Pride can Lead to a Person's Final Resolution

In "The Dinosaurs" by Italo Calvino, it reveals that Q is a proud and self-centered character, and that these characteristics lead him to form a inner conflict within him and eventually a deep understanding of himself.

After many years of being alone, Q finally comes out of hiding and finds himself in a completely different world. This new world creates an atmosphere of fear within him causing him to feel nervous when he first meets the species that came after the dinosaurs. It surprises him with the way the New Ones interacted with him, "I would never have imagined it possible to talk like that with non-dinosaurs, and I was tense and mostly silent." (Page 96) This opens a feeling of security and acceptance around him and this lead him to feel happy and safe to stay with the "New ones" because he don't have to be alone anymore.

As the story progresses, a inner conflict begins to rampage within him like a storm. After awhile of staying with the New Ones, Q listens to the many stories that the New Ones interpreted the dinosaurs as. These stories changes many times reflecting on Q's action throughout the experience he had with them. The interpretations from the New Ones starts out as a fear, then to admiration, then to silliness, then to pity, and finally to no interest. What Q thought of all this is "I had to feel imposed on me, and by them, a kind of sacred respect for my species which I myself never felt!" (Page 104) This shows that Q is confused of who he wants to be. He don't know if he should just continue to live the peaceful life with the New ones and not be lonely while at the same time having to accept the ridiculous images that the New Ones "painted" for the dinosaurs that stumbles upon his pride as being one.

In the final part of the story, Q realizes the importance of accepting who he is. His inner pride overcomes his self-centered side. He understands now that "from the semi-darkness of fears and doubts of now ignorant generations, the dinosaurs continued to extend their necks, to raise their taloned hoofs, and when the last shadow of their image had been erased, their name went on, superimposed on all meanings, perpetuating their presence in relations among living things." (Page 111) He believes that the dinosaurs are not actually "extinct", but live on through the different stories that the New Ones gave out. Being satisfied with this, Q came up with a conclusion that he doesn't belong with the New Ones anymore since he is a dinosaur and so he left the village and went on the rest of his life as nothing else other than what he was born as: a dinosaur.

Right and Wrong Part One

What is the difference between those two words? How do you know what is the right thing to do in life? Does growing up in a certain way determines a person's judgement on the difference between what is right and wrong? Are our morals driven by what our sociality wants it to be, or it is decided by the individual themselves? Can we alter our decision in life without changing our views on what is right and wrong? I have always thought about these kind questions when I first got interested in learning about ethics and morals. In order to satisfy myself in this particular matter, I came up with my own conclusions and theories.

From what I understand, right and wrong are two complete opposite words. This can be proven by their definitions in any dictionary. They are also a paradox of each other. A person can't be right and wrong at the same time. However, these two words are more similar than you know. They can actually be the same thing. Right can be wrong and wrong can be right. How is this possible? The answer lies in the human mind. Person A can consider whatever they are doing is the right thing to do, while person B can think that person A is doing the wrong thing. This of course causes a collision of two different mind thinking about what is right and wrong. I came up with two theories on why people have different views on this. One of them is that the sense of what is right and wrong is shaped by a person's personal experiences in life such as the things that they learn from other people, the places they grew up in, and the good or bad experiences that they have to dealt with in their life. My second theory is that it is all shaped naturally accordingly to the individual specific mindset/personality which creates a certain regime for that specific individual.

These two theories are not perfect, and they have many flaws. My first theory states that a person shapes their sense of right and wrong by their personal experiences in life. This not always true. For example, a person can grow up in a family of criminals, but they can actually choose to not follow in his or her family footsteps because they decide that whatever their family doing is wrong. If my first theory is correct, this example can't be true. Being born in a family of criminals means that you are expose to doing crimes everyday, and you are heavily influenced by the bad people around you for every second of your life. How is it possible that with all of this influence, it can't even shape a person sense of right and wrong?

Part one ends.

More to come in Part two.

Response to "Stage Fright!!!!!"

This is something interesting that I found in David's blog that I would like to talk about:

When I am nervous, I also forget my train of thought. That's why when I try to say something, I usually end up saying never mind or that I will go a little bit off topic.

I have experience this many times when I was a kid. I think this is pretty common among people because I see many people that stumble a lot whenever they are nervous. There was this one time when I had to present something important to a lot of people, and I ended up stumbling many times because I kept losing my train of thought. When this happens, I contradict myself a lot and sometime I even start rambling random stuff that I don't even understand. Although, this has happen to me countless of times, I came up with many different ways that helped me to overcome this.

The first way that I came up with that helped me to overcome this was to relax the body before presenting or speaking. I just take a deep breath, and calm myself by thinking something positive. Thinking positive really helps because it built confidence in oneself and get rid of any uneasiness feeling. The second way that I came up with that helped was whenever I start to lose my train of thought, I just slow down and take my time to slowly flow in my words until I get back to the right track. Stumbling and rambling occurs because I'm forcing and pressuring myself to get back to the right track, and this doesn't work at all. I have to take my time, and just be calm by relaxing my body. The last way that I came up with that helped is just to be really prepare before speaking before a crowd of people. Being really prepare brings confidence that make me feel that i'll do good, and this would allow me to not to be nervous. If I present something that is not prepared yet, of course i'll be nervous since it would create a possibility for me to make a fool of myself in front of many people.

