Power to Tell Stories

This week, we started reading The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adichie. This work is a series of story collections that shows Adichie's attitude towards many subjects in her life. Adichie speaks proudly for her rights as an African American and shares her stories with the world around her. One of her story, "The Headstrong historian", described that power is the source for storytelling. This story portrays a woman named Nwamgba fighting for her own rights as well as future generations. Although opposed to education at first, she later encouraged her child, Anikwenwa, to study at schools because she realized that education is the ultimately source for power. In an attempt to save her next generations, Nwamgba sacrificed her life to give her entire family a brighter future.

Those who held power, like the government or the military, ultimately determines how the stories is presented, even if the stories are not accurate. Because those who had power usually dominates the weaker ones, there is a social inequality. I agree with Adichie's idea that "How stories are told, who tells them, when they are told, how many stories are told are really dependent on power".(Chimamanda Adichie).This thought is absolutely correct because powerful people controls the ideas of society because there is no one to challenge their power.

My experience so far this year shaped my understanding of power and privilege. I realized that not everyone gets to create their own stories to tell the world. There are always those people that controls the situation and thus how the stories are told. Many of the books we read so far solidified my view that power determines reality. These reality might even be fake, but there are few people who is brave enough to oppose it.

Learning From Sijie

Recently, we've been reading Balzac and the little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie in english class. Although this book is considered to be a fictional novel, it is very effective in telling a historical event happened during the Cultural Revolution. Sijie wrote this book in an informal and relaxing tone, which makes it easier for readers to relate the fictional story to the historical period of the revolutionary period. Learning about a time in history is sometimes more personal when it comes from fictional novels because it shows history in a interesting and engaging way. A plain and wordy historical account will get its point across, but it is much harder for readers to understand fully.

This novel has increased my understanding of the Cultural Revolution just by the way it is written and presented. The author uses relatively simple and straightforward contexts and dialogues to portray the time of Cultural revolution and his experience of "re-education". At first I had absolutely no clue what re-education meant, but through his explicit historical contexts I began to grasp the significance of it. The narrator himself was sent to a rural countryside to be re-edcated by the peasants at his teen-ages. Apparently, those children from bourgeois families are required to be re-educated by lower class people. My understanding of the book becomes more vivid as I dive in further to this well-written novel.

This book absolutely opened my eyes to the Cultural Revolution and especially to the teenagers being sent away to the countrysides. I imagine myself in the shoes of the narrator and experiencing the unfavorable process of re-education. At least for me, historical fictions is more appealing than the account of the same exact events.

Comments to myself...

Hi again! Surprisingly for this blog, I am assigned to write about myself as an English 2 student at Sage Hill and comment on my own work. So far, the english class is a success to me because I have improved significantly on my writing and reading skills. The evidence for this is the increasing quiz and essay scores I received throughout the first quarter. I also found the class to be interesting as we began to read more and more diverse literatures. I began to enjoy poetries as we read numerous fantastic short stories and poems. Ultimately, English 2 provided me with many new ideas about literature and books as a whole.

There are multiple successes for me as an english 2 student. First, summer reading assignments, quizzes, and essays turned out to be a success because the graphic novel was a relaxing book to read compared to other traditional novels. I also feel like most of the weekly vocabulary quizzes are a breeze because I study the words a few days in advance and feel generally  ready for it. However, the transition from multiple choice quizzes to write-out-the-words-and-definition quizzes took a about a week to adjust. Lastly, I have a success in my study skills for this class. I turn in all assignments on time and usually finish them a day in prior.

There are also some weaknesses and things for me to work on throughout the year. First, essays had always been the hardest part of english class for me. At the beginning of the quarter, I had somewhat trouble on organizing my paragraphs and coming up with a good thesis. There are rooms for improvement in my essay writing skill. Secondly, I feel like reading quizzes are a bit challenging because they quizzed on some details that I did't pay attention to while reading. I realized that good reading skills are very important when it comes to understanding the book. However, I was able to learn from mistakes and hope to improve my reading skills gradually during the future. Lastly, I think I can improve on the way I annotate books and texts. Good annotations should corporate your own thought with the analysis of the passage.

Overall, English 2 is very enjoyable so far and I look forward to suggestions and future comments!

Are we suppose to read these books?

