"Romeo and Juliet" response

Although this text is a bit difficult for me, I still enjoyed reading it. Old-fashioned words and grammar make the play more beautiful. For example, Romeo says that "He jests at scars that never felt a wound." (Act2, Scene 2) In modern English, it is "people who haven't been hurt joke about injuries."

I like the part when Romeo tries to swear by moon, and then Juliet says that the moon changes every month and she does not want Romeo to swear. Instead, she says "Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight, It is too rash, toounadvised, too sudden, Too like lightening, which doth cease to be Ere one can say it lightens. Sweet, good night!" ( Line 117-121) Juliet is afraid that it is too rash; also, she does not want Romeo to think that she is too easy. I agree. I think love needs time. We can "fall in love at the first sight"; however, truly knowing someone takes time and as the time goes by, real love becomes deeper.

personal response to TED talk "Memory and Experience"

I enjoyed the talk very much and I liked the idea of "remembering self" and "experiecing self". In my own experience, I think sometimes I can not have a good balance of those two selves. In other words, sometimes I don't feel happy in the present, but my remembering self will turn to be a happy one and keep the beautiful memory. When I am suffering, I think of those happy times and will have hope as I know I have had some happy memory.

I am especially impressed by the colonoscope experiment in the talk. For me, it is the same too. I sometimes have a very good time in the present and suddenly have an extremely bad moment right after; in that case, although I have had some pleasant time, I still think I had a terrible time because of the "pain" in the end.

Thinking and experiencing happiness is difficult and painful; however, if we follow the rythm of life, hopefully we will eventually become able to feel some happiness and joy in life.

Personal Reaction on "Beowulf"

The old English poem is very difficult for me. However, silimilar to many other modern poems, we can see some figurative language used in this poem as well. For example, there is the same vowel sound in "dole" and " abode", and it's assonance. We can find alliteration as well in "dole" and "dark", which is also similar to modern poems that we read nowadays. There is also repetition of the word "too" in "too cruel", "too long" and "too loathsome".

Although I didn't see clear rhyming scheme in this poem, I enjoyed the rythm of it very much.

Personal Reaction to "2001 a Space Odyssey"

 I like this movie as there is little conversation in it. First, I enjoyed the background music at the beginning and the end of the movie; it is very peaceful to me although some people think that it is scary and makes people nervous. The movie is devided to several different parts--from chimpanzees to modern technology. Throughout all the different parts in the movie, there is always something that makes people think of a monolith.

In the beginning of the movie, there is a bone of a dead animal, which symbolizes the early progress made by chimpanzees of using tools. The tool is the bone of a dead animal, and chimpanzees get the bone due to the sacifice of the animal. However it means the significant progress during human evolution. Also, when I noticed that in the seond part, the flying pen in the spaceship was leaking red ink, I thought of the bone in the first part and imagined blood from killing. In order to achieve more, human use modern technology; I though it is also a kind of cruel "killing" when I saw Frank being killed by HAL9000.

In my opinion, the bone, the pen that is leaking red ink and the death of Frank all indicate that in order to survive, there must be killing and cruel competetions.

Time goes by so quickly. I feel everything valuable is like sand; the more I grab it, the more it drops from my hand. I like my life in Canada as I have much more time here to do things that I want to. Today, when I was walking to the school, I saw "UBC bookstore". It was written in English, and I suddenly realised that I am in Canada. I felt a bit happy as I am not in the city where I didn't feel comfortable. The next moment, I felt anxious and weak. I looked at the time, and it said "8:29"; I was going to be late, but I couldn't walk fast. I was happy about going to my reading class, but I knew it would have an end, and it wouldn't be so far. I tried my best to reach the class--to something that I truly enjoy. I like that class as I can be myself; or, for most of the time, I can see who I used to be a few years ago.

I didn't expect that I woud like here this much. I didn't even check where Vancouver is on the map until I was on the plane a few hours before it landed in this city. I was confident that I wouldn't get lost as I knew the plane could take me there if I was on the right flight to Vancouver. No expectation, no hope, no emotions  when the planed landed at YVR airport.

I have done everything that a student must do here. I also send a piece of paper to my university every month to tell them what I did in the previous month. I briefly summerize my life only in a few words, but I always think that there are much more meanings in my life here that can't be expressed only by words; it scares me.

I am going back in a few weeks, and I just hope that I can remember that my life wasn't all about ordeals; there was something valuable that I can treasure.

Fear Of a New Morning.

