American History Quickwrite

There are a couple of events with historical significance that are also quite important to myself as well. The first event happened on September 21 when the most famous Earthquake ever sounded Taiwan first stroke. I was nothing but a little infant at that time, and could vaguely recall mother nature going left and right. My parents had to scurry out of our apartment and stream down the stairs. In the middest of the chaos, we left our beloved pet- Jelly behind. It wasn't until we got to the car when my youthful self suddenly discovered that Jelly was not with us. I screamed for my family to go back but my parents refused, seeing how grave the situation can be. We returned to the apartment three days later to find Jelly alive, which was a bliss. I learned the value of life and friends throughout this experience . Another memorable event of mine that had historical significance was the Great Recession around 2008~2009 : an economical depression that struck many jobless. Our family wad affected as my mother's income was reduced due to the fact that too many went bankrupted during that period. Our aunt got into a huge debt and the family had to buy her out of it. Our family then experienced a short recession afterwards, and my brother was unable to attend a special competition in Finland since our family couldn't exactly afford an extra plane ticket. Up until present day, I could still hear the sound of my brother's soft weeping in my ears whenever our family was to board an airplane.  I swear to myself that I will never be trivial with money. The last event that has personal as well as historical importance to me was when the people gathered to protest against Chen-Shua-Bein's presidency. My father's family was spilt down into two when discussing about this event:  my grandparents supported the president while their sons does not. This resulted in many fights that nearly tore the family apart. There was once when my grandfather got so angry he slammed his bowl onto the ground and stormed out the door. It took us four hours to find him  the wandering by the train station and take him back home. Those four hours were probably the most painful hours of my life. I couldn't stop myself from worrying. I hated waiting, and that was exactly what I had to do at that time. I learned from this dilemma that family is the upmost important force above all others, including political affairs.

Report Card

Alyssa’s performance in English class is mediocre. Her test scores are unexceptional, always ranging in the lower nineties. Although she pays careful attention to the details in each story, she doesn't pay enough attention to the big ideas behind each story. She did horribly at the beginning of year in terms of vocabulary testing. Fortunately, her scores have begun to rise. She should find a time to go over key grammar areas with her teacher and try to limit her grammatical errors by herself. Alyssa sometimes slacks off and doesn’t accomplish the things she hoped to. She could also participate more actively and try to ask her questions in class. Alyssa also has a tendency to make grammatical and spelling errors in her assignments, and she should make improvements. One good thing about Alyssa’s performance in English is her improved vocabulary. She still needs to work on grammar and spelling.

Favorite Food Quickwrite( How to eat a Guava Quickwrite)

My absolute favorite food is the wonderful strawberry whose production is most abundant during the bitter coldness of winter and early spring. The red strawberry always provides my palates a sensational drive. The sweetness of the berry will fill my mouth with elastic joy as my tongue gently traced the softness of the meat . I deeply inhale in the scent of the strawberry, which to me, smelled a little like nature and grass. I also fumble a strawberry or two in my fingers, grazing their soft texture with extreme delicacy. I often associate strawberries with one Christmas my family and I had in the United States. The snow has turned the world into a winter wonderland, and frost has collected among the tree branches and glistened under the sun. It was an early Christmas morning and I was beyond exited to head down to the dinning room t collect the christmas presents my relatives promised to give me. I found out soon after that I had been a bit early and none of the presents were really prepared for yet. The meals were, however, ready on the table. I remembered getting a normal berry and propped it into my mouth, only to be driven into a joy of ectacy. Sweet sensations exploded on the tip of my tongue and expended downwards and eventually pervaded and took over my mouth. My parents later pronounced to me tenderly that the fruit I just had was called a " Straw-Bear- eeie" and that we can only eat the fruit during the bitterest cold of winter and early spring. The fact that it was so scare increased my love for the fruit even more. My memories with associations to strawberries also extends throughout my fifteen years of life. The places that I remember what I connect with my favorite food are the following: The cool air of the strawberry farm as we go for the annual picking. The sharpness of the strawberry branches, and the vivid crimson color of the fruit, 2) the dinning room in my house where the yellow light shined down gayly. Each and every year I would sit in the exact same spot and inhale the  natural sense of the fruit before I swallow it whole, and 3) the mountain where we went for a picnic every year during the early springs. We always brings strawberries, and I like to eat them lying on the soft, green grass of mother earth as the scent of the strawberry and the scent of nature became whole. 

Billy Collins TED Talk

I thought Collins's idea of setting poems into motion was a great idea and really enjoyed reading the animations. From the five poems that I have read, my favorite is the poem, " Somedays" since it has the deepest message in it. I thought the poem conveyed a special tone of loneliness as it described the life of a person, how he could be the controller one day, and the controlled in other days. Some days, he was the one who put people in their places at the table, bending their legs at the knees, and other days, he was picked by the ribs and into the dining room of a dollhouse. In some ways, I think collins was conveying a message of the vanity of life. Throughout the poem he used the sentences such as " I put the people in their places at the table," or " lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse" that gave readers an image of a little girl playing with her toys. Life is nothing but a game, and destiny is the little girl. Destiny often times can be trivial by their means and favor only certain types of characters, the heroic ones, the beautiful ones. You can never predict what will come later in life, you may be a vivid God with your shoulders in the clouds, or you can be another figure with a little plastic face with absolute no control of our destiny.  I think the way Collins expressed his thoughts on life through this poem was extremely interesting. I'm not sure that I have such a pessimistic view point on life, but I do think this is a good poem.

