Entry 1_ Dương Nguyên Xuân

Item 1: poem

Children Are A Gift From God

by Sandra Tolson

God sent me three packages
That needed special care
"Take care of these tiny gifts
For they are very rare."

"Watch over them with all your love
And let them feel your touch
Take care of their every need
For you are needed very much."

"These gifts will grow up very fast
As you soon will see
Love them with all your heart
And let them be what they will be."

"When these gifts have fully grown
Look at Heaven up above
Know they exist because of God
And all his precious love."

Message: love and take good care of your children since they are very precious.

Rhetorical devices: - Metaphor: gifts (children)

          - Rhyme: packages- gifts, care- rare, touch- much, fast- heart,  see- be,    grown- above

Item 2: picture

Message: teachers impose their viewpoint on students and there is no room for creativity.

Rhetorical devices:
- Overstatement: students are all wearing glasses and look so dense
- Irony: it’s impossible to shape one’s thought by a scissors 
- Metaphor: 
+ different shapes (each one with each way of thinking) 
+ the acting of cutting (shaping students’ thought)

Item 3: story

The chef cook and his daughter

A daughter complained to her father about life and how things were so 
hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted 
to give up. She was tired of struggling. It seemed that as soon as one 
problem was solved, a new one arose.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with 
water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to a boil. In 
one he placed carrots, in the second he placed eggs, and the last he 
placed ground coffee beans. He let them sit and boil, without saying a 
word. 
The daughter sucked her teeth and impatiently waited, wondering what he 
was doing. In about twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He fished 
the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and 
placed them a bowl. Then he ladled the coffee out and placed it in a 
bowl. Turning to her he asked. "What do you see?"
"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied. 
He brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and 
noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break 
it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. 
Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. She smiled as she tasted its 
rich aroma.
She said, "What's the point?" 
He explained that each of the items had faced the same adversity - 
boiling water - but each reacted differently. 
The carrot went in strong and hard. But after being subjected to the 
boiling water, it softened and became weak. 
The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid 
interior. But after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became 
hardened. 
The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the 
boiling water, they had changed the water.

"Which are you?" he asked his daughter. "When adversity knocks on your 
door, how do you respond? Do you become weak, like a carrot, hard on the 
inside, like an egg, or do you change the circumstances, like the coffee beans?" 

Moral lesson: There are different ways to react to difficulty in life: Be weak and let the circumstances change you or you change circumstances.

Rhetorical device:  Metaphor: 
-boiling water (difficulty, adversity in life)                                                                        
-carrot, egg, coffee beans (different people with attitudes, reactions to the same adversity): 
+carrot: strong people but being changed by hardship 
+egg: weak ones becoming stronger through difficulty 
+coffee beans: those who overcome adversity by changing the circumstance.

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[1] http://kupika.com/diarypage.php?id=d463f783a1199bxiq3r3

[2]http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151135020213948&set=a.251548438947.138517.250988853947&type=1&theater

[3] http://tusachtonghop.com/19-meaningful-stories

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