My Favorite Month, December

I just came back from my hall meeting. Our RA told us about all the things and procedures we had to do before we left for our winter break. I loved winter breaks since I was very young because there is Christmas. Christmas always gave me that weird feeling. I don’t know what other holidays don’t give me that feeling and I can’t exactly explain what that feeling is like but it’s just like Christmas “butterfly”.

When I think of Christmas, as a Christian, of course I think of the birth of Jesus. That is the religious aspect. From a worldly view, however, I always relate snow to the Christmas. I think of “jingle bells” and all other Christmas Carols I can think of in my head. I think of trees those are covered with snows and there is a full moon in the sky shining down, partially covered with clouds. This Christmas scene was always in my head, and never changed ever since I was young. Even though that perfect scenario never happened in any of the Christmas, I still dreamed about that scene every Decembers, as I am thinking of that scene right now.

But I think one thing definitely changed about me when it comes to Christmas. It’s the Santa Clause issue. I think when I was about 6 and I was naïve, I actually believed in those Santas. Every December, I listened to my parents and acted really well because I believed that Santa Clauses give presents only to the good kids. So I was a very nice boy in the month of December. I did that because there were always presents in the Christmas morning. Now I know that my dad or mom put it there but when my parents told me that it was Santa Clause, when I was young, who left present there, I actually believed them. I don’t know what my parents tried to do but they either wanted to make me really happy or just transform me into a good kid.

I realized one great transformation about myself as I was growing up. I knew that Santa Clause was a fake by the age of 7. I believe that I was so into believing in Santa Clause because I only thought of myself. I only listened to my parents and tried to be a good kid so I can get MY present not because I actually cared about my parents. As I was growing older, I started to think about others when it comes to the Christmas. Of course I still want the scenes I explained above to actually occur during the Christmas but other than that, I don’t care if I get a present or not. I always start to collect money during the month of December so I can get every member of my family a present. I remember one time when I was pretty young, around 9, and I collected money for weeks so I can get a bag of chocolate for my parents. I thought they would like it because I really liked it and they actually did like it. My parents hugged me and kissed me. I was also happy and that was the first time I exactly felt the word “family”.

I think that the time that kids are starting not to believe in Santas are not because there not naïve as a kid anymore but because they are beoming more mature. As we are young, specifically myself, I think we only care and worry about ourselves. But as we are starting not to believe in Santas, we start to think other before ourselves. Consider if there is a loop around you and you only care things in that loop. As we are young, the loop is very tiny and all you care about it you. As we mature, loops also grow larger and we first start to care about family, relatives, friends, and even the “others”. I think my loop only contains up to my friends so far. Christmas is always a good time to calculate the size of your loop because the people you think of during the Christmas season, I believe, are in your caring loop.

That was my transformation story for the Christmas. Of course, after the Christmas, there is always a New Year. New Year is my second most favorite holiday of the year, right after the Christmas. When I was young, I liked New Year because Korean cultures celebrate it by adults giving out money to young children, wishing them good luck for the fresh year. But I like New Year not because of money anymore. I like New Year because it is a fresh start. It sounds very typical but I really like that fresh start feeling. I think I am going to like it even more because I am in college. Unlike high school where the grades are carried out through out whole year, college is divided into two semesters. Luckily New Year is between those two semesters and I can think about what I did, what I did well or bad, and adjust myself for the better year. I can fix myself for the new semester. That’s why I love writing down New Year’s resolution because I can actually carry out what I have to do and forget about what I did wrong in the past. New Year is the big jump I take every end of the year and I try to make that jump productive.

I love month of December because of Christmas and upcoming New Year. Even this final week, I can go through it without much stress because I think of myself relaxing and celebrating Christmas by the end of the December. Without Christmas or New Year, I think I am going to have really hard time going through these final weeks because I get so much stress. Even though my perspective about these to holidays, especially for Christmas, has changed over the years, my unexplainable feeling towards these holidays did not change. I still get excited and was excited for these holidays and I never want to lose them.

