Category: Others

On April 23rd in 2013,
the press put out this tweet:
Breaking news
Obama has a bruise
and the white house went BOOM.
The message was retweeted 4k time.
But all of it was fake
that’s a crime,
but it still went viral.

This news was fake
and none of it was real,
the press was hacked
by Syrians in teal!
Their purpose was to mess up society
but they disrupted more than a variety.
All of trading went to a halt
based on the president,
it’s the Syrians fault!

As everyone started tweeting,
a lotta money went down,
$139B
in a single day!

For some reason
fake news spread faster
than real news from broadcasters.

The point of this poem
is that news, the big total,
might be fake or real
So it’s all on you
to decide whether it’s real or not.

Intelligence, power, loyalty, bravery, and heroism. These are all common habitudes each and every individual wishes to inherit. In literature, the theme of a piece can provide a deeper meaning for many aspects of life. The short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty written by James Thurber is about a man called Walter Mitty. He is diagnosed with an unknown mental illness that causes him to constantly daydream about himself being the best. He dreams to be a war hero, a life-saving doctor, and many others. A recurring theme in Thurber’s piece that can also be connected to reality and different pieces of writing is how humans enjoy being seen as superior in any situation.

In each and every of Walter’s wild daydreams, he is always seen as the best of everything. In his first adventure, he is a ship captain who demands to charge through a wall of monstrous waves. This dream represents bravery and determination. The next dream he took place in a hospital, where he saved the lives of many sick patients and also fixed a broken machine. This dream represents intelligence. His next dream was about himself being accused of shooting someone. Even though the jurors concluded that he could not have shot someone at such far distances, Walter states that his accuracy is good enough to hit the victim. This dream shows how even though one is accused of wrongdoings, one may still try to be seen as prideful. In Walter’s last dream, he was a war hero. In order to protect his soldiers and friends, he sacrificed himself for the greater good. Life is the most valuable existence, and Walter still decides to take a step further and sacrifice his own life to be seen as heroic. Dreams are usually perceived as wishes. One who dreams of becoming rich often wishes to be rich. This means that Walter, and many other people, wish to be seen as superior in any situation.

Dreams of feeling superior can be seen in many other pieces of literature. The short story Rules of The Game exaggerates Chinese tradition, and is about a smart Chinese girl and her mother, who is not fluent in English. When the child asks her mother if Chinese people are good at torture, her mom answers that Chinese people are good at everything, including torture. Obviously, torture is not something to be proud at. Her mother said that Chinese are good at torture because she does not know what torture is. Despite the fact that her the mom does not know what torture is, she still proceeds to accept that an “unknown” word is something that the Chinese are good at. This shows how people even want to be great at unknown activities.

Being seen as good also weaves it way into reality. In many of the Ted Talks that were recently assigned to watch, the speaker explains how people enjoy being seen as good. One of the Ted Talks explained how one can change their behavior in different ways, such as stopping to smoke. One of the ineffective ways the speaker mentioned was giving out warnings, such as saying that if one smokes, they will contract lung cancer. This method was ineffective because people tend to avoid occurrences that they don’t like. The speaker then explained that providing information that helps someone will encourage change. When one tells a smoker that not smoking will be able to let them breathe easier and cough less, the smoker will listen more attentively because people enjoy being seen as good. In another Ted Talk, the speaker explained about different types of mirrors and their usage. There were normal mirrors and true mirrors. Normal mirrors are more common and are used to see self beauty. These common mirrors also display a distorted reversed image of someone’s true face. True mirrors show the truth, there is no distortion and is not used to see beauty. The speaker continues to explain how many people have surprised reactions when its their first time looking into a true mirror. This is because they are used to seeing themselves as wonderful through the normal mirrors, and the true mirror takes away the beauty.

To wrap everything up, being seen as superior can almost be seen everywhere. Many other pieces of literature also share this theme. In real life, wanting to be seen as superior is an everyday occurrence.

The short story “The Secret of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber is about Walter Mitty daydreaming. He and his wife are on their way to do some errands, he indulges in a daydream in which he is a brave military commander piloting a hydroplane, but his wife interrupts by exclaiming that he is driving too fast. This pattern is repeated several times. He starts daydreaming, and then his wife brings him back to reality. In reality, Mitty does not do anything very well. Although Walter Mitty’s daydream life has much exciting action, his waking life, as recounted in the story, is routine and uneventful. In his waking life, Mitty drives with his wife into Waterbury for the regular weekly trip to shop and for Mrs. Mitty’s visit to the beauty parlor. After dropping his wife off at the salon, Mitty drives around for a brief time, then parks the car in a parking lot, purchases some overshoes at a shoe store, with some difficulty remembers to buy puppy biscuit, and goes to the hotel lobby where he always meets his wife. After a short time Mrs. Mitty appears, complaining to Mitty about the difficulty of finding him in the large chair where he has “hidden” himself, and then for a “minute” (actually much longer) leaves Mitty standing in front of a nearby drugstore while she goes to accomplish something she forgot. During these events, he goes into five daydreams or fantasies, which not only are induced by the events of his waking life but also affect them. This was a confusing story as the daydreams were being cut by reality, and it was hard to know what was happening. The story was very interesting.

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. 

Obama was injured and possibly killed in an explosion!!! This is an example of fake news that happens on social media. It could be stopped in the future by new technologies such as AIs or monitoring social media platforms more. However, what exactly is real and what is fake?

How about we design AIs to separate false news from real news? Scientists have experimented on new technologies, one of which is called generative adversarial networks. There is a generator and a discriminator in this machine. The generator creates synthetic information and sees if the discriminator can separate them for testing. As foolproof as this sounds, AIs can’t get everything right so we can’t 100% depend on them.

