blog 9 (final)

Before I took ENG101 class, I had two kinds of feelings. One was anxiety. I was under pressure that I had to get a good grade to get into a program for my major. The other feeling was  expectation. I expected a lot about what I would learn about writing and wanted to improve my skills significantly. In the beginning, I did not used to professor’s style of his teaching. I kind of lost my way of how I write. However, as time has gone to the end of the semester, I realized that I have learned so many things about writing throughout many activities we did and also found out my weaknesses on some basic writing skills as a writer.

I think one of my a few strengths is once I decide my main idea or a topic sentence; I follow my topic in the whole essay. I usually can detect what does not belong to my topic. So, I can use sources usefully to fit my topic.

 However, I found my weakness by comparing mine with other classmates’ papers. My biggest problem might be word choice and grammar. Since my first language is not English, I always went through difficulty of correct grammar and word choice everytime I write something. In this class, I also can see how far I am behind compared to American friends. My other weakness is that sometimes I mistakenly summarize articles instead of analyzing them. I do not know why I made mistake on this, but I realize this is my weakness. So, before I move on to ENG102 class, I will consider my problems and try to fix them.

In the ENG101 class, I learned so many things. I learned MLA style of work cited pages. When we use some information from articles, books, or , we need to mention where we use those information from. There are certain methods to make a work cited page. It is important to add work cited page. I also learned level 4 details when we write on body paragraphs. Before this class, I did not know how I develop my writing in body paragraths, but now I have some ideas about developing my ideas through each paragraph. I learned how we write research paper. Research paper was about finding many sources from many different reference materials and use them to support my thesis and argument. I learned various sentence structures as well. Professor showed us on the power point that there can be many different structures that involve a same meaning. To be a better writer, a sentence has to deliver an accurate meaning.

Compare with the beginning of the class, I definitely believe that I have been improved in many things. First, i improved the skill of how I arrange each sentence sequentially in one paragraph and summarize briefly at the end of each paragraph. I feel I also got better of reading skills as I research many sources. Finding a proper source took so much time and need a lot of effort. It needed to be read a lot. At first, I was very slow doing this, but at the end, I read faster and find sources quicker.

          There are some class activities that were very helpful. One was a group discussion. After we read some article, book, or movie, we discussed them and shared our opinions each other. Some people had different ideas with same questions. It was a valuable experience for me. Another activity that I liked was blogging on the website. I already mentioned how doing blog was helpful to me. By posting a blog almost every week, I could practice writing frequently. Without concerning seriously about grammar mistakes, I could more focus on ideas, and describing. I also could see other people’s essay. It gave me some ideas when I did not have any ideas how I wrote.

I don’t think there was activity that was less helpful. When I think back, each activity was meaningful and helpful.  

blog 8

Braining storming

illusion
reality

enlightened
good results and bad results
more ugly truth
matrix oedipus the king minority report

Oedipus the king- he lived in a cave which was happy life for him-the reality was worse than he thought
Matrix- every people believe that they live in a real world. But the fact was that they were controlled by the computer system which manipulates people’s thoughts and behaviors.

Minority Report: the reality also shows worse situation

           We have been through many issues such as, definition of free will and how much human can control their free will with determined future, or situations that trap us in a cave without any knowledge of reality and the outcome of the reality.  But, I think that the relationship between illusion and the fact is more interesting for me, because as we live in our lives, we often face that we used to live in a small cave and the reality turned out to be sometimes ugly or happy face. however, I believed that the reality of illusion mostly would be terrible in our lives.  throughout this semester, i also found many sources that showed me how much we live in a cave and the how the reality turns out to be dystopian world.  As I experienced the play Oedipus the King, the movie Matrix, and "Minority Report" these all deal with the theme of illusion and terrible reality. these all explain about how miserable results of reality can be when people come to the real life. for the oedipus, the reality for the king Oedipus was that he killed his father and married his mother. For the movie, "matrix", even if people in the movie thought that their lives in that society was all about it, but the fact was that they were controlled by computer system. Likewise, the movie "Minority Report" also shows that reality is worse than they believe.precogs system was not always perfect. when i think of our lives, people face dystopian world in many times as well. As we grow up, we face responsibilities of many things, or some problems that we even did not think about it when we were young.
This English composition class forced me to think many various aspects of things about enlightening from the illusion as well as different topic like free will.

blog 7

Before taking ENG101, I had to take ESL classes and ENG099 class because my writing was not good, and there are some problems of grammar, word choices, and ideas. However, at the end of this semester, I think that my writing is better than before and I strongly think that one major reason was posting blogs. As I experienced several blogs, I strongly think that posting my writings on the blog has helped me a lot in many ways.

