Narrative Poem Research - Happiness Epidemic

WIthout any warning, the disease
sweeps across the country
like a traveling circus.

People who were once blue,
who slouched from carrying
a bag of misery over one shoulder

are now clinically cheerful.
Symptoms include kind gestures,
a bouncy stride, a smile

bigger than a slice of canteloupe.
You pray that you will be infected,
hope a happy germ invades your body

and multiplies, spreading merriment
to all your major organs
like door-to-door Christmas carolers

until the virus finally reaches your heart:
that red house at the end of the block
where your deepest wishes reside,

where a dog howls behind a gate
every time that sorrow
pulls his hearse up the driveway.


Compare to the other narrative poems on the Internet, it's relatively short and easy to understand the meaning, more like a narrative poem for children.
There are couple rhymes, like consonance, which is in line 13 and 14, "and multiplies, spreading merriMENt/ to all your major orGANs" . There are meters with two syllables, which is in line 1, "Without any warning, the disease"; there are meters with three syllables, too, which is in line 13, "and multiplies, spreading merriment". The style of the poem is quite cheerful; the diction has made the tone and mood of the poem cheerful and happy. The metaphor is used in the whole poem. The narrator compares happiness to disease, once the person gets ill, the person's misery and blue will be cured and turn into happiness. Also, the imagery of sight well helps create a image of metaphor the narrator has used; for instance, in last six lines, "until the virus finally......pulls his hearse up the driveway", the narrator compares a person's heart to a house, where a dog howls behind a gate and pull the sorrow away. It's a very interesting and cheerful poem.

Life is like Minecraft

A person's life is a Minecraft game, you'll never know what kind of map, the things in your world is like.
You may meet couple rugged terrains or encounter a shipwreck in your life, make your way or goal more difficult to achieve. You may meet spiders, Creepers and skeletons those try to create setback for you. The most important is that only you can build up your life, only you know what your life will be like. You have to collect or look for your elements that can build up your life. Also, you are free to build what kind of your life you want to have, however, you still have to pay effort and work hard, not to take a short cut, and you'll have a life you want. Just like Minecraft, you are free to build everything, but you still have to collect, look for and develop your elements to build up your own world, your life in the game.

Seven Acts

As what Jacque said, there are 7 stages in a person's life. What I think about the seven stages in a person's life is similar to Jacque's.
At first, a baby emerges, crying and sucking the mother's breast milk. Then, after years, the baby becomes a school student, carrying a school bag, holding books and not really willing to go to school. After finishing the school or at the end of the life being a student, the person meets his lover. However, because the person has to serve in the army, the lover and the person are forced to leave each other and promise that he (she) will miss and love each other forever. During the military service, everyday oaths and a quick quarrel become common, doing everything for the reputation. Then, after the military service, the person will meet his lover again and group a family, have a kid and be a father. At this stage, the person becomes steady and mature. The person has grown up. While his kids are at their end of the second stage of the beginning of the third stage, the person has stepped into his sixth stage, being a middle-age man with a big, round belly and a pair of presbyopia glasses, maybe holding a pipe. At the final stage, the person is old, maybe recalling his youth and telling his story to his younger generation. Then, the person closed his eyes, stopped his breath, ends his eventful history, wonderful life, peacefully.

Disrespected

When I was in 8th grade, I had a friend who was popular but actually was hated by most of the people secretly. I remembered that day that he invited me to join his band as a lead guitar player. Well, at that time, I agreed and joined the band he grouped, however, that was before I knew his actual ability. My friend who invited me to his band, was the bass player and vocal in the band. Well, he couldn't play bass well since he didn't even know how to hold a bass, he couldn't sing really well, neither, because of his serious out-of-tune problem.
One day, My friend said that he is the best in the band, and the other players were all worse than him, in public. The people there all agreed with my friend, but actually, they all denied secretly. Why didn't they tell out the truth? Since my friend, who said that he is the best, was angry easily, there were lots of people having a big fight with him -- including the physical fight using fists, -- however, the people who had fought with him were badly injured, and the rest of the people, who haven't had fight with my friend YET, didn't want to fight again. Well, I couldn't watch him keep being arrogant and lying, so I had a big argument with him. He was angry and curse that I can't even play instrument better than him but criticize his ability. At first, I didn't feel disrespected, however, the people around us were asked by my friend that did he play better than me or not, and those people all said that I play worse than him, and I felt extremely disrespected and mad. Suddenly, I felt disappointed that the people didn't acknowledge my ability but conceal it although they might know that I absolutely, 100%, played instrument better than him. And this seemed to be very personal to me, so I felt very mad and almost had the fist fight with my friend and the other people, moreover, those people were my sworn followers, how could they do such of things to me? I felt disappointed, mad, also heartbroken.

