Blog 121214

i chose the passage at the end of night when elie sees himself in a mirror

1. it made me feel almost empty inside and sad and i chose it because of that
2. it is primarily the loss of innocence but really you can link anything to anything if you try hard enough so
3. at the end of the road when the man dies, he is kind of the same, hes sickened and weak and a shell of who he used to be, but he had lost his innocence long ago
4. "from the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me."

120314

i liked the book but i wouldnt read it again i dunno all i really noticed was that everyone said it was super sad like so sad like i told my mom that we were reading it to get the permission slip signed which i did get signed but then forgo t at home and when you asked for the permission slips i didnt have it except you didnt ask for it which was a relief oh yeah so i told her and she was like its the saddest thing ever but when we were watching it it wasnt sad? it just wasnt like something i would remember as sad it was just direct and dark but sad and dark arent the same thing and its weird everyone equates darkness and sadness i guess its because dark means lonely for some people but the book wasnt lonely? the kid was never really alone once his dad died a different family took him in i dunno i just expected it to end differently like the boy dies slowly in the mans arms and then the man shoots himself and it goes dark but it didnt it ended on a high note anyway which is just really odd like i just expected more out of it not to say it wasnt a lot i just expected different stuff mostly i mean im pretty much done here but im going to keep typing what im thinkin g about sorta ill filter some stuff i guess but all im noticing is its weird breathing in here it smells kinda weird and my nose is stuffy and this is a different chair than im used to someone just pulled thedoorknob and she put her fingers to her temples when she started talking to you thats a bad sign and shes a senior so i assume shes in creative writing and didnt get a chance to finish somehting i wonder what class shes in this period i also noticed that you play really weird classical music its just its not weird weird its just not anything ive heard before but it all sounds the same anyway i dont like classical music much like harry can play claire de lune and that makes it beautiful i like classical music when harrys playing it i guess but this is kinda boring and repetitive and sounds fake i dont know why oop out of time sorry

Blog 111814

word bank: "the child led him by the hand" "beast" "black" "ancient" "dead white and sightless" "eggs of spiders" "as if to take the scent of what it could not see" "pale and naked and translucent" "beating heart" "low moan" "turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark"

the poem is expressing that the creatures suffering most are those who are misunderstood by humans as inherently evil, like this creature. the child "led him by the hand" so the child knew that this creature was safe and was confident in taking it. The creature must have been safe with the child before. The tone of the poem is trying to convey what the average adult would think if it saw the creature, as in "beast" "black" "ancient" "eggs of spiders" - these phrases all convey situations we fear, things in the dark, things unknown, things known but that have yet to happen, but throughout the poem, all the creature does is act in fear for itself. It looks toward the light, but the words "dead white and sightless" show that the creature is actually blind and can't see without its nose (ex. "as if to take the scent of what it could not see". Beyond this, we see that the creature is actually very vulnerable. It is "pale and naked and translucent", so its skin can't be very thick and it is susceptible to most forms of attack. Its beating heart is visible as in the lines that the shadow show "its bowels, its beating heart, the brain that pulsed in a dull glass bell". The creature cannot protect itself. It has hidden in this cave for a long time. it releases a "low moan" possibly at pain from the light it doesnt normally experience, and it "turned and lurched away and loped soundlessly into the dark" as a final show of the creatures innocence and wish for peace, instead of attacking or being defensive, it simply flees without trying to be agressive toward the intruders. The creature is alone and unprotected, but the poem shows that as people we are supposed to fear it because of our own assumptions about appearance. The creature means no harm because it wants no harm done to itself.

