#54

Today is another bad day, but I don’t feel like talking about it, so I just talk about the sports team meeting instead. I’m on the blue team for sports day, and we call ourselves the Blue Smurfs. Today, me and 3~4 other people got the privilege of not having to practice the chant, and went to make the banner for our team instead. We drew 3 smurfs pretty quickly, and had some fun coloring them. I’m so glad I don’t have to practice the chant. Our chant is a weird theme song from the smurfs show, and it sounds like something 4-years-olds would sing. 

Definition of Freedom

What is freedom? There are hundreds of different definitions, because everyone has different opinions. My definition of freedom is simple: to be able to choose what I want to do, or to be able to do what I like. I’m pretty sure this kind of freedom is rarely seen in Asian families, because the Asian mom is often equivalent to an emperor, and the children are like the servants. The children has to do everything the emperor mom says, because according to her, the children should be grateful that she went through 9 months of tediously painful pregnancy, and 10 hours of unbearable birth just to give life to them. Because the emperor mom suffered a tremendous amount of pain, the children are naturally confined to their mothers, their job is to do what she says, and complete their filial duty. In other words, most Asian children are born with handcuffs. My kind of freedom doesn’t exist in my home either. One of the most recent (and typical) examples I can think of is The Choosing of Sports Teams. My mom was pretty resolute in wanting me to join the swimming team, but I wanted to join the basketball team, because, quite simply, I hate swimming and love basketball. We spent hours arguing about this, although it wasn’t really arguing, because arguing means to persuade or influence another person by presenting reasons. Our “arguing” was basically my mom shouting at me, and ignoring whatever that comes out of my mouth. In the end, I went to swimming team, and dreaded every practice I had. I hope that in some point of my life, I will be able to practice my freedom, and be temporarily freed of my handcuffs. 

Response to Tiger Mom article

I had various mixed feelings while I was reading Amy Chua’s article, but the dominating feeling is anger. I felt angry at how Amy treated her children, and how she made them do what she thinks is “right” and “suitable” for their future careers. I felt sympathy for her daughter at the part where Amy made her daughter practice the piano. I am able to relate to my personal experiences very well after reading that. My mom used to tell me to go play violin, and she really means what she says. If I don’t play it now, I’ll play it later. If I don’t play it today, I’ll play double the amount tomorrow. It’s as simple as that.

People argue whether Amy Chua’s parenting technique is right or wrong. Some people say it’s right because those relentless practices and harsh punishments are necessary to prepare the children for a “successful” future. Some people argue that it’s wrong because planning a life for the children, and requiring strict adherence of the plan diminishes the children’s self-independence, creativity, and the ability to take risks. I think neither is right and neither is wrong; I believe practices and punishments are necessary, but parents don’t have to enforce them to the extreme. I agree that planning a life for the children can diminish the children’s ability to think and decide for themselves, I feel that way because my mom is 90% identical to Amy Chua.

Overall, this article by Amy Chua is very interesting to read. I would really like to buy her book “the battle hymn of the tiger mother”, but I think I’ll get very mad and emotional while reading it. 

One Hundred

One hundred journal entries. Each entry has over 200 hundred words. That is a LOT of words. Although I forget to do this journal assignment frequently, I still got over 20000 words written on my blog. This assignment has proved very useful to me. Because I have to write more than 200 words on each journal, whether I have anything to say or not, I am now very capable of writing lengthy essays, because I can always find things to say now. This assignment has also helped me do homework in other classes. In MUN class, we often have to write movie responses, and I usually don’t have any opinion. After this vigorous journal training, I found out that I finish these responses much faster than I did before. I was able to identify my own opinions very fast, and write it out. This was a very valuable experience for me, because I learned a lot. I didn’t really think this journal writing assignment will benefit at first, and I thought it was just annoying. Now that I’ve done a hundred journals, I felt that I earned more than I bargained for. 

Final Exam

I wasn’t really prepared for this exam, mainly because of the SAT reasoning test on Saturday. I spent almost all of my time preparing for the SAT, and didn’t think much about the upcoming finals. My mind was so occupied by SAT, I forgot to bring my American Literature textbook home, so I have to read the stories online, and try my hardest to get the complete study guide. I was most confident on the parts of the exam about the stories and the stories’ details, because I read both stories multiple times. I wasn’t confident about the parts about literary terms, because I didn’t really get to study them. This exam wasn’t as hard as I expected, but I still couldn’t get some questions. I think I’ll have to be more careful in the future, so as not to forget to bring my book home. I found that reading the stories multiple times helps significantly in taking the test, I remembered almost all the details, and had no problems answering most of the questions. 

Group Work

I think group work is a good way of coming out with solutions. When people work as a group, they each contribute a small share, and sometimes they provide knowledge that another person doesn’t know about. I like working as a group more than working by myself, because I tend to miss some important facts when I do projects alone. By working as a group, we discuss together and get all the important facts recorded down. I sometimes contribute largely to the group, and sometimes let other people do the work. I think teachers who make students do group work so often do so not only because it makes their own job easier, but also because it helps us learn better. Group work will surely benefit us in our life after high school, because we will have to work very frequently with other students when we go to college, and also work together with other employees if we work in a company in the future. Given the fact that I college you might have to work in groups even more than you have had in high school, I began to think that group work in high school is very important. It helps us prepare for our future career.

Language Use

How are new words created? New words are created “randomly”. Sometimes people suddenly say a word or term, and if they it sounds cool, they continue using it. Some common neologism phrases in our time are: lol, lmao, rofl, ttyl, gtg. Some common neologism words are: noob and pwned. Some old phrases fade away because people don’t think they are cool anymore. I use the Internet abbreviation language almost everyday, and it has become part of my life. I use that language because it’s fast, concise, and carries the meaning you want. It takes us about 10 seconds to type “talk to you later”, but it only takes us one second to type “ttyl”. Some words are used more often than others in politics, the media, and popular culture because they are the things that most people car about.  For example, in the recent presidential speeches in the US, the word “terrorist” has been used numerous times. It is used so frequently because terrorism is one of the top concerns of the American population.