Hills Like White Elephants: Personal Response

It was easy to get into the story because Ernest Hemingway's description was detailed and realistic. When I read the story, I thought I had kown the man before because of Hemingway's graphic description.

I can totally understand the situation between the girl and the man and am her side definitely. First of all, the man is irresponsibe. He doesn't care about her even though he should know what to do for her. He is probably much older than the girl, who is still young, eighteen or so. Secondly, he is selfish. The girl is trying to persyade him or accept his thought; however, he doesn't listen to her. He was just trying to pretend to understand her feeling, but actually he has no mind to do what she wants to, which makes me upset. He doesn't know how important women's bodies are and becoming pregnant is. If a woman has an abortion, she will have a lot of risk to have some physical prablems and not to be pregnant any more. It is easy to have an abortion; yet women are wounded deeply instead .

I know I'm emortional a little much, but in my opinion, it is true..

" A Very Short Story"

From this story, I can say that Luz tied him down too much because while he was in the Status, he was so lonely without Luz and any friends. However, he was trying to get a job and keeping her promise because he loved and trusted her. On the other hand, Luz couldn't be patient of the loneliness. I can understand how she missed him; however, she did make a mistake.  Athough she told him the truth and how she felt, I don't think she was forgiven. I feel so sorry to him. If I were him, I can't stand that situation since I want to do what I want within common practice. In my opinion, keeping a long distnace relationship is very hard in general. If you are in that relationship, you are required a lot of effort to keep the relationship; for example, you have to call him/her regulary or have to get up early/stay up late to call them. I respect the people who have a long distance relationship :)

Peaceful Long Weekend

This long weekend, I went camping to Nairn Falls, which is near Whistler, with my host mother, a neighbor, and her kids. It was a lot of fun. We made a fire, had a barbecue, and roasted marshmallows. All we wore the smell of smoke for three days. We also went hiking, saw water falls, and walked around a lake. While my host mother and the neighbor were chatting, I was playing with her two kids, which was so exiting. The two boys were energetic and sometimes fighting. [most of the time..]

I used to go camping with my family ever year when I was little, but since then I had never gone camping because I was so busy and didn't have time to spend my time with my family. It was so sad. Since I came here, I realized how important the family is and my parents loved me. My parents are coming the day after tomorrow, so I'm exited about that!!!!!

I'll put my picture tonight :)

From " Red Thead Maiden"

In this story, there are General Hsueh Sung and his maid, Red Thread Maiden. Between two of them, there are some similarities and differences. First of all, both General Sung and Red Thread Maiden are respectful to anyone because even though General Sung has strong power to do whatever he wants, he treats Red Thread Maiden well and often listens to her suggestion. In the same way, Red Thread Maiden really respects General Sung. She has been working under him as a maid and secretary for a long time. Second, they are interested in music in common. Red Thread Maiden is good at music and can tell the emotional state of a player by listening to the tune of a nusical instrument as the story mentions, and General Sung can also recognize musics. Although they have somethings in common, thier personal characters are different in some points. General Sung is a very careful of anything; for instance, he always asks Red Thead Maiden to get aome suggesions though he is a king. In contrast, Red Thead Maiden is active and bold. In this time period, women don't take action as much as men do; yet she proposes a plan to be avoid fighting and does in such a challenging way. In my opinion, her actions make the story more exiting

The Gold Mountain Coat

In her short story, "The Gold Mountain Coat", Judy Fong-Bates describes the tensions of immigrate life in Canada in the 1950's. There were two Chinese families and a restaurant in a small town in Ontario, and the author was the only Chinese child there. Her father was managing a hand laundry and the other Chinese father, Sam Sing, and his sons, Ken and John, were running a Chinese restaurant. Sam was grim, traciturn, and stingy; therefore, he had never closed the restaurant for five years, and these two sons were sharing one coat. John wanted to bring his wife, son, and daughter, who were still in Cina, over to Canada, and he made it after several years. Sam, then, permitted his sons to close the restaurant for a half-day because they had to go to the airport to pick the family up. At the same time, the sons noticed that they needed another coat in such a  cold weather, so they decided to convince Sam to buy a new coat on Friday, which business was usually good. When they talked to Sam about the coat with a glass of whisky, his face turned harden; yet, Ken blurted out it was necessary for John's son. Because of this smoothing over, Sam permitted the request.

How to Write is How to Speak

Reading and writing in English, these two are I learned so much in Japan. Japanese people don't have a chance to speak English in a English class, so they know grammar and how to write an essay properly but not how to speak. From these experiences, I felt I didn't need reading and writing classes when I came here. I wanted to speak a lot, which I was hoping. However, When I started last session, I found that all reading, writing, and speaking were related, especially writing and speaking were so similar for me.

When I didn't have variety of sentences in writing, I didn't have many ways to speak either. In speaking, tone and rhythm are important to attract people; at the same way, they are important in writing. For example, the way to represent these things is using a short sentence or a rhyme in an essay or some other writings, which makes readers read easily. Since I have been studying writing a lot, I can use [or try to use] various kinds of sentences in my speaking. I can feel that writing helps improving my speaking as well.

p.s. Since I like taking pictures, I will put some pictures in my blog :)

What Writing Means to Me

First of all, I'm sorry for late posting the blog.

I made blogs few time before but didn't keep going because I was lazy, and at the same time, I had to consider what I wrote. I don't like it. I want to write whatever I want to say and think. Therefore, I always spend a lot of time to write an essay in the writing class.

However, I like writing basically! I have kept a diary every day for few years (in Japanese though :P) I usually write what I did, thought, and whatever without reflection. This habit is really important for me since this time is the only time I can be honest with myself. When I read over my past diary, I rerealize something important things which I have forgetten in my life.