10.Final Post

Final Post

－Summary and Review

Time passes so fast!! Nine weeks ago I was worried about my blog. Now, I have already written nine articles. It’s my final post of this learning project, so I am going to look back to the past nine articles and summarize what I’ve learned in this period of time.

I first want to talk about why I chose “the story and inspiration from the great people” as my blog topic. To be honest, the only reason I chose it is that I didn’t know what else I can write. Anyway, I indeed learned lots of things by writing my blog.

In these nine weeks, I wrote stories for 7 people, including one singer, one director, one mathematician, one entrepreneur, one politician, one athlete and one writer. They have different professions, they lived in different ways. But one thing they are common is that they all once failed, and they overcome the failure.

I think this is very inspiring for me. I didn’t try to teach everyone how to succeed, because that’s too serious. I don’t know how to become successful, either. But when next time facing some difficulties, we won’t give up, we will overcome it. And I think this is the most important thing I’ve learned through my learning project.

9.JK Rowling

JK Rowling

－The magic storyteller and her magic life

Today, I want to talk something about writers. When it comes to the most celebrated author in the modern world, I think we will all come up with JK Rowling. Needless to say, JK Rowling is the novelist of the best-selling novel series “Harry Potter.” Believe that most of you have watched the novels or movies. I’ve also read the series when I was a child and became a fan of Harry Potter.

JK Rowling succeeded because of her books. By her publication, Rowling gained a huge amount of property. But before she published the first Harry Potter book, she had lived a very tough life. In the beginning of writing Harry Potter and Philosopher’s Stone, Rowling’s mother passed away. After that, Rowing encountered a failure of her marriage. She divorced with her husband since she suffered serious domestic abuse from his husband. After the divorce, she brought her little daughter with her and came back to her hometown Edinburgh, Scotland. It was the worst period of her life. She even suffered depression during the time. The inspiration of the character“dementor” actually came from the depressed emotion she experienced.

It’s really a magic story when you look back to the history of JK Rowling. A single mother who was very poor and relied on the benefits from government someday became the richest writer in the world. Rowling said that because of her failure, she could focus on what she really belonged to, thus created the most successful novels.

Rowling’s courage says that if we can conquer the frustration, our life will be so different. But most people failed to cross the gap, only few can succeed, like JK Rowling. So next time when we are dealing with something tough, think about Rowling’s story, then there is nothing to be afraid.

It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

8.Jeremy Lin

Jeremy Lin

－The first Taiwanese American basketball player in NBA

Jeremy is now in Hornets!!

Last week, we watched an exciting series of baseball games. Therefore, I want to introduce to you an athlete whom we are all familiar with. He is an NBA basketball player, Jeremy Lin.

Jeremy Lin hadn’t be noticed until February, 2012. Before he became famous on the court, Lin had been a bench player for a long time. In December, 2011, few days after Christmas, he joined New York Knicks. At first time, Lin still didn’t have a chance to show his ability. He even slept on friend’s sofa because he didn’t have a place to live in New York.

In 4th, February, 2012, Lin got a chance to play on the court. It’s a great success, Lin scored 25 points which was the highest in that game. Since then, Lin and his team continuously won seven games, it’s incredibly amazing. In just few days, people all over the world noticed this guy who came from Harvard and were paying attention to him. The whole NBA fans became crazy because of Lin’s dramatic success. The media in US even called this phenomenon “Linsanity.”

Becoming so popular after winning the games, Lin was very humble and always said he was thankful to God and his teammates. With the increasing fame, however, some racially discriminated words also emerged because of his identity. Lin is an Asian American whose parents came from Taiwan. I think Lin is inevitably to be discriminated on the court because there’re only few yellow athletes.

Though Lin faced racial discrimination sometimes, he is still optimistic about his career. Next time when you watch Jeremy playing basketball games, don’t forget to cheer for him.

Believe in yourself when no one else dose.

7.Donald Trump

Donald Trump

－He may be the most Atypical and controversial presidential candidate of USA

This week in class, we saw the presidential candidate of Democratic Party－ Hilary Clinton. So, this week I want to do some research for another presidential candidate. I have to clarify that this man is not the“great person”at all. Actually, he has been a controversial character since he was famous. Therefore, today I’m not gonna introduce to you a great person, I’m gonna introduce to you a celebrity. BTW, I don’t have any political favor to American politics.

