rules of love.

We all say its hard to describe love, even though most of us will or already have experienced some kind of love. Personally I think that we each have our own definitions of what love is. But there is also a set of ground rules or guidelines on this.. complicated thing/feeling. First of all, love doesn't come in just a second. There's a difference between love and infatuation and most of the time we don't even know what we're feeling. Infatuation is what we usually encounter first, and love comes in a later time. I'm talking about months and months and even years of dating to know when love has come.

Once you're in it, what do you do? Humans are monogamous animals, so that makes us naturally stick to one significant other for our whole lives. Most things are common sense, such as staying faithful. Resisting temptations is a big part of being a part of a couple. And another thing, your words should be accompanied by actions so you can prove that what you say is true. Cheating on someone is about the worst you can do to your partner. It just shows that you are /bored/ with your partner and want to experience someone new. Its the biggest violation of trust you can reach. Being with someone means you give them the power to break you, and you say that you trust them not to. It's fragile and it definitely is painful, but like most other things, it's an essential part of life.

There's a lot of unwritten rules when it comes to love, but most of the time all you have to use is common sense. Some partners may expect different things but you should be able to adjust while abiding by common sense.

Freakonomics: Three

Dear Roberto, Ming, and Brandon.

The book stepped into some pretty interesting stuff towards the end. Some things that really sparked my interest is when they started talking about parenting. Along the way in the subject of parenting, they started to talk about schools. Since the main topic was about parenting, it was discussing the difference of "good" schools and "bad" ones. With another twist put in, the comparison was of white and black students. Now, again, to me it gets kind of confusing with all the data and all but once I got it, my mind was blasted. The book helped clear up some of the things that we think are true that really aren't. And in contrast the things we thought were false, actually ended up being true.

The last chapter talked about how the name that a child was given actually effects their lives later on. The chapter gave a long list of names and by statistics showed which ones were the "best" and "worst." Now, it really is hard to believe something that a child's name has a lot to do with what they're going to turn out to be. "a researcher would send two identical (and fake) resumes, one with a traditionally white name and the other with an immigrant or minority-sounding name, to potential employers. The 'white' resume have always gleaned more job interviews" shows how even the name a person is given effects their chances of getting a job. It's really surprising.

To wrap this book up, how did you guys feel about all of the information in this book? Were you surprised at anything this book had to say like I was? Why or why not? If you could answer, that'd be nice. This book was a nice read overall and it was a pleasure reading it with you guys.

i feel like i'm in a soccer game.

Always talking about goals. Goals goals goals. Haha, I don't mind. It's nice to look back once in a while, no?

Like I've said from the last 'what are your goals as a writer?' assigned post, my intentions have generally stayed the same throughout the year. From the start of this whole blogging thing, I've said that I was planning to blog about a lot of different things, but mostly things concerning my personal[?] life. On the somewhat downside, I haven't been really analyzing my own writing as much as I should. So to go as far as improving my writing, I'm not exactly sure where I am with that. I feel like every single blog I've written so far has come directly from my mind. When I begin a post, it's not really planned and I don't pay attention to the grammar and structure of my posts as much. I tend to write until I have nothing more to say. I'm sure that if I actually try and analyze the things I say more and more, I could try and improve my writing that way. But for the time being, would you care to help me?

The audience I try and shoot for is none other than my peers. I don't write for some other big hot shot blogger just so they can like it. My peers are whom I could relate to more and therefore it's a lot easier to write what I write. The topic of my blog is best summarized as a collection of my thoughts throughout the year, and my purpose for writing about my personal life and thoughts is so others could relate, and it could eventually lead to a whole chain of thinking. To start a chain like that is pretty damn satisfying, needless to say.

Another reason why I write is well, again for personal reasons. A few years in the future I could look back to this blog and see exactly what I was going through and where my opinions stood during my sophomore year in high school. I could say it's a journal, but then again it's not exactly for myself only. I've kept this goal ever since my first ever post. And to quote, "I want to write things that I could look back to and see how I developed as a person."

