Female's identity

As we dive deeper into shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, it is apparent that female identity take a great role in the play. To begin, I feel like it's somewhat important for a woman to keep her name after marriage. Females should have the freedom to hold on to their names because it makes each female individual independent and unique from her husband. Often, wives are viewed by their husbands as properties and should be given the sam last name as the husband. However I feel like this belief is not fully true because there are many women out there who keep their own names after marriage. This kind of women show that they are independent to the control of their husband.

The truth is that women usually take on the last names of their husband instead of the other way around. The reason that wives usually hold to their husbands' last names is because men are still being viewed as the dominate and masculine figure and women are being viewed as the submissive and weak figure. To the current society, it will just be odd for a man to take on the last name of a woman. Like I said before, I think it will be fair for a woman to hold to her own name instead of adopting her husband's name.

the importance of Feminism

In William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, there is a interesting topic regarding feminism. To be honest, I consider myself to be a feminist to some degree simply because I think women should have equal rights as men both in public and private. The world is created for two genders not one, so it is very important to consider female's opinions and ideas in addition to that of men. The quote by Amy Poehler inspired me:

I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading-Amy Poehler

I mean I certainly don't like to get bossed around by women, but as long as a woman is not too over the top, then am fine with the situation. I definitely agree with the second part of the quote which states that a woman being bossy is trying to achieve great success on par with men, and there is nothing wrong with doing so. Women should certainly be seen as men's equal and should be given the same opportunities as men. From a male's perspective, I see women as respected human beings who should be given the same rights as us males. However, I don't support women over dominating men because that will just be as unfair as men controlling women. There should be a balance between the two genders in society.

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.