Donald Trump, an American tycoon of real estate, has been known for his wealth which he always shows off. His crazy words like “You are fired!”is also a symbol to him. This summer, Trump added another title for himself－the presidential candidate of Republican Party. At first, no one took it seriously. But after the astonishing speech which is considered related to racism against Latino he gave, he successfully caught everyone’s eyes, no matter people like him or not. Since then, his momentum has climbed up crazily. According to a polls from CNN in this August, Trump was behind Hilary only by 6 percent, and this number is enough to let some people drop their jaws.

So why is Donald Trump so “hot”? I think one reason is that his words accord with those relatively conservative voter who support Republican Party. He opposes to illegal immigrant because he thinks they will deprive American whites of jobs. Another reason is probably because of Trump’s straightforward talk, in contrast with those hypocritical politicians, that makes him different to others.

To sum up, the Trump phenomenon reflects the problems of modern American society. Weaker economics, immigration issues, threat from the rising China, etc. No one knows how long will this strange phenomenon continue. But one thing is clear that there’re a lot of issues the next president of America should face.

"We are going to make this country great again!"－Donald Trump

6.Steve Jobs Ⅱ

Steve Jobs

Ⅱ

－Stay hungry, stay foolish

Last week, I introduced to you Steve Jobs with his autobiographical movie. This week, I still wanna write something about him. But this time, I am going to tell you storys about Jobs’ true life.

Dropping out of school

After Jobs graduated from high school, he went to Reed College. The tuition there was very expensive. Jobs thought that he wasted his working-class parents’ saving but didn’t learn anything he had been interested with. Therefore, he dropped out of school to find the stuff he really liked. After dropping out of school, Jobs hence had a chance to take the calligraphy class.  Jobs himself said the course made him come up with the idea of putting different types of typography into the computer when they were creating the Macintosh computer.

Getting fired by the company he started

When I knew this experience Jobs had been through, I couldn’t imagine that a boss would get fired by his own company!! That’s such a dramatic story. Well, Although experiencing the big frustration, Jobs still faced it optimistic.  “It turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.” Jobs said in the lecture. Ultimately, Jobs came back to what he loved, Apple, and took the whole company to a remarkable status.

Death and cancer

In the lecture, Jobs said a quote that impressed him a lot. “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It’s quite humored, but it also reminds us don’t let go the chances happen around us every day. In 2004, Jobs was diagnosed with the pancreas cancer, and we all know that Jobs was killed by this disease in 2011. Though Jobs has passed away, he didn’t waste any second in his life, thus created his legendary life.

In the end, I want to share with you the words from Jobs, “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” Keep this in mind, maybe someday you will become another Steve Jobs!

5.Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

This week, I’m going to introduce you a true great man, Steve Jobs, after I watched the 2013 movie “Jobs.” I have to say at first that I am not a fan of Apple. I don’t have iphone, I don’t use macbook. So what I’m going to do is talk about what I saw and the thought after watching the movie.

One thing that I admired Jobs a lot is that he dropped-out of the university after the first semester. I think that it’s really important to know what we are going to do after we entered the university. Obviously, Jobs had a clear idea for his future, so he left the school, and his success proved that his decision was right. And this thing really inspired me a lot, I started to think about (not dropping-out of school) what I should learn in the university, it’s definitely not the stuff which I am learning now.

Another interesting thing I discovered about Jobs is that he seemed to be a little bit stingy. After his company “Apple Computer” became bigger and bigger, he didn’t want to give any share to one of the founding employee. Job’s reason is that he could hire any other engineer whose ability is far beyond him. It sounds really bad, but I think that’s how Jobs did, and it’s also the difference between eastern and American culture.

Many people said this movie doesn’t present the true life of Steve Jobs. No matter what, I saw the spirit of innovation and audacity from Jobs, and that’s the reason why he succeeds.

"we're here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here?"-Steve Jobs

3.John Nash Ⅱ

John Nash

A Genius With A Beautiful Mind

Ⅱ

After he was married, he frequently came up with strange thoughts, such as the government somehow wanted to kill him, and it’s getting worse as time went by. Finally his wife noticed that and he was diagnosed with the schizophrenia. 

The life of Nash became a tragedy, he often fell into his hallucination and thus interrupted his study career. His wife, “Alicia” though divorced him because of it, she still accompanied and took care of Nash. In the coming decades, John decided not to take medicine and fight with the disease only by his perseverance. Finally, decades later, Nash woke up from his dream and few years later, he got the Nobel Prize in Economics (1994).