Next year is an experience I will be awaiting. I don't have any idea where my writing will go, but if I have Sutherland as a teacher again then hopefully I could continue this blog and proudly say that I kept a journal through two years of high school. That would be nice, but I don't know for sure. If I get into a normal English class, I would suspect that this blog would be abandoned, and I would migrate to Tumblr. A good or bad thing? I don't know. But ever since I first experienced writing a blog, it felt pretty good and I would like to continue on it. I have to say, thanks Sutherland for giving me and opportunity to experience such. Among other things, you've broadened my mind.

First They Killed My Father: Three

The conclusion to this book is very relieving. As I getting closer towards the end of the book, every page I turned I felt that she, Luong, was inching closer and closer to safety. It was a very nice feeling to know that after everything she was forced to go through and the death of her loved ones, she would still remain safe with her family. The story started out with the Ung family being happy in Phnom Penh, but as the story progressed, she soon faced the reality that she had to say goodbye to Ma, Pa, Geak, and Keav. Even with the passing of some of her family, she still remained strong and looked toward light at the end of the tunnel. This amazing demonstration of willpower surprised me indeed, and Mr. Sutherland's guest as well.

The first sign of refuge is when the Youn invade Khmer Rouge camps and take many of the people living in the camps into their care. While the people are still unsure about the Youn, they still choose to follow them simply because they were against the Khmer Rouge, and the Youn were basically fighting their enemy. Despite some language barriers, the Youn and refugees still manage to live together quite easily. Luong however, was an unfortunate victim of attempted rape. The Youn tricked her into going to the woods for water, only to find that the man she trusted ended up trying to rape her. She luckily got away in time.

After a few more events, Luong and her brother Khuoy decide to move away from Cambodia entirely to find a better life. They planned it intricately so that the siblings that were staying still had support from overseas. This particular book ends when she gets to America, but she still trails some mystery.

Her sequel to the book, Lucky Child, continues where this book left off. It tells the story of how she copes with assimilating a whole new culture. I plan on reading this sequel on my leisure time in the near future.

First They Killed My Father: Two

The second part of the book continues as Luong and her family live in the harsh conditions of the Khmer Rouge. Already 2/3rds into the the story, you can imagine the hardships that Luong and her family have to overcome. They have to deal with having to 'migrate' from camp to camp in order to hide the true identity of her family, because if the Khmer Rouge ever find out that Pa worked for the government, or that they were city people, their existence would cease to be present. Along with that, they have to deal with the cruel treatment of the Khmer Rouge. But the Khmer Rouge deny this cruel treatment but instead excuse it as proper behavior in order to respect the Angkar. These hardships and more truly make it hard for Luong and her family to get by.

One chapter that caught my attention especially, is the chapter Keav. In this chapter, which continues where the story of Keav left off, Luong, out of nowhere, changes the point of view in her writing. The text become italics and begin to narrate in a third-person omniscient point of view. This sort of confused me at first but I gradually began figuring out what Luong was trying to show readers. The sudden change in point of view is a nice addition to the already interesting writing, but it no doubt took me by surprise.

In general, Luong doesn't fail to keep me motivated to keep on reading. Her stories are indeed interesting and I always wonder how she would get out of the sticky situations she gets in. I hope her writing and stories stay consistent to the aspects that made me love this book in the first place. I can't wait to finish this book. Enjoy the rest of the read, guys!

First They Killed My Father: One

What can I say, the moment I started reading the book I couldn't stop. Every night I would read for a good hour or two, get through a lot of pages. The way author Luong Ung illustrates her experiences as a child in the book allow me to create vivid images in my head. Only adding to the fact of how well she describes her environment. I have taken a nice liking to memoirs, especially after reading Night. Reading about other people's hardships make me aware of how lucky I am to live such an easy life compared to those who suffered.

As the book starts, Luong describes her luxurious life as a middle-class child in Phnom Penh. Her life was better than most of the people in her city, but she was a troublesome child. Her mother would always scold her but her father would back her up, often complimenting her actions instead of punishing them. She describes her large family one by one, using as much detail as she can so the reader can create their own image of the person. Luong assures us that she takes a higher liking to her father compared to her mother. It's a shame that this story of living a good life ends so fast. By the third chapter, things already start getting bad.

