#Selfie

 BGM

 One person. One facebook page. One image that represents us.

This image is called profile picture. It shows up on every activity you do in social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Yahoo, MySpace, Youtube, Skype, Instagram, Pintrest, Reddit, Kik Messenger, Weibo, Qzone, Flickr, Vine, StumbleUpon, Wordpress, Delicious, Last.fm, Habbo, Digg, Kakaotalk, DeivantART, Cyworld, various forums generated through vBulletin, and even Blogger, the very platform used my me and my classmates to do homework. Because this image represents every aspect of our social behavior within these sites, these images, conclusively, are our virtual counterparts of our very own faces.

However, there is one crucial difference between the profile iamges used on the 27+ platforms and our own faces. First, we cannot alter our faces once it is generated (at birth). While plastic surgery changes small parts our faces, they cannot make a large enough change to actually change your identity. However, our profile images can changes, quite radically. One moment, it can be a picture of yourself at camp; however, it can be a picture of your favorite pokemon, a picture that indicates support for gay rights movement, a picture of Justin Bieber, or a picture of yourself at camp, simply edited to make the owner look more beautiful, more buff, or more different.

"Selfies" are now one of these types of photos, where one takes a photo of themselves. While it became recently popular in the States with the popular adoption of smartphones-which often come with front facing cameras-it was popular for quite a while in Asian countries, mainly China, Korea, and Japan, where feature phones already had introuduced front facing cameras in around 2005. However, these selfies, or 'selca'*s in Korean culture, create significant bias. 

The pictures may not say much. The picture on the above  might be trying to say, "I'm pretty". The one on the bottom might be saying that "I am popular." But are these images true? While 'pretty' is too objective to determine whether or not the lady is 'pretty' or not, the sefie does not match the lady in the left. Same goes for the image in the bottom. Are they really close friends? Or are they acting friends so they have an image to tweet about?

These create bias about the person. We, the viewers, might think that this girl is pretty. Maybe those girls are popular. We never know until we actually meet them in real life. Afterall, the virtual society is a place where anything can be lied about.**

The horrid fact is that all of us are aware of these, either concsiously, unconsciously, or both. The overweight girl in the picture above knows very well how she was treated in real life when she was an overweight girl. The desire to avoid this is the very reason the girl decided to take her selfie. The girls in the bottom might have felt like they were being left out, while her facebook friends were out partying or hanging out. The selfie was her solution to those unresolved feelings.

With the recent spread of social networks, this is quickly becoming a psychological issue. While unified name for this phenomenon does not exist, it has been consciously proven that the girls above are simply a part of a bigger vicious circle, a cycle where one bad event leads to another. This is merely possible because the girls would see these pictures; become socially anxious; post biased pictures themselves; and another girl sees the picture. Social depression and general anxiety in superficiality is the quick result.

We all know the bias is there. 'Everything is an argument', and everything is biased. You know this, like it or not, and it's been proven when you chose that picture of yourself for Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+...

This is my current profile picture for Facebook.

Guess what I am arguing through this picture...

_____________________________________________________________________________
*short for self camera. These became wildly popular in 2005 in Korea, and quickly spread to China mid 2000s. Japanese, does not use the term, nor ever took this practice consciously; they were already flippin their phones and cameras around to take pictures of themselves.

**http://warrenleeap.blogspot.com/2014/02/id.html

A Mod-ern-est Proposal

BGM This is quickly bcoming a habit


It is a time of chaos in the land of Ukraine. The Crimean peninsula is once again the center of conflict. While Russia has decelared that they will be taking back the peninsula, the residents of Crimean had a state-wide vote on the issue. Suprisingly, 93% had voted in favor of being part of Russia.

Crimea has been a place of conflict several times in the past. The piece of land larger than the state of California was placed under the Imperial Russia for 200 years, until 1917, in which the Soviet Union was formed. Nevertheless, it was kept under Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Then, in 1954, Russia simlpy gave it to Ukraine. During this time period, such transfer of land masses in wholes were of not much importance. Afterall, both countries were still under USSR. This was the case; until the Union collapsed in 1991.

It was kept under Ukraine. There was an attempt of independence in 1992, but the Ukrainian government persuaded them to stay as a smaller republic under Ukrainian control. Still, the 93% of Ukrainian residents are demanding that they become a part of Russia. The US, along with the majority of the nations worldwide, however, has declared that they do not agree with the results. Meanwhile, military tension is growing, ready for war over who gets to keep the geographically important place.

I shall now give a modest proposal about this problem, which I am sure will nobody will object to.

I have been told by a profound American man* that this country owns 5113 nuclear weapons. Considering that a total of 70,000 pieces of nuclear weaponary was produced, that over 8 trillion dollars were wasted, and that US spent nearly 50 years building them, US certainly wasted time and space in what seems useless.

I do therefore humbly offer to the that man that the remaining 5113 nuclear weapons should be launched, detonated, or set off in such a manner that destroys the peninusla itself. This will eliminate Crimea itself. Furthermore, Russia and Ukraine will have on less reasons to fight for, and will be one step closer to becoming, once again, good international friends.

This is certainly not the only reason I suggest that the US use their weapons on Crimea. We, US, always loves to take part in the doings of other countries. This makes the United Nations virtually useless, but we can always waste another couple million dollars on sending military to other countries. What a peace-loving nation.