First, many blogs had to be posted on the blog cite every week. That forced me to practice writing at least once a week. Now I think that my writing skill is getting better than before I take this class.  Second, all the blogs that I did are exposed to public. That kind of characteristic also helped me to find correct way.  To make sure that I did in a correct way, I could check how other classmates did on the same topic. As I checked other blogs, I found out that I did wrong in some ways or I did properly. To be able to look at others’ blog also gave me some ideas when I totally did not know what to do or what we had to mention to response to the topic. Third, blogs made me more concentrate on topics critically other than taking care of grammar mistakes or other small parts. Writing blog meant that just think about the contents and it lead me to try to write about to fit on our topics, so it was very helpful to come up with my ideas. Forth, posting blog on the internet was also very convenient for us to post and edit when it is necessary. Whenever I feel mine is not correct, I could edit my blogs anytime and anywhere.  Fifth, some blogs that professor commented on them were especially effective. I could check the professor’s feedback and checked my problems on my blog. I also could check other students’ blog and see what they made mistakes and I also learn something from their works as well.

On the other hand, there also are some minor negative things I want to mention. In some way, if I see other papers, even if I tried to make it in my own words, I kind of tend to follow their ideas so finally my writing looked similar to other papers.

Practicing writing on the blogs is best experience to improve my skills and my critical ideas.

blog6

People have free will for many things. They make countless decisions such as choosing what to wear, where to go, or what to eat. The results that they make come from their choices.   However, sometimes there are some cases that limit people’s free will because the future is already determined. Both the movie "Minority report" and the play "Oedipus the king" deal with the issue of how much humans control (free will) over their lives in the situations of determined future.

 In the movie minority report shows the future where people could predict future crime by three precogs and they caught pre-murderer before they committed a crime. People in that society were sure that the three precogs’ prediction was absolutely right and there was no exception. So they did not make any other decisions other than precogs’. They were totally affected depend on precogs’ prediction. When people found out that the main character John Anderton would kill Leo Crow, they undoubtedly believed that he must kill Leo Crow which cannot be changeable. Unlike other people in the movie, Anderton was the one who did not believe precogs, and tried to change determined future with his free will. (This is the concept of soft determinism(106) ). Precogs predicted that he was going to kill someone, but Anderton did not accept it and doubted about precog system. He tried to change his fate. Since he knew what was going to happen to him, he decided not to kill anybody as the three precogs predicted. Even if it seems that there was only one possible result, Anderton made another possible future by making his own decision. It seems that he had a strong free will.  Even if Leo Crow was finally dead like precog predicted, he was not killed by Anderton.

Likewise, in the play Oedipus the king, there is the same concept of how much Oedipus control himself in the situation of miserable destiny. In the play, when Oedipus’ father heard that his son would kill him and marry his wife, he believed that. He could not control his life. He was controlled by prophecy. He believed that there was no other choice, so he tried to get rid of his son to prevent terrible future. For him, the destiny that he was involved had only one possible future and absence of one’s self control. On the other hand, the king Oedipus was different than his father. When he was told about his destiny, Oedipus made exertion to change it. He left his home, and tried not to contact with his parents. However, he actually killed his father and married his mother. When Oedipus realized that he already had followed his destiny, he was despaired. It seems that he did not have any free will, but he did not yield his destiny. He just did not leave his country, he punished himself by making his eyes blind. This shows Oedipus’ strong free will. He controlled his life with making his own decision no matter what kind of fate he faced.

In addition to both the movie and the play, the article, ”free will and determinism in the world of Minority Report” support the idea of determinism and one’s free will. It shows two concepts of determinism. In the hard determinism, there is only one outcome possible, and no free will exist. In the soft determinism, there is determined future, but people have free will so that the determined future can be changeable by a person’s choice. Both Oedipus and Anderton had soft determinism. They chose their action and were responsible for outcome happened.

It looks that there is no difference between the movie and the play, but in the movie, Anderton actually knew what was going to happen to him and he chose not to follow his fate. However, in the play, Oedipus could not control his fate perfectly. He did exactly what prophecy said even if he always decides his action by himself.

blog 5

In the essay “The Man on the Moon” George J. Annas writes that “The new ideal human, the genetically engineered ‘superior’ human, will almost certainly come to represent ‘the other.’ If history is a guide, either the normal humans will view the ‘better’ humans as the other and seek to control or destroy them, or vice versa” (236). This Annas’ argument seems to be true. People have a tendency of thinking that they are better than anything else. That is kind of human beings’ instinct. when people recognize the others who they think are inferior than them, they attempt to destroy and regulate them by justify their behaviors.We can see many examples throughout our past histories.

Annas shows a conqueror, Pizarro who was the army of Spain. He conquered the Incas in Peru. The purpose of his conquest was to change the beliefs of the native people who used to live in the Incas. Since his belief was that God is the only one we have to trust and have a faith for him, people in Incas was “the other” who was non-believer, and antagonist. By plundering Incas’ land, he wanted to change their thoughts and religion that they believed. Furthermore, he even commits an act of brutality by killing people.  Basically he tried to destroy people who he think were inferior. He wanted to control them by justifying their standardized ideas are absolutely right.