Blog 111414

part 1:
there was a lot of stuff about prophets to fulfill her want to be special that was really the thing that had the most of an impact on me and the veil kind of began the end of her dreams of being a prophet and that powerful panel where she wrote "god didnt come that night" and how she had been talking to god and he seemed dissapointed when she said she wanted to be a doctor or lawyer and then he was a loving father again when she confirmed she would do it but in secret and it seems like she felt like god would only love her if she did what she was told and it wasnt like a fatherly love but like the love of someone who loves what you can do and not you yourself so that seems like it could mess her up honestly but in general false prophets probably dont feel that great as a guess i dont really know though ive never met a false prophet. my assumption is that they just want to be happy but thats my assumption of everyone. reminds me of a song called jerusalem about a guy who thinks hes the messiah but thats really different from this book. good song nonetheless. this is really off topic jeez wow ok you just said dont even take time to think just type and theres thirty seconds left and something about sports i didnt quite understand and the taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap of the keyboards is kinda weird and all the fingers look like a looping gif this has nothing to do with persepolis anymore oops.

part 2:
the book seemed really short and kind of hard to tell what was in each frame because it was only black and white and the voice of the writer was a little weird but im used to reading graphic novels so maybe i just read it fast but im not used to reading black and white only especially in this confusing style so it gave me headaches sometimes and it was hard to read because it did that but i guess the book was okay i dont really know that well because we have to keep typing and im out of ideas all im noticing is stuff around the room like mr cheng your water is moving around in the cup right now and im thirsty but the water in this building is really gross like really really gross and i still dont understand the posters on the walls in here, like they seem like imitation movie posters but i wish i knew what the project was for because ok i didnt think this sentence through i dont have a reason im just curious but curiousity killed the cat i guess now im thinking about morocco for some reason and im hungry and baklava moroccan style is my favorite food so now my mouth is kind of watering i love baklava it tastes like how sunshine feels on your skin and its warm but kinda sticky on your hands and its so nice to bite into and it kinda falls apart but thats okay because then you have leftover bits to wipe up and lick off your fingers and the first time i ate baklava was at disney and that night before the park closed i went back to get more and they gave me the whole tray for free because they were going to throw it out for the night anyway and make more in the morning and it was so good and i got all the extra syrup and the taste is almost all in the syrup i feel like a lot of the time there isnt enough syrup but im not one to criticize i like it too much to be picky about it its a shame its so hard to get and its kinda expensive btu for hannukah i asked for a ton of baklava and thats coming up soon so im excited about that...... times up okay

part 3:
Faith and hope are intrinsically linked, and in a situation where hope is forced down, faith will fall apart and something new must happen to bring back faith and therefore hope.

TWIST

-Tone/Mood
-Word Choice ((metaphors, similes, connotation, personification))
-Imagery ((senses, especially sound))
-Style ((punctuation, syntax, etc))
-Theme

"There was the experience of feeling death without dying that came from watching a chicken leap about blindly after its neck had been snapped by a quick twist of my father's wrist"

T- monotonous, but the mood is dark from the subject matter
W- He seems to define Death and Dying really differently, instead of a verb form of a noun and the noun itself like its commonly seen
I- "quick twist of my fathers wrist" and "leap about blindly" are strong action based phrases to put the images of a chicken's wrung head and the following hysteria
S- One sentence, sort of long, with no breaks or commas
T- Dying causes immense pain, but also death seems to be numbed
((Richard's mother is Dying but not dead and is hurting but not numb, the chicken was not dying until it was Dead))

Black Boy Themes

Education amidst ignorance can push youth away from their religious families because as they come of age they realize it might not be as clear cut as their families believe

Authority figures' "justice" being too intense against children wont be fought until a child is educated and begins to question it

topics that stood out, class wise: authority figures, education, youth, isolation, ignorance, hunger

my most vivid childhood memories

when i was in the second grade i remember i told some girl who we played with on the playground that I needed to talk to my friend eliana (i believe we had a falling out we needed to go over or something, i was really dramatic and i really dont remember the circumstances) and that the two of us wouldnt be able to play that day. She got really upset about it and told the teachers that i had "made a schedule of when she could play with her friends". I got pulled out of prayer (which means you REALLY messed up, they never pull you out of prayer) and they sat me down on these couches in an L shape, and i sat on the inner part of one. Two teachers sat on either side, and they asked me if I knew what I had done to get there, and I said no because 1. i didnt realize that specific thing was wrong, especially since i didnt do it and 2. i did a lot of things wrong as a kid, so i wouldnt have been sure which they had been ready to yell at me about. They started yelling at me back and forth and all I remember was just crying and they yelled at me for crying (which is kind of counterproductive).

