In class we began a documentary called Where to invade Next by Michael Moore. It focuses on the flaws of america's system of education and how workers are treated and what we could learn from other countries around the world.
Moore begins his journey by visiting italy where he looks at workings rights and realizes the all the things we don't have in america such as, paid holiday, long breaks and paid parental leave. Italy focuses more on the happiness of the everyday worker, with this outlook moral improves and so the production improves with it. Moore “steals” this idea and moves on to france where schools have proper lunches for the children that teaches them proper manners and healthy habits this is also “stolen”.Finland's education policy is truly foreign to ours. Homework is rare as well as standardized testing. They focus more on the children enjoying their childhood. Another idea was then “stolen” by Moore. Moore continues to travel around the world taking ideas the are strange to Americans but just part of everyday life in other countries. Whats even more shocking to him and maybe eve the viewer is how well all of these things work. I think America has not implemented many of these changes due to two things , fear of change and Greed. People fear what is different or new and i believe in America people worry that these drastic changes threaten our democracy when in reality they would strengthen it. My other theory would be greed, giving workers all of this time off , paid leave, better school lunches for children etc… would be costly. But rather than be concerned about the well-being of the people money dictates people’s actions rather than morals. Whats ironic though is that most of these strange ideas began here first.
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For my life choice memoir I chose to write about a struggle i had with my mother through my teenage years. My rhetorical mode would be narration as i chose to tell this story from my point of view, the genre would be memoir of course.i had a hard time deciding on what to write about for his project but when we were told we could write about very personal experiences this conflict i always had with my mother came to mind. My writing process i would say is very open ended i prefer to write things down in a journal over typing something up. To me it just has a more personal feel to it. Plus, carry my journal with me everywhere so if something comes to mind I can quickly jot something down and add to my story. I wrote my first draft throughout a week. I have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time so i would often get up and go for a walk or play some video games into working on it. Writing this wasn't s difficult for me mostly because i had all my thoughts written down ahead of time an it was only a matter of piecing things together from my notebook. Once i go back to do a second draft i definitely want to work on the sequencing of my events in my story while rereading it i noticed i jumped back and forth between different events so that's one thing ill work on. I also have a hard time with quotes. Overall i thing this was a good start with plenty of room for improvent.
Our latest reading called The Lottery by Shirley Jackson tells the story a town that has followed an old tradition for years despite not really knowing what its for. It questions whether it is right to follow a tradition just because it is done so by others. A huge tradition in America that i'm pretty sure everyone has participated in one way or another would be black Friday. Its become so widely practiced that its as big as thanksgiving itself. People line up early in the morning for discounts on an assortment of items supposedly for their Christmas shopping. Now wanting a discount on some things is fine but people take it too far every year. Trampling over each other and brawling over something as simple as a pillow has become the norm. People get seriously injured or even die over the latest toy for their kid but why. Why go through all this trouble?One would argue the savings, but nowadays people use amazon or some other form of online shopping. I feel like it could simply be a mob mentally , people love to be apart of something bigger or for the thrill of that rush when the doors open. Perhaps it could be neither of those things and people just following tradition. Its hard for some to break away from something they have done for years even it it doesn't make sense to do it anymore,. People just don't want to let go of something they've become accustomed to. My father and I have a tradition that every new years we share a vanilla milkshake together the we watch the countdown. We did this for years until one night my friends wanted to see some fire works downtown at Penn's landing in philly. We took the train downtown maybe around 9:00. It was my first time spending new years without my parents. It was a lot of fun but something just didn't sit right with me. I had just turned 18 a few weeks before and i wanted to feel like n adult and have a night out in the city, but I guess a part of me didn't want to grow up all of a sudden. We watched the first fireworks show before the countdown, suddenly a wave of sadness rushed over me. I needed to get home. I said goodbye to my friends, they didn't really understand why i was freaking out so bad (probably my anxiety had a part in that too). Next thing you know I was back on the train rushing home to beat that countdown. I made it home around 11:40 pm just enough time to settle down, grab my milkshake and sit with my dad. He seemed really happy that I came home instead of staying out with friends. I guess that's one tradition I just can't break.
For this weeks assignment we read Hills like White Elephants , a short story by Ernest Hemingway. In this story a young couple debates whether or not to have an abortion, by the end i leaves the reader questioning whether or not the woman keeps the baby or stays in a relationship with the man.
