Final Prject Essay!

Blogging is such a unique tool that we should learn to use.  The various posts we write up to the different styles of what we can choose from are just some of these unique futures. Blogger, one of the many ways people blog, is the path we use to get this blogging experience. Blogging about subjects is a way for us to become better and up to date on events occurring in the world. This will help me become stronger in my language and also, more persistent in my speech.  I have not only discovered that writing is a joy, but i have found new ways to express myself in it.

I feel that blogging about a given subject has allowed me to become a more skillful writer. As we can see in the example below, i have matured enough to write about a topic that may be seen as confusing. Here, i wrote when humanity took a turn for the worst by selecting a tribal leader. “Well, I think we messed up, big time. I think it stared to go bad when we first elected the first tribal leader. Some say that we need a leader but i think that was our major and ultimate defeat. Egalitarian. That basically means in a crude and understated way equal.” Here, i explain that it is important to keep everybody equal and how that helps is by making the tribe step up to the plate. I wrote about his topic because it was once a discussion of dinner. We talked and I took mental note about it then dispensed these through my blog. Blogging helps this mature writer inside of me come out.

Another `way that blogging has improved in me is that i am now able to be more self
Confident in my writing. What i mean by this is simple. I wrote about personal experiences in my vignette project for a school assignment. I wrote about my life; how my brother and mother where and still are sick. I wrote about my true life, instead of some character “The last part of eighth grade was hell. God does things for reasons we cannot explain. I don’t understand and I wish I did. If I knew that, I could explain global warming, or why we still have not found a cure for cancer. I do not understand why people go starving every day and yet people can spend billions of dollars on birthday parties.”
There are so many things humans do that are not good for other humans. For instance, as some privileged Americans are living the good life, my mom and my brother both suffer. This is not right. Here, i write about my mom, and i strongly say that she has autoimmune disease. “My mom is that last person that should get sick. Ever. She is a trooper among troopers.
My mom has an autoimmune disease.” here, i wrote about the incurable disease known as autoimmune disease. This was very hard to right about seeing as my mom is very sick and yet, she will never get better. I think that this was a step in blogging experience that needed to be done. I am glad that i wrote about this. Also, blogger helps me cope with things that might be too hard to say in real life. For instance, the quote above is one from a personal vignette project.

Blogger is an awesome tool that allows me to become freer in my writing. I feel that the blog has made me open and free, like in 6th grade where we had passing time to get from one period to the other. Blogging has definitely made me more independent. Besides all this, blogger is fun. I have really grown to like blogger. For instance, i have used this to talk about serious matters (like the one above) and like this one, where all i talked about was friends. “So my best friend ever, Kathryn, she loves this guy named Edward Eric. So for all you anime love in anime club sorry but Edward is taken. You all should remember Kathryn because she shadowed me last Monday. So for all you people that don't know about Full metal Alchemist here is the best of it.”Here, i talked about how one of my friends is in love with this fictional character. Here’s another quote from the Sam random post. “All around the ride is stuffy and sink with old corn dogs, sail nachos, and sticky cotton candy. The railing is sticky and greasy from little children and their cotton covered hands. Impatient parents swiftly gave their bratty children a nasty look. However, the children just simply disregard the look and continue to be pests. Eager customers wait with impatience as the line moves an inch every two to three minutes. The person on the speaker (hardly loud at all because it was deeply muffled by the crowd) said something along the lines of "PLEASE DO NOT STAND, SIT, WALK ON THE RAILING. PLEASE STAY CALM ON THE RIDE. KEEP YOUR HANDS AND FEET IN THE RIDE AT ALL TIMES. THANK YOU AND ENJOY YOUR RIDE."” here, i was starting a story but eventually, just wrote about friends. See, with blogger, i have become more independent as a thinker and more skilled as a writer.

Freedom with blogging is unique. You are allowed to write about opinions. Here, i had to write a debate opener, “Between all these things above, I think that the most persuasive one was the definition of an elite college. This really made me believe what he was saying because he actually had the thought process. In anthropology, anthropologists should always site where they come from that can somehow have a negative effect on the outcome of whatever they are doing.” see, here, i wrote about an opinion that was eventually used in an online debate we had. I use these posts to form ideas during class. Also, this is a great way to find out new information that i did not know about. Like, the assignments where Mr. Sutherland would make us review another’s blog.

        However, it has become apparent that my blogging has been lagging. For instance, i would do so poorly on a blog, it seemed that i had an 8 year old witting them! The above is all true; blogging has matured me as a writer, and has made more self-confident. But, in the overall picture, i have become lazy in my posts. I show hardly any efforts to make them worth the while. It needs to improve and in order to do that, i have made some goals. First of all, i would like to make more time dedicated to reading and writing a response to the reading. I would like to start this during the summer. Another goal for me would be to read more. (Both of these goals go hand in hand). When i stat all this, then i will be more able to write at a higher level than i am now.

