#18 Public Spaces

I don’t really recall I have a time when I felt as if I altered public space. But I do have some experience when someone alters the public space in this way. I guess this is fairly common in Pacific American School. Whenever the lunch bell rang, everyone will rush out of their class room and dash to the cafeteria to be the first one to get lunch and avoid the long queue. Lunch time is probably the most fabulous time during school day. Everyone would use that precious 30 to 45 minutes to enjoy their café food, whether they are like it or not, and have the social time to exchange gossips, people’s feeling toward a test, teacher or the overall school activities. I guess all of our conversations are all quite normal, except once in a while boys will talk about some inappropriate jokes. However, most of our conversation will be in mandarin. This comes into a problem. Whenever our headmaster Ms Pamela walks into the cafeteria, immediately, table to table, people will stop their chats. It seems like she is some kind of mute button that whenever Ms Pamela enters, people will start whispering “Ms Pamela is here, English, English.” Although people do sometimes immediately change their Mandarin conversation into an English one, most people just stop their talk and focus on their food. It is exceptionally funny that our noisy cafeteria will be immediately silence just by the appearance of one individual.

#17 Brother and Sister

In my case, I have a older sister, who is only a year older than me. When we were small, we fought a lot. Back in those days, I was always trying to fight for any toys that my sister has in her hand. I never thought of the idea of “sharing.” I will always say “This is brother’s” in Taiwanese to whatever thing I have my index finger pointed at, either a pencil, cookie or a car. My sister was always so gullible and easily teased. Often times I would trick my sister and divert her attention to the TV or other things to steal away her toys. We would get in a lot of conflict for the toy issue. From what my mom recall, we were like bunch of little monsters. We fought with our teeth that instead of punching each other, we would bite. This is kind of hilarious that often times my mom would find bite marks on my sister’s back when she help her take showers. Then I would get in trouble to being such a naughty brother. Unlike Krull, most of the time it is me who teased my sister and plays pranks on her. Now she is off to college, I rarely have time to tease with her again. She is such a fun sister to hang around with.

#16 School tardiness policy

To me, I believe the current school tardiness policy is too extreme and counterproductive. It is true that this locking door policy when you are late for school in the morning is effective that it uses fear to force people to be on time for school. However, it sacrifices students’ chance for academic education. Although the school may argue that by locking people out for a whole day just for being late for school in the morning is super effective, it takes away school time. This kind of discipline issue should be taught to the student outside of school time. Instead of the locking door policy, I propose to have a stricter detention that should serve as an enough fear factor for people to learn to be punctual. In the past years, our detention system is never strict enough that people don’t really suffer and learn from such after school community service. However, if we impose a stricter detention system, we wouldn’t need a locking door policy. For every 3 tardiness to school in the morning, the student will have to spend a week of detention. It accumulates that way that if you have 6 tardiness, you will have 2 weeks of detention. In detention, students will be forced to clean classrooms and clean the school environment. They will need to write an essay everyday in detention for 30 min on various topic that the teacher choose to pick. The initiative of the policy is well established and reasonable. There is indeed a dilatory issue for students in our school. However, to correct student’s behavior, we shouldn’t sacrifice student’s class time and education.

#15 Controversial symbol

Does UFO really exist in this world? In the picture above, I choose a symbol of UFO to give an example of a controversial symbol. As depicted in many movies and science fiction novel, we are constantly visited and surrounded by alien that may take forms which we may hardly notice. In the movie series Transformers, alien can hide around us by camouflaging into vehicles and heavy machineries. In movie like Men in Black, these aliens may take human forms and blend into our world and society. So do UFO and aliens really exist? If they do, what kind of impacts will they bring to society? Will aliens invade our world like in the transformers movie and enslave humankinds? Or will they instead try to live peacefully around us? Or will alien be instead like refugees as shown in the movie District 9? I believe people may have controversial view over this symbol and how people respond to the issue raise by this symbol. Are these all science fiction created by people? Or are they based on some facts that there are indeed evidences that these extraterrestrial beings has visited us and left behind some trace of their existence on earth?

#14 Crush

Who exactly was my first love? I don’t think writing this kind of topic is particularly comfortable for me since I am quite reserved in sharing my personal history, especially in topics like romance. Well I will say it must be in my kindergarten that I met my first love. I wouldn’t really say it’s “love” since it maybe just an act of admiration and good camaraderie between the girl and me. It’s been so long that I have long since forgotten how exactly she looks like and her name. I only remember that I teased a lot with this girl that we become good friend. In kindergarten, I think I am just too young to understand the concept of young. I may just treat the girl like my sister that I would play pranks around her. She responded pretty well to my jokes that she would also play along. From the adults’ perspective, they may see this as some sort of romance. Back then, I wouldn’t be extremely embarrassed to admit that I like the girl. However, reflecting back, it must be funny for me to not feel embarrassed by this kind of statement. Anyway, since I graduated from elementary school, I have never seen her again and contacted her. She seems to slowly fade away from my memory that someday I guess I will totally forget about this fraction of my childhood memory.

#13 Response to "My Face"

        I don’t really know how people usually see me. However, based on how they react and interact with me daily, I guessed most of them have some relatively positive impression of me. I am often seen as a nerd who I find those people to be extremely foolish that they often fail to see my athletic ability. Regarding to my physical appearance, I would say I’m pretty normal or average. I am neither too ugly nor handsome. Although people say I look a lot better without my glasses, I tend to find them similar that I am who I am. Although when I take off my glasses, my eyes tend to be bigger that it is not framed by the glasses. To some people, they find my chin to be extremely funny that it is somehow too extended out. I find it kind of ugly, especially with my glasses on that my face seem to be extremely flat with a long chin. Like Benchley, when I look at the mirror in the morning, I often find myself to be a different person with a unique hair style every morning. Sometimes my hair will pop up like a maw hawk. Sometimes my fair will be extremely flat that I felt I have transformed into a 3^rd grader. Sometime my hair will just go so messy that it seems like a tornado has swept through my hair during my sleep.  

#13 Response to "Orange Crush"

Like Yiyun Li, I guess I have a food or drink that holds a special place in my childhood memories. I remember that when I first transfer from a Taiwanese local school to an American system school in Hsinchu International School, I was introduced to a type of candy that I have never seen before: Fruit Rolls. Fruit Rolls is a type of candy that rolls up on a thin piece of waxed paper with distinct fruit flavor on it. Whenever one eats it, the food dye of the candy will stain on your tongue, making it red, yellow, green and all types of fabulous colors. During 3^rd grade, fruit roll will seem to be label as the sign of popularity. Whoever has fruit rolls for snack, that kid will become the most popular one in the class that everyone seems to begging and pleasing that individual in order to have just a tiny piece of the fruit rolls. Since I was a new kid to the class and a pretty shy individual, I didn’t quite have the courage to ask for a piece of the candy. Instead, seeing such magical appeals that fruit rolls give, I decided to go to COSTCO and buy a huge box of it. Once I got it back home, I can’t wait to get a taste of it. However, the first bite of it immediately throws me off. It has such a strong fruity flavor that in a sense it just tastes unnatural like chemical. I have never tried any candy that is this strong in its sweetness. After just a few bite of it, I decided not to attempt to finish the roll that I just got fed up with its artificial chemically taste. However, as expected, I became popular in the class by generously giving out these fruit rolls to my classmates who helped me finish over 90% of the fruit rolls in the box. Now whenever I see a fruit roll, I appreciated the candy for helping me blend into the new school despite its awful taste.