People’s tendency of destroying “the others” can clearly be seen not only Annas’ essay, but also the movie “Gattaca” which covers the future story about genetically engineered people. In the same way as the historical experience, there are a group of genetically engineered people who think they are superior, and there also exist people who were born naturally without any of genetic manipulation. In the movie, the director predicts that future society’ s appearance will be ugly since either people who are superior or inferior try to control “the others” (236). Their appearance exactly reflects our past disastrous history which I mentioned earlier. The movie shows that the superior humans, who have the best genes from their parents, control and limit the naturally born humans. The main character Vincent was the weak, and non-powered human. He always faces limitations made by genetically engineered people. The superior people made the limitations to make sure that they are better human beings by justifying that they have better genes and can do much better than non-genetically engineered people.

This serious problems come from the people’s mind of they are better than the others. Since people think that they are superior, and attempt to control the inferior people, the result will be tragedy like I mentioned.

essay 1

During we live in our life, people always live in an illusion that is either people make, or made by someone else. they believe that the illusion is totally true, but once they experience the outside of their illusion and find out that the real fact, there always are two consequences come with the truth. In the Plato’s excerpt, ”The Allegory Of The Cave,” the result was an utopian world. Even if people felt painful at the first time, they soon will be well-adjusted to a better life that they have never experienced before. However,  In The Matrix, Neo went through a miserable reality and that gave him a suffering result. As I think about two stories, I strongly believe that the consequence of dystopian world is more accurate than the happy and bliss result.

Not only The Matrix has an desperate truth, but also another story Oedipus The King has a similar content that supports The Matrix. Oedipus also had an illusion that he made. That was that he was the great king of Thebes undoubtedly and he deserves to have all of these honorable positions and govern his people and land. He also believed that he got away from his fate by making his free will. He had been living well until he realized that he already lived in his unavoidable fate. As a result of his fate, his reality turned out to be terrible. To avoid his curse of his destination, he tried harder, but he still met the dystopian world(1237). Eventually, he lost everything. Not only he lost material wealth, but he also lost his biological mother, or wife, make himself a blind, he ran away from his land, and he ended up with his life(1805).

Historically, there were people who used to live in an illusion of their world, but end up with a miserable situation. Amazon river is the world’s most gigantic and important river. Near the Amazon river, some groups of people who were named Amazon Indian lived. People did not know the existence of them. They were totally separated from outside of world. They never had any ideas except them. For them, their illusion was that their life and the world is the only one and there were nothing happening outside the world. Their life was happy and normal. As time passes, outside of people noticed that some people were living in the area of Amazon and they revealed Amazon Indians. Some Amazon Indians went to the outside of world, but they were panic about people of outside. Later, Amazon Indians had so much suffering because of the world which was all about pollution, noisy, and poverty problems. The truth was desperate for them. It was better for them not to know the reality.

In my experience, I also can prove the reality is worse. I used to believe that my parents always would support me and live together forever when I was young. However, as I grew up and especially as I live in the America by myself for the first time, I found out that someday, parents and children would have time to be separated and the children would be independent. The more I realized and knew the truth, I suffered by the fact. I even felt fearful about how I was going to earn money and support myself. The result was ugly.

I know that some people disagree with my idea. They may say that the reality could be a bliss. However, I strongly point out that many situations including the past historical experiences, and my own experience mostly turned out to be dystopian world.

blog4

There are some common similarities about knowledge in two stories. In The Matrix, Neo had something unsolved in his life and feel Something was not there where it was supposed to be. He did not have any ideas about the truth. As Neo felt, Oedipus also was curious about something about his identity, and doubted about his past. They both did not have information (knowledge) about what was going on around their lives.  

In terms of ignorance, bliss, and knowledge, Cipher thought that ignoring the truth was happiness in The Matrix. He knew the truth about terribly computerized human life and had a complete knowledge about how things are going, but living in a manipulated life got him stressed and meaningless life, so he could not deal with the situation he face. He finally went to the agent Smith and asked him if he could get him back to the Matrix which would take his memories away and govern his entire minds. Opposite of Cipher, Neo wanted to know things even if the result would be bad. He chose red pill to experience clear and precise world around his life. Even If  the prophet said that Neo was not the one who would save people’s life, Neo decided to fight for the people and turned things back to normal life.

             In Oedipus The King, Oedipus’s wife, Jocasta was the one who thought that ignorance was happiness and bliss. She convinced Oedipus not to try to find out the truth about his past anymore. She said that that moment was happy enough for them and the truth would bring him and herself suffered(1060). On the other hand, Oedipus thought the truth had to be revealed, so he denied her saying, and kept investigating the truth. He had a will about finding out the reality. The result turned out to be tragedy. Oedipus realized all the things clearly and it seems that the predict that the prophet said to the king was proved and Oedipus finally could not break his fate.

In both story, there are two ways to choose for main characters. One is ignoring the truth and living the normal happy life. The other is that finding out what the real situation is and face the negative truth.