To conclude, blogger has changed my life as a writer and as an independent thinker. It has opened my mind so that i am able to work harder than before. I have become more self-confident and also more mature in my writing. However, i have been lagging behind on my post by not putting my full effort into them and also by missing a couple in the past. Everything i said above is true. I am glad to have been able to blog the year and i will defiantly be keeping these posts up during the school year.

my peer review comments.

Ebone...

This was an awesome post even though the topic was hard. I too found it interesting that women have had high positions in the work force, and not only that but a women of african american descent. Also, you made f=good connections between the qoutes and how that relates. overall, nothing really to improve on, just little grammer or spelling mistakes but content wise, spot on.


Devin...

nice job talking about judjing a book by its cover. Also, nice comparison between the two books.

Meriam...

nice showing the strength of women's rights and independence. the only advice i would beside lenthen the post would be to really define the reltaitonship of women;s ndependence and history with women's independence today. i think that where you were trying to go with this.

1984 and Animal Farm

George Orwell, a renowned writer who writes sci-fi stories relating to governments and how they treat the People. I have read two books by him, Animal Farm, and i am still reading 1984. Both of these books have shocking and VERY disturbing realties. these stories have more in common than they do in differences. Because of this, my post is going to be about the similarities rather than the differences. 

There are many similarities that are shown in both books. The first one, Animal Farm,, takes in place on a rebelled farm from the humans. the pigs take over and thus, rule the farm with the saying, "Everyone is created equal, but some are more equal than others." It is very scary to think that some are more equal than others. What does this mean? This is very confusing, but at the same time, makes complete sense. 

In the book 1984, the world is overrun by war, where it is run by the Three ministries, The ministry of peace, ministry of truth and the ministry of love which is the worst of the three because it has to deal with the war of the world. These three ministries work and are united in one to create what is called Big Brother, which run EVERYTHING, and when i mean everything, i mean everything. The face of Big Brother is everywhere, in every little spot. There is no way to escape it. 

Animal farm resembles the Russian Revolution and the way this revolution shaped the rise of the horrible dictator of communism, Stalin. In 1984, the historical back ground of this symbol is the way the Nazis used propaganda to formulate false ideas about thier enemies. So, to say it simply, Animal represents the Communist Movement while 1984 explores the Fascist movement in the 30's and 40's. 

As you can, you cannot read Animal farm without reading 1984 or visa-versa. 

VIGNETTE REVEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

While search through vignettes of my fellow peers, I have discovered that fear plays a role in Elizabeth's, Mercedes and Bianca's Blogs. They all show fear, whether they be afraid of it or not.


Elizabeth shows that fear for her can be over powering and sometimes frightening in its self. She explains that the monster in the last story is unknown and barely has any description. 

 "I looked nervously back at the house.     “You know, we’re kind of almost out of sight from there... we should head ba-” I said nervously, getting cut off,     “Wait! What happened to the flag over there...? The monster must of taken it!”" 

I like this quote because it shows that she can still be fearful of the unknown. This is a totally different Elizabeth i know. The one that i know is hardly afraid of anything, but, she can still admit when she is, which means that she is open with her self and with others. 


Mercedes shows in her vignettes that her whole life has been fear, well, at least after she moved from Santa Cruz. Here, she writes that she was afraid to be by herself, but yet happy to be with her family.

"No beds for us tonight. We all shared. But I didn't mind. I was scared, truly terrified"

Here, she admits that family keeps her safe and makes her feel comfortable. The beds could possibly be a symbol for separation perhaps and she is thus afraid of separation. She describes the feeling of her family well here so as if to picture your self there actually feeling that feeling of security. 


Bianca's however, is different compared to theirs above. She admits that she is worried but takes the challenge as if it were to be her last. She writes that she she stares into the paper and just starts writing things that end up being the wrong answer.

 "Once he leaves, I stare at the pieces of paper, which stares right back at me. On it were all these weird numbers, blank spaces and a long series of words standing above the numbers. What am I supposed to do with this? Oh well, might as well just put in random numbers. A two here, a twenty-five here, and soon all the blank spaces were filled with my scribbled, messy nonsense. I stroll back outside and hand Mr. Fong the papers."

This quote embodies what i mean because it shows how she is not afraid of the act of losing, even though she is. Actually this is what i see in all these writers. I see them every day with a strong assertive posture. they take life and really try to make the full of it by showing others that it is possible to be strong and courageous even though it may seem impossible.

EXTRA CRDIT BETA-READING!!! :O

Yes, the dialogue dose contribute to the story. with out the dialogue, or with minimal dialogue, it would not make sense and would be missing a key component, a life or a warmth. The story line, unforunately, is dry, but still has some potential. Also, it can sometimes skip around to much. where it skips is mainly the dialogue part. When Dorthy and Stella where talking, it was hard to keep up especially when the names and their nicknames where interchanged.

Yes the explanation allows us to see a secret in the story. if that is what ur story is about, then u shuld continue it. Hoever, keep in mind that a love story between a vampire and mortal is over used and can become cliche'd. Even though it is over rated, it can stil have a good grasp of a new take on this typical love story. having it be a phillipino folklore is pretty far out there and i would definately not have noticed it!

