Letter to my parents

My parents are two of the greatest role models in the world. However, they are both huge role models to me in different ways. My dad is the guy I look at if I need any life advice because he's experienced so much through his. He's gone through every struggle of an American high-schooler while my mom has not. He knows the answer to things that are more prevalent in what I'd run into in my high school years. My mom, who has only been in America for about 20 years, did not go through the american education system, therefore she was definitely not the person to look towards for college application questions. All aspects of her life has taken place in Hong Kong, and the experiences she's gone through have been different than that of my dad's. She's a role model to me because she instills the "tiger mom" mentality that is commonly found in Asian-American parents. She's provided a motivation for me to get better, and also is the main reason I've gone through the magnet school pipeline through the years, due to preparing me year after year on what would get me into these schools. I think due to the fact that both my parents were raised in Hong Kong, and the education first mentality they have there is a keep part in shaping who I am today.

My parents are also very supportive in my activities and decisions. Most of their time is devoted to me and the things I like to do. Sometimes I take them for granted and I shouldn't because as I recollect all they've done for me it's just so much that I sometimes lose sight of it. I never think of my parents taking days off and early days in order to drive me all around as that actual action. I take for granted that they have to put all things on hold in order to take me to a game or practice and now as I'm getting older I appreciate that and them so much. My parents also are very supportive of my decisions because if there is activity that I didn't like anymore (such as piano) they didn't force me to keep on playing it, they just said that it was ok and that even though I didn't want to do it anymore it was good that once did. However they are like Mr. McCarthy's parents because they do believe that I can't just sit around the house all day. They wanted me to have plenty of activities and if I ended an old activity I needed to pick up a new one. To be honest, I really don't mind that way of thinking because I think its great to busy yourself because there is always something out there that is much more enjoyable than sitting around at home....especially if you're an only child.

In conclusion, my parents are some great individuals and I love them and will miss them a lot as I move on to college and grow into an adult.

Frankly Speaking

In the book, "Man search for meaning", Viktor Frankl talks about his philosophy on life and the meaning of life. Frankl says that there is one main purpose of one's life and that is often sought after but sometimes never reached. His idea that everyone has a different meaning towards their life finally "clicked" with me this weekend after watching "American Sniper". In the movie, it talks about the traumatic life experiences Chris Kyle went through during his time serving our country in the Iraq War. Chris served four tours in Iraq and each time he went back, his wife would ask him "Why go back and fight when the people you love are right here?". He told his wife that she wouldn't understand, but after reading "Man search for meaning" I understand why Chris went back to fight each and every time. His meaning in life was to protect America, and to make sure that America will stay safe for his family and for his brothers. In the movie, it is seen that Chris's motives or meaning is much different than others, for example, his wife's meaning was for her kids to be with their father, his brother's (as portrayed in the movie) was to stay alive. American Sniper in my opinion is a great link of Frankl's ideas to modern life. Both Frankl and Kyle went through horrible life altering events and at the end both achieved their meaning on life.

Meaning of Life

Life is something many would think they can relate with, but to many the meaning of life is different. Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, says that in his life, "Only through hardship, sacrifice, and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fight to fight for freedom until the end of my days". I agree with Nelson Mandela's view of his meaning to life because being an anti-apartheid activist and revolutionary, freedom for dark colored South Africans was something he felt like he was born to fight for. Fortunately, Nelson Mandela continued to live by his meaning of life and continue to fight for freedom and equality in South Africa, and in 1994 the apartheid era ended in South Africa and equality was achieved.

For me my meaning of life is to live everyday and every moment with no regrets and to be happy. My philosophy of life is that there is no point in living everyday moping about how you could have done this or that. I like to live my life with no regrets because if I live a life full of regrets then I would never be pleased even until the day I died. I also believe that we should live a happy life. Similar to what I said above, I feel that we should not have to feel remorse or sadness that we didn't complete everything we wanted to in our lives. By "yolo'ing" life we live happier and healthier, which to me is the meaning of living.

Classmate I guess I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving is a holiday that most of us take advantage of as a time to shop and travel. Most people never think about the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Ever since the time of Pocahontas, people in America has celebrated Thanksgiving as a holiday to give thanks to a great year of harvest. Over time however, we have adapted Thanksgiving as a holiday that allows us to buy discounted electronics, toys, and clothes. Luckily we were given this topic for our blog post to express our thanks to our classmates. Although I appreciate everyone in our class, I would like to write about the one and only, Nate Cronin's Sister.

