Interpretation for the ending

There are 2 possible interpretations for "The Giver" ending. The first one is Jonas and Gabe freeze to death and the sled ride, village and music are halluciantions. The second one is they both truely arrive at a town where Christmas is being celebrated. Personally, I think that the two boys freeze to death and the village is just Jonas's imagination. It's more than a coincidence that the sled ride is exactly the same as the one in his memory. And there's no way that the sled will wait for them at the top of the hill.

• "We're almost ther, Gabriel, he whispered, feeling quite certain without knowing why. "I remember this place, Gabe." And it was true. But it was not a grasping of a thin and burdensome recollection; this was different. This was somthing that he could keep. It was a memory of his own.

Jonas loses all of his memory that was transmitted to him by the Giver. So, his last memory about snow is his own memory.

• Behind him, across vast diatances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too.

The music that he hears is real true because the Giver never transmits a memory about a music to him.

• Using his final strength, and a special knowledge that was deep inside him, Jonas found a sled that was waiting for them at the top of the hill. Numbly his hands fumbled for the rope.

He finds a real sled and he uses it to get down the hill.

• He got off and let it drop sideways into the snow. For a moment he thought how easy it would be to drop beside it himself, to let himself and Gabriel slide into the softness of snow, the darkness of night, the warm comfort of sleep.

It proves us that Jonas really arrive at the Elsewhere with his bicycle. But now he cannot keep going because the snow is thick and impossible for hime to ride.

Poor Punchalee & a nighmare GRE

Last week was a tired week for me because I had the GRE test. I had to study the test and at the same time I have the assignments to do. I went to bed at midnight almost everyday, so when I went to school I was very sleepy.

I took the test on Thursday, it took about 3 hours to finish the test. There are 3 parts: verbal, math and analytical writing. It was super duper hard. In the verbal part, what I did was just quessing. There were about 80% of the vocabulary words that I didn't know. For the math part, to my surprise, the questions were not near to the exercises that I did. So, my score was very very low and I have to take the test again next month, which is just in a next 2 or 3 weeks.

I want to kill myself

Dinner at Apple & Johnny's condo

I just got back from Apple's boyfriends' condo. Today, Apple, Johnny (Apple's boyfriend), Rena, her mom and I had dinner at Johnny's condo. His room is on the 29th floor, so a view from the balcony is fantastic. We had a Japanese dinner; sushi, spicy shrimp, spicy crab, dumpling, snow crab and miso soup (Apple cooked it herself). We had a really good time there.

Apple, next time don't forget to invite me again ok?

Yummy Thai meal with Apple

Today, Apple came to school to ask for a reccommendation from Branda and after that we had lunch at Thai restaurant. The restuarant is called Thai Lily, it is located at Dairy Ashford Rd. First, we didn't plan to have lunch at Thai Lily because the restuarant is quite far from school. However, Apple and I wanted to eat the original very spicy Thai food so bad so we decided to go there. We ordered 3 dishes and they tasted really good.

If you like spicy dish and want to try Thai Food, I highly reccommend this restuarant.

Opinion about the community

Would you like to live in this kind of community? Why or why not? Does the absence of bad feelings compensate for the sacrifice of choice and the sacrifice of positive feelings?

The community in which Jonas lives superficially seems perfect. No war, fear and pain can be found in this community. Everything is well-organized and well-selected for people in the community. In fact, this community is far from perfect because people have no freedom and they can't make a decision for themselves.

I couldn't imagine myself live in this kind of community, where people have no freedom and no control over their lives. Everything is selected and chosen by the government (The committee of Elders) in every aspect from the trivial things to the crucial things such as name, the way they dress and even their assignments. As you can see, the Committee of Elders will name the newborns not their parents and the Twelves can not choose the assignment, which they have to work for the rest of their lives. I can't live in such an authoritarian and dictatorial society like this.

Freedom is one of the most imporatant things that I value. Without freedom, life has no meaning. We just follow what the government tell us to do, we live for them not for us. Once we have no control over our lives, we lose the sense of being a human. We are a robot that follow the order of people who program us. As a result of controling from the government, we'll lose our own identity and won't be different from an object, which is categorized into each group. As you can see, people in the community are classified into a different group according to age and occupation.

There's no way that the absence of bad feelings can compensate for the sacrifice of choice and the sacrifice of positive feelings. For me, I prefer to have both negative and positive feelings although negative feeling always spoil my mood and makes me feel unhappy. I think life should have bad and good things to balance each other.

