The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the short story of the Secret World Of Walter Mitty. His life sucks. His wife uses him and picks on him. People around him put him down. And just about everyone thinks he's a whimp," accept for him." Poor Mitty, his life will probably always suck. His wife is always nagging him. She thinks he's always sick. She likes it because she can control him. She want's him to be at her feet. And she wants him to think she's superior. The lady on the street thought he was crazy. She probably thought he was a sick, big, wimp, and a loser. Maybe she thought that that was a guy who never scored in his life. To put it in another word he was just a funny looking, crazy, sick, loser of a guy. The parking attendant thought he was dangerous in a car. He thought Mitty could be pushed around. And should be walking instead of driving," but even then he could be dangerous at that." He thought Mitty was a wuss and all around wimp. Walter Mittys life sucks. Everyone thinks he sucks. Even the lady on the street thought he was a loser. But what must really bite his own wife thinks he a loser. To bad he lets everyone push him around. Walter Mittys life will probably always suck.

The Rule

When one turns eighteen years old they are looked at, by many, as an adult. They can vote, probably stay out later, receive more responsibilities because now those responsibilities can be handled. They will soon leave home and start a journey to college. They will be on their own, free to make their own decisions. They will rely on no one but themselves. If we are given in college the freedom to do as we please then why are their rules when we get there? I am not talking about drinking, or smoking in the rooms. Or how much noise we can make after a certain hour. Colleges have to be strict on those issues because they can be unsafe to the individual or people around them. By keeping the noise down we are only being considerate to other people. The rule that I feel is ridiculous is the visitation rule. Why can a guy be in a girls room all day, or a girl be in a guys room all day, but must leave at night? Their is no harm being done if he or she stays. If your roommate doesn't mind then their shouldn't be a problem. If we are told that we are responsible enough to go and live away from home, then why does it matter who we live with? Why aren't we trusted when it comes to that issue? I feel that one should be trusted until one proves otherwise. The rule may forbid boyfriends, girlfriends, or just friends to stay in a room, but why family members? Have a heart. Your family member drives all the way to your school to see you and they must sleep some where else, why? Didn't your brother or sister come to visit you in college? Didn't you want him or her to stay with you? If they were a younger sibling wouldn't it make you feel safer if they were by your side all night? Listen, I am not attacking your decision pertaining to this issue. I am simply asking reasonable questions and stating reasonable ideas on why I feel this rule should be changed, or at least thought about. If we are said to be adults, and are expected to act like adults, then I feel we should be treated like one in all aspects. It's hard growing up. The challenge of moving away from home can be hard for some people. But to grow one must step forward, take risks and challenges, and be given a chance. Having someone by your side through the day and night can make it a lot easier.

The personal Exprience

Life Who would have thought that a night out with a church group could turn into a deadly accident? En route to a spring break camp, one of our van was hit by a 18 wheelers' truck; creating a night we wouldn't forget. The story began with a trip to summer retreat. It was ticket to bring me back to reality, and also tickets for some people to heaven. We loaded our luggage into the back of the vans, and we headed off toward our destination. It is about one or one and half hour later, one of our van stop at the stop sign, when the driver of that van saw no car was coming, (some blind spot cover the area that the driver can't see) he step the paddles and drive off, but a on coming truck was driving too fast and didn't saw one of our van, it crushes the van into three different pieces, everyone in our van saw it happened and everyone is shocked of that terrible scene. Few minutes later, the cops and the ambulances quickly arrived. We heard the loud noise come from the police and ask us to help them, we quickly got off the van and helping the fire fighters and the cops to pull people out of that vans, I saw lot of our church friend got burned to death and some other just crushed by Small pieces. Everyone is in tears including the police and fire fighters. After the rescue, we find out most of people in that van died, but some in serious condition. After that accident, I learned that life is meaningless, and learned that we should help others while we can. My goal was to let God into my life. It was one of the most relaxing and peaceful things I have ever done. Because we all inspired by God, he helps us when we really needed him. He brings us out of the nightmare that no one will ever forget. We gather all our church friend in a small meeting every Friday, every time we meet, we would have small group meetings and share anything that came to mind. We prayed for people to find God in their life, and for everything that needed assistance. We also planned the prayer service, meal plans, and chores for the next day. We saw God comes in our life and helps us while we have trouble of doing some stuff that we just cannot understand. He gives us power to think and solve the problem successively. I was more conscious of how scripture relates to my life. I feel the purpose of the meetings was accomplished. Not only were the participants reunited themselves with God, they were also led into the direction by God. Before the meetings, many of us didn't even know exactly why we were and where we were, and where we would go next, cause we are upset of what happened. After this I learned that every story has two sides, bright side and dark side. The dark side is people died in that accident, but the bright side is we built strong relationship with God and we have the strong faith than before. It opens my mind with the different choice that we can choose in life. Because of this meeting, I have become more spiritual in my daily life, and I have set certain goals of reading some of the Bible every time I need to work out a situation. Throughout the meetings, we kept teasing each other about where our parents were, and that started many inside jokes. These jokes were just the beginning of a special bond I found in our friendship.