Ballad Self-reflection

After writing a ballad for English class, I felt that I have learned a lot. Here are some things I learned that I can improve for next time. My editors had been fairly nice and didn't write down any harsh negative comments, but I think that I should improve on my usage of poetic elements. I focused only on the story throughout the entire poem, spending little for rhyme or rhythm. I simply didn't pay attention to any of that, thinking that that stuff is not important. Yet in real life, it is. My poem could probably be a lot better if I were to insert in more poetic elements and a steady rhyme scheme. I was surprised to find symbolism in my own poem. My editor Jenny wrote on her comments that she appreciated the symbolism I inserted of a kite symbolizing freedom. After reading my own poem again after some time, I realized that she may be right. I think the symbolism made the poem a lot more powerful than it could have been which is a good thing. I also though the plot for my poem this time wasn't good enough and that I should have put in my effort into the actual planning of the story. Jenny thought that parts of it  was unclear and after some self-reflection, I realized that she was right. I should probably work on that next time.

Narrative POem Research

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed. 





This is a beautiful and touching poem by Billy Collins, one of the most famous poets in history. This poem examines the feeling of a little ten year old looking back with bitter remorse at his life before his age turned into a double digit. Before he turned ten, the world to him, is a bizarre and interesting place. He could one day be a wizard, another day be the prince...Yet as age did not have mercy on him and he grew up. Now,he is neither the wizard nor the prince, he, is only himself. The world is neither a battleground nor a palace, the world is just the few roads in front of his house. It seemed as if as the narrator grew up, the amusement and imagination of the world faded at his age of TEN. The last part of the poem was especially powerful as the narrator spoke " It seems only yesterday I used to believe there was nothing under my skin but light. If you cut me I could shine. But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life, I skin my knees. I bleed." These few lines especially signifies how hard it is for a child to grow up and become practical. The lines don't just represent a physical occurrence, but also a mental occurrence. As a child you believe you can accomplish anything. IT seemed like just having a dream is enough. Yet now, as a child grows up, reality hits him square and flat. He fell to the ground, and bled the crimson blood of red despair. 
This poem is a relatively short narrative compared to the historical ones such as the " canterbury tales" and " The Devine Comedy". The story wasn't very long, neither is it a fiction like story, yet it is a narrative alright. This poem is a free-verse narrative so there isn't much of a rhyme scheme to look into. Again, since it is a free-verse narrative, there isn't much meter either. The oversell style of the writer is informal, childlike, remorse. I don't think there is a lot of imagery in this poem either, because it is mainly a description of the poet's feelings. The last stanza, however, may be an example. I could picture the boy when he fell upon the sidewalk and bled instead of shedding light. I think that can be a pretty powerful image. The metaphors are abundant in this poem. There is one when the narrator mentioned himself to be an Arabian wizard at four, a soldier at seven, and a prince at nine. The next stanza, the narrator mentioned that light " fell solemnly" against his tree house and his bike " leaned" against the garage. I think the poem is great the way it is with sufficient use of all the poetic elements. It represented the view of a remorseful ten year old boy saying goodbye to his imagination and hello to reality where you bleed when you fall. Too much of any poetic elements will not contribute to the mood the poet has created. I thought this was an excellent poem. 

Seven Ages of Man Extended Metaphor

Life is a candle,
starting out with a a tiny flare of,
orange
That turned red,
then blue
And near the end,
sprinkle the last spark of bursting crimson before
fading into
Nothing.
Ashes.

In my interpretation of an extended metaphor for life, The whole poem is basically an extended metaphor of the first sentence " Life is a candle" as it develops a comparison oversell several lines of writing. IN this poem, I opened with the line, " Life is a candle" then extended the metaphor to compare the stages of lives to the color of the candles as it progressed. You start out as an infant with only a tiny flare of orange light. This is the stage when life was new and faint in one's body. Then the light of the candle turned red as we mature and the spark of life shined brighter and brighter until we eventually reached blue, the maximum capacity of brightness. In the end before our death, our dwindling light may suddenly relit before fading into nothing but ashes. I compared life to candles in general because we all started out as nothing but a faint glow in the darkness, and as we mature, the light became brighter and brighter. Finally near death, our faded light may lit up again with the last strength in its body before momentally dying.
Just in case my candle metaphor was not entirely correct, I'll supply another example. Life is like a book. You start out with the first chapter then gradually progress your way until you finally finish the book. There are times when you can predict what you'll see and others when you simply will have to be surprised.