Final Blog Reflection

          During this semester in my English class I have been using this blog to accomplish some assignments. Most of these were based on stories discussed in class and reflections on some of the topics discussed in class. I enjoyed using this blog because I was able to express my thoughts in a more personalized way.  It also saved a lot of paper and ink, which means our class saved a few trees! This project helped me explore my writing capabilities and made it easier for me to share my thoughts and ideas with my classmates and the world.

Reflection on "Teaching" by Jim Cooper

In his narration Cooper talks about the challenges he faced while trying to teach English at the University of Puerto Rico in Mayagüez. He realized that his students came with a really bad English language background because of the faulty English taught by the school system. I can definitely relate to what Cooper meant when he talked about the English learning system not working well. “The emphasis is on learning to speak the language by imitating the native speaker model. Quite obviously, if the teacher cannot speak the language, then the system cannot work”. (Cooper 73) I grew up in private school but my high school years were done in a public school. During high school my English teachers knew very little to no English. I felt desperate whenever I heard or saw something misspelled because I did not want to correct them in front of the other students. By the time I was able to confront them it was too late, the wrong thing had already been taught even though we had good textbooks and learning materials.

http://journey-identity.blogspot.com/2014_02_01_archive.html

Reflection on "The Maternal Instinct" by V.S. Naipaul

        "The Maternal Instinct" is another story written by V.S. Naipaul. It tells about a woman named Laura who had 8 children from 7 different men. She is a very happy woman that loves her children, though it does not seem like it when she talks to them.One night her eldest daughter named Lorna anounced that she was pregnant. This made Laura transform into a depressed, sad and ashamed person.
        According to the narrator, Laura is a whore. She loves her children and does not want them to end up being like her. That is why she struggles to give them the best she can. This can be seen when Laura says:"It have nothing like education in the world. I don’t want my children to grow like me". On the other hand, she treated her children badly by talking very rude to them and beating them, she did not give them a good example. When Lorna becomes pregnant Laura realized that her daughter was following in her footsteps by following her mother's example instead of her advice and sacrifice. Laura becomes so upset and ashamed of herself and her example that she  completely changes her way of being. She is no longer a happy person and does not even go out of her house. This leads her daughter into committing suicide. The mother is so depressed that she believes her daughter's death was a good outcome.
        Laura believed that by providing her children with the best she could give them and by giving them "stern" discipline, they would become better people in the future. She ignored the fact that her example was very important in the formation of them and that they would pay more attention to her example. This is evidenced when Boyee says:"I don’t see why she so mad about that. She does do the same".This made her pay a very hard price. We can learn from this story that our example is more important than our will and words.

Reflection on "George and the Pink House" by V.S. Naipaul

        "George and the Pink House" is a short story written by the Trinidadian Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul.  The story seems to be one of the author's fictionalized childhood memories. A boy (the author) narrates the story of an abusive neighbor that lived in a pink house.
        George was that cruel neighbor, he beat his wife and children regularly and did not take proper care of his house. One day his wife dies (though everyone believes George killed her) and he goes on to be a very lonely man. During the rest of the story he turns to drinking, other women, beating his daughter more brutally and converting his house into a whorehouse. His daughter is presented as a happy girl that strives because of the beatings. We can prove this when the boy mentions: "... but the daughter, Dolly, thrived on it. She grew fatter and fatter, and giggled more and more every year". Near the end of the story George marries off his daughter and the author reveals her true sadness behind her giggles. Also, George ends up dying alone and forgotten.
        Violence and loneliness are the most important topics in this story. George used violence when he beat his family in order to feel strong and in control. When his wife died (because he probably beat her to death) George felt guilty and regretful. We can see this when the boy says:" George was very sad for the first few days after the funeral. He drank a lot of rum and went about crying in the streets, beating his chest and asking everybody to forgive him and to take pity on him, a poor widower".This led him to become a drunk and "womanizer" and to mistreat his daughter even more. His daughter on the other hand hid her sorrow and loneliness behind her giggles. At the end of the story we can see that both George and his daughter end up destroyed because of these two factors.
       In order to not end up like these characters we must try to eliminate these factors from our life as much as possible. Since they seem to be inevitable in our society we must search for help as soon as we find ourselves involved with one of these terrible situations.

