Self-Publicize Poetry Project

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJVlIr4edAI&feature=youtu.be
* I got 4 different people to read my poem and write each stanza with chalk right in front of our school bulding. All the places, where i taped/posted my poem, are in the village (bus stop, bus loop, post box in front of staples, etc) and the bulletin board was in my apartment building. I also went out in the evening around my neighbourhood and put it on the windshields of many cars parked along the streets in front of houses, apartments, etc. 


- This was inspired by a story I read in the news of a teenage boy who attempted to commit suicide due to all the pressure from his parents and teachers that drove him to the point of becoming depressed and anxious. 

Are you happy right now?

by Eunsol Kim

Seeking for guidance,

Under pressure and unheard.

Following orders like a mindless sheep.

Hoping for acceptance and recognition.

Questioning your purpose in life,

Lost in misunderstanding

and never ending expectations.

Too young to be respected, but too old to be carefree.

Stressing over what you call “opportunities”

Burdened with what you call “responsibilities”

Throwing away what you once enjoyed,

Ignoring your true passion and desires,

For what you now call “priorities”.

Running straight, weary and emotionless,

For what you set as your “goals”

Forgetting to look back at your long list of achievements,

Forgetting to linger and make everlasting memories,

on the paths that you’ll be on for only so long.

And then what?

For what, are you only running straight on your path now?

It’s good to prepare for the future,

It’s important to thrive for success,

But are you happy right now?

Simon

A Found Poem from Lord of the Flies 
(pgs. 18-68, 152-170)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p8RK2DbcI4

Small, vivid, weak little boy, chin pointed high and eyes so bright.

“What’s your name?”, he was asked.

He sat up against a palm trunk and smiled pallidly.

“Simon”.

Adventurous; wandering off, looking over his shoulder, glancing swiftly round to confirm that he’s utterly alone.

Timid; putting out his hand to his leader for comfort, turning away and smearing the water from his cheeks.

Then the assembly was held.

“The beast?”, he was asked.

He stood by, silent.

“Maybe”, he said hesitantly, “maybe there is a beast”.

Confused; “I don’t know”. His heartbeats were choking him.

Unheard; becoming inarticulate in his effort to express mankind’s essential illness.

Simon’s effort fell about him in ruins; the laughter beat him cruelly.

“You knew didn’t you? You knew the beast is part of you.” he was asked.

Simon moved his swollen tongue but said nothing…

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable.

Simon crying out.

The beast lay still, a few yards from the sea.

The water rose further and dressed Simon’s coarse hair with brightness.

Simon’s dead body moved out towards the open sea.

Life of Pi- THE END?

This is my last, NINTH post on "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel, the book I have chosen for our Canadian novel studies, and struggled with for about a month.
I have to admit, it has been such a long, boring, dreadful way. At first, when we were assigned with this project, all I could ever think of was complaints. "How the heck am I supposed to keep track of how many comments I've posted", "how am I supposed to tweet every week on something totally normal, who's even gonna read them", "why do we need to blog about our reading progress, what good does it do". Last but not least, and my biggest question "Why do we have to be so focused on media when we're supposed to be studying Canadian novel". I honestly still haven't figured out an answer to the last question. It was so overwhelming, so many little side projects to do. With other school works too, I thought it was impossible to get everything done. Looking back at it, I still think it is. Group communication was surprisingly difficult, which is why I feel so accomplished for actually communicating with our group members. We're not completely finished with our project, still having our pecha kucha due on Wednesday, and also the exam that I'm sure I didn't do well on (read the last post) just makes my head feel heavy all over again. Reading the book was such a pain- so many details,  terribly long, and the first half of the book was SO BORING. I did learn many things through this project, as mentioned in the previous posts, all the phantom skills, and the fact that reading a book that you are not interested in will not get you anywhere. If you read a book, and you think it's really boring, just put it down. And maybe come back to it a month or even a year later. Holding on to it and forcing yourself to read defeats the purpose of reading it. 
Anyways, hey, I got through it. We all got through it. Congrats to all Block A and Block B students, I have heard a lot of complaints from you people too, and now we're almost done :)

.. and now I have to go comment on people's blogs. BYE!

Life of Pi- The Exam

On Thursday, we finally wrote our final exam for the unit "Canadian novel studies". The worst possible thing happened when writing a test. Running out of time. It makes me feel so stressed out even just thinking about it. I have never written four compositions in an hour and twenty minutes before, so I didn't know how much time I would take up for each of them. Stupidly enough, I put all my effort and time for the first two compositions that I only had about 5 minutes left when it was time to write the last two. I was totally in a panic mode. I honestly don't even remember what I wrote, but I am quite upset that I didn't get to write everything I wanted to, and probably do as well as I would have if I had more time to think before just jotting down everything on my mind. It kind of really sucks.

The last two questions were "What did I learn through this project" and "How did it go". I learned a lot through this project, especially phantom skills such as learning to tweet, editing videos, interviewing people, and managing time. I have never understood twitter, the point of it and how to do it. Later on, I went on it at least every two days to tweet about the book, and our group's progress. It was cool to see someone retweet my tweet and following our twitter- even some people we don't know. Editing videos was actually easier than I thought it would be. Once I was done interviewing about 6 people, Tano and I were quite worried about the editing part. After struggling with it for about 30 minutes, we eventually started figuring everything out, and being amused at all the effects. Tano was able to finish up editing it with her "imovie" program and make it look amazing at the end. Time management was crucial for this project since it was many little parts of the project kind of being bombarded at you every week, plus reading the book. What I learned through this project, I will definitely be able to apply in different situation later on, and will be very useful and valuable. 

