Last reading response for the whole 8th grade to Girl in Translation (muhahahahahahaha)

   The main purpose for most Coming of Age Books are to express or
show how Coming of Age push us through the line from childhood to
adulthood. Many changes come with it gaining benefits and privileges
but also gaining problems. The line between childhood and adulthood
is thick as a brick wall. The book Girl in Translation, the move to the
United States for Kimberly was a physical and mental push from her
childhood to adulthood. The purpose of this essay is to show what is
gained through Coming of Age from a child to a adult. To see how
obvious the difference between being a child and being a adult is.

   Throughout the story Kimberly had not really described her childhood
when she was in China a lot. Most of the time she would talk about was
how something about her life in U.S and China are somehow related. So
unfortunately she had been shoved to be a adult due to being in America.
She had already taken a job to work as, A factory labor job(30) . Those
kinds are the most inhumane and worst but she as a adult had to work a
job so that she and her mom could survive. That is something different
from being a little child. Being able to know what you can do to help out
yourself or your family. You can't be ignorant and think that everyday
you'll have meals prepared to you cause you want, You have to earn
it.

   There is also more that a adult must understand. The ability to
understand people. Meaning like like the ability to tell if a person is
good or bad, or friendly or hostile, a smart or dumb person. What
the point is really you'll need people to be your allies when you grow
up to survive in this world and having this kind of eagle vision is
helpful to see who you think will help you out instead of dragging
you down through life. There is also another meaning to having
the ability to understand people, people are very complicated things.
in the book Aunt Paula"we have some very fine white tea...Please
feel free to drink as much as you like"(30) and when she leaves
Kimberly asks her mom "shall we try that special white tea?"(30) her
mom responds "My heart stem, do you think that those things were
left out by accident?"(30) pointing at a box of inexpensive greeb tea left on
the counter. Kimberly's mom seems to demonstrate that ability.

   When you were a child you wouldn't really think of complicated
stuff as in something like romantic love. You only experienced the feeling
of platonic love from family or friends. When you enter adulthood  you
start to think about more complicated stuff exactly just like this. You'll
wonder more further in your life than focus on the present think what am
I going to be when I grow up, who will I marry or love, or how will I get
money? I think childhood is much more simpler which I think is a big
benefit. Who wants to have all these worries because we're thinking
about small casual things too much. Although we won't be able to survive
through life if don't over think about things.

   All the changes through Coming of Age pushes us out from childhood
to adulthood is to make it possible for us to survive in this world and time.
As life progresses its like a the sky. We were little kids playing outside as
a storm is about to come. Then through Coming of Age that storm finally
starts as rain comes pouring down. But now we have umbrellas because
we are adults. Coming of Age is like a boot camp to prepare us for that
cold world ahead of us.

Reading Response-Girl In Translation

   Our lives are always complex due to problems that are developed
during our Coming of Age. They push us off our road to our goals
of who we want to be. In the book Girl In Translation by Jean Kwok,
it describes a perfect example how Kimberly's dreams of having a
successful life for her mother and her in the future, but Coming of Age
problems like love interfere with her life as a teenager growing up in a
different country but with the same problems as any girl her age. One
example of this is love which spread like wildfire in her mind burning up
what really mattered to her. Her dreams. How did Coming of Age problems
affect her road to complete the dreams she made?

  One issue of Coming of Age in Kimberly's life would be love. Kimberly's
mother told to never spend too much time on socializing and such since
she knew it would mess up her mind and grades in school. There were
only two guys she liked in the story, One was a boy in school that was
decently rich and going to be successful in life while the other was from
another part of her life in her labor factory who life was of course to work
in a factory. Having to think about two guys at the same time and work
seriously in school had hindered her focus on school. Also It hindered her
life outside of school, going to parties instead of studying.