Yes, Dorthy's reaction is normal. However, it just seems so spread out. I think all the little detail about the songs the played was just to much....maybe. it is in that sense, easier to connect to as a teenager. But, it was a whole entire page of description about that little dance party (which was a little hard to follow, one moment they were looking stella, the next dancing.)

A little, the cultural aspects sort of assume i, the reader, already know Phillipino folklore. However, You do add decription which helps the reader conceptulize what u were saying.

I think that it is neat that she is fillipino because, in that sense, she is a young women finding out more about her culture. She will examine and explore her self and how she plays a role in her own culture, and thus, reguvinating her culture and making it more abmirable and proud to be who you are. Through discovering here self, she will then discover serets about her culture. MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE MORE SECRETS OTHER THAN THE ONE ABOUT THE VAMPIRE. it will be way less over rated. this will also hook more readers in....Thank you for letting us read ur book and i ook forward to the rest.

Esperanza's identity to education...

            Sandra Cisneros gives the impression that Esperanza will "come back " for the ones she "left behind". I believe that she will come back and help but maybe not physically but through education. The importance of education comes up often representing that it is very important to become educated. this means that she will be an educated women helping her community. I believe also that through opening up and really focusing on the theme of education.
            Education shows up as a quest for independence and identity. this means that she has to be educated to find her self. When she is able to find her self, she will be able to help others. this quote i have is merely the whole vignette, and, in order to decrease my length, here is the title (which actually sums up what i am saying) : "A House of My Own" (108). Here, it explains how she cannot wait for a "house of her own" and how she needs to find her self. She explains that it is important that the house is her own and not anyone else's. As we saw in the beginning of the book, she identifies herself and people a with their house. (Which is a little materialistic.) 
               Another side of this identity/education joining is that she believes that her house, her identity will be quiet and that it will be "Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." (108). this means that she feels that it is important to have identity. Without identity, we would not be able to acknowledged our selves as different and unique because we would have no identifying qualities. 
                  Lastly, the beliefs of identity show up also in how she thinks that she has to live up to a standard. However, during the vignette Red Clowns, she says "All the books and magazines, everything that told it wrong" (100) This shows how she believes, or rather that society believes that she should be a certain way and that the standards of being "beautiful" is higher than those that she is at right now.
               In conclusion, i think that she will come back and change this community of her life. She will do this through education, and by education, finding and identifying herself.

THOMS What Would Cisneros do....?

            In the book The house on mango street the author Sandra Cisneros expresses her feelings about the gender inequality in Chicago. The main character, esperanza, travels through the story experiencing these inequalities and dissimilarities. It is clear that she notices these dissimilarities, but what is she to do about it? Does she feel that these inequalities are need? Or rather, that the walls dividing genders should be torn down? From the examples in the book, we can see that she feels that these dissimilarities are supposed to be eradicated and torn down.

            Esperanza lives the life that the author gives to her because she is a character and that’s what they do. Because of the obvious fact, Cisneros can "live" the life in her character. Therefore, she can give the character situations that either support her or dismay her own beliefs. 

           Cisneros derives the facts about gender inequality from her own beliefs. Sandra believes that genders are unequal but should still be treated the same. As we can see, Sandra Cisneros believes that are girls are girls (and boys are boys) and should be acknowledged differently but treated the same. "Nenny says she won’t wait her whole life for a husband to come and get her." (88). Sandra Cisneros implies that girls should be girls, but still holding that independence. They should still have a chance to be a "women" but still feel that they are independent and do not let their male counter parts take all the power. Power can be easily occupied by one gender, as males predominately do this. Women are assertive when it comes down to it, but because of the social advantage men have, they "have more power."

           Cisneros knows that girls are held to a higher standard than boys. Because of this difference, she believes that women and men should have the same level of standard and not have these dissimilarities. As we can see here, Cisneros talks about how she thinks that the standard of society are wrong. “All the books and magazines, everything that told it wrong.” (100) Here, we can see that esperanza realizes that all the things that told her how to be, all the internalized sexism, was a lie. She knows that this is not the way it should be, but because of society, cannot do anything about it.

             Through seeing Cisneros's view on the type of sexism, i would agree with her that there should be something done about the inequalities and dissimilarities of genders.

Survival of The Determined

Table of Contents:
1) First day of school
2) Papi
3) childhood memories ronovated
4)The cuoius case of the panda
5) Vitamin A
6) the day the panda came home
7) boxes and bins
8) the incurable disease

 
First Day of School:

Firsts. First steps. First words. First day of school. I felt afraid and alone in the world, walking up those wide and steep steps that seemed to travel along forever. The entry way seemed as if it were going to swallow me up and not let me out. I walked into the mouth of education, leaving that familiar and comforting place,  my mom for the first time in my life. What would happen in that room with the colored square rug on the floor, the book lined shelves, the smell of Elmer’s glue and paint, the little kitchen in the back of the room and the coolest place of all, the top of a ladder that led to a loft full of toys? Who were the other kids in the room? Did they love Woody and Buzz as much as I did? Did they leave their Lego fantasies at home? Were they scared too?

