Education opens doors where none seems to exist

Education opens doors where none seems to exist. In my opinion, I do not quite agree with this statement. This statement looks like the education does all to me. However, I know that the education cannot do everything so that people can live better or happily. I saw lots of children who have not educated before. They know nothing but they know what they are good at which are their special gifts from God. They live life by using their special gifts. That obviously shows they are able to live without education. My point is not being educated does not mean that people cannot open doors where none seems to exist. People cannot be educated the things that people learn from society. Perhaps they can be educated the things that people might face but, when they face the real problems or real conflicts, they do not know what to do. Life is practical. In my opinion, there are several ways that can open everyone’s door and make him or her feel like he or she has something valuable, not only education. It can be money, hope, confidence, religion, person, etc… I agree that in some part of life, education opens doors where none seems to exist. However, I do not agree that education opens every doors where none seems to exist. 

censorship

While I was reading this article, I agreed with Mathabane’s thoughts on censorship. I have not read the book, so I think I might change my thoughts on censoring his book. However, for now, I agreed with his thoughts. As he wrote at the end of this article, I also think that censorship is not the solution in this situation because everyone can publish the books in the way he or she wants because everyone has freedom. I think if I were one of parents who have a child reading “Kaffir Boy” in school, I would censor the school, not the book. I think it is school’s mistake that they did not tell the parents about this book or story, because it became required reading for thousands of high schools in America and why they think this book is valuable or why they think government decided to let high school students read this book. I understand that the human refuges to take facts or realities in their life because they do not want to hurt themselves by accepting the unacceptable facts or cruel realities. However, in my opinion, people also should not censor the prostitution scene because it is a fact and it is a reality that the author experienced and it actually helped people before and also now it helps. I think it can be an opportunity that parents usually cannot hold to teach teenagers about prostitution and what they need to do when they have those kinds of situations. Lots of books are published even though the stories are just cruel, sexual, or critical. “Kaffir Boy” is selected to be read in thousands of high schools and I think there is why it is selected even though this story has sexual part. So I agree with Mathabane’s thoughts.

censorship

While I was reading this article, I agreed with Mathabane’s thoughts on censorship. I have not read the book, so I think I might change my thoughts on censoring his book. However, for now, I agreed with his thoughts. As he wrote at the end of this article, I also think that censorship is not the solution in this situation because everyone can publish the books in the way he or she wants because everyone has freedom. I think if I were one of parents who have a child reading “Kaffir Boy” in school, I would censor the school, not the book. I think it is school’s mistake that they did not tell the parents about this book or story, because it became required reading for thousands of high schools in America and why they think this book is valuable or why they think government decided to let high school students read this book. I understand that the human refuges to take facts or realities in their life because they do not want to hurt themselves by accepting the unacceptable facts or cruel realities. However, in my opinion, people also should not censor the prostitution scene because it is a fact and it is a reality that the author experienced and it actually helped people before and also now it helps. I think it can be an opportunity that parents usually cannot hold to teach teenagers about prostitution and what they need to do when they have those kinds of situations. Lots of books are published even though the stories are just cruel, sexual, or critical. “Kaffir Boy” is selected to be read in thousands of high schools and I think there is why it is selected even though this story has sexual part. So I agree with Mathabane’s thoughts.

Lesson 3 - Anthropology

I think this tour was very interesting. The theories that Dr. Del came up to compare his opinion were making this tour more interesting. The first question came up in this tour was what is evil. I think that evil is what we afraid of while we enjoy some of it. Biblically, evil came to this world when Adam and Eve ate the fruit that God commanded them not to eat.  I think as soon as they broke the rule that God gave them, evil started to live in human. As I continue to watch it, there was the hierarchy of needs came up. I agreed to this. The most part that I agreed with was that man’s ultimate objective is self-actualization.  As soon as I heard it, I defined that it is very true because I remembered that even baby shows it. The babies cry whenever they want to eat, feel uncomfortable, or sleep. It is what their desire and it is the self-actualization because they show everything they feel, everything they think, and everything they want to do. However, as people grow up and become adults, they realize that they cannot do everything that they want to do. Then, the self-actualization becomes people’s ultimate objective. Later, another question comes at the end of this tour. Dr. Del asks why the evil bothers us. In my opinion, I think it is because of the truth that comes from Christianity. I think the truth in Christianity is opposite of the evil and because the Christianity wants believers to follow their rule which is completely different according to what the evil wants people to follow, the evil bothers us. However, the evil also bothers non-believer because people knows that doing what they want to do only makes them fail and sometimes makes them to be judged or condemned by anyone around them and it makes them hurt, they try to avoid doing the evil things. This tour made me think a lot of things like what I wrote above, but it was very interesting and learnable. 

