[Mr.Menard] Second Assignment (03.12.2012) ! :)

[Things to Consider for the Revision]

-      Elaborate my confession more and try to deliver how I felt towards a person who tried to be in the upper level of mentality than I am in.

-      Explain a motivation of the main character in <The Tell-Tale Heart> killing an old man who hadn’t done anything wrong.

[Revision]

For both of Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories that we have gone through in class, I could understand the characters, and even agree with them in further. When looking at the novels on their surface, the narrators of the stories committed murder out of no reason. But when digging into a more fundamental layer of the novels, there is something deeper than that. I believe it is all about the natural hatreds of human beings: hatreds toward others who seem to be better than them. When human beings find those who are better than them in any sense, they start to grow angers, get anxious, and eventually hate them. The two stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart", not only deal with the original hatreds, but they also show the importance of rules in the world at the same time.

To start with, main characters in both "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" had a similar driving force that eventually led them to commit murder. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montreson got a revenge on Fortunato because Montreson was biased in dealing with Fortunato. Montreson took every single action of Fortunato as a negative aspect towards him because he felt inferior and thus jealous. Although that is not exactly what happens in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, they basically bear the same theme of jealousy. The main character in “The Tell-Tale-Heart” hated the old man’s eyes because he was jealous of the brightness of them. He was envious of the old man's eagle-like eyes and could not endure looking at them anymore, thus murdered him.

To be honest, I’ve been having the same kind of conception as the main characters for a long time. Though I’m not sure whether I really do get overly jealous, or I just think I do so, there’s one thing I can guarantee- I might have been just like Montreson in “The Cask of Amontillado”, if there was no rule existing in the world. There’s no law, no justice in the world of “The Cask of Amontillao”, and that’s how Montreson’s whole plan could work out so well. Whether it’s a biased revenge or not, at least I believe, the fundamental motive came out of Montreson’s unconsciousness because there was nothing to control him. It cannot be stated that there are less murder cases committed nowadays because we have laws, but it is true that the rate should have been worse if there were no rules existing.

Though it’s quite embarrassing to confess, I feel bad whenever I find another person who is similar to me or seems to be in the upper level of mentality compared to myself. Even if that person had not committed any wrongness on me, I feel as if he or she overly competes with me. Perhaps, that is because I feel competitive towards them, full of jealousy and anxiety. For Instance, when I first met my roommate Flora, I found her very similar to me, thus feeling insecure. I tried not to share any deep conversation with her because I thought she was being competitive and was trying to dig out my secrets. However, now I know, that was all my imagination.

Being jealous of someone else is definitely not a crime. But if that feeling grows so high that it reaches the level where you want to harm others, it is a crime. While admitting that jealousy is a natural consequence of life, we all would have to try not to jump over the proper line of doing so. We cannot always follow our instinct when it harms other people. Poe's two short stories, "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" both gave me a great chance to not only realize the deep cause of human hatred, but to also look back on myself and to try to be a more considerate person in dealing with people and in forming deeper relationship with them.

Review on Catfish :D

The story begins as Yaniz Schulman, the main character and the overall producer of the documentary, becomes friends with an 8-year-old girl named Abby Pierce on Facebook.com. Yaniv is a photographer living in New York who works with his brother Ariel and a co-worker Henry Joost-those who have recorded everything for this documentary. Abby is a young painter in Ishpeming, Michigan who lives with her mom, Angela, dad, Vince, and an older sister called Megan Faccio. Abby and Yaniv get to know more of each other while Yaniv sends some photos that he has taken for her to paint, and she sends back her paintings for him. In this process, Yaniv also gets to know about a lot of people related to Abby on Facebook.com, including Angela, Megan and etc.

Yaniv especially makes a deeper relationship with Megan; it seems like both of them have crush on each other. Megan introduces herself as a vet and a model owning her farm. But one day, Yaniv and his friends cast a doubt on Megan when she sends him a fake singing video of herself, found on Youtube.com. They decide to dig the truth out of this whole family. On the way of going to Ishpeming, they find out Megan’s farm does not belong to her. Getting more and more suspicious, they finally arrive at the house that Abby has told them. Ringing the bell for a few times, no one answers. Some moments later, a middle-aged lady comes out and greets the company. She introduces herself as Angela, while she looks completely different from the Angela on Facebook.com. Inside her house, she lives with her husband Vince, who also looks very different from the pictures, and two handicapped sons. Although Angela keeps calling Abby and Angela through phone, they don’t answer.

