Isabelle's Literature Blog : D: 2010

2010-11-28

Rules of the Game

It is written by Amy Tan, I think it is a very interesting and funny story. The main character Waverly is named after “Waverly Place” her family's address. Waverly is a young chess player who lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown with her immigrant parents. From the story her mother likes to brag to her friends and neighbors about her daughter who is the chess champion. But Waverly is humble, she didn’t like to show off and felt embarrassed. The title “Rules of the Game” contains lots of meanings; such as life can be like a chess, we have to follow the rules according to survive or to succeed. If we don’t follow the rules or break the rules we would be blamed, fail, or be punished. But sometimes following too much rules will give us pressure, and soon we will be out of our breath. The story could also mean that we will never be satisfied with the rules that someone else had set for us.

The Girl Who Wouldn't Talk

I think this is a very interesting story, it is written by Maxine Hong Kingston. From the story you can tell that the narrator doesn’t like the silent girl at all, but she realized that they have many common points. She doesn’t want to be like the silent girl; instead she wants to be more like her American classmates. She thinks that Americans are stronger and more outstanding and she wants to be a part of them. By this you can tell that she didn’t really like her Chinese background. From the story you can see the difference between a Chinese family’s background and an American family’s background. To me, I think that no matter what culture you are from just be yourself and socialize more.

2010-11-25

Science Fair Project

My science fair is about what can dissolve Styrofoam the best, and my hypothesis was that using lemon’s juice might be the best solution for dissolving Styrofoam, because it is used in many cleaning products. Also it is know as the sourest fruit which has a high acid content.

Styrofoam, is often used for packaging, and is now turning into an environmental problem because people are having a difficult time recycling it. Styrofoam is made from polystyrene, but the difference is that polystyrene is a strong plastic. Polystyrene is created by two chemical elements which are erethylene and benzene, and when these two elements combined it will turn out to be a Styrofoam. However, Styrofoam cannot be decomposed in a natural way, so this would cause soil pollution; because it remains on the ground without disappearing, and then ends up to be a harmful pollution. This would lead to many side effects such as, the ground is polluted, landfills cannot be used, and famers will not be able to farm. To illustrate, it occupies a large amount of space, it is expensive to develop and is not easy to decompose. Unfortunately, not many recycling programs accept Styrofoam. Therefore, it is surprising that such material is made by oil and toxic, and is allowed to be use as packaging for food; mainly for items such as meat where the food has direct contact with it. Nearly two dozen cities in the United States have banned the use of Styrofoam for this purpose. In this project I am showing a way to save money and demonstrate a more natural way to dissolve Styrofoam.

My conclusion is that orange peel extract is the best to dissolve Styrofoam. I also learned that limonene only contain in peels but not the inside, and learned that orange’s peel have more limonene than lemon’s peel.

2010-09-29

DVD Project - Alternatives Uncovered

From the video I learned that alternatives helps pregnancy and loosing weight.

During the video it describes the situation of women having trouble with pregnancy at age 40. Most of them would use Chinese culture ways such as using acupuncture or by taking Herbs medicines; of course they would prefer natural treatments to help. Next, people control their weight or health by using alternative medicines. There are four ways, including vitamins minerals, Mind-Body therapy, Homeopathic, and traditional medicine to help loose weight or to help control weight. I think it is interesting to use the Mind-Body therapy, because they use different taste to balance people’s weight. Anyways, different cultures will have different ways to cure; it may be safe and it may be dangerous. People think taking Herbs would be the most natural and the safest medicine to take, but Herbs could also be harmful is has side-affection, and could be very toxic. So we need to be careful while taking these medicines, and there is a way to prevent situations like this. If you are worried then you should follow the steps below, learning your options, to get good referrals, screening the candidate, interviewing the provider, and to form a partnership. But I would suggest to do exercise rather than taking alternatives.

2010-09-25

Article - Forget What You Know About Good Study Habits

I think that for me it is better to study at places where is comfortable, clean, and quiet. And I like to have space during study times, like after schools I would like to play basketball first and then I will go back to school to work on homework. I do believe that testing your self multiple times will help you to remember the martial better, because I think you can practice questions that you don’t understand. Anyways, I learned that it’s better to learn in mixing contends; so I might try this before my math test next time. Because it is said that if you study on mixed questions from equations you will tend learn better. Also I found it interesting that the difficult it is then the harder you will forget.

The Devil and Tom Walker

The Devil and Tom Walker is written by Washington Irving. It’s a dark story talking about a man dealing with the devil, which the man sells his soul to the devil in exchange for wealth. Tom is a greedy man who only wants wealth more than anything. I think that the most interesting part is that at the end where Tom said, “The devil take me, if I have made a farthing”, then soon the devil took him right away. I think that these kinds of stories are often heard. Mostly the story tells about a man who trade’s his soul to the devil for things, which might include money, love, knowledge, or power. Anyways, the story telling us that it is foolish to sell your soul for something you wanted or to satisfy you; dealing with the devil will always have bad consequences.

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment

“Dr.Heidegger’s Experiment” is written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It talks about the desires of eternity, the greediness from human nature, and how people wasted their years. I personally think that this is a very interesting story; I like how Dr. Heidegger turned a dead flower back to life, and it’s funny that the four guests went right away to the fountain of Youth to drink the water. Anyways, it is usually tragic that characters don’t learn their lesson or unforeseen their fate. It is foolish to refuse what nature has planned for you, and these kinds of stories would give us ideas that getting old is nothing to be afraid of. The greatest regret is not to become old, but what you have wasted during your best years of life time; as you can see immortality won't make life better.