Reflection #9

In both the movie and my carol, and also in the bible, Jesus is described as a humble, holy figure who has came to earth to save humans from their sins.

The
First Noel (Verse 4):

This
star drew nigh to the northwest

O'er
Bethlehem it took its rest

And there it did both Pause and
stay

  
The verse shown here has the lyrics that represents the star that shined Jesus Christ when he was born. This star is known to have brought the three wise men to Jesus at the day of his birth.
     In this story, Mary plays a very important part. She is the mother of Jesus yet she was a virgin.  That, in itself, is a miracle.  Joseph was important to the story of the birth of Jesus because he was the father of Jesus.  He was crucial in helping Mary to travel all the way to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born.  The shepherds were important in witnessing the birth of Jesus because  they represented the lowest people of the social ladder.  The Persian astrologers were important in the birth of Jesus because they represented the highest of the social ladder.  Since they all bowed down to Jesus, they realized his greatness, which represented that someday, all people, rich and poor, would bow down to God.
   God coming to Earth as a baby is definitely a  humbling experience. Instead of coming to us humans as an omnipotent God, he came to us as a baby, and chose to learn the human life from the beginning form of human life.

Right
o'er the place where Jesus lay.

"Pakistan suicide bomb attack kills dozens"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11924584 << article by BBC
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&langpair=hi%7Cen&u=http://hindi.webdunia.com/news/news/international/119245/84/11924584_1.htm << article by Webdunia(a hindu online newspaper)
(used Google search with language set to hindi)
I will start by summarizing the BBC article first.
On December 6, 2010, a suicide bomb attack in north-west Pakistan has left at least 40 people dead. This area is one of the “hot-zones” for bomb attacks and is a stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The attack was carried out by two suicide bombers and their target was a local administration compound in Ghalalnai. Tribal elders and police officials were among the dead. Since 2007, thousands of people have died from these kinds of attacks and they have gotten worse over the years.

From the article from Webdunia, I couldn’t find any differences from the basic facts. However, some minor views make the two articles significantly different. First of all, the article from BBC has a totally different tone than from the article of Webdunia. The BBC article has a more criticizing tone while the Webdunia article talks more about the positive side. Stating that “the security situation has significantly improved over the years”, downplayed the importance of the incident and emphasized the role of the Pakistani Security and there improvements. Secondly, the BBC article talks more about the solid facts such as how one of the targeted elders was left perfectly safe, while Webdunia’s article presents more subjective views on the article such as “these tragic events never seem to stop...”. Minor differences such as the ones stated made the two articles very different from each other and I got two different impressions of the same incident from these articles.

reflection question #7

The one moment in my life that I would like to celebrate is my high school graduation and all
the years I have spent in high school. I would like to commemorate this because
the graduation was a big turning point in my life and high school helped has
done a big part of making who I am right now. This celebration will usually
last one to two days. Every year at the day of my graduation, I’ll have a sort
of a party with my friends to commemorate our high school years. At the start
of the celebration, we’ll all say a famous quote by Shakespeare “Now join your
hands, and with your hands your hearts”. This quote I believe sums up how our
friendship formed during the high school years. We’ll all have to bring photos
during our high school years and we’ll share old memories. After saying that
phrase and sharing the photos, we’ll sing and dance along the songs that were
popular when we were in high school. After that, we’ll go to SFS and meet our
old teachers again. Then we’ll go to the cafeteria and enjoy the food that we
hated to eat everyday in our high school years. After that, we say our prayers
and that would be the end of the celebration.

Part 1
Long time ago, there was a princess named Psyche that was so beautiful that she was mistaken for Venus, goddess of beauty. Then one day, with envy and hatred, the goddess Venus ordered her son Cupid to make Venus fall in love with the most worthless man on Earth. However, Cupid fails and he accidently falls in love with Psyche and ends up taking her as his husband. But since Psyche wasn't allowed to see his face, she grew scared and ends up trying to kill her husband. However, she fails and Cupid runs away feeling betrayed. Psyche, left with shame and sadness, starts her long journey to find her husband and win his heart back.

This story attempts to answer some of the mysteries of love and trust. This story teaches the reader that they should trust and believe in others especially when the other person is their husband or wife. This story also teaches the Greeks that you should not anger the gods in anyway or you will suffer consequences.

Reflection #5

Humans naturally ask questions. Since the beginning of humanity, we have asked numerous questions about ourselves. While we could answer some questions with science, there were still some questions that couldn't be answered at all. I believe that that is why humans believe in religion. To find answers to unanswered. People spend time on their religion to strengthen their faith. Some people worship their creators and  seek religious truth in order to answer the ultimate question: "where do we go when we die?" and "how were we created in the first place?". The Bongwonsa temple visit was a very special experience for me. As i was translating the Buddhist monk's  words, I learned a lot about the Buddhist believes. There were similar beliefs to that of Christianity, such as "if you do wrong, then you'll get punished.". However the stories and other beliefs were very unique and distinct from other religions. 

Reflection #4

Meditation is not a type of thing that I would do usually. I have never actually tried it seriously, and I’ve always thought of it as a useless practice. So I started my meditation with this negative mindset that this was just a waste of my precious time. Few minutes into the meditation, all I had in mind was thoughts of school and life. Even if I tried to empty my mind, these thoughts kept on coming back. Also, the noises from outside were a huge distraction. However, few more minutes into my meditation, I felt something very weird. I couldn’t feel any part of my body and I almost felt like I was sitting in the air. It was a very weird sensation. As I tried to explore this state more deeply, my phone alarm went on and signaled that 20 minutes has passed by. I’m not sure if I attained "right thoughts", "right mindfulness" and "right concentration", but I’m pretty sure there was something. This experience was more than just sitting on the floor for me. When I have time, I actually want to try this again for a longer period.

Reflection Question 3

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is one of the most admired men in history. He dedicated his life for the liberation of India and accomplished it on August 15^th 1947. Different from other famous liberators, Gandhi was famous for his acts of nonviolence and noncooperation. One example of one of his famous acts is the famous salt march. I believe that Gandhi was capable of doing this because of his strong faith in Hinduism. He was born as a Hindu and followed its teachings throughout his whole entire life. However, Gandhi wasn’t in accordance with all the traditions of Hinduism. As shown in the movie, he believed that every man had equal rights, which basically went against the Hindu caste system by treating the ‘untouchables’ as equal men.

One of Gandhi’s most famous quotes is “action expresses priorities”. Gandhi spent his whole life working to liberate India and bringing peace to his country. He showed unbelievable amount of selflessness and courage. He’s actions such as the salt march and the fast showed that he valued liberation of India more than his life. He lived out his Hindu faith and suppressed all his Earthly desires for the greater good.