Genre Portfolio III--The Death of the Moth

III. Essay
The Death of the Moth
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chap2.html

In this essay, as the title says, the author described the death of the moth. The moth fought against the death bravely but finally failed. 

At the first paragraph, we can find no sign of death. Actually, the scene described is very lively: “Such vigour came rolling in from the fields and the down beyond that it was difficult to keep the eyes strictly turned upon the book.” At first, all the things, both living creatures and non-living natural scenes, are full of vigor. In such a happy background, the moth danced “the queer spectacle”. But the life span of a moth is as short as one single day. Soon the moth fell”on to his back on the window sill” and after severe struggling, the moth “succeeded in righting himself” but also used up his strength. The description of the moth’s spry dancing makes the audience more shocked by the soon-coming loss of life. 

Death is a regular topic in many essays; people describe the deaths of all kinds of living things. But this essay is especially excellent. There are many reasons for its excellence. I noticed two details which may give some reasons. First one is the last sentence, “The moth having righted himself now lay most decently and uncomplainingly composed. O yes, he seemed to say, death is stronger than I am.” Woolf used “decently” and “uncomplainingly” here, which is not only to describe the moth’s pose but also his spiritual state. Though the little moth can never defeat death, he tried his best and did not let the extreme power of death conquer him until the end. His death is respectful because he used his final strength to fight against the death. And it seems that the death was somewhat shocked that the moth managed to right himself before dying. The second detail is the author’s lifting a pencil. She lifted her pencil right before the moth’s death but she did not have time to give the moth a hand. These details remind me of Woolf’s life. Pencil here is a symbol of a helping force. Woolf committed suicide at the end of her life. According to her letter left for her husband, she did struggle to live on but ran out of her strength. I guess, the action of lifting a pencil may indicate that there was someone or herself who wanted to help her get out of the maze. However, just like “I” did not have time to help the moth, that person did not give her a hand in time to save her. 

Genre Portfolio II--Final Destiantion

II. Movie
Final Destination 2 Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbcvn-ZX7Us
Final Destination 2 playlist: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=39E99F2261382610&v=orRpAcB_prU

I watched three “Final Destination” movies because my friend told me that this series was what a horror movie fan must not miss. I am a horror movie fan who always watch horror movies with a really cool head, because I am clear that there must be some explanations for those horrifying things, maybe the girl is undead or that guy can see ghosts, some “reasonable” reasons like that. But in this movie, couples of people die because they survived in a traffic accident. Isn’t it the strangest reason of being killed in the world? 

This movie gave me a totally new understanding of survival. In real life, there are plenty of examples in which people foresee or just feel the coming danger and survive because of that. Those people are looked at as incredibly lucky guys. It is the most natural thing to consider survival from a deadly accident as lucky. But why? Those survivors died or will die one day. We can escape from death at this time does not mean that we will survive the next second. Then why do we feel lucky? Because of the extra second? That’s silly! So how should we treat survival? A delay of death? Maybe. So that, death comes sooner or later, should we just give up fighting for survival? 

When facing death, the young adults tried their best to escape from the shadow of the death. Though they have never won one game, they stuck to figuring out the signs before death’s arrival. At last, the heroine drove into the lake to commit suicide, being driving crazy by the pressure of friends’ death and her self’s coming death. She did not die, because the hero saved her. At that time, I believe that a strong will to protect somebody can beat death. But in the last act of the movie, a guy got killed in an accidental explosion when he was having picnic with the hero and heroine. Does the shadow of death come back again? Or it is purely an accident? We do not know the answer, but I believe that everyone has an answer in his or her mind. Just like that, everyone has his or her own choice of whether we should fight hard for survival or not. 

Genre Portfolio I--2 Pages from the Diary of an Only Child

I. Blog/Diary
2 Pages from the Diary of an Only Child
http://anna9.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/10/2-pages-from-the-dairy-of-an-only-child.htm

This diary talked about some of her feelings of being a “lone chicken”—the only child in a family. I am a “lone chicken” also, so my situation is similar to the author’s; however, due to the policies in China, most of my peers are “lone chickens”, so my story is a little bit different from hers. In this diary, the author talked a lot about how the others, the adults and the peers, treated her and her feelings about that special kind of treatment. 

After reading this diary, I could not help compare the author and myself. The author is quite clear about the advantages of being the only child. She expressed her opinion through her father’s words. It is true that being the only child, we get all the resources, attention and love our parents can offer. We have parents around us at home and we have friends outside, we are not alone actually. What is even greater, we can get a quiet room whenever we want, need not to worry about an annoying brother or sister. 