The transition to the jolly and happy-go-lucky feel of the book to a cold, ruthless feeling comes quick. The smoothness of the transition is pretty astounding too. I wonder why she chose not to go into much detail about her childhood at the beginning of the book. Maybe it's because she was so young? I don't know for sure, but that's plausible. She describes the situation the Khmer Rouge put her in as a "What will they do next?" kind of way, which leaves a somewhat mysterious feeling around the book. It always has you thinking of what'll come up next.

crisis of faith.

a crisis of faith: I was born and raised as a christian back in the Philippines. as a child I was always told to pray before I go to sleep to thank 'God' of all the blessings he gave my family on that day. I never really questioned why we had to pray, or who this 'God' was. I just accepted the fact that I had to do it or this 'God' would be mad at me. at least that's what my parents said. They always took me to church and again, I never really understood why. I just went with what they told me to do. As a kid, you can't really do much, right?

When I was about four, I immigrated to the united states with my family. Things were pretty much the same from back home, my parents would always tell me to pray right before I sleep to please this god. But one thing changed, and I think it was the vital part in which I changed faiths. That one thing was the fact that i stopped going to church. I don't know for sure if that was the real reason, but it sure could be a contributing factor.

Another reason could plainly and simply be, that I was growing up and forming my own opinions and views regarding the world. That was my point in life where I actually started questioning everything. Who is this god? Why is he here? At around the same time, I was hearing other people's voices and opinions about the same topics. To me, their opinions were much more logical than the ones I've heard. My belief was on the basis of logic, and of course I started to agree with other people's opinions because they were logical. The enforcement in going to church stopped as well at around the same time. All of these things weakened my Christian faith and eventually made me become apathetic and carefree about religion in general.

The things that made me lose my faith were overpowering. The questions I asked myself along with what I was reading helped me decide what I truly believed in. Of course it didn't happen just like that, but after much thinking and reading I finally set beliefs in new ground.

As of now, and a end result, I believe religion to be a collection of stories that people believe in so they can find a higher strength to depend on. See, when people are in trouble, they have religion to turn to so it could save them. All religions are basically the same thing. They all tell the same story, just worded differently. Religion is basically a guideline people believe in and follow to better their lives. There is no god, and all the stories in bible are in there to teach us a lesson about life. God only 'exists' as a tool to strike fear into a person. And as well as fear, it also gives a person a sense of relief.

But I can't really say what religion I follow now. Obviously I can't be in a religion that requires me to believe in a higher being. And I'm not sure whether or not I could say that I'm atheist either because I don't really push my belief that there is no god. To be honest, I could care less about religion. People can believe what they want to believe in, I won't stop them. I just know what my position is on this matter and I'll stick to it unless I get an epiphany or something.

I guess it's a bad thing that I haven't told my parents yet either, but I'm afraid of what they'll say or what their reaction would be. It's definitely something I'd be deathly afraid of because my mom is pretty religious. My dad is not very religious but he still wants me to pray each night. I don't know if I will ever tell them, so they could be worry free and not have to freak out despite the fact that I'm not Christian anymore. I think they could live without knowing that I lost my faith. Because I'm pretty sure they would question me a lot and look at my differently. They'd blame it on my friends and would freak out. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I won't ever tell them.

And that is the story of how the change of my faith came to be.

FINALMENTE.

So it's finals time. The year feels like it went so fast. I mean, it seems like yesterday was the first day I walked into the school a sophomore. And now, I'm already taking finals! Geeze, I want to cherish the little time I have in high school, but it's just going by too fast. Anyway, aside from that little rant, this is my English final.

8. How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?

To be honest, I love having a blog. It gives me a place to write, and it's guaranteed that my hands or wrists won't be aching after I write everything I had to. All my thoughts go into my blog, so whenever I'm thinking up a storm I can just go blog about it. See what people say. Who knows, my eyes could be opened to a whole new world just by getting feedback. That's why I love having a blog. Just a place to place my thoughts and get feedback.