Furthermore, these nuclear weaponary need to be used up somehow. America wasted millions on getting rid of the already existing nuclear weaponary, and it certainly costs less to use them, instead of dissassemble them. The time and money spent during the Cold War must not go to waste.

Therefore, I repeat: America should launch nuclear weapons in to Crimea in order to project piece in eastern Europe.

A Measure of Progress

bgm

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly - Robert F Kennedy

Meet Radium. It is number 88 on the Periodic Table, discovered by Marie and Pierre Curie, has radioactive properties, and ended up in killing many people such as the 'Radium Girls' who conacted radiation poisoning via radium in paint. Oh boy. Sounds bad. Or at least Chet Raymo, writer of The Virgin and the Mousetrap, thinks it was. He uses those negative facts to affirm that scientific development, including the current ongoing research about genetic engineering, will turn on us, and harm us, much like the two faces of Janus.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I think our dear Mr. Raymo forgot to say a lot of things. Radium, with proper caution, was once one of the most early and popular methods in fighting cancer, or more specifically, bone metastasis. Even the FDA approved its medical effects. 

Raymo was certainly correct about science being the "circle of the Janus-faced god." However, this applies to other couple million things in our everyday lives. Take Blogger, for example. People can use it to share their experiences in watching TV or their thoughts about a ridiculous essay. However, people can also use it to share videos that infringe copyrights or post the privacy information of other people. Oh. Do I smell some sort of similarity between the very system we use to blog and some random element on the Periodic Table?

Yes and no. Radium quite certainly can be decieving, and you must be very cautious about dealing with the radioactive metal. However, they are both essentially similar in that they can both be used in good and bad ways. It's just that Blogger, or Google, can certainly censor things that they determine dangerous, while there certainly isn't a Chemistry God who can decide to censor things like Radium. Humans have to do it for themselves, ourselves.

Remember what I said about radium? It's helpful in cancer treatment "with proper caution." Raymo is certainly right about the fact that scientific discovery could be harmful. This is preceisely the reason mankind must learn how to harness science correctly, and be ready to be responsible for any harm. Progress is not simply about finding new discoveries; it's also being able to use it for our benefit. Only then is Radium effective in removing tumors, not the patient's life. 

Science is two faced. So what. Deal with it. Humanity dealt with it since evolution from chimps. If prehistoric people decided not to use fire because it was hot and potentially burn eveything including themselves, and decided not to use it, the only sort of meat we'd have is sashimi. But why hold back on science now?

Maybe "Consumer" should be replaced with Raymo...

No progress can be made without risks. No success can be made without the possiblity of failure. Raymo decides ignore this. Sure, the "unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril", but when you hem it all together, you get a piece of T-shirt called progress. Of course the T-shirt might be itchy or too unfashionable to wear. But there's no gurantee that all T-shirts mankind makes will be unwearable. So here sits mankind, diligently sewing together progress.

Identity and Public Space

Crack Rock by Frank Ocean. The song samples Little Miss Lover by Jimi Hendrix.
Listener discretion is advised, as the song contains foul language, violence, and  images of drug usage. Keep in mind that this song does NOT support drug usage. Instead, it criticizes drug usage.

Frank Ocean is not your stereotypical African American musician.For one, he hates drugs. His 9th track from the Grammy winning debut album channel ORANGE, named Crack Rock-in which Ocean pays hommage to Jimi Hendrix by sampling his song, Little Miss Lover- illustrates a man suffering from crack cocaine abuse, left with nothing but his drug pipe. But with drug abuse proven countless times to be harmful, and musicians blamed as one of the biggest causes of drug abue, this anti-drug movement is becoming more and more widespread.

Frank Ocean is homosexual. Gay. His coming-out was one of the biggest issues in the Black music industry, since the stereotype of the scene is that large amounts of the people there are homophobic.

While others might say that this is no big deal, this was extremely controversial in the scene. Not only were some artists pouring fire on Ocean, it changed the fates of the current music generation, and generations to come. Ocean is the first of its kind, the first major level artist to break the stereotype. This will not only change the way people in the Black music industry react; it will change the way people do profiling on African Americans.

This is more of the things needed to minimize stereotypes, like mentioned in my previous post. We need more people like Brent Staples, who do not match their stereotypes, and more people who understand that public space can be altered in many different ways.

Say that a young African American high school student decided to sing Crack Rock at school, with explicit words filtered out, emphasizing the fact that drugs will hurt you. This also is black man and public space; he only altered the space in a positive way. It's possible.

This, however, is often not the case. Going back to the idea of stereotype threat*, many choose to conform to the stereotypes posed upon them.

That does not mean you should walk out in to the world and act like someone who you aren't. Jeannette Walls, in The Glass Castle, shows readers the importance of keeping the balance between fitting into society and conserving who you are.

"'Just tell the truth,' Mom said.

'That's simple enough."

-Walls, Glass Castle

The outerspace is a large region, large enough to hold 7 billion different types of people. However, that loses its meaning when we are afraid to show who we are. Regardless of race, gender, or the way you can alter public space, you can be who you are. 