My last day was over, however I had overcome my nervousness with excitement. I walked out, the first one out, and paused in the door way. I looked out at a sea of parents and cameras; bursts of light from every which way trying to capture this moment, the moment I became a student, memorialized on HP photo printer paper and .jpeg files forever. I felt like a move star, looking over my fans, with the paparazzi-parents digitally obsessed with marking every moment of our lives.

In the midst of all this excitement and rush, i saw my mom, with the camera in hand and taking as many pictures as possible to record my first day. Seeing her reassured me that i would not be in danger, but on the contrary, even safer than before.  

Papi:
Come on Cristian, hurry, there’s a neat little smell over by that tree.
PAPI! HOLD ON!
No, come on hurry! Oh great, you found something you liked, no your going to take ten minutes trying to decide if you should examine it more thoroughly.
Come Pops, come sniff over here.
Ughh what does he want now? Fine, since i am walking you, i guess we can go were you would like to go.
Why are you looking at me like that Pops? Is there something wrong?
OK, are you done? OK, great, lets go over here now.
These are normal, everyday walks with Papi, our sheltie. He is constantly looking at us with those expressions of confusion, where he dose not understand where we are going.
He can be funny also, the way he thinks he is leading the walk. He believes that he can control where we go, where in realty, we, the walkers do. He dose not understand where his power ends and where ours begin.

Childhood Memories Renovated:

We started to renovate the house, making it more modern and stylish. The old laminate kitchen was replaced with proud glossy granite. The old, dusty carpet was replaced with a cold, but modern bamboo installation.

The old kitchen pocket-door is now gone and in its place is a wide entrance way into the kitchen. Stuffed in the wall with the pocket door we found artifacts from our past when the contractor knocked it down: an old DS stylus, Yughio cards, a stencil and various pencils/pens. Like making a true archaeological discovery, we celebrated every find and oohed and ahhed at the memories they provoked. On the actual pocket-door was another memento of our younger childhood, like the early-humankind cave paintings of France, there was the pictorial evidence that two little boys had been there. Squiggly lines and happy faces drawn to pre-school perfection. Memories.


The Curious Case of The Panda:

“Hahahahahahahahahahahaha” Said the giraffe.
“Shhhhhh,” said a random stranger, “he’s sleeping.”
“Does it look like I care? Why should I be quiet just because he has some stupid problem?”, as the giraffe points a hoof at Aaron, my younger brother.
“She has a point, why should any of us care what happens to him?”, says another.
Whaaaat? Who…said……who said…..that? POUND POUND POUND. AHHHHHHHH! Aaron screamed for his head to stop pounding.
“Look, now he is awake. Just be quiet.”
AHHHHHHHHH MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT…stop…
“Hahahahahahah”, says the baby giraffe, “you will never make it out of this hospital. You’ll be stuck in here forever!”
but...~
“but nothing. the pain is just a sheer reminder of how humans can get.”
AHHHHHH MAKE THEM GO AWAY!...AWAY....away....tell them to leave me alone... and that is what we did, we told them, all the “people” and “giraffes” to go away and they did. All but one stayed. There...there is still one here...still one here... and Mom told him/her to shoosh and they left through the door.

Vitamin A
These hallucinations were the only two he ever had at his stay in the hospital. We told the “people” to go away and they did. Each hallucination walked out the door and each hallucination went away. The stuffed animal giraffes were covered by a blanket and then they stopped their talking.

Aaron has vitamin A poisoning. Only two percent of the whole world has this disease. The doctor told us that he may grow out of it when reaches the age of 30. Right now Aaron can still get severe headaches and dizziness. This can make it hard for him to stand up straight.

He suffers everyday from this autoimmune disease, but can hardly do anything about it. This is a constant struggle for Aaron to fight off the downside of taking his medicines; the uncontrollable tiredness and the inability to function correctly. Even though Aaron has this disease, he is able to enjoy life fully, which is summed up in this phrase, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.


The Day the Panda Came Home:

School was rough. It was hard for to concentrate in the middle of the school day. I found myself thinking about the last person that was there in Aaron’s hallucinations; the last being. Who was that? I did not know. What would they be like if they were real? Would they be friendly?
It was hard to focus and really put time into my schooling. My grades slipped twice, but I was able to bring them back up. I used to come home sad and depressed. I went to bed and starred at the empty bed next to me, cold and well kept. The house seemed to have lost energy to stand up correctly, and thus everything felt cramped.

Then, one day, he came home. He came home because the doctors said he did not need the vicadin anymore and that his vitamin A was at least 90, which was a big drop from the 120. I remember, going up stairs into our room to change, and instead of seeing an empty bed, I saw it filled, for the first time in 4 months. Filled with a broken boy. All his stuffed animals surrounded him and protected him, the way we did in the hospital.

I went over and I felt so happy to see him. The intravenous tubes he had going into him had disappeared; In the same way my sadness was now replaced with happiness.


Boxes and bins.