With blogging, it's encouraging to write more. I don't know why, but that's the case for me. The fact that I get the opportunity to write electronically whenever I want just makes me want to do it more. And it's true that the more you do something, the more critical you get about it and how much better you get at whatever it is you're doing. Before, I didn't even write that much. There was no place to put my thoughts, and I just kept everything to myself. I only wrote when it was mandatory, like school assignments and the like. Even this is a school assignment as well, it's still different. I get to write about whatever I want. It's unrestricted writing, which allows a free mind to express themselves. I feel like I get a little bit better with each blog I post.

I thought blogging wasn't my forte. I thought that I could ever get into blogging. But hey, look where I am. Look where it got me. It made me love writing. It made me fearless to share whatever is going on in my head. Now sometimes I blog for myself, to keep memories. I keep all of that on my tumblr.

10. Where do you get your ideas for blog post topics? What inspires you to write?

Ideas come and go, it's always been a wide variety of topics for me. What I choose to write about is mostly what I'm feeling, or just a little something-something I find cool. And hey, according to that, I've been following my Statement of Purpose pretty damn well. "[...] If possible, I would love to write about a variety of topics and since writing about my personal life is the closest thing to that, I would like writing about my personal life.." and I'm sticking right to it. I might have a thought in my head all day or week and when I have the chance to blog about it, it just flows. Like a river. Sometimes a quote I might stumble upon or a random thought about life can give me ideas for a blog. It's just different each time.

I find it very difficult to pick ONE set topic and write an enormous amount of it, which is probably why I probably find standard school writing assignments dreadful. With a set topic, you have to nitpick every single little aspect to get what you need; that takes ages and to me it's just a waste of good time. On the other hand, free, unrestricted topics push my ideas to greater lengths and the ideas I get I can write about easily. Blogging about my day would be easier than writing about some stupid essay or something.

My inspiration on the other hand, I'm not quite sure about. Maybe it's the thrill of having an opportunity to inspire others. Haha, does that make sense? In a simpler way of saying it, is that when I'm inspired, it makes me want to inspire more people. So it's kind of like a chain. Who knows? Something I say in a blog might change someones thought on whatever subject I wrote about. I don't know, but that's the inspiration I'm talking about.

9. How did your classmates' blogs help you develop as a writer? Give examples from other blog(s) and from your own to show the connection(s).

Oh man. The times I actually browse other blogs actually give me more than I expected. Before I was using Google Reader, I admitted that I used the student feed that Sutherland set up to look at other people's work. And I wrote about that in one particular blog. I wrote about how the things that other people wrote about usually gave me ideas of my own, and I would form a desire to type up another blog in response to a blog, or to just state my opinion. But alas, I never get around to doing that. Most of the time I would probably think to myself, 'hey thats cool.' and continue on to ponder on about whatever I just read.

A subtle example of myself being inspired by a blog is probably this connected to this post by Michele. Random thoughts like that seem to spark my mind to think a lot more. I mean sure focusing on one thing and going really deep into detail about it is good and all, but it leaves no room to think for myself. It's like the person did all the thinking for me. On the other hand, jumping around leaving small bits and hints can initiate an interest, which would eventually lead to a thinking process. That thinking process is usually what a blog is for me. Unfortunately I lack further examples, but in the future I will make sure to give more details on how all of this works for me.

But for now, this is it.

quick, right?

1. What are some things you'd like to get out of writing more collaboratively with peers?

I'm not exactly sure what I can get out of a group. I seem to work best individually most of the time. But seeing other's work might influence me to write some different stuff that I normally woudln't write.

2. What are some things you'd be willing to contribute to a writing group?

Anything and everything. I'd contribute anything I can to my ability. I could share my ideas to other people, and they could share theirs. It'd be a huge circle of influential ideas bouncing around.

3. Is it more important to you to work with friends, or with people who are writing the same types of things you are? (Of course, it's possible to have this both ways...) Explain why.

More or less both. I'd be more comfortable working with friends than I would with strangers, naturally. But eventually I would get used to their ideas that I would want to get some new ideas. Being with friends, or rather people I'm familiar with, I would be more open to share my ideas. But with a group of strangers, I'd probably be a bit shy and restricted to what I would say.

4. What are some "rules" (or at least guidelines) you'd like to see in a writing group?

I don't know what kind of rules there should be. I think we should try and make up rules as we go along and change them to how we see fit.

