Author: CurtisZ

Curtis Zhang

6/17/20

Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a famous composer born in 1756. His dad was a relatively successful musician, but Mozart was going to be way more famous than his dad. Mozart was a child prodigy and showed off his musical abilities when he taught himself the violin and composed little pieces when he was still a child. His father decided to send him on a tour to show off his abilities(which I think is stupid) and they had lots of troubles along the way.

Mozart got his first job when he was 17 as a court musician for the “Prince Archbishop of Salzburg”, and at first he composed lots of concertos and symphonies, but later, he got bored of his life as court musician, so he left as court musician to go to Paris, but paris had no jobs for musicians, so he went back and this time his dad got him a position as “court organist.” This time his employer treated him as a servant, and after a long time of trying to quit and not being allowed to, he was relieved of duty but humiliated. 

After he was relieved of duty, he decided to be a freelance musician and started publishing his music alone and also got married. He made a wide variety of music and even a few operas. At this point, Mozart’s financial situation was at his best, and he started living in an luxurious apartment. At one point, he was even called “the greatest composer known to me in person and in name” by a famous composer during the time. 

In 1786 musicians were finding a hard time to stay alive during this time because they were losing their main source of money which were the rich people of their country. Mozart started to lose his fame, so he made tours all over europe to try to restart his fame. In 1790, things started to look better, as his financial situation was starting to get better. He made tons of new pieces during this time, but in 1791, he got sick and he frantically wrote his latest piece which he thought was going to be his “funeral piece.” Ultimately, he failed to complete it on time, and he died on December 5, 1791 at age 35 with his funeral piece still unfinished. 

Though Mozart died without being able to live his life through, his short life produced many of the best concertos of all time. He may have had a short life, but he will always be considered by some as the greatest composer of all time.

Curtis Zhang

6/16/20

Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a short story that tells about a regular man named Walter Mitty that dreams about doing very great things during his daily life. This story, although very simple, is meant to show that humans want to make themselves stronger and better than they really are. 

When Walter Mitty always thinks about himself being great and being on some sort of adventure, which he is put in the position of power. He is always thinking about this, and so this shows that humans are always thinking about them but better and in a higher position, and doing something respected or good, even if you can’t do that yet. He kept on doing that even though what he was doing in real life is completely boring, sending his wife to get her hair done, getting overshoes, and guying puppy biscuits, all which he pretends is something very important and big. Every time, he shows some kind of bravery and is in some position of power, as well as being in a dangerous situation which he faces with bravery. 

This shows why human beings are good at imagination and have dreams. People want to be able to have power and be in control, so they dream and imagine the day that they can do that. 

Curtis Zhang

6/11/20

Motivation

People who want to be motivated usually tell themselves about what bad will happen if they do something bad, but that is not the best course of action. Research has shown that giving positive motivation, having social incentives, and having immediate rewards help the most with getting people motivated. 

When you give positive motivation, it has been shown that people are better at understanding it than if you give them negative motivation. For example, if you tell a kid smoking “Your lungs will die if you smoke,” he will be less likely to react than if you told him “If you stop smoking, then you will get better at playing your instrument.” I think that giving yourself positive motivation will work very well because when I give myself negative motivation, I usually give up after a while because I run out of motivation very quickly within half a day or less(I am a very lazy person), but if I have some positive motivation, I usually are able to last a day or 2. 

When you have social incentives you have more incentive to work harder to change or do whatever you are doing because humans are very social beings, and we want to be accepted, so we do that by looking good in front of everyone else. This has also been proven by research, but personally, I do not need the research to prove it because I think that I usually try harder at things when there are other people around than if I am by myself. For example, I have never run a personal best for the mile while with myself and family, (besides the first mile I have ever run) and all my records were either set at school or at a track meet.

When you have immediate rewards, it has been proven through tests that you are more motivated when you have immediate rewards because you usually don’t think about the future as much, so when you come to a choice to an uncertain future or a certain now, you will most likely choose the certain now, but by giving you immediate rewards to get you to point towards the uncertain future, you are more likely to work towards the uncertain future. I think that this is also better because if you decide to give yourself a reward later, you might associate the reward with something else, or just now associate it with the thing you just did. If you however, reward yourself immediately, then you will think that because you did that, then you will get the reward.

