Gifts - Fiction

Below is a short story of what I think a so called 'special gift' is. Other peer members of mine wrote about materialistic items such as a toy, car, and so forth. I decided to take a different approach which I find is the ultimate gift. Of course, it is only my opinion and yours may vary from mine. 

Thank you for Your gift. 

GIFT

What is a gift? Ever since we, human kinds have been born have been given gifts. All kinds. Everyone of us have received many many different spectrum of gifts, mundane gifts. As a baby, we have been given our mothers care, little toys, dolls, toy cars, helicopters.....etc. When we move onto different stages in our life,for example, as teenagers, you will be given also a lot of other forms of gifts, such as Xbox’s, clothes, laptops, shoes,watches etc. And as an adult, gifts vary as well. You will be given items such as houses, cars, rings, necklaces, and so forth. Infinite varieties of gifts. But lord oh lord, have you ever wondered, what is the ultimate,special gift? How many of us, you, me, our parents, our neighbors and everyone else on earth have ever wondered, really wondered that life itself is already and indeed a special gift? The ultimate gift.

Without life, this gift, I would not be able to experience being in Central, being in Hong Kong, being on this Earth, being in this Universe, being in existence itself. In fact, there would be nothing to feel, nothing to experience. There would be nothing. Nothing!

Life itself is unique, in fact life as being a human is even more unique. Unique to a degree that thinking about our own existence is already so unique. We, as well as all other existing beings, can feel all kinds of emotions such as fear, anger, pain, happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, hopelessness and desire. Is this not the greatest special gift of all? 

Responsibility

Should this gift which we all have received requires our attention to its responsibility? And if someone gives us any gifts should we not take very good care of it and uses it to enhance ourselves and to everyone and everything around us?

I believe that we definitely do have a huge responsibility to take care of this gift itself, and yet at the same time we do have the responsibility to take care of every other living being (I need not mention that these are also gifts in other forms).  We should therefore not take this special gift for granted. It is unique and every human, every individual has the responsibility to protect this gift -life itself. This special gift is not to be ignored. 

As it is our responsibility to protect ourselves, as well as other  species, (endangered or not), such as sharks, lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos etc., we should really ask ourselves, do we really need to kill and harm these beautiful and graceful species? These beautiful and graceful species are just like you and me, they are also being sent to us as special gifts, to co-exist with us together, as our companion. Yet these species are innocently harmed and killed every day because of greed.

 Sharks for example, are killed only for their sharks fins, and the rest of the carcass is being dumped into the water, leaving the shark to die. Animals such as tigers and lions, their skins are peeled off for profit and left to die. What has happened to human consciousness ? Has this gift from the Creator gone ashtray? In retrospect,and if we think deeply,we as human must take care, and protect other living species as well, if not, everything will and  can fall apart. Say if just sharks were to be extinct, and removed from the food chain, it would affect the ecology of the ocean. In fact, the affect would spread to affect the food chain of humans, and other animals and every other organisms on earth. If all sharks were destroyed and consummated, there would be too much fish, and then plankton would be gone. You may think that if sharks are gone,  there may still be  dolphins and whales. NO no, they won’t exist either as the food chain is already disturbed.The viscous cycle had begun.

Do any of these other special living  do any harm to us? No, they do not, so why should we do such cruel and brutal actions to them, when they bring us no harm. They are just like us, trying to live, to experience and to survive, as another form. They are also trying to experience, like us, this wonderful experience of being in existence itself Thus, we must take the responsibility to protect them. As they are also unique gifts to all of us.

We can protect other human beings, or other beings, by not trespassing what is theirs; things such as their habitats, their nutriment, their survival gears etc.. If we do the above, not only do we make ourselves safe and out of harms way, but we also provide happiness to the everything around us; ultimately leading to  interconnected joy. 

Process of Life

The process of life is different for everyone.

“Most people live life on the path that is set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while, special people come along and knock down all the obstacles put in their way. People who realize free will is a gift, you’ll never know how to use it until you fight for it. I think that’s what His real plan is. But maybe, one day, He won’t write the plan. We will.” 

