Narrative Essay

I feel the most calm when I am walking alone in the forest in winter. Dragging and pushing snow for every step I take and hearing the sounds of its crunch. The cold moves in and meets the warmth of my blood. I can’t turn back as the cold gives my body a high as the rush of warmth takes over my body. Every breath I take the freezing air enters my lungs and I exhale like a dragon. Admiring the forest as I push through, looking up at the skyscrapers of the glades, and then looking down at the fallen skyscrapers as the cold preserves it from rotting.  The forest is quiet as everyone is asleep, allowing me to think with a clear mind as I adventure deeper and deeper into the forest. The only thing I could see that was living was blue jays flying through the forest. The longer I stay in the forest the longer for me to admire the white crystal forest.

Growing up I never had this deep relationship with the cold but completely the opposite. Hating the cold and loving the warmth because it was comforting for the body. My family would always blast the heater so I never felt uncomfortable during the winter months. It wasn’t until the recession hit where millions of families were struggling which included mine when we no longer can afford the heat allowing the freezing winter air to linger in my house. Where I would put on multiple layers to keep myself warm. This was the part in my life where I developed a deep relationship with the cold. Where I started to be comfortable around the cold incorporating it into my life using it as meditation and a challenge for the mind. I developed my tolerance by going outside in the middle of winter walking around with only a t-shirt as my body tells me that it’s too cold while I tell myself that I’m hot. People think I’m crazy to put my body to such extremes but I loved it.

Op-Ed

     The streets of Hong Kong are on fire. Burning with discontent! As the son of a Hong Kong native, watching the revolution for the fight for democracy, seeing my heritage, my identity, and my father’s home city deteriorate in front of my eyes for the fight for justice has ignited my passion for advocacy for Hong Kong for years now. Their fight for their lives has become my fight. Their furor has become my furor! As I watch every night the people of Hong Kong fight for inalienable rights, their struggle has become my struggle. This crisis has made me realize the rights that I have been taking for granted living in the United States. The rights I yearn for the people of Hong Kong. The rights that have given me the freedom of expression.

    “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.” These principles are the foundation for the Basic Law for the city of Hong Kong’s government. But for the last decade, Hong Kong’s autonomy has collapsed under the rule of communist China. The autonomy that China once promised Hong Kong under a “ One Country, Two system policy” where Hong Kong was given sovereignty to rule for 50 years based on a Democratic system and was promised a constitution the “Basic Law” that would give the people human rights the freedom to life, liberty and property. China has constantly infringed on the people’s rights of Hong Kong by denying universal suffrage, corrupting its government, silencing, kidnapping, and torturing its people.

Critical Analysis

Most American films don’t even mention or tackle racism head-on especially during the 80s, where most American films don’t or even have Black American representation. That makes Spike Lee’s film “Do the Right Thing” released in 1989 even more remarkable. The film portrays an intergenerational multi-ethnic community in Brooklyn, New York but with an explosive climax, fueled by racial tensions, economic disparity, and rising tensions on the hostess day of years. Lee’s illustration of this film continues to demonstrate racial tension in the US through the dynamic relationship of characters of different races. Issues that he tackles are still very much alive today, even though the film was created 32 years later. 

One of the earliest issues that Lee makes apparent in the film is the income inequality throughout the neighborhood. Lee does this through an Omniscient viewpoint where it follows multiple black characters that demonstrate a wealth gap between the races. He set up the setting of the neighborhood to where all the store owners in the neighborhood are owned by non-blacks and have Blacks in the neighborhood work for them or not even have a job at all. We first see this at the beginning of the movie when it follows a young black male named Mokie going to work at Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, a neighborhood staple owned by Sal, an Italian, run with his two knuckleheads sons Pino and Vito. Throughout the film, Sal and Pino keep bossing Mokie to work faster and complain that he doesn’t work hard enough, with Pino being a racist toward him and even suggesting to fire Mokie. 

Self Assessment

Throughout this semester I have greatly progressed my skills as a writer. Learning many skills that will change and help strengthen my writing, message, and thoughts forever. But I also learned the powerful use of language in our society, where it could give everyone the ability to let people send their message and spread their purpose. We have seen many examples of writers who use language, literacy, and rhetorical devices in their writing. As we explore these writers, we use the same rhetorical skills that we have learned from and use them for our writing, which brought our writing to another level.

Coming into this semester into Engl 21001 I lacked confidence in my writing and I made it apparent to my professor. This lack of confidence has been caused by my time in high school English classes struggling to develop ideas or conclusions. But that soon quickly changed when we started on phase 1 of the semester. When we read “The Bats” by Linda Hogan a short story describing an encounter with bats and her deep connection to them. Describing them as majestic creators where most people describe them as scary. But her message was that nature is precious and advocates for nature conservation. After reading this it really caused me to think about my deep connection to nature and it gave me flashbacks to my deep connections with the cold. On top of that my professor pushed me to think about my writing style and elements of my style, including elements of ethos, logos, and pathos. I took those writing strategies to my first draft of the essay. I was really nervous and spent hours making sure I was as descriptive as possible. Using descriptive language like “Every