“Quiet Power”— a book for introverts

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The book “quiet power” is written by Susan Cain and categorized under literary non-fiction. This book mainly talked about how different people could have very different personalities—introverted or extroverted­­—and ways introverts would strive and, finally, meet the expectation that came from both the school and the society. The theme in this book is introverts, though being mostly quiet and wishes for solitude, could do just as well as extroverts both in school and socially. For instance, Introverts are proved to be splendid thinkers with the ability to concentrate and think quietly. (155). This theme further develops when the author states about how an introverted personality could be beneficial not only in school but also socially (79).

I recommend you reading this book, whether you are extroverted or introverted, because 1) it did a great job at explaining these terms not only by word but also by examples. 2) the suggestions inside for introverts are really worth a look; this isn’t only inspiring for introverts but also extroverts.

One thing that I learned from this unit is that you really should reread some time; not only the parts that you didn’t understand, but parts that is important to a theme or central idea of the book.

The Boxer Rebellion: Do the Boxers Deserve a Bad Reputation?

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The boxers shouldn’t get a bad reputation throughout the course of history. The Boxer rebellion started in Shandong, where the eight-country alliance had been letting missionaries into China and built building like churches all around China. The missionaries were also responsible for bringing business to their country by spreading their goods to China along with Christianity “The American missionaries became really front people for American exporters and American businessmen.”(Fei Ch’i-hao) The Righteous and Harmonious Fists or the world widely known name “Boxers” was a group of Chinese that believes “their magical rituals could make them invulnerable to the weapons of foreign powers.” (Szczepanski) After the drought “boxers turned violent towards foreigners and Christians” (Szczepanski) and blamed them for the nature disaster. Most of the record about Boxers were written by foreigners instead of the Boxers themselves, so the Boxers had no chance to speak up for themselves in text. The Boxers got their name from the eight-country alliance because of the way they fight: using mainly their fists this means they didn’t have weapons, which might mean that they had lived in poverty and wasn’t well educated. The foreigner’s missionaries were seen as strange people trying to threat China by the boxers. This is understandable because their lack of learning and the period of time boxer rebellion took place: it’s right after the Opium Wars, wars where China was humiliated by the loss of land and were forced to sign the unfair treaties, so the majority of Chinese thinks that the “devil” foreigners made China pay money and tried to get all the goods out of China. As the number of foreigners increased in Shandong, the boxers were even more certain to see Christians as a threat to china’s culture and traditions. As rumors spread and their ignorance led them into believing that the Christians brought the drought with them by displeasing the god. To protect China and to show anti-imperialist sentiment, the Boxers decided to hunt down both Chinese and foreign Christians and diplomats. There’s no particular bias in the Boxers’ move; both Chinese and foreigners were treated the same. The government of Shandong finally got tired of the Boxers they decided to kick them out and pushed them north toward Beijing. Beijing is where the foreign legation was mainly built in which increased the level of violence of the Boxer. The decision of the Shandong’s government led to a further chaos. After the Boxers locked the railways and telegraph lines around the foreign legation quarter where the Christians were inside, got the support from Empress CiXi, and had a huge preponderance as in the number of people, some of the Boxers still rejects to attack. The reason for this is: the previous times China tried to do so they ended up regretting. This proves that the Boxers did these terrible things because the eight-country alliance had done worser things to them. Therefore, the boxers shouldn’t get a bad reputation because they are only trying to protect themselves.

Theme in “Monkey’s Paw”

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The power of greed has cost people to lose things that are actually important to them, just because people could be easily fooled by the benefit, they see near them instead of beyond them. “Monkey’s paw” is a story about a monkey paw that could give you three wishes. The old man Mr. White wished for 200 dollars in order to buy the house he wished to, what he didn’t expect is the money is payed by his son’s life. Each wish had costed him something he didn’t expect, after all the wishes he had finally realized that the monkey paw was nothing but a punish for his greed and ignorant. Greed is what often leads to a bigger regret and a greater cost that cannot be undone.

In the story “Monkey’s Paw” by William W. Jacob, the author believes that greed is an unforgivable crime, and the more people lose the more they’ll wish for. Mr. White, in “Monkey’s Paw”, wished for 200 dollars using one out of the three wishes, to buy the family a house but he didn’t expect the money was payed by the life of his child. “‘Is he hurt?’ demanded the mother wildly. The visitor looked down. ‘Badly hurt,’ he said quietly. ‘But he’s not in any pain.’” (William W. Jacob 4) Mr. White had been empowered by greed when he expected to receive the 200 dollars, without any hard work. They wanted the good but didn’t want to pay the price. As despite as the wife of Mr. White is, she forced Mr. White to make his second wish; to make his dead son come alive again; this time they still not exactly aware of what might happen, as like the first wish, it’ll happen in an unexpected way ” But the old woman said feverishly, ‘Our first wish was granted. Why not the second?’… … ‘It is foolish and wicked,’ he stammered, hesitating. ‘Wish!’ repeated his wife. He raised his hand. ‘I wish my son alive again.’” (5) after they knew what power the monkey paw had, they wished for more, even reversing nature, to bring their son back. Mr. White’s family has ignored the warning from the previous owner of the monkey’s paw, and they are now left with nothing but void. The monkey paw–what repeats its appearance throughout the story– is a representation of greed and ignorance. it in the story is designed to be a punishment for greed. Greed has leads people into a bigger mistake that cannot be undone.