When we are all born, our life may seem predestined. But as being said above, there are some people who push their limits to the utmost, and change what was predestined for them, making their own destiny and history. As humans, it is only  our nature to feel equal as others’ around us; friends, family, teachers, colleagues. But there are people in this world, who push and strive to be different. They love and wish to change history. A good example is Steve Jobs. 

“It’s easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is much better at the top”

Certainly the process of life is different for everyone, but the ultimate statement is not to do harm but do things that  are beneficial to mankind. Yours and mine and Steve Jobs lives are definitely different form each other, but have we noticed that we affect each other and we are all connected.  

There are times in life, where we all have to experience ups and downs. We have diseases, we experience depression and have our dark days, but this is part of life. Some people are born with no arms, no legs, but yet they have no worries, no complaints. 

Another painful aspect of life, are losing people you dearly cherished. People come and go, friends, family, colleagues. Nothing lasts forever, but the process of life is the same. Each of us is unique, and we all are gifts form the Creator.

Fairness in human beings? 

After being endowed with life, can we substantiate fairness? In life, it is fair. What makes it fair is using the power of Now. , the power of Now is to think of the current this moment. To not think of the future, nor the past. Base your decisions on what you wish to occur for the next few minutes. The power of Now is a technique for learning how to live. To really feel what existence is. To totally understand this gift of life.  

To be fair, we all must work together, we must cooperate, and we must work hard. In order for fairness to work, we must try and make our surroundings fairer, by fighting for ourselves. 

To be fair, we must not use people, we must not lie to people, we must consider other peoples well being. We must also not be in it for ourselves, we must look at the bigger picture. 

If we are not fair to each other, countries could fall apart, economies could fall apart, corporations could fall apart as we can see from the current world situations, in politics and  economics .To attain fairness, there are certain qualities that must be involved, such as honesty, commitment, and so forth. Fairness is therefore ultimately important so that life can be sustained, this gift of lifecan be kept forever.

Connectedness

All living organisms are connected to each other one way or another. Each and every single living organism has its own strand of DNA, and their own set of genes, but that is not to say we are not connected, or we are not similar. We are similar, we are all living creatures, living, experiencing. We are all just beings, doing what is in our nature to be existence itself, to experience ourselves as lives.

Connectedness includes communication,and communication could be with anything or anyone. Your parents, teachers, friends, pet dogs, cats, squirrels,anything. A good thing to keep in mind, is to act in a nice and respectable manner to everyone and everything you encounter, treat them as you would like them to treat you; in other words; be nice and do no harm, then they will return the favor. 

Then all life forms as gifts are blessed.

Awakening

All of us are awake everyday, but I would say most of us are not awakened to truly understand how to manage life itself. As an awakened individual, it is therefore important for us to understand that this network of connections must be upheld. It is like an butterfly effect, where something that happened across the continent could affect you. which it will.


There are definitely causes and consequences in this world and in physics, this is called action and reaction, every action has its consequences. As awakened individuals, we must keep this in balance and check, so that everybody will be able to understand we are all connected, and therefore horrible consequences can be avoided, because again, every action has a reaction; if you do something bad, something bad will come to you, if you do something good, something good will come back to you. 

To be able to be given this gift as a being, as a human is a miracle. And thank God for giving me the ultimate.

This is Wonderful!

Appreciating Music

Lots of modern day teens like to listen to music such as Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Beyonce etc. And that is truly not called music. Music has changed from a wonderful art to something that is garbage (not trying to offend or insult nowaday music but it is just my opinion). I have a music example of what true music is, and not only is the song a work of art, but the way Larry Carlton plays the guitar with such emotion. It almost feels like he is playing the guitar and making sounds that feels like he is crying.



Hope you enjoyed the music of the 70's-90's era!

Boogie-Woogie

Here is also another one of my music scripts that I made. But this time covering the genre of Boogie-woogie. It should give a little background information about the genre and its history. 

Popular in 1930-1940's but was invented much earlier.

"Boogie-woogie is a piano-based blues that became very popular in the midst of the 1930-1940's." Unlike Bebop, Boogie-woogie was the type of music to dance to. 