After reading this list of books, I was shocked by the content of them. Surprisingly I had read two of the books, Persepolis and The House on Mango Street. When reading the books for the first time, I did not realize how challenged the books were. After reading these descriptions from the banned books, I had a new view about the books.

These books are categorized as challenged readings because they, as far as I am concerned, definitely contained inappropriate contents and informations for readers. These books sometimes went against the norm of society and offered negative perspectives, which can provide a threat to the common belief and government. They also might be offensive and aggressive towards current beliefs. This is especially true if the readers are young individuals because they can't identify the rights and wrongs of the world yet. Thus, these books provide negative effects towards younger readers and may cause chaos within a community.

There is reason and merit between those who categorized these books as being dangerous because the books will ultimately educate young individuals in a negative way. Not only does the books affect young learners, they may cause many grown ups to rebel against the society, which will devastate the entire community. I think the books shouldn't be necessarily banned for eternity, but it shouldn't be recommended to readers either.

Personally, I wouldn't want to read these books unless I absolutely have to. One reason for this is that some of the books' contents are just against most of my beliefs and understanding of the world. another reason is that they do contain some inappropriate materials that I absolutely don't want to take part in. (like drugs, bullying, gambling, and offensive languages.) Again, I would not go very far to read most of the books marked illegal by the community.

soar into the bright sky...

hi again, I am here to talk about the coexistence of inequality and free thought. Recently, I read the short story titled "Harrison Bergeron", which is about the danger of an equal and conformed society. If members of a society are all equally talented and conformed, then there will be no creativity among the community.  So, inequality must exist in order for some members of the society to stand out among others. The fact that we are not able to admit failure makes us very timid because life is not all about winning. What is the fun of winning if you never lose? success and failure are in coexistence with each other just like inequality and free thought. Therefore, we must admit our weaknesses in order to maintain this coexistence.

I don't believe that all people should be kept at the same intelligence level. Now, I am not degrading the less educated people. If everybody is conformed, then there will be no distinction between the less bright and more bright people. There will be nobody to lead the society. Without a bright and talented leader, the society may fall into ruins. Another issue about a conformed society is that smarter people will not have much freedom because they are forced to be equal to the other people. A society with no leaders or any free thoughts is not somewhere I want to live in.

Three people in the story represented three different ideas. Hazel represented the normal and lowest intelligence crowd. George represented the brighter people, but restrained by handicaps. Lastly, Harrison Bergeron represented the leader of the group, the one who craves freedom and leadership.

Naturally, I categorize myself as a Harrison type of person. I do think that there should be some social classes because what is the point of living if everybody is the same and you already got what you need?I would choose freedom over conformity because it means I will have more future opportunities. I can not take the pressure of being the same as everyone else because I want to be someone more. I want to constantly improve myself in a growing society. I think a conformed society is one that does not improve or grow. I would rather have a dark sky before a bright sky than having a gray sky the whole time.

staying vs walking away

Recently I read the story titled "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K LeGuin. This story portrayed how one society's happiness are based one a child's suffering, depression, and hopelessness. If the child is set free, then all of the happiness of Omelas will be gone. Some citizens of Omelas overcame this paradox and chose to remain in the town. Others who did not overcome this injustice, chose to abandon their homes and happiness in order to "walk away" from the situation and avoid feeling shameful.

I bet there is a "suffering child" in all of us, whether you realizes it or not. There was a time when I "stayed" despite the existence of one suffering child-the garbage man. Every Thursday, a garbage man will swept the trashcans in front of my house. He takes away trash and other recyclables and put each bag laboriously on his old and dusty car. You can obviously tell that he certainly did not enjoy his job. I don't think he is even getting paid by the community for his job. All his earnings was from the cans and recyclables. At first, I was shocked by his appearance in front of our house. After fighting the paradox of justice, me and my family chose to keep quiet and did not tell the community about his existence. After some months, His sight became so common that I sometimes even forgot he is there. This is a time when I chose to "stay" instead of "Walking away".