For Mr. Charlie-man.

My only experience was in 8th grade. I don't remember much about it, but I think it helped with whatever assignment we were doing. We bounced around with our ideas and used those ideas in our own papers. It went overall pretty well. Hope it is as awesome as it was back then.

restatement of purpose.

Looking back at my first ever post, which was my statement of purpose, I can see how I'm doing in terms of the goals I set myself. I can happily say that most of my goals are still in the process of being complete. I've been writing more and more, as well as writing about the topic I wish to write about. I'd like to keep this goal intact because looking back on these blog posts would probably impact the way I think about myself more than I thought.

At this moment, I find that trying to read more is a hopeless goal. I feel that I have absolutely no time to read any book, unless mandatory. I don't think that it's because I can't find a good book to read, but rather the time. Time management is something I value, so trying to fit in time to read is quite hard.

One of my more successful goals, to get out more and hang out with friends, is going better than I thought. No longer do I sit on a chair directly after school for the remainder of the day letting my brain rot. I definitely have better things to do. The other goal that accompanied, to take bike trips more often, is also going well. Just recently, my brosef Sandy Duong said that our bikes were pretty much our lives. I agreed with him completely because we always get to our destination by bike. Without our bikes, we'd be lazy unsocial kids.

But in the future, I know I'll definitely try and set myself some new goals. I really need a way to push myself to be better academically, physically, and mentally. I hope I can set these goals for myself soon.

I don't know if I can add any more goals right now, since I like completing things I set my mind to first. But who knows, there might be a re-restatement of purpose.

Tatum's mind

I annotated this paragraph talking about my own thoughts on the whole topic. I wholeheartedly agree with the whole topic of this paragraph. If people say that they aren't prejudiced, it's a complete lie. Being a person also includes all the negative things, such as stereotyping and being prejudiced. We may not realize it and thats a good thing, since that expressing prejudice freely is looked down upon in society. I recall commenting on a blog post, saying "with good things come bad." Well, the good thing here is being able to live in a society thats culurally diverse. The bad thing being that we still discriminate one another, whether public or not.

This paragraph is an integral part of the whole article because it explains how each person works and makes people realize that if they think they're free of prejudice, they're wrong.

---------------------------------------------

(12.) Certainly some people are more prejudiced than others, actively embracing and perpetuating negative and hateful images of those who are different from themselves. When we claim to be free of prejudice, perhaps what we are really saying is that we are not hate-mongers.[10] But none of us is completely innocent. Prejudice is an integral part of our socialization,[11] and it is not our fault. Just as the preschoolers my student interviewed are not to blame for the negative messages they internalized, we are not at fault for the stereotypes, distortions, and omissions that shaped our thinking as we grew up.

Statement of Purpose

What I want to write about is questionable. I don't like writing only about one topic. Writing the same thing over and over again it gets boring. If possible, I would love to write about a variety of topics and since writing about my personal life is the closest thing to that, I would like writing about my personal life.

I want to write my goals, my feelings, my thoghts on different things, and etc; the things I want to better myself at, striking each little aspect of myself to see what I can change for the better. Being a student allows me to let my curiosity run free and familiarize myself for the future. I want to write things that I could look back to and see how I developed as a person.

Writing better is one of my goals; I'd like tobe able to write at a high level. One of my weakest points is analyzing a book and writing about it. I don't like writing about a book someone else wrote and nitpick at all the details. I want to be able to write freely without getting stuck and pausing to think about what I should write.

Reading has always been an "oh that stuff is boring, I only do it when it's mandatory" thing for me and I want to change that this year. I know lately I've been craving to read, to feel that feeling when the book you're holding is talking to you and telling you the best story you've ever heard. So far that one book that amazed me was "House of the Scorpion." I'd like to read more and experience a sea of stories.

I've always been a lazy person for the first fourteen years of my life I've done nothing but sit on my ass all day and stare at a screen. Along with reading and writing, I'd also like to change this one aspect of me. Getting out more to hang with friends or go on a bike trip once in a while would help me achieve this goal.

In short, I want to make myself a better person by spending more time doing useful things.