Reflection on our Journal Project

        During this semester professor Pittmann assigned us a journal project. I spoke a little about it in the  very first post of  this blog. The main ideas of the project were to be able to write freely, monitor our feelings and examine the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical aspects of our life. In order to accomplish this we used a laboratory notebook (which has blank papers with no lines) to write down our feelings and thoughts in a free manner. Also we drew life compasses so we could visually analyze how we were in each aspect of our lives.  

A life compass is composed of the four basic aspects of life. These are: spiritual, mental, emotional and physical. In each compass we assigned a number from 0 to 3 (0 being bad and 3 good) to each aspect and then added them up in order to see how we were generally feeling. 

Example Life Compass

 

        In my experience, this journal has helped me to see how I think. In ten minutes of any day my thoughts are quite random, my mind gets pretty crowded with thoughts about work and things I would like to do, with the journal I was able to see and analyze in detail my thoughts. The journal also helped me to write bigger, looser and quicker. I must admit that at times I felt the journal was a nuisance because I had loads of work to do from other classes and my laboratory, but I was able to manage it by "dumping" all my stress into the journal as I wrote.

        The life compasses helped me visualize in which aspects of my life I was stronger and weaker. The final statistics show that I am stronger emotionally and have a good balance between my physical and emotional aspects; my weakest part is the mental area. After calculating my compass totals I could see that this semester has been a real roller coaster. I felt good many times but I also felt "down in the dumps" many other times.  I enjoyed analyzing my compasses.

 

 

Story Adaption of "Thank you, M'am" by Langston Hughes

         Well son, around 20 years ago I was a selfish young boy. I remember one late afternoon as I passed by a store I saw these amazing blue suede shoes. I just had to have them. That day I looked around every corner till almost nighttime trying to see if I could collect enough money to buy them, but I only managed to collect 50 cents. A desperate feeling came upon me, what if someone else buys my shoes! I thought. My selfishness and crave for those shoes drove me to the main street, where the people with money worked and passed by. I stood in a corner and observed the people passing by, one of 'em will have enough money I thought. After what seemed a good two hours I found the perfect one: a large woman with a large purse walking alone in the dark. All I had to do was run at her, grab her purse and run off.
        My plan came out just fine, but somehow, at the last minute I found myself on the floor being kicked in the butt and then dragged by the woman. Now I was really desperate, I could swear she would call the cops on me. Instead she took me all the way to her house. She made me wash up and comb my hair and started cooking for both of us. I had the option to run away with the purse but by that time I was too curious and hungry to do so. We sat together and talked for a long time. She told me her life story, which I found very similar to mine. I liked that she did not ask me any embarrassing questions and that she fed me good and even made me some hot chocolate.
         When we finished she gave me 10 dollars which was more than enough to buy my shoes! She taught me that stealing is not good and that there are other ways to achieve what I want. As I went out the front door I thanked her. But she closed too soon and did not hear me. I never saw her again but I am thankful that she taught me such a valuable lesson.

Reflection on "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

              "Girl" is a short fiction story written by the Antiguan-American author Jamaica Kincaid. It is based on the authors life experience with her mother. Throughout the story the mother naggingly teaches her daughter how to behave and what to do in order to become a "respectable" woman in society. The story is written in a Peculiar way, it seems more like a monologue than a story, the mother speaks all the way while the daughter can only manage to say two sentences. This makes the reader feel irritated as the daughter must feel. It points out the relationship between gender roles and social acceptance.

                In my experience living in a relatively modern Caribbean island there are still a few noticeable gender roles that are still taught. Women are mainly in charge of the household, but are expected to be well educated and as professional as possible. Men are still supposed to be the "strong ones" but work is slightly more important than studies. In both genders it is expected to have a spouse and create a family  by the age of 25-30. As a child I was taught how to manage a household, I had house related chores that I had to comply with, my brother on the other hand had less chores and was not punished as severely as I was if he skipped them. Many times I felt angry and jealous of him because of this. Now that I am older I choose when and what chores to do. I help in the household as much as I can but I prefer to focus on my studies.

http://www.slideserve.com/dyanne/girl-jamaica-kincaid