Journal Entry 36: F451

            Yesterday we saw pats of Fahrenheit 451 the movie in class. At first everyone was excited because we can finally watch a movie. But after the movie is played for some time, everyone started to criticize the movie. Everyone thought that the movie was the weirdest and worst movie on Earth because no one really understood what was going on. Since we didn't read the book, I guess it is normal to not understand. This book of the movie, which we are gonna read during christmas break, is a book written sixty years ago talking about "the future" that has already passed for us. In the book, the author tries to picture what will it be like in the future and also made a lot of theories in it. In my opinion some of the technology is more advanced than the technology we have now. For example, the television for the family served as many purposes. And the television can also communicate with the audience and ask the audience questions. But other technology in the movie was less advanced then the technology we have now. Some differences in the movie from reality is that we don't burn books now, but on the other hand, we burn people's creativity and intelligence now. And like I said before, we don't have the talking television.

Journal Entry 35: Being Pushed

            Parents are known as the people that push their children to do a lot of things. And those parents who push really hard for children to work harder or learn more things are mostly Asian parents. As I am an Asian and raise in a Asian family, my parents often push me to work harder on many different kinds of things. One of the main things that they push me to work harder is school work and academic. My mother and father expects me to get straight As for my report cards. They expect me to be a top student in our class. And they expect me to be a smart kid. So they push really hard on my academic if I ever don't meet their expectations. Another one is that they push me to sleep earlier. They push me to sleep earlier in many kinds of ways that I hate about. They also push me to be athletic, talented, and many others. Most of the time I listen to what they want me to do and I try my best to accomplish their expectations. When they push me to do something, I accept it. I try to please them other then reject. But when I think the expectation is beyond my reach, I will rebel. Or when I think their exceptions are things I don't like to do, I will rebel and resist. When they push me to do something, like every other kid, I feel annoyed at first. But I understand that they do all of the things for me so I will try my best. People's high expectation usually will make me want to work harder because I am the kind of person who likes to ake challenges and won't give up that easily.

Journal Entry 34: Negative

            People meet obstacles along their way of life. No one has a perfect life of always winning and being lucky, and everything works out for them. There must be a time when you don't be that lucky an meet obstacles and negative experiences rather than the positive experiences. I strongly believes that a negative experience can be a good thing because someone can learn from the experience and never do the wrong thing again, they can learn from mistakes. And also, there must be negative experiences in order to have positive ones, if you don't have a negative experience, how can you define a positive experience? Such an experience can influence who we are in many ways. The negative experiences can make us learn, and next time, we won't do it again. And also, people see negative experiences, then we know who we want to be and who we don't want to be. My sister has a positive influence on me. She studies hard and talks in a very polite manner. And that is what I have to learn from her or already learned from. Some of my friends, on the other hand, is a negative experiences for me. They don't do their homework, speak too much bad words, and don't respect other people. And by looking at them, I promise myself I will never do that. So they let me see what not to be in life. I think my sister, which is the positive experience, has a bigger impact because I am more like my sister than my bad friends.

Journal Entry 33: Universal Expersience

            Wars have been going on in this world for billion and billion of years, since people has been alive. These wars include the ones that are very serious and big and the ones that are small and nobody knows about. There are those ones where a lot of people die and the ones that only a little people die. Since there are so many wars in this world, there has been lots and lots of movies, stories, and books written about or during the war. Some are about how people suffer, some are about the military plans, and some are about the post mental disease of war. Some war experiences are American Revolution War, American Civil War, The Cold War, French and Indian War, China civil war, Korea War, and also Vietnam War. Some universal war experience that also happened to the story "Where have you gone, Charming Billy?" are people die, people gets hurt, homesick, fight over powers and lands, and also post disease of war. But Vietnam War was different from others war in many ways. One way is that it was once a civil war until America and Russia gets involve and became a part of the cold war between them. The war became more of a political war, democracy against communism. Another different thing about Vietnam war is that they have their own way of fighting that most of the people don't get used to it, which made the war even harder for them.

Journal Entry 32: Far From Home

            These young men has to go through a lonely journey. It doesn't feel good to be send to a hostile and unfamiliar environment. You will always feel lonely and miss your friends back at home. You will also sometimes feel left out and want to cry. And the most important one is that you will feel homesick. But on the other hand, sometimes people feel that they can have anew life with new people and new environment. They are happy to be sent to this kind of environment. How one would get along depends on the person's personality. If a person is outgoing and nice, they will make friends and be happy to be in that situation. While on the other hand, if someone is outgoing and shy, they will be more lonely and sad and without any friends, and will also feel homesick.
            I actually have a lot of this kind of experience. Every summer I will go to America and go to summer school. I will usually have to stay in dorms and live with complete strangers that I don't know. The first year I stayed in a dorm, I cried a lot. I wasn't use to the environment and all that. Although I had some friends, I just couldn't take it. But after a week, I got used to it and had more fun and had more friends. And after that I get along pretty good. Every time, the first day I will feel lonely and homesick, but since I am a very outgoing person, I usually get a lot of friends and have a lot of fun afterwards.

Journal Entry 31: Author's Background

            Yes, I do find a story or article's message more credible if the author has firsthand experience with the topic. I feel this way because then the author will know exactly how it felt like to be in that position. Sometimes people will say they understand, but they won't understand completely unless they are the one who is actually in the situation. So authors that have firsthand experience with the topic will make the story and article's message more credible. I believe that it is very hard for authors who have to use their imaginations to fictionalize real-life experiences for the readers. It is more difficult for them to imagine then just know it because it has happened before. But some authors like to do that, they like it more to use their imaginations to write stories. Some like to do that because they don't want to think about real life and want to create a new one in his or her head. Writers, producers, and directors like to fictionalize and dramatize true stories to make them more creative and interesting for the readers and audience. So that people will like their work. I think people would rather be entertained than informed. You can see that from the movies people love the watch. I think I like dramatic stories, I like to be entertained then informed.