Stereotypes and Public Space

Like it or not, people use stereotypes. Unfortunately, that includes both you and me. Deny it all you want, but it has been proven statistically that the majority of humans use heursitics: a set of shortcut methods of the brain used to identify a situation or a problem, or judge and decide what to do. This psychological theory includes a certain heuristic called Representative heuristics. Basically, when people encounter a certain stimuli, they compare it with mental images formed by previous experiences.

This often works quite well. However, it often fails to work correctly and identify the situation. Take a look at this picture. Who do you think this man is?

Clean cut suit, clean face, gray hair, glasses. Businessman should come to mind. Not only because the keyword I used to find this image is 'businessman", but also because it matches our image of a business man. But there are other possibilities; he could just as well be a fittitng model for a suit, an actor playing a businessman, or even just a man who likes to wear suits. 

Apply this mental fault to different situations. You see an African American. He's wearing a oversized hoodie and sagged jeans. Dark circles under his eyes. Seems like it's been a while since he last shaved. Staring right at you. Chances are you'll be quite frightened, because this man is matching your mental image of a criminal or just dangerous in general, becoming a stimulus for the emotion of fear. In other words, you have just stereotyped this man, using representative heuristics. It is certainly not your fault. Afterall, use of heuristics are strategies that have been hardcoded into our brains.

Brent Staples illustrates this quite well in his essay, Black Men and Public Space. He is often mistaken as someone dangerous, which is shown quite well in his many examples, even though he was actually an University of Chicago student. 

While stereotyping is a social problem people have been facing for the past century, there is not clear solution since there is not much people can do. Psychologically speaking, we still will make stereotyped generalizations no matter what, since we can't choose to use heuristics or not. One thing that is possible, however, is editing the representative image that we compare the subject to in representative heuristics. Of course, this is not something that happens overnight. People who use heuristics need to be exposed to different images of a certain group, and those who are the certain group need to become different and disprove the stereotype. 

Take Native Americans for example. Sherman Alexie, in his short story, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, illustrates the reality, where Alexie is stereotyped as another dangerous, drunk, and violent Native American. This is because the people in Lone Ranger need to identify this Native American stranger. And people make those stereotypes because the representative image of Native Americans is dangerous, drunk, and violent, due to the way a large majority of they way these people act. If there are less of these types of people, and more of media exposure to the mass about these people, we can successfully remove stereotypes. 

Introducing the all new 2014 S/S Collection...

Parenting 101

So there are lots of parents. Obviously, there is a variety between all of them. One of the biggest difference in determining these is 'nurture', which states each distinctive difference everyone has come from they way they were nurtured. This heavily contrasts with the idea of 'nature', that much of our differences come from our biological genes. These two factors, together, determine each of us as people. For example, my small mouth is due to nature, but my habits of not opening my mouth wide come from nurture.

Parenting, however, is heavily dependent on our nurture. One of the reoccurring ideas in many developmental theories is that each parent's parenting styles our a model of their own parents. This correctly supports the notion that people abused as children abuse their own children when they become adults.

Our own parent's are no exception to this idea, which is why parents in different culture raise their kids differently. For example, the common stereotype of Asian parents, easily summed up in the phrase, "tiger mom", is that Asian mothers tend to focus heavily on academics and getting to a good college. However, this is only a cycle of what they had gone through.

For one thing, my mother was not  study intensive as a student. She loved books: Not your common light romantic novels, but recordings about the kings of Korea, or classic pieces of Western literature translated in to her native language. While we, as students, often read these books in order to get grades, her parents were not so happy about all these books, as they were posing as distraction to her studies. Her conservative father heavily affected her, and she, like the majority of her generation, was hit whenever she made him angry, in this case reading a book.

This reflected her ways of parenting. She took time to get me to read books. Furthermore, according to her own words, she "took time to make sure I didn't get hit." However, corporal punishment is still widespread in Korean parents, and its really only because they were raised in that way.

Green Menace

René Magritte's The Son of Man, 1964

-Warren Lee

A green apple is being thrown across the air,

full one hundred miles per hour, at 

a single man standing in front of an old wall.

The man dressed in a black coat and a black bowler hat,

did not see this coming.

He was simply minding his own business,

getting his picture taken.

Oh, he's no model

who would show off his marvelous swim shorts.

In fact, he is going to hide his awe-striking swim shorts

under his dull suit, but rather a common suit.

It's nothing to hide that his suit is worn by many.

It'll make him competely normal, 

someone so normal that they'd fit into the crowd perfectly,

so that if he takes his picture, nobody would notice him and his crooked left arm.

So he got his new camera out, set it on a stand,

went back to stand in front of the wall,

with his back to the vast ocean that smelt like

a piece of rotten old fungus, a fowl stench that would normally make people frown.

But,

maybe he was wrong.

Not only were people not frowning. 

the apple was coming straight for his face.

Blimey, he was not mixing in, in fact, he was very noticeable!

At first, the man wasn't alarmed.

He was rather curious-

a green unripe apple.

What could it possibly taste like?

He was imagining sour juices exploding in his mouth,

covering his throat as if it were trying to invade it.

The next thought blew on him as the apple got closer.

The man could feel the strong gust of wind, 

not simply tingling his skin,

but pushing against his face like a bully pushes little kids in school.