Breakdown of an educated person

An educated person is a well rounded person. To be educated is to knowledgeable in many areas. Diversity is essential in the sense that many different things inspire thought, which then derive permanent conclusions from these experiences. Anyone who has the audacity to call themselves educated needs to have a firm grasp of many different areas. These categories span through Science, Technology, Language, Art, Feelings and Values. All of these are building blocks that help make up an educated person, but just as important, these are the same qualities that form an individual. One of the most important concepts that a person learns from Science is a fundamental thinking process. This process starts with curiosity, asking the question," Why does that work?" It then moves on to theorizing or guessing. Next, this person takes his or her theory and puts it to the test by conducting various experiments. Finally this individual will draw a final conclusion from those findings. Science also helps a person look at things objectively, which means there is no feelings influencing experiments that can lead to fraudulent conclusions. This can be a double edged sword however, because in many instances when a scientist is emotionally removed from the experiments performed, the question, "Should I?", is never asked. For instance under the reign of Hitler many cruel medical experiments were preformed. In The Medical Experiments by William Shirer the author states,"Prisoners were placed in high pressure chambers and subjected to high-altitude tests until they ceased breathing. They were injected with lethal doses of typhus and jaundice. They were subjected to 'freezing' experiments in icy water or exposed naked in the snow outdoors until they froze to death." This also deals with the subject of values and will be discussed detail later. Probably the most positive way to utilize Science would be to take it to the next level, Technology. This is were an educated person takes what laws and theories he learns in science and integrates them into everyday life, finding ways to make life easier and arguably better. I say arguably because many educated people are against technological advancement. These philosophers say that technologies are being probed without understanding and therefore they are being abused. These philosophers feel that this will be the chief downfall of humankind. Mary E. Clark showed her opposition in her article Science and Values, in which she states,"When such knowledge is used to manipulate Nature we call it 'technology', and over the past century this manipulative capacity has grown to the point where we can now annihilate ourselves as a species." Another important aspect of being an educated person is a firm grasp of the use of Language. This person needs to develop the gift of relating his thoughts and feelings into a clear and interesting way. Many people try to use large words and awkward vocabulary to sound educated, but a true educated person can relate an idea in a way that any person could understand. In his article Simplicity, William Zinsser advocates this idea when he makes points like, "We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon."and,"The person snoozing in a chair, holding a magazine or book, is a person who was being given too much unnecessary trouble by the writer." To be an educated person is a person that not only can relate ideas to someone else, he can also understand other peoples ideas and feelings and can use them to draw over all conclusions to answer the questions at hand. In addition an educated person must be in touch with inner feelings, this person must know thyself, and must value the importance of feelings and life itself. Robertson Davies in his article about people with emotional atrophy called The Deadliest of Sins, says this about these people, "They seldom make mistakes, because they never put themselves in a position where they are not complete masters of the situation....they have died to joy and pain and thus feeling." One can not be educated without experiencing the joys and pains of life, this would leave nothing to learn from. One aspect of being considered educated that is imperative is the ability to communicate, or in some situations, vent his or her feelings in a positive matter. This demonstrates pure knowledge of ones own spirit. One of the best ways to do this is through an artistic medium. This is the main reason why so many artists are referred to as ingenious. These people not only display feelings constructively, they do it in such an interestingly radical way that they invoke emotional responses from their admirers. Art has the ability to express feelings better than any words from any language. Susanne K. Langer in her article The Cultural Importance of Art states,"There is, however, an important part of reality that is quite inaccessible to the formative influence of language: that is the realm of so-called "inner experience," the life of feeling and emotion. All of these attributes lose power without an individual set of values to focus this energy. Adolf Hitler influenced millions by being a masterful orator. Hitler also was very innovative in science and many other areas. However do to his grossly warped sense of personal values he was labelled by leaders and peers as a madman. It is very difficult for any person to be a master of all of these categories, but to be truly educated, there needs to be at least a small concentration of everything in that individual's background. For the one reason that it is so difficult to posses all of these traits, it is also that same reason that makes all of the truly educated people of our past stand out in history as heros and leaders. This is also the biggest reason that so many people admire them and strive to be like them.