A- allusion (reference to other piece of media), Alliteration (use of same beginning letters), analogy (relationship), antithesis,
B-
C- Connotation (societal meaning of a word)
D- Denotation (Literal meaning of a word)
E-
F- Flashback (Someone seeing into their own past), foreshadowing (something early in the text alluding to the end of the text)
G-
H- haiku
I- imagery (describing something well enough to invoke a mental image), irony,
J-
K-
L-
M- Metaphor (comparison not using like or as), motif (repeating idea), mood
N-
O- Onomatapeia (sounds being written), Oxymoron (contradiction)
P- Personification (giving an object humanlike qualities), paradox
Q-
R- Repetition (repeating a single phrase throughout or theme), rhyme, rhyme scheme
S- Simile (comparison using like or as), stanza (paragraph poem), satire, sarcasm, symbol, suspense, syntax (sentence construction), static character (vs dynamic character)
T- tone
U-
V-
W-
X-
Y-
Z-

Blog 102214

My goal for the next 30 minutes is to find two new passion project sources with good statistics i can use

Specific: passion project sources

measureable: two sources

action-oriented: find

realistic: 2 is enough but not too many

tangible: two sources



my goal for the end of this week is to finish the outline first draft. I am maybe 70% of the way to that, and i just need to set aside some time outside class to finish that off.

Blog 101514

the boy in the striped pajamas and night are similar thematically in that they both seem to be about innocence (and indirectly, hope), thematically. in both situations, their innocence is taken nearly instantly by a single event. In night, this is his father being slapped. In striped pajamas, this is his getting into the camp and seeing the conditions. their hope is different but related. Bruno seems to keep his hope all the way through the movie, saying "we'll stay here until the rain stops" and such, and his hope is cut off not by himself but by his untimely end. In night, the hope seems to last longer, though small and dwindling, it lasts long after the loss of his innocence, ending when his father passed. His hope was rekindled after the war, but after the end of the book as well. Being an advocate for many causes as he is means that you can see a bright future for those you stand for, but at the end of the book, seeing himself as a corpse likely meant that he had still not gained back his spark.

Blog 100614

The main similarities i noticed between these two stories were that people who were normal could be pushed to the edge of sanity, whether from mental illness or something else, and there was a lot of substance abuse in both of these. This may reflect how much help we're giving those who need it, because Rachel may have needed more than she got from everyone in regards to her mother, and Charlie definitely needed to have some more understanding friends (I know his friends were portrayed as the only good thing in that movie, but they didn't seem to grasp that he needed help and patience). Our society kind of pushes people to the edge as is, from school or work, or capitalism in general, but when you put mental illness or substance abuse or both in the mix, things can go very wrong.

I am glad I have not yet gotten into substance abuse. It is a very real possibility for every teen and it is very dangerous. I have experienced a fair share of mental illness, though not to the extent of either of these stories. They haven't made me "come of age", or if they have I won't be able to see it until it's behind me, I guess.

Blog 092614

I have been asked “what are you” but its never really a welcome question. The context is typically on gender, as in “are you a girl or a boy?” “I’m neither” “ugh what ARE you thats not even possible just answer the question”. The question in any context is deeply disrespectful anyway. I think this question being asked out of the blue hypothetically for this assignment is meant to make us give our most unique feature, the thing we think defines us. If someone is white, they likely won’t think of race. If someone is a boy, they likely won’t think of gender, etc. The most privileged group won’t think of their privilege first. So my answer would be “I am non binary.” I think. 

This article was not really new information, but it went a lot deeper than what I knew already. I think society does not make people “pick a side” of race as much anymore. This is not to say it doesn’t, but I am saying the issue is slowing and will eventually stop happening. Rachel from “The Girl Who Fell From The Sky” is very definitely made to choose a side many times. Rachel has to choose to embrace her black side more for her grandmother, but the girls in her school label her as white. She also says that when she is with her black friends like Brick people say she is white, but when she is with Jessie people think she is black. She definitely seems to view herself as biracial. The entire article just reminded me of when Rachel asked Brick “what are you”.