The position of the piano was the accompany the singers and also to play as a solo in smaller bands.

For most bands that played 'boogie-woogie' style, the 12 bar blues was almost involved in every song. 

Boogie-woogie was first discovered in late 1930's in Texas, where many people gathered to do jam sessions. 

For most Boogie-woogie songs, they are based on the 12 bar blues. 

"The 12 bar blues is one of the most popular chord progressions in popular music, including the blues. The blues can be played in any key."

Entrepreneurship news article

For English we were given an assessment to create a newspaper article. There were 4 different subject articles we could choose from. And I chose the one that was about a person named Ryan Hwang who has sold his candy recently.

As sweet as candy 

Born dyslexic, defeated in his academic work. Raised in a low income family. Ryan Hwang is destined to become the next entrepreneur of the year with his newly home-made candy

By FUNG 

Published: June 3, 2011

In what could possibly turn out to be another successful Virgin Music brand, a Hongkonger currently seeks to build a triumphant company. He sees Hong Kong as the preeminent place to build a retail business. 

Will there be more space for a new coming entrepreneur this year? 

Yesterday, Ryan Hwang, a possible forth coming entrepreneur and retailer, announced the release of his new candy line in Mong Kok. His candy has sold well the past few days, and Ryan is looking for more. 

Over the span of 4 days, Ryan has sold 400,000 packages of his new and innovative lines of candy. 

Since Ryan was young, he has always had the intention of being in the position of a Founder of a company. He had never anticipated that his life would go this far, but in a matter of time, his dream came not to be a figment. School life for Hwang was not a luxury. He attended City University, and he did not achieve academically good grades, nor did he get a high result for his physical education. He soon found interest in building his own business at the age of 18, growing and selling christmas trees.

“I was academically, and physically not up to the standards. In fact, I was dyslexic. At 18, I wasn’t able to do anything, our family was poor, and I needed to do something. So I dropped out from school to start my own business.”

 Ryan said he never thought he would become so successful in life. 

The release of the new line of candy was introduced in his very own store, The Kandi Stop. He announced it via a loud-speaker on the streets of Mong Kok. For a while, the police thought he was a madman, until the police tried the candy themselves. They were astonished by the quality.

 He says his candy is the most innovative and best ever to have been manufactured on the planet. “Our candy is the most awe-inspiring ever created on this universe! Once the candy has made contact with with your tongue,  it liquefies into a soothing fluid like texture.” claimed Ryan.

 Hwang’s inspiration has come from the successful, 41-year-old British entrepreneur, Richard Branson. Hwang said since his early youth days, he always looks up to Richard as a motivator. 

Richard Branson, states, “There are not many successful entrepreneurs that reach the level of where I am. It takes a lot of hard work. I am proud to hear that Ryan uses me as his inspiration, but he has to have faith in himself. As of 2011, the success rate for entrepreneurs is 34%, and I hope Ryan is part of that 34. I wish the best to Ryan!” 

Franky Ng, vice president of The Kandi Store, said that they hope to expand The Kandi Store internationally around the globe in approximately 2 years and have 79 stores world-wide. 

Since there was only brief details about Ryan Hwang and his new candy. I had to make up things such as his background and his past etc.

Hope you enjoyed this article!

The Mountains Run Along The West - Drew Carver - Peterson

The Mountains Run Along The West is a poem about nature, by Drew Carver - Peterson. In Art I chose to make a collage about my interpretation of this poem:

The mountains run along the West,
The rivers whisper as they flow,
The valleys are green down beneath,
The waterfalls crash as they go.
The rainforests? roofs are quite tall,
The lakes are incredibly wide,
The hills are glowing as they roam,
The plateaus have no place to hide.

We created our own abstract collage of our own interpretation. We were also required to make our own version of our interpretation of this poem. And mine this was my version:

The West they flow on.
Habitats they pass, rivers,
valleys, they keep flow.

Passing and tumbling, thriving to push through,
they plunge vigorously to the
icy cool, cool but not frozen.
Into the cool waterfall. . .