Thanksgiving Break

Last Friday, right after my first class which was like 11:00 am, I packed up my stuff to go home for a week of thanksgiving. I was very excited to go back home even though it takes about four hours of driving. At around 3:00 pm I got on back of my friend’s car and got ready to leave. We made sure that we got couple bottles of drinks and some snacks just in case we get hungry inside of the car. Then we got off the campus and got on the highway. It all seemed good for first two hours; everything went smoothly in terms of the traffic. Then, of course, there was traffic, a huge one. We literally took like two hours to drive couple miles which might have been just thirty minutes without all that traffic. My friends and I were pissed while we were in the car. “God damn, the road has so freakin’ few lanes. Why all those Radford, JMU, and other college kids are leaving today”. We just were pissed. Then from the iPod that was connected to the car came out some crazy songs. We just started to follow the beat and soon forgot about the traffic and sang aloud inside the car.

After going through the traffic, we decided to stop by McDonalds and grab some McChickens and McDoubles. Those were yummy. Then we got back in the car and drove for another two hours ‘til we got to our home. It took about extra two hours of driving because of that gay traffic. When I opened up the door of my home, my mom rushed to me and hugged me. She seemed to miss me a lot. On the other hand, my dad doesn’t express his emotions much but I could tell that he was happy that I was home for the break. The dinner was great. My mom made so many dishes of Korean traditional foods, which I missed a lot, and I ate it like there was no tomorrow. After the dinner it was about 10 pm and I was darn tired. I got on my old comfy bed and slept.

Next day, I got with my friends from the morning. I gathered with my old high school friends because many of them go to different college then me and I missed them. Oh yeah, this was Saturday. We went to theatre and watched 2012. It was not as fun as I expected because there was not really a storyline. It was just a bunch of land cracking and oceans gulfing up the land. Then we ate dinner and I got home and went to sleep. On Sunday, I went to my old church. I was glad to see church members and church friends. We had thanksgiving service so it was awfully long but food afterward was great so that made my day. After eating, my church youth group went to play basketball and after the dinner, I got back home and went to sleep.

According to my planned “schedule”, I was suppose to start studying for the final exam on the Monday of the break since I have like three final exams when I come back to VT. Plus, I was planned to go to Niagara Falls in the Canada from Thursday to Saturday of that week. So I had to start working. Apparently, I could not study for the finals because of all the seductions around me. I mean I still wanted to hang with my old friends more before I go back to VT. So on Monday, I wasted my whole day by hanging out with my friends. But I also wanted to spend my time with my family so I came back home before the dinner and went out to eat with my family.

I really had to start study for the finals on Tuesday since I could not start it on the day before. I stayed home all day on Tuesday but I think I only studied about one hour. I don’t remember what I did specifically but it was not worth remembering of. On Wednesday, I was super excited for the Niagara Falls and I packed up my clothes and other things that were necessary for the travel. Then I thought about what I was risking. I was going to Niagara Falls with my cousins and I had to miss the Thanksgiving Day with my family. That was the downside of this travel but I still wanted to go. Then there was a disaster. I checked my passport and the expiration date on the passport was passed. I was doomed. I called my cousin and said I couldn’t go. My cousin said it was fine but I could tell by his voice that he was kinda pissed because he paid for all the tickets, hotels, and everything.

I suddenly had whole time left of my break. According to my planned “schedule” Thursday, Friday, and Saturday was supposed to be filled up with Niagara Falls trip but it was suddenly free. But now that I think about it, I think my not going to the Niagara Falls was more fortunate. My family did not see me for months and having a Thanksgiving dinner with my family was a great choice. Of course, after the thanksgiving, there is Black Friday in which all the stores sell their production by half prices. I didn’t have any electronics to buy but I wanted to buy some clothes. So my friends and I went to the Tyson’s mall at 1:00am on Friday and managed to buy some clothes and shoes and really cheap price.

On Saturday, I finally started to study for the finals seriously. I don’t know why but I cannot concentrate on any of my school materials unless the deadline is within few days (or few hours like this blog). For dinner I went to Chipotle and it was good. I like Chipotle in my town the best because they know the golden ratio of meat, rice, corn, etc. Other Chipotle stores don’t seem to know the ratio. I packed up to leave for VT in Saturday night and went to sleep. On Sunday noon, I said goodbye to my parents and left my home. On the way to VT it took like seven hours because of this car crash that involved more than 10 cars. Now here I am, back to the college trying to catch up things I had to do over the break for the Final week. God, I'm so tired...