Everything seems unfinished. I craved more time, but I had to accept the cruel reality. I always do.  I am used to fight against my bad luck, but now I believe in destiny, and everything is getting much easier than before.
I like this time of the day. It is quiet, and I don't feel anyone else's presence. It's so late that morning is going to come again. I am enjoying the peaceful time, but also so afraid of a new day's coming. In one or two hours, I have to go to sleep as I don't want to be awake when I have to accept the fact that a new day has come. I feel so giddy but so happy. I am happy that I am totally lost. Lost in a corner of the world.

Why I am in North America-- why I am in Canada? Why I have to go back? Did I ever think about these questions? I am not escaping--I hope not as I have enough courage to go back, but I am so scared that the moment the plane lands, all the beautiful memory that I had might vanish. I keep telling myself that all the beautiful things have an end--they always do. We come into this world alone and leave exactly the same way. I am going to treasure those warm and foggy days here. I enjoyed visiting Queen Elizabeth Park; I liked the restaurants here; I had a good time in the Chinese garden; I also liked the busy seabus.

I like the darkness and peace in the middle of the night, but even the night that I like is going to have an end--I don't want the morning to come yet.

The Mirror At Midnight.

I couldn't fall asleep, and as I couldn't fall asleep at an early time, I am not going to worry about how many hours I can sleep today. I was tired the whole day, but when I got  into the bed, tucked myself in and closed my eyes, a lot of pictures came into my mind, which bothered me so much that I had to get up and look for my vodka drink.

I turned the kichen light on--so quiet, everything was so quite as if there was only me in this world. I sat at the counter and felt a bit cold, but not that scared anymore. I know that everything that I want is like sand. I try to grab it tightly in my hand; it falls down. I'm used to it. Time goes by so quickly, and yesterday( technically the day before yesterday as it's passed 12am already) the alarm clock went out of battery...I didn't buy a new one to fix it as I wanted it to stop like that--it looks peaceful to me. I've only used the clock for a few months, but why the battery went out so quickly...

I felt that when the liquid when down my throat, it set a fire there. I am not drunk though, I am just getting a bit relaxed, and I wanted to keep a dairy--today I didn't write it on my qzone but this blog as I am using this one more often now.

That was absolutely not enough to make me drunk. I looked in the mirror, and I saw what I hated as it was not a smiling face, and I know it is not going to be one. If it was paper, I would tear it into pieces right away.

Personal reaction to "the Epic Of Gilgamesh".

This story is too difficult:( and I had trouble reading it; I wanted to read it again, but to be very honest, I couldn't focus on reading it at all. I think I only got a very general idea of the story, which is about life and death. I wish I could read the story more carefully as I like to discuss the topic very much.

About the structure of the story, it used many repetitions, similes and metaphors. I like the idea that there is always a limite of humankind. We can't have a everlasting life, which I think gives us more meaning to life. I sometimes think that there is plenty of time ahead me, so I can waste some time now although I don't want to. Imagine if you know life is everlasting, what would you do now? You probably won't treasure your life anymore. I think we are all trying our best to live only because we know that we are going to die some day in the future, and before that we have to make best use of our life.

I feel extremely painful when I think that I have to die though as I have been wasted a lot of time in my past few years. Of course I didn't want to waste any time of my life, but somehow I had to. My future is also full of uncertainty, which scares me whenever I think of it. I've always been hoping to be born again, but I also know it is impossible.

The story tells us that God give us life, and at the same time God give us an end of life, which is death, and no one can get rid of it. However, how we make use of our limited life is our own business. I like this idea as I think I become much less stressed about life recently as I truly realized that every one has to die. We are just human, and the best way to live is to learn to have what makes us happy, but not to waste our life by suffering all the time.

Rainy Thanksgiving Day ( assignment for "interview")

This weekend has been so long, yet not long enough for me to think about things that I have to. During the whole weekend, I have only been out for a short walk once. I love to stay home and be in my own world--no matter it is cold or warm.  If it is a good day, I can accomplish a lot of things like writing a story or learning about life in a movie. I don't like talking about things that I want to know with strangers or even friends, so I watch movies or ask my mom on the phone. That is why I prefer staying home during weekends.

As it is Thanksgiving, I thought about things that I should be thankful for. I am thankful for my physical health. I sometimes think that what an amazing thing it is to walk a long way as I enjoy thinking while walking along the green bushes. I am also thankful for having a good mother. She used to be very strict and lose her temper very easily, which I didn't like at all. Recently, she never gets mad at me as I told her that I would really die right away if she did. We can talk about a lot of things, and I know no matter how crazy the things I say, she would always accept. I appreciate that she has been more than a good friend to me--not like a mother.