He felt slightly anxious.

Will the apple hit him?

He could hear the sound the wind created by the gale of green,

like the musical crescendo created by a full string orchestra.

Oh goodness, the man was feeling very anxious,

even fearful of what would happen next, buy

people could no longer see the man's face.

They could not feel what the man felt-

his emotions were already hidden under the green menace.

His arms were already hidden under the green menace.

The man in the suit was already hidden under the green menace.

010715: Life Off the Boat

 ^BGM.

Assimilation, to me, is a very delicate topic. It's always been. I have moved 5 times, each time to a different country. This doesn't simply mean a different language or different color of skin the people around me have. It means a different culture, a different mindset, and a different attitude.

When I first moved from West Bloomfield to Seong-Nam-si, I was different from other people. Sure, I had yellow skin and black hair. I spoke korean and could do two digit multiplication. But something about the kids were different. They hit each other or harshly made fun of each other, simply for the fun of it. Classroom wide bullies or even grade-wide bullies were no more a character trait from Horrible Harry. But this was nothing special. Oh, things usually changed within an year when classes or semesters changed, and those kids who were bullied are currently doing very well. Or, that's what I sensed from talking to them over facebook.

Anyway its no big deal. You might me reading, thinking how horrible these 12 year olds must be, but really it's only a difference in the mindset and culture between Americans and Koreans. I can tell my Korean friends that my American friends don't like physical contact and they will react suprised. 

After moving around 5 times, I can tell you with confidence that I am very flexible with meeting new people and adapting to a new environment. But the fourth time I did so, from West Bloomfield to Seong-Nam-si, when peers around me had developed into the culture around them by embracing it, rather than simply being kids, it was hard. The fact that I was different was the biggest issue. So I learned to embrace and assimilate with the people around me. By the time I was in seventh grade, I was not that kid who had moved from America anymore. I was just 010715*.

By the time I moved to a place 30 minutes off of where I used to live before I had moved to Seong-Nam-si, I was, again, diffrent. I assimilated into a group of friends who were like me; who had moved from foreign countries. People call this group, 'fob'. Fresh off the boat, they say. But if you ask people in this group about me, they'll tell you that I am not fob, but instead an American kid who used to live in Korea.

So that's who I am. A hybrid of two cultures jjampponged** into one. Amy Tan claims otherwise. In her short story, Fish Cheeks, she says that "You must be proud you are different" and that "Your only shame is to have shame". However, is not being proud equal to being shameful? I am in many ways similar to another American born person. Many don't even know that I have moved around numerous times. Yet, I am proud to be both Korean and American in various aspects. In many ways I am both an assimilationist and and a disassimilationist.

"I'm a ... walking paradox

No I'm not"

-Tyler the Creator, Yonkers

Amy Tan's mother, in Fish Cheeks, tells Tan that she should "always be Chinese:" While maintaining a culture is great, being someone who is unique is more ideal. Her other works, The Joy Luck Club and  Saving Fish from Drowning, are all about China. Considering her college and birthplace are in America, one could claim that she has kept her cultural backgrounds, but one can also say that she has failed to adapt. 

I've once was in deep worry about who I really am: American? Korean? It wasn't only an year or two ago that I decided not to care. Does it matter? I'm me, and no words can describe me. 

_____________________________________________________________________________
*010715 is a student ID number that changes every year for every students. First two digits stand for my grade number. Note that seventh grade is the first grade of middle school in Korea. Second two digits stand for my classroom (or homeroom. Most classes are in homerooms, and teachers move around classes instead of students.), and the last two digits are my number in alphabetized order, with a gender split. Kids with last names that are front of me in Korean alphabet would have a number less than 15. In American comparison, if someone has the last name Aaron, he'd be 01, because the English alphabet begins with A. Therefore, I was Grade 1, Class 7, Number 15.

**Korean slang term that means: deeply mixed and jumbled. Originally a korean soup bowl of noodles, seafood, some meat, and various vegetables. 

ID

When you sign up to a website, like say, Yahoo, you must choose an 'ID'. While the abbreviation was used throughout the internet around late 1990s to the early 2000s, it originates from two things. Freud used the word 'Id' to categorize a person's instinctual drives, but ID is also used for the short of the word, 'identity'.

We define this ID, or username, when we first join those sites, followed by a long list that includes a password, a birthdate, a gender, an address, a question for your password, an email address (twice), and a repeat-after-me sort of thing where we prove that we are human beings rather than hacking tools. All this following data will be, after you sign up, a way for the servers and machines to define who you are; it will be their perception of you.

Yahoo's perception is often user based content*. This means that it shows ads, content, and news, based on the account information it has. If the account is set to male, it often will show the user a sports or car related content before the ones about pop stars or new fashion trends. However, there are many issues that Yahoo will run into before they make a successful appeal based on the account information they have. First, they cannot tell if their perception is true. Users can afterall, choose to lie on the web.** Second, they cannot tell if their perception matches the identity. For example, a women can be interested in sports and a man might be interested in fashion.

Yahoo thinks that I like cars since I am a man.