It’s hard to imagine the dramatic life of John Nash. He was such a genius that we can’t really figure out what’s in his mind. Just like the title of the movie” The Beautiful Mind,” Nash depended on his perseverance and his wife’s love to find his beautiful mind back. And it teaches us that no matter what difficulty we face, just innervate and solve the problem, both in mathematics or problems in life！

People are always selling the idea that people with mental illness are suffering. I think madness can be an escape. If things are not so good, you maybe want to imagine something better.

-John Nash

3.John Nash

John Nash

A Genius With A Beautiful Mind

This year in May, a news shocked the whole world. A famous and talented mathematician named John Nash and his wife were killed by a car accident. There is no doubt that it was a big loss of the world. So who is Nash？ If you’ve heard of the renowned “game theory” or you’ve watched the movie“The Beautiful Mind,”you definitely know this “genius.”

John Nash’s life is so legendary not only because he is a brilliant genius in mathematics but also a patient of schizophrenia, a psycho, briefly. It’s hard to imagine that the mind of strong logic and the mind of hallucination are in the same brain and operating simultaneously, but this was how Nash lived.

Nash had been lived in a perfect life before he was diagnosed with the schizophrenia. Being the top student in the Princeton, Nash completed his study including the famous “Nash equilibrium” in the game theory which is widely applied in economics, biology, policy, psychology and so on. Everything looks so fine, but the situation was going to become tough soon.

                                                                                                                        -----------continued

2.Ang Lee

Light of Taiwan—Ang Lee

Today, I’m gonna introduce you Ang Lee, a director born in Taiwan and became widely admired and respected all over the world. Believe that most Taiwanese are familiar with this great director, but fewer people really know what made him so successful.

The failure of exams made Lee closer to the dream of movies

Though being talented in literature, Ang Lee was not good at math. Because of this, Lee failed the university entrance exam TWICE. It’s a huge frustration for him, but it gave Lee another chance to explore what he really love and was enthusiastic with－the movie filming.

No jobs for six years waiting for the opportunity

There is a proverb in Taiwan saying that“Every successful man has a woman behind him who is willing to do everything for him.”After Ang Lee graduated from New York University, he had being waiting for the working opportunity for SIX years without having any job. During this period of time, the whole family depended on his wise wife who supported him and accompanied him through the tough time. If there hadn’t been his wife, Ang Lee wouldn’t be so successful.

I think it’s important to realize that every extraordinary person has gone through the trouble or mistakes or confusion or frustration that you and me have experienced, too. Ang Lee is a good example for it. So don’t be afraid to try new things, cause that’s what they had done before.

                                                                                   

We need storytelling. Otherwise, life just goes on and on, like the number Pi.－Ang Lee

1.Madonna

The Most Well-known Female Singer and Dancer Over the Past 30 Years－

Madonna

Even Fell On the Stage, She’s Still the “Queen of Pop.”

                                                      

Who can reach the record of best-selling female artist of all time by Guinness World Records？Who has sold more than 300 million albums during her singing career？Who’s the most successful singer only behind the Beatles according to Billboard？It’s Madonna－the “Queen of Pop.”

As people know, Madonna is an entertainer with the impression of daring and rebel. But few people know that she grew up in a catholic family. By the age of five, Madonna’s mother died from cancer, and it impacted her a lot. Though behaving strangely in the school, Madonna was a smart student with whole grades getting A. She moved to New York when she was 20 and started her performing life. With the song“Like a virgin,”Madonna became the most popular singer around the world.

Being a controversial character, Madonna is fearless to express the avant-garde concept of sex into her works, which inspired many younger singer after, like Lady Gaga, and that’s why I admire Madonna－her courage to do something that other people fear to do, and it made her so different. Another characteristic she owns is confidence. During a performance in Brit Award 2015, she accidentally fell on the stage, even though, she remained calm and finished the performance. It tells me that even some tough time may happen in our life, it’s important to be confident and get over it.

In 2016, the Queen Madonna is about to visit Taiwan and hold a series of concerts, the tickets had sold out in seconds and also broke another record－the highest price of ticket of concerts in Taiwan！！！

“I'm tough, I'm ambitious and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, that's okay.”--by Madonna