Adventurer Can Make Dream Come True

Frozen In Time is the nonfiction book I'm reading now. It is written by America irfan writer Mark Kurlansky. The main character is a adventure who always keep curiosity and do something to make dream come true---the inventor of frozen food, Clarence Birdseye. Now, this funny name has been the brand of fast frozen good that we eat everyday. Think about this, if Birdseye didn't invent the frozen food, what will our life be look like? We still need to spend a lot of time on cooking, we can't save meat for a long time or it will go rancid. The adventurer, like him, is a kind of people willing to take risk to gain instead of dreaming. 

The world is fast changing; good thing for Birdseye is that he was born in Brooklyn, a third largest and fast growing city in US at that time. Since the end of 19 century, it was the time of the second industrial revolution, many things are invented; I think this kind of context is a component of success for Birdseye. Society is usually important for human, many people want to be a prominent lawyer or work on Wall Street, but still Birdseye was interested in things his peers doesn't care about just as what he did when he was a kid. He has own dream, keeps it and never change because of someone else. That's the point I admire him.

From the book, I can see how Birdseye was fascinated by science. Although he had to dropped out from college because of the financial problem, he still have passion and joined in the US Biological Survey. As a adventurer, he always keep his innovative spirit alive. He could work on Wall Street, be a lawyer and had a comfortable life in the city during all of his life. But he didn't, he went west where was an undeveloped rims, he went to Labrador where is a frozen land. Birdseye was a colorful character, inventions were just a part of achievements in his all life, as he said, he was a bank director, a president of companies, a fisherman, an author... 

Birdseye has enough courage and curiosity. If ask me, would I do what his did; I will say no. My dream is not to be an inventor and I'm not as intensely interested in science as him, I won't go to place such as Labrador and also I can't leave my family alone. But one thing same is that I will also keep my dream in heart and strive for it.

Vocabulary

Peculiar: strange, unusual.   P1

Admirable: deserving respect and approval.    P4

Astounding: be surprisingly impressive.    P9

Suspicion: doubt about something.    P11

Gripping: firmly holding the attention.    P11

Fixated: pay attention to something obsessively.    P15

Pragmatic: dealing with things realistically in a way that is based on practical experience.    P17

Eradicate: destroy completely.    P22

Insatiable: impossible to satisfy.    P27

Curiosity: want to learn more about something.    P27

Opal dream--a touching movie about love

After read the book Pobby and Dingan, I saw the the movie opal dream which the adaptation film of the book. Similar with the book, it talks about a little girl called Kellyanne, she has two imaginary friends, Pobby and Dingan. But one day, they died in the claim, and Kellyanne became ill. At the beginning, people don't believe Pobby and Dingan are real, but brother Ashmol did a lot to convince people, at last they became believed or pretended to believe. But one thing especially different with the book is, in the movie the funeral director gave back Ashmol the opal after the cemetery of Pobby and Dingan. In the book, he is indifferent about Pobby and Dingan, only cared about Ashmol's opal, made the funeral for them just because of the opal. And in the film, he was this kind of person at the beginning, but after the cemetery he gave Ashmol the opal back. This gave me an impression of how people change the attitude to Williamson's. He is not the only one who changed attitude but this plot is a typical one. And at the ending of movie, it doesn't tell us if Kellyanne died which can give audience hope especially for people who haven't read the book.

 

The book is really good but I prefer the movie after I saw it. This story is about love so I think it should give more hope. In the film, maybe some people think Kellyanne is dead, some people think she isn't, it's depend on your own feeling, but there's still hope. I feel a bit sad about the ending in the book, Kellyanne, the pure little girl was dead. Another thing I like is that, people in the seems more kind. On the trial day of dad, Mr.Humph would like to be dad's lawyer and helped him, grocery store woman and Kellyanne's teacher gave evidence to the judge, all of these show the change in people's attitude to Williamson's. These makes the film more touching.

 

Book tell the truth about life, but the movie gives us hope and exactly show what we expected.

Blog8 Play--Galileo Galilei

On Friday night, I watched the play Galileo. This is a play written Germany playwright Bertolt Brecht. This play shows the life of Galileo. Galileo is an famous Italian physician, mathematician and astronomer. He improved the telescope and use it to prove the solar system is sun-centered. But at that time this theory is against by the church and most people didn't believe that. So Roman Catholics told Galileo everything supports sun-centered  theory will be forbidden. Because of the touture from the church and people belief, Galileo had to give up claiming the sun-ventured theory. He was arrested in home. At the end, he gave the book which include all of his theory on science and math to his student Andrea Sarti. Andrea made more people know Galileo's theory.