This is the difference between identity and perception. Perceptions are made by other people other than yourself. Identity, however, is a definition of yourself defined by yourself. This is just like websites. You choose your own ID for the internet, and the internet chooses its perception based on the information you give them. You can change these perceptions under the 'account settings' button, but you can never change your ID.

                                                                                                                                       
*Yahoo in certain countries do not use this feature. While Yahoo Korea, Yahoo Japan, Baidu, Naver, QQ and several other Asian based web portals uses it for sure, Yahoo Korea closed down at the end of 2012. Furthermore, many of these search engines and web portals now also analyze the trend in the user search queries to find the best appealing contents and ads.

**This is becoming an increasing problem in Asia. "“Nekama” means male participants who represent
themselves as females on the Net" (http://www.kisc.meiji.ac.jp/~ethicj/asai.pdf)

Tadpoles Are Really Ugly

There is an old asian proverb, that goes, 'The frog forgets his time as a tadpole'. The related folktale is that tadpoles, as a tadpole, yearn to grow in to a frog. They wriggle around hard, trying hard to grow their legs. However, once they morph in to their dreams, they forget their past and act like they've gotten their dreams by working hard, believing themselves a 'self-made man,' when they are actually the product of a biological predisposition that have been to applied equally, self made or not, to their ancestors.

The irony isn't only applied to animals in the folktale. Real life examples exist everywhere: The white community from "The Raisin In the Sun" is a perfect example. They too were tadpoles, working hard in order to achieve their dreams. Yet, they decide to ignore other people's dreams, because they aren't tadpoles anymore.

Does success negatively impact people on who they are as people? While the question is not a rhetorical, it cannot be denied that they change, good or bad. Windows founder Bill Gates uses his pile of money to help the poor, and rapper Game set up a music studio in a public high school. However, we can never tell if they are still in contact with those they have known before success. In fact, countless numbers of celebrities refuse to date those that are not celebrities.

What is true to multiple extents, however, is the outrageous attitude of Karl and the community. The ugly racism aside, they decided that their dreams are superior than other people's dreams. The way they outright ignore there slightly different (mind you, different does not equal wrong) shows how self centered and selfish humans can be. It is undeniable that humanity must work towards resolving these problems; not only racism, but the selfishness that potentially lies under all of us.

Pop Goes the Dream

So Gatsby is a self made man. Be it. But what came out of it?

Jay Gatsby, in the Roaring Twenties novel, "Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is illustrated as a self made man who has built his wealth and reputation in a common goal to get his dream girl, Daisy Faye Buchanan. Sadly a few problems already rest for Gatsby. She's already married, Jay; if you want a girl, you gotta go get her quick if you really want her.

But once he has finished building his ability to run parties on a weekly basis, Daisy was already married. While the that fact allowed Gatsby to be held 'esteemed' among his 'peers' (oh, the irony), he had only one goal to achieve such success: Daisy. Once he loses this sense of goal, he lacks a reason to continue on. In this sense, he loses nothing when Wilson kills him. 

This seems to be a running theme between pieces from Fitzgerald; another example is his short story, "Winter Dreams", in which Dexter goes after a deja vu - causing rich girl named Judy Jones. Dexter also happens to be a "self-made man". But similar to Jay, he finds Judy, many years later, not only married, but left without her beauty. 

Society considers 'self-made' an extraordinary attribute. But even such can lack a meaning if dreams are popped. 

"We made ourselves, one by one like Lego blocks

Got the fire in me goin, blocks melt down

What's this for if I can even tell who I am

Let me break back apart and organize my dreams"

-Fana, "Still a Team"

Dolla Dolla Bill Y'All

Welcome to the Jazz Age. The government has prohibited alchohol usage. However, people party on a weekly basis like there's no tomorrow, with more and more people becoming a part of the wealthy elites. Economy itself is sky high, people are having a marvelous time. Are these people happy?

Fast forward one hundred years. Artists have started to spread the message that "Cash rules everything around [them]" (C.R.E.A.M. - Wu-Tang Clan), criticizing how much money is important in our lives. Jessie J goes further to say that "It seems like everybody's got a price" (Price Tag - Jessie J). This change in culture vastly reflects how much people are aware of materialistic views.

The "Great Gatsby", the famed novel by Robert Fitzgerald, set in the Jazz Age, shows the influence of materialistic values on the American society. While people may look happy, they can often be seen unhappy; couples argue at parties, affairs are common, and many die at parties. Then the party resumes the next week, or even that very night. Behind the jazz music and the group of fancy dancers, only sadness awaits. 

America already experienced what happens. The 1930s were a mess. However, the 'money money money' state of mind continued on. This is still illustrated today, such as the Black Friday sales. The day before is Thanksgiving, when people supposedly are thankful of what they have. They hurry to finish dinner and run to the mall to get in line to get in their favorite shops and buy a bagful of clothes or electronics. The irony ensues every year.

People are becoming more and more aware of such ugly fact about America. The materialistic views, however, are not changing. Furthermore, America is one of the biggest examples that developing countries follow in order to gain economical success. To serve a good example, and also for their own good, America needs to not only be aware, but improve the way it thinks about the dollar bills.