Moreover, as I have said that freedom is one of the most important things that I value, so nothing can compensate that. Without freedom of speech, freedom of choice and freedom of thought, we are like a prisoner. We can't say what we want to say, we can't make a decision for ourselves and we can't have our own idea or our own thought. It's our lives, we should have the right to decide what we want to do by ourselves.

The best solution from Nathan!!!

Today, we got a Reading and writing assignments from Elisabeth. I know everybody is worried about these assignments because there is a lot of things to do and its due date is next Friday. I am worried about this too because I'll have the GRE test next week and I will not have enough time to finish them. But now I am quite relieved. Nathan told me that instead of doing a research paper, I can choose to write 2 essays. One of them is from the list that we got and another is from the GRE prompt. It is the best solution. By doing this, I am able to kill two birds with one stone. I can practice my writing on the GRE and can finish my assignment as well.

Thank you so much Nathan.

You're my life-saver!!!

Shopaholic Girl !!!

Now I'm very very happy becuase I just got back from shopping after spending 2 days studying the GRE. When I feel sad or worry about something (especially when I'm having an exam) I need to go shopping. It makes me happy and recharges my energy for working on an exam. Have you heard of "shopping therapy" ? I think it well explains my case.

I'm a kind of person that always shop till I drop and sometimes buy things that I don't really want (you can ask Apple and Nathan, they know me). I used to spend about 7 hours going shopping, Can you imagine that? My mom told me that since I've been here she hasn't gone shopping that much, because she has no one to go with. Mom, I know you miss me (hahaha).

Today, I bought T-shirts, a pair of pyjamas, lip gloss, manga and a book called Avalon High. Avalon High is written by Meg Cabot, the author who wrote a serie of Princess Diaries. I really like the books that she wrote, they're hilarous and easy to understand. I spent almost $200 on my stuff, I know it's not good to spend a lot of my parents' money on shopping, from now on I'll try to buy only things that I really like.

Shopping makes me happy!!!

One day with Punchalee and a nightmare GRE!!!

Today, I have studied the GRE all day long. I did a computer-adaptive practice, it was very difficult especially the verbal part (if you can't imagine how hard it is just think of the Michigan test, the GRE is much more difficult than that). There is about 80% of the vocabulary words on the GRE that I have never seen before. I need the score at least 1,100 but 1,200 for the good school, it is quite a high score for me. The test date is coming and I am very nervous and panic. In order to get a good score I need a lot of luck and knowledge.

Weekend is a good time for me to study the GRE because I have classes during a weekday, I don't have time to study. Nathan (my lovely teacher) please don't give me a lot of homeworks so I can study it on a weekday too.

Lastnight I called my mom, it was the 2nd time I called her after coming back from Thailand. I try not to talked to her very often because it'll make me miss home and everybody there. My mom and I are very close, we always do things together especially going shopping. She's more like a friend than a mother for me.

We talked about school and a new class schedule. I told her that now we have 1 hour for LTC everyday and the Business English class is very useful and interesting. She said that it would be useful for my Master's degree.

I told her to check Master class's blog and see how hi-tech our class is. My mom and my dad read my journal and told me that my english have been improved a lot, but I haven't noticed that, for me it's still the same. I still make mistakes in grammar and tenses. I should be in level 103 like Nathan said.... hahaha

Rate my presentation!!!

Today, we did a presentation in the SSP class. The topics are the themes from “The giver”, the book that we’ll read in class this session. My partner is Rena and our topic is “ Memory”.

I didn't do very well on my presentation, I was very nervous and excited. Actually, I did a presentation several times but I'm still nervous. I tried not to hold a paper because my hands were shaking so bad.

The best part of the content of my presentation is Rena and I understand the topic so we can answer the questions without thinking. For the worst part, I forgot to mention some information (I'm really disappointed about myself I should do better than this).

The best thing about my English is during the presentation I could answer the questions quickly without a lot of thinking. Most of the time I have to think about what I'm going to say for a while and then answer. I think I spoke clear enough and made only a few pronunciation mistakes (or maybe not). I assume that everybody can understand my presentation because nobody asked me the information in my part.

Hi! This is Punchalee! Come read my blog!

My goal for this session is to be
ready for a graduate school. It means that I have to get a good score on the GRE test, which I'll take at the end of this month. It should be at least 1,100 but I need 1,200 for a good school.It's quite challenging for me but I'll try my best. In addition, I'll finish writing the essay questions for a graduate program before sending the applications next month.

At the same time I try not to be stress out so much about studying, because I always worry about it all the time and it's not good for my mental health.