The Survival Author

    Gary Paulsen is one of the USA’s best authors writing about the wilderness. He is known for writing that doesn’t sugar coat everything and that provides vivid descriptions of the events happening in the wilderness.

    Paulsen had a very unique childhood. He was born in Minnesota, in May 1939. His father was an army officer, and spent most of World War II overseas, fighting. Only when Gary Paulsen was nine years old did he get to meet his dad. He and his mom joined him in the Philippines for two years before returning to Minnesota. Before he met his dad, he had been living with various different relatives. At school, he was never a really committed student, but had a special passion for books.

    When he was only 14 years old, he ran away from home to join a carnival. From there, he took many strange jobs, such as farmer, construction worker, engineer, sailor, and truck driver. He also joined the Iditarod, a 1000+ mile Alaskan dog sled race. All of these early wandering days of Gary Paulsen's life gave him enough adventure and experience to start creating his own stories. Paulsen went to Bemidji College in 1959, and worked as a trapper to earn his tuition. But after going to college for two years, he dropped out and followed in his father's footsteps, joining the army. At that time, he was working in the missiles department.

    After Gary Paulsen left the Army, he took a job in a California aerospace firm. It was there that he made his final decision to become an author. He walked away from work one night and never came back. Paulsen took a job in Hollywood to proofread articles in magazines, which was very boring, and only writing his own works enhanced his life. Then, one day, just like he did with the job at the firm, he left Hollywood silently and returned to Minnesota. He worked hard on his own writing, and soon he finished his first published novel, The Special War.

    While writing novels, Paulsen discovered his love of dog sledding. He participated to the 1983 Iditarod and again, two years later, in the 1985 one. But after he finished the 1985 Iditarod, he had to quit dog sledding for awhile because of angina. From then on, he devoted his life to writing, working sometimes twenty hours a day! Drawing from past experiences, he wrote many great literary fiction books, including one of my favorite sagas, the Brian series, which is a great survival story.

    Gary Paulsen has recovered from his angina now. Currently he is 74 years old. Only a couple years back, in his early 70’s, he ran the Iditarod race again for pleasure. He was more than 70 years old, yet he still survived the harsh climates of Alaska.

    Not only do I love his stripped down writing style, I admire his ability to survive in society, even without parents’ help. Gary Paulsen has just become one of my most important role models!

Chinese New Year=$, Fun, and Food

 

    The Chinese New Year is one of the biggest festivals celebrated in China. This holiday is based on the lunar calendar, so even though it is honoring the coming of the new year, it is always sometime around February on the international calendar. Firework dealers’ stocks of firecrackers and fireworks suddenly disappear, and the money in their bank accounts rockets up. Public janitors’ worst time every year has arrived, for almost everyone lights up rolls of firecrackers and boxes of fireworks, leaving empty, blackened boxes and carpets of red wrapping. No one is able to sleep before midnight, for the noises outside sound like a battlefield. In almost every story of the apartments, delicious aromas waft out from the dozens of traditional Chinese dishes  made for the annual family reunion dinner. All the windows and doors are festooned with red paper, containing Chinese characters of “happiness,” “good fortune,” or  “live long.” These were basic traditions that my family had before my parents and I moved to the USA.

    Chinese New Year has become a lot more simple since we moved here. One of the main reasons is because most of our family is still in China or Taiwan. A requirement of having a good Chinese New Year Party is having a lot of relatives. But we still have kept some of the traditions here.

    Since none of our relatives live here, this holiday is celebrated with friends. Sometimes Darren and Wesley come, but not always, and a couple of other Chinese friends my mom has made over the years.