Its rather difficult to decide whether or not the girl keeps the baby or not but i would have to say that she does. Throughout the dialogue of the story the couple go back and forth on weather or not to keep the child. The woman is very hesitate to do so while the man doesn't seem too concerned about her opinion. I think his passive attitude about the matter really showed how much he cared about her and their relationship long term. I also think that this wasn't his first time dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. He mentions he had had "friends" do the surgery before, for him to be this relaxed about it gives me a sense that been through this a couple times. By the end i believe the woman has decided to have a future with this child ether with or without the man, most likely without. A couple years ago i had to make a decision to either trust some "friends" and go to some big party or go home like i was supposed to. This was during my junior year of high school and there was this one house that became notorious to this big parties in my area. The parents of the kids who threw the parties didn't care about anything and even brought drinks and drugs for everyone to use there. I had heard about the first big party an how wild it had gotten, then "part 2" (thats what it was called) got announced one day. A couple people in my history class asked if i wanted to come along. Lets just call then friends A,B, and C. Friend A asked"so Siani you hear about part 2 right you going?" I was already a little wary of it. Large parties weren't my thing anyway. "nah I don't think so might be a little too crazy for me" Friend B, " Come on! it'll be fun heard there's free drinks." Friend C "Yea and I'm borrowing the car that night so we"ll have ride. I told then I had homework to do (even though the party was on a Friday night). "Yea ill pass" I told them. "Suit your self." said friend A. part of me actually wanted to go but the cons out weighed the pros. I'd rather miss a little bit of fun rather than, you know, getting arrested, expelled, black out drunk or maybe even death. Turns out my choice to stay home was well worth it. The day after the party news reports showed that the party got raided by police. The parents got arrested and dozens of teens were charged with either possession of some sort of substance or underage drinking. A lot of seats were empty in my classes the next week or so. Its been a couple years and I don't think ill ever regret my decision to sit that party out. Interpret and annotate What You Don't Know (Lulu Wang). Here is the story transcript. Here is Lulu Wang's website.
For this blog post I'll be responding to a podcast were listened to in class. The podcast was by Lulu Wang in which she describes a conflict that affected her family and created a moral conflict within herself. Her family is given the news that her grandmother will pass away in three months. Rather than have her last few months sad and stressful they decide to keep it a secret from the grandmother. Wang must decide to either keep this secret like the rest of the family or tell her grandmother the truth. I feel as though the grandmother should have been aware of her situation, even though it was in good will they still lied to her. To me keeping her in the dark seems unfair, its her life and knowing how much time she has left on this earth something she has a right to know. The grandmother may not have had the reaction they expected, maybe she would have just accepted it and went on with life as usual. Keeping such a huge secret amount each other seems very selfish to me. The family is more concerned about getting their last goodbyes in then seeing how she is medically or making her comfortable. Now, I understand its a culturally thing and this may be considered the norm but something about it just does not sit right with me. Its good to hear her grandmother leaved passed expectations though. I wish her family the best of luck. Growing up I had always felt different from other people emotionally. Things that seemed simple to some were a major deal to me enough to make me cry, to "shut down" and stay in my room for hours just lying in bed. I didn't know it at the time but I had anxiety and depression. This is the story of when I finally came to terms with it as well as revealing it to my parents. Where to begin, for starters my parents aren't exactly aware of mental health issues or anything similar. The possibly of one of their children having any sort of disorder was nonsense, unfathomable. Looking back I realize I had showed signs of depression for years. I can remember back in grade school feeling my heart pounding upon being called to the front of the class, a slight glance from the teacher or fellow student was enough to make my mind spiral out of control with thoughts. "have I done something wrong?" "does this person hate me" "I shouldn't be here".... etc. This would go on to the point I felt sick to my stomach. I dealt with this for years thinking it was normal to have these feelings and thoughts and it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I finally broke down. It was a routine doctors appointment. The doctor asks " how are you feeling today?" and I answer "good!" as usual. " How about mentally?" she ask. I hesitate for a moment "um just fine". Then that same feeling returns that punching in my gut tears on the verge of running down my face. The doctor steps out for a moment and I lose it. Bawling out of control my mother who was there with me sitting with this look of confusion but all I felt was shame. All that time holding myself together and a few word were the straw that broke the camels back. She tries to calm me down but I just ask her to leave so I can speak with the doctor alone. I told her everything, everything I had bottled up and to my surprise...it was nice. There was no judgement in her eyes no look of disappoint like I had expected, only understanding. We talked for awhile and she scheduled me an appointment with a therapist. It was strange but the only I felt was relief after leaving her office like a weight had lifted off my chest. My mother wasn't very understanding as I had hoped though. Saying that I was depressed to my mother didn't really gain her sympathy at first. "Everyone gets depressed" " you can be happy if you want to" "you're just overreacting" Every sentence like a dagger, pushing me back into my shell. My father didn't have to much to saw he just wanted me to feel better. I had turned eighteen at this point so I handled everything on my own. Got my medicine on my own, went to my own appointments even got a job. I found the most support outside the home, my friends became my backbone during such a difficult time. Its been about a year now I'm doing well ,my parents have come around and I have goals for myself. So far the future is looking bright despite such a bleak past.
Our recent assignment for English composition had us read an excerpt from Maya Angelou's book “I know why the Cage bird sings.” Unbeknownst to the class this reading was a sort of test to see who would attempt to research this author and discover where this short story came from.
