Reflective Essay

The blogs that I posted in the first quarter mainly reflected my views on friends, school, soccer and most importantly my life. I noticed that many of my blogs involved things that were happening in my life at the time. My inspiration comes from events that happen on a daily basis. Doing blogs has affected my life beyond school in many ways, for example, outside of school I find myself always thinking about possible ideas for blogs. Blogging is very different than structured writing because it is mostly about your thoughts on things rather than writing about a specific concept.
Blogs have changed my life not only during school but outside of it as well and my ideas or inspirations have resulted from the ability to write open-ended instead of academically structured.
After the first quarter, I realized that many of my posts came from the daily events that take place in my everyday life. Since one of the two blogs that I do a week is a response post, my other blog is usually dedicated to a topic that has struck me throughout the week. My ideas come to me whenever I go to a new place, hang out with friends, or even do my homework. Most of the time my inspirations for blogs are very spontaneous. In one of my blogs I wrote about the black out that I had just witnessed. I was at my friend’s house when it happened. The first thing that came to my mind when going through this was that it would make a great idea for a post. In the blog I stated,

“Last weekend there was a power outage in most parts of Hayward and Castro Valley. At the time I happened to be at my friend's house in Hayward. We were planning to camp out in her backyard for the night, but due to the inconvenience we weren't sure if we could.”

After this introduction of the subject, I began to explain what was happening during the black out. By the end I relate my post to the importance of electricity by saying:

“After this experience, I realized how important electricity is to people these days…Electricity has become something very important in our lives and without it, it would be hard to function the same.”

My inspiration from the black out helped me turn a small idea about a bit of my weekend into something that others could relate to.
Being able to freely write my blogs made it easier for me to flow through each post. At the same time, the quality of my posts was still questionable. In almost all of the blogs that I wrote, many of them lacked effort and showed little composure to edit them. I enjoy being able to write my posts with more freedom, but with a less structured form my blogs ended up being very sloppy. Though being able to write this way has turned in some ways a failure, in other blogs I have been able to express my thoughts to create a well-written post. One of my inspirations to do so was soccer. Since I can write a lot about this subject I found it easy to create a blog post concerning the aspects of my soccer life. One of my blogs pertained to my experience at the Olympic Development Regional Soccer Camp. Throughout the post, I explained my emotions going through this camp and the struggles I had to face to be my best. Another blog that was easy to write was my response to Tony’s blog on movie night. Even though it was not the most well written blog that I have posted, it was still very fun to write and I managed to exceed the word limit by roughly a hundred words. Doing this blog was very intriguing because I was able to express my thoughts on this topic without the burden of worrying about the specific structure that it had to be formatted in. I really like the privilege of being able to write my blogs freely instead of having a detailed structure of how they are supposed to be ordered. In the next quarter, I plan on having a more well fitting structure for each of my blogs to boost up my level of writing.
Doing weekly blog posts have affected my life not only in school, but outside of school as well. Every day I find myself constantly thinking about possible topics for my next blog. To me, ideas for blogs come easy, for example if I was looking at a paper cup, I could easily relate it to the overuse of paper in our world. Or I could talk about manufacturing of the cup and even make a story of the person that drank out of it. This is the usual process I take to create a mass amount of topics that I could write about. After a couple of days, I have a long list of topics that I look forward on making a post about. I feel like blogging has become a big part of my life because it gives me the ability to express my feelings about certain ideas. It is also a way to share my thoughts towards other people’s blogs too. In the next quarter, I am looking forward on sharing more ideas in my blogs and hopefully relating them more to others.
After the first quarter I noticed many changes that I can make to improve my blog posts. First, I want to focus more on making each post count. When I say this I mean that if I am going to work on a post for about half an hour, I might as well take another ten minutes spending time editing and revising it before putting it on my blog. Another thing that I want to focus on is writing about more important things instead of telling my audience what I did over the weekend. This way my blogs will be more interesting and hopefully they change the way others look at them. I am ready to improve my work ethic in the second quarter and in doing so I will continue to turn my inspirations into great pieces of work.

Lennie's Fight Against Society.

In the novella, Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, two migrant workers travel to different areas in California during the Great Depression in search of a stable job. Lennie is a big man but is caught up with the characteristics of a child, while George dreams of being his own boss and owning a farm. In the end society holds them back from their dreams. Throughout the story Of Mice and Men, Lennie struggles with not having a place in society because of his mental disabilities. The central conflict in Of Mice and Men was character vs. self.

Lennie struggles with his mental disabilities throughout the story. He is unable to be accepted into society because of his problems. Even though he is a Caucasian man, he does not belong to society. When Lennie goes into the barn to look at the pups, he sees a light coming out of Crooks's room, curious of what was in there he went in. Crooks went on saying,

“I don't know what you're doing in the barn anyway,” he complained “You ain't no skinner. They's no call for a bucker to come into the barn at all.” (pg. 68)

When Crooks says this he implies that Lennie does not belong in his room even if Crooks is an African American worker. Crooks and Lennie share the same feelings about society. Lennie doesn't fit into society because he's not like everybody else. On the other hand, Crooks doesn't belong in society because he is African American. Both characters share the burden of not fitting in.

