A Girl in Translation.

A beautiful story, indeed.

A Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok describes the main character Kimberly, a young girl from Hong Kong who came to America. She lives in a broken-down house filled with rats and roaches, and is often discriminated for her diversities with other students is her class.

It gets me angry when I encounter someone like Kimberly. She lacks intelligence of the world. She remained in Asia for such a long time, but it's as if she only knows about Hong Kong. She's so used to living there, and becomes bullied because of that. Especially her teacher, Mr. Bogart. At one point during her first time in class, Kimberly misunderstood what was happening during a test and Bogart assumed she was cheating.

He absolutely fails at a teacher. First, he made a first-time transfer student take a test on the very first day. What if she wasn't on track with the school's progress? She wasn't even properly introduced, like so in normal schools. Second, he didn't bother asking if she needed any help or gave her a warning - she immediately failed. But what I thought was most important was that third, she didn't bother asking the teacher for help.

If I were in Kimberly's shoes right at this moment, I would try asking him (to the best of my ability) for help. Even if I don't speak English, I'd just be like "arbl hooga shlaggn?" or saying a question so my teacher would know that I need help. But what I thought was that if I were Kimberly, I would practice my English. It didn't say that she did study at all, so I would regret not trying to improve on that.

You'd find it crude for me to be like this with these types of characters. I know that though; I don't even know if I would curse out at these teachers or sue the Board of Ed. But it makes me envious how people don't even try to do something and just stand around, yet nonetheless they are better than those who speak out. I know many of my friends that are quiet and force me to do talking when they should be the ones doing it. It's annoying. If no one knows how to speak out, no one would agree or disagree with anything.

◤ The World Ends With You ◢

(Note that there're a couple of spoilers.) Something I am reading other than The Hobbit.

This short book, also referred to as It's a Wonderful World, focuses on a protagonist named Neku Sakuraba who suddenly died, but revives in the "Underground" (abbreviated as UG) of Shibuya (the UG is the same Shibuya, but those who die revive in this area). However, he has no memories of his death. In order to go retrieve his memories, he must play a game for seven days where he has to do missions. He must cooperate with other people to survive.

Just like The Hobbit, there are many resemblances. Neku always wears headphones, especially while speaking to somebody. In my opinion, I find his headphones to be the "wall" between him and, well, other people. It's like he ignores people by simply listening to music...or that 'glass wall' that he can never pass through, metaphorically speaking.

I can describe Neku as a nihilistic person, according to our philosophy terms we learned recently. Neku doesn't cooperate with his partner and often wanders off by himself. He's very independent, and didn't really care for other people at all. However, as he progressed with his teammate in the game, he was able to learn about friendship and trust, and what it meant to break it.

I'm awfully sure at least someone who reads my blog post felt like they were betrayed or betrayed someone else, even if it was a small thing.

Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves and Orcs.

The LOTR series is truly a magnificent fantasy story.

The book I am reading, The Hobbit (or There and Back Again) by J.R.R Tolkien is the prequel of the Lord Of the Rings series portraying Bilbo Baggins as the main character/protagonist. He is known as a "hobbit", an elf half the size of a human that love to drink and party. So far in the story, Bilbo is forced to travel with Gandalf, a very powerful wizard, along with 13 or so elves, with Thorin, the leader of the pack.

Coincidently, through thorough research I realized that Bilbo was intentionally related to Tolkien's son. It does, in fact, make sense to use a miniature creature similar as a child to be the main character. Bilbo himself tends to be heartwarming but easy-tempered, possibly like Tolkien's son. Bilbo seems to undergo somewhat of adolescence too, and changes his ways of living from avoiding interesting adventures.

Gandalf the-awesome-wizard-of-all-time, is an important supporting character who helps Bilbo overcome his fears, and taking care of him. He can be similar to a father that encourages his son to move on from what he can't do to what he can. Tolkien is similar in a way, too. He obviously loves his son.

Speaking about Hobbits in general, they are very adorable creatures. They love to drink, they love to party, they love everything. They are, what you would describe as peace. As far as I know, they've never been in any specific wars as a race. In the book, they are symbolized as children oblivious in danger and think positively. They live in "Hobbit holes" with adorable round houses decorated with trinkets and such. Sometimes, wondering about Hobbits makes me even think if other Hobbits were to hate one another.

Hobbits are such loving British-accented people.

Bang and Boom.

The book I am reading is called "Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie" by Jordan Sonnenblick. So far in the story, a teenager named Steven realizes that his taunting brother, Jeffrey, has leukemia, a fatal cancer that attacks essential bacteria and cells within the body. The main character portrays an unexperienced adolescent that makes regretful decisions.

One thing typical adolescents go through is rebellion of parents. Steven decides to by allowing Jeffrey to do things on his own that goes beyond his parents' rules. The aftermath was a continuous nosebleed that never stopped. Normally, the typical adolescent won't admit his awful decisions until a certain point with his/her parents that often makes conditions worse. Of course, that was portrayed in the story as well.

Another thing typical adolescents go through is young love. Steven falls in love with the -"most HOTTEST"- girl at his high school; but readers decide whether his/her love is true. This girl already has a boyfriend, doesn't think of Steven at all, and is already too clique and seen in way too many soap operas to know the answer. The main character most likely has a close friend that is female.

The last thing is the ability to change. The protagonist/adolescent must learn from experience and decide his/her way of life according to his/her decisions. As of now, the adolescent protagonist hasn't done that yet.

