events that we have the ability to change. Although many scientific reports have shown studies and experiments that test whether our decisions are made by us or it is predestined by our body before we know the decision. One experiment I know of is where a person is seated and there are sensors connected to his brains. The scientist asks him to pound the table on the count of three and he could either choose to pound it with the right hand or the left hand. We would think that he has the ability and will power to choose which hand to pound the table with. However, the result is that the brain transmitted a signal to the right hand for the hand to be prepared for the pound before the count to three. This experiment left us to think that whether our environment and previous events already shaped what we are going to do for the rest of our lives and whether we really have control over our decisions.

Memories

Usually my memories of childhood are good memories. I think that usually we remember more of the good things that happened rather than the bad things that happened. This might be because your brain is protecting you from feeling bad or depressed. It's like when something terrible happened, sometimes you lose all memory about the terrible incident and this is one technique the brain is helping you cope with the sad event that occur. It might be repressed into your subconscious because it is so bad that it does no good from remembering such a terrible event. The reason we remember things is to help us survive and reproduce. Memories are useful in that you can learn from your mistakes and teach your offspring of the mistake so they don't make the same mistake that might very well endanger their life, therefore, increasing the probabilities of living and passing down the genes. We remember bad things because those are the mistakes we made but some things are so terrible that remembering those would impede our ability to function because we can't process if we are currently thinking of the event. When we remember bad things, we only remember portions of it. For example, I get in fights a lot when I was young. Once during kindergarten, a classmate scrathed my face and my face was bleeding all over. I remembered the fight but I didn't remember what caused it or what happened after. However, I remember when I went to New York when I was 5 and I had a popsicle of multiple flavor and color and I had it all over my mouse. It might be because of the pictures that reminded me but I also remembered the flight, when I was at my aunt's house in New Jersey, when I we were walking down the street.

My Role

My role in the project, Of Mice and Man Movie, is acting Carlson, and his man role is to shoot the old, stinky, blind dog of Candy. I also have another role, the video editor. This role is supposed to be editing the videos that are shoot and make it into a movie. I haven't been able to do anything for both role because we are not quite organized and we haven't start filming. Carlson only have about 2 scenes and since Wan-yi and Sean aren't in Taiwan, we can't film the movie with them for a week. This means that we will have to film my parts first because they don't appear in my scene. Because we haven't start filming, I have no video to edit and therefore I haven't done anything yet. However, I have practiced my lines with Brian today. The lines we practiced are about me wanting to persuade him to let go of the dog and let me kill it. I practiced with Brian because Brian's role is Candy and we are in the same scene. Sarah also said a few lines about giving up a pup for Candy and telling me that I should bring a shovel for the dog. I think the organization of the group is pretty well and we are on the right track. However, a few of my concerns are that Julius just wanted to film whenever he feels like. Also, I realized that he wasn't going to use much prop and the only props he was going to use are a classroom, the dog, and the gun, without any custom or anything. That raised doubt in my mind.

Cruel or Kind

Sometimes cruel and kind blends with each other. Sometimes being kind is to be cruel, such as sarcasm, trickery, or traps. Sometimes it's the other way, being cruel to be kind, such as protection with strict rules and warnings. Also, a person can both be kind in some ways and cruel in some ways. A person can be cruel to someone and kind to someone. In Of Mice and Man, After Candy know about the situations, or partial situation, of George and Lennie, he decides to help out by telling them information and gossips about the ranch. One act of cruelty from Candy is when they first met, Candy disliked George and Lennie and didn't help them out. An act of kindness toward Lennie from George is basically everything George do with Lennie, taking care of him, feeding him, getting him a job, and accompanying him. However, at times, George would be cruel and mean to Lennie but that wasn't his true intention, all he want to do for Lennie is protection from the cruel world and at times, he has to be mean for Lennie to obey the instructions that is helpful to him. Another example is Crooks. He is sometimes cynical and ignorant to other people and that's the cruel side of him. However, after we learn more about him we learn that he just wants company. In reality, it is almost impossible that an individual is cruel all the way to his core or is kind and only does good things. It is most probably a mixture of good and bad qualities and everyone is like that, this is why if we know a person fully, it is almost impossible to hate someone.

