Metacognition:Mindbook

We did mindbook twice since the beginning of the school. I like doing mind book. I like how I try to think what to put in the mindbook to look pretty and creative. I like how I can express myself with a piece of artwork or writing. To me, the main goal of the mindbook is show my own creativity with certain form that is given, but feel free to express myself. The best part of mindbook is that to no one really can say about it. it's all about what is in my mind, what I think.
For the first entry of my mindbook was the art work that mixed every part of the body that I thought was pretty from charities and put it all together to make a "dream girl". What i ended up getting was a monster. So I found out that the beauty people think, is something imperfect. Not everything perfect isn't good. I was surprised how I came up with the thought to create a girl with every perfect part but it came really ugly. Also I like the conclusion. The second entry I did for my mindbook was write a poetry about the first thought when I first came to the U.S. It came from the old diary that I was reading one night. I thought it would be nice if I could make a poem out of it. So I put it in the mindbook. It was so much fun because it was all about me, like how I thought, felt, and saw. I named the poem "where I want to be", and it refers to the U.S. And I was surprised that how I rhymed for the last word of the sentence to sound like a poem. Also I never used what I was referring to but used kind of metaphors to describe the place where I want to be.

I always have many thoughts about many things but sometime I don't know how to put together or where to put it. But mindbook gave me chance to set all things together and made me creative.

Best of Week: College essay

This week, we learned about how to write a good college essay. The answer is very simple but hard: write what's creative. I've been very anxious about college applications, especially writing an essay. I have started my essays since the school started, but never get to finished. Anyways, I'm always stuck where a part that why I want to go that specific college. Some people have a really good reason to want to go that school but I don't. I want to go that school because it's maybe cheaper, has some benefits, or close to the home. Now, I can't write that on my actual college essay. Also it asks me to write my personalities that I haven't really thought about before.

On Thursday and Friday, Mr. Allen taught us about how to write a good college essays and showed us what to avoid write in college essays. It was very interesting to read someone elses' college essays and at the sametime, I was thinking that why I couldn't think to read others' essays first and then write mine. Well after I read, the first thing came to my mind was they were really good. Way better than mine. If I am an professor who gets to read the essays, I will definitely accept those students. Their essays showed how interesting person they are and creative. With Mr. Allen's explanations, I know the good essay and the not-good essay now. I wrote the new essay over the weekend. It's the draft and of course it stinks but I will work it out as I read more essays and learn from Mr. Allen.

Connection: What I've missed

Forest Gump said, "Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you're gonna get!" I think that is the part where I get most freaked about. You never know what is going to happen.
For most seniors, include myself, are in the position where we have to choose something will definitely affect on our lives. Knowing this is a pain, I am having so hard time with balancing the school works and the college applications. By last few days, I was so sick and tired of this stressful life. I come to school, learning all the unconnected stuff without breaks, and go to home, do the homework, sleep and so on. There was only work, work, and work in my life. Until I read about Feynmen.
Richard Feynmen is a famous physicist, who had received Novel prize. He wrote many books and did lectures, in his lifetime, so people know him fairly well. His life got harder when he made the atomic weapon. After the war, he became depressed by the thought that he destroyed the village, families, and country made him guilty and unfortunately, his wife died of tuberculosis. It's hard to go through those stuff when it comes altogether. Then, one day he was sitting in the school cafeteria and some guys tossing a plate in the air. Feynmen saw it, and was fascinated. He came up with the complicated equation and had fun with it. The plate brought him back to his normal life. A plate! After I read about it, I tried to see things positively and with curiosity. I noticed I missed the important point in my life because I am so busy doing "boring" works. The most important thing is having fun! Feynment could do the works when he was in bad condition, because he found fun in his work. From now on, I am going to actually having fun and enjoy all the school works and college application.

Change of mind: The Writer

I don't like poems. Especially poems with many metaphors, symbolism, and so on. It gives me a headache. So when Mr.Allen gave us poetry reading assignment last week, I almost freaked out. John Updike, I didn't know exactly about him but I have heard about him before, so I started to read his poem first. Matisse, Vermeer, Cezanne...... The list of names (I assumed) seemed like some foreign language. I put the paper back into the folder where I took it out. Few days later, I realized the assignment was due tomorrow, so I started to take more serious about it. This time, I read "The Writer" by Richard Wilbur first.

The poem was apparently about a father worrying about his daughter because she didn't listen to him as he tried to give her advice and the suggestions. The first time I read I noticed the daughter was a writer, and I had this feeling that the father didn't want her to be a writer because it's hard to be a successful writer. I read about five times more and each time I re read it, I was more confused by the point which the author tried to make. But I enjoyed some of author's symbolism, like starling was the symbol of daughter and house was "thinking" as the daughter tried to write.

In the class, Mr.Allen introdued me to totally different view of this poem. Richard Wilbur used three metaphors to reveal the theme of the poem. The first metaphor is the daughter’s life compared to a ship’s voyage. Also metaphor "great cargo" was used to the daughter’s life struggles. And the father wished his daughter a “lucky passage”, like wishes sent to passengers on a ship about to set sail. These expressions show how a journey at sea is like the journey through life. How cool is that? This assignment changed my view of poetry.