    We usually host this holiday, since it’s my mom who invites everyone to the party. Most of these friends are great cooks, so my mom assigns them different dishes to bring. My mom, of course, will make her specialty, the Shanghai short ribs, and steamed fish. Rice cakes stand for “growing taller every year,” and glutinous rice balls mean “reunion with family and friends.” My mom prepares lots of red envelopes to give to her friends’ children. She hangs the remaining envelopes up as the red decorations on the windows. It’s not as elaborate as those giant paper-cutouts, but that will have to do here. First we eat our way through the delicious dishes made by my mom and her friends. The meal lasts for at least an hour, and I eat until I am totally stuffed. Then, the other kids and I run off to have some fun, while the parents sit around the table, sipping daintily on small cups of tea, and always keeping up a steady stream of the boring adult gossip or even more boring topic of their kids’ education.

Celebrating Chinese New Year has been a tradition since before I could remember. I know for a fact that this tradition was already really old when my great-great grandpa was just a boy. Our family celebrates this holiday because it is a tradition, not just for us, but for almost the entire Chinese race. Celebrating Chinese New Year is also for good luck, wealth and health in the new year.

Having a Chinese New Year party is very important to me, because in my opinion doing so is upholding the honor of our family and China. To me, not having this festival makes me not a true Chinese. Also, this holiday is the main source of my allowance.

Chinese New Year is a very big part of my life. If I ever have kids, I will make sure to celebrate this holiday with them and let them pass it down through generations to come.

I Hope I Will Never Eat Shrimp

 

Shrimp!

Shrimp is a crustacean, crunchy shell and elongated body,

But to me it is a revolting and squishy scoundrel of the sea

I would rather swallow a pig heart whole and raw,

than to eat a steamed shrimp, curled up in a fleshy sphere.

If I were stuck, starving in the wild

and I had to choose among ingesting shrimp, my extra batteries, or bad and rotten beef,

I would totally masticate the extra batteries

or gormandize the rotten beef.

Shrimp!

I bet you that I would whip up a meal made of rubber ducks and pencil shavings

and slam-dunk the luxuriously laced shrimp sushi in the trash can

I would probably engulf a candle perfectly,

leaving no sign of its existence,

than to digest the obnoxious piece of shrimp you offered me.

Dirt and mud must seem delectable,

compared to that crappy crustacean

so flirty and fake.

Shrimp!

There is not a single word dreadful enough to describe shrimp

there simply is not a word

With its sanguine shell, sagging flesh

all it does to me

is make me want to toss my cookies

I really don’t understand the people who eat it

there is no price that can make me munch a malevolent shrimp

unless my mom is vociferating at me to do so!

Will Complex or Will Simple

 

I love rereading my favorite books, and right now, I am rereading the Ranger’s Apprentice series. Currently, I am on the ninth book, Halt’s Peril. I shall tell you a little about the book’s content. Halt, Will, and Horace are hot on the trail of a group of cults called the Outsiders. They plan to stop this party before the Outsiders can invade their homeland, Araluen. The leader of this cult, Tennyson, has hired professional assassins to get rid of the small party behind them. Halt and Will have to kill these assassins to stop Tennyson. They succeed, but Halt is poisoned by an arrow shot from the assassin’s crossbow.

    The Ranger’s Apprentice can be every bit as popular as a potboiler, and it is a New York Times Best Seller. But even though the series is really action packed, I still think that this book qualifies as literary fiction. I think the characters are very developed and precise. The description of Will, for example, is so detailed that I can almost see his slim build standing in front of me, smiling positively, or Horace, dancing athletically, preparing for the upcoming battles against the giant bodyguards of Tennyson.

    Not only are the characters’ appearances described in intricate detail, their personality is also very complex. The article For Better Social Skills, Scientist Recommend a Little Chekhov states that reading literary fiction can help you understand body language. The author of the Ranger’s Apprentice does a lot of description of body composition, so this series must be literary fiction. He describes little movements like the slump of shoulders, or an intake of breath to ask a question.

    There are so many examples of body position in this book, it would be hard to fit them all in this essay. But I will give a few cases. In the first book, when Halt is telling Will about his father, the author described that the light began to shine from Will’s eyes. Also, when Will and Evanlyn are burning the bridge, Will has a light of grim determination in his eyes as he stops the charging Wargals. More than once in the ninth book, the author describes the characters with slumped shoulders. Knowing these body cues can help you in a blind date to see what feeling is going through your girlfriend at any moment.

