Cindy's Blog

The Sun Also Rises Essay

Author: Cindy Chen

Class: English Honors

Last Edit: 6/05/2014

In Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Brett, the beautiful, manipulative, and unattainable leading female character in the novel, is the epitome of masculinity due to her control over her love life, as well as many of the other characters in the novel. In contrast, many of the male characters are insecure of their own masculinity, unable to maintain control over the people around them or their own lives. This leads many of the emasculated males to behave cruelly and callously to others in their pursuit of Brett because they believe by having her, they will regain their masculinity. Robert Cohn pursues Brett desperately, almost to the point of fanaticism, regardless of who he hurt in his quest, in his attempts to win Brett. Mike Campbell resorts to insulting and belittling the other men to try and drive them off so he can have Brett to himself. Jake Barnes introduces Brett to Romero, knowing that she will break his heart and then run back to him for comfort, thus making him the winner of their competition and restoring his masculinity. Though it seems as if the men in the novel are in love with Brett, in reality, they only want Brett because by winning her, they can regain their masculinity.

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Transcendentalism Research Essay

Author: Cindy Chen

Class: English Honors

Last Edit: 12/31/2013

The Whiteness of Moby Dick - A Matter of Perspective

The Crucible: Literary Analysis Essay

Author: Cindy Chen

Class: English Honors

Last Edit: 10/18/2013

Reputation - Proctor’s Downfall

We will be choosing our electives next week. 

My school offers the following electives for soon-to-be 10th and 11th graders:

AP Economics

• AP Statistics


• AP Biology

I recently got back from a trip to Beijing, the capital of China. This is my account of the trip. 

First Impressions

My first thought of Beijing, from the plane as it descended, was "it looks like a wasteland," followed closely by "is that fog?" Because Bejing, from the air, in the winter, looks startlingly like a dead city. There was no greenery, no plants, or trees, or parks. Just grey, grey buildings and bare, dusty earth for as far as the eye can see. ("Much like that city from the movie, Wall-E, except without the trash," I later remarked to my mother.) It didn't help that the entire scene was covered in a layer of fog-like smoke, despite the fact that the sun had long since risen. It took a moment for me to recognize that that was indeed the famous, polluted Beijing air I had heard about. I had thought that the news of people actually selling canned air, of all things, in Beijing had just been some stupid trend or some business looking to scam people, but, looking at the air of Beijing from the plane, I suddenly realized why exactly they had been selling canned air. And why exactly people had bought it.

The Subway

China's subways are...well, to put it simply, really really crowded. We entered the subway almost as soon as we retrieved our luggage so we could get to our hotel as soon as possible. We had to transfer trains a few times, which did not help my mood at all. The air down there is hot and dry, and, seeing as we just got off the plane, my hair did not take kindly to that sort of atmosphere at all. My hair began poofing up and sticking to my face, and every time someone was unfortunate (or idiotic) enough to touch it, they would be shocked by the static. (I later realized that China's air was dry all around, and that, no, my hair would not stop poofing, even if I didn't go in the subway, which irritated me to no end.) Water didn't keep it down for long either. Needless to say, I felt that our trip was off to a bad start.

Ok, since no one commented a lie in the last post, all of the lies for this first post of The Lie Game are mine.

1. In one of my past lives, I was a pink pony with silver, glittery wings. I died fighting a rather one sided fight with a dragon. The dragon was green and had a head about the size of a pin, a body the size of a house, and five tails with red spikes on them. Because its head was so small, it couldn't eat well, so it always minced up its prey with the red spikes on its tail and absorbed it through its body. But I didn't die because of its tails. I died because it sat on me. I was trying to save a purple pony from being eaten, but after it sat on me, it minced up the purple pony anyway, so basically, I died in vain.

2.  In another one of my past lives, I was a small lump of sand, only consisting of 5 or so grains of sand. I had many friends in the wind. One day, someone stepped on me. I was very angry. So, I asked my wind friends to pick me up and pop me into the person's eye. I went into his eye and he felt me and kept rubbing, rubbing his eye to try and get me out. I refused to come out and went deeper into his eye, breaking a few veins, and causing him to go blind. But I still wasn't satisfied, so I went deeper into his body and met all of his little blood cells. I made friends with them. Finally, when I thought the time was right and I had most of his cells as friends, I secretly went around to every cell that was my friend and asked them each to perform this tiny little mistake in their jobs as a favor to me but not tell anyone. The mistake was so small and insignificant that they thought it wouldn't do any harm, since it was just another small harmless experiment of mine. So they all went about their jobs, each making a tiny mistake and not telling anyone. But because of the massive amount of "tiny mistakes," the person's body abruptly malfunctioned and he died. Finally, I was satisfied. Since I had had my revenge, I worked my way out of his body and asked the wind to take me back to my family in the desert. My wind friends didn't recognize me anymore, because I had been gone so long and my body was tinged red and dark instead of my former golden color, due to the lack of sunlight. It took some convincing before they agreed to take me back. Finally, when I made it back, my family didn't recognize me. My new color, added to the fact that I had disappeared for so long, convinced them that I was some imposter trying to fool them, so they kicked me out. I was sad so I decided there was no point in living anymore so I asked the wind to pick me up and tear me apart, killing me. They agreed, and that's how I died.