It is not hard to find the advantages of being the only child, but most of my friends including me, would choose to have several brothers and sisters if we could. The author did not feel like to be sympathized by the others because of being the only child and felt confused about whether the attention a boy showered on her was because of love or sympathy. It is a totally different story in China, nobody will sympathize you because you are the only child. We do not have the author’s problems, but we have our own annoyance. Brought up by parents or grandparents, we are used to getting whatever we want without difficulties; so when we grow up, most people are somewhat selfish and do not know how to take care of the others. Many of my friends have complained about not having a sibling to share some secrets that can only be shared with those who can understand as they were you and will never betray you. Friendship cannot replace sib ship sometimes. No matter how close you are to a friend; you will never know exactly how close he or she is to you. So we feel lonely even when we are not alone. Another disadvantage of being the “lone chicken” is having much responsibility to parents and relatives. Having only one child, giving the child all they have, the parents naturally think that their child should be the best; but the truth is, there must be most ordinary ones. I am living my own life as well as my parents’. 

Though there are many disadvantages of being the only child, we did work out our special way of growing up safely and soundly. 

A Day in My Life

What a nice day! Looking at the clear sky outside my window, I stretched my arms and made up my mind to get up. I forgot to turn the alarm on again last night, fortunately, I woke up in time myself. OK~ a brand-new day begins~ I talked to myself. After washing and dressing, I rushed out of my dorm, remembering to lock the door. A bus ran away, I almost caught it...While waiting for the next bus, I couldn't help stopping myself abusing the cold weather. Having being here for almost two months, I was still not used to the weather. Finally came the bus, and I reached the classroom just on time. Class time always flies. A friend called me just at the time I stepped out of the classroom and picking out my cellphone to call someone. In my expectation, she asked me when to go to lunch. My friends and I always call each other at meal time. After having a so-so lunch and a nice chat with my friends for about half an hour, I had to rush for my classes in the afternoon. Finally, all the classes for today were done. I went back to my dorm a little exhaustedly. My roommates are always return earlier than me. Saying hi and talking about my day with them, I sat down and turned my laptop on. My friend called me to go to dinner when I was checking my email and browsing some websites. I like to do my homework at night, so I went to shower and did a short cleaning of my room before I sat down again to deal with my homework. At 12 o'clock, I went to bed. That is one of my day, normal, tiring and a little bit happy.

The Kiss of Life

This picture was taken by Rocco Morabito in 1967. He was driving on West 26^th Street in July 1967 when he saw this scene. At that time, the apprentice lineman R.G. Champion was shocked by an accidentally "alive" high-voltage wire while he was doing a regular check. Before the ambulance's arrival, his coworker, J.D. Thompson who went up to release him down found that he was out of breath, so Thompson gave him a mouth-to-mouth breath in midair. As an experienced journalist, Morabito grabbed his camera and won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Spot Photography; and Champion finally recovered.

I think the subject of this photo is love. Here, it is not love between lovers, families or friends, it is love of life. This kiss is neither for a lover nor for a friend, as its name "kiss of life", it is for life. Honestly, when I first saw this picture, my first impression was a kiss between two gays. But when I read the story behind the picture I felt quite ashamed of my original impression and really shocked by this kiss for life. I guess that is why the picture was unique, it gives you a misleading first impression, and when you find that and change your impression, the second one is deeply imprinted in your mind. I have to admit that picture is a magic way to express something. If I hear that story in words, I may response like "Oh, really? Champion was lucky. " but when I saw the picture, I stopped and focused on Thompson more than Champion. Not the same as I heard the story in words, when I saw the picture, I couldn't help stop, think about it and feel and appreciate the love in it. I guess that is the power of photography.

25 random things(what should be on facebook, not here......)