We were living in boxes and bins for all the months my brother was in the hospital and for the rest of my middle school experience. The one thing about this lifestyle is that it is so hard to get to things. You practically need everything from every bin, so you need to have every bin on top of every pile, but that does not work. So we prioritize what bins should be on top and which on bottom.

All the medical bins on top were prioritized first. Secondly we prioritized all the paper bins. These bins included bills and schedules for up coming events. After the bins containing important papers were prioritized, then came the bins and boxes that were full of blankets and old clothes. Last but not least, we had the book bins. These were at the bottom because they are the heaviest and are good bins for the base of the piles.

The lives of people are not meant to be living in boxes and bins. Lives of people are meant to be shared through an open world, where everything is out in the open and free. We are not meant to live enclosed. ...in boxes and bins.

The incurable disease.

Life is a cruel and unforgiving game that does not give you hints or pointers. When you go out into the wild and get bitten by an animal life can seem just terrible. When you play the game of life, the bites that you receive can cost more than stitches needed to repair the bite wounds.

It’s so unfair having to sacrifice. All the lights and sun were blotted out because Aaron could not be in the light. My mom, stayed with him the whole time. It was depressing in that room, like the depression followed us home from the hospital.

The last part of eighth grade was hell. God does things for reasons we cannot explain. I don’t understand and I wish I did. If I knew that, I could explain global warming, or why we still have not found a cure for cancer. I do not understand why people go starving every day and yet people can spend billions of dollars on birthday parties.

My mom is that last person that should get sick. Ever. She is a trooper among troopers.
My mom has an autoimmune disease.

She has Reynards, lupus, and vasculitis. I see her pain and her suffering. She struggles with everyday living, unable to correctly function. She knows that she cannot do things, yet she does them anyways. She cannot cook or clean or even take us to school in the mornings, yet she does all those things and more. I appreciate what she does for us. I have no words to describe what I feel.

However, she is able to produce unconditional love for us every day. My mom is the most sportively validating human being on the planet. She can look at you and by your expression, tell what is wrong. That’s real ESP. She is the real superwoman of today, helping people despite her own condition; fighting to help others when she can barley help her self.

I leave to you this thought of sadness and depression; of my mom so terribly sick. She could catch a cold and die, and my brother could have a seizure and go into a coma and die. We have been manipulated by life, and now it is our turn to manipulate life, and live our own happy life. We all have our stories to tell, and we all have our memories. We use these memories as tools to discover ourselves and to define ourselves as well. We use the past to shape our future and the hope for the future to shape our present.

the house on mango street: pink and red

the colors, pink and red play a significant role in the novella, the house on mango street.pink and red in this book, means that there is hope and carfulness in the air. they use this idea of hop when there are things that need hope, like when she is raped or when she wears these shoes and the bum wants a kiss from her.

In the vignette titled, red clowns, red is used to show hopefulness towards the clown from the rape that she is enduring rite now. :I waited by the red clowns...the red clowns, laughing their thicked tongue laugh."Pages 46-48. She looks up to these clowns for forgiveness and for help. this is hop in a fashion.

Another place where we notice a connection to red is on Page 4. "Its small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you would think they were holding their breath." Page 4. Here we can see that Esparanza uses  the color red to represent small, like the way this house appears to be. She feels that red and pink are colors that should be used this way, to describe insignificant things.

My last quote belongs to the time were she was compare her self to Sire's girlfriend. she writes how they were both next to each other and she noticed that sire's girlfriend had pink toe nails. "And once when she was standing next to me in front of Mr Benny's grocery she was barfoot, and i saw he barefoot baby toe nails all painted pale pale pink, like little pink sea shells, and she smells pink like babies do." Page 73. Here, we can see that she likes this color and how she almost wishes that her own toe nails were as "awesome" as Sire's Girlfriend.

Throughout these vinettes, we have seen the importance of red and pink and how they represent the hopefulness of the women in the latin cultue. this is al so true in the asian culture, as we have seen in the book. The way she wants these colors to mean represnt a hopeful and almost meek esperanza.

these specific vignettes all have to do with windows. this may be a bit silly, but the importance of these holes-in-the-wall are are not taken with such little notice. In fact, the window is actually a door or an entrance into something else. Windows are so undertaken in our daily life. However, the basic importance of a window is to let us see the outside world, to protected by knowledge, and to be a vision of sorts of a possible reality. this reality is the way we as people dream and wonder, the window is just the tool we sometimes use to do this.

in the book The House on Mango Street, the way windows are shown is eaxctly this. in this passage, Esparanza explains how her great grandmother was forced to marry her husband. "she looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their saddness on thier elbow." pg 11. She explains that most woman have bad things that happen to them. therefore, the window helps them feel a better sense of self by letting them see the world that they live in.

 in another qoute, Sandra Cisneros says this, "she sits all day by the radio, listening to the spanish radio and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull." pg 77. Again we can see that she has a need, a dream, to accomplish, just like the great grandmother. they both feel that they are here, on this planet, for a sense of purpose. she writes that she can only be happy in her own dreams. Both of these woman dream like this, how they need to serve and live for a greater purpose.

this last qoute on pages 82 and 83 basically summarize what i have been trying to say. "and if you opened the little window latch and gave it a shove, the windows swing open, all the sky would come in." i like this quote alot because it is the whole meaning of dreaming. to let something, and awesome idea or image of something that could be, which is mysterious, just like the sky.