"Goddamnit I like it

Bright lights [are] enticing

But look what it did to Tyson

All the money in one night

Thirty mil for one fight, 

but soon as all that money blows,

all the pigeons take flight"

-Jay Z - Holy Grail

New World

It was late at night. I was sleepy and almost done with my English homework. Wondering why I was procrastinating, I started to read the essay,"Sanctuary: For Harry Potter The Movie" by Nikki Giovani, while thinking why both the colon and "For" is in the title and how the authors name resembled a certain female rapper. Questions started to hit my tired state of mind, asking what relationship drums have with the fictional childhood hero of mine, while words crashed onto my thoughtless brain...until I saw the words, "New World Symphony." (77)

You may need to go to Youtube to view the video. But then again Karajan is amazing.

Memories started to flow back in. I was 5th grade, half way through the year, possibly early fall*. I recieved about 8 or 9, possibly 10 pages of music as a second chair second violinist. And yet there I was, flipping through the pages while furiously wondering how I'd be able to lead the section when I had no idea how to play half the notes. First rehearsal was a mess. I remember the conductor telling everyone that it's ok, and that if we all practice, we'd be able to play it well. Months flew by and I remember sitting on stage, staring at the conductor, ready to play the Finale to the Dvorak's 9th Symphony, also known as the New World Symphony. 

Or people often know the Romantic masterpiece as the theme song to the 1975 thriller movie, Jaws. While composer John Williams sampled the Finale to resemble the sharks, Dvorak was thinking of trains when he wrote the piece back in 1892. In fact, he was known to be a big fan of steam locomotives. This showed up in his pieces: the New World Symphony is a perfect example. The phrase where the introductory Adagio accelerates into a faster Allegro sequence in the first movement and the beginning of the the 4th movement, the Finale, the part William sampled for his work on Jaws, are both known to resemble locomotives slowly speeding up.

The No. 9 was named "New World Symphony" for various reasons. Trains, was fairly new, and for Dvorak, who had just moved to America from Czech to conduct at one of the most prestigious conservatories in New York for three years. To him, America itself was a 'new world.' However, there is a seperate reason to why Giovanni alludes to the piece in her essay.

When Dvorak was writing the symphony, he was influenced strongly by Native American and African American music. He, instead of borrowing Native American or African American tunes, invented his own in that of a similar fashion to them. He even insisted that the third movement "was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians dance...imparting local color of an Indian character..." Hiwatha refers to Longfellow's hit epic poem, "The Song of Hiawatha," the story of and Native American hero. Dvorak, in his own way, was already accepting the marginalized parts of society. 

This, coincidentally, falls right on to Nikki Giovanni's purpose in her writing. She, in her essay, calls attention to marginalized parts of society and illustrates the theme of acceptance. The New World Symphony is a perfect match. Giovanni uses this allusion not only to refer to a 'new world' of acceptance, but also to show the efforts of accepting diverse parts of the American society.

The concert was a success. Parents, friends, teachers, and everyone else loved it. It was so popular that the next year, before I graduated, we played the piece one more time.** It were these memories that woke up my half asleep brain on that recent night.

*When I was in 5th grade, I was in Korea, where the semester starts in March and resumes for the second half in September.

**In Korea, there are 6 years in elementary school, followed by 3 in middle and high school.

Direct quotes of Dvorak from Kennedy Center webpage.

WWW:Punctuation

In this ever-changing world, punctuation is set of unchanging rules that reflect upon the style and tone of the writer, and is therefore the necessity to effectively present speech in a clear and organized manner. The primary role of punctuation in the English language (and many other languages) is to give speech clarity, making it comprehendible for the readers. The error in punctuation, however, creates confusion and chaos within the text. Twitter, for example, has created  "dystopian images of...weird alpha-numerical hybrid codes (Gr8 C u l8r...)." (Source A). Not only do these stray from traditional formats in writing, but they fail to clearly give readers a message. In fact, they may give off two separate interpretations, depending on the reader's viewpoint. The image rhetoric, respectively, shows readers the importance of Oxford commas by presenting two phrases to the readers: "strippers, jfk, and stalin" and "strippers, jfk and stalin." (Image Source). While the phrases that originate from the erroneous punctuation may be enjoyable, it certainly cannot fulfill it's role in correctly communicating to the readers. The rules of punctuation must continue to serve their purposes in order to sustain the order in newly developing technologies. If, on the other hand, punctuation were to change with the world, it would require change often, and will not be able to be integrated fast enough and ultimately become a jumble of confusion. Additionally, many have claimed that erroneous punctuation enhance writer's style and expression by giving them a "trail of possibilities."(Source B) This can be true to some extent, but expression and style both cannot hold any value when it is not understandable. Instead, punctuation should be considered even further important for it's ability to convey style and tone. Each punctuation have their own connotations. Dashes give an "informal and essentially playful" tone, and semicolons are able to tell readers that "there is still some more...to be added" like "[grocery] bags" (Source D, E). Yet, these two punctuation marks are both used to mark pauses in sentences. It is evident that with emergence of new technologies, punctuation is becoming more and more crucial to maintain order in speech than before, and also to express the writer's tone and style. *WWW stands for Writing With Warren and indicates that the blog post is much more formal compared to a regular blog post.

Somewhere In America, Miley Cyrus is Still Twerkin'

People sell things that's not normal.It's nothing new; China tea cups were a hit, and so was Marilyn Monroe. And so is Miley Cyrus.