What if we give the job of separating truth and lie to the government? For example, the government can be our main source of news and they’ll give us the information we need and want with supposedly no false news. This can be faulty though, as you might’ve heard of stories about the government trying to control the citizens and limit their freedom.

If the government can’t be responsible for this job, what if we just monitor or create an algorithm for all social media platforms to make sure no fake news is being shared? People want to have their privacy so monitoring the things they’re doing on the internet won’t be possible and algorithms created for this won’t be perfect either.

If it’s using technology, trusting the government, or monitoring social media, whether news is true or false isn’t something that can be distinct from each other easily. In the absence of a solution, it’s up to you to decide what news you want to believe in. Was the latest piece of news you read real…..or fake?

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty conveys such a relatable topic that many teenagers to mid aged people go through. In life, we often feel was if we are not enough, but our imaginations and mind takes us to another place. This story has so much to teach, and the biggest factor that plays in this story is the fear of doing something better.
To dig deeper in this message of fear that is symbolized in story, we are often hidden away from the beauty of life. Some have great confidence which I wish I had, but some like me lack confidence from the way we view live and the ways we strive to do things in life. For me personally, I tend to be the type to stay on the safe side instead of being bold and brave. Maybe instead of achieving my dream job, I strive to get a safe job that makes fair amount of money instead of doing something I am passionate about all because I am scared of failing. I often imagine myself doing great things which I would not have the confidence to do in reality. The fear I have that is related to the fear of Walter is the fear of doing something new compared to the life we have now. Fear is by far the biggest motivation out there right now, and this story does this message justice. Instead of dreaming of what we would be or do if we were different, try to make that difference. The fear I have now could possibly help me achieve my goal.
We should not be afraid to do things, because fear not only hides the beauty of life, but also prevents us from doing amazing things that we would regret not doing in the late future. Instead of dreaming, we should start preparing at doing better at something or gaining confidence because as we practice and bloom into someone better, we see the beauty of life we did not see before.

In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber, the main character Walter Mitty is a shy submissive man who frequently daydreams. His daydreams consist of dangerous situations of which he is the daring protagonist respected by everyone, the opposite of his real life. Then shortly after starts his fantasy, he wakes up to the real world and gets flamed by his wife. Nobody respects him, because he is just an old man yearning for a life that he never will have.

Mr. Mitty’s daydreams are adventurous. He plays a hydroplane pilot, a bomber, and a criminal about to be executed. As stated earlier, his dreams are polar opposites of his real life. Through Mr. Mitty’s ambitions, Thurber is trying to convey that humans always strive to acquire what they do not have. In his dreams he is always a capable man who is cool and is in control of every situation. In real life, he is a man who gets bossed around by his wife. In his time period, this would be considered very shameful.

In conclusion, Thurber expresses the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side by showing Walter Mitty’s dreams. He is a shy man with big fantasies which are opposites of his life. Thurber is trying to say that humans always want what they do not have.

As everyone knows that not everyone can be a hero, but I think everyone still wants to be a great person. We always are not satisfied with our life that we have now, we want to be better, be richer, and so on. So then we have our dreams. The dream can be a huge dream, like to be a president. How big is the dream is not the most important thing but how much time did you spend on your dream is.

Most people have a huge dream, but they just daydream because they gave up without even trying. They said they don’t have time and money, and we are normal people, we can not be that successful like Abraham Lincoln. Well, what’s wrong with a normal person? Can’t a normal person have a big dream? That’s not true. Every successful person was a normal person before he succeeds. Even some of them are not “normal” people. For example, Beethoven, one of the most famous pianists. He was a little kid from a poor family. He had an ear infection when he was 26 years old. Everyone knows how important ears are to a pianist. But he didn’t give up. He still keeps practicing hard every day and communicates with others by writing on papers. He “listens” to the music by hands and heart. Finally, he becomes a household name in the nineteenth century.

Learn from that, we can know, if you truly spend time on your dream, you will get a chance to achieve it. But if you don’t try, it can never be achieved. We are all normal people, but since we have our dreams and work hard for it, we become different. Dreams themselves do not shine, but we do. So give yourself a chance, also give a chance to your dream. Just do it!

Mr.Walter Mitty attempting to drive along with various other chores,

Gets distracted and imagines fighting in wars. 

His wife brings him back to focus, 

But Mr.Mitty continues to dream instead of his wife’s hocus pocus. 

As he passes the hospital, 

He imagines he saves someone’s life little by little. 

His real life is drab and dreary, 

He would rather have fictional events to keep him cheery. 

When he thinks of what to buy, 

His mind drifts to a courthouse full of outcry. 

His stories don’t have an end, 

He would rather only have the journey to comprehend. 

At the hairdresser awaiting his wife, 

Mr.Mitty imagines sacrificing his life. 

Constantly frustrated he can’t control reality, 

He turns to his fantasies that he can always oversee.   

At last Mr.Mitty gets to the parking lot, 

Welcoming his dreams of getting shot. 

The short story, “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty,” is about a man named Walter Mitty. He has a pretty ordinary life, but wises he doesn’t. His wife makes him do things and things get really boring. Since he wants a better and different life, he daydreams a lot.

In the story he has a couple daydreams. The first one was about him as a captain on a boat. Another one was about him being a doctor and is doing surgery on a person. The last two were him in court, accused of murder and the other as a pilot of a bombing plane.

I think the theme of this short story is if you want a better life you have to make it for your self. In the story all the daydreams he was in, he had a very high role. This make me think that he wants a life like that. But his role In the real world are pretty low and ordinary. If he tried he could take one of the roles he dreamed of.