The impressed scenes for me are the ending part of the 4th scene and the beginning part of the 5th scene. At the ending part, Galileo tried to convince the people in church and pope the sun-centered theory is truth. But the pope just fiddled with the crosier and didn't want to listen to what Galileo said at all. The funny and exaggerated action made a lot of audience laugh at that time, it exactly show the characteristic of pope, he is stupid, conservative and he never accepted new theory. But were those people in the church always religious? Although they always told people to obey the bible, but they don't obey at all. Bible was an excuse for them to convince other people. In reality, they drank, dance crazily, they do what a priest shouldn't do, these were showed in the beginning part of the 5th scene. 

This play is really hard for me to understand although I had looked for some information about it before I saw. The language is really hard. I totally can't understand what actors said. Because of this, I think I miss a lot of excellent language of this play. But for the plot, I think it impress me a lot. What I write

Before about religious people usually have same characteristic in other plays. But for this play, there's still something unusual. What do you think about an scientist as a hero? Maybe he should always insists his theory. But in this play, it doesn't happen. Galileo gived up. I think there was nothing wrong with him. Everyone may has thought like that at that moment. If he insists his theory, what will happen with him? He would be punished by the church and then died. He couldn't come up with more theories, he couldn't write his studies in the book and tell the truth to people. I thought he just believed there were more ways to prove his theory, not only death can show he was right.

Although the language is hard to understand, but from the visual aspect, this play is nice. The background of the stage is dark, I can see clearly what actor do, and the light is changed appropriately. The script is really hard to remember, it includes Latin words. And especially for the main character Galileo, he always have very long words to say, but he didn't make mistake on that. And what makes me surprise is that the actress who play in Galileo, she was international student, from Germany. Everyone in this play did well and show us a such great play at last.

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht is a famous Germany Marxist poet and playwright. He was born in 10 Feb,1898. He was born in a middle class family, he studied medicine at university of Munich and served in the army hospital during the First World War. He has "anti-war" and "anti-bourgeois" attitude, and reflect his anger to the society by the play and poem. His main famous works include: The Beggar, Life of Galileo,  The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children. He came up with the idea of "epic theatre" and "the alienation effect" which means a kind of audience relationship, he wanted audiences to both engage emotionally in the scene but be able to stand outside and make a judgement. He was a Marxist and against nazi part in the public. Because of the policy, he was force to escape from Nazis. He went to Switzerland, Denmark, American Hollywood and a lot of places. At that time, his works were destroyed in Germany. Although 15 years of exile was hard, this made him get more ideas about people life, and he wrote those in his poetry and play. During that time, he wrote most of his great plays and poetry. In 1949, Brecht returned to Germany and lived in east Berlin.

Galileo Galilei

Galileo was born on 15 Feb, 1564. He was an italian physician, mathematician and astronomer. He improved the telescope and astronomical observation and he supported copernic theory that sun-centered solar system. One of his famous experiment is falling body. According to the biography, it said that Galileo had used two balls with same material but different masses to do the experiment. He dropped the ball from the leaning tower of Pisa. At that time, most of people believe in aristoteles's theory that the object which has larger mass will drop faster than the object with less mass. But after Galileo dropped balls, people found these two balls fall on the ground simultaneously. This experiment changed everyone's thought. Galileo believed in copernic theory, supported the sun-centered solar system. But the church against the copernic theory, so Roman Catholics told Galileo everything supports sun-centered  theory will be forbidden. Galileo ignored this problem for several years, but he believed in science, he published a book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. The church thought this book supports copernic theory and attacked Aristoteles, so finally he was arrested in the house by church. Because of heart disease, he was died 8 Jan,1642. All of Galileo's book about science wasn't forbidden by church anymore until 1853.

In class writing

"The secret of an opal's color lies not in it's substance but in its absences." Opal is precious and beautiful because of its variety colors. I think "opal's color" in this quote means some wonderful things in our life. If we want to find the most wonderful things in our life, we shouldn't just focus on some physical things or substances that are exactly exist in the life, should find more things we can't easily see it, some spiritual, immaterial things. In this book, I think it especially emphasize the "substance" wealth and opal, the "absences" love between people. At the beginning, people don't realize the importance of relationship in this community, many people don't believe in kellyanne and her imaginary friends Pobby and Dingan, they think Dad is ratter and he steal the opal in Old Sid's mine. Everyone just lives in own place and is crazy for opal and wealth or is a bit jealous to person who find opals. Dad doesn't care a lot about his family, always dream that he will find opals and got money. Mom miss her more confortable life in England. When I am reading, I feel everyone is indifferent to each other. This community is in a bad life. But after the missing of Pobby and Dingan, Ashmol makes everyone connect together to find Pobby and Dingan, to help kellyanne. They feel good with helping her and was sad for the lost of Pobby and Dingan at last. That makes people realize there are something else more wonderful in the life, the love and relationship between people. That has ever been the absence, and something people can't touch it. And the relationship between mom, dad, kellyanne and Ashmol is also became touched. Love and close relationship in this community makes everyone feel living in a community full with love, not indifference. This is the secret to find wonderful things in life, care about the love between each other.