Analyzing Visual

The illustration on page 409 of the textbook is very significant. It is also very accurate because it is mentioned that the propeller and the whole rear of the whip went up and eventually 90 degrees, perpendicular to the water. While the ship in the illustration is not yet perpendicular, it is still quite a magnificent sight to see the greatest ship ever slowly sinking into the deep blue. The thought of the people, viewing or sinking with the ship, is very paradoxical. One part of their mind is telling them that any time the biggest ship ever is going to sink, for the people onboard the ship, you're going to die any time now. But the other part of the brain is still caught in the awe of the ship that Titanic is unsinkable and the whole situation is just a drill, everything will be back normal. Another part of the picture to notice is the lifeboats. The lifeboats, staying far away from the ship is viewing the ship sinking, pulling thousands of people with it. They dare not go near the ship and rescue the other passengers because they didn't want to be sucked in by the suction caused by the ship when it sinks. This is very realistic and it shows the dark side of the world. While people are struggling on the ship and the people on the lifeboats are mourning for the people about to die. No one rowed the boat toward the ship to rescue the people because no one wants to die for other people.

Will to Survive

It's hard to decide to save someone else or themselves at a time of life-and-death situation. Some people decide by estimating how many people he could save. Some decide in terms of the importance of the person he is attempting to save. Some people decide whether they have a good chance of surviving. Lastly, some people decide whether the person they are saving is worth saving or not, which might be a combination of all these thoughts and analysis. Some people, however, just do their best to save lives without thinking about the situation, the effect of his action, or how he is going to be remembered. Theses are the real heroes. They risk their life in saving other people because they believe it is the right thing to do. There are only two kinds of people that would act on instinct without thinking. The one mentioned above, who saves people not considering the situation. And another one is the ones that flees without any thinking. People who act on behalf of reasoning and analysis is that they have a cost-benefit analysis going on in their head. That is, they decide whether their death can provide the world with more benefit. For example, if he is a nobody, and he is deciding whether he wants to save the president that has done very good things. He would think that trading lives, him to the president, would be the right thing to do because the president would benefit the world more. Some would also risk their life if they could save 10 people, 100 people, or 100,000 people, because they believe that the lives of 100,000 people is far more beneficial to the greater good than the life of himself.

The Band Played On

The band of Titanic played on as the ship is sinking.They know they are going to die and the moment before one's death is a special moment. They believe the only way to celebrate or honor the moment is to play their instrument, a thing they enjoy a lot. While everyone was evacuating and being loaded on lifeboats, the band played a tune until they sink with the ship. Just like the captain not wanting to abandon his ship, the band is experiencing a similar affection toward their instrument and their music. They are very passionate about their work as an art. The reason that they make the decision of playing the music as the ship is sinking instead of getting on a lifeboat might be because, first, they know they have little chance of dying, so why not die gloriously and proudly with their music that they loved so much. Another reason might be because they want to soothe the passenger and the panic because they believe it's their duty to soothe the people because with great talent comes great responsibilities. I've only seen this kind of behavior in movies because I believe in real life, people would give up everything to find a way to live because it is in all animal's gene that they must survive to reproduce. However, there are numerous reports, news, movies that shows that in the end of one's death, there are people who would sacrifice themselves for the greater good or for their vision of justice. Some people would stop in front of a bus to save a little girl. However, some distorted belief of justice, such as the suicide bomber, died for a cause that is condemned by the general public. If I was one of the musician, I would try my best to get on board and violent is almost necessary.

Bad Choices

Everyone makes bad choices once in a while. It's the bad choices that define a person because there can only be one good choice but you can mess up a situation in many ways. Just like multiple choice, there's only one right choice, but you can make the mistake in three different ways. Furthermore, there is usually only one way to get the correct answer but there is millions of ways you can answer the multiple choice wrong. For example, a question of x+1=2 and it asks for the value of x. One way to get the answer is by 2-1=x and we can conclude that x=2. This is pretty obvious but I forgot how do you prove it. You can get the wrong answer by 1+1+1+1=4 therefore x=4. Or you can get the wrong answer by doing x+2=1 so x=-1. However, life is not a simple calculation question. Every time you think, you are calculating that if false, do what, if true, do what, and it continues for sometimes thousands of steps. The wrong decision you make defines you because it is a unique way of a bad choice. The way you derive to the action also defines you because it's your unique way of solving a question. If the captain of the Titanic have listened and cared about the ice berg and not be so arrogant, there will be a whole lot less people that are dead after the event. This bad choice shows that the captain of the Titanic and the architect of the Titanic is very arrogant, careless, and does not care about the life of the passengers.