Another conflict in the story is character vs. self. Lennie constantly finds himself messing up and tries to make things better. At the end of the story, Lennie feels that it would be easier if he left and lived in the hills. He does not realize that without George his existence in society would be nothing. At the same time Lennie struggles with the things he has to put up with, with the other people he interacts with.

He expresses, “I'll go right off in the hills an' I'll fin' a cave an' I'll live there so I won't be no more trouble to George.” (pg. 101)

Lennie constantly uses this as an excuse to make things better for him yet he knows that he would never leave George. Since George has taken care of Lennie for many years, it is hard to leave him but sometimes Lennie does not realize how hard it is on George to take care of the both of them. When Lennie gets himself in trouble it also affects the things that happen to George because George is the person who is supposed to watch out for him.

The next supporting conflict would be character vs. fate. Lennie and George have a clear idea of what they look forward to seeing in the future. They planned on having their own farm and animals to support themselves. George and Lennie had so many things in mind; the only thing stopping them was fate. In society the people around them doubted this idea of being successful during the Great Depression. Lennie and George struggle with their dreams because of the sayings that they will never be able to make it. Even though they planned their success out, it would be hard to overcome by the lack of support of other people. Ideas are only a thought actually getting them done is another factor.

When George finally says, “I think I knowed from the very first. I think I knowed we’d never do her. He usta like to hear it so much I got to thinking maybe we would.” (pg. 94)

At the end of Of Mice and Men it proved that George and Lennie’s fight against fate was a failure. Lennie’s idea of having their own farm and rabbits became so realistic it made the two actually believe that it was going to happen. Lennie and George fought against fate very much in this book.

By the end of the story Of Mice and Men, Lennie has a hard time being a part of society. His actions have caused the distress of other characters in the story. When Lennie goes into Crooks’s room he realizes that in society even though Lennie is Caucasian he does not belong there. Later on Lennie finally starts to realize that George is forced to take care of Lennie he had no choice, without George, Lennie would not be in any part of society. Lastly, George and Lennie’s fight against fate was a ridiculous dream according to others, but in their society their dream was too hard to overcome. Lennie struggles very much with the conflict character vs. society.

Tony's Words of Wisdom

Over the span of two weeks Tony Lin has taught me a lot. I know this can be a bit shocking, I found it weird also, but yes he taught me ways to be a better person! The two lessons that I learned from Tony were, first, if somebody feels uncomfortable telling you their secrets and you respect that person then you should mind your own business. Which brings me to my second moral lesson from Tony, if it's none of your business stay out of it!

I feel that it is important for everybody to follow both of Tony's words of wisdom because they are very true. If somebody is apprehensive about telling you something that is important to them then you shouldn't force them to tell you. Also, if that person is somebody important in your life and you care for them, you should at least respect them enough to not make them share their secrets. Keeping secrets is something very hard to do. When one person tells their friend a secret they expect them to keep it to themselves, not to share it with other people. So, if you ask that person what the secret is, you may not know it but it is affecting more than just that one person. First, the person who wants their friend to keep it a secret will be affected the most because now their business is being spread around. Second, the friend that was supposed to keep their friend's secret is going to be put in drama with that person for telling the secret to someone else. Now that you know what the secret is, it's hard to keep it to yourself. The saying "Don't tell anybody!" will not prevent the secret from being passed around. So, the moral here is, if you respect your friend, you will care enough to not worry about the secrets that they know.

The second concept that Tony taught me was, if it's not your business, stay out of it! This is very important because sometimes you can find yourself tangled in a web of drama. To prevent this just stay out of business that you don't belong in. For example, if your friend and another friend are having a fight, it is alright to tell them that they should stop, but it is not alright to take part in the fight. If you do so then you will now be arguing with them even though it was not what you intended to do.

Tony has taught me two really important things that I will need to know throughout high school and I'm glad he did because it helped me be a better person! He calls himself "The Asian Dr. Phil", I guess that's sort of true. But anyways thanks Tony!

Response to Tony's Blog- MOVIE NIGHT!!

After reading Tony's blog about movie night, I agree that it was one of the best ASTI moments of the year. In his blog he writes, 

Yesterday felt like a bonding day. It was actually better than a bonding day cause it felt like I really bonded with people. The duration of movie night was four hours, I spent about 20 mins watching a movie. The other 220 minutes I spent hanging out with friends and having fun.

On movie night, I had so much fun hanging out with my friends. I was glad that I went to movie night because it gave me a chance to get closer to my new friends at ASTI. After school, Tony, Ivan, Ebone, Rokhsor, Shannon, Kathyrn, and I went to McDonald's. Ivan and I took the bus to McDonald's because we didn't feel like walking all the way there. When everybody else got there, Tony decided to order 20 mcnuggets, of course. While we sat at the back, Tony eyed one of his mcnuggets. It turns out that they gave him one the size of a quarter. He went to the register people and asked for another one.In the end he finished all 20 of them.

