The Internal Truth

Qfwfq’s character in “The Aquatic Uncle” by Italo Calvino, displays hidden emotions that are never shown externally towards the other characters.

           

Q’s ancestry put emotions of embarrassment in his guts. Q is part of a generation in his family in which they are first adapting to land, something extraordinary in this time since all creatures lived in the sea at first. Q is not far back from when his ancestors were sea dwellers because he has a great uncle, Uncle N’ba N’ga, who is still a fish and is rejecting the idea of ever becoming a land dweller. His fiancée, Lll on the other hand is part of a generation that had generations before it already inhabited on land. Bringing this idea of his great uncle being a fish didn’t seem right for him to explain to Lll. As he narrates, he explains: “Knowing the prejudices among which she had been brought up, I hadn’t yet dared tell Lll that my great-uncle was a fish” (75). Q is hiding embarrassment here of the simple fact that his uncle is a fish, something he thinks Lll will despise. He hides this embarrassment, something he does with a lot with his emotions throughout the story, not expressing his true feelings. He is wearing a mask and refuses to take it off.

           

Eventually, Q’s fiancée Lll meets his great-uncle, transforming the emotional state inside of him. When Lll meets Q’s uncle, Q’s feelings of embarrassment weren’t shown or else the meeting wouldn’t have occurred at all. When she meets Q’s great uncle, Uncle N’ba N’ga, her reaction does not match the reaction he thought would occur. Q is surprised by this for not even he himself thinks his great uncle is of much sense. When Lll visits Uncle N’ba N’ga on a regular basis, that’s when that frightful embarrassment inside of Q boils into bitter jealousy. His inner jealousy is shown when he gives out a sarcastic shout to Lll during her lessons with Uncle N’ba N’ga: “Good for you! That’s a big step forward” (80). The fact that he gives the shout out in a sarcastic manner demonstrates how hard it is for him to release his true emotions. The jealousy is not shown but instead covered by a blanket of encouragement and happiness. This shows just how hard of a jail cell Q has to break out of to express his true emotions. If he cannot exemplify his own feelings to his future wife, the closest thing he’s got, then who can he unravel them to? Uncle N’ba N’ga is definitely not a choice, regularly expressing negativity and whatever he has on his mind, which Q has not inherited a single gene from.

           

In the end, Q goes into an inner state of acceptance and appreciation. Into the story, Lll surprisingly leaves Q for uncle N’ba N’ga, something unforeseen by Q himself! Unfortunately, Lll does not share the same passion and privilege of being a land inhabitant as he did. She seemed bothered by her ancestry’s mastery of land and believes that their talk is nonsense. This led to her uniting with uncle N’ba N’ga despite the fact that he is of old age. He is so old that his great-grandson is an evolved land critter, almost the complete contradiction of him. Q isn’t bothered much and has grown to forget Lll. Here, he describes his mindset of himself and the world around him: “They all had something I know, that made them somehow superior to me, sublime, something that made me compared to them, mediocre. And yet I wouldn’t have traded places with any of them” (82). Here, Q has finally moved on into acceptance. Though he sees other as having some way of an advantage over him, he could not care less. He has moved on, even if it was without Lll at his side. He was appreciative of the fact that he has evolved from a sea critter and into a land dweller. The event of Lll leaving him was a wakeup call to accept who he was, not wanting anything else.

Response Post: "Books and Words" by Leon Liang

While going through the list of blogs written by my fellow classmates at Alameda Science and Technology Institute, i found one that standed out to me because i can relate to it. This blog, by Leon Liang, contained the following:

When I hear the word “book”, I automatically feel like I am going to be bored to death from reading. Reading is something that I find complicated and hard. I am one of those that cannot sit down and just read. Most of the time, I would just fall asleep after a couple pages. The problem with books is that I cannot face a page full of just words. From grade school until now, the number of books I have read, excluding the books assigned by teachers, can be counted with two hands. I never bother to go discover which book is good and which one is boring. I only read things that I feel like interesting.

When i read this portion of the blog, i feel almost the same exact way! Books to me are really boring and they are barely read by me. In those rare occasions where I reading books, it is because i am in a situation in which i am forced to read it! Its either "read" or "get an F" situations that i am caught with a book in my hand. While Leon states that the number of books he has read without being forced to can be counted with two hands, you can count the number I have read with only one! And even those aren't necessarily voluntary by me!

When I look over why books are such a problem and distress for me, I kinda blame myself, not the books. I have not looked over the kinds of book that are of my interest. I would rather watch some TV or play a sport outside for my free time than to read a book. I think that i might need to cancel out some of the activities and hobbies that i have to make room for reading books. I also don't like to read for a long period time, which to me is maybe about thirty minutes. I have to take a break and procrastinate and sometimes don't ever come back to reading that book.

Response to "Remarks by President Obama"

As a student, I think I carry out a lot of responsibilities. One important responsibility that stands out is how I complete and handle the work that is assigned to me from teachers, and eventually professors.  As a student, I think that i am mainly reponsible for completing all, not just some, of the work assigned to me as hard and as much as possible. 


My goals for my education are very important. One of them is to graduate from college. By attending Alameda Science and Technology Institute, I think that I am making that goal a lot more easier, accomplishable, and easier to reach. By graduating from college, my life would also look set: I will be able to net a high-paying job and possibly a better life than if i never attended college. 


In his remarks, President Barack Obama also talks about people who once in their lives were failures. This list included people like Michael Jordan and J.K. Rowling. When you put these two people in the same sentence as the word "failure", it might be a little startling at first. When Michael Jordan tried out for his local high school's basketball team, he was rejected any role on the team. But that didn't stop him at all. He eventually led the Chicago Bulls to six titles all mainly due to his efforts. J.K. Rowling was living on welfare and when she tried to publish her first Harry Potter book, she was rejected by 12 publishers. She is now a billionaire and is currently at the number of 7 Harry Potter books. Even though once in their lives they were failures, that did not bring them back but instead they used it as motivation.


I can relate to this. A time in my life where i struggled was in my writing one class with Mrs. Corbally here at Alameda Science and Technology Institute. Every once and a while we work and prepare for essays. In my first essays, i received D's and these D's weren't high D's but they were really close to F D's. By experiencing these failures, I was able to take advantage of them and learn from them. After that, i started to realize that failing isn't really bad at all.

Cons of The Death Penalty

We do not believe the death penalty should be legalized. It is a inhumane and heartrending practice to punish a person for a crime by taking their life away. According to U.S. Senator Russ Feingold, he opposes the death penalty “because it is inconsistent with basic American principles of justice, liberty, and equality”. The death penalty is inhumane and it should not be allowed in a country that was founded on those following principles. The death penalty puts forth another murder when they should be showing society that the killing of people is wrong. If we kill those who kill, what example does that show? As Jesuit John Dear of the Society of Jesus puts it, “we kill those who kill to show that killing is wrong. If we really believed that killing was wrong, the state would set an example, official killing would be banished”. If we execute those who have murdered others, it would not bring the lives of those victims back. There are endless sentences that could be put forth instead of the death penalty. If those who support the death penalty do so because they fear the suspect will be free again, why not agree to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole? What if the supposed suspect is Innocent and is executed due to a death sentence? There is no way you can take back that mistake, a mistake you cannot fix once done. The execution of a murderer brings back the principle of an “Eye for an Eye” in which the great Ghandi once stated, “an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind”.