I believe durrow would very much like the multiracial and biracial student association because of her general “own your history” philosophy. Her favorite answer to the question “What are you” is “I am a story. I bet you are too.” related to the suggested quote through the fact that instead of being specific or not-specific-enough her answer is vague and makes you think. It would also probably make whoever asked feel like she was avoiding the question though.

Blog 092414

In all honesty, I've never been much good at working with people. I can work pretty well with friends or people I know or have interacted with, but when it comes to working with strangers I act really shy and never ask the questions I need to ask and I get very anxious, so I didn't actually get much help from the conference. I usually work well with essays on my own, and the student had never read the books or talked to you about this project, so I had a better grasp on the situation than them. It may have been one of the most unhelpful attempts at essay writing I have ever had the unfortunate coincidence to be a part of. I think I would do much better if I were talking to someone who actually understood the project, or someone I knew. In the beginning I didn't really have any questions I needed answered, since I just hadn't thought much about the project to have questions, and if I had any they would not be something that student could have answered. There was not enough in my original prompt for it to be an "add or change", ill essentially build on the skeleton I built in the prompt. I may schedule an appointment with you on Friday with more written to see if that helps.

Blog 092514

Conventionally, beauty is a skinny girl with a big smile and plump lips, with smooth hair and a happy laugh when people push her around. American culture’s definition of beauty is one of the most harmful things i think i could imagine. It pushes that you can’t be too skinny or you’re anorexic, but you can’t be fat because then you’re obese. It pushes that if you’re black your skin needs to be lightened (if you don’t believe that one, look at some magazine covers before and after editing) and if you’re pale you need to be tanned. It pushes that if you wear too much clothing you’re prude but if you wear too little you’re a slut. American beauty is unachievable but it is expected of every woman and their worth is based on it.

Thinking about American beauty in its problematic nature has never been a hard question for me, likely because i have not been as subjected to it, as I am not a girl. I am not a boy either, but they probably get to think of it less than I do. Being a boy means you can ignore those things until you benefit. It means that they don’t think of beauty as something they must achieve but as something they are entitled to acquire. Women are led to believe that they must be beautiful to be loved.

My definition of beauty is less appearance-based (which sounds extremely fake, but it’s true). My definition of beauty is someone you can talk to and enjoy your time with, someone who makes you happy and seems happy. Someone who looks beautiful looks healthy and comfortable. I don’t know that I would consider myself beautiful, but maybe I’m getting there.

American beauty isn’t important. American beauty will never be important. It’s important that we get rid of American beauty.

The individuals’ opinion of beauty is very important, but its very important that we keep these achievable as well. This is not for others’ benefit of being percieved as beautiful. This is for their own benefit to see others as beautiful. To not see others as something to judge. Seeing beauty around you can make you really happy and not judging everyone who walks by can really take a weight off your shoulders. I’m trying my hardest to do this for my own happiness, and honestly I have already noticed a change in my attitude. When you let yourself percieve beauty as someone who is happy and not seeing someone unhappy as ugly, you’re just happier, you’re more upbeat, and you might seem more beautiful to others.

Creative Writing: Rachel's Voice

The model lady, Cameron Russel, talked about how being pretty means being white and skinny. Winning a genetic lottery. I think I won at least one genetic lottery, because I have blue eyes and good hair. She seemed to get it, she talked about how she was "priveleged" and it felt weird to be looking into all this stuff and talking about it. I think it was nice.

((sorry that was really short but she doesn't actually talk extensively about outside subjects in the book))

Related quote:

"But people look at me differently. I don't look just different or scary or undefineable: I look pretty. That pretty is what was Mor's: my eyes, now my straight hair. People act different around me too." (Page 97)

Final reflection:

I believe I was right in what I said before, but I didn't talk enough about certain parts. I didn't stress enough how conventional beauty is whiteness. Conventional beauty is straight hair and lighter skin and a voice people think is soft. Conventional beauty is just as white as you can get. I probably should have been thinking more about race when I wrote this, but I am priveleged enough that my first thought wouldn't be race, it would be something else, because being white means being able to ignore race because you're on top.

