Emotional Setting

The physical setting of the novel describes the time, place, and the physical features. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, it takes place around the mid 1900s in a farmland where George and Lennie get worked and paid at. There are also emotional settings that give readers the characters’ feeling someone or a situation. We could see the antagonist or emotional feeling between George and Curly. They didn’t like each other at all and it is obvious that a fight can easily occur between the two of them. George also has a collaborative emotional setting with Lennie. They try to work together as a group and help each other out when they need to, although Lennie is the one who needs help most of the time. When we take a look at George and the boss of the farm, it is more like a dog eat dog emotional setting situation. Both of them wanted to benefit from each other while they are not really collaborating and working together. George wanted to earn money from the boss and the boss just wanted workers to help me profit from his lands. It all has to do with money and that is why it is more like a dog eat dog emotional setting.

Base Theme

When you don’t know about someone, the first sight is very important for you to judge that person. The feeling from the first sight can be different from the feeling that you feel after you understand ore about the person. In fact, almost half of the time the first sight is different from the judgment after you know that person. George probably hated Lennie when he first saw Lennie, but as he understand more about him ,he no longer hates him anymore and probably loved him like his little brother, I think the first sight that George had on Curly was also unpleasant. George might no longer hate him anymore later on in the book. When you understand more about someone, I would say that you are getting used to the things you hate about that person instead of really feeling kind about that person. Another explanation would be a person mistaking about someone when you don’t understand about him or her. When people hate that person because of some kind of mistaking between the two of them, the hatred can be removed when the misunderstanding is removed. Personally, I do believe that you feel better about that person after you understand him or her better.

Magic Pictures

I would like to talk about the picture on page 356. There are a bunch of children who are looking at the “stranger”, which is the goose. The children were gathering around, looking at the stranger as if they never saw anything like this before. To them, the stranger was something unfamiliar and odd. This is similar to the picture in my mind when I read the story “a very old man with enormous wings.” I have an imagination in my mind where everyone is just crowding around Elisenda’s house trying to take a look at the angel. I would say that this is very similar to what might be happening at her house. I am guessing that Elisenda hated when people were hanging around her house like that and that was the reason why she was charging all those people when they came into her house. She can both reduce the number of people coming into her house and earn some money off the angel. If the owner in the picture said to the children that they need to pay in order to look at the “stranger”, then most likely that is going to happen is that the children would go away.

Magic Realism

I think creativity is one of the major problems that many young readers had with magic realism. They have a hard time trying to imagine the picture in their brain. The more a person reads, the more that person will have imaginations and thoughts through their experiences from the pas. I think I lack the imaginations myself and I would consider myself as a “young reader”. There are a lot of times where I understand every single word in the book, but I just couldn’t get what the story is trying to say or imagine something that’s unrealistic in my brain. I find out most people who don’t have creativity have the same problem as I do. They are just too stubborn and they kept defending themselves by saying that it isn’t true or it is not logical. They don’t believe in any inventions except for the ones that were already invented. Readers have to really go into the story in order to have the creativity in their minds. I still think that the more a person read, it will definitely help that person greatly on imagining things since it helps build up the experiences and the memory would be full of these kind of creations.

The Unexpected

I will always remember the day I was closest to dying during the summer of 2002. I attended the St. George summer camp on the first year I moved to Vancouver, Canada. Lily and I went together to the camp and we were camping in the forest for three days. I just couldn’t believe we were camping the wild without showering for three straight days! On the third day, we swam at the near pond before going back home. I didn’t really know how to swim except for breast stroke, but still decided to challenge myself and have fun with the other kids. I would never forget what had happened to that third grade boy and me. He was trying to play some kind of dangerous game with me by pushing me down the water. I wasn’t good at swimming and I didn’t expect that, so I kept struggling and find my way to breath. But the more I struggled, the deeper I was falling. I didn’t know what to do, so I just pulled that kid with me and we both were about to drown. Everyone was watching us and I bet it was definitely very embarrassing. Finally the teacher came and saved us and that’s how I was back alive again. If the teacher was three seconds late, I would’ve been gone from this world, but luckily, that didn’t happen!

Ode

I might be writing an ode to my parents for everything they did. They gave me everything I needed. Education was something that they put both time and money into. I would probably even be sorry if I didn’t get into a good college. What I love my parents the most was also providing pleasure instead of just plain education. Whenever I buy iPods or PS3, I would be thankful because some parents don’t eve allow these kinds of entertainments. Those are not the only things I get. T shirts, pants, shoes…are all the things I get for free. I get to choose almost whatever I wanted.

The heart touching part about my parents is that they take care of me with real “care” they took care of me when I was sick, or protect me for safety, such as crossing the streets. Just like what most children would say: my parents are the best parents in the world! And I mean it when I say it. I am just a “flower being taken care in the greenhouse” is what a Chinese idiom would describe me. Whenever my things were broken, my father would always fix it for me. This is how nice my parents were.

Another POV

For the writing assignment on “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, I wanted to write the scene from the father’s point of view. The scene I am going to choose is probably when his father was trying to confess to Christopher about killing the dog. My character looks more like a serious person, but feels guilty when he tries to hide some sort of facts from his son. His attitude toward the situation is way different from Christopher’s attitude. When we write the scene from the father’s perspective, we would know all the flashback stories already before he told it to Christopher. We would also read the mind of his father when he is trying to think hard on how to say what really happened to the dog and his mom. I think if we rewrite the scene from the father’s point of view, we can have a better clear idea of what his father’s motivation and thoughts were comparing to what Christopher’s description of his father. He was always suspicious what his father after he knew the “truth” about what happened to the dog. He has different logical thoughts from others, so it’s kind of hard for readers to really know what other characters might be thinking.

Holiday Reality

I didn’t do anything quite interesting during the holidays, just the same as what I expected. I went to Chuang Hua for a day during the holidays and stayed in Hsinchu for the rest of the days. I went to Richard’s house during the weekend and went to UMC the day before yesterday. I did bought a new pair of basketball shoes and I wore it for the first time when we went to UMC. It is pretty good looking and comfortable. I bought it with my red envelope money and that was the only money I spent during the break. After spending almost three thousand dollars on the shoe, I still have like forty thousand dollars left in my red envelope. I also gambled on the New Year’s Eve with my parents. I only lost 10 NT, so it was pretty good since I always lose large amount of money when I gamble. So everything I did was according to my plan except that I had Hyperdunk 2010 instead of Hyperfuse Low for my new basketball shoes. I did planned to go to Taipei with my cousin for three days, but I later decided to stay at Hsinchu because I just wanted to rest at home for the week.