After all, they drive to the beach where Abby is playing with her friend. There, Yaniv meets Abby, but she doesn’t really know who he is. She tells that she neither paints nor has met her sister Megan. That night, Megan suddenly text messages Yaniv about how she cannot come home because of her drinking problem. Now Yaniv and his party decide to ask Angela about what is really going on. The next morning, at the horseback riding place, Angela confesses how it has been all what she has made up. She has created 15 Facebook accounts with the pictures of whom she doesn’t even know, and has made contacts with Yaniv. Then, she tells her story, crying. She used to be an ambitious young girl who wanted to be painter, but the reality around her was different. She had to give up herself to raise the family. That is why she first decided to play online, making fake friends. Yaniv soothes her; Angela draws Yaniv’s face for the last time. And the movie ends.

While watching this documentary, the issue of privacy was one thing that did not get off of my mind. Although the film makers argue that the people who were in there all agreed on publishing this film, still, it seemed to have gone too far. Is it okay because Angela lied in the first place? However, the film was taken even before the producers knew the truth. Their purpose was to make a documentary on the relationship between Yaniv and Megan, if she existed. At that time, whoever Megan was, she did not know that. It would be a horror for a lot of users on Facebook.com to imagine themselves getting videotaped, and even being stalked in someplace. I know that almost everyone in the film gained something from the publication; Yaniv and his co-workers became very famous, and Angela could found her website with her artworks. But, that can’t be the justification; we can’t deny that privacy concerns still exist.

Another big issue popped up in my head was whether this documentary is really a documentary. Not many people can deny the strangeness of how the three friends could figure out all the storyline inside their car, even before Angela confessed the truth. It is also weird that they recorded the part where they first had suspicion on Megan’s song, though the documentary originally was to be a love story between them. What’s even more awkward is that they decided to visit Megan’s house to find out the “truth”, just for the fulfillment their curiosity. They must have been very passionate guys who could drive the whole day from New York to Ishpeming. My personal conclusion is like this: Yaniv did not know the whole thing at first, but he got the skim of what was going on, even before that song incident, so he decided to start recording.

The most unforgettable part was definitely “Angela”, all herself. To me, Angela is one poor victim of the society. She had a dream and the dream deferred. She wanted to be a painter, but she had two handicapped sons and a daughter to raise. She wanted to make friends and socialize, but she lacked confidence with her outlook. It is just that she was not lucky enough to get the opportunity that others were born with. Her making 15 Facebook accounts was the result of all her hopes put down. Being Megan was her last hope. As Megan, she could have her crush, call him, and eventually meet him. It is really sad to admit that it would have been impossible for her as Angela to make Yaniv come all over to Ishpeming. At the horseback riding place, where Angela told Yaniv all the truth, she was holding a blonde doll. I carefully predict that the doll was a representative of Angela, hiding her real self.

Like that doll, the title “Catfish” seems to have a deep meaning. As Vince, Angela’s husband, said, Catfish is something that was used to keep the tank agile. And there are people who work as catfish; they keep you guessing, thinking, and fresh. They can’t be the main characters of their life, but they help others become the main characters of their life. Angela is like a catfish; she was not the main for herself, but for Yaniv. Yaniv didn’t have time to be bored, because of her. In the end, Angela was not a catfish anymore. After overcoming the process of being a catfish for someone else, she found her true self.

            Overall, I really liked this film. Whatsoever it is a real documentary or not, it gives a lot of things for people to think about. There are a lot of teenagers using other people’s pictures as theirs online. They want to pretend as if they are the ones in the cool pictures so that others would think of themselves as pretties and handsome. Angela’s case is not so different from this, perhaps one step further. Although it really is a weird trend, it’s understandable for me how much they want to be like someone else so that they can socialize more easily. It’s not their fault. If you want to accuse Angela of this, you should accuse this society of "lookism" that made this lady like that in the first place. I hope we become the ones changing the view of the world, preventing the second or third Angelas as victims.

