Before I die....

This presentation was the one I liked the most in which I have watched in this class.Her idea of sharing dreams and hopes is simple but I think it’s very creative. We usually don’t get an opportunity to share our hopes which is something worth sharing. “Thinking about death clarifies your life”. What she said in the talk reminded me of the film “The Bucket List”. I think it’s important to think about death sometimes, so that we can realize what we really want to do before dying. Before I die, I want to see an aurora by the way .

 

Internet

At the first part of his talk, he said that “the kids of Net Generation are different”. They are net natives and not afraid of the internet because it’s like the air. I think this is so true. Sometimes I imagine what my life would be like if I was born in a different generation. When there was no internet and no iPhone. Maybe I had more opportunities to think and do things myself. For example, I would have think which train should I take to get to the destination on time and go to the station to check the timetable; not just typing the departure and destination on google or transportation app on iPhone. Life is easier with those new technologies but I think it is important not to depend on it too much.

Ant mega-colony takes over world

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm

A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.

Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same inter-related colony, and will refuse to fight one another.

One big family of ants has as much population as humans and they have siblings in almost every country in the world. How scary! Think about if the same thing happens to humans. Most population originates to the same gene and everyone around you would be your sibling. Everyone would look alike and shares a lot in common. Even if there would be no fighting and  no discrimination, the world would be like a huge factory of mass production. The world would be less “alive” and pretty boring for sure. I hope human evolution would not end up like this.

A secret place

I had a special place when I was a child. It was up in the mountain and there was a huge rock shaped like a sea turtle. It used to be a secret place for my best friends and me. We loved it there because there were many trees that we could climb up, and lots of sunshine. We stopped going there because we all got busier as we grow up. But every time I see the picture of us sitting on that turtle rock, I remember how I felt the sun there. I hope we could all go there again some time!

Equality in the Home

One of the Japanese words that I don’t like is 亭主関白(teishukannpaku). The husband has been the boss for ages. The situation is not the same now but I don’t think the paying to wife system of Taiwan still doesn’t work in Japan. Men would go mad and even women wouldn’t agree to it because most wives are devoted to their families. My family is a little out of standard because everyone has to do some housework. Since my parents both work full time, usually I do the cooking and my dad does the washings. My mom does all the other stuff when she is home. And each one does the cleaning when we need to except for my brother. He does nothing but mess up the living room and I hate it. Anyway , I hope my future family could share housework like this.

Japanese Gender Issue

When I was in the primary school, I used to have a green ranndoseru. I was desperate to have green one because I wanted to copy my brother. He was the only one who had a green ranndoseru in his grade and everyone admired at it. They said its cool and I thought so too. I always liked to be different to others and I didn’t want to have a red ranndoseru like all the other girls. On the very first day of school, I found that I was the only girl who has green ranndoseru. I was so confident and happy. But my classmates told me it’s crazy for a girl to have a green ranndoseru instead of saying its cool. They said girls should have red or pink. I didn’t think much about their words at that time but as I think about it now, it might be one of the gender issues. Boys want girls to have something cute. WHO CARES!

Future

 My dream hasn’t changed since I was in the 5th grade of primary school. I want to travel all around the world by a gorgeous cruising ship if possible. To achieve this dream, I need money. There are 2 options. Option no.1: Marry a good-looking millionaire. Option no.2: Work. I guess the second one is more certain. My ideal future job is to create a TV commercial. I love it since I was little. The catchy songs and catchy words always attract me. I also want to be a writer for the traveling magazine. It seems to be the coolest job for me because I can travel and earn some money at the same time. Anyways, I hope I'll be doing something I like in the future.

My neighborhood

   I remember one strange experience that happened while growing up. When I was in junior high, I used to have lunchbox which is called a lunch-jar that keeps warm. I had been using it for more than a year, it finally broke and my mom and I were talking that we should go find a new one. The very next day, we found a box in a shopping bag in front of a door of our house. We thought one of the neighbors has left us some kind of osusowake. When we opened it, there was a lunch-jar that looked like a perfect replacement for the old one. We were so surprised because no one was there when we were talking about the lunch-jar. I asked some neighbors about it afterward, but nobody knows anything about it. And it still remains mystery…

Sosialization

I like the way how my parents raise me. They basically let me do whatever I like and gave me some advises. They never force me to do something. Freedom was always in my hand. However it doesn’t mean that they didn’t have a discipline. Their value was responsibility. They gave me a good scolding when I did something irresponsible. It makes sense to me because they also live freely but they always have responsibilities for us family and their job.

              I remember one thing that my teacher told me when I was in the elementary school. He scolded my friends and me when we opened one of the classmates’ drawing books without asking her. We laughed at pictures that she made because we found some funny ones. And the teacher told us that it’s very mean thing to do. On reflection, it seemed to me that I was very rude. It was like suddenly breaking into someone’s room with shoes on. Since then, I always care about how they would feel before doing something.

              I think I was lucky enough to have some adults who taught me many important things. I’m sure there are more that I have to learn from them.

The House on the Mango Street

  

I don’t share much in common with Esperanza. If I were a writer of a same kind of story, I guess it would be much happy one. She is very ironic and it seems to me that she doesn’t really like to “like” something. Maybe she wouldn’t give many “like” s to her friends on facebook as well. Her family is not rich and has many kids. That would be one of the reasons why she is not an obedient child just like her hair never obeys bands. She has more chances to compare herself with her brothers and more chances to try to get her mom’s attention. It’s like every day is a competition. I only have one big brother and we grew up in peace. That’s why I don’t understand the people who always make a complaint…