Thanksgiving and Chuseok

It’s already a Thanksgiving break. In few days, I am going back to my home in northern Virginia for nearly 10 days. Somehow, before every holiday, I tend to actually “analyze” that specific upcoming holiday such as new years, thanksgivings, Christmas, etc. So thanksgivings coming and I decided to think about that holiday, what it actually means. Obviously, some holidays like Independence Day and Christmas, their meanings are ubiquitous; America gained its Independence and Jesus was born, respectively.

For most of Americans, meaning of thanksgiving is well known because it has been a tradition since forever. For me, not as much, because of Korean tradition that I was so used to for first half of my life. In Korea, there is also a thanksgiving but in totally different sense. It is called Chuseok. It is in August 15th and it is really analogous to the thanksgiving in America. So I just decided to find some facts about the differences between American thanksgivings and Korean Chuseok.

Let’s start with American thanksgivings. It should be boring facts because we have heard about thanksgivings since we were like in elementary school. We have learned that how very first thanksgivings was originated from Plymouth plantation in America and how they were so happy about harvesting and decided to have a feast. It was to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude, mostly religiously, even though it is becoming a secular holiday nowadays. During thanksgivings, we eat turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, stuffing, carrots, and pretty much that is orangish. Then we eat turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, stuffings, carrots, and something orange. Then we gain like ten thousand calories which is like five days worth of eating. When I think of thanksgivings, eating is all I think of. I think that is why sometimes thanksgiving is referred as “turkey day”.

Now, here are some facts about Koran Chuseok. As I said before Chuseok is in August 15th. Korean Chuseok has really long history, perhaps it might have even originated 1000s years ago. Korea, during this holiday, also thanks for the good harvest. However, there is some twist to it. Unlike in America where Christianity was spread and people thanked God for the good harvest, Koreans thank ancestors. Koreans, traditionally, believe that their ancestors are protecting them from harms and unfortunate events and give them a good luck. During Chuseok, Korean families gather and moms make traditional dishes for Chuseok. Many of those dishes contain wheat, rice, fall fruits such as apple and pears. Specifically, there is food called Song-pyun. It is somewhat like dumpling but instead of all the meat and veggies inside it, honey, beans and sesame seeds are in it. Song-pyun is the food that really represents Korean Chuseok, which is somewhat similar to the turkey for the American thanksgiving. Since each song-pyun making is so time taking and needs delicate detail, usually whole family sits around a huge table—including dads, children, and moms – and they all make it together. After preparing all the food, moms lays out all the foods on the plates and lay them neatly down on the table with ancestor’s portrait in the center. Then all of the families bow down to it. It is believed that during the family’s bow, spirits of the ancestors come and “eat” the food. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Koreans wear this traditional dress called hanbok during this holiday. One of the most “horrifying event” during Korean Chuseok is the traffic jam. Majority – like more than 90% of younger generations - of Korean population lives in the urban area and most of seniors live in rural area. During the Chuseok break, around 75% of population in urban area tries to go down to the rural area, to their parents' house. Korea is overpopulated country and it literally takes more than 10 hours of driving that usually takes less than one hour during the regular days. That is why news media refers Chuseok sometimes as “massive population shift”.

There are some pro-founding similarities between Korean Chuseok and American thanksgiving. They both have own distinct traditional foods. Also they are thanking for the good harvest year. And they are both family gathering event and very good at making people fat. However some differences are that during American thanksgiving, God is usually thanked for most of the American families, whereas in Korean Chuseok, ancestors are thanked.

For me, every thanksgiving has been kind of a fusioned holiday, the fusion of American thanksgiving and Korean Chuseok. Since my parents both lived their majority of life in Korea, they are very used to Chuseok. I have few families over here in America and during the thanksgiving, that is 4th Thursday of November, we gather at one place and have a feast and thankings. This is where the fusion comes in. In terms of date we celebrate at, we are celebrating American thanksgiving. But when it comes to food, we celebrate both American thanksgiving and Korean Chuseok. The moms make turkey dinner and some traditional Korean foods. I love it because I both like Korean and American dishes. One thing we absolutely don’t follow from Korean Chuseok is bowing down to the ancestors. My family is super Christians and we believe that bowing down to anything other than God is against the Ten Commandments. But I think we keep two important things from both holidays. That is family gathering and thanking.

