Letter VII: Pending Halloween and the Theater Night With Mom

Greetings, Tim!
It has been halfway through October now and the weather has started to get colder. The crisp of the chill has seeped through windows and wooden doors, into my blankets and into my bookshelf (most mention). I know it is basically nothing comparing to how cold it can be in other places, but I'm glad that I would soon be able to put on my mom-made winter gears. My dad has just left for Kaohsiung for his training, and it takes about twenty days to see him again.

High School Student Tried Teaching the Origins of Halloween; Failed because of Stage Fright

Just last week, I was told by our club leader that I was supposed to teach the students about the origins of Halloween, just to be the "teacher" of the period. At first, I was a bit annoyed by the leader for giving me a preparation task on such short notice, but I thought that being a leader must be very time-consuming and hence be so occupied, so I tamped down the slight disgruntlement inside and started working on it. I thought of fishing out your introduction of Halloween but I failed to find it. I looked up stories on various sites, but the more I read, the more confused I became; there simply wasn't enough time.
Due to the utter unpreparedness, I had trembling hands and sweaty palms prior the period. I stuttered, I hesitated, I spoke (both in English and Chinese) like I haven't talked for a week. Amy said that my face was bleached-white onstage; yes, it was THAT bad. I blame myself for having the worst lecture of this semester.
Still, I counted this as a good experience. Better sooner than later, to gain experience like this. I want to overcome my stage fright as soon as possible, and a thrill like this is perfect. I guess it was the silent and the almost indifference in the students' seats that shook me so hard. Granted, I wasn't that well-prepared so I couldn't really blame them for not really participating, but I believe it is also a task to overcome such threat of a deafening silence for the teachers.
This week, I would have another chance to go onstage, and I was told to prepare some idioms to teach, and I have to think of those that actually are going to be used in everyday life and not so clichéd ones like "a piece of cake". I hope to be more well-prepared this week. Wish me luck!

English Spelling Contest; Furious at the Keyboard

Last Saturday, Sabrina, Jack, Amy and I participated in a spelling contest. Sabrina and I were in the same group of the contestants, so we met up at the nearest metro station and went in for the test together. Unlike the kind of written-on-paper sort of test we had expected, the answers were to be submitted on computers. We had to type, and what happens when you type too anxiously and too fast on the computers? You get a lot and a lot of typos.

At least I did.

I was so nervous that I pressed the Enter button (which is used for submitting answers) for multiple times in a row, and POP goes my innocent points. In the end, I got 288 points out of 300. Despite the mistakes I made that made me want to cringe, I think I would still make it to the finals.

From what I had heard from Sabrina, the finals would be more "thrilling" in which the answers were written on board, and once you make a mistake, you leave. That thought about leaving because of some silly spelling in front of dozens of pairs of eyes made me shiver; scary.

Movie Night with Mom; One Tiny Drop of Tear Shed

Sunday night, my mom and I brought the complimentary tickets given by my cousin and went to the theater for one of the latest movies. It was a Japanese Movie, literally translated as "Miracles of the Namiya General Store", was once a novel written by a famous detective novel author. It was a story that happened in the modern times, with a wisp of fantasy surrounding a battered Japanese general store. There were no definite main characters, for the timeframe has been traveling to and fro for numerous times. It was a story about general store owned by an aged man, who gathers the letters that keep the troubled or advice-seeking people's problems and giving them individually serious replies, and how everyone's fate was hooked with another, and how an act of impulse, though purely out of impulse, can drastically change one's life. It was the kind of non-detective story that can only be done by the crafty minds of a detective story author. 

I let a drop of tear fall when there was fire broke out in an orphanage, when a singer passing by rushed inside the burning building to save a kid by sacrificing himself. I was shaken by the heart-wrenching shrieks of the kid when she found out that the man was stuck inside. The despair in her voice reverberated in my head, shaking a droplet of tear out of me. It goes hard with your conscience when someone used their life to save yours.

The film lasted a bit over two hours, and Mom and I both enjoyed it immensely, here is the cover of the original novel (Chinese version):

Evening around the theater.

The whole plot also got me thinking whether it is right to do to give people advice. It sounds perfectly right, especially when they need support, but what if that rely too much on your advising and end up having a bad outcome? Can you take the blame then? 

I want to be the supporting one, giving nice advice, but how do we define "nice" for the others? Is it always the yes/no question? I don't think so.

Halloween Plans in EHP; Parade of Weird Things

As you might know, we had a nice time giving out candies to the elementary school students for the Halloween last year. Though several kids cried at the sight of some of the scary appearances, we were actually looking forward to the events this year. Unfortunately, the teacher helping us with the organizing was so occupied this year that she couldn't help us with the planning, which means we can't go over to the elementary school this year.

However, when the thinking gears of EHP starts spinning, it never stops before a solution comes in! 

For this year, (dramatic pause) we still are having a dress up, but our stage would be in CCSH! The weekend before Halloween, we are to rent s set of Halloween costume, and on the day of Halloween, we will "parade" the hallways in school, and having classes with the costumes on. It would certainly be an amazing experience, being weird, but in a good way for a whole day.

