Doraemon: A Lovable Robot

Doraemon!!!

          While our poetry class was focusing on studying about North American poets, and a little bit on the the World War that was going on in Europe during the 20th Century, I just suddenly remembered a series of story books I used to love as a kid. It was a Japanese manga series by Fujiko F. Fujio, a cartoonist living in Toyama, Japan, about a robotic cat named Doraemon, who comes from the 22nd century.

          Doraemon is born on September 3rd, 2112, weighs 285 lbs, and measures 4'3'' tall. He is painted blue and white, with a pouch, which is actually a limitless storage for his tools, and any other things. He was sent back to the year 1999, when he met Nobita, a clumsy and quite dumb guy, but very nice. He decided to stay with him, and they became best friends together.

       

First book cover

          The life of Nobita and Doraemon involves three other main characters: Shizuka, a nice and cute girl, who is also Nobita's crush, Suneo, a rich and haughty guy, and Takeshi, a chubby bully who sucks at singing. Together they make a great group of friends.

       

          Doraemon first made his appearance to Japanese readers in 1974. Since then, he has been a popular figure, who has many innovative tools with him to help Nobita and his friends overcome and difficulties in life.

          There is a total of 45 books in this series; each of them contains ten different chapters. Each chapter talks about a different tool that Doraemon has and the situation that he uses it in. Mostly the stories are humorous, and other times it contains meaningful messages.

          There is also another series by Fujio, which contains 24 books. Each of them is about an adventure that Doraemon and his group of friends make. For instance, the first book was about their adventure to the dinosaurs time, and another one was about their fight with the evil aliens who try to take over earth.

          My favorite one (cover on the left) is the book that tells about their time spent under the ocean. They make a trip down to the sea, and with the help of Doraemon's gadget, they are able to breathe normally, eat plankton, and drive a special talking car on the ocean floor. They travel through the Bermuda, sneak into the evil lair, and fight with him very courageously.

          A few of Doraemon's most appearing gadgets are: the magic door (you can go to anywhere except the vacuum when you think about the place and open the door), shrinking light (let it shine on anything to make it smaller), time machine (it lets you go back or forward in time!), personal copter (like a beanie on your head that enables you to fly), etc.

          Doraemon was translated into many different languages, including English. Because of its popularity, Doraemon was considered a cultural icon of Japan. In 2008, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed Doraemon as the "first anime cultural ambassador." On September 3rd, 2012, Doraemon was officially named as a citizen of Kawasaki, where Fujiko F. Fujio museum located.

          What I really love about this series is the feeling of innocence and pureness of children, with many interesting tools of Doraemon, and significant lessons of friendship and family love. Doraemon proved to be a great children's book. I always enjoy it, and never get bored of it somehow. I used to remember every dialogues in each chapter of the book, and I can even read them out loud without looking at the text.

          There is also an anime, or cartoon series, created base on the books. It consists of 600 episodes. You can watch them all here.

          Here's the song of Doraemon OST.

          You'll love it when you read or watch it! Have a fun time going back to childhood <3.

Left to right: Nobita, Takeshi, Suneo, Shizuka.
Doraemon is in the center

Irish Discrimination

From the mid 1800s to the early 1900s, when famine was raging in Ireland, Irish immigration to America came. Many Irish who were starving and sick tried to escape from death by sailing to Canada. Those of the Irish who survived found America for a new place to live. In America, because Irish were unskilled at everything and could not speak English properly, they were discriminated against. There were many labor advertisements that said, "HELP WANTED, NO IRISH NEED APPLY". If they were employed, they were forced to work long hours for minimal payment. 

This picture is illustrating the way Irish supposedly did things

After 1855, the Irish started to build a lot of ships such as steamships and that made discrimination less permanent. In the 19th century, a Board of Commissioners of Immigration opened the city's first immigrant reception station which was called Castle Garden. It was a place where immigrants were received. After it closed, the attitude towards Irish started to change. After the Civil War occurred, they finally began to gain respect.  

How Can People Forget About Teenagers?

          Although we have been studying all these great poets, such as Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker, all of whom had all lived through the 1920s, how come none of them ever mentioned any poem about TEENAGERS? Its concept came out around the 1920s, and the word teenager was invented during that time.

