How Can We Fight Injustice?

As the proverb says, "The pen is mightier than the sword." I really agree with this statement, especially when I live in a high technology world with computers and the Internet. There are many injustice on the world that we cannot solve (global poverty etc.), but we still can express our ideas by speaking or writing out our ideas. To me, I think works both spoken by mouth and written by hand are both very powerful. People can publish their works by blogs, newspaper, television, radio, or magazines. These are all common "places" that people constantly visits. Most people orders newspaper and watch television everyday; some listen to radios when they are the car; many read the magazines monthly, weekly, or even daily. These are all very power sources that can provide people to publish their work. However, among all of them, I think the best way to let people notice your work is to publish on the Internet so every person in the world can look at it and know what you want to say. Although this may not solve the problems, it still can let your thoughts be noticed.

Apollo Landing Rewrite

On July 21, 1969, Apollo II successfully landed on the Moon. It is the first manned space mission to land on a planet! This is so amazing. The space shuttle launched from Kennedy Space Center, carrying astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, and Michael Collins into orbit. They are all lucky guys to go to the Moon. On June 20, Armstrong and Aldrin landed their small lunar module in the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong then made his descent to the Moon's surface and spoke the famous line, "That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Over 600 million people stared at the television and witnessed the event. Armstrong and Aldrin marked their great achievement by planting an American flag in the soil, which is great decision. American became the first human to step on to the Moon and our flag is also the first flag being planted on the Moon! Before they returned to their shuttle, the astronauts installed a plaque that bore the signatures of each astronaut and President Richard Nixon, along with an inscription. The inscription read, "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We Came in Peace For All Mankind."

Why keep a diary?

To me, to keep a diary is to keep my memories. When I was small, my mother used to force me to keep a diary in English so that I can practice how to write in English. However, because I really don't know what to write, I wrote "I am happy today." everyday. Now, when I look through what I wrote, I felt really funny and recalled my feelings when I was writing the "diary" When I was in middle school, I kept a habit of keeping a schedule book. Although it is not a diary, I almost wrote down what I did everyday. And now, when I flip through the books, I can recall what I did in that year, in that month, and at that day. I don't know what the purpose of writing a diary is when I was small, so writing a diary is a painful thing to me. Now, because I found fun looking through what I wrote, I know that the purpose of writing a diary is to keep my good memories fresh, and I found fun writing it.

Should we LIVE for TODAY?

For me, I would choose to live for today. Time passes really quickly for me. When I first turned into a senior, I actually felt that I was just a small kid and just transferred into PAS. However, the reality is that I'm going to college within one year! When Mrs. Pamela asked us to write the resume for the college application, I found myself not recalling any extracurricular activities or academic rewards that I won. I felt shameful and regret about not using my time wisely, but to stay at home all the time. Before I go to high school, I actually though that I should save my time for studying, but I now changed my position. I think that people should use their time wisely when they are still young, so that they won't regret about not enjoying enough. My parents always tell me that "although I now think that life as a student is full of pressure, the pressure actually significantly increases after we go out to work, or when we can't get a job." Of course we need to think about our future and make some plans, but I think that we still should live for today and enjoy our life.

What is the role of death in life?

To many people, especially for children who are still young, death is far away from them. However, I had a deep understanding to death when I was in middle school.

I still remember, at the February of my 8th grade, my grandmother passed away. That day is a Saturday, and I still remember in that morning, when I was cleaning my room and when my mother is preparing lunch, I heard my father's voice coming from downstairs. My grandmother was lying on the ground, her face was pale, and her body was stark. The ambulance can only carry two family members, so I stayed at home all by myself the whole noon. My mother said that my grandmother passed away naturally without any pain, and this is something fortunate.

My other grandmother passed away also just a year after. She was sick and having huge pain. Although the hospital can continue her life, my uncle thinks that it is too painful for her.

Both of my grandmothers passed away when I was in middle school, and I had a close look to death. I know that death is not far away from me, but happening every day around me. Death may be painful, but it can also be peaceful or even an emancipation from pain. Death is not only the period of our lives, but also something that will happen around us.

What Should We Expect From Our Leaders?

Intelligence, morality, courage, eloquence, and charisma are 5 most important qualities that build up a good leader. Nevertheless, I think that the most important quality is charisma. Charisma is something that attracts people to gather around the leader. Even if a person has intelligence, courage, and eloquence, if that person has no charisma, nobody will support him. If a person has charisma, even if his intelligence is not so good, is not brave enough, and gives poor speeches, other people can help him. His followers can help him analyze situations, push him to do right decisions, and do speeches for him. At my point of view, as long as a leader has charisma, he can own good followers, and his followers may help him build up the qualities that he lacks. Since I’m not familiar with those great leaders in the real life, I’ll give an example from fictions I’ve read. In Infinite Terror, the protagonist, Zheng Za, is a man with poor intelligence and eloquence, but has charisma. He is very stupid and made many mistakes at first, but people were attracted by his charisma and gathered around him, and help the whole team to survive.

Sonnet Reflection

Difference between memorizing Beowulf and the sonnet is actually not small.
For Beowulf, because it's a story, when I am memorizing, I can think about the plot of the story and recall the lines. I can memorize the epic by memorizing the actions. In Beowulf, there are more actions than descriptions. Moreover, I think that Beowulf is easier to understand.
For sonnet 130, although it's shorter, because it focuses on describing the mistress, I found difficulty memorizing. In the sonnet, there are some hard words it's hard to memorize every word that's used to describe the mistress. Another thing is that I feel that the meanings of the lines used to describe the mistress is harder to remember. I searched for the definitions and meanings of every word and every line, but it's just hard to memorize with the original words.
One critical reason that I think most people didn't do well on the sonnet is that we preformed in Beowulf at the beginning of the class, but did the sonnet at the end of the class. I used to use the study hall just before British Literature class to memorize the sonnet, but it's obvious that I've forgot most of them after the class.