    I don’t think I will be changing my habit of mainly reading literary fiction. These types of books are just as fun to read as potboilers, if not more. Even though it is too early for me to go on a blind date or job interview, it never hurts to be prepared for the future. But if one day, there is a really good potboiler, then I probably will read that.

    I really hope that reading literary fiction will help in a blind date or job interview. When I go to the date, I certainly would not want to kiss a girl who doesn’t like me!

The Three Skills

 

    In my humble opinion, I think that all the skills described are very important for success in life. But after much debate with myself, three words stood out to me. Patience, Kindness, and Wisdom. These three skills will help me the most throughout my life.

    Patience is probably the most important of these three skills. To accurately complete the tasks that my bosses or teachers assign me, I have to take my time and not rush to get finish. If I ever get an apprentice of my own, and they mess up on something I assign them, I need to be patient to tell them what they did wrong. Yelling and screaming won’t help them learn. That would make me a bad mentor. Anytime I’m working on something, I should always take the time to think and also to play. It doesn’t pay to work on something for too long and be impatient to finish it. Taking breaks and doing enjoyable and relaxing things can help cultivate patience.

    Kindness is every bit as important as patience. Being kind to everyone makes me more likeable than if I acted like I was in a far superior class. In the future, being nice could allow me to get promoted or have more customers buy from me, which would greatly advance my career. Part of being kind to others  means I’m not jealous of other people, and would give me a totally different personality. The other definition of kind is being warm-hearted, and showing sympathy and understanding to others. Donating to organizations such as the Red Cross or Boy Scouts is an act of kindness, and makes me feel good about myself and that I can make a contribution to the society.  

The last skill that I think is important is wisdom. I may be super smart, but without wisdom, I won’t know how to survive in this world. Making the right choices requires wisdom. I may know how to do 1,142,625 to the power of 9 (I don’t), but I could make a wrong turn and start taking drugs, which could destroy my health and fog my great brain. Without my super brain power, I wouldn’t have a source of income, and soon, I would deplete my money source. But if I am wise enough to reject drugs, I will have a good income and enjoy a pleasant life. When I own a company of my own, having wisdom will allow me to know which risks I should take to make the company more successful.

    Patience, Kindness, Wisdom. Patience, Kindness, Wisdom. Theses are the three skills that will accompany me through my life. Without these, I doubt I will have success in this society.

What a ? Desk!

 

    In the New York Times article, What a Messy Desk Say About You, the author Gretchen Reynolds writes that both a messy and a neat desk have an advantage to the people sitting there. Researchers at University of Minnesota found that a messy desk could boost the imagination, and generate better ideas, and as Dr. Vohs, a behavioral scientist, says “inspire breaking free of tradition.” But if you have a neat desk, then you are most likely going to eat healthier and have more efficiency in your work.

    I really think that my work space is on the neat side. Actually,this marble table top was not originally bought for the house it is in now. It was first bought as a dining table for our condo. When we rented the condo out a couple years back, our tennants had decided to keep the table for their use. But just several months ago, they left, so we took the table and put it in our house instead. The left side of the table is the more cluttered side. Closest to me on the left is a black stapler, with a sticky note filled with random phone numbers. Next to that is a grayish-yellow tape dispenser with a small roll of clear tape. In front of the stapler is my black pencil box, filled with dozens of pens and pencils, and including even more eraser pieces and shavings. There is even a pink Eos lip balm hidden in the depths of the box. Behind the pencil box and slightly farther away  from me sits a small, gray, plastic box filled with junky bookmarks, stickers, tape, and clips that I can cover with a white piece of paper if I want to make the desk look neat in a short time. Beside that stands two pen cups, one glass the other metal painted red. Each holds more than ten pens, two letter openers and a pair of scissors. In front of these cups is a minute bottle of medicine to apply to the skin for bug bites. On the far left corner of my desk is a small upright calendar given to us by our insurance company. In front of the calendar lies a thin pile of bills and a magazine under a remote control, iPhone and phone book. Smack in the middle of this desk is a Dell laptop. To the left of that is a small lamp that I purposely twisted around.