Through the night they flow,
through to the morn of light,
Say 'Hello' to the bright of tomorrow.
And say 'Good night' to the present.

Cause' there lay your mountains,
swooshing water, passes through the forests.
Where trees are high, reaching up into the sky.

Then we lay down our human foot,
tearing down rivers
valleys, and forests for paper.

Will we have mountains,
Will we have mountains, that say untouched?
Will there lay a habitat untouched?

As the mountains run along the west,
we run,
we run and chase.
Chase along the whole globe.
Cutting rainforests,

But the mountains, will still run along the west.

Another version I have written:

The sun rises on the east hiding at noon in the west, 

Running along with the mountains as the rivers drift in peace

Going down an emerald valley,

Changing into a gushing stream, crashing into bends and curves.

The rainforest high above with canopies in the clouds.

The lakes down beneath is boundless space,

As the hills reflects light as they travel along the mountain sides,

The plateaus far away from the shaded tree showing off their freedom space.

Learning and 'Never Giving Up'

Have you ever wondered to yourself: What motives you to learn? I understand that it is a odd question to ask. But have you ever thought about it?

Just today, whilst at home doing my homework. I received a survey from a classmate, and there were only a few questions. But hard questions. Obviously, one of them including 'What motives you to learn?'

What makes me want to learn and become hardworking. Is simply the fact that I do not want to waste my parents money that they spend for me to go to school. If I don't try hard, that means all the money is wasted. So why not, be happy and appreciate what you have. This also brings me to the topic of appreciating. Many people do not appreciate what they have today.

People who can see this post by me should be thankful, not because I have made my blog, not because you are reading this. It's because you are lucky enough to have a laptop, and spend time to read my blog.

There are many people who are less fortunate than we are. Take a look at Libya, they are going on an outrage, they are fighting against each other. They are having war. But what about us? We our not in harms way. Therefore we should thank and enjoy every moment we have. Look at Nick Vujicic, he has no hands, no legs 'No arms, no legs, no worries'.

Why are people addicted to social networking sites like Facebook? (Project)

Problem: That kids are spending more time on social communicating websites
Reason: Our reason being choosing this is because we think Facebook affects the way people behave. It also is bad for hygiene as you sit indoors all day, and stare at a screen/iPhone (etc.). As that is just one of our concerns.

As Facebook keeps track of everything you post, every chat you have with others, birthdays, events, etc. It can be dangerous?         

Benefits:
- Chat with friends around the world
- Being more social with friends
- Can play games that you can’t find anywhere else


Costs:
- Spend more time indoors
- Facebook can keep your personal information
- Giving away information to companies
- The student gets lower grades
- Damages real life socialization
- Get addicted not only to games but also the web. And it will possibly destroy how you live.



Social networking is the easiest way to communicate, and you basically lose everything that school teaches you. When on Facebook, you become uncontrollable, and you start trolling on people’s profiles posting rude things.


Statistics:

At the moment, there are 500 million people who actively use Facebook. Averagely, people spend 700 million minutes in a month on Facebook. People have an average number of friends at 130.

Yes, it can be fun. There are many things you can do on Facebook playing applications and games. There are 900 million people who interact with event, applications, games, community pages. etc)

But Facebook is becoming more of a problem because when someone creates a post, or comments on your posts, people sometimes get really offended, and take it hard. So in real life, there could be severe consequences. That is also a type of bullying (cyberbullying). E.g. There was a high school student who had an account on Facebook who was constantly getting hated on, bullied, being teased etc. She eventually killed herself because she couldn’t take it anymore. The people who kept teasing her ended up getting arrested.



Also when you create a Facebook account, there is a piece of text which you are “supposed” to read and agree to, but let me ask you; How many people read that statement to agree on. I bet you in our school at the moment, no one has read that statement. And that statement provides information which could be pretty crucial if you ask me. Facebook could possibly sell your information to companies without telling you. In fact, the account and privacy settings are pretty much useless.

Did you know? People are so attached to Facebook that when someone just comes up to you and says; your Facebook page is so boring, it has 0 comments, 0 photos etc. People will get offended. And that could affect your social life with them. A college student was relaxing over the weekend, and was excited to see his friend come from Seattle to visit. But he got offended straight after she said; your Facebook is so boring. He then replied straight away with: “So is your face”. A typical phrase teenagers use.

