Journal 22 - Change

Change is inevitable. Life and death are the biggest changes I know of. These happened the most in Nectar in a Sieve. This is the book with the most deaths after Night by Elie Wiesel. The weather of the village has changed. This means that the author has changed the setting. By changing just the setting, the weather, he is able to change all other things by the domino effect. When the weather changed, their economy changed. Later, as it became worse, children died and Ira gave in to prostitution. The economy was the big change and chain effect of the weather. Without food, children starve. Kuti died as well as Raja and Old Granny. Kuti died from starvation. He was well-fed when Ira was a prostitute but when she stopped being one, he died. Raja died from the beating and also because he was starving and weak. Old Granny died from starvation. I think that the book is trying to tell us that every change or decision is a domino effect. This might be the theme of the book. A lot of things changed in my life as well. I did not remember much of my early years but when I changed schools, everything changed. My life changed from being set to one with a teeny tiny bit more freedom. I learned more things and matured a bit more than when I was in ILBC. Adolescence is one phase of change that I go through. It is very weird and you sometimes don't know what actually is going on. I learned a lot about the internet and I learned a lot of things using it as well.

Journal 21 - Living on the Edge

My life is not at risk. However, it might be on the edge if you consider some aspects and possibilities. The things that could happen are just scary. I think the government, nature, the flow of life, and death are forces beyond our control. There are plenty but those are the four main ones I thought of while writing this journal. Willpower, energy, fate, hope, motivation and mind are the forces that determine what I do that are coming from me. I wrote this because I never always have full control of them meaning it is very hard for me to do somethings such as being motivated at nine pm at night. I would only get my motivation to do work later at night or I wouldn't do it at all. I have many risks when the forces turn hostile. If nature turns hostile, there is an issue of life and death. With the government, if there are political problems, there can be death, and poverty but on the bright side there could be prosperity. The flow of life controls how rich or poor the family is. Life and death are mostly not within our controls. May be life is but not all aspects of life is under control. You can't prevent that one day you will die. You can speed up the coming of death by destroying your health and you can also slow down the coming of death by preserving good health. However, you can't stop death from coming to you. My friends and family gives me hope during hopeless times so that I can achieve my goals. I sometimes get tired of life and when that happens, I remember a quote I have read before. It is by R. D. Laing and it says, "Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent." This might just be my favorite quote.

Journal 20 - Disappointment

Disappointment is can be temporary and is usually temporary. However, it is usually unexpected. Disappointment strikes when you expect something very well and something not very well happens. This happened in Nectar in a Sieve when Rukmani was disappointed by her husband's house. Disappointment can also go away if you see something justifiable or if the disappointment changes to satisfaction. This can also be seen in Nectar in a Sieve when Rukmani learns to appreciate her husband's house. In my life, I had very high hopes when I changed schools from ILBC to YIS. I thought YIS would be the best school ever. YIS is indeed a good school but I am currently disappointed by the quality of some classes. It made me feel like the 17600+ dollars was not worth it. This is the case for some students too. They were disappointed by the school and some of them are changing soon. I think the only way I could overcome this disappointment is to self-learn and do more things for myself. This was not the biggest disappointment I had. The disappointment I had was seeing students of different ages, spoiling themselves and not getting a good education or a good future. This happens in many areas and I am disappointed by this. I was able to overcome this by saying that it's not my life by theirs.

Journal 19 - The Journey

The beginning of Nectar in a Sieve was sad for Rukmani. This was the first part of her life journey. Life itself is a journey, moving around, doing things, learning more and more and eventually, being changed in the end. I believe that all stories take a journey and they can be both physical and mental. In an anime called Hunter x Hunter, they said that it's not about the destination but about the journey. The journey I want to talk about today though is Night by Elie Wiesel. It is a memoir and shows me one of the most horrifying and life-changing journeys of all time. I chose this because I have never seen such a violent journey and this tells me that even bad things can be part of a journey. His life journey starts when the Nazi took him to a camp. From there, he moved from camp to camp with his father and he never reunited with his mother and sisters. They smelled burning flesh and witnessed utmost cruelty, giving a thirteen year old a slow and painful death in front of the people. He endured the pain with his father and not long after, they escaped the Nazis because there was an attack. However, his father dies in the end and Elie is almost dead from food poisoning and the effects of war. Although he is physically alive, he only sees a corpse when he looks into a mirror. I have also been on some sort of journey. When I went to the monastery, I went through a huge mental journey. I thought about the horrors of death and many bad things that could happen. I try to dispel them by meditating but in the change it gave me was a bit of maturity and depression. 