I think both the American thanksgiving and Korean Chuseok implies the importance of family knot. Most families don’t see each other because they are so busy during the year but during that day, the Thanksgiving, everyone gathers and have fun with each other. Also, we give thanks for safety throughout the year. Even though we don’t thank for the harvest because we are not farmers, we still thank those hard working farmers who are working really hard to provide us foods. My family and I might be celebrated both holidays in one day. But I think the differences between thanksgiving and Chuseok does not matter. Only thing that matter is their similarities and the importance of them.

Time is Fast

Just today, at Biology Lab class, my teacher told us some announcements and one announcement blew my mind out. She said that we had three weeks of class left, including today’s class and it’s time to eat turkey already. And after that we already are going to have a final exam. I was like what??? It’s already time for the final exam???

I mean it feels like this very first college semester just has started if not two or three weeks. It happens to be other way around. Fall semester of 2009 is already closing to the end. Time does really fly by and I think it goes faster as we grow older. I don’t know why it is have to be that way, but sadly it is. As I grow older, I think of so many more things I want to do and I have to do but time does not seem to understand my feeling.

I remember the first time I went to elementary school and feeling all grown up. From my small home, where I used to stay all day to the big school building kind of gave me the sense of independence. It is really funny when I think about it now because in elementary school, you actually lose independence. Why the hell do you have to ask your teacher to go to the bathroom when you can go to the bathroom anytime you want in your home? Plus, you have to sit on assigned seat everyday and not obeying that “law” will cause you a lunch detention. Wow, eating inside the class instead of in cafeteria, so scary. Oh yeah, never forget about the Principal’s office where all the bad kids go. I think I went there once because I stick a gum on my classmate’s hair. I don’t know why I did that but that kid must have pissed me off first. See, these are just few examples I experienced in elementary school. Not significant. I never wanted or had to do those actions, but somehow I remember those insignificant actions. For me, I think elementary school felt really long at least 10 years, not that I really went elementary school for 10 years…

After graduating elementary school, I went to the middle school. And again, I felt all grown up when I came to middle school. First, you get your own locker; it’s like your own little space. Then also the building is so much bigger compared to that of the elementary school. Still there were some restrictions such as writing passes wherever you go. And even though you have that pass, securities just yell at you, where you going kid??? every time they see you in the hall. You just have to get used to it and learn to ignore it after a while. I think that is all I remember from middle school. Oh year, I forgot about one thing. You actually start to care about the GRADES and it becomes one of your “goals”. Middle school was awfully short. Not only because it’s only two years long but also because you actually get stuffs to do. You actually learn the sense of busy feeling.

Then it was high school, and it was ginormous. People were so much bigger too; some were like two feet taller than me. High school also has that pass thingy like that in middle school, but securities are not that serious about it except for few. I think high school is where you learn all the “bad” stuff. It is the first time you actually get to go parties and drink stuff. Also, it is where you learn how to skip class or classes or whole school day. You just need practice you parent’s signature so you can just make an excuse that you have a doctor’s appointment or sick and get to leave school early without any penalty. First time I showed sectary lady a “fake” excuse letter from my mom (actually from me), I felt really scary and nervous. After a while, it just became my routine. Every time I just felt stressed or had a homework undone or test that was not studied, I just evaded it with my fake pass. Now to some more serious subject. High school is where I started to seek for my passion, which was Biology for me. I started to take elective classes such as human anatomy and AP Biology which fulfilled my willingness to learn. I also got to engage in so many more activities than ever before. There were math team, orchestra practice, science Olympiad club and so much more every after school. I started to spend my free time to fulfill what I want to do. Also the level of the academic demand is so much higher, to the extent that was unimaginable in the middle school. I first engaged in all nighter and it was awful. High school was really busy for me all those activities and more. Especially, the senior year was like two months long. I prepared for the college application for the first half of the senior year. Then for the rest half, I don’t why I went to school because all I did in the class was nothing. I literally didn’t care about my grades because only grades up to first senior year are used during college acceptance process. High school felt little longer than the middle school did, but definitely not two years longer.

