Category Archives: English 10

I Feel Better When I’m Happy

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For my This I Believe project, I spoke about optimism. Here is the video:

The technique that I used in this video was similar to the “Draw My Life” videos I saw on Youtube. It involves drawing out important scenes and people to further show and explain what was being said. I’ve never used this technique before, and I thought that this would be a good way to show myself evolving. It was also great to be able to transition with the paper, and use different colors to represent different things.

One thing you’d notice from my video is the usage of color. I used a lot of marker colors in the drawings, but the main colors were black, blue, orange, and green. The black was a neutral color, meaning what I was drawing in black wasn’t exactly important, or was neither positive or negative. Blue however, was meant to symbolize when I was thinking more negative thoughts. Orange and green were the colors I used for happiness, since they simply reminded me of the sun and the grass.
Another thing I did was change the lighting. When I was talking about a more sad memory, where I was drawing mostly in blue, I lowered the brightness so that the video would have a darker and more gloomy feel to it.
The last effect I added was one of the transitions, where I placed a new piece of paper full of happy thoughts over the previous one, which had sadder thoughts. That was representing me covering the sad things and replacing them with the positive.

Looking at the result, I personally think that my techniques and effects had given the intended effect. I made it obvious at the beginning what the blue and green colors meant, so I’m hoping the audience will catch the meaning.

Hypocrisy – The Crucible Post 2

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Reverend John Hale is a character from the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. He’s a hypocrite.

Oh, sorry, I think I’m going to fast. He is the reverend from Beverly, called to Salem to investigate for witchcraft. He is an expert in this field, and puts much emphasis on the justice of the jury and his decisions.

An unbalanced scale. Photo by OpenClipart-Vectors via Flickr cc

“Proctor, the court is just.” (Miller 73)
“Let you rest upon the justice of the court.” (Miller 67)
“My duty is to add to the godly wisdom of the court.” (Miller 64)

He repeatedly states that the court will be fair, and that he will add to that by finding out if there is really any connection to the supernatural. At first he pointedly says that there must be proof, and that “the Devil is precise.”

However, when Elizabeth Proctor’s name is mentioned in court, he visits her and her husband. He asks them—Proctor, specifically—many questions, of how Christian their household is, why they don’t go to church ofte, and if they could recite the Ten Commandments. It seems like Reverend Hale had already begun suspecting John Proctor even though there was no real proof of this. Yeah, so just.

Moreover, when a poppet with a needle in its belly is found in the Proctor home, Elizabeth was arrested, even though Mary Warren admitted it was hers. Hale again insisted that the court was just, despite the fact that Mary wasn’t even questioned any further when she clearly had something to do with the poppet. Hale chose to trust the word of Abigail Williams over the actual evidence, while actually doubting the court’s justice himself, making him a hypocrite.

This relates to the Shadowhunters books by Cassandra Clare. The third series, The Dark Artifices, quite possibly shows the most corruption and hypocrisy of the Clave, the government for Shadowhunters.

Just as Hale was being pressured to find witches, the Clave was being pressured by the public to hold someone accountable for the Dark War. And despite multiple witnesses of their loyalty and their courage against demons, Mark Blackthorn was abandoned to Faerie and forbidden to be rescued, and his sister Helen was exiled to an island in the middle of nowhere.

John Proctor was already known to be a non-believer of witches, and Mark and Helen were known to be half-faerie (many faeries had sided with the evil demons in the Dark War). Hale was still saying the court was being just in arresting Elizabeth. And the Clave yet claimed to be following the Accords and Laws, when they were clearly just making excuses for their prejudice.

Blatant Lies – The Crucible Post 1

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Say someone points to you and accuses you of commiting cold-blooded homicide. Everyone in the immediate vicinity would turn and stare at you. Then you protest, but the person goes on ruthlessly, “You murdered the man. I saw you. I saw you with my own eyes! It was you.” People are turning away and giving you scared glances, and some are glaring at you menacingly.
Only, the accusation wasn’t true in the slightest.

This was what happened in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller. In the play, Abigail Williams, a strong-willed girl, accuses multiple women of witchcraft. A lot of the people she named were people who couldn’t protect themselves as well. This included a drunkard beggar named Sarah Osborn, and a pregnant homeless woman with no husband, Sarah Good.

These were blatant lies that Abigail made to save herself, and yet everyone believed them, because she had apparently opened her soul.

Abigail reminds me of a character from the book Divergent by Veronica Roth: Peter. In this book series, citizens are split into five factions, or are factionless, essentially homeless. Peter is Candor, which prizes itself in being honest and just. However, this character is the exact opposite of that; he lies and cheats and backstabs to get his way. There are many incidents where he gets into brawls with other teens, then claims that it was the other who started the fight. And since he is in Candor, and the other person is always from a different faction, people unanimously believed Peter.

All this demonstrates how society has a sort of natural bias when it comes to believing certain people over others. This could be due to fear, or actual belief that one sort of person is more reliable. Either way, lies have destructive results, and, in the case of The Crucible, can get you hanged.

The Path or the End?

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I believe that results are more important than the effort put in. Before you jump down my throat, I do wish that trying hard was all that mattered, but the reality of the world is that people generally will not care or pay attention to the amount of effort you put into your work.

Yes, the effort is important, but only while you are doing it. Of course you should put effort into your work so that it’s your best. The thing is, once your paper gets graded or you make an investment, that’s that. No matter what grade you get or what the outcome of the investment, the effort you put does not mean anything to anyone but you. You still lose money, and your grades are what colleges see, not your effort. In society, failure equates to not trying hard enough. What’s that famous quote again? “If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try again”? Here you can see the goal is still to SUCCEED.

And besides, the result is the GOAL that you’re striving to achieve. It’s your milestone, your endgame, your whole reason for the effort in the first place. With no focus on the result, the effort does not exist, or is half-hearted at best.

What about the people who are naturally good at something, and hardly have to lift a finger to succeed? This may sound unfair, but they still triumph and get praise. I’m not saying if that is right or wrong — it is just the truth. My grades for Chinese class have always been mediocre, and the grades and scores are all that is written down or recorded. Even though I try hard on the worksheets, I still get things wrong. And looking back at them, even all I can see is the score, not the effort.

You could argue that effort is more important because it’s what you learn that matters. It’s true that learning is important, but if you don’t use that knowledge to get the desired result in the future, what was the point of the effort? Learn, then try again and get the result, or people will not care.

People could also say that some people do look at your effort, and not just results. But this isn’t always true, and you must admit that it will be hard to think someone tried hard if they failed at something.

Now for a real-life example. Thomas Edison certainly put a lot of effort into creating a working light bulb. But so did many other people. Yet Edison is the only person people know, because he was the one who actually succeeded. Some of the other scientists might have tried harder, but failed anyway. In the end, it is only the result that becomes known and helps you.

Reality is painful, so don’t settle for a participation award, alright? Go succeed at whatever you’re good at.