Plans for the Summer

I'm soon going to be graduating from high school and beginning a new chapter in my life. I'm both excited and nervous about leaving home to attend college. I'm kind of excited that I will no longer be under my parents control in college, but I'm also really nervous about not being able to adjust to the environment. It'll be the first time I've lived overseas for a long period of time since I was two. I'm planning on learning how to drive this summer. I'm also planning on refining my skills in cooking and baking. My mom is also starting to make me do lots of chores around the house, because she says that I need to know how to take care of myself once I leave for university.

Thoughts on American Literature

I've always thought of American Literature as boring but after reading several stories, books and poems in American Literature class, I've changed my mind. Unlike American History, which is too short to be as interesting and complex as European and Chinese history, American authors have written some prety interesting stuff. My favorite American authors are Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Steinbeck and Sylvia Plath. They've changed how I think about American Literature quite a bit. The way that Hawthorne crafts his short stories is absolutely impressive and my favorite is Dr. Heidigger's Experiment. Steinbeck's descriptions are vivid and stunning, I thought they were overly wordy and hard to understand when I was younger, but I find it really beautiful now. I've read a short story by Sylvia Plath before, and it left me feeling unimpressed. However, when I read her poems "The Mirror" and "Mushrooms" this year, I was shocked by how well written they were. Those two poems are masterfully written and some of the best poems that I have ever read.

Advice on Applying for College

One of the main things to remember about applying to college is to start early. No matter how much time you have, time always seems to pass quicker than you think it will. It's not a bad idea to start thinking about what career path you might want to take during your freshman and junior year. It'll make planning the classes you need to take easier. It's also much easier to take the classes earlier instead of taking extra classes during your junior and senior year to fulfill the requiements. You'll also have more time to plan and the examinations needed for college, such as the SAT, ACT, AP tests ect. Your senior year is going to be busy enough without trying to stuff in a bunch of tests and fill out applications at the same time.
The hardest part of the application is always the essay. It's also one of the most crucial parts of the application. Start brainstorming as soon as you know the prompt, it'll make your life much easier when it comes to writing the essay. Think of the essay as something you're writing to someone you know well, don't make it too informal, but having a set audience would make it easier and make you feel a little less pressured. My main problem with writing my essays was that I was stressing out too much and coudn't calm down enough to write well. Relax a little and your writing will turn out better. In fact, if you start early enough, you can make your essay go through several drafts to polish it and fix mistakes. I threw away three or four rough drafts before I wrote something I liked and settled on it.

Untitled

The click  of the lock is answered by silence
Silence does not smother anxious queries
Between these stubborn hearts lies the distance
Locked hearts that are missing their keys

In her notebooks are brilliant tapestries
The love, pain and sorrow words weave
All that remains of sweet memories
But she no longer knows what it achieves

When did weapons start to be wielded there,
The battleground beginning its construction
Maybe those deceitful words were the snare
The things all began with that deception

You turn your faces away from each other
Covered in wounds and try to inflict another

This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

The most famous poem by William Carlos Williams is probably "The Red Wheelbarrow". His poems are all deceptively simple, but seem to have a hidden beauty behind the words. We're reading some of his poems in literature class, and my favorite is "This is Just to Say". At first glance, it's a note apologizing for eating the plums in the icebox. But then you see the last stanza and the mouthwatering description of the plums. That description is probably my favorite part of the poem, it's certainly the best description of food in poetry that I've come across.

Chi Xin Tan

If you ask me for advice on places to visit in Taiwan, I would suggest going to the east coast. It's more sparsely populated, less polluted and in my opinion has some of the most beautiful scenery in Taiwan. 
 Chin Xin Tan is a spot that I discovered on my last trip to Hualien and is one of my favorite places to visit. It's a shingle beach located in Hualien, known for its clear water and beautiful scenery. Instead of sand, little pebbles cover the beach. Still, the pebbles are interesting enough in themselves. There are abundant amounts of marble, granite and jade located in the east coast of Taiwan and I've found all of them on the beach. The water is pretty calm there, and there aren't many large waves. It looks deceptively shallow, despite the fact the water gets deep pretty quickly once you step foot into the ocean.