Questions Answering - (pt 1)

1. There are a lot of customs and traditions and events we have for the modern Halloween. For example, we have the "trick or treat", the action of giving/getting candies in neighborhoods, which originated from the time-old tale of Irish guest-and-host obligations: If you do not treat your guest well enough, and if they happen to be bad spirits, they will pull tricks on you and make your life miserable. 

Another tradition was the whole "dressing up" scheme, which as well came with an Irish root when the spirits hunt the streets to find human to keep company.

2. The Irish New Year was celebrated on November 1st, and that time of the year is somewhere between the Fall Equinox and the Winter Solstice. In case you were asking about something else, it was the dampest and the darkest time of year, and it was also the time when the line between the living and the dead blurs into nothing.

3. Dullahan was a morph of the Irish God, Crom Dubh, seeking the innocent travelers and splatter blood from his detached head or disable the traveler's sight of one eye if he/she stares for too long.

4. The visitors you get at your doorstep on a dark Halloween night could be just anyone, you might find the visitor a normal John and looking for a place to hide from the raging storm outside. Or, It might as well be a soul spirit to make a regular check of the people's hospitality or else *evil grin*...

Either way, treat them well.

5. As mentioned in Answer 4, you have to treat your visitors to satisfactory or you never know when you'll get to treat a spirit in your house. If you don't do what you're obligated to do, you might join the group of the dead...

So Far on The Fault in Our Stars; Things are Going to Take a Sharp Turn

I have been reading The Fault in Our Stars, a well-praised romance written by John Green, for a week or two so far, and it has been a line that marks the different sections of this book: humor and angst. You might or might not know yet, but tfios (abbreviation) was a book about romance that bloomed between two cancer patient, Augustus, and Hazel. They had the banter of carefree teenagers and those very cliched but utterly suggestive moments, but they also have the notion that they are going to get hurt or hurt the other when one dies, also do they have the fear for what becomes of tomorrow, and the day after the next. These two sides of personality structure form a convincing connection between the world inside and the reality. I have read to the part where they are feeling the peak of their happiness, and with some spoilers raging on the Internet, I know that this is the part when things go downhill. It is going to be a heart-breaking tear-jerker (though I honestly seldom cry when reading; scared that it might stain the book), but I had decided to walk the last leg of their journey until the end and see how it turns out.

Though I wish not to have serious topics as cancer for a romance, I have to appreciate Mr. John Green's writing. This is my first book of his, but I have already put several of his other books on my wishlist, for his sophisticatedness used in his works. It was like a literary feast, reading about all the long and fascinating words within, looking words up a little more often than usual, and they don't sound like the awkward building bricks, being put together for the purpose of impressing the audience. Quite on the contrary, his passages were like marble columns, carefully measured and used to stabilize the whole structure and upholding the roof of his virtual world. 

Months like these are always a perfect time for reading. The chill cools down your excitement warmed-up body, the mug of St. Clare's holding hot coffee/earl gray in your hand, the Christmas playing by your side; just add snow outside the window and blankets over me, I would have mistaken myself as being in heaven.

Someone is going to help me when I finish this book... :D

Greek Mythology in English Class; My Time in Three Years

This week, our English class has gotten to the part where I had dreamed if the most: A lesson on Greek mythology! AND THE TROJAN WAR!!!

(See: The Fuse of the Trojan War: Time Before The Iliad Took Place)

If you ask other classmates, you would know how much I was beaming when any of the Greek gods/goddesses/heroines/heroes were mentioned, and how many a numerous times had I been tempted to rush up on stage and ramble about Greek mythology for the whole period (too bad I couldn't do so :<)

Questions Answering - (pt 2)

6. Jack was once a stern, vice-filled, nefarious blacksmith, so degenerated was he that when he died, no devil was willing to take his soul, for the fear of a potential competitor. He was stranded in the human world using carved turnips and candles as lanterns to haunt the world.

7. The reason why we used pumpkins instead of turnips for Jack o' Lanterns was that when the tradition and the folklore of Jack the blacksmith had traveled its way to America, turnips had been rare, and therefore pumpkins, being more common and "ubiquitous". And don't you think orange pumpkins with such lighting in the merry night of All Hallow's Eve makes everything spookier and atmosphere-pumping?

8. Every year at this time, the Mill Avenue will be blocked from the cars and other vehicles, and it becomes the party center, where the laws of regulations on drinking become a bare strand of silk. 

9. The way to tell the difference between an acceptable and an unacceptable Halloween tricks depends on whether your doing causes lasting damage. And basically, NEVER use mustard. Meh, I don't like mustard anyway.

10. It was said that the tricks of the Halloween have been "toned down" because tricks are no longer that appreciated or viewed as heroic and hence the tricks have become more moderate.

END.

Thank you, Tim, for giving so much in context on the Halloween legends, and I was enjoying all the stories about Dullahan, Jack, and etc. It was nice to fill up my internal library about folklore and mythology; they are where my passions lie.

Sincerely, 

Hugo