My Introduction
I am Jenon Fung, engineer, mathematician, amateur evolutionary psychologist, violinist, diabolo practitioner, LARP warrior, weightlifter, philosopher, webcomic connoisseur, and SCP D-class personnel. An aerospace and electrical engineering double major, the most enjoyable aspect of my profession is telling people that airplane companies use glue to hold modern composite planes together, such as the Boeing 787. I hope to work for Boeing, and I have a second internship lined up with them this summer. Hopefully, I will be able to contribute something meaningful to the company. Aside from this, my career plans include working very hard and allowing my work drive to get completely out of control and eat my happiness and personal values. My hobbies include impersonating Marie Curie online, explaining the Konigsberg bridge problem to people waiting to order Canes Chicken, explaining fiber layup shear moment coupling to people in line at Walmart, and trying to kill my friends with padded
*Golf clap*
ReplyDeleteJenon, as I have mentioned before with my comment to your personal intro at the beginning of the semester, I find your quirky writing style interesting and amusing. With this story, you have managed to successfully express the Lion’s half of a conversation concisely and clearly with a string of onomatopoeias. That deserves a small award. Good job. As far has constructive criticism is concerned, I must admit, you make it difficult to determine where purposeful intent ends and how far you are taking creative license with the grammatical structure of your story. For example, your first paragraph begins with a run-on sentence with five commas and at least three independent clauses. Was this on purpose. If so, to what extent? Also, further into the dialogue, it appears like you made the boy break the fourth wall with his self-aware comments. He states, "I'm not panicking, I've just accepted the way of the world," followed by, "What's a comma splice?" I enjoy the levity that the topical break brings to the story and I feel like it brings a level of introspection and maturity to the boy that makes his following catharsis more than just parable-like. I’m not sure if this was intended or not, but either way, it made an entertaining and insightful read out of an age old tale.
Hello Jenon! I really enjoy reading your story and how creative you are with it! The first problems I encountered was when I first saw “Rawr” “But that serpent is terrifying.” It was a little confusing at first because I did not know who was speaking but I knew it was the lion since it’s the only noises they make. The onomatopoeias were a great catch to read because I heard those noises in my head. Your grammatical structure of the story seems very well put together using semicolons and commas, but there were some sentences that could be fixed. There are a lot of conjunction words like “but” that are being misused in your sentences. Some of your sentences could have been combined into one whole sentence instead of making sentence fragments. Overall, your stories are always great to read and greatly written. You provided more than enough details in your characters and story! Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHowdy Jenon,
ReplyDeleteSorry to come right out of the gate with a suggestion, but I would definitely add a link to your comment wall on the home page of your website. It is no fun trying to hunt down a comment wall. Other than that, your website looks great. It is very simple, which I love.
For the story, I would first like to say, I loved how the lion did not talk to the boy in English or a human language. Your reasoning for the lion’s speaking dialect was also very relatable. I really connected with that reasoning. I think it added more character to the story. The next suggestion may just be my personal taste, but I would maybe add more to the battle scene. I do not think it is possible to have too much action. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your story, and I loved how you sort of strayed away from the original story.
Hi Jenon,
ReplyDelete(I just read your Week 5 story in your Portfolio.)
I liked your bizarre combination of the very informal first meeting – “Howdy!” – and the formal complex language of the remaining dialogue. It’s possible that I missed a pun (or found a typo) but why does Rama respond “howd”?
I like your diction and style. Personally, though, I find the use of present tense here to be disorienting and unnecessary. I think it’s standard to tell stories in the past tense unless you have a compelling stylistic reason to use the present tense, and in this particular case, I think the narration might be better in past tense.
Since you mention the monkey’s “strange dialect,” maybe it would be interesting to have the monkeys speak in a distinct English dialect from Rama and Lakshmana? That doesn’t mean your monkeys are necessarily Irish, or whatever, but maybe the sense of distinction would help bring the reader further into the story. Even just a difference between Rama speaking formally and the monkey’s casually might do it.
Thanks,
A.M.
Hi Jenon! As soon as I saw your portfolio on my randomized thing I got excited! I love reading your stories and this one was no different. So I read the Week 5: Sugriva's Return and absolutely loved it. This week we are supposed to do WWW so I'll try to format my blabbering to that. WOW: I absolutely loved your integration of humor into the story. "Rama let out a sigh of mild annoyance" Pahahahaha! Loved it. I also love the howdy as that is my kind of dialect. I wonder how you could have pulled that light-hearted humor down into the second half of the story. It sort of seemed like I was reading two separate stories. I guess my what if would be if you altered the second half to be more playful and joyous like the first. Overall, however, I really enjoyed the story and your take on not only the content, but the addition of the confusion and humor was on point. Love reading your work!!
ReplyDeleteHi Jenon! I read the Week 2 Story! I'm going to try to comment as I read. But right off the bat... "Far away, by a remote village, stood a dark forest, and in that forest lived a serpent" is a very hard sentence to get through. Especially the beginning choppy-ness with the commas. I would say "There once was a serpent who lived in a far away far away dark forest by a remote village." I enjoy the rawrs. However I would like some text differentiation if we are just going to go with rawrs. Also, being a queasy person, I did not appreciate the "vomits in shock" part. It just felt unnecessary. I wish there was more of a build up to the snake coming out. Like a "fee fi fo fum" part. Because really it just goes from him seeking out the snake to it being small without much explanation. I would rather have some surprise or fear turned to relaxation at the sight of the snake. It just seemed odd as the reader to find out he's small, unless I missed something early on. Overall, it was a great story!