          From the time the US government created the Juvenile Court, there have been numerous age restrictions for alcohol assumption, marriage, driving, voting, etc. By doing so, the government had begun to separate childhood and adulthood, and formed a new group in the middle. After World War I, the world economy was moving from an agricultural one to an industrialized one, thus making people recognize the importance of education. North Americans started to feel there was a need to teach young adults the basis of reading, writing, and mathematics. The enrollment in secondary schools increased by almost 400 percent between 1910 and 1930. The percent of students in high school and students who were able to graduate also rose up proportionately.

          Americans also realized the potential of a longer education period, and therefore many students of the same age were thrown into a single group. School sports and other extracurricular activities were generated, creating a clear distinction between childhood and adulthood experiences. American teenagers were born.

Coco Chanel

                                      Coco Chanel
                                 Mademoiselle Coco Chanel

The woman who I admire the most, Gabrielle Bonheur, was born in 1883. In 1909, she founded her fashion line under her new pseudonym, "Coco Chanel". She revolutionized women's fashion. However, she struggled with her dark childhood. Her mother died and her father abandoned her. She grew up in an orphanage, where she learned how to sew.  She used two men to start her business: she became a mistress of the esteemed Englishman Arthur Boy Capel and also became involved with Etienne Balsan, who offered to help her with her new career in fashion. During the 1920s, women were trapped in corsets and fashion was restricted. Coco Chanel changed women's fashion dramatically. She introduced clothing that was different from the trends of the time, such as black dress. Even these days, a lot of people wear black little dresses. 

She was also the first designer to ever lend her name to a fragrance, "Chanel No. 5". She opened up a whole new industry, serving as the proprietor of luxury fashion in many ways. Even now, fashion she popularized lives on today. She died in 1971 at the age of 87. However, there are more than 300 Chanel stores worldwide. She was successful because she refused to follow trends and separated herself from other designers. 


                                                              Quotes
                                             She left many significant quotes.
                         
                       - A girl should be two things; classy and fabulous
                       - In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different
                       - As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!
                       - A women who doesn't wear perfume has no future

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

I love this poster because it looks so mystery!!!

            When Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) was 9, he stood up for his African friend, Will Johnson (Anthony Mackie), and got his parents fired from their job. That night, Lincoln witnessed his mother killed by the landowner, Jack Barts (Marton Csokas), thus he swore to revenge. Ten years later, he came back, trying to murder Barts, but his unsuccessful attempt led him to befriend Henry Sturgess (Dominic Cooper), a real vampire hunter. Lincoln learned fighting skills and strategies to kill vampires directed by Henry. Lincoln then moved to Springfield, where he could study law in the morning and hunt vampires at night. He also married Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and later became the President of the United States. During the Civil War, Lincoln realized that battling the Confederate forces also meant eliminating the vampires who formed an alliance with them. As a result, he meticulously launched his battle plan to defeat both the Confederates and the vampires. 

   

Some of my favorite quotes in the movie:

• History prefers legends to men. - Abraham Lincoln
• A man only drinks like that when he's planning to kiss a girl or kill a man. Which is it? - Henry Sturgess
• Well, I wouldn't back away from what's right just because it's hard. My father used to say: plant your feet and stand firm. The only question is where to put your feet. - Mary Todd Lincoln
• Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. - Abraham Lincoln

          I went to see this movie on a Thursday night in August with my father and sister. Well, actually my dad dragged my sister and I to see it with him. Ever since we went to watch Spiderman, he just suddenly likes to go watch movies in the cinema. The trailer gave me a "WTF" moment, so I'm curious of what it would be like. In May, Mr. Sherry even showed it to the whole class. If he liked it, it would probably be good (cause a teacher knows more than a student!). Some people seemed to dislike the ridiculous idea that the President was turned into a vampire hunter, but I was attracted to it. I studied American history, and Lincoln is even one of Mr. Lewis's favorite presidents, so I pretty much know a lot about his life. 

         I found the movie exciting and scary at the same time; especially the faces of the vampires, they creeped me out! The plot was very easy to follow, and it made sense to me. I'm not as experienced as the film critics, so I think the acting was fine. It didn't look fake. I love the rural scenes in the beginning of the movie. I'm not a fan of darkness, so everything else was acceptable. The combat scenes were amazing. Sadly, I didn't watch it in 3D, so I couldn't enjoy the more realistic version of it. When I looked up who's the director/producer, as expected, it was Timur Bekmambetov. I love the marvelous fighting and intelligent killing schemes in one of his famous movies, Wanted (2008). The action scenes in his movies were so skillfully arranged so that they flowed naturally with the plot. Overall, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was very entertaining to watch with impressive visual effects and stunts. I would recommend this movie to my friends if they like vampires!