    I think that my work space really slows down my imagination and creativity. But still, it was really surprising in the article to learn that a messy desk even has any advantages at all. I think that my desk should be a little bit messier, because that could be the solution to coping with creative school assignments. I will just try something new.

    In all, I think that my work space is just a bit to clean. So, I think I will take some advice from Dr. Vohs, and “let the clutter rise and unfetter your imagination.”

Jacket or No Jacket

 

    In my short yet interesting twelve years on Earth, there have been many situations where I was stubborn and stood my ground, unbudging. Not many of these situations have ended with me getting applause, but rather more like me getting yelled at by my mom or dad. But in one particular Boy Scout situation I was congratulated for my stubbornness and living up to the Scout motto, “Be Prepared.”

    In May, our Boy Scout troop had been working on the Cycling, or Biking Merit Badge. Some of the requirements were riding 5-mile, 10-mile, 25-mile, and 50-mile trips. The Scouts and I had finished most of these requirements, and I had been preparing to go on the 50 miler, from the Azusa mountains above Freeway 605, to Seal Beach.

    In the previous troop meeting, our Scoutmaster had told us to bring the full Ten Essentials of pocketknife, first aid kit, flashlight, compass, sunscreen, trail food, rain gear, water, fire starters, and extra clothing. I had gathered all my essentials except for the extra clothing. I was wondering aloud which jacket I should bring for the trip. My mom walked in my room and told me to not bring everything listed, and that I could exclude the jacket. But I knew the jacket was one of the most important items in the Ten Essentials, so I argued  back. My mom tried reasoning with me, and said, “It’s May, the weather isn’t that cold!” I told her that there was a real possibility the temperature could suddenly drop, and I could very likely become an “ice statue.” After all, I need to live up to the Scout Motto, “Be Prepared.” Now I had triggered my mom’s incredibly famous and short temper. Her Shanghai dialect started streaming out, rising in volume as she went. Soon her voice was echoing around my room, towering above me like a sinister fortress, with an invisible white hot fire surrounding her as the words shot out at me. Anyone foolish to disagree with her would have a nasty ending (all this description is exaggeration, of course), but I did. After she finished yelling, I calmly went over to the closet, pulled out a jacket and stuffed it in the pack. My mom looked like she was about to burst, but she said nothing.

Around 7am, my mom dropped me off with the rest of the troop. The moment I stepped out of the car , I knew that I had made the correct decision to take the jacket along. Then I saw my mom change her mind as she stepped out of the car as well. As she shivered in her shorts and short sleeve shirt, I walked up to her and said, “I told you it was going to be cold.” She admitted defeat and started to walk in circles to keep herself warm. When all the Scouts had arrived, we started the trip. I was even more grateful for bringing the jacket because the first leg of the journey was downhill, and the cold wind would have whipped at me if I had not brought protection. But the others weren’t so lucky. Most of them didn’t have jackets or sweaters and were shivering uncontrollably. Finally, one of them couldn’t handle the cold anymore, and had to stop. He was right in front of me, so I also stopped to check if everything was all right. Well not everything was OK. This guy’s shivering looked like spasms, so I rummaged in my pack only to find that “one jacket” turned out to be two. Just as I handed my fellow Scout the extra sweater, our Scoutmaster stopped next to us. He congratulated me for “Being Prepared” and for being able “To Help Other People At All times.” My fellow Scout’s spasms died down, so we continued our trip. Apart from exhausting us, the trip was uneventful.

Well, it was worth the risk to stand up to my near-lunatic mom. I learned that sometimes you just have to stand your ground and be stubborn for a successful life. It was quite lucky that I was stubborn, or else my fellow Scout and I could have  both ended up as “ice statues."