It only took one year for the internet to replace image search results of the pop star from Hannah Montana to a half naked lady shaking her butt off. It's really amazing yet awful. After all, someone to having their image replaced within such a short amount of time is not a common thing. This is also the reason her change was such an issue.

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, portrayed a similar situation. Hester was labeled the A, a physical label that declared her an adulterer. This caused mass hysteria against Hester in the village; mobs formed around her and she was sent the bottom of the social hierarchy.

What should be noted is the reaction. People go crazy on Hester, demanding that the A is not enough, or that she should be executed (Chapter 2). Mob mentality does play a role here (except maybe that lady who speaks against those yell at Hester), but the fact is that she was sensational enough to have sermons preached about her. This is the same thing Miley Cyrus went for.

Miley Cyrus claimed (after she got the haircut) that she "never felt more her." Whether this is true or not, this generated a huge media reaction that is still ongoing, one year later. What is true, however, is that her single, "Wrecking Ball" became phenomenal. The fact that she got a bunch of hate comments doesn't matter too much; she got the views and the media spotlight. She gave herself the label, and used it to her own advantage.

People have said that the fact that women get labeled based on their behavior is an example of gender inequality. This is completely true, as it can be harmful not only to the women who cannot go unmarked, but also to the men, who cannot get marked as much as women. Deborah Tennen, in her essay, "There is No Unmarked Women", points out that most men dress in a similar fashion. But what if the regular businessman wants to look different from the guy next to him?

The correct solution to solving the gender difference does not lie in reducing all labels of women. Changing the perspective on the opposite gender too is a step closer to gender equality.

Chillings

I like to call Chillingsworth, from the romantic historical fiction, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chillings. This actually has a few reasons. Besides from the fact that his name is too long, the character is often portrayed as an angry man who seeks revenge on whoever gave the A on hit chest of his love. With all his anger, he needs to go 'Chillin'. While we discussed him in class, I noticed many students viewed him as the flat antagonist. Hawthorne, furthermore, portrays Chillings as an ugly hunchback who gets even worse as his intentions turn darker. Portrayals like these obviously do not appeal well to the readers; it simply isn't meant to. Hawthorne, through his portrayal of Chillings, tell us that revenge is not worth it.

One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.
-Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Let's put on Chillingsworth's shoes for a minute. He loves his beautiful bride, Hester. He had to send her first to America while he took care of buisness in Europe. He got in a shipwreck. And he got captured by Indians. After the long journey to his wife, he finds out that the love he had been yearning for is accused of sleeping with another man, with a baby in her arms as a bonus. Well that's lovely.

Chillings is truly loved his wife, and this becomes his motivation for his revenge. The course of actions he has been through, in order to reach Hester, is enough mental pressure. Furthermore, he loves Hester very dearly, quite unlike most men at this time period. For example, he promises not to hurt not only Hester, but also her baby. This, even compared to men today, takes not only understanding and mercy, but love. Chillings, from his point of view, only gets uglier and uglier because beautiful with love in the inside. He is the true oyster and the true, "Pearl."

"During the Goreyo Dynasty, Hanyeos(female sea diving hunters)

didnt even pick up the oysters, because obviously it is ugly on the outside.

It was not until almost 200 years later when theiy changed their point of views

and found out that these were so beautiful on the inside."

What is This? Water? I See Me! And a Bunch of Other Things Behind Me!

Even if you're not a rose

Be a sweet Narcissus,

A fanatic of self-existence

-Fana, Move Again

David Foster Wallace, in his commencement speech, This is Water, begins with a short didactic about fish, how the younger fish does not notice "What the hxll" water is. (1) Wallce compares this with human thought; how we don't notice that we are thinking all the time, and therefore should control of what we are thinking. Instead of making self centered thoughts, he claims that we all think toward others.

Ok. Sure. You can go ahead. Not me though.

One thing that differentiates me from, say, Billy the ape is that I am able to think more than they do. Besides that, and the fact that they are hairier than myself, we are pretty much the same. We both share the goal of surviving and thriving. In this aspect, thinking for ourselves is an obvious perspective. This is exactly why Wallce calls this "default settings." (5) But is this bad?

Thought is a natural process. Harnessing it so you make it is not natural, you are simply thinking about thinking. This is a mere waste of brainpower and time. Take the example Wallace gives us. He says it is not impossible for people in SUVs have "been in horrible auto accidents" which is the reason behind their poor driving. The possibility is there, but this, for many of us, is not the first thought that comes into mind. Making second hand thoughts, or purposely created thoughts, does not impact our actual emotions. Rather, it takes up time and space.

Thinking positively is obviously a positive thing to do. Question is, how do we achieve it? The process Wallace explains is effective, but the development until one can naturally think optimitcally takes quite an amount of time and willpower. A solution is blocking out negative self centered thoughts.

Back on the highway, with our slow SUV Wallace has given us. Instead of thinking about why the heck it's so slow, just think about something else. The bushy hair that need to be cut. That new bag of chips you bought. Your family at home. The new Kanye West album. Wait, where did the SUV go?

What I'm saying is you don't need to change a potentially negative topic good. Just change the topic.