Found Poem: Struggle

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found poem:

This found poem is created with the words in the story “thank you ma’am” By Langston Hughes. It’s a story about a thief boy trying to steal the purse of Ms. Jones. In my found poem I tried to use the least amount of word and reflect the conflict in the story. The conflict in the story is an internal conflict, about the struggle between the boy making the decision of whether he should escape and be mistrusted or he should stay, but risk getting sent to jail. this is shown when the boy was looking at the door that has been left open: “After he had dried his face and not knowing what else to do dried it again, the boy turned around, wondering what next. The door was open. He could make a dash for it down the hall. He could run, run, run, run, run!”. the struggle was also shown when “The woman did not watch the boy to see if he was going to run now, nor did she watch her purse which she left behind her on the day-bed. But the boy took care to sit. He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now.” at last the boy decides to stay trusted by the women.

The bubonic plague vs SARS

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design Challenge

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We were asked to help our partner to design something that will stop their favorite food from ruining. I had to design a product that will keep my partner’s (Mr. Layman) favorite food; french baguette from going stale.

Research:

I did some research on how to keep baguette fresh and here’s what I found:

Wrap the baguette with aluminum foil, then put it in the freezer. when you want to eat it first wet the baguette and heat it in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes. after research I decided to design something that will do both of the job of heating and freezing it.

Sketch:

during the research part I decided to make some thing that could heat it as well as freezing it, but after wards I figure it’ll be better if the inner layer of my design is aluminum foil. it’s a pretty simple design with a heat and a freeze button, and a place to put baguette(I did some changes to my design when I am making my prototype)

Prototype:

since I was making something that has a box shape so I decided to first draw it on the paper, then cut it out, the stick the sides together (I added a On/Off button on my prototype.)and at last it looked like the picture below:

Conclusion:

My biggest obstacle in this project is the making the prototype part. When I was drawing on the paper I didn’t measure how long each side should be, so actually my prototype should be longer.

One thing I’d like to change is the prototype part because I was planing to add aluminum foil inside the prototype but I forgot about it when I was trying to stick the sides together.

One piece of advice I would give a future student doing this project is the sketch part is really important, it decides how your prototype is going to look like.

Overall I think this product is fine, but there are still lots of space for improving.

Humanities argument unit essay

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People all around the world have been arguing about “should countries make uniforms a law?”. School uniforms are what students wear for more than 6 hour every day, except for weekends and holidays. It has a really big effect on student’s learning and behavior. Countries shouldn’t make uniform a law because of the following reasons: student should have the right to decide on what they wear and how to express themselves through clothes, uniforms are really uncomfortable, and uniforms are more expensive than normal clothes.

Making uniforms a law will mean that students will not have the right to decide what to wear and how they express themselves. Research have shown that 30% public school and 54% private school is forcing students to wear uniforms, students in schools that need to wear uniforms and have really expensive clothes will only be able to wear them on weekends and it’ll be a huge waste of money. Also, students won’t know how to dress themselves when they grow older, which may cause a lot of problems for them.

School uniforms are uncomfortable. Girls, for example, will be forced to wear skirts and dresses. 70 percent of students didn’t want school uniforms and a big part of it is because they are uncomfortable. Student are the ones who wears the uniform, so if they don’t like it then countries shouldn’t make it a law. According to Newsela, 4 out of 5 expert said uniforms shouldn’t be a law. There’s no point of making uniform a law if it can’t benefit students.

Some may say that uniforms will prevent bulling. Research shown that nearly 70% of student believe that it’ll prevent bulling. However, student will still get bullied if they can’t even afford uniforms. According to NAESP, 77% of uniform cost at least 100, and families have to buy different types for season change. With such high price, not all family will be able to afford them. According to the guardian, many parents will have paid out 40% of their monthly income on “back to school cost”. Family are struggling to buy uniforms; parents have to work really hard on summer just to buy uniform for their children.

The reason countries make uniform a law is to benefit students. But the things problem is, the cost of uniforms is way bigger than the benefit it gives us. Countries shouldn’t make uniform a law so students won’t lose the right to express themselves, students could wear what they think are the most comfortable, families won’t have to struggle to afford uniforms.

 

Advice for Percy

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I think Percy should see ADHD as a good thing. “I figured they’d been in my shoes before and couldn’t wait to see how Luke used me for a punching bag” If Percy didn’t try to fight back than he will probably get laughed at. Another example is “What I did next was so impulsive and dangerous I should’ve been named ADHD poster child of the year.” If Percy didn’t try to save his friends, then Grover and Annabeth might die. Research shows that People with ADHD thrive in stimulating environments.