Ghost

To me, a ghost is an invisible or sometimes visible object that makes me feel afraid. I think my definition of a ghost is a kind of same meaning which is used in The Scar. In this story, Lena's my mother was treated as a ghost. It meant that Lena would not be able to see her. Also it meant that whenever Lena sees her because her grandmother hate Lena's mother like crazy, she blamed Lena and also Lena's mother and it made Lena feel afraid because something always happened when she sees her mother. I think the word 'ghost' helped this character being a more complex image. If it did not mention about ghost, the readers would just feel pity on her because she can not see her daughter. But because 'ghost' came up in the story, the readers could feel that she is having a miserable life and understand how Lena feels about it. Also because of it, I think the readers could see Lena's mother is forgotten by force of Lena's grandmother just like we can not see the ghost.

virtues and weakness of Lindo Jong

I think Lindo Jong made good attempt. The attempt to teach her daughter that she learned was nice as a parent. she also tried to give her daughter that two advantages at the same time by giving her daughter American circumstances and Chinese character which she thought that it is good way. I think she really cared about her daughter because if she wasn't, she would not try to teach her daughter chess or force her to do something. Also if she did not really want Waverly to be in better life, she would not name her after the streets. So as a mom, trying what she think was good is a virtue.

Even though she tried to give Waverly good things, she overacted too much. She forced Waverly till she feels ashamed of her mom. I think when parents want their children to do something what they want them to do, they should not force them but explains them why they want them to do like that. She used her to satisfy her self-pride by forcing to come to where she is and presenting her to every shops. Also she told Waverly that she has no concerns for her family because she almost reject what her mom wants her to do. It is also wrong that she tells that kind of words because no one in the world does not care about his or her family, and I think it probably hurts Waverly.

The Joy Luck Club

I think this four stories, I read till now, are related by the narrators. What I could find similarities in those four stories were that they are all women, they have painful memories of childhood, they are narrators, and they are lonely. Those are the similarities but I think the most important similarity in these stories is they all went through the hard situations which we need to learn. In these four stories, they have similarities but they have all different stories. The first and second stories were about relationship between them and their mother. The third and forth stories were about the China's different cultures or maybe it is about how people in China treat the women. Even though they are from China, one does not know her mother well, one is forced to get away from her own mother, one is engaged by her parents at the age of two, and lastly, one lives with wrong notion. I thought this book is very interesting because while it is one book, it shows very different situations with the different narrators and their feelings. those feelings are all about the sadness here but those stories make anyone feels same way like the each narrators could feel. As I read I thought that these stories mainly showed that no one has perfect happy life and everyone has wounds, and what I need to learn from these stories is I need to go through the hard situations that might come to me one day. 

Everything goes down

Everything went down.

Look like there is no one left.

Look like there cannot be one.

But tiny fairies follow the light through the old windows.

Glow like never again, dance like never again.

But once the light moves on to other fairies,

They lost their beauty and stays wherever they reached.

Everything once glowed go down.

Philosophy and Ethics: Says Who?

My thought on this lesson 2 was very confused and not easy to understand everything. I am sure that I was not able to catch up when he is talking but still it was different than lesson 1. During I watch this lesson, there was one thing specifically catched my attention. It was Cosmic Cube. Here in this lesson, Cosmic Cube is a closed box which there is a room for anything which must be materially perceived. Therefore, in Cosmic Cube, there is no God because He is figureless. While I concentrated on this question, Dr. Dell said "God is and He has revealed himself to us". Which made a complete connection between Cosmos and God. It quite made sense to me, but still there was one question. The question is that actually some people believe just believe, then why do they just believe. People believe someone because he or she shows confidences at something. But! A confidence is not a material. Then, is it possible to make us to believe God, if God shows us confidences? If so, He didn't have to send his son on this earth. My question did not get the answer but video kept going on. Next thing Dr. Dell talked about was philosophy. What I wanted to hear from this topic was the answer for the meaning and purpose of life. However, because our class time ran out and we could not watch it all today, I could not get the answer for it. I want the answer would not be the boring one like we live because we need to serve God and honor Him because that is what we can easily think of and also we cannot easily accept. But I want the answer to be the one that has many supports so that I can think about it enough to understand.

Veritology: What is Truth?

Why was Jesus born? Why did He come into this world? I always thought He came into this world to make connection with God though him. Maybe other people might think he came here to save us or to show people there is God who created this world. My opinion for those thoughts is it can be all right. But here, in this video, Dr. Dell specifically says Jesus came into this world to testify to the truth. He goes on with what is the truth. He tells us here Jesus mentioned about the truth 75 times and He answered people with the word "Truly Truly..." 25 times. It was amazing how Jesus actually focused on truth very much just in the New Testament. Also he tells us how we are connected with sins. It was understandable that men are sinful nature. However, in the third person's position, believing that Jesus is God and there is a god who created us is hard to understand because God does not have a feature to make us possible to believe there is God who made us and He is amazing. I think this project was focused on believers not the non-believers because Dr. Dell mentioned that Jesus said worrying about things happening around us proves that we have little faith as a support of our actions reflect what we believe to be really real. To me, this video will give a lot of changes in my life but I doubt that whether it may impact on the non-believers. I have more times to watch this project but one thing I wanted from this lesson one was it would have been better if this project started with attempts to give them sources and supports that there is God and we are made by Him not evolved from monkey or something.