When we were finished, Ivan, Ebone, Karissa and I decided to take the bus back to ASTI since we were too lazy to walk. We didn't realize that the bus stop was two stops away, we sat at the corner of the block waiting for one. Then we saw a bus two blocks away. We sprinted to catch that one so we could get back. I remember the faint sounds of Ivan screaming "Ahh! My pants are falling down!" I turned around to see him holding his pants up as high as possibe. We all started laughing. Finally we got to the bus and passed by Shannon, Tony, Rokhsor, and Kathyrn walking.

We got back to ASTI and saw everybody waiting outside to get into the movie. It took a while for it to start. The movie comercials were pretty scary, and of course Tony had to scare me while I was watching one. We ended up watching Without A Paddle it got really boring so we decided to leave. Troy, Tony, Rokhsor, Ebone, Kathyrn, Shannon, Yen, Cameron, Stan, Karissa and I all walked to the soccer field and sat in the bleachers to play Truth or Dare, it ended up being Dare or Dare. The football people started looking at us so we left. It started getting a bit chilly, so we wanted to join the yoga class. Too bad they had already started. Instead we went to the building on top stairs where they usually do music club. We did more dares up there. It started to get really fun. I won't say what the dares were because it's a secret. But in the end we all had a good time.

When the first movie ended, we went back to ASTI to see if we wanted to watch the second movie. Instead we went to the roof on the college campus and did more dares. It was getting dark and I wanted to watch the scary movie. So Shannon, Tony, Yen and I went back to ASTI. I sat there for a while and it started to get boring. Shannon left leaving only Tony, Yen and me. M.R and Tony decided that it would be funny if they screamed, when Tony did I got really scared. Tony then left leaving only Yen and I. I got even more bored so I decided to leave. Yen, MR and I went back to the roof. When I got there my friends were still playing truth or dare. We did this for the rest of the day until movie night ended.

That night I made new friends, MR (Ella), and Kyle Salter, and hungout with my ASTI friends. Movie night was a night that I won't forget because of how much fun we had that night.

Response to Karen

After reading Karen’s blog post about love and what it means I had much to say about it. In her blog she says:

Every word he spoke was true.I occasionally did just want to have someone to call mine without actually having feelings towards them.Love does fade away.There have been various divorces and a lot of people do cheat on their supposed,"Amor." I'm not anti-love is just that i haven't seen proof of any long lasting love without any difficulties or problems.

I can see where Karen is coming from. I feel that love is real, but at a young age like now, it’s hard to tell if you really “love” someone. When teenagers tell each other that they love one another, sometimes they can be blinded by how they are feeling at the moment. Maybe it’s something you like saying to someone but may not always be true. It feels right to say it at the moment but in the end you don’t actually feel that way. I’m not saying that love can’t exist in a teenage relationship because I have seen it happen, but I realized that many people say they love each other without understanding what they’re saying.

Also, I do believe that love is real because not everybody gets divorces, sometimes things don’t work out but there have been other really successful marriages that do exist. Maybe Karen has not seen proof of long lasting love in teenage relationships but it could be because teenagers can be too young to really love one another. In middle school I’ve seen many relationships that last about a week or so and end. During the relationships the couples say that they love each other. I feel that teenagers get into relationships with people that are attractive to them but never really consider thinking about the way they act. Sure they can be really nice but in the end you never know if the person you “love” is really uptight or jealous until you stay with them longer. Maybe this is why Karen has not seen long lasting love occur. I feel that love is real but it’s hard to tell whether you love someone or not at a young age.

What Would I Do Without Electricity?

Last weekend there was a power outage in most parts of Hayward and Castro Valley. At the time I happened to be at my friend's house in Hayward. We were planning to camp out in her backyard for the night, but due to the inconvenience we weren't sure if we could. I arrived at her house around 6 p.m. When I entered it was quiet, the sounds of music was nowhere to be found. My friend, Haley, informed me about the power outage and how nothing was working. Sadly on the car ride there I drained my phone battery hoping that I could charge it at her house. My phone had 5% battery left. I was worried that it would turn off because at the time I was texting somebody.

Haley and I sat downstairs at her dining table accompanied by her older sister, we sat in silence listening to her ipod. As we sat I realized how horrible our lives would be without electricity. We were extremely bored, and as the night went on it started getting darker. Haley and I searched the house for candles that we could light up since there was no lamp that would turn on. Once all the candles were lit, we went back to the table to sit. All of a sudden a light turned on. It took us a while to realize that the power was coming back. We were so excited when all of the lights turned on. I could now charge my phone.

After this experience, I realized how important electricity is to people these days. I found it a bit unhealthy to know that instead of finding something else that didn't require power to do, we decided to listen to music. We sat at the table for three hours not knowing what we could do. Electricity has become something very important in our lives and without it, it would be hard to function the same.