In conclusion, these are some of the ways that helped me to overcome my nervousness and I hoped that these ways can help David to overcome his too.

The Inspiring Funeral

The pale clouds covered the whole sky like a spartan holding a shield ready for war. The atmosphere was filled with grief and sorrow. He slowly sat down on the cold-blooded chair. His parents sat right next to him, but no feeling of sympathy or affection came to him. He was disgusted by this kind of feeling. He looked around, and saw nothing but tears. He looked up to his parents, hoping to feel a little better, but all he could see was severed hearts and broken memories; his parents were in tears too. Trees rose straight up into the freezing pale air, and winds slowly blew through the silent crowd breaking the silence for a few seconds. He felt that something important was missing. A black grand piano stood right in the middle of the funeral. He stared strangely at it as if it was a riddle or a puzzle. He had never seen one before in his life. Confusion took over him making him wonder the reason for such a thing to be doing in a funeral. He didn’t understand, and his eyes were stuck onto it. From the freezing uncomfortable air, a giant black trimmed coffin slowly appeared. He watched as people in black clothing held up the coffin. The people moved slowly, and he silently looked at their faces. They all lowered their head, but he knew they were crying because drip of waters were falling off their faces. The freezing wind blew once again causing him to feel extremely unpleasant. Out of the blue, a rhythmic musical sound like the no other sound he before broke through the eternal silence. Right at that moment, his mind clicked. The clouds slowly faded a distance away revealing a clear blue sky. The ray from the sun struck at the piano creating an aura of harmony all around. At that moment, he didn't feel any sadness. Instead, he felt blessed. His wet sleeves began to dry along with the heavy atmosphere that lingered in the air. He didn't know what was happening, but he did realize one thing. He realized that this wasn't a ending of a person's life, but a beginning of something new.

Response to "The Most Annoying Day"

This is something that I found in Jay's blog that I could definitely relate to:

Tuesday, was one of the weirdest and most annoying days that I had so far. I started off going to school, without getting enough sleep. I almost ended falling asleep in math class right in front of Mrs. McCoy.

Whenever I don't get enough sleep, everything just becomes one big nuisance to me. I'll feel drowsy and it would always make me don't want to pay attention to anything around me. This is a really bad result since if I don't want pay attention to anything, I am most likely to go to sleep in class which will probably get me in trouble by the teacher. After reading Jay's blog, I think he feels the same way as me when he doesn't get enough sleep too. This is probably the reason why Tuesday was annoying for him.

During my eighth grade year, whenever I don't get enough sleep, I always end up sleeping in class. I would always get into big trouble, and the whole day would always annoy the heck out of me. Everything became a blur, and the only thing that was in my mind at the time was to sleep. When I got home from one of those kind of days, I always went to sleep right away. This problem had stayed with me for awhile, but one day, I felt much better because I manage to find a solution: drinking coffee with a large amount of sugar mixed into it. Regular Coffee don't help at all, but if you put a large of sugar in it then it would work like a charm. It helped me to stay awake, and I manage to go through the whole day at school without falling asleep at all. To this very day, I still use this strategy whenever I don't get enough sleep. So this is what I would recommend for Jay and whoever out there that get annoy about their day because of lack of sleep: just drink coffee with a lot of sugar in it. It also very tasty too.

My Vocabulary List

1.Commission

2.Compensation

3.Convention

4.Adequate

5.Integration

6.Prior

7.Alter

8.Regime

9.Ration

10.Stability

The Rebuttal

This is a response to Peter's opening statement. I would like to start out by pointing out the big contradiction that I found in his opening statement. Peter stated that human activities do not effect global warming at all, but at the end of his opening statement he happened to mention that Humanity could just built up not bigger than 1 percent of contribution to the warming of the earth. So even though one percent seems to be little difference, he still happen to mention that it is possible for human activities to effect global warming when he clearly stated in the beginning that it is impossible for human to do such a thing. I would also like to say that it is not true that Co2 is a very weak green house gas and has a little to no effect to the temperature. From the data that I gathered, Co2 levels were 389ppm (parts per million) as of April 2010, and this was the highest they have been in the past 650,000 years. This increase of C02 was an important contribution to the 1 Fahrenheit to 1.4 Fahrenheit temperature over the 20th century. From what my opponent said, water vapor is what really causes the green house effect to happen. In a way, I agree with that statement, but C02 that are caused by human activities also have a substantial impact too. As long as C02 does have some impact on the earth's temperature, this small increase in the temperature amplifies the water vapor into a much greater rate than it is now since the warmer the temperature, the more water vapor there would be. It would be like a chain reaction from human activities creating more C02 into the air to making the temperature warmer to the increasing of water vapor which therefore shows that human activities is a crucial part to the warming of the earth. Overall, his opening statement were filled with rubbish assumptions with no evidence whatsoever backing up to what he was saying.