Blindness

In the movie "If Only",which is my favorite movie, there comes one couple. The guy is a successful business man and the girl is teaching children violin and also plays in a concert. They live together so they go to their work places together every morning. The setting of the movie is one day morning in England. This morning, he has a important presentation to perform. But by his girlfriend's misunderstanding, she comes into his presentation to give important file which she thought to give him even though she realizes the file she brought is wrong file after. After she leaves, he finish the meeting and thinks his presentation is messed up. So he decides to go meet his girlfriend. He takes the taxi and he unexpectedly talks about his girlfriend with the taxi driver. He goes to her concert, tells her how she messed up his presentation, and also tells to break up even though the taxi driver told him to thank her and just love her. This story does not end like this but also it is not happy ending. He is blind. He cannot see how she is precious to him because he focuses too much on his work. Even though he loves her and live together, he decides to break up for work. It was a very extreme decision because he could think of anything that can solve his conflict but he choose to break up. I understand how he felt at that time. But I think he made a wrong decision because I think people can be successful men if they work hard but people can not be successful in love unless they do give their whole heart. In this movie, he has a second chance to solve his same conflict again. AND? he shows how he felt when he is in love with her. I think everyone does not realize which things are important and which are less important but what we need to do is think carefully if we miss something in our lives.

Anxiety

Since I am changed as time passes, my way of dealing with anxiety also changed.

I used to deal with anxiety by just expressing to anybody when I was young. It was very bad way to deal with it. But since I know it is a bad way, suddenly I started to cry, listen to music, or eat a lot. Still this time, I have no idea that whether those ways are bad. However, it makes me at least calm down even though nothing has changed. Those are the way I deal with anxiety and my strategy I use is playing the piano. The song? of course I play noisy and fast one. It is a really good strategy for me to get rid of my anxiety because when I play the piano, that time brings my focus 100%. So after I play the piano. My anxiety suddenly disappear. Of course this strategy is applied when I'm having a conflict with people. However, It is not the way I am solving the conflict. The way I am solving the conflict was ignoring that people completely. But NOW? I am different. Since my mother teaches me why ignoring people and avoding people are not good, I am now trying to solve a conflict through conversation.

Fable

One day night the starving fox was wandering to find food. the fox had already eaten dinner but he wanted to fill his storage for his birthday party. 'I wanna have a big party so that all the animals can come to my house. Then.. maybe I will need a lot of nice and delicious food!' thought the fox. He kept wandering in the forest. But suddenly he stumbled on something and fell down. 'what? what in the world is this?!' said the fox. He stood up and stared the thing that made him fell. 'wow~! its a huge  meet! maybe I can use this for my birthday party! Everyone will like this~' said the fox. After found the food, the fox took the meet, moved to his storage, and  relieved about food. Few days later, his birthday came and the fox went to storage to ready for the party. But when the fox opened the storage door, he found no food. 'Oh my goodness..where is the food?!' said the fox. he tried to find the food everywhere in the storage but he only found that there is a huge stuck of straws with animal blood trace. ' Is that really true that I confused the meet with a huge stuck of straws? Oh, now what do I do with this? I don't have any food at home' said fox. the fox which could not get food canceled the party reluctantly.

Freedom

To me, the word freedom is important because it gives me the reason I am alive and releases me from any stresses. whenever I have things bloc my future in my life, the things just naturally go away out of my life when freedom comes to me such as now I have credit problem for graduation, so when I think of this problem I really lost my positive minds and I feel like I have all the problems in the world. But when I am looking at the positive side which is that I still have time to solve this problem and can enjoy my life with my friends here at least once a week, it makes me feel this positive side is the freedom. For example, In the book of Crime and Punishment, the main character has no freedom. Even though his freedom is close to him, he cannot grab it because of what he did before. So in this book, he loose his freedom mentally and physically. For another example of freedom, the Outsider is the another example. This book shows how much freedom teenagers don't have and how much they are not happy without freedom. Some has family problem, some have financial problem, and some just have mind problem. But there is one thing they feel free about, that is friends. In this story, they show they feel free and that they are afraid at nothing when they are together. For the conclusion, like what I mentioned above, I think freedom is the state of being that we can do anything whatever we want to do and what brings us happiness and takes any worries away.