Journal 18 - Work and Hope

An epigraph is something written at the beginning of a story, usually to suggest its theme. Just by looking at this epigraph, I would like to say that it's pretty deep in meaning. It is trying to say that unless you work with hope, you would have a hard time succeeding. Hope is very important because if you have no hope than you don't have the will to do something or to go on. Rukmani, the main character of the book Nectar in a Sieve, would not be able to live without hope. She was the youngest daughter of the headman of the village but her father did not have enough money for her because there was a collector. As a result, she was married to a poor tenant farmer. She was so sad and she was sick but she kept hope in her husband. She started working, such as planting plants and she was pleased to hear that her husband built the mud home himself for her. This work gave her hope and there is an increasing amount of love between them. I believe what the epigraph essentially means is that hope should be put in objects and that work is necessary for hope. I think that this also applies to my life. This is because when I am at school, I put hope in my work or my tests. Work is necessary meaning that I have to actually learn and work for me to hope for a good grade. Therefore, I agree to the epigraph that Nectar in a Sieve portrayed.

Journal 17 - Doing the Right Thing

Most people have an idea of a right and a wrong. These do not have to be written as a law to be one of the principles of life. The most common people I think is the "live-with-some-morals" people are common. They won't kill or steal anything by consent. They also have some ways to go around their little rules. They wouldn't kill or steal but let's just say they saw a hundred dollar bill on the road. Most of them would just take it, especially if no one is around. It's possible that it doesn't even need to be a hundred dollar bill. Some people might even take a dime because it might be useful sometime. These people, I think are the most common people in the world. People are not criminals but are capable of becoming criminals if they are alone or if no one is watching them. If no one finds out or if only a small group of people knows, then that person could be a criminal just fine. I am mostly a simple guy. I don't like to do bad things. I don't steal or things like that but I would take an opportunity that would come to me if it is not going to harm people. If it is going to make some people sad, I wouldn't do it. If I found someone's hundred dollar bill on the road, I would not take it. I would try to find the person back. On the other hand, if someone gave me the test questions and I could use it to help myself study instead of harming someone, I would do it. I would do it in a way that would not harm myself. That is what I believe in. Some rules that I think should be in life are no killing, no stealing or no using recreational drugs. I just find horror and disgust in killing. Stealing I think, as in picking up something someone has lost if fine, not for me but for the general people, because the person should've been more careful with their items. Stealing by going into a person's house and taking their stuff would not be fine. Recreational drugs are just a no.

Journal 16 - Survival Choices

A thematic topic that appears in both Akutagawa's "Rashomon" and at the end of Kurosawa's film adaptation of "In a Grove" (for some reason title "Rashomon") is that of the conflict between survival and ethics. In these, as well as many other literary works (as well as in real life), individuals are forced to choose between doing what they know is right and dying. Describe how this struggle plays out in the text version of "Rashomon" and then compare it to the situation in the film version. Then describe situation in which you had to make a difficult decisions between what you knew to be right and what you were otherwise pressured to do (hopefully not under threat of death). What about in the world-at-large? Have you ever heard of a real-life situation in which someone had to choose between good and evil in order to survive? Describe the situation.

 In the text version of Rashōmon, the servant of the samurai was the protagonist. The samurai needed him no more and sent him away. Now that he had nothing to do or nowhere to go to, he approaches the gate of Rashōmon. in the Rashōmon, he chooses between survival and ethics. In the book version, the servant chose survival, basically abandoning his moral values. In the film version, the man chose survival over ethics or kindness. This was a bit very surprising because it combined two stories into one movie. I also did not expect that he would take things away from a child because the parents abandoned him. It showed that he has no ethics and that he is just for survival. The similarity in the book and the film are that both the men would do anything for survival. The different is in that the film's child is innocent and the woman plucking hair out might not be too innocent. I also had a difficult decision. It was in middle school. I didn't do my homework and I didn't study for any vocab. When I had a quiz that day in class, I am struggling so much, hoping not to die. When I looked beside me, there was Michael. Oh how his answers looked so beautiful. However, I have my ethics and said that it was too wrong to do this. But at last, I was young and it was too tempting. I copied my answers and I got caught. I guess I was really happy that I got caught. This way, I would remember to do work I'm supposed to do. The next time, I am pretty sure I am going to choose good instead of evil.