Finally, I am also thankful for a lot of happiness and sadness that I have. Sometimes being able to be sad should also be appreciated as it means that I am a normal human at least at that moment. The problem is that I hate being sad about ridiculous things, so that is why I think sometimes being sad with a good reason is also a very happy thing to do. I am thankful for that.

Most of all, I am also thankful for being able to stay here for anther 2 months. Then I have to have difficult life again, but I am used to it, and I hope I can get used to it again.

It is so rainy today, which means it is at least not a bad day as I don't like to see a sunny day when I don't feel quite Okay. I am reasonably happy about the heavy rain, and I feel like running into the rain and get soaking wet; I somehow want the rain to wake me up from my fantasy world.

React personally to the story "The Killers".( Assignment)

I find the story interesting in many ways. Although chaos makes the story seems a bit confusing and I don't like chaos in real life, reading this kind of story somehow makes me feel relaxed--like enjoying a movie.

I like the way the two killers Max and Al talk. When George asks why Al is going to kill Ole Anderson, Al says "He never had a chance to do anything to us. He never even seen us. And he's only going to see us once." I am impressed by his confidence; maybe he is overconfident. Also, the story shows us the cruelty of the society at that time--people don't know how to express their emotions in a proper way. However,George seems so calm that nothing can bother him, which I think also reflects another side of extreme lack of emotion.

Besides these main characters, I also like Nick, who I think is a hero in this story. He does not even know Ole Anderson and Sam tells him to stay out of this business, but he stills goes to Ole and tells him the secret that Max and Al are going to kill him. In order to stay out of trouble, he decides to stay out of town. He is the only person in this story who seems to have normal human emotions, but it seems to me that Hemingway didn't put any judgement in it about different life attitudes of different people; he probably just wanted to reveal the fact that there are people with different attitudes living in the same society, and he might have wanted us to meditate on which causes this fact in that society at that time.

Hemingway Response ( not assignment).

I didn’t read any other people’s essays online as I want to have my own opinions about the two stories. I think I am not a very optimistic person, and I always love to read stories that have very sad endings; that is the main reason why Hemingway’s stories engage me very deeply. Hemingway’s life attitude is very much affected by his four unsuccessful marriages. When he was 61 years old, he committed suicide; obviously, even the last marriage didn’t seem to be a successful one, either. From both stories “ Hills Like White Elephants” and “ Cat In the Rain”, we can see that the conversations are not pleasant; we can feel that there is a kind of very bitter loneliness in them—the female characters are not physically alone, but emotionally lonely.

In my opinion, according to all those unsuccessful marriages, probably Hemingway is a misogynist. However, in both stories we read, I think he put his own lonely feelings in both female characters, so in the stories, he is sympathetic towards women.

In “Hills Like White Elephants”, Hemingway portrays a young and inexperienced loving girl who is trying to decide whether she should do an abortion or not with her American boy friend. The girl loves the man and she wants to have the baby and a future with the man, but the man says that he doesn’t want anyone else but her. He is afraid of their future with the baby. He is older but not mature enough. He says that “It’s really an awfully simple operation, Jig.”(Line 42) It means that he doesn’t care about the girl’s feelings at all. Through their short conversation, the girl gets disappointed, and she finally realizes that they won’t have a happy future anyway; even if she doesn’t do the abortion, she will suffer more. When she says “I don’t care about me”( Line 66), she is actually saying the man doesn’t care about her. I think she becomes stronger in the end when the climax takes place—“Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?”(Line 98).

In “Cat In the Rain”, the woman is lonely and demanding. Her husband George shows no interest in their conversation, so even the woman is with her husband in a very comfortable hotel room, she still feels lonely. She wants a cat so badly. She says “I don’t know why I wanted it so much. I want that poor kitty. It isn’t any fun to be a poor kitty out in the rain.” The cat is a symbol of the woman. She is a poor character suffering a terrible marriage. She wants to be saved or to be loved the way she wants the cat to be saved. Reading this story, I got a very bitter feeling to see how the woman feel when her husband says “Shut up”. She is strong inside; she has her own desires and she craves them. However, she is also overwhelmed because of this unsuccessful marriage.

To sum up, I liked the way Hemingway portrays women. He does feel sympathy for women in both stories; however, this is because he put his image into the two female characters. In real life, I don’t think he was always sympathetic towards women as we can see that from Hemingway’s another piece of work “A Very Short Story”, in which he portrays the woman as a very loose one.

Discuss how the male protagonist changed in " A Very Short Story".(assignment).

This story is extremely sad, but also extremely real. I liked every single sentence in it, especially the last one. Obviously, the man loves Luz more than she loves him. He took temperatures of the other patients, and let Luz stay in his bed. They used to be together as if they were married. After the war, in order to marry Luz, he didn't want to meet any friends, and the only thing he wanted to do was to focus on finding a job and meet Luz. At that time, he was hopeful.