Chicago during 1920s

                            Organized Crime in Chicago

During the 1920's and 30's, Chicago was the perfect city for organized crime. Chicago was industrialized and many immigrants came to Chicago to look for opportunities for better living. Around this time, organized criminal activity, which included hustling, was popular because it was easy to make money without having actual jobs. However, there were two major reasons why organized criminal activities increased during the 1920's and 1930's in Chicago.

                       Industrialized Chicago in the 1920's and 30's

The first reason was the rapid increase in population. As I mentioned earlier, the large influx of immigrants increased the rate of organized crimes. Also, crooked behavior of politicians and police in Chicago allowed organized crime to grow as it did. 

The second reason was that children in Chicago were exposed to criminal activities at young ages. As they matured, their early experiences grew and become professional criminal activities. 

The third reason was prohibition. The law banning alcohol was passed in 1919. It took joy away from people. A sunday without a smile, no games, no music, and no dancing made things worse. Prohibition increased the rate of organized crime and created a huge drop-off in consumption because there were many businesses with alcohol in Chicago. So they ended up selling them illegally. When the government forces people to do something, it is more likely to fail than succeed. 

Eccentric People Surely Made History

Believe it or not, but Emily Elizabeth Dickinson, also known as Belle of Amherst, is one example. She was born in 1830 in Massachusetts, and she attended Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a short while before returning back to her house in Amherst, and excluded herself from the community. At home, she rarely left her room, talked to visitors through the door rather than face-to-face, but she still wrote letters for her close friends. She was also noted for always dressing in white throughout her adulthood.  

(One of her few pictures)

                                                                    

When she was a teenager until she was in her twenties, she chose a more childish name, "Emilie," which expressed her wish to remain in childhood. It is probably because Dickinson had observed numerous burials daily, from when she was young through her bedroom window that she was heavily influenced by the themes of death and immortality, which occurred in many of her poems. They are also more unique than those of other poets during her time, since they contain short lines, and often use slant rhyme as well as irregular capitalization or punctuation. None of her poems had a title; each was identified by the first line. She frequently applied the ballad stanza, a form of dividing poems into four quatrains while writing. Her usage of idiosyncrasy vocabulary and imagery to write poetry created a unique image of her writing style, and was able to engage people’s interest. Her best-known poems are “Because I could not stop for Death,” and “I cannot live with You.”

(A younger image of her)

            She did not only like to read and write, but also to garden as well. She loved nature, and she often took “horticultural” as reference in her work. She even created her own herbarium with more than 400 samples!

            She could be considered a spinster, and most people said that it’s because she wanted to have independent time for writing. However, there were stories about her engagement with a student at Amherst College, and an affair she had with a married minister.

            After her death in 1886, her sister found more than 1,000 poems in Dickinson’s box, and published all of them from 1955. Soon after, Emily Dickinson became one of the greatest American poets who had ever lived.

            Here are some of her quotes I found interesting.

-       “Saying nothing… sometimes says the most.”

-       “Beauty is not caused. It is.”

-       “A wounded deer leaps the highest.”

-       “Forever is composed of nows.”

-       “Love is anterior to life, posterior to death, initial of creation, and the exponent of breath.”

-       “I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name."

            -       "The dearest ones of time, the strongest friends of the soul - BOOKS." - Sem librarians will probably like this quote since they decorated the library with so many posters about reading! 

FASHION: Everyone loves to look nice:)

(http://lamodeillustree.livejournal.com/201927.html?nojs=1&mode=reply)

The fashion in the 19th century grew throughout the reign of Queen Victoria. Until 1820s, mostly women's dresses were affected by French which is classical ancient Greece style. 
After Queen Victoria became queen, the fashion style changed dramatically. 

In the 1830s, they took in more colors and wore tighter-waisted skirts, large hats, and bonnets. Usually, the upper classes dressed fashionably. Because of the technological advances, women's fashion started to change rapidly from the 1840s. Dresses from the 1840s became dominated by restrictive corsets and framework underskirts. However, the tight corsets became unbearable and cage crinoline was invented. It was more flexible and comfortable. In the 1870's and 80s, crinoline changed into that of the rear bustle and it became fashionable. In the 1890s, the style of skirts changed to slender shape. However, that style was hard to wear and restricted movement.