Sources

There are many different sources we can find for a research paper, article, or maybe even a movie with non-fiction element. However, it is difficult to know which one is good or trustworthy. Usually a primary source is more trustworthy than a secondary source because it comes from a person that lived through the experience and witness the event. That is first-hand source and it's the best source unless the person is not reliable. A primary source means that the source comes directly from the person that experienced the event to the receiver of the information. For example, if someone lived through the extinction of dinosaurs and they write it in their journal. That would be a primary source because it is from the person that lived the experience directly to the receiver of the information. A secondary source would be a person gathering one or more information from the people that lived through the experience, compressed and distribute to the receiver. This is very dangerous because often what happens to secondary source is that the writer that gathers the information include their own thought and making the information, otherwise neutral, bias. This can be bad when we want a very neutral source and we just want the original information. It's okay if the primary source is bias because it tells the receiver the experiencer's state of mind during the event, but if the secondary source is bias, it is really bad.

Bosom Buddies

George benefits more from the friendship because Lennie is the one that requires the relationship to survive. We can also list out the benefits and costs of the relationship to both sides. The benefits for George is that he gets a company and he likes having someone with him. Also, Lennie's physical strength can help George in physical conflict when trouble arrived. However, the cost of the relationship overwhelms the benefits. All troubles cost by Lennie are burden to George because Lennie is basically like a pet and what the et messes up, the owner cleans it. Also, Lennie wasn't a good pet, he cost troubles almost everywhere they go as implied in the story. For instance, George talked about the man hunting down them because Lennie caused trouble there. Another conflict is when the boss is suspicious of them because of Lennie's stupidity. George is basically carrying the burden of two men. The benefit for Lennie overwhelmed the cost of the relationship. Lennie benefits because George takes care of him and he doesn't concern about anything. George also protects him from troubles he gets in and clean up after him. The cost for Lennie is basically no cost; he has no worries because George would take care of him and do everything for him. The plot moves forward because of their relationship. Their relationships basically is the central motive for everything that happened. Curley is angry and Lennie for being big and George is angry at Curley for being mad at Lennie and that sparks up a conflict. Candy sees that the new men are bullied by Curley and wants to help them, therefore creating friendship between them. Because they became friend with an old man on the ranch for a long time, they become friend with other ranchman too. Also, the cycle of Lennie getting into trouble, George cleans up after Lennie by taking him away and having a new start, and Lennie gets in trouble again, seems to continue for a few times.

Your Lennie

I am very attached to friendship and socializing with friend because I like the sense of having friends. I also like having a best friend. However, if my best friend Bob got hit by a car on the street and blood splattered all over the place with a few of his teeth and he resulted in a hospital with a severe brain damage that made him retarded. I would be as close to him because although I would feel sorry and bad for him, he's not fun anymore and he's not the person I like to hang out with anymore. I would still go visit him and talk to him sometimes but I wouldn't be as close to him. There are a few reasons for this. First, the reason he's my best friend is because of his qualities, humorous, caring, smart, and not uncomfortable to look at. After he got the brain damage that made him think like a 3rd grader or even worse, he would nearly lose all the qualities I like, if not all, therefore, if he does not posses the qualities of my best friend, he wouldn't be my best friend. Also, there's so only so much you can talk or do with a retard and that's the physical limitation of me being as close as I was with him before the accident. If my friends make fun of Bob, I would be upside but I would just go with it because as I mentioned, I enjoy friendship, and I'm not going to lose my friends by accepting half-a-friend. I would go meet him privately for about 5 minutes per visit. Our friendship will probably die out because there's really nothing I would enjoy doing with a retard.