The Color Purple

The novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker is an epistolary novel that depicts a life of a girl/woman named Celie. Celie takes us through her the many hardships of her life in a series of letters to God and to her sister Nettie. It is through these letters that the many hardships of her life that have left her silent, unaware of herself and in a submissive and abusive relationship with her husband come to life. While Celie was uneducated and unaware, Nettie was educated and had a great sense of herself. Yet, their experiences and observations of sexism were similar.  

            In this epistolary novel, the gender dynamics show and favor those views of the men. Men are constantly abusing their female counter parts for power, control and raw meanness. Even fathers abuse daughters as we see here were Celie gets raped by her father; “He (father) never had a kine word to say to me. Just say You gonna do what your mammy wouldn’t…When then hurt, I cry. He start to choke me saying You better shut up and git used to it.” Pg. 1. This culture of the men being overpowering to their female counter parts is still dominant in our society. Women are always being treated unfairly, all the time; sexually, mentally and even through the income they are given. Many women are not equals in man’s mind; instead, they are slaves or maids that are used to let go all of the “power” men think they have over women. In this quote above, the father abuses Celie, making her feel less and less like daughter, but instead as a slave to power abuse.

            Because of this abuse of all the men in her life, Celie has become less and less confident in her self. Because of this way, she feels that men are scary creatures. Because of this feeling towards men, Celie grows to develop feelings toward women. Here, we see how her father tries to break Celie by saying that she winked at a boy in church. “He beat me today cause he say I winked at a boy in church…I didn’t wink. I don’t even look at mens. That’s the truth. I look at women, tho, cause im not scared of them.” Pg. 5. Women offer Celie a real chance for validation and security that men can not offer.* Validation is the key to having a good relationship. Validation is when someone is truly with you at that moment, validating you as they talk. This is how Celie wants to live. However, because of her place in society, being black and a women, she is stuck in hole that she can not get out of.

            Nettie is very strong and sturdy when it comes to the gender inequality in her life. She acts as a protector of Celie from Mr.______ and their father in many of the letter entries of this book. She also has a better understanding of how and where her place is in this world, other than Celie who can not seem to bring herself up to finding self identity. Nettie realizes that women aren’t treated with the same respect men are given in the Village of Olinka. “The Olinka do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this, she said: A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something. What can she become? I asked. Why, she said, the mother of his children. But I am not the mother of anybody’s children, I said, and I am something. You are not much, she said. The missionary’s drudge.” Pg. 155-156. To the Olinka, the women are to pay respect to their men and to listen to them fully. However, Nettie does not believe this and refuses to given to the oppression of the males in her community.  Both Celie and Nettie have the same experience, where they both see the inequality. But Nettie is educated, which gives her the advantage in the world, where she can see and understand how to fix it.

            Unlike Celie, Nettie has a lesser fear of men. (the fear is still there, do not get me wrong, but it is lesser than Celie’s.) Nettie actually ends marry this fellow missionary from Africa named Samuel. "We love each other dearly, Samuel told them, with his arm around me. We intend to marry."Pg. 238. Nettie is not afraid of men, as we can see here. She even ends up marrying one. Nettie and Celie may the same experiences regarding gender inequality, but they sure do not have the same effect of these experiences. It all boils down to the fact that Nettie is educated and Celie is not.

We can see in this book, The Color Purple, that the main theme is inequality of genders. Celie and Nettie both have the same experiences that effected their lives, but Celie was more effected because it happened to her for a longer time period. Celie is given no chance to rebel against the system because oh her status in life. Nettie is a stronger figure that fights the oppression by becoming educated. They both see the importance of education, but Celie can not act upon it, even though Nettie can. They can both see the inequalities of the gender system, but they both can not act upon it because of their gender. Even though they have major differences, they are still sisters that love each other for they are. They love each and will support each other through anything. 

*this whole paragraph seems like I am saying that being gay is unnatural. That’s not what I mean, I mean that Celie is affected by this and she can have that as a contributing factor as to why she like women better than males. However, she could just be lesbian just because; the same reason someone is “straight.”  

Wikileaks is designed to spread or "leak" censored information to the people about the government. There purpose is to benefit society by doing this, not harm it. Even when some people believe that this is something that is meant to harm society. All wikileaks is doing is exposing the government of what it trully is instead it "claims" to be. Our government does things in our nations name that we might not be proud of. So, if we do not know what "we" are doing, then how can "we" say "we the people"? In other words, how can we have a democracy, when our government cant be true to us? A democracy defined by dictionary.com is this:

"Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system."

"Government by the people"..... If our government is hiding something, then its not "by the people" and thus not a democracy. This is all wikileaks is tying to do.