The story we read was called My Name is Margaret, it focuses on the author as a young girl dealing with racial issues and classicism while working as servant to a white women. When she begins working there she is quiet and deals with the perfectionistic attitude of her boss Mrs. Viola Cuillnan. It isn’t until the mistress begins to call her Mary that a nerve is truly struck. “Mary” eventually grows tired of her mistress's disrespect and breaks one of her cherished dishes as a sort of revenge. Personally I do agree with her breaking the plates and cups. Maya was more or less caught in an endless cycle of being controlled. When Mrs.Cuillnan changes her name it was a way of her claiming Maya as one of her belongings. This further shows how materialistic she is, she must constantly be in control of everything around her in order to get by. Maya breaking the plates was all it took to “break” Mrs. Cuillnan, from that moment her control was broken as well as her spirit. Maya is more free at that moment then ever before. This was the first step in her life to becoming the civil rights activist she would be later in life.
The focus of this blog post is to educate the consumers through different writing processes by three well known authors: Maria Popova, Anne Lammot and Ray Bradbury. I co-authored these processes with Tory Larer, Dominique Candidi, David Miller and Ashley Coley. The Daily Writing Routines of Great Writers (Maria Popova) Quote 1: " I’m a serious cook — and pretend to be normal. I play sane — Good morning! Fine, thank you. And you? And I go home."-Maya Angelou Quote 2: "I get up at 4:00 am and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for 10km or swim for 1500m (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at 9:00 pm. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism."-Haruki Murakami Quote 3: “Some new thing is always exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the typewriter right now and finish this”(Bradbury 2). Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott) Quote 1: "It reminds me that all I have to do is write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame"(Lamott 4). Quote 2: "writing is, for some of us, the latch that keeps the door of the pen closed, keeps those crazy ravenous dogs contained"(Lamott 8). Quote 3: “Practically even better news than that of short assignments is the idea of shitty first drafts”(Lamott 5) Zen in the Art of Writing (Ray Bradbury) Quote 1: “if you are a writer, or would hope to be one, similar lists, dredged out of the lopside of your brain, might well help you discover YON, even as I flopped around and finally found me”(Bradbury 19). Quote 2: "But along through those years I began to make lists of titles, to put down long lines of nouns. These lists were the provocations, finally, that caused my better stuff to surface"(Bradbury 17). Quote 3: “The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effordor a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping”(Bradbury 13). Our Processes 1: Listen to music while you write for more clarity. 2: Write an hour and if nothing is coming then take a break for an hour. If your mind allows the words to flow during that hour, then write another hour and so on until it stops. 3. Write in a calm atmosphere. Insert
__1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? [insert a sentence or two to answer the question]. To me perfect happiness is living life to fullest, following your dreams without hesitation is my goal in life. __2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear would fear itself, though I am not afraid of anything currently , having a fear in the future would be frightening. __3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? The trait I deplore the most in myself would be my lack of courage. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Weakness is a trait I simply can not stand in others. People who create either problems for themselves or others then are too weak to solve them or even try annoy me. __5.__Which living person do you most admire? I admire my father he influences me the most the my life. He’s a Navy veteran who taught me to pursue whatever i want in life and never to give up on my goals. __6.__What is your greatest extravagance? I suppose my material possessions would be my greatest extravagance. __7.__What is your current state of mind? Contemplative due to these questions. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Wealth __9.__On what occasion do you lie? When the occasion calls for it of course. __10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? My nose is big. __11.__Which living person do you most despise? Jim carrey because he’s not funny. __12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? What i look for in a person does not differ between man and woman rather the quality I look for most in a human being is honesty. __13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? (refer to the answer of question 12) __14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I’m hungry and Tired. __15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? My cat named George but i guess technically my boyfriend. __16.__When and where were you happiest? In the womb. __17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I would like to be able to float, just a little bit so i can reach the top shelf and levitate during meditation. __18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Nothing i'm good. __19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? I was born that's pretty cool i guess. __20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would come back as a fox. __21.__Where would you most like to live? My dream city would be seattle but as far as abroad ges i would live in Japan __22.__What is your most treasured possession? My cat. __23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? loneliness is pretty miserable if you ask me. __24.__What is your favorite occupation? teaching children __25.__What is your most marked characteristic? My face. __26.__What do you most value in your friends? Trust is pretty important to me. __27.__Who are your favorite writers? George R.R Martin and J.K rowling are my favorites. __28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Jon snow from game of thrones. __29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? Hideyoshi Toyotomi __30.__Who are your heroes in real life? Doctors are mighty important. __31.__What are your favorite names? Luna, Tenzin, Hideyoshi and Anakin. __32.__What is it that you most dislike? Tea without any sugar in it. __33.__What is your greatest regret? I wish I hadn't stop playing sports when i was younger, mostly tennis. __34.__How would you like to die? Surrounded by cats to comfort me. __35.__What is your motto? Don’t let your memes be dreams! |
sIANI DAVISThis blog is for class assignments as well as self-expression and growth. Archives
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