1. I am afraid of dogs, unreasonably, even the little cute ones.
2. The proudest thing I have ever done is being a director of an English musical.
3. I changed my English name before come here, and spent quite a long time to decide which name I like…
4. I like blue best but I also like many other colors as well.
5. I have to admit that I am becoming more and more scared of terrifying stories, though I am not willing to.
6. I like to drink, no matter wine, beer or any other alcohols.
7. I don’t like drunken people, I believe that a person can feel that before he or she gets drunk.
8. I feel like to cough if I smell the smoke, so I hate people smoking.
9. I like to read stories or watch movies with happy endings, though I am clear that tragedies sometimes are more like our lives.
10. I cannot remember anything that has made me sad, because I forget that kind of feeling quite quickly~
11. I have wanted to learn psychology since grade seven, now my dream comes true!
12. I have another dream: find a job in Hong Kong and move my parents there, because it said that there are the world’s best old-age homes in Hong Kong.
13. I believe in horoscope and spent a lot of time to study that~
14. I knew what my blood type is when I donated my blood without informing my parents.
15. I like to sleep under a thick quilt with an electric fan on when it is rain.
16. I tried to spend a whole night in the cinema, but I fell asleep soon after the movie began.
17. I bought my cell phone which I am using now because of its commercial.
18. I bought a Bluetooth headset because I thought that my cell phone’s headset was broken, but the day after I bought the Bluetooth one, I found my original headset was working quite well…
19. I can never run 50 meters in 10 seconds.
20. I had had a dreamed of meeting a friend that I hadn’t seen for years in a place, I really found that place the next day, but I didn’t met that friend.
21. If I dream and I remember that dream after I wake up, the dream is most probably about me floating in a castle.
22. I have never cried in front of others except my mother and one of my English teachers.
23. Many people have cried in front of me, my friends even several of my teachers; it’s really confusing…
24. I prefer chatting face to face or by phone much more than online.
25. I hate to follow the others, but I always follow the others’ ideas without awareness…

A nonprohit ad about cancer patients

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTn2iurL2cE

This is a nonprofit advertisement to focus people's attention on cancer patients. There is no word throughout the whole ad but it is undeniably touching. The ad begins with a little girl sleeping on bed, when she suddenly jumped up and looked through the window, we knew that she was waiting for someone, maybe her parents. Then the girl went into the washroom and opened her mother's dressing bag to find a pair of scissors. When seeing this scene, I thought that she must be a very naughty girl and was going to play some tricks. When she began to cut her own hair, I was more convinced that she was play a trick. But at the end, when the boy whose hair had fallen off due to the side-effect of chemotherapy appeared, we knew the girl's mind suddenly. I realized that I misunderstood her, a girl who has a soul of angel. This ad is very exquisite, all the scenes were shot  only in a room.  At first, what the girl did was quite confusing and maybe a little naughty, but when the ad ended, nobody felt untouched. What the girl did was quite childish, but it showed her real concern of that boy. When some people are shouting some slogons out loudly without doing anything, the girl uses her hair, her action to teach us what is real "getting concerned".

THINK AGAIN

"Think before you move" is a famous Chinese saying and also the sentence which my parents tell me most frequently. I do not hate that sentence and I do not feel annoyed when my parents say that to me. Sometimes I quite agree with that sentence but I just cannot always follow it. I do not know why. Maybe it has something to do with my birthday; I was born under the influence of Aries a horoscope representing energy and directness. Horoscope books say that people who are born under the influence of Aries should slow down their speed and think the situation over and over again before taking action, otherwise, it is easy to get hurt or hurt the others. It is true, at least to me. I have never done perfectly in my math exams because that I often fall into some obvious stupid traps in the questions. After hundreds of times of being regretful for my stupid mistakes in my math exams, I finally made up my mind to control myself. I did succeed for a period but later I quitted. I felt unhappy though I got several good scores in math exams. I had to think a lot of things before I do anything, before I move, before I speak even before I laugh! After comparing the high scores I got to the happiness I lost, I quitted. Though I do not follow the sentence, I still think it is a good suggestion. After all, sometimes it's worth the wait, sometimes it's worth the rush.

And about "How is this slogan subversive?" honestly, I have no idea. I think this slogan is more like for some individuals than for the American culture. It is more like a piece of advice from the old, I think.

Response to “I Want a Wife” From the Social Perspective

"I Want a Wife" is an interesting essay, because the author is actually a wife but she says that she wants a wife. Is there something wrong with this author? Definitely no! After reading the essay, I believe that nobody will say no to a wife. Author repeated "I want a wife who…" many times to list the duties of a wife. Most of the duties she listed are obviously unfair and unbelievable to me, so I read the essay and defined it as a satire. After reading, I could not help thinking whether it was true for the society at that time. This essay was published in 1971 when the women's movement just begun. Being written by a wife makes what this essay said more convincing, but the title and the tune the author used makes the essay much less serious. The author found a not so serious way to magnify the social issue properly, so that she can draw people's positive attention without discomforting some sensitive people. Obviously, the author is a feminist. At her time, the general idea was that women were in a lower social class than men. Being a well-educated woman, the author was absolutely not satisfied with the attitude people taken towards women at that time. This essay must exited people's enthusiasm of women's movement. Even in such a society as it is today where people are "created equal", this essay still worth reading. Not only because it is funny, but also because that it makes me think of other kinds of discrimination. To protect or to maximize some people's benefit, there must be some people sacrifice their benefit and be treated unfairly.
Link to "I Want a Wife":http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/wife.html