Here are some positive things that came out of wiki leaks:

In Tunisia, the President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, has been ruling Tunisia with an "iron fist" claims New York Times and The Atlantic.  However the news of this has been sort of shut off to the rest of the world, if i read this correctly, and that, since wikileaks leaked this, the President was driven out to exile. This is, of course is a good thing because he was basically a dictator and censorship-leader.

There has been a huge massive leak regarding papers of the war in Iraq stating first had accounts and secret things about the starting the war. This can be found the actuall wikileaks website here.

Elite colleges VS non-elite colleges

I believe that, out of the seven debaters on this website, "Skip the admissions game" is the most persuasive one. I chose this one because they said examples of what they meant and had both sides of the argument, if i recall. Also, he defined what an elite college is; not many of the debaters did that. All of these things help me determine whether or not i should believe this article. Between all these things above, I think that the most persuasive one was the definition of an elite college. This really made believe what he was saying because he actually had the thought process. In anthropology, antroplogists should always site where they come from that can some how have a negative effect on the outcome of what ever they are doing. Like lets say if a white male was looking at the communication between black females. He would have to put that he is a white male and that he mite bring that to his studies with out knowing it.

Out of the seven again, the least persuasive was the "merit and race". I think the major down fall is the major vocabulary of this article. Now, going from what i sid above, I am a freshman that hasn't really expanded my diction to a level of a collegiate standard (however, thats why we have 3 higher grades above freshman). However, once i decipher the complex language, i still have some trouble with what he is saying about minorities. Is he saying that minorities should go to prestiugues school to raise their life's quality? Or is he saying, as a minority, we should be liable to programs that help us. if he is saying the second, then he is racist. There are to many factors to look at to determine whether or not he is being racist, so i wont mention them. Anyways, with all this trouble we had with this article, i have determined that this is the least persuasive.

"The ignorance of people can sometimes be overwhelming. Sometimes it just hits me that we, humans, the animals that have an open consouis and can feel love are the same animals that can a drop a nuke and comit genocide on a people because religious sterotypes. We are the animals that can make industries like Pixar and the Red Cross, but yet, we can also judge someone based on thier skin color or have rich and poor. Well, I think we messed up, big time. I think it stared to go bad when we first elected the first tribal leader. Some say that we need a leader but i think that was our major and ultimate defeat. Egalitarian. That basically means in a crude and understated way equal. Thats how we all should of acted at the beginning. This would mean that we would hold each member in the tribe EQUALLY responsible for the saftey of the tribe and themselves, the maintanice of the tribe and self and the progression of the tribe and self. 

What would that look like today? well sort of like this: When we see a pot hole in the street, we fill it.When we see a root damaging the ashalut, we chop it. When we mistakingly given someone a penny for change, even though it should have been a dime, we switch it. It may not seem like it, but this is revolutinary. It's silly to thinink that a change mis calculation can lead to genocide, but it can. Thats when we, as humans start to get lazy."....

so this is sort of what i was thinking writing for my peace essay. After i talk about laziness, i'll go a start to talk about obtaining peace today and then ill re-state my maintance thing, add a couple of quotes here and there, and yeah. 

 so please, comment and comment all u want. I think thats a wonderful way of learning, through constructive criticism. 

Some things really important to stay out of: a)drugs b)materalism (or for some who are, to keep as low as possible) and c) drama. And, as far as darma at ASTI goes, Mercedes sums it up pretty good:

This is some pretty decent advice. Ok, I lied, this is damn good advice. Seriously fellow ASTIans, we need to cut ourselves off the drug that is drama. All it does is screw us all up mentally. I know how tempting it is to say horrible things about someone because they were cruel to you (as I always say, your peers are more cruel to you than anyone else), but it would be advisable to not take the bait. What is that thing they always said to us when we were little? It was something like... don’t react? 

 I think that drama is something that comes naturally to teenagers....or does it? Maybe it something embedied in our society that drives teens. Whatever it may be, it should be something we both embrace and shun. I agree with Mercedes and how she says that is side tracks us A LOT. In fact, sometimes whole entire days are cast into a bloom when some one disses others hair style. So when that happens, I must admit, it gets a little out of hand. However, it is important to see the positive side of drama (if there is any). So.......ah, it helps us defuse our ticking emotional bomb inside us all. Well....I guess thats why we have blogs. Well......how bout..... with out drama our lives would be boring? But, I fail to see the postiveness in that.
     So, I guess my "studies" show that drama is bad. You were right, Mercedes, like always. Happy holidays to you and to every one. I say holidays because not every one is catholic. Yeah, I dont think ill be blogging for a while, or maybe i will.... we'll see. good night sleepy world. Happy Holidays.

The curious incident of the dog in the night time final review

     In this last lit circle discussion, our group talked about many different things relating to Christopher's autism. However, in this blog, I am going to write about the actual mechanics of our discussion. We had every one pitch in this time, instead of only one or two members dominating the conversation. It was nice to have others input on this book. Some others brought up good points that would have never come up in my mind.