Isn't this "normal"?

Disappointed.

Sigh. (Some spoilers. Yeah.)

Currently reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding, about a bundle of British schoolboys attempting to govern themselves after a plane crashed on a deserted island. So far, Ralph, the leader and main character, tries to figure out the mystery behind a beast living in the island. As of now and the past few days of reading this, I am disappointed and impatient.

I was told by a bunch of friends, classmates and teachers the same speech: "Did you read the Lord of the Flies? It's good". In addition, my sister decided to spoil it to me and told me a fat kid dies. When I found the book in my homeroom library, I decided: "Why not?" and begun my reading. There was no indication of flies, which I felt emotional about, but the saying goes 'don't judge a book by it's cover', only it's the title... so I guess you could turn down this book because there's no flies, right?

Reading up to the 27th page was easy. My first days of reading this went by pretty quickly. Then afterwards, days later, the same problems kept reappearing. It was until then that I thought, wow, this book is REALLY boring. I researched other reviews of this book and a site stated that this one received an award. It wasn't that the book was horrible, but I didn't feel anything. This book isn't that special enough to obtain a Nobel peace prize. The plot wasn't predictable but almost clique. However, at the same time, my emotions kept overflowing as if I wish to be in the book and punch a few characters. So, I decided to continue finishing the book.

While reading the book, I began to think about what this uncooperative, community of pandemonium was. I thought that William Golding was attempting to symbolize the hopeless schoolboys as a society. Ralph, a good leader but receives advice from his unpopular obese friend, Piggy, tries to govern a large group that contain lazy, scared, and disobedient adolescents. Along the way, Jack, a naive choir kid who was expected to hunt food, tries to govern the people with his own ways and then ***ks the whole thing up. He already did this twice, so I hope he dies soon.

Society just never learns.

Reach Me (Revision).

Original Blog Post

So far in the book When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead, adolescent Miranda helps her mother win a game show named The $20,000 Pyramid. Her best friend, Sal, unexpectedly gets wounded from a kid on the street, damaging their relationship.

First thought - HELP your friend. Don't just stand there thinking, "our friendship is over. Hey, let me go over that lonely corner". Obviously, you guys can't be best friends if you just stand there looking at him. Moreover, how can that ruin your relationship? You don't even KNOW that kid. Just give yer friend Sal over there some first aid. Done. Third, you should've said something. Honestly.

I'm pretty much glad that kid across the street punched him inside out. Well, I meant if that happened to Miranda. Maybe if this happened to me in reality, I'd be in shock. But it wouldn't necessarily damage my friend's relationship. Yeah, I won't actually go in front of this kid and be like, "little kid, don't do such violent things," or "dude, you're hurting my friend. Punch wars?" but there's no connection between the kid and me in the first place. Besides, a friend that judges you in any way - particularly, in your neighborhood, then that can't be a true friend. I feel as aggravated as ever thinking about this.

However, thinking about this reminds me of society itself. It isn't normal to fight someone who bullied your friend. If this were to happen to me, I don't even know what to do other than to threaten the kid himself. It feels as if nowadays, we treat our friends as nothing. Take popular males and female abundances, for instance - they have many friends. But they don't cherish their friends. When I fought with my friend, I thought, "Fine. I'll just make friends with someone else." But after thinking about it a little more, I apologized to her. She was more than a friend. She was my best friend.


If we don't cherish our moments with our friends, they will disappear.

Yell-Oh! Part 2. Thinking as a whole.

Still reading Yell-Oh Girls! by Vickie Nam, I decided to communicate with other Asian American females via web and in reality to discuss the issues based on the book. Yell-Oh Girls! is a collaboration of different writings written by young Asian American girls describing their hardships and experiences, including family matters, racism, discrimination, and so forth.

Realizing back in the past, racism jokes and puns revolving around Asians - no - all races, don't really exist because people are racist. It's because we, as people, are ignorant. After watching a YouTube video response to a college student describing "insane Chinese people screaming in the library", I realized the reason of these problems. In the video response, the YouTube user describes the truth behind common Asian stereotypes.

The original video was a UCLA girl who rants about Asians in a library. She describes these people screaming about troubles in Japan and their members there, etcetera. What the problem was was her. This girl is not racist. She also states that she has Asian friends. She's just...ignorant. Back in childhood, I always called African-American's black. This is a common, offensive comment towards an African-American. But, honestly, it was too long to state these two words. These types of ignorances aren't just coming from African-Americans or Asians, but all races and genders.

The reason why typical Asians cannot leave their families is because we don't want to. My sister takes two-hour trips to college and she never leaves, much like the typical American who lives in expensive dormitories. We have superbly close connections with our families. Why would you want to leave in the first place?

So who's to blame?

First, being the media. Very few Asian Americans are portrayed in the media. In the foreword of the book, Vickie Nam writes about a magazine featuring Niki Taylor with Asian-styled clothing. She questioned the editor, "if you were going to portray Asian clothes, why didn't you at least use Asian models in the fashion spread?" and the magazine editors did not respond at all. This is a very oblivious scenery. One-hundred percent of Asian stereotypes are portrayed in various T.V. shows, mostly cartoons.

Second is the people that spread these stereotypes, followed by the people who believe these and use them. Remembering the ignorance of people, sometimes people should educate them. Maybe they don't know where Asia is. Heck, others probably don't know true Asian culture.

So, the definite culprit?

I don't know. But most likely the media.