However, there was certainly a time when I had to "walk away" from a paradox. In this case, the suffering child was a little boy. One day, I was walking around our neighborhood at night with three of my older friends. This nameless boy, around 12, bumped into one of my hotheaded friend. The minute the boy bumped into him, I knew trouble was coming. Based on the the temper and size of my friends, I knew I couldn't persuade them on calming down and certainly did not want to participate in the beating. I immediately turned, made up an excuse of "need to finish homework", and hurried back to my house. I was a coward because i didn't think I could do anything to change the situation. Thus, I walked away from the situation. The next day, one of them told me that they, just as I expected, punched the boy last night. I stopped being friends with those three hotheads afterwards and avoided them the best I could.

Medias do invoke fear.....with no doubt

Are News medias revolutionary to the 21st century or are they having negative effects on us? I think the answer to this question is favored more to the later than the former. In The Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner, I learned about how the media can make one more fearful of the world than it actually is. Medias control the way we perceive things in general and sometimes give us false informations. One section of The Culture of Fear featuring George Gerbner, a professor at Annenberg School of Communications, appealed to me, "In his research over three decades Gerbner found that people who watch a lot of TV are more likely than others to believe their neighborhood are unsafe, to assume that crime rates are rising, and to overestimate their own odds of becoming a victim."I agree with Gerbner because people are sometimes blinded by the false stories shown on TV and thus becomes more fearful.

Occasionally, I will see some very exaggerated news about someone getting robbed and killed a few hundred miles away. This eventually provoked my parents to be fearful of our community. This idea of unsafeness has gotten to their head because they apparently watched more news than I did. Certainly, people who watches a lot of TV news about violence and robbery will start to feel uneasy about their surroundings. In return, those people's happiness is affected by the media. They take more unnecessary precautions and appears less in public because of their fear outside their houses.

The media can also influence the criminal justice system because those who feels unsafe will want stricter laws. Thus, laws become punitive rather than preventative. Due to many TV watcher's superstitious fear, they might feel safer if harsher laws are issued. issuing harsher laws may ultimately damage both the state and other innocent people.

Recently, I read a short story titled "Once Upon A Time," by Nadine Gordimer. It is about a family who took precautions beyond the necessary, which ultimately resulted in their child's injury(or possibly death). The family hears of reports of robbery, so they installed an alarm system, but a higher wall, and put razor blades around the walls. Their fear of outside intrusion made them insecure and caused them to be fearful. Ironically, their child is hurt by their own 'system of defense.' This connects to the idea presented by Glassner-Overuse of media will lead to unnecessary fear and that fear will eventually blind many people from seeing the real problem.

Images vs words

This image is about the Maryland civil war and the scenes after the bloodshed of the war:

My view about war changed dramatically after seeing this picture from the internet. I chose this image because I thought it will be worth sharing my view of war with the readers. Before I saw this image, I thought war was glorifying topic and a way to bring honor to the country. Because of the influence of the media and numerous books, I viewed the single story of war as being eulogizing. However, after viewing this picture, I realized I did not take account the missing part of the single story: the horrible casualties and loses as a result of the war. I certainly would not have been moved much if somebody just simply described this same picture to me. By seeing the image myself, I was able to express a stronger emotion towards the subject of war. This image impacted me because now I was able to have a more complete picture of the single story of war. I realized that there is both glorification and tragedies in war.

We see things differently than we read things because just by reading a topic does not give you the sufficient amount of knowledge to conclude about that topic. Images are worth much more than words because it gives the viewers a sense of mystery and thoughts. It is hard for us to describe an image through the use of words. 

A New Beginning....

Hi all! My name is James and I am a student at Sage Hill School. During my free times, I like to play tennis and go surfing at the beach. My favorite food is probably either pizza or mac&cheese. I like to listen to Taylor Swift. Nick Jonas, and many other singers and bands. My favorite movies are The Avengers, Pacific Rim, and Transformers. Families and Friends are really important to me because I know they had my back when I fall.
With this blog, I hope to share some of my stories and life experiences to the world. The readers will gain insights about my favorite activities with the posts. With that said, I also want to gain insights about other bloggers and connect with them on a deeper level. Lastly, I hope that by writing blogs, I will strengthen my writing skills.
Attached is my first Word Cloud ever created. It portrayed some of my wide interests. I see myself driven with a goal to become the person I want to be along with my personal interests. This Word Cloud represents my goals in life and also the things that keeps me occupied.

One of my favorite quote of all times:
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

-Soren Kierkegaard