Blog 092314

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/columbia-mattress-student-draws-attention-anti-rape-movement-article-1.1948842

I believe this article caught my attention because it’s a very visual way to represent the way sexual assault and rape weighs on a person. To carry your mattress around must be a great burden, especially during the school day, moving from class to class, hour to hour, and this girl is extremely brave to do this, and she is amazingly courageous and selfless to do this for the other victims in her school as well. I have seen this in magazines recently, and in newspapers. This is the kind of publicity that sexual assault and rape need to gather, they need to get the nation educated and angry, because anger is what can empower change.

This, more personally, probably caught my attention because I know a lot of people who are victims of sexual assault and/or rape, and after showing them, many of them are excited about the publicity this is getting, they are glad that someone is finally getting close to showing those who haven’t experienced this kind of trauma what it’s like every day. I really hope this school makes the right decision and expels her and many others’ rapist, so she can go to her classes safely without being reminded of that terrible event by seeing him. If the school did, this would set a precedent for the future that rapists and sexual criminals will be expelled. If not, I’m sure the school would face some social consequences, because like I said, anger brings change.

This should not die down with the days the school doesn’t do anything, though. The longer this goes on, the less people will talk about it. The less these articles will be passed around. People will get bored, they’ll forget, they’ll think that its a big bummer to be seeing something this upsetting all the time and they’ll ignore it, but they don’t think about how these victims can’t just ignore it.

It’s in their face. It’s there every day. It’s there when they walk to school. It’s there when they go home and it’s dark and they hold their keys between their fingers, just in case. It’s there when they hear people use ‘rape’ as a synonym for beat or win against and no one says anything. It’s there when they can’t sleep in their bed anymore because it brings back memories. It’s there when you sit in class, when you go to get coffee, when you move, when you breathe. It’s there like a mattress over your shoulder.

But you can’t put it down.

Anger brings change. Maybe we need a little bit more anger, anyway.

Blog 091714

I have chosen the passage that is the last paragraph on page 111 that moves onto page 112

text to text: "Grandma is wearing a good dress with an apron. She wipes her hands on the inside of the apron pockets as she cooks." (111) this passage probably seems pretty obvious as a thing to link, but because im only linking it to one thing really strongly, I picked this one. For some reason this passage is reminding me of the scene in kiki's delivery service where they take the pot pie out of the oven. I think it's the word apron and the fact that cobbler is acknowledged later on in the passage, but I honestly don't know for sure.

text to world: "She wants me right up under her, watching how she does the cooking so I can feed my future husband a healthy meal." (112) This passage kind of, maybe without meaning it, really shows a deeply misogynistic society, and a heteronormative one at that. The woman will do the cooking because the man can't, the man has more important things to do. Cooking is woman's work, and being able to cook will help achieve a future husband. This also implies that the man won't be able to cook himself a healthy meal, since in today's society a lot of boys don't know how to do simple things like laundry or cooking because of how ingrained gender roles are in their lives. The heteronormativity is also strong here, as it's implying 1. Rachel will have a husband. 2. Rachel will be a romantic individual. 3. Rachel's future husband will also follow classic gender roles.

text to self: "She has made her spicy beans and a roast with gravy and real potatoes, not the ones that are flakes in a white box that says mashed potatoes" (111) This passage really reminds me of having eaten the flakes from the white box and i want to stress the fact that they do not taste much like potatoes at all, they're pretty gross. Or maybe the stuff I ate just wasn't made right.

Blog 091514

http://abcnews.go.com/US/slender-man-suspect-unfit-stand-trial-lawyer-argues/story?id=25506999

text to text: in government class last year we watched a video of a young boy who fatally stabbed a woman working in a store he was robbing, and the words incompetent really stick out to me here. I believe they were similar in age and both attempted homicide, one succeeding, and both instances are generally upsetting to the public (this is probably obvious since theyre both murders or attempts at murders....)

text to world: This kind of reminds me of jack the ripper (who was supposedly recently identified but youre going to have to assign another blog to get me to get into that one, theres too much to write), kind of because there was stabbing but i think mostly because they both involve horror story elements. Jack the Ripper has been a classic trope in serial horror for a long time, and slenderman was a really popular internet "creepypasta", and starred in a horror game of his own.

text to self: I have definitely not experienced anything like this, the closest connection I can make is that I've played the slenderman horror games and read some of the stories people come up with, but i cant grasp these two kids attempting murder to appease him...