This end of August, I came to Virginia Tech and it is already a beginning of a November. Every day was very busy for me since I moved into Tech. The homeworks, exams, and quizzes that were demanded by college-level course made me very occupied. Plus, the activities I do in in-campus church and sports I do with my friends make my time flow by. I think time goes faster as I grow up not because it doesn't understand my feeling but because I actually get busier. When I find myself focused and entertained onto one thing, I find that minutes turning into seconds and hours turning into minutes, just like writing this 1000 word essay feel like seconds. As I go through my sophomore year, junior year and senior year at Tech, I think I am gonna find time go much faster than it is now and I am scared but also excited because it means that I am gonna be more into my passion and focused for my future path.

Picture of thousand of words

This weekend, as I was thinking about another topic for this long, arduous 1000-word essay, I suddenly thought of an idea, a clever idea. I thought of the phrase “a picture is worth thousands of words”. I was thinking of just posting a huge picture on the blog post and just put a caption of the bottom of that picture saying “this is worth thousands of word”. But then I thought of the risk of that action. I mean if I was the teacher, I would definitely give this guy a F. So I just decided not to use that tactic and tried to think of a new topic.

I really tried hard to think of an idea. I mean to write a 1000 word essay, you need a darn good idea, something you are willing to write about, or else it takes hours. I thought about writing about my recent personal experience but failed to find an inspiring or even entertaining event. I saw that many kids have written about their parents coming over this weekend but I couldn’t because my parents didn’t come over. So I was thinking about it again, about the topic. I decided to go on to the Scholars and read the “blogging” on the assignments to refresh my mind with what kinds of ideas are acceptable. It was pretty much limitless but the part where it said our blog can be something we talked about in class, I thought about analyzing. We pretty much only worked on some kind of analyzing skills in class lately.

As I was thinking about something to analyze, somehow, the phrase about a picture being worth thousands of words kept popped out of my head. That phrase definitely had some controversial matter in it. I decided to analyze that phrase just like how we are doing bunch of analysis in English class lately. First I questioned that phrase. Is picture really worth thousands of words? Yes but only to certain perspective. For the criteria of description I think picture is far better than words are. In fact in this case, picture can even worth millions of words. For example, you can just show other people how your new car looks like by picture rather than saying, “my car has two head lights that has straight bottom and curves up forty degrees and another twenty degrees …”. In that case I think unless that other person knows the brand and the car type, it is almost impossible for one to describe what his car looks like without using a picture. But I don’t think picture is always worth thousands of words, at least in the right sense.

I think with words, something that can be represented that the picture cannot. Personally, I hate writing and it is really hard for me to support what writing can do. But this I know for sure that sometimes, few words can be more powerful and understandable than a picture, which is supposed to be worth thousands of words, can be. Picture is just a picture and it leaves for each audience to understand in his or her own perspective. Picture sometimes has meaning or message in it but it is not always received by audience in the same way. For example, in our Everything’s an Argument book, we saw an American Flag with company logos instead of stars in the beginning of the semester. That definitely had a meaning to it and whoever made the design should have thought of one meaning, his perspective. However, we had little argument in our class, some people taking it as a negative sign saying that it represents how America is obsessed with products of America rather than the American county itself, while others were saying that design was positive because it represented diversity economic variation in America. Unless the designer intended to sprout a controversy about what he has made, his design did not carry out the job fully because not everyone had same idea about the message of the design. If that design was to be described in words, it would definitely take thousands of words, describing what each logo is and how they look like. However if the meaning of the design was described in words, it should have did so much better job. The pictorial design definitely simplified the thousands of words in simple easy picture but the meaning was not carried out in the right sense. This is what I meant above. Picture is worth thousands of words, but only in terms of describing something physically. Pictures incorporated with meaning cannot be accepted by the audience as the author intended to unless that picture with meaning is dead concrete, which is the rarely the case in my opinion.