Walmart Synthesis Essay (1st Draft)

Sumitted to: Mr. Garrioch

By: Jeong Min Jane Park

Student ID: 111056

For: English Composition

On: Wednesday, Marth 7^th, 2012

Whatever the reason is, and however convincing that is, something unjust should never be considered as a natural consequence nor be allowed in this society. But the reality is such an irony. There are tragedies happening everywhere. People lie, don’t trust each other, and the social gap is getting widened day by day. And frankly, one of the main factors of degrading the world justice has been quite near us: Walmart.

Though there are tons of problems I could find from Walmart, the most serious factor was its relationship with people. Meaning by people, it not only includes the consumers who want cheap products, but also covers those who work for the company. And for this article I would like to accentuate more on the latter. Walmart associates are working under a desperate working condition and intolerable treatment. Walmart is providing neither sufficient wage nor proper health care program for the associates. Walmart does not even listen to their associates protesting on the road. Walmart is not doing right.

To start with the labor, Walmart is said to provide a very low working condition. According to the “Rating toward Working for Walmart” by the people who used to work there, Walmart does not treat their “associates” as their “associates”, not even as human beings in some cases. What they basically do is to order those workers for whatever they need, even if it is not related to their work. After the workers finish what they are said to do so, Walmart employers force them to do another thing, completely different task from what they have done.

For example, when one of the associates was employed for the counter work, the employer first ordered him to carry the boxes for several hours. Right after he was done with that, the employer gave him another task of cleaning the restrooms. When he had finished all that, the last thing that the employer did was shouting at him for not concentrating on his work at the cash-counter. This kind of situation could hardly be understood in common sense. What is more surprising is how often it happens in real life, at Walmart.

Some could justify the situation for being paid a lot. But at Walmart, that is not the case. According to an article in New York Times, “The average full-time Wal-Mart employee is paid only about $17,000 a year.” Considering the fact that the workers at General Motors had an average wage of $29,000 per year, Walmart is putting a very petty amount of money for their workers.

They not only provide low wages, but are also very weak at Health Care Plan. “The company's health care plan covers fewer than half of its workers”. Since the company does not offer a proper health care program for their workers, associates tend to rely on other sources. “When they reach 65, most Wal-Mart employees will rely heavily on Social Security - if the privatizers don't kill it. And many Wal-Mart employees already rely on Medicaid to pay for health care, especially for their children.”

Because of all those inadequate conditions provided by the Walmart Corporations, there are associates protesting everywhere: in front of Walmart itself, on the road, and on the Internet. Even just on Youtube.com, there are lots of them. The fact that their working conditions have not greatly changed through years shows how Walmart does not listen to what their family members are shouting out of their heart. What was significant for me was that most associates were not being violent during the protest. Actually the only thing that I thank for Walmart comes out of the process of protesting.

While watching several protesting videos online, it was quite shocking to see how there was no violence involved during the whole procedure. There are also people protesting toward big companies in Korea, such as Samsung or Hyundai. However, there is whole lot of difference between them. Basically there is no protest in Korea that does not involve severe injuries. Big companies usually hire a notorious group of gangsters to put down the protesters. Thus, compared to those situations, Walmart is not being “terrible” on treating protesters.

However, not being violent does not mean they are doing it right. What really should happen are Walmart faculties listening to every single member of the associates, and finding out what the associates need in the first place. Having run for almost 30 years, it is now time for Walmart to move their whole attention from profit to people. By the time they realize their fault on their people, and try to fix it for the people, Walmart would turn to be a real “super” market from a “super hell” for everyone.

Works Cited

-Jobbite. “Working for Walmart.” Jobbite.com. Feb, 2012. (http://www.jobbite.com/reviews/wal-mart)

-Krugman, Paul. “Always Low Wages, Always Low.” New York Times. 13 May 2005.

-PagosaFirst. “Pagosa First Walmart Protest- Feb 4, 2012. Protesters Speak Out.” Youtube.com. 4 Feb, 2012. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yeVXZTtmbJM)

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well this is the korean version of protesting, just for fun (though it is rather infuriating than fun)