One Hundred!!!

What a milestone I have reached! One hundred journal blogs! This is by far my longest journal blog I have ever made in my entire life. Every blog post means an English class we have been in. This may seem insignificant to others, but this is a really profound blog for me to write my journals. In our journals, we would write about the things we were going to discuss in class later on or in the week. For every journal post, I would not only answer the questions on the journal prompt page, but also put in few sentences with my own thoughts and ideas towards the topic of the journal. When I take a look at my old journals, I found some of my journals pretty funny. Sometimes, we would write about a story that we would be reading in the next two weeks and write about the impressions that we have on those stories by just reading the title. Now that we have read all the stories, when we take a look back at those journals, I would see the big difference between what I predicted what the story might be and what really happened in the story.

Final Exam

I felt glad about this upcoming exam. This is finally my last test for our English test. Just imagine not having an exam in the next two months. How good is that! For this final exam, I think the most unfamiliar part of the test for me is the 102 minutes because we haven’t really taken a test on this story before in the past. It is really hot and stuffy in the room right now and I really hope that we could move to another room when we take a test later, which is five minutes away. I think I am most confident on the part about the typhoid fever because it is one of the few stories that I have really read with great details ever since the start of the year. When Mr. McCool says that this would be an easy test, I would clearly see the evil laugh coming out of his mouth, even there isn’t really one of it. I would never believe what a teacher says when he or she says how easy something is going to be, especially right before an exam, because nine chance out of ten is that the teacher is lying.

Group Work

I think group working can be a great learning experience for us as students. I like group projects, but not all the time. Sometimes, you will get assigned to bad partners where they would just slack off and expect you to do the work. I just hate those kinds of people and I don’t think anyone would like them as well. Working by yourself can be really convenient where I don’t have to meet my partner in order to do the project together. The letter grade that each person gets in a group project is the same, but the dilemma is that not everyone did the same amount of work, so I don’t think that everyone should deserve the same grade. The good thing about group project is that you could work with various kinds of people in your class: friends that you know very well, or classmates you have never talked to before. For teachers, it is pretty easy for them to mark these kinds of group projects. Instead of marking like thirty projects, they could mark five instead. I’m looking forward and expecting a lot to see these kind of group projects in college since classes in college are huge.

Stranger Together

Kindness aren’t really truly kindness sometimes. One may be helping another just for his or her own advantage. Well, if you are a stranger to that person, then I guess that it is fairly unlikely for that person to take advantage of it if you want to help out. When a stranger is helping another person, nine out of ten times the stranger did it due to his or her heart. It is really that his or her kindness that made it possible for he or she to save that stranger. If I was in the situation, I don’t think I would really have that kindness to save someone’s life and even worse yet, risk my own life. If there is an award for doing thing like that, it is another story, but if not, then I guess I won’t even bother to think about it, even if the person is about to die. I will use the same example as the one I used last time: the swimming incident when I was in second grade. The teacher did eventually save us and I think that really came out of his kindness. Maybe it is probably his responsibility for our safety, but I still think that he was kind enough to save a stranger like me.

Project Reflection

We have learned key elements, such as plot, setting and irony, but we haven’t really apply it to the novels we were reading this year before and this is definitely a great chance for us to really experience and learn about these elements. They contain in every short stories and long novels, so we wouldn’t worry about not finding some of the elements. Some of them just might not be as obvious while others may be trying to foreshadow or symbolize another thing. This novel is probably one of the few novels I have read the entire novel carefully. I would say that my project is definitely not the best one in class, but I did use all of my efforts to draw this. Making a poster and putting drawings is one of the things that I am really not good at. I even kind of hate it just because I have draw on these posters, but I would put in one hundred percent effort into the project. At last, I think that exercises like these kinds of book reports is somewhat worthwhile doing, especially as an end of year project. It really gives you a great learning experience for reading the novel and getting the ideas of the elements.

911

Security and fear of terrorism is what the Americans learned from 911. Right after the event, there are angers building up from the Americans. People hated the terrorist groups. Now that Osama Bin Ladin is killed, a lot of Americans relieved and no longer feared terrorism as much as they had before Bin Ladin’s death. Ever since the disaster of 911, the United States had been taking careful inspections in airports, fearing that there might be terrorist groups trying to take over the planes again and bomb important places in the United States. People who were from eastern Asia were also being suspected of having any relationships with you since it is considered pretty dangerous that he or she might be in the terrorist group. Their leader, Osama Bin Ladin has ruled over decades and decades, but has managed to fail the country and countries beside it as a whole. Americans feared that there would be a chain of these events coming up and 911 was only a start to a series of terrorist attacks. Citizens now are being more objective and listening to what everyone is saying, which is what we really need, after the deaths of Osama Bin Ladin.

Burned Alive

I think when someone is burned alive or in a threatening situation, he or she would probably think about just everything inside the brain. You might think about your home, family relatives, and about your past memories. I would probably want to send the message to my parents and really close friends that I am about to die. I would have want to study harder if I have restart my life and done it differently. I have my worst experience when I was in second grade. I went to a summer camp and that was the worst and most unpleasant thing that I have in my entire life. If I die that day, it might be the worst news of the century for my parents. I was drowning and another kid was just pushing me downwards in order to push himself up and out of the water. Both of us were struggling for oxygen. It was definitely a very bad experience. If I was pushed down for just one more second, I would’ve been gone from this world. In this case, I don’t think I would be helping that person and trying to save each other. I would do everything I can to save myself, even if pushing him down was necessary for helping me, I would still do it.