What I Don’t Like About This Class

What I don't like about this class is how the journal times in class are so long. Sometimes the moments in class without any brain stimulation leaves me in a blank state and in a blank state I am more prone to falling asleep. I also dislike how there are ants in the corner of the classroom, they may be gone now, but when they were here they served as a big distraction. My fascination with the Formicidae family of animals leaves me distracted in class. A serious issue I don't like in class is that sometimes breaks are omitted. I understand that the schedule may run wild sometimes, but fitting in a 5 minute break is perfect because classwork is enervating at times and that 5 minutes could serve well as a break and let us last longer.
Other than that, I have no other serious concerns with the class. The bottle in the middle of the classroom might be, but other than that bottle of water, maybe if we had more pizza parties I'd be more excited for class. Or watched movies.

The Unknown Quantity

I do not believe in the fact that only when we're presented with something along the lines of a life threatening situation do we reveal our inner and true selves. Our "inner and 'true' selves" is already shown through our everyday behavior. Only when one intentionally hides it or when they do something that alters their behavior are they modifying it, if not, everything of our personality leaks through. It makes no difference as to what situation we are presented with, EVERY situation reveals a little something about ourselves.
People find out their strengths through trial and error, one cannot know what one's strength is by simply just being put in a life threatening situation, that's also trial and error - if you were under a rock, and it required immense physical strength to save yourself: okay, trial: physical strength. If you fail then you die. Basically a life threatening situation cannot challenge a person in all aspects of life that's like a meta strength finder, one must find it through numerous tests and a life threatening situation does not offer that, simply because it's a hit or miss: and if you miss, you die.

Persuade Me

Persuade me to give me tickets to America when spring time comes. I'll be 18 and I won't need to go through that permit phase to get a license. I won't need those mandatory hours, because those hours are only for those below the age of 18.
Bring me back to summer, back to whence we were whole. Back to when we had fun and could relax and live  a carefree life - although too much of one thing is not good, I'd still just want to go back, even for a second. Regardless if I'm in America or Taiwan, I want to be surrounded by friends and just chill out for a long time.
Persuade me and bring me to California for some In n Out. Some milkshakes, fatty foods, and all that - along with some nice, dry weather.
Also, burritos would be nice. Served with that tomato rice, asada beef, as well as some of that vegetable greenies topped with cilantro and tomatos - that's what I want. Someone should bring it back to me, along with its sour creamed goodness drizzled in salsa de verde.
Another thing I want is to be God. If enough people worshiped me, I could be a God.
I want to be God so that I could feel what it's like to be in control of his divine wrath - the feeling of sentencing a heretic to hell and smite with my holy hammer. I want to be Thor.

Give me Liberty or...

Give me liberty or death, an interesting phrase coined by Patrick Stewart. Wait, what?
Nowadays, people crave funny things. Not that people before never did, but now because our world is so efficient at keeping people alive and keeping them safe, without the worries of death once you walk out your doorstep, people crave the higher satisfactions there is to be earned in life. It's sort of like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Once we do not worry about the bottom levels of the pyramid anymore, once they're satisfied that is - we can finally continue on to the higher levels. Things such as food, safety, shelter, and protection have all been satisfied, only then can we pursue goals of higher learning, intelligence, etc.
Jokes are one of them. Socialization in general is one of them.
I've also heard that our generation is the thumb generation. Our technological innovations makes great use of our opposable thumbs - our hands are more dexterous than the previous generations, and we interact daily (perhaps a little too much) and indulge in the joy that these tiny little silicon chips provide us.
Our generation recognizes the words technology, internet, and innovation. Speed as well - but in technology. What was ten years ago - a 56 kbps modem speed connection is hard to even imagine being bearable, now that the average internet speed we have are 10 mbps internet connections.
A little bit more specific would perhaps be, facebook, online games, and the such that our generation recognizes. Last generation's youthful age would probably recognize with music or something. Who knows, we're in the present and we don't care about the past.

My own Sermon

If one would sin - then one would perish for all eternity. Not just perish, but worse - one shall be tortured and raped in an everlasting pit of agony watched over by Satan himself, he, himself, personally. A thousand sword strikes your heart every second - and your demise shall never be met. Satan has the power of life - and keeps you on the very precarious edge of being alive to only be able to further pain you. Defiled personally, punished by hoards of demons and lost souls within the spacious inferno that is Hell. The very bottom pit of the furnace - is actually bottomless, and once you fall inside it you shall never fall to the ground yet instead that paining sensation of torture in mid air, burned alive, drenched in gasoline, then further consumed by embers. Dipped in the demonic equivalent of napalm, then set on fire, but not to burn to death, but burned alive at a stake while being drawn and quartered at the same time at the fingertips of this Hellish watcher. A thousand cuts, inflicting pain beyond imagination, drowned in the wastes of the blood of the Hellish watcher's servants, burning to the touch, is what happens if you commit sin. Your skin flayed, burned in front of your very eyes, then your eyes gouged, yet, replaced once more only to be gouged again.
Sinners deserve this.
Yes, I am the one in charge. I make up all the rules.