Addiction

After you have used Facebook for 2-6 months, you will start to realize there isn’t much left to do neglecting that fact, people still go on Facebook everyday during class, instead of studying, being in the library, while watching a movie at home you will have your laptop on your lap. This person says: He has many friends who should be studying for an upcoming test constantly press F5 (PC) (For Mac it is Command R) to refresh their Facebook Wall just to see if there is anyone who has posted anything. The most common thing people do after spending 6 months playing lame games etc. Posting photos, updating their status every 10 minutes, commenting on other’s walls, post inappropriate things, stalking , etc. And when you post inappropriate comments, there are so many people who will spread it around, to their friends, to your mutual friends, to everyone. Your friend tells your friend, that tells their friend, that tells their friends. And eventually it would be possible that you would be famous in their community for being an ignorant/ wet blanket.



This is a picture of where Facebook is mostly used in the world;




Also a problem with Facebook users are that once a friend request appears and you don’t know them, people usually accept. (But I myself go to their profiles and see if I recognize them, if not I would decline the request). But for the average Facebook user, they simply check for mutual friends and press accept. Just because they want to brag about they want to pretend that they have more friends. I have seen many people who are on my friends list that I know add people that they don’t know who are on my friends list. E.g. Someone on my friend list only had 60 mutual friends between me and him that he actually knew. But he just basically stalked my profile and looked at my friends list and pressed add everyone (which he doesn’t know). And now we have 179 “mutual friends” between us. And that is a risk-factor because you are adding people whom you do not know.

If you were at school, and there was only 1 hour left until you could get home. I can assure you 90% of the people who have Facebook will go on to check their wall posts. Instead you could just wait 1 hour till you get home.



Technology

Now in the modern world, children are so spoilt. Everyone you see most of the time will at least have these following: A PS3/ Xbox360, NDS/PSP, iPod Nano/3Gs, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPad. Most of the people will have at least those items. Don’t you think we are spoilt these days? And on the iPhone’s it is so handy that you just need to slip in your pocket to bring it everywhere. So then you could go on Facebook 24/7 and you will constantly see people on the streets plugged in with earphones and tapping around on their iPhone screen. The technology is pretty overused in the modern day that we are in today.



Bibliography:
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
I used this source because the statistics come from Facebook.
http://www.smartplanet.com/technology/blog/thinking-tech/bullying-and-the-unintended-consequences-of-facebook/3638/ I used this link’s example in one of my PPT slides, because it is from CBSNews
http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2009/03/05/Forum/Facebook.Use.With.Caution.Or.Suffer.Consequences-3660603.shtml I used this link because I was searching for another example of social networking consequences, but came up with this. And I have to say, that my opinions are the same as his, and I believe that his information is true, by observation of people in my Facebook friend’s list  

Growth Through Adversity

Today we are starting a new unit in English class and it is the Significant Concept Of Growth Through Adversity.

Growth Through Adversity means:
Growth= Physically and Mentally developing
Through= Going to one and another
Adversity= Misfortune, bad luck
Oscar: Having bad experiences when you are young and using those experiences to become a better person.
Fung: To experience bad things, and try to overcome them. And teach others to try and avoid. Also to change the way of others thinking. E.g. If you were a parent, would you put your child through Bad luck? Also having parents who are poor, may lead to adversity, but it can lead to a big dream.
Elspeth: Its when people grow up with misfortune or with difficulties
Maddie: When people grow up and achieve things through their misfortune

Guiding Question: How do we form & shape our Identity?
Oscar: We form & shape our identity is out of our actions and choices.
Elspeth: We form & shape our identities by our surroundings and the people around us
Maddie: We form & shape our identity by our looks, personalities and feelings (You have no control over your identity)
Fung: We try to change our personality, but it is hard to change. E.g. If you are talkative, you can't change that. (At least it is hard to). But we try to change little things such as our attitudes and our mood towards other and things in our surroundings.