The next time you are trying to complete a project or get motivated to do something, you can remember to give yourself positive motivation, social incentives, and immediate rewards to make sure that you are well motivated, as well as help you be able to build better habits for the future. 

Curtis Zhang

6/10/20

A Modest Proposal

The short story “A Modest Proposal” by Dr. Jonathan Swift is a story where the author proposes to help end hunger in Ireland by proposing that they should sell their children to earn money since the reason that there is a food shortage is because there are too many people in Ireland. Then he proposes that once the children are sold, the children should be cooked and eaten, at which point he goes on to calculate how many women will have kids and how much the child will weigh if they nurse it for a year. This story, though disgusting, actually has a few themes that are actually not in favor of eating children, but are showing something completely different.

The first theme that the story is showing is that benefitting the majority of society is not always the best option. In the story, it is for the benefit of the majority of society that the author proposes his idea of cannibalism of infants, and that is not a good idea. He is telling us that benefitting the majority of society is not always the best idea since cannibalism of infants, though improving the lives of many citizens, is not the best path you could take, instead you could just boost the economy of Ireland so that you can have more food for the population. 

The second theme that is in the story is telling you that you need to try to understand the people you are affecting if you are in a position of power. The author says that his youngest child is 9, way outside of the range where you can be affected,  that his wife was old and could not bear any more children, and that he is in the higher class of society. This is contradictory because this proposal is affecting the poor people who have children who are younger than 1 year old, which is not affecting him at all. He is proposing this only because he will not be affected by this proposal, which is not a good idea since he will not know what the poor people of the country will face if this proposal is passed. In the story, the person proposing the proposal does not really care about the babies getting killed and eaten or the parents of the babies, which is only because of the complete lack of sympathy and empathy that he has, since he is not going to be affected and cannot relate to the poor people. If he had empathy and could relate to the poorer people, then he would almost certainly not have proposed this proposal.

This short story is showing how having empathy and being able to relate to the people you are affecting with your actions are important, along with the fact that the benefit of the majority is not always the correct decision. Without empathy, you would probably make a proposal like this one.

Curtis Zhang

6/9/20

Generation Z thingy

People in Generation Z, or Gen Z are doing very incredible things right now in the world, but they are also being exposed to negative things and are, as a result, acting very negative. Generation Z is acting this way because of the News, the Internet, and the pressure from outside. 

News nowadays pumps out enormous amounts of news on sad things that are happening around the world which Gen Z read about and become so accustomed to it, they stop reacting to bad news about horrible things happening, and start to joke about it. This may seem harmless, but if you keep that habit until adulthood, you might end up deciding to kill themselves or harm others. 

The Internet is also contributing to the negativity of Generation Z because generation Z has something called the Internet which can give you nearly anything you can ask it in under a second, while previous generations never had anything like this. This will make their patience a lot lower, which will make Generation Z act more annoyed all the time that real life things not in the Internet are not as fast as the Internet, which will make the Generation Z people feel annoyed, making them harder to deal with and more negative in some cases. 

The pressure that The Generation Z experience to get good grades in grade school and college is very great, and they sometimes will have a mental breakdown or worse, suicide because they have failed a test or gotten a bad grade. This is also true due to the fact that they are always joking about death and bad things that they hear about in the news, so they might suicide when they get a bad grade or fail a test. 

Generation Z is a very negative group of people because of the Internet, the News, and the Pressure to get good grades. Generation Z should probably try to act less negative by not reading too much news, not using the Internet as much, and trying not to stress getting good grades as much as we do today. 