Just think about it. I have written few blogs since the beginning of the year and if picture is worth thousands of words, each of my blogs could have been described in one picture. I don’t think that is going to work. Even if I do, not everyone is going to accept the meaning in a way I intended to do because everyone has his or her unique perspective. Unlike picture, which leaves the audience to view in their own perspective, words can guide the audience in the writer’s perspective. Writings can guide audience in one, straight way, because author talks his way through with explanations and evidences, unless the writings of the author is very broad. So, again, if I was the teacher, if a student sends a picture instead of 1000 word essay, I would give him F. It is not because he didn’t fulfill the requirement – thousand words- but because that essay wouldn’t have any focus that is straight. I think point of this blogging is to express our thought and unless we were expert at expressing message with a picture, the point would not carry out clearly. I believe that picture is worth thousands of words in describing only physical matters.

Technology Doom?

Technology is rapidly developing as the time goes by. Just about few decades ago, electricity along with other technologies such as telephone was invented. Now, technology has developed up to the point that probably was not imaginable in the time when electricity was developed. We sure get a lot of comfortableness and pleasure from such development. We have television, refrigerator, computer, dish washer, etc. We have everything and that everything tends to do everything for us.

Because of our huge dependence on technology, some critics are saying that people are becoming “stupid”. They say that we cannot do anything without technology, that we are becoming incapable. I do feel that sometimes, too. I find myself using computer every day, seriously every single day. Through computer, we communicate, research, entertain, and much more. Also, I find that people nowadays cannot live without cell phone. Cell phone kinds of became one of people’s “cloth”; people have to “wear” it every time they leave home.

In Korea, calculators are not allowed in schools. Everything is done by your hand. Those calculations include from the range of simple addition and subtraction to multiplications, divisions of seven digits numbers. In high school when students are starting to learn derivatives and further calculus, calculators are not even allowed then. It takes pages of work to solve one problem. Few months ago, I noticed about myself something unbelievable. I was in American since fifth grade and all the math classes I took were allowed to use calculators. I did not use calculator when I was in fifth grade because I was used to not using calculators in Korea. Arithmetic that involved more than three digits naturally made other students to take out their calculators and punch in the numbers. For me, it was far more comfortable to write down on piece of paper including my mental math skill that I acquired over the years through practices and practices. It is in my high school senior calculus BC class that I found something out about myself. I found that myself using calculator for simplest math as far as something like 4+3. That was really weird. Of course I could do those kinds of arithmetic in my head and with accuracy but I did not feel comfortable with the answer. I only felt comfortable and secured only and only if the calculator specifically said 7 on its screen.

That was when I really thought of power of technology, how it is replacing our natural skills. But despite many criticisms and my own pro founding experience, I am actually not against rapid technology development. As the time goes by more technology will be developed and we will be depended on it. But why are people thinking about our lack of skills and incapability of us without the use of technology? I know that use humans are never going to be separated from the use of technology and our skills is measured by our own natural skills combined with help of technology. Even though I found myself incapable of doing math without the aid of calculator, I only found it surprising and only surprising, not despaired. I was surprised that how much I relied on small technology but not despaired because even though I noticed my incapability, technology is always going to be there to support it.

That is why I am not really worried about our dependence on technology. We humans led up to this point and those technologies all sprouted from human mind. Why can’t human freely be using the technology that was invented by their own? Technology was designed to help and aid humans and makes them more comfortable, and therefore we should not care about us becoming incapable or “stupid”. Say that after few centuries, we become totally incapable; I mean we cannot literally do anything without technology. It does not matter. We should have become incapable because there was technology that replaced such human skills. Just like we cannot understand how past people lived without refrigerator, phones, or electricity, the future people would not understand how people of in this century lived without technology that is going to be developed in the future.

My only concern about technology is alien invasions. That might sound childish but it really isn’t. Aliens with highly developed electromagnetic pulse or EMP might stop the humanity. EMP is pulse that disrupts and stops current and voltage flow. If the humanity is almost hundred depended on technology, therefore electricity, such alien invasion with EMP is going to destroy the humanity in seconds. I do not believe that aliens exist but who knows. A space is considered infinity and aliens are might be few light years away right now, ready to invade the earth. Few centuries later, they might be arriving in earth with much more developed technology than we humans will have.