Blog 091214

The article you had us read (the eleven part one) was actually really wrong on a lot of levels. I've been doing a lot of research into Ferguson since it started and here is an image of the notes I took while reading it:

so, I think you'll like this one since it may be a little bit opinionated. The article I picked was actually a video from Group A. It was John Oliver's satirical bit on ferguson, and I think that one hit me hardest. I am a deeply sarcastic person, and addressing things with sarcasm has always helped me to show others just how obscenely unnecessary some things are. He mostly focused on the unnecessary and untrained militarization of the ferguson police system, which is honestly something most people are forgetting. The main reason this conflict has gotten to the point it has are attempts to limit people's rights and intimidate them. Telling them they can't be out past dark, they can't film anything, they can't stand in empty roads unarmed and be black at the same time. These are bad enough in themselves, but intimidating people simultaneously with an enormous presence of tank-like vans, guns pointed at citizens, etc. is certainly not helping the situation. John didn't even touch on the police's tactics to disperse crowds, such as deafening them, blinding them, shooting at them. It seems a little unnecessary. I honestly think we need to have an entirely new system set in place in ferguson with accurate representation of its citizens and the citizens needs in mind.

Blog 090414

When we started thinking about the passion project I honestly had no idea. I am very passionate about many things, you could get me to easily type up ten pages on just about anything, from video games to the faults of capitalism but with this size project all that was left was "what do I not hate enough?". If I really liked something, I don't want to get sick of it by having to constantly think about it critically, after all, ignorance is bliss. Just enjoying the best parts of something is something I'm good at. I have to enjoy what I do this on though, right? Otherwise the entire project would be torture. So when settling into what could possibly fit this criteria, I went through some social issues as options, as I am pretty passionate about human rights, but I realized as well, I would have to do such extensive research I met get known for being that kid that never shuts up about womens' rights or ableism or something, which while I'm passionate for them, I don't want a reputation like that. In the end, while thinking about how much I deeply disliked this entire concept, I got into my commonly-thought-out hatred of the American school system. "This entire thing is so unnecessary! Wouldn't it be better to be learning to do taxes instead of math I won't use?" "Why not be taking specialized classes for the job I want instead of generalized classes I can't understand?" not to mention the ableism ingrained in public schools, the binarism, the hints of misogyny. I guess my best option for the passion project is just an outright refusal to entirely respect the project itself? I think it would be an interesting idea, to say the least. If this is confirmed as something I could do, I would spring for the concept. I think it would be a great project if I could find some of many issues in the american school system, and I could find plenty of material on it through searches into why some schools are failing, why students have decreased morale, why depression and anxiety rates are up, etc. etc.

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Blog 082714

Ch. 4 and Ch. 5

These chapters seem to mainly focus on leading by example, but kind of to the extreme, as in "My parents made sure that the white famimlies who didn't move would never have legitimate complaints about their black neighbors". They had to destroy stereotypes with their own behavior and always act perfect. I've always followed the idealistic paths of doing what you want with your appearance and your life because it shouldn't affect others, and that all humans deserve basic rights so the way you act shouldn't affect that, but unfortunately the masses of people who vote say otherwise. Opressed groups have to be better than their oppressors by an obscene amount to get half the rights that they get. Even when you are that good, many will see you as an "outlier". I think Michele's parents thought that acting the way that they did would change people's opinions, and maybe it did, but I don't think i would reccomend that lifestyle to anyone who doesn't enjoy it. Just living your life to the fullest should be enough to make someone accept you, because everyone deserves rights, but unfortunately that isn't the case. This would also make me think that the amount of work they put in amounted to nothing, but it likely didn't. I'm sure that they changed the views of the white people who stayed in the neighborhood by proving theyre humans and theyre wonderful people to be around. Maybe changing stereotypes takes time as a more important requirement than effort.