Curtis Zhang

6/8/20

Landlady

The short story “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl revolves around a 17-year old boy named Billy who goes to a town named Bath for a business venture and goes to a small house to stay at, which he then meets the landlady. He decides to live in the house since the price is super cheap.  Later, he also finds out that the landlady is a taxidermist while they are drinking tea together. Then the story ends somewhat cryptically, with Billy asking if there were any other guests in the last 2-3 years and the Landlady answers “No, my dear, only you.” Though this ends the story without giving you an ending, you can piece together what is happening throughout the story. 

First, you can tell something is amiss when Billy is somehow drawn into the house by just the sign alone, telling you that the Landlady must’ve set it up specifically that way to draw people in. It is also shown that this is weird because one of the reasons why he decided to come into the house in the first place is the fact that there were animals “Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself,” and the animals were fake themselves. 

Second, you can tell that the Lady is not whom she appears to be since she knew that the previous resident of the house was a man named Gregory Temple had not a single blemish on his body, which is a very odd thing to know. Billy also remembered that Gregory Temple and the other previous resident were on the front lines of the newspaper, but he couldn’t remember what it was.

Third, you can tell that the Lady is not who she appears to be because her tea that the Landlady gave Billy tasted faintly of Bitter Almonds, which is the taste of cyanide in his tea, which is showing that she is trying to poison him, and presumably taxidermy him like she did with the previous 2 residents. This would explain why the Landlady knew Mr. Temple didn;t have any blemishes on his body, and why the sign was so enticing to Billy. 

The Landlady is a very interesting story which does not reveal the actual meaning unless you search for it. The Landlady is most likely a psychopath and wants to kill Billy and turn him into a work of taxidermy.

Curtis Zhang

6/4/20

Marco Polo

Marco Polo was a very famous explorer born in the mid 13th century into a wealthy Venetian family. When he was born, his father and his uncle were off on a journey to china and mongolia. His mother died while his father and his uncle were away, but he was still well educated and learned to speak many different languages. When his father and his uncle came back from their expedition, they told Marco about many tales of the mongolian empire and how rich it was, and they allowed him to come with them after staying in Italy for 2 years. They went and prepared to go, but it turns out that their family ship had broken down and would not work. Then they decided to go by land. I think that is very dumb, why can’t you just get the ship repaired and sail on it? Apparently not, because they decided to go on land and face very harsh conditions that lay for them on their path to china. 

On their way there, they walked through deserts and climbed over some mountains to get to their destination. They even had bandits that would attack them and try to rob them. Fortunately, the Dad and the uncle had met the ruler of the mongolian empire, Kublai Khan before, and the Kublai was interested in learning more about other cultures, so he gave them a golden pass that said if you harm these people, then the full force of the Mongolian army will fight you. The climate alone was so harsh that the two priests that had accompanied them there decided to turn back to Italy. Marco, his dad, and his uncle continued, and finally reached the place where the Kublai lived. They were treated as royal guests and were given very great privileges. There were also many riches in the places and magnificent buildings that even though his father and his uncle had told him about the many wonders of the place, he could still barely believe his eyes. After living in Mongolia for a while, they started to get afraid about what would happen if the Khan died. The next Khan might not be as willing to let them live in peace and have such power, and might have them killed. They claimed that they were homesick, and so Kublai sent them home on a ship carrying someone called “The Blue Princess” which was known for her beauty to get married to her new husband in persia. During the voyage met some disaster and only 18 of them survived, including The Polos and the princess. They made it to Persia, but when he landed in Italy, the government arrested him and illegally seized most of his money he had acquired during his time away. He was put in jail with a famous author whom he told his stories. The author wrote down his stories and it became a bestseller. 

The Majority of the people who read his stories thought of them as too fantastical to be true, and he was called a liar for the rest of his life. He died telling everyone that his stories were true, and they were proven true, but that would take them hundreds of years before they would.

Marco was a famous explorer who did not really get the reward he deserved. He was called a liar for his perilous journey east, and he was robbed of his money on his way back. Marco Polo may of not been able to live out his well deserved reward for his travels, but he is still one of the greatest explorers of all time.