Quickwrite -- Things I do During an Ordinary Day

In ordinary mornings, I wake up at 5:45 and freshen up myself for 10 minutes, then I go changing. Next, my dad drives me to the bus station near our house, then I get on the bus to the Hsinchu station, where is located near my school. After arriving at school, I stay there for 7 hours for learning. While the school ends, it's at 3:10, I have to run for my bus home. Between 4 and 5 clock in the afternoon, I arrive at the bus station near my home and get on the local bus home. While I arrive at home, I start doing my homework and study for the tomorrow test. After that, I often chill out myself and do whatever I want, like playing guitar, going on Facebook. At 10:30, I go to bed.
Compare with the poems "Woman Work" and "Daily", my life seems easier and relaxed than the narrator in the poem, since they had so many things to do in a day. Not like me, only go to school for learning and doing homework after school, the life of mine is easy and relaxed.

Quickwrite -- A Choice that Marked a Turning Point in My Life

I remember that 2 years ago, my mom suddenly told me that there is a new musical instrument store starting to operate in our neighborhood, and there were also teachers in the musical instrument store teaching you how to play the instrument like electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass, drums etc. At that time, I wasn't interested in "playing music", so I refused to go there at first. However, my mom said that since I like listening hard rock and metal music, why not go learn how to play hard rock and metal music? Thus, I was forced to go to learn how to play electric guitar.
At first, I didn't pay a lot of attention listening to what teacher taught and didn't practice a lot. However, after 2 months, I was falling in love with playing electric guitar since I can play a complete song by electric guitar! And during the next few weeks, I was invited to join the band my friend grouped and became the lead guitarist although I was not really good at playing guitar at that time. When I was 13 years old, which when I was in 8th grade, my skill of playing electric guitar became better and better, and I started to be interested in playing music. Then, after a few weeks, I remembered it's on the December in 2010, I grouped my own band with my one classmate and an old friend. However, at first, my band wasn't really good and hardly any practices. At the end of 2011, my band had found a lead guitarist (not me) and a bass player, so at that time, there are 5 members in our band. Well, at the beginning of this year, our vocal, who's my old friend had left because of his self-centeredness and bad skill of singing. In this February, actually 2 days ago, my band found a drummer, and we were going to sign up for the band competition on April and July. I and my band mates are really enjoying playing music and banding.
If that time, my mom didn't force me to go to learn the guitar, I'm afraid that I won't be such interested in music, almost like putting the most afford into it. If I really didn't go learn it, I think I will just be like a nerd, staying in front of the computer and keeping playing online game -- before I played guitar, I was addicted to the online game, however, I am not interested in it anymore. -- I thank my mom for forcing me to go learn playing guitar at that time, and I also enjoy playing music right now.

Quickwrite -- Selfless Sacrifice

I have a friend called Chester Wu, however, we've never met each other face to face before, but we've known each other for like 5 years and talked through skype for many times. His family financial situation is not very good, and his family has to beware of their spending every time they buy something.
This just happened a few days ago, durning the lunar new year break, I got like total 20000 NT dollars through the red envelopes given by my family. When we talked about our benefits from getting red envelopes, he said that he only got like 5000 NT dollars (total). I was like, "oh, ok...", and he told me that his family may not able to afford his spending of the tuition of cram school. Then, he asked me to share some of my money (including the benefits from getting red envelopes years ago) with him or he would borrow it and gave back to me one day. However, I've planned to save these money in order to buy a better guitar and other equipment that can help me making music or band practicing with higher efficiency. At that moment, I was thinking that should I help my 5-year-known friend but never meet face-to-face or not? I wanted to help him, but after a long time of deliberation, I decided not to help him by giving my money or "lending" my money. Although we know each other well, however, we still didn't meet each other face-to-face, how do I know that your family financial situation is really that bad? There's also a risk. Well, he still chats with me a lot by facebook often, we are still good friends... kind of?? I'm glad to make such choice.