In one rainy winter, an Italian major made love to Luz, which made her think that theirs had been "only a boy and girl affair". I can understand Luz too. In winter, people feel cold, and even terribly lonely. Even if she didn't love the Italian major as deeply as she loves him, she still wants to be loved, especailly in such a rainy winter.

 However, he wouldn't understand her feelings for the Italian major. He is heart-broken. I don't think he likes the sales girl at all, but he hoped that he could express his anguish somehow by having sex with a stranger. He became hopeless as he was terribly hurt by Luz, and I don't think he did anything wrong, but he still got the punishment, which was gonorrhea being transmitted; I think he was very disappointed but wasn't able to forget or forgive Luz. Cruel fate even destroyed him more. I think Hemingway wanted to tell us that that is just the way things turn out in this world.

React to the movie on a personal level. "Being There",

I enjoyed watching the movie a lot because the language and the misunderstandings are very interesting to me. I like the charactor Chance as he is very innocent and says whatever his mind says; he doesn't need to spend any time picking a suitable word. He even called the president "buddy". I also like the way he talks; he talks very slowly and calmly. No matter whom he talks with, he is always so calm, which made people think his words are very deep even though he is just talking about gardening languages. I don't like Eve very much because she seems a bit loose; she is so good at showing her feelings to Chance while she doesn't even know his real name and back ground. I think she likes people who have or had high positions and who are or were wealthy; she seems excited when she thinks Chance's name is Chancey Gardiner. Money and high positions don't mean anything to me. I think real love is based on how well we know each other and how real we are when we are together.

This movie is full of ironies. People haven't even discovered Chance's real name and his background when the movie reaches the end. It is a perfect movie which indicates the politics, the government, the publishing industry, the educational system, race relations, human sexuality, the American public in one short movie and meanwhile it contains a lot of humor.

Victoria Day Trip

It's been a long time for me to enjoy a trip. I liked travelling when I was a little child although the memory wouldn't stay for very long. However, fate destroyed my taste of travelling, and I have been stressed about any trip since then. I have always preferred staying home and being in my own world. The idea of going to Victoria before going back to Japan had obsessed me for a long time. As I realized that it was almost time to go back, I decided to go to Victoria with CAs and ELI friends yesterday.

 I had no expectation that the trip would be enjoyable, but thanks to my friends and one of the CAs, it turned out to be a very pleasant one.

We met at 8:15 at Vancouver City Center in the morning, and then headed to the ferry. I liked the ferry very much. Although it was 1 and a half hours on it, time went by very quickly, and we soon arrived in Victoria. We took a school bus to the Butchart Garden, and we spent about 2 hours enjoying the garden. It was supposed to rain, but it didn't. All the flowers there looked so energetic and colourful. There was also a Japanese Garden in it; everything was so delicate.

In the afternoon we went to the Royal BC Meseum, and watched IMAX movie. The screen there is 10 times as big as the one in a movie theater. One of our friends bought too much popcorns there, so we had to share it as we couldn't take it with us while visiting the museum afterwards. The movie and the museum took us so long that we didn't have time to visit the Miniature World.

In the evening, we ate dinner by the sea close to the Empress Hotel outside. The beautiful scenery made me drunk. I felt happy, and relaxed. I was happy and I laughed a lot even the things were not actually that interesting. I know my laughter is very unique in a bad way:( when I am really laughing so hard. I wish I didn't scare people there:P

We took a ferry back to Vancouver at night, and we played very interesting games on the ferry. I felt unusually energetic even when it was 11 at night. I didn't want the long day to end so quickly as I was afraid of a new day's coming. I couldn't figure out what made me feel relaxed today; I know it was just some shallow happiness, but I felt the memory somehow valuable.

Greetings and self introduction

I'm glad to be able to study for 3 more months. Time goes by so quickly and it's already passed my half way of life in Vancouver. I like Canada, and I know that I will miss life here so much.
As you can tell from my name, I'm Chinese, and I was born and raised in Jiangsu Province untill 16. I've lived in Japan for almost 5 years since September 2006. I went to high school there, and now I'm a university student. I lived in Japan alone, and I hope my parents can visit Japan some day too.
I like writing, and I gain happiness from writing sad stories. However, not all of my writings are sad; I do have some happy times as well. I think only by enjoying writing, we can improve writing skills quickly in limited time.
I hope we can be friends, and know each other more by reading our blogs. I plan to do some sightseeing before going back to Japan, and I hope we can go together somewhere:) .