ReplyDeleteHey there, Jenon!
ReplyDeleteI read your story "The Cowardly, Timid Boy" and I really enjoyed it! I'm getting ahead of myself, but I really loved how the lion spoke "lion", but the boy still knew what was being said. That was a great addition to the story. I think that if you had the lion "speaking" the words, the story would have lost some of it's magic. Also, and this is my favorite part.."Huff" "What's a comma splice". I actually laughed when I read that. It was perfect, and I agree. Those comma splices are getting to me, too! It's fun reading a sentence like that, it allows the reader to see the writer's humor. I also liked the ending. It was not a big to-do. It was simple, with the boy (I picture this boy as a very calm boy) admitting that the lion helped him. I would have liked to know how old the boy was. As I read a story I try to imagine the scenery. I chose an age myself, since one was not provided. Also worth noting, is that this calm little boy sat and ate snake soup after defeating the snake. Oh, and also, thanks for teaching me a new word! I looked up eldritch in the dictionary, as I have not come across this word before. Thanks, Jenon! Great work!
Is there a reason why a comment wall link is not on your storybook/portfolio? Thankfully a link was provided by the randomizer, but I couldn't find it on your project.
ReplyDeleteThe reason is because I'm a moron, and not just any moron, a lazy moron the kind that doesn't even finish his comme
DeleteHey Jenon, I read your Week 6 Story on our Divine Sniper, Rama. The way that you introduced and explained the weapons showed that you probably have a deep interest in warfare or weapons. This imagery was very helpful in showing the sheer power that both warriors possessed, especially as these weapons were imbued with special powers from the gods. When you used the names of the mythical weapons in addition to the modern weapons, were you saying that the mythical weapons had turned into modern day equivalents? I was confused if that was what you were getting at and think it would be a good way to transition the power mythical weapons into power modern day weapons. One of the most interesting parts of the battle between Rama and Ravana was their aerial combat in vimanas throughout the battle while still using their respective weaponry. Maybe there is a good modern day equivalent for flying chariots ... I just don't know.
ReplyDeleteHello Jenon, I enjoyed reading your story, The Divine Sniper. I applaud you for writing a story about something you care about and know all lot about. I think the idea of the entire story was a little gruesome just because lots of guns being thrown around between Rama and Ravana. I believe the original fight between Rama and Ravana was pretty gruesome so this topic makes the story feel original for our time. I especially enjoyed how detailed you were with your weapons, the rail gun especially. The combination of details about the weapons and the details about the fight contrast nicely. At first I though you were spending to much time talking about the guns but as continued reading the details in the fighting was equally thought out and written. Again I enjoyed reading your story. It was definitely a different vibe than most other stories, just because guns are a sensitive topic, but I applaud you for writing something that challenges the system. Great work!
ReplyDeleteHey Jenon, I had a great time reading your story, The Divine Sniper. You did an excellent job of setting the scene and giving Rama and Ravana fire-arms was a really clever way of raising the stakes of the battle and modernizing this ancient story. I love the image of Ravana drawing twenty desert eagles, that's a really cool image. Also, having the gods blessings giving the bullets different boons (I think my favorite were the Indra bullets) was a great way to add a supernatural element to the story while also adding to the overall mayhem of this battlefield. I really like that you throughout the story, you return to this image of Rama deflecting incoming onslaughts and countering with the destruction of another of Ravana's heads. Because this is such a potent image, what if you added that Ravana could only be defeated by having all 10 of his heads removed. I find that having a clear goal outlined in your writing can help readers follow along and feel more invested in the action. I'm so impressed with the amount of time and knowledge that must have gone into picking these weapons and I really appreciate that even though I'm nowhere near as familiar with them as you, because of your descriptions I can see them clearly in my minds eye! "Rama prays thrice, aims twice, and fires once," this may be my favorite line in your whole story. Such a simple and understated sentence and yet I can see this scene unfolding in vivid detail and it's sick. I would suggest you just read through one more time, there were a few instances where you used singular articles for plural nouns but other than that, I think this is an excellent story and it was a pleasure to read!
ReplyDeleteLet me just start by saying I really enjoy your writing style, it's either it's quick an humorous or action packed, so it's a fun read for every story. Your Week 2 story was great. I liked that you had the lion just make sounds and actions towards the boy, letting the boy decided what the Lion was implying himself. Some of the details you added stood out to me, like the detail of the claw being almost as tall as the boy, and the very specific heights and lengths of the snake, oh, and it's gnarly venom. You week 5 story had a great flow. I was able to image all the action you manged to pack in regarding the fight between Bali and Sugriva. I like that you gave Rama more justification in killing Bali. Rama often does things that are questionable for being such a good guy...so best to keep him the good guy right?
ReplyDeleteHi Jenon, I enjoyed reading through your short story, The Cowardly Boy. Like the rest of your readers I would like to say I really enjoyed your writing style. It was fun and amusing to read through your story. I also thought the story read well and that I could easily follow along with the plot while also staying entertained. I think your portfolio website is looking good as well. However, I would like to mention tip or recommendation. I have said this to a few people already but one thing that will make your portfolio stand out and feel more complete is adding more to your homepage. First, just listing your stories in the order you wrote them on the homepage would help anyone who visits your portfolio. Also I think I could be cool if you linked your comment wall, blog, and introduction post on the home page as well. This is not required but it would just take your website to that next level! You have already done all the work, and organizing it all on the homepage would be the icing on the cake. Again I enjoyed reading your short stories this semester and hope the end of your semester goes well!
ReplyDelete