     I think that group activities such as these are a wonderful way to learn and to calibrate. We use this discussion time to talk about how far we got in the book. Also, we learn from each other like when some one says something that you might think is interesting, you could ponder and question it.

     The other thing i really enjoy about is that we can then write on out blogs about our discussions we had in class. This really helps me organize my thoughts and ideas on and into a "journal" per say. 

     The curious incident of the dog in the night time is a book about an autistic child named Christopher who is 15. The author, Mark haddon, is an amazing author who writes in such away that it makes feel like you are really in the head of Christopher. What i like about is that it shows an every day world through the eyes of an autistic kid. And, with that, i have come to realize that we all have little things we do to keep our selves calm or relaxed. Like the habit of your leg bobbing up and doing really fast or how we sometimes find our self counting steps or twiddling your thumbs. The only differences is that he takes to an extent that is to far sometimes, like he wont talk for weeks just because he saw three yellow cars in arrow. I can sort of understand why he does this but it can crazy sometimes. 

     

The curious incident of the dog in the night time response post 2!!!!!

In our class discussion on the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, some major, key points were brought up about the way Christopher reacts to certain colors, emotions, and to physical contact.

One of the points brought up was how Chris reacts towards the two colors, yellow and brown. One of his reasons for disliking these colors was because bananas turn from yellow to brown. Everyone in the discussion agreed that there must be a connection there, but it was hard to tell. I believe that this banana thing has to do with the fact that it turns different colors, something that seems illogical. And especially from yellow, a bright color, to brown, a darker color. It seems that he also has problems with these colors because maybe his mom was wearing these colors the day she left him and the father.However, he recognizes how it is silly that he hates these colors. So that brought up the question of whether or not kids who have autism know that they do?

Another point that we brought up was how he reacts to emotion. The dad becomes very cross with Christopher because he continues to investigate and study the case of Wellington's murder. Soon after, Chris's dad reviles that he is the killer. We talked about how the dad feels guilty about bring Christopher into the world autistic, and how he wants to repair the damage between him and his wife and between him and Christopher.

The last point we brought up was how Christopher dislikes physical contact between himself and others and between food items. Chris hits the dad on accident when the dad touches his shoulder.  We said that he felt scared and worried about what his father might do to him.The other thing he hates is when food touches each other. Again, we are not sure why he is like this.

The curious incident of the dog in the night time

     The book The curious incident of the dog in the night time by Mark Haddon is a wonderful book written in the perspective of an autistic child. In our class discussion, one key point that was brought up was the symbol of the dog. We came up with and idea that dogs live and lead simple lives, nothing changes. This is the same pattern we see in Christopher and his simple life. He dose not really try new things that stray away from his normal routine. This can also be represented by his autism. His autistic side over whelms him, thus giving him social awkwardness.
     Another point that came out of this discussion was what were England's point on autism? We discussed how England and their view on autism, could have positively and negatively shaped Christopher's life. He goes to school in an environment that seems okay and stable, but I bet underneath, there is not a lot of money that is going into a project that help kids like him. His dad also seems guilty that he brought into the world an autistic kid, and treats Christopher with privilege. This also shows the community's response to autism.
     Another topic of the discussion was that when Christopher talks about how prime numbers are whats left when you take all the others, i believe that he was talking about himself and everybody else like him. If you take away the rest of the world, then you get the prime numbers. He dose not like people, or actually dose not understand them. When you do not understand something, most of the time, you do not like it either. So, if you were to take away all the people in the world, accept autistic people, then thats the world Christopher would want to live in.    

Kite runner; the final look

This last section of the book was hard to read because their was so much emotion and intense scenes. I felt many times that i could not continue reading, especially during the parts where Amir and Assef had a confrontation, or when Sohrab try's to commit suicide. Those scenes are hard to read because you feel very uncomfortable reading those parts.
          I think it is very interesting how easy it was for Amir to amit his feelings so easily to Sohrab, a boy who he had only just met. However, my class mate brought up a good point about how Sohrab had a right to know the truth about his dad's relationship with Amir. His dad was Hassan, who actually ends up being related to Amir. This makes Sohrab Amirs half nephew. Also, i think Amir so easily confessed to Sohrab about his problems because he was a stranger, more or less, and will not immediately judge. I believe that this has something to do with it.
          Another thing i noticed was that Amir looks up to Soraya. I dont remember if there is a direct qoute from the book about this, so if there is, then I am sorry that I took this idea. Amir wants to be as rebelious and "free" as Soraya, his wife. There are many examples of her expressing her freedom, like when she runs away with the other Afghani man. However, she is blocked to express her freedom fully because she is a women. Thus, she shuned and spat upon by others. For example, people wont stop talking about her running off and she gets really annoyed by this. We see how badly women are treated when the women and man are stoned to death because she and him where having an affair. Amir can express his freedom fully because he is a male and is thus given privileges not given to females. However, he is held back by the memory of Hassan, as a friend and as a constant victim. Amir is constantly being reminded of Hassan all the way to the end of the novel, the last page even, when he sees Hassan in Sohrab and in himself as the Kite runner.