Throughout high school, Jessie's twin brother and I have become great friends. Sharing the love of baseball and sports we became close enough where we'd go over each others houses. It was through Nate that Jessie and I first became friends. I didn't believe Jessie and Nate were twins at first because she is much smarter and more athletic than him. Mostly through high school, Jessie and I would say the occasional "Hi", but it was not until this year we got to become closer friends and even lunch buddies.

I am very thankful that Jessie and I have become such great friends because she is the one person in our class that I can rely on to complain about assignments with and also ask about homework. It is actually because of her I am writing this blog post right now. Jessie is also one of the most relatable people to me in our class because we both share a competitive and athletic background. We talked about the possibility of her swimming at the same college as me and even being training buddies. But no matter where she goes I am sure she will be very successful because she's one of the smartest people I know. I have been lucky that I got to be in the same class as Jessie Cronin this year and couldn't be happier to have been able to be such great friends with her.

Into the Wild- Alone

Chris McCandless had it all. He was raised by a supporting and wealthy family, and also obtained an education from one of the country's finest institutions. However, all of that wasn't what Chris wanted. Chris wanted to be alone and away from to commotion of an urban society. He wanted to be free from being ruled and live life in the wild. His decision to leave his family and reach his own nirvana is similar to what Siddhartha goes through in the book "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. In the book, Siddhartha is also raised by a supporting and educated family. He lived through no struggles but yet he decided to leave his family in order to reach enlightenment. Like Chris, Siddhartha leaves behind a struggle free lifestyle and wanders off on his own, seeking minimal to no help from others. At the end, Siddhartha and Chris reach their enlightenment, however due to the uncontrollable conditions of the Alaskan frontier, Chris struggles to survive on his own and realizes being alone takes away the feeling of love.

In my opinion the idea of being alone is dumb. Even Chris realizes he made a mistake when he is dying without anyone there to help him and love him. I think reaching enlightenment is good, but is the sacrifice that is caused from achieving it worth it? To me it is not because we all only live once, so why should we sacrifice so much of our living lives to reach something that may be impossible to achieve in a lifetime. Although the book Siddhartha says that Siddhartha reaches enlightenment at the end, that book is fiction. When someone tried to achieve enlightenment on their own in real life the outcome wasn't as great.

We still haven't figure this out yet!

When I first read this prompt I was quite stunned by it because it is such a vague question. What I drew from it is just two things that I thought humans have not figured out yet. The two are, How was the World actually created? and What happens when you die.

These two questions are often asked because they are two things that drive the curiosity of humans. Ever since I was a child, I always wondered how the Earth was created, was it actually created by a God-like power or was it created based from everything randomly happening perfectly. The answer to this question may never be solved but do we actually want to know the true beginning of Earth? Everything in the world is already perfect how it is, there are different groups that are formed believing in their ways of how the world was created so why should we change it? The same goes for the second question people always wonder, What happens when you die? These questions are two that we still haven't figured out yet, but does figuring them out actually bring happiness to us? I think there is a reason why these haven't been figured out yet because if it was figured out, how could we express our imagination and thoughts as humans? Without these questions being solved, humanity keeps a curious mind, and with the questions being answered we lose the purpose of living and will just go through life as being born and dying.

How Do I Know What I Know?

How do I know what I know? That is a question I've never thought of asking myself. Sometimes the simplest things we take for granted and don't ever take a second to think about how we know how to do it. For example, walking, how do we know how to walk? We first learned how to walk at a young enough age where verbal instructions couldn't be fully comprehended, so therefore how do we know how to correctly walk? I think the answers to these questions are found within us.

Lets say walking for example, how did we learn how to walk if we didn't even know how to talk? I believe that we learned how to walk because we learn this task visually, as a child we just simply followed what our parents were doing, which was walking on two feet. The same goes for anything we learn, we know things based upon other's behaviors. Another example is learning, how do I know what I'm being taught is right? I truly don't know if what I'm learning is right but if everyone else agrees upon the same conclusion than it must be right.

As humans, I think how we know things is based on what we learn from others. The validity of knowledge is verified based on the more people that believe in the same thing. Humans are biologically created to follow what other humans do, and how we know things is simply by following what others think or do.