Again, I do not stand against human dependency on technology. But I think no progress in technology won’t harm the humans. I believe that our comfortableness will always stay constant whether or not technology is developed. Our own nature skill plus skills of technology will equal constant comfortableness. For example, people in 1700s felt same satisfaction from their compared to us right now. Even though people of 1700s did not have our technology, they had more natural skills to replace it. On the other hand, even though our natural skills are decreased now, technology skill is replacing the gap. For those of critics who are saying technology development is bad, I want to say to them to think again because technologies were indeed invented from our own natural skills in the beginning.

Rhetorical Analysis about an Article

As I was checking my mails from hotmail.com I checked out some Today’s news. There was a lot of news. There was something about Obama’s health care plan, something about man getting arrested because of crime, etc. But one topic really interested me and made me laugh. The title of the article was “Man who killed ex’s fish gets probation”. From the title, I had a sense of what the story was going to be like.
“A Portland man who attacked his ex-girlfriend and impaled her pet fish this summer has been sentenced to two years probation, a psychological evaluation and community service.
Donald Earl Fite III, 27, pleaded guilty Tuesday to animal abuse and domestic violence assault.
According to court records, Sarah Harris had broken up with Fite but returned to her Portland apartment July 25 to find him lying on her bed, saying he wanted to get back together.
Donald Earl Fite quoted that, ‘If she can’t have me, she can’t have the fish’ to the police.”
This was basically the whole article, not even 100 words long and yet I though this article would a great source to analyze rhetorically. This article concluded that killing of a fish was an animal abuse and Donald Earl deserved the punishment for it. I would say that a lot of people would oppose such judgment yet other people might agree to it. Personally I think the punishment was bit little harsh. When I think of animal abuse and domestic violence assault, I usually think of abusing mammals, such as dogs, cats, or as far as reptiles. But a fish? I do understand that fish can be a pet but for one thing it does not have “brains” like dogs and cats do. Dogs and cats recognize their owners but fish never do. Only thing that fish recognize is fish food.
I think the way the author approached this crime shows that author also tried to say this situation was bit odd. I mean if it was some serious issue, the author would have not used that tone. The tone of this article tells me that author is sort of playing around. For example, other than killing fish the main reason for such a harsh punishment was maybe because Donald attacked his girlfriend physically. But the author does not emphasize on that idea, rather he focuses metaphorically how Ronald stabbed the fish as if fish is some kind of mammal or a human, and focuses on animal abuse. The way that the author just briefly talks about Ronald attacking his girlfriend might show that his girlfriend was not really attacked after all. If she was attacked and hurt badly, the main focus would be on the girl not on the fish. The way that Ronal just invaded his girlfriend’s house was wrong and it is considered domestic violence. Still, punishment is little too harsh.
I also think that this article brings up the argument about whether or not fish is a pet. I believe fish is a pet but not dog and cat like pets. One should not be accused of animal abuse just because he/she killed a fish. Pouring a toxic into a lake and killing a thousands of fish is a definitely a crime because it actually impacts that population. Killing a pet fish also can be a crime in this case because fish was other people’s property. But I think unless Ronald killed large number of fish, he should have been accused for destroying other people’s property rather than animal abuse. I mean, we could accidently kill some fish while we fish but we do not get punishment for that. On the other hand, if we accidently kill dog or cat we get fined or even jailed because that is an animal abuse. Both fish and dogs or cats are pets but not to the same degree.
This article also brings up the idea about how crazy and psychotic some people actually can be. I mean who actually thinks like if she can’t have me she can’t have the fish. The quote from Ronald gave me laughter. He actually broke into his ex’s house and killed a fish just because he thought his ex does not deserved to have fish if she did not have him. In this sense, Ronald definitely deserves psychological evaluation because Ronald may commit a bigger crime when his ex dates a new guy and Ronald might actually try to “stab” him too.
By reading this article I do agree with the author and this crime to a certain point but some things just does not make sense. I think author also tried to mock this situation by his word choice such as “stabbing” the fish. I, too, think that this article deserved to be mocked because it is not that of a serious crime to be up in the news, I mean killing a fish? Really? But I also think that author tried to tell us that this world is very funny and there are people who are just unthinkable. Or maybe author just tried to give us laughter by posting a comical situation.