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

The phrase "Good fences make good neighbors" is mentioned in the poem "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost, when the neighbor says his reasons for wanting the wall. Like the poem, its something that provokes quite a bit of thought.
I live in a city, so there are no literal fences between me and my neighbors, but there are plenty of literal and not so literal walls between us. With the exception of my relatives, who live upstairs, I would be hard pressed to even recognize my neighbors. In fact, I don't think that I've ever even greeted my neighbors before. However, my mom does have an ongoing feud with our neighbors over parking spaces. She strongly objects to them parking in the space that belongs to our family even though it remains unused. I would agree with the fact that "good fences make good neighbors", because clearly defined boundaries make for less conflict between people.

The Forge

I'm currently reading Opened Ground, a collection of poetry by Seamus Heaney. His poetry is very different in style from the ones I've previously read, though most of the poetry I've read has been written before the 20th century. The subjects of the poems are mostly focused on country life.
My current favorite from the collection is "The Forge". The poem is simple, just describing the forge and the blacksmith at work. However, the language used in the poem is absolutely stunning. The imagery is vivid and clear, and its amazing how the poet paints such a clear picture with just a few words.

"All I know is a door into the dark.
Outside, old axles and iron hoops rusting;
Inside, the hammered anvil's short pitched ring,
..."
- Seamus Heaney, The Forge

Thinking about things

Success can be defined in many different ways, and the word success often means different things to each of us. To me, success in life means having a ordered, neat life where nothing is rushed and everything is neatly planned out. That is my goal in life, and something I unfortunately have trouble achieving. Deadlines don't really seem to exist unless I'm staring one right in the face. That makes a life with plenty of stress and late nights trying to finish a project right before the deadline.
Mistakes can be cumulative, and a lot of little mistakes added together can be some pretty serious consequences.

Political Satire

The untrustworthiness of a politican's promises

The University of Chicago

This is an university I would love to go to, but the difficulty of getting accepted and the high tuition makes it very unlikely. The University of Chicago is a private research university founded in 1890. The school has a great academic reputation and ranks among the top universities in the US. It also has a good reputation for scientific research, which is a field I might want to go into in the future.

Dr. Heidegger's Experiment by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Heidegger's experiment is Nathaniel Hawthorne's take on the ancient archetype of the search for eternal youth. In the story, Dr. Heidegger invites four old friends to partake in the experiment. All four of them were old, miserable and dissatisfied with life, having squandered their youth. Dr. Heidegger offers them the chance to drink the water from the Fountain of Youth and return to their youth. However, when they drank the water, they did not value their regained youth; they kept doing the same things that the did when young.
We may laugh at how they keep on making the same mistakes, but many of us behave similarly. When we're young, we feel as if we have infinite time, so we act as if we would always be yound. However, once we're older and look back, many of us realize that we've just been wasting our youth.

The Middle Passage

Listen to us! The voices of the deep

Forgotten, but

Chained no longer by your lust

Poisoned no longer by your avarice

You imprison us with your hopes

For riches, for wealth

A life of leisure

No toil, nor sweat

Tossed overboard

Are the lucky ones

Whose souls sail free

From the wails and sickness that surround us

Are you the scale

Weighing heavy coins

Feather light souls?

Forgetting where

Your soul silently rests.

On Baking Bread

Working with yeast to make bread has often been an intimidating endeavor for people. Unlike baking powder, baking soda and other chemical leavening agents, yeast is living and more difficult to control. Before the advent of commercial yeast in the 19th century, people used naturally occurring yeast to make bread. A medium of flour and water was used to culture the yeast and the symbiotic bacteria, this was called a sourdough starter or levain. The acidity of the sourdough starter kept harmful bacteria from growing it and enabled the yeast and bacteria to live without much competition. Bread made with levain is more flavorful than bread made with commercial yeast, however it takes more time and is more challenging. You need to allow the dough to ferment sufficiently in order to have enough flavor, but you can easily end up fermenting too long and end up with bread that's as sour as vinegar.
I was inspired by the beautiful blog Tartine Bread Experiment to try and make my own sourdough bread this summer. One summer of experimentation has convinced me that we are constantly learning new things in life. When you think you finally think you've got the handle on something, you fail or the results come out differently than what you thought they would be.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a highly influential English poet who lived a highly interesting life. He was good friends with William Wordsworth, and highly interested in philosophy. He is most famous for the poems "Kubla Khan" and "The Rine of the Ancient Mariner".
Here you can see his life in more detail.