Canadas educational system

School is the best place for people to be educated. Everyone has to go through this stage in order to be knowledgeable, so they can be useful in society and solve any problems they encounter. Not only they are educated for themselves but also for their countries. Different countries have different systems on how to teach students. Canada's educational system is a perfect and ideal way to ensure that students will live successful lives. Canadian high school students study both compulsory and elective courses together. They pursue academic studies based on the achievement of credits. In the meantime, they take prerequisite courses that are related to their university studies. Hence, they know the basic fundamentals before getting in the universities. After completion of required number of credits, the universities take their averages and determine if they are qualified for the studies in universities that they choose. Even the students' averages are low, they can still go to universities that don't require high averages. Therefore, many students can easily study in this highest level of education. However, all courses are mandatory in Taiwan. High school students study the same courses together no matter what they plan to take in the universities, and thus it is hard for them to know what they are interested in. After graduation from high school, students have to write a major exam on all kinds of courses to achieve a score, which determines if they are satisfied for their chosen studies in the universities. Each year, there is a lot of failure students from getting in the universities and they just quit and go for the jobs. Human rights are very emphasized in Canada. Canada never has any corporal punishment in any levels of education. At school, teachers do not use any violence to punish students. They only warn impolite students verbally. Because in Canada, teachers have no rights to punish their students physically, and there not have been complaints about students get hurt in the school. But in Taiwan, corporal punishment at school is so common that almost no students have ever been exempted. From grade one through senior high school, the corporal punishment exists, and teachers are allowed to carry out the process of it. Students get punished if they do not achieve as what the teachers say to be "standard mark" on the assignments, tests or exams. There are reports about teachers that go beyond the proper limit by hurting the students badly, or sexually harassing them. Teachers are charged and go to courts. This is ironic that teachers are thought to be the most admired people in this country. Students in Canada study in a way of comfort. They do not have much pressure from anyone. Parents do not force their children to do over the limitation on the children's academic studies. In addition, school assignments are not much everyday, but they are very important and useful to finish. Upon completion of homework, students have leisure time; they like to have fun by watching movies or going out for outdoor activities on weekends to relax themselves. However, school is a very competitive place in Taiwan. It can be described as a match between students. After school, most students take private tutoring to supplement regular schooling in order to get into higher level of education, for example, universities. Moreover, after they come back it is already late in the night. Then, studying until two or three o'clock, is something quite usual, and they only have a couple of hours to sleep because school starts early the next day. There has been news about students that could not stand such heavy works, and so they chose to quit it by committing suicide. In conclusion, Canada and Taiwan have a lot of unlikeness on their academic studies. Those three differences mentioned above are which can be pointed out. But most importantly, Canada is a wonderful and relaxed place to study.