No one commented on my last post, which I think is rather sad. I understand why no one's read it though. I haven't posted for too long and no one remembers me anymore. Oh well.

This is another obligatory blog post. I have decided I will post The Lie Game here.

The Lie Game is a game I invented a while ago. There may be some other things that are similar to it but this is my own, simple, easy-to-play, pass-the-time version. There's no way to lose unless you don't even participate.

How To Play:

Basically, the Lie Game is lies. We tell each other ridiculous or absurd lies. The point of the game is basically to entertain each other. It's good for road trips or when you're bored. It also hones your lying skills and imagination.

Hi! It's been almost an entire year since I last posted something and I apologize for that. I've  had other things to worry about like homework, school, et cetera.

     To be honest, this website doesn't work for me anymore. I don't feel comfortable here and I find this blog a bit boring now. Everyone who reads this usually gives me Chinese comments or just comments that say"good" or no comment at all.

I write these blogs in English for a reason. I'm not good at Chinese. I can't read your comments. I'm sorry. And if you're writing Chinese, it probably means you couldn't read this post either.

"Good" has no particular meaning for me if it isn't accompanied by other words. "Good". Do you mean "good" as in the post was good? Was it written "good"? Is it just "good" that I finally posted something? Or was writing "good" just a habit and you didn't actually read this post at all?

As for the people that don't comment...well, I assume you're just the people that think of this blog as a trivial insignificant thing to read and pass time and isn't worthy of a comment. It is a rather trivial blog, I admit, but it doesn't take that much time to write a simple comment like "good", or even a Chinese comment that I can't read. I do appreciate those comments. It shows me that you actually took the time to open my trivial blog post and write a comment, even if you might not have read the post. I thank those people.

Yesterday was my birthday. I am now 14 years old.

The boring story...the most exciting thing that happened was that I got a can of blueberries and won 40NT in Mahjong . I am 14 years old and I'm already gambling. The world is obviously going to ruin. I was at my grandma's house for Chinese New Year with Jerry, Louis and Louis' baby brother(who is now approximately 1 year old). It was raining so we were inside watching TV and playing computer. My grandma wanted Louis, Jerry, and I to stop watchig TV and playing computer so she made us come downstairs to play Mahjong with her. I love Mahjong, mainly because we hardly ever play it except during New Year. The boys didn't really concentrate until Gran said that we would be playing with real money, 10NT for each point.  She knew we had money because we had just gotten our red envelopes the day before. We ran upstairs for our money and changed our hundred bills into coins with Gran. Louis, who has no idea how to play Mahjong, was helped by his dad. We played a lot of rounds and eventually, Louis ended up with 110NT more than he started and me with 40NT. Gran and Jerry had both lost money. Jerry was pretty pissed about losing the money he had won the day before in Mahjong, so he quit and went upstairs to watch TV. Gran quit so she could go cook dinner, so we gave up playing and went upstairs to watch TV and play computer. After dinner, my mom and dad were going to go buy my cake, but my dad said he was too full to eat a cake, so, in the end, I didn't get a cake. The only present I got was a small can of dried blueberries from Louis' mom. They were delicious.

I had a sleepover yesterday. It actually began on Wednesday, when we started planning it.

On Wednesday, during lunch, Elysia told me she wanted to get her ears pierced. She had been saying this for months and I figured the sooner the better. So, I suggested a shopping trip with no adults to supervise us. We could ride the bus to the place where I got my ears pierced and after her ears were pierced, we could go do what we would tell our parents we were doing - shopping. She agreed and that's when we started planning our trip. First, we had to find a time and place that suited both of us. We chose the coming Saturday, when finals had ended and there was minimum pressure. We debated a variety of places to meet :the school, the place where we'd ride the bus, her house, but eventually, we decided upon the school. We also considered how Elysia should get home if the e community buses(aka green bus/purple bus/orange bus/pink bus) weren't runnning. I considered the possibility of her coming for a sleepover at my house. I knew my parents would say yes. But hers might not. We worked out our schedule:

1. I walk to school


2. Elysia and I meet at school front gate


3. Ride green bus, or if its not running, the #1 bus, to Chingda

I have finished 12 animes now. I ranked them from 1~12, my most favorite to least favorite (that does not mean I hate it so if your favorite anime is somewhere at the bottom of the list, don't get insulted, it just means we have different taste or that the ones above it are better). Now I don't know what to watch. I'm asking for suggestions.

1. One Piece

2. Mai-HiME

3. DNAngel