How to Make Your Senior Year at GCA Very Good

It's nearing the end of the school year, and its kind of hard to believe that next year will be my last year at GCA. And since its my last year at home in Taiwan before I head off to college in the US, I plan on making the most of it.
One of the first things I'm going to do is trying to get rid of my habit of procrastination. As students who have it know, the spirit of procrastination is one of your greatest enemies in getting any homework or studying done. You either do what you enjoy instead of you're supposed to be doing or stare blankly at the work in front of you, reluctant to lift a finger, and end up with such a big pile of work you wonder how you're ever going to finish it.
The second thing I'm going to do is to spend more time with my friends and family. I've realized that I spend way too much time staring at a computer screen or buried in books and not enough time with other people. In fact the only person I really spend a substantial time talking to is my younger sister. That's just sad. I just need to figure out a way of spending time with my parents without getting nagged at for my schoolwork. Any suggestions?

Advice to Underclassmen

If there's one thing you should know about junior year in high school is that you should prepare and register for the SAT or ACT early. In doing so, you are giving yourself a stronger motivation to study and it also gives you more flexibility if you actually screw up on the test. I chose to ignore the fact that I needed to take the tests until January, and by then my options on when to take the tests were quite limited.
It's the same thing with applying to college. You don't need to make a decision about where to apply during your junior year, but you should have a general idea of where you want to go.
Before you select the place to want to study, you need to have a general idea of what you want to study. Look at your own interests and make a list of what you would like to study. Then, consider where you want to study. Pick a school that is strong in the area you wish to study. It would be stupid to pick a school known for its arts programs when you want to study science instead.

The Silver Fifty Sen Peices

I was surprised to be reading this story in British Literature, because the author is not British but Japanese. The story is written by Yasunari Kawabata,who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968. Set in pre- and post- World War II Japan, the story is very short, only consisting of three scenes. In the first scene, the main character Yoshiko buys a glass paperweight with a carving of a dog after much deliberation. Yoshiko and her mother are shopping in the next scene. In the last scene, Yoshiko huddles in the ruins of her neighborhood and realizes how much she has lost to the war. It's amazing how the author uses so few words to strongly bring into focus how the inconstancy of life. The method Kawabata uses to state his message is subtle, but that's where the beauty of this story lies.

End of 3rd Quarter

It's always cause to celebrate when the quarter finals are over and a new quarter is in sight, and I'm sure that many of my fellow classmates will agree. No more studying til midnight! No more parents nagging you to study harder! And lastly, the return of free time! 

I did moderately well on the tests this quarter, but I'm not really a person who cares overly much about grades. If I did, my grades would be much higher. Alas, the current state of my grades can be attributed to reluctance to study and excessive procrastination. So let's hope that the arrival of a new quarter brings a renewed desire to learn, better management of my time and better grades!

Ode to the West Wind

Ode to the West Wind is one of the most famous works of the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley lived a crazy and irresponsible life and died just before his thirtieth birthday. I highly disapprove of how Shelley lived his life, but even I have to admit that he really had a way with words. This is one of the most beautifully written poems in English.
Ode to the West Wind is stunning and beautiful in its majesty. Dramatic language illustrates the majesty of the West Wind and the inspiration that it gives the author. This poem is not quiet or shy. It possesses a kind of beauty and presence that draws the eye no matter wherever you are.

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!
                                                   -"Ode to the West Wind"
                                                          Percy Bysshe Shelley