Curtis Zhang

6/3/20

Rules of the Game

The short story “Rules of the Game” by Amy Tan is a story that tells about a Chinese girl(Waverly) growing up in Chinatown and becoming a chess prodigy and trying to get away from her mom who she thinks doesn’t care about her, but actually does. Some things that I have noticed about this story is how her mom is trying to use her to bring their family honor, Waverly not noticing that her mom is actually caring about her, and the daughter trying to escape from living to please her mom.

Waverly shows how her mom is controlling her life as well when in the chess tournament her mom accidentally annoys her without knowing, but she cannot say anything “I was annoyed, but I couldn’t say anything.” The Narrator then shows why her mom wants to use her daughter when her mom went around the street telling everyone that her daughter was Waverly to try and get people to think highly of her. This shows that the mom is controlling her for honor and praise and Waverly dislikes that. Waverly even runs off when her mom shows her off and hides in the dark alleyways for a few hours.

Waverly either does not like the way her mom is presenting her care for her or does not realize that her mom actually cares for her, as her mom makes her brothers do all her chores and makes her study chess right after school. She shows that she dislikes her mom’s care when her mom is standing over her and making  “a soft “Hmmmmph” would escape from her nose,” and she tells her mom that she can’t concentrate when she does that and her mom does not appreciate that and makes loud noises in the kitchen, presumably because of her being annoyed at her daughter.

It also shows that the daughter wants to escape from the way that her mom is trying to control her, as shown when the daughter tries to escape by running away from her mom but ultimately failing. This is also made more apparent in the fact that at the end of the story Waverly declares her mom as her enemy and decides her next move against her mom. 

The story “Rules of the Game” is very interesting because it shows the struggles of a strained relationship between a mom and a daughter.

Curtis Zhang

6/2/20

The Lottery

The Lottery is a short story in which all the townspeople gather together for a lottery. As the Story progresses, however, the story takes a dark turn, as winning the lottery is not a good thing and is instead a death sentence by stoning. This story shows lots of irony in the story that you don’t know that is a form of irony until you get to the big plot twist.

The story first shows a very obvious irony as the name “The Lottery” implied that the villagers gathering up and the people getting picked were going to get lucky and earn some money or some kind of prize, but the Author presents a sort of irony as it was not for a prize but a death sentence. The Author does this in a very subtle way, giving subtle hints to the fact of the matter. On page 1, it even tells you that the boys of the village “-eventually made a great pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys.” This is alluding to the fact that they are going to be stoned, but it is very hard to make that connection if you do not know what is going to happen. There are many other subtle hints that the lottery is bad and you are going to die if you get chosen, including the fact that the town continued to come to one individual for the lottery, which would not really make too much sense because the family could just share the benefit, but you would not make the connection if you did not know what was going to happen. 

There are many forms of irony in the story such as the fact that some other towns nearby had gotten rid of the lottery and they laughed at the other towns for getting rid of the lottery, which sounds reasonable until you learn what the lottery really is about. “Old Man Warner snorted. “Pack of crazy fools,” he said. “Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live hat way for a while. Used to be a saying about ‘Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.’ First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,” he added petulantly. “Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.”” Tessie is also perfectly fine with the lottery, as it is with most if not all of the other townspeople, until she is chosen, at which point she says that it is not fair that she has to die. One more form of irony the story is the fact that the lottery is so old that the second lottery box was put into use even before the oldest man in the town, Old Man Warner, was even born. Even so, they still choose to follow the long standing tradition of stoning a person to death every year. 

The last form of Irony that I found in the short story was the fact that even though Tessie showed concern for herself and her family after her family was chosen for the second part of the ceremony, her own children even participated in the stoning of their own mom, which is a very chilling thought. That means that the Lottery must be very influential within the town, since the townspeople were willing to sacrifice their own friend/mom to appease a heavenly deity or something of that sort that might not even be real.

The Lottery is a very ironic story because the story seems like a regular story at first, but as the end of the story, lots of irony shows up at parts that you would least expect to. There are very dark pieces of irony like the fact that the Lottery was for a death sentence, and less dark pieces of irony such as Old Man Warner laughing at people doing the morally correct thing.