Respond to Jonathan Edwards

My response to this man would be who put you in authority? What exactly backs up your ridiculous claims of "hanging by a thread," have you, yourself, personally witnessed such a burning of a person in the fiery depths of hell? I don't think so. I believe he's simply using the fear of the wrath of God in his own way to sway the people to cling onto their ever so worthless lives which "hangs on by a thread" even tighter into believing themselves to be even more insignificant.
Reading about these people fills me with anger and frustration because not only are they fabricating a string of lies, they're culturing this world to be so fearful of being an atheist and heathen that brings everyone into this endless black hole of intimidation of the wrath of god that pretty much subconsciously forces people to convert to Christianity.
When God's existence is questionable in the first place, why create a bunch of lies? Is it that people are so gullible as to believe in religion? I am an atheist and I do not believe in God, so perhaps my view is distorted and twisted and not as objective as one would think.
But still. Jonathan Edwards, you're a load of bull.

Sin

Sin's interpretation depends entirely upon the perspective of the viewer. A sin to a believer of any Abrahamic religion might interpret it as from breaking the vows of marriage to eating pork.
A definition of sin is an act of violation of moral rule. Since morality is entirely dependent on culture, (in Serbia, if one kills your family member, you are obligated to kill one of their family members) and one should not interpret another's culture through lenses of our own. Anything can be a sin and nothing can be sinful.
If one were to interpret a sin through the eyes of a stricter religious sect of people in the world then perhaps almost everything might be a sin, say, Sunni Muslims.
But if one were to view the world through perhaps the eyes of a devout and zealous hedonist who only cares for pleasure - then nothing would be sinful.
Sin is a difficult word to interpret. It's difficult because you can't really draw a definite line across what is a sin and what is not a sin, because, not just because of culture, we ourselves have even a finer exemplary of what is morally right and morally wrong, aka not sinful or sinful.

Fear as a Motivator

Fear is perhaps one of the greatest motivators known to man. It is that way because our survival is bent on fear. Evolutionarily, fear is perhaps one of the most beneficial things to a species' survival - as well as things like physical traits that help a species survival and eliminating competition. But if the competition is too great, then we avoid it, therefore we fear it. If a certain environmental factor would kill us - we stay away from it. We're adapted to be scared of things such as snakes, spiders, etc.
I had once read a quote of how humans were adapted to fear spiders and snakes, but not cars. Just thought that was interesting.
An interesting way to think about it is if we fear something, yep we defy it - does that mean we no longer fear it? A great example of how fear could be use with extreme efficiency would be something like Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.

Church

Religious experiences, I've had them all at Daoist temples. I don't ever recall going to any churches. I've been to the Taiwan Daoist temples and also a Buddhist temple in America. 

The Daoist temples were just take a bunch of incense, do the little bow thing a few times and implant it in several different incense pots around the temple. The incense doesn't really resemble anything (the smell of it) but definitely distinct in the family of incenses. 

Basically it's always with family members. Then we do the bai-bai. 

That's pretty much it at Daoist temples. Perhaps tour around and admire the statues. But that's pretty much it.

At the Buddhist temple in America, I'm actually not sure if it's got Daoist traditions as well - but it was called a Buddhist temple, so I'm not sure. 

At the temple, I've only attended one or two of these - but there was a mass reading of the 8 paths or something about life. They just chant it over and they also take this water and like wash it over. They also have these monks at the front and nuns doing a little gong instrument thing while the lead monk reads it. I'm not sure what the water's for - perhaps it represents some sort of purification? Inside, there were these golden panels with pictures on them. Also, we had these little stool things where you can like get on your knees and bow down. 

There were also dragon columns outside the temple, with statues representing some sort of aspects of life or something. 

Also a big Buddha. With a donation box in the middle.

That's pretty much my temple experience. A little blurry, because the last time I went to the Buddhist temple was a few years ago. 

Motivation

What the people in these books are motivated by God. God is what moves them to do what they want - basically good. They do good things because they want to go to Heaven. Although the path to Heaven was already determined, I read through another source that basically doing bad things was a sign that you're definitely not going to Heaven, thus, they act well. They, are puritans. In the book and the poem, both are motivated by God. Hester is the perfect embodiment of Puritan beliefs, albeit a fictional character, she is the ultimate Puritan spawn off of Puritan beliefs - only living a plain lifestyle for God. Same with Anne Bradstreet. Real people wouldn't just ignore a burning house and watch their house as it goes away in embers. Even though sufficient technology did not exist at the time to put out the fire, in her mind, she had accepted immediately that God took it away.
God is their motivation.

Compare and Contrast: Bradstreet vs Sor Juana

There are major differences in the two poems. Firstly, in Bradstreet's poem, it follows many short rhymes while Sor Juana's poem (although translated,) follows many verses that are long and elaborate in meaning. Even though both carry the same amount of meaning, one is just in a longer form, albeit a shorter poem as a whole, while Bradstreet's was a longer poem with many shorter verses. In Sor Juana's poem, she talks about the learnings of the mind, and shouldn't care so much about the worldly vanities instead - Bradstreet says the same thing, except about herself. About how she shouldn't care so much about her own worldly possessions. Instead, focus on her love for God.
Perhaps honing one's mind (by reading books etc) was being faithful to God?