Freedumb

Being independent is a great thing. Whether it is gaining independence from a oppressive ruler, or going off to college to run away from parents, people work so hard to get it, and when they do, they get a great feeling as if opportunities have been pleasantly presensted to them like gifts on a Chrsitmas morning. What might be in the gift can be a box of toys. Or, it can be coal.

I always had my own reason for the entire 'naughty children get coal' story. Coal is used as a source of energy, just like it warmed up millions of households all over asia during the 70s and 80s, or the iconical train that runs on coal. Without coal, there would be no heat in the small houses, or fuel that allows trains to go forward. Coal, then, symbolizes a motivational push for the 'naughty' kids.

America got a box of coal on the day it won the war with Britain. The box, on the outside, looked very pleasant, with all the colorful wrapping and ribbons. Once it was opened, however, they faced problem after problem until they were able to create a great country. The coal was only there as a source of energy for the Americans.

Today, America has freedom. Americans also have freedom. Problem is, freedom, and furthermore independence, is only coal. What and how we use it is what determines the outcome.

The colonists wanted to free themselves from the British for several reasons,  including political and economical issues. However, the 'independent' America only recreated these conflicts with the rest of the world, or within the nation itself. Being independent requires great sense of responsibility and these are the things America lacks. America is not the only country that became independent from another country, nor the only country that gurantees equal rights. America's next job, then, is to organize those rights so that the rights Americans fought for doesn't become hidden under a pile of work they have to go through.

We lead the world in only three categories: Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies.

Who I Am (My Name is My Name)

It’s not a well-known fact, but I listen to hip hop quite often. Coincidentally, one of my friends, who also listen to the genre quite often, suggested an album to me, named My Name is My Name by Pusha T. The album discussed who he is as a rapper, his reputation in the scene, and about his drug dealing backgrounds, using his name as a metaphor to represent who he is. Most importantly, he often talked about protecting (and developing) his reputation.

To ourselves, our name mean who we are. To others, it means our reputation. Understanding this fact and taking advantage of it is crucial in many situations. John Proctor has his own name in Salem; people recognize not only the physical being of John Proctor, but his reputation in the village. That's one of the reasons he hesitates to reveal his adultery with Abigail; because such fact will ruin his reputation, or his 'name'. This is made into a motif in the play and is often referenced. Abigail, in Act 1, claims that Elizabeth is "telling lies about [her]", and that she is therefore "blackening [her] name in the village." (Miller, 460). Pusha T does a very similar thing in his album.

I was thinking 'bout murdering

I ain't getting my hands dirty

Let you worry 'bout serving them

- Pusha T, "Who I Am"

The lines explain that he doesn't actually do the dirty work in order to save his reputation. Instead, he lets his followers do it for him. In a sense, Abigail does a very similar thing; she doesn't actually send people off to jail. Instead, she blames them for witchery, and saves her name from being 'blackened'. Instead, it is Cheever who actually fetches the women. After all, she does run off once Proctor reveals his adultery with her, which had ruined her reputation.

Parris: ...Your name in the town-it is entirely white, is it not?

Abigail (with an edge of resentment): Why, I am sure it is sir. There be no blush about my name.

- Miller, The Crucible, Act 1, 127-130

Pusha T - Who I Am (ft. 2 Chainz, Big Sean)

The song isn't actually bad if you're into hip hop.

Except maybe 2 Chainz.

Make Stuff Up As I Go

The first time I ran into the idea of fabricating memories was back in 5th grade when I was arguing with my mother over whether or not I had put away my laundry. My mother claimed that I did not put away my laundry; I argued that I did. Someone was clearly making something up. However, the first time I actually ran into the concept from a more academic perspective was recently when I started to take the AP Psychology class. Our teacher, Mrs.Forshey, told us that anyone is susceptible to falsely fabricating memories. This came to me as a small suprise. Afterall, it seemed that it could be easily possible for people to imagine things of their past with simple suggestions. It seemed like it wasn't much of a deal, like that time I argued with my mother.

Until, I hit The Crucible.

The play included a few characters who had fabricated memories. Mary Warren, for example, fabricates memories of witchcraft upon pressure and accusations from Abigail and the girls. Her only natural instincts to survive points out into Proctor's direction, saying that it was him who had forced witchcraft upon her. They both end up behind bars. Unsuprisingly, the entire hysteria began with a similar situation, when Tituba falsely confessed of worshipping the Devil.

The play completely changed my view on psychology and how much power it can yield upon an individual. The power of suggestion is a phrase that demonstrates how much suggestion can affect another person, espercially in recreating a memory. For example, an unskilled psychologist would ask their patients to think of a time when they had a traumatic experience, such as sexual abuse. The patient naturally desires to appeal to those in authority (psychologist in this case) and imagines the memory that matches what the psychologist says. A step further from such actions is the False Memory Syndrome, in which a person strongly believes that a traumatic experience that never happened did happen, and centers their lifestyle around such falsely constructed memory. This is the exact phenomenon that fuels the hysteria in The Crucible. The townspeople construct false memories of witches, and start to accuse others for the sake of it.

The human memory such a strong yet fragile thing. It provides the ability to store information, yet it is so weak that it can be easily manipulated by a bunch of doctors asking questions.