4) When this happens, many people try to convince themselves that they could not do anything about it, that it was all a destiny. - This I believe, May 18th.

I liked this sentence because I repeated that word "that" in order to provide extra explanation on the sentence before.

5) However, a poet by the name of Naomi Nye and I disagreed with this madness. - Essay 22, May 6th.

This was one of my favorite sentences in the essay 22 because I liked how I wrote "Naomi Nye and I," which made the author seem more friendly to the reader.

6) One thing that I really admire about my family is the fact that we are so united. Although this might sound ironical, my family live separately. - Essay 20; Family, April 20th.

This was one of my favorite sentences just because I got to use the word "ironical." I have always felt that ironical is a very interesting word to use, and was looking for a chance to use it in one of my essays.

Ten Favorite sentences

1) There is a saying goes, “Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve,” by Martin Luther King Jr. - True gentleman, March 7th

I chose this sentence as one of my favorite sentences because it was the first time I used a quote. I realized that quotes can be great for introduction paragraph.

2) However, I was in a really severe mental stress because of the fact that I was stuck in that place, when I should have been spending time with my friends. - Forgive, March 11th

I chose this sentence because it was a sentence when I explained the situation further with the "when I should have been spending time with my friends" part. I felt that this addition added a nice description to my paragraph.

3) I do not believe in destiny. ~ I believe in neccesity. - This I believe, May 18th.

These two sentences are paired up. I liked these sentences because I thought that ending a paragraph with one statement and starting the next paragraph with a similar sentence structure gave it an excellent flow.

This I believe

May 18, 2010

Jeffrey Cho

This I believe

Often times in our lives we face many different kinds of situations that we just cannot understand or believe. When this happens, many people try to convince themselves that they could not do anything about it, that it was all a destiny. Destiny means that the past, present and future was, is, and will be chosen for us. I do not believe in destiny.

I believe in necessity. Necessity means that everything that happens in the world only happens because of certain causes. It may sound similar to destiny. However they are completely different from each other in a sense that destiny has only one result no matter what we do, whereas necessity means that one action has the possibility to change everything. An example of destiny would be like math; two plus two is four, no matter what we do. Fortunately, most things in real life don’t follow the same pattern for every single occasion. I believe that every decision we make are the ones that changes our consequences. William Bryan once quoted, "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." Therefore, only thing that we know for sure is that for those who condemn (Thesaurus)destiny for bad results, positive consequences will never follow.

In a nutshell, I believe that we should keep in our mind that we are responsible for whatever happens as a result of our past actions. It is true that sometimes in life, we encounter some events that just do not seem fair. However, instead of blaming the results on destiny right away, we should learn to get over them and try harder, so that we can recieve better results next time.

Self assessment:

1. When I first planned the essay, it was planned to be 4 paragraph essay, so I had to stuff all the points in one paragraph

2. I felt that the conclusion was weak, it might have been better if I used the quote in conclusion instead.

3. I used the word "condemn" as a thesaurus, and I was not sure if it was suitable for that sentence

Essay 22

There are many things in this world that are disrespected and called names just because everyone says that they are ugly and pointless. For example, some animals and insects such as rats, skunks, spiders and snakes tend to be ignored and looked down upon by many people. However, a poet by the name of Naomi Nye and I disagreed with this madness. We believe that everything has its’ own beauty that should be respected.

The poem, “Valentine for earnest man” by Naomi Nye was written as a reply to a man who gave her his address and asked her to write him a poem. From the poem, I could infer that she was complaining about how the man asked for the poem as if he was ordering a taco. The main part of this poem is about a man who thought that skunks were beautiful and gave them to his wife for Valentine’s Day. There is one phrase that is the most important part of this poem. Ms. Nye writes, “Nothing was ugly just because the world said so,” which suggests her idea of everything having its’ own beauty. Also, she added, “He reinvented them as valentines and they became beautiful.” From the two lines of this poem, I thought that she was trying to say that poems cannot be ordered like tacos, but rather be respected by different people with different tastes.

When Ms. Nye showed her strong belief that “nothing is ugly just because the world says so,” I recollected some of the memory I have that made me think the same thing. When I was spending my time in Korea during summer vacation one year, my dad got back from his golf practice with a little puppy on his arm. My dad really loved animals, so he couldn’t leave the poor thing alone, but he was planning to get him to a care center because he was ugly. The puppy had a crooked tail and one of his legs was deformed quite terribly, but I found his eyes really cute. Therefore, instead of getting rid of him, I suggested that he could go to my grandfather’s farm to be taken care of. Since my grandmother was a severe animal-lover herself and she could not resist my 8-year-old begging eyes, she decided to take care of him. Fortunately, Michi, the puppy, got along well with 11 other dogs that my grandmother already had. Because I found the puppy cute while others did not like him so much, he was able to be loved by a caring family.

There is an ancient saying in China that goes, “Things only seem as beautiful as we want them to be seen beautiful.” It may be impossible to change everyone’s mind about their perspectives on beauty. Even if I think of rats, skunks, spiders, and snakes are beautiful, it probably will not be true for other people. However, if each of us begin try to look at things not only by what the world says, but rather by their own unique beauty, I believe that the world will seem much more beautiful.

Self Assessment:

1. On the first body paragraph, my translation about the meaning of the poem was slightly off from the topic.

2. The second body paragraph's example was a bit too long, so I felt that I didn't say everything that I had to say