Marriage

        In class, we wrote a letter of opinion to “Miss Charlotte” using two different pieces of a man proposing marriage (one from the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the other in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens). What surprises me is how shallow and blunt the man, Mr. Collins, in Pride and Prejudice is. He unemotionally lists the reasons for wanting to marry, and talks about another woman as well (he seems to have more passion for his “fair cousin” Lady Catherine de Bourgh than for the lady he is addressing!). How does Collins expect to woo a woman when all he talks about is himself? This unemotional declaration of his supposed “love” for the lady he is speaking to is very different from the humble attitude apparent in the excerpt from Our Mutual Friend. Unlike Mr. Collins, this unnamed character actually says “I love you” in his proposal. He also catalogues the many things the woman he is talking to draws him to (Fire, water, the gallows, any death, etc.).
        I think the man is very sincere about his love, but when reading the letters in class, I thought it was interesting that others thought otherwise. They wrote about how his use of hyperboles actually made him seem insincere and that Miss Charlotte should not marry either of the men. It’s amazing how people think about things in different ways.

Innocence

Innocence (n.)
a : freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil : blamelessness 
b : chastity 

c : freedom from legal guilt of a particular crime or offense 

d (1) : freedom from guile or cunning : simplicity (2) : lack of worldly experience or sophistication

e : lack of knowledge : ignorance

 

     When we discussed Chet Raymo’s “A Measure of Restraint” in class, I found it very interesting that he weaved the idea of innocence into the piece. He starts it off with the six-year-old girl that “rubbed the glowing dust on her body” (¶ 1, lines 7-8) then goes on to talk about the Curies’ four-year-old daughter Irene and, lastly, describes his experience as a child with glowworms. 

     Definition e suits the first example the best; being a child, the girl did not see the possible negative impact of the “magical material.” It seemed like fairy dust to her. Because of her lack of knowledge, or innocence, she died. 

     The second example is more like definition d. Irene calls the night she sees the luminous radium “the evening of the glowworms.” Her simplicity is revealed because she does not realize what the radium can do. She relates it to harmless glowworms.

     The third example is similar to the second. Raymo describes his experience with glowworms as a child. He knew that is he pinched the body gently, the glowworm would light up.
     Raymo’s metaphor of squeezing the glowworms gently is very clever. It means that we (as humans) need to know when to stop research. If the glowworm is squeezed to tightly, it may be killed. We need to understand that there should be a limit for what we do.

Moving

Moving...

Moving (adj.) - a: marked by or capable of movement

            b: of or relating to a change of residence

            c: producing or transferring motion or action

            In “Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World,” Scott Russell develops his opinion about moving. Personally, I believe moving is a very important thing to do. Without people who want to travel to new places, there would be very little progress or discovery of many different things.

            Imagine a world where no one wanted to explore. We would not know the existence of other races (“what’s an Asian?”), many different kinds of foods would not be shared ( “what’s pizza?”), the United States of America would not even exist ( “what’s America?”), people would be staying in their own little bubbles for all of their life, etc. What kind of a world would that be?

            The thought of the absence of all these things is scary, but at the same time I think it is impossible for movement not to happen. There will always be that one person that wants to explore the dangers of the unknown or that one unfortunate person that accidently stumbles upon a forbidden place. No matter what the situation, movement is inevitable.

Yellow People and Public Space

            My first victim was a math assignment – complex, contained practically insolvable integrals, and probably attempted unsuccessfully hundreds of times before. I came upon it one evening on a holiday weekend in the public library, a place for nerds and normal people alike. For a while, it seemed like I could not solve the problem. Not so. To it, the young Asian girl – a height of five feet four point five inches with long dark brown hair, holding a graphing calculator in one hand and a mechanical pencil in the other – seemed menacingly close to finding its answer. After a few more quick calculations, the answer came closer. Within seconds it appeared on the paper.
            Asian people are prone to stereotyping as much as other races are. Oftentimes, as soon as we enter the classroom we are expected to be the smartest amongst our peers. Being a person that has gotten B’s before – not just on tests, but as a final grade (I know, I know. Gasp at that unimaginable thought.) – I actually don’t care so much about what others think about me. Just keep this in mind: “Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.” -Tommy Lee Jones

Similarities

"You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.”
-Jonathan Davis   
(I just thought that quote was funny, but it doesn’t really have that much to do with my blog post... They both talk about similarites and differences, but that's about it...)

      Thinking about Sarah Vowell’s “Shooting Dad” made me think about my own similarities with my dad. Like Vowell and her father, I consider myself very different than my father; we have different tastes in music, fashion, and many other things. Also like Vowell, though, we are similar in many ways. For starters, I share the same hair color and eye color with him. We also both like eating many of the same foods (like 湯圓 or tāng yuán! Here’s a link if you don’t know what it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangyuan_%28food%29 ), keeping things organized, knowing things ahead of time, and having specific instructions for things (there are more things, but I think I’ll stop here. I don’t think you guys need to know everything about me). He will also always be my father.

I think a person does not have to have many similarities with another person in order to get along with him/her. Just like the cliché saying of “opposites attract,” people can be opposites and still work well together. One person’s strength may be another’s weakness, and in that way, they make up for each other’s shortcomings and make each other stronger.

Being Asian American

In "Fish Cheeks", Amy Tan describes the difficulties of being a Chinese-American. It is easily seen that Chinese and American culture clash in her life, which creates a lot of internal conflict. Being a  Taiwanese-American (which is very similar to, but at the same time very different than a Chinese-American. If you don’t know the difference, feel free to search it up) I too am able to experience both cultures equally. Unlike Tan, though, I personally am not in conflict over which culture to follow.

   I am not ashamed of my own culture (although there may be times that I am embarrassed for some people because of the way they act). I may be the exact opposite, actually. It might be that I am actually proud of being Asian. There is no point in being ashamed of my culture because the act of being ashamed does nothing to help in the situation. Others may actually look down upon someone who is ashamed of themself.

What is there to be ashamed of? There is nothing wrong with my hair, my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my face, my body, my culture. I am who I am. We can never change who we truly are.

The Influence of Emotions

During our class discussion of Maya Angelou’s "Champion of the World", the power of emotion was brought up. We unanimously agreed that most of the chapter must have been fictional (and that it would have been impossible for Angelou to remember this event so vividly all the way down to the exact words that were spoken and the exact actions that were performed). We also agreed, though, that this event must have been extremely significant in her life. So significant that she was able to remember the emotions she felt during the time.

The discussion made me think about my own life and how emotions affect my memories so strongly.
There are many times when we are unable to recall the minutiae of a point in time, and yet we can still feel the emotions that are associated with the occurrence as a whole. 

On the first day of high school, you may have been nervous. On the day of your birthday, you may have been happy. On a snow day, you may have been feeling relieved (now you have time to do the homework you were too lazy to finish!). On… well, you get the point. 

Your feelings are essential for helping your memories exist and persist, and it is important for you to hold onto them for as long as you can.