Our project was overall successful, though I wish I had been able to find and contact a legitimate organization for anti bullying. We still used our creativity and "phantom skills" to have other people involved in our project- which is important for raising awareness, and create a video. U Hill doesn't seem to have big problems with bullying, but we never know what every each one of 700 people are going through. That's why awareness is the key. You can be fooled by the generalized fact that at U Hill, everyone tends to get along, but to one person, or to 50 people, it may not be true. We just need to look out and always be eager to help people. 

AW MAN I WISH WROTE SOME OF THIS ON THE ACTUAL EXAM. SKFJHGLSKFJGSIJ;LfGFLKGJKGLJsfkjghfkj sad face. 

Check out our Anti Bullying Day video that we made! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cpx3eajPvZE&feature=youtu.be

Life of Pi- In the Middle of the Ocean

I have FINALLY gotten to the part where Pi is stuck in the middle of the ocean. In the process of moving to Canada from India, the boat that Pi and his family were on, starts sinking due to the storm. Can you imagine how scary and devastating that would be?
Before the boat actually sinks, Pi is the only one who gets up, startled by the storm. Soon, when he realizes that him and his family might be in danger, he runs into the Japanese boat people. With a few exchanges of glance, they decided to throw Pi of the boat, on the another lifeboat that happened to have a tiger on it (from moving animals from Pi's zoo on the boat). Pi figures out later on that they weren't actually trying to save Pi's life, but more using him as a distraction and sacrificing him to the tiger so they could get on the boat. Later on, the boat ends up having a hyena, broken legged zebra, a chimpanzee, and the tiger on it. After a couple nights of no food, no water and witnessing the zebra and the chimpanzee get devoured by the hyena, Pi is exhausted. However, he still finds a strong will and the desire within himself to survive. We have to realize that Pi's only 16, and he had just lost his family, and everything that he has. Even if he does survive, he wouldn't have anything to go back to. However, he still thinks, plans and eats solely for survival. 
Being brutally honest, I would never ever be able to set my goal as "surviving" if I were in his situation. I could never have the courage or the will to. I find this kind of embarrassing, it's those who have strong wills that succeed later on. This is definitely something that I would learn from Pi, and a valuable message to everyone. 

Life of Pi- Religion?

As mention in the post "who's Pi?", Pi is a religious man. He has his Bachelors degree in religious studies. Pi was born with a Hindu background. He went to a temple for the first time when he was little with his aunt. Hinduism has kind of always been a part of Pi, even though I'm not sure how seriously he took it since he was quite young. At the age of 14, he opens his eyes to Catholicism/Christianity. He speaks to a priest, constantly questions why this "Son of God" would sacrifice himself for other people's sins, then realizes that the more he questions and doubts this religion, the more he wants to learn about it. At the end, he goes to the priest and tells him that he wants to become Christian. At the age of 16, he sees religious practices of Muslim through Mr. Kumar, a baker he randomly runs into. He sees these practices as beautiful, down to earth, holy and meaningful. Problem occurs when Pi and his family are out and runs in to all three "wise men". Soon, when the priest, imam, and pandit find out that Pi follows three different religions, they start arguing about their beliefs and feel quite betrayed by Pi. When Pi is put on the spot, he quotes Gandhi- "All religions are true" and states that "[he] just wants to love God". This closes the case for that day, but his parents constantly questions Pi's seriousness towards his beliefs in several religions, and believe that Pi's just going through a phase.

Personally, even though I do believe that Pi has every right to believe in whatever he wants to, I don't necessarily support the idea of following more that one religion. I am more familiar with Christianity than any other religions that Pi follows, and I know for a fact that in the Bible it says not to follow any other gods before Him. That wouldn't matter if he chose to just follow Hinduism or Muslim, but it seems to me like he's not taking any of his religions seriously. If you compared religion to relationship, it would be like him, having three different girlfriends because he loves different aspects of all three of them. Religion takes commitment, and it seems like that's not very committing to any of the religions he's following.

But that's just my idea, Pi has his reasons. 

Life of Pi- the most dangerous animal

Which animal, do you think, is the most dangerous animal at a zoo? 

A Tiger? Lion? Bear? or maybe even an ostrich?.. 

Wrong. The most dangerous type of "animals" at a zoo, at any zoo, is humans. I bet you weren't expecting that. In the book, Pi tells us about how sinical and thoughtless humans can be. There have been many cases where humans have killed animals at zoos unintentionally and intentionally. Is this true? I don't know, but that's how the books claims to be. When I was little, I remember going to a zoo, and getting in trouble for feeding a lamb by one of the employees. It clearly said in bold letters "do not feed the animals", so it was obviously my fault.  Next time I went to a zoo, I knew better. I knew better not to get caught and be more stealthy. I was not a sinical child, I just didn't understand why I wasn't allowed to feed them. It made me feel happy and achieved as the animals gratefully ate the food I was giving them. They were so cute, peacefully eating any food they're given with no complaints. I'm not sure why, but I got a joy out of providing food for the animals that were being caged in everyday of their lives. I never realized, that feeding them could actually harm them in any way. If a person gives them food, like me, that they cannot digest for some reason, they can suffer for weeks. Constant barfing and not being able to eat any other food for a certain period of time, they become extremely weak, also effecting their immune system. You can now probably see why this could become a problem. You know what's worse? Some people tend to think that animals can digest anything. Feeding them coins, paper, etc.. There has even been a case where someone fed an aniaml a nail. Yes, a nail that we use to hang something up on the wall. This animal ended up suffering for a long time and dying. Because of that one little thing some thoughtless persond fed, it thinking it's funny. Well, think about it. How would you feel if somebody tried to feed you a nail? How would your body react if you shoved a nail down your throat? 

We, humans, have far more intelligence and common sense than any other creature on this planet. Let's use our intelligence and common sense, I insist.