Justin's Blog

After some thoughts about the stories I had read, especially the ones from this year, I am starting to believe that all stories may actually be structurally same.  this is a joke :) This claim does NOT mean that all stories are identical. Of course, all novels are unique; each novel has different characters, character traits, character development, character adversities, character background, character relationship - you get the point. This is why we read books. We want to partake in a character’s unique journey to find out the ending.  But at the core of all these stories, they all follow the same structure. In “Story Structures in Short Stories” by Philip Brewer, he simplified the structure of all stories into 7 parts, but I like to think of it in 4: A character is introduced This character is faced with a struggle (internal or external) The struggle leads to either a happy or sad ending- or maybe both. The author leaves a takeaway for the readers OR the character Here is an...

In many ways, I am just like Dwayne Hoover from Little Miss Sunshine .  Like him, I always wanted to join USAFA (US Air Force Academy). I wanted to experience controlling the military aircraft; I wanted to serve our nation and be honored by the people around me; I wanted to push myself to my physical, emotional, and mental limits.  But to qualify, applicants must meet certain academic, physical, and medical requirements. Believing that I met most of the academic goals, I just needed to focus on my physical strength and endurance. After becoming so unhealthy during the pandemic last year, I decided to spend a lot of time training in the gym and doing pull-ups in my room at home during the summer (like Dwayne did in the movie). Whenever I found progress in my training, I became excited; I could see myself closer to achieving my dreams. However, just like Dwayne is medically disqualified from USAFA because he is color blind, I realized not too long ago that I am too but for a dif...

As humans, we strive for equality knowing that we all only have one life. We are reminded that judging people by their identity, a factor that no one can control, is unjustified.  Hearing the latest news of sexual assault or racism, we protest in horror and anger. We persuade our legislators to create new laws and enforce severe punishments for those who take away the rights of others. We post on our social media to spread awareness of current issues to fight for justice and peace. We make these decisions and put our voices out there because we feel indignant. We want inequality to end because it creates harmful effects in our society.  However, equality may never be achieved in the real world, or at least not in the next hundred years. Thomas Hobbes, a 17th-century dark romantic writer, once believed that all men are inherently evil, and this is true to an extent. We often find pleasure in other people's struggles; we victimize people because we dislike their race, sexual ori...