   Another issue of Coming of Age is competition/expectations. Various times
in the book she would know that her aunt who provided them a home and
job, also had a son who was the same age as Kimberly. His name was Nelson
and at times Kimberly's aunt would be jealous if Kimberly would do good in
school while she should be proud like Kimberly's mother was. Although
in the beginning of the story she didn't show her mother her work from
school was because she had been doing bad while her mother big expectations
of her. Sometimes her aunt would invite Kimberly over to have some kind
of competition with Kimberly's mother on which parent had raised a better child. 
 
   Coming of Age also helps you develop a personality or a opinion on the people
you, how you want to live life and how you want to get where you want to get.
of course this separates you from people and some people might like who you are
some might not. Like in Kimberly's story she proved to be a very good person to
her friends but some people like her aunt might not care seeing how she is.

   In life these problems are always there. They will always affect a teenager's life
one way or the other. No matter where your from or what kind of life you live
in, Coming of Age problems will always find a way to complicate your life.
Though they are bad they also had good side to them. In solving these problems
you'll know how to deal with your life all rhe way through your life. Its kind of
like gaining experience, or maturity, or learning what ideals,beliefs, and dreams
you will honor. In Kimberly's life it seems as though they were affecting her. It
also affected her in good ways too. She still had made it through life reaching
her dreams of being successful in life. Those Coming of Age problems problably
had made her road crooked but it gave her the strenth to move forward in life.

Artifact Response 1

   What had become important to me during the coming of age in my life
was music. It isn't a physical artifact but it was just as important as a
physical one. When I was little I wouldn't listen to music that much since
most of the time I wouldn't understand the song or I would be bored of it.
Since my coming of age I think the reason why I liked it suddenly was
because in everyone's coming of age we all develop a sense of who we
are or want to be. We then develop hobbies or opinions for ourselves.
So through coming of age we realize who we really are. What we can get
through coming of age is the objective of why we want to and are living
for. Although we realize what we want to do in life, but some of these
revelations could be fake and then we will end up making mistakes in our
life. I only think its part of life to have a trial and error process to find what
it is that you get through coming of age.

Reading Response RAD (radiation and death)

   The book I am currently reading and have started to read is the dead
and the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer which is a book is about when this
asteroid hits the moon out of it's orbit and causes a change in the
gravitational pull between earth and the moon. So now tides are much
more higher on earth and tsunami powered waves occur like daily events.
This book focuses on this character called Alex Morales. He has a great
life of going to the best school in his town and also is respected by everyone.
After the incident he is now stuck to take care of his two sisters and trying
to find out where his parents are and what is their conditions.
What I want to focus on in this book is that this boy is left with two sisters
with his dad almost certainly dead since the place his dad is in was hit the
hardest while his mother is lost in the chaos of new york city. This is just
the beginning of problems that will come up. The world is disorganized
and can't be fixed. He has to get by through feeding his sisters and himself
while finding his mother to get things right. I want to show how great of
a character that Alex is.
   I think that the regular teen would just cry all alone and give up, but he is
trying to not lose confidence and stay strong in front of his sisters. One
quote in the book "he felt a wave of panic and had to himself to calm
down. It would be easy enough to find out if Mami is all right."
there is something about Alex that I feel that he will always make it through
this story or even when the world blows up I always think that he had survived
with the determination he has to keep on living and protect his sister's. He doesn't
even think about his parents anymore since he gave up hope of his parents and
now carries the goal of living for his parents and his sisters. You don't find
this kind of determination in everyone. This can also be how strong he feels
about staying alive but I think its more determination than the will to just survive.
    I also think that he is all alone because he has no close friends or not
anymore in the book because his only friend who was more of a competition
left town to go somewhere safer. His friend also is concerned about how he
has no close friends in a situation like this. In this scene where his close
friend says good bye to him he says" Well, you will [get offended] , but I'll say
it anyway. I've noticed you're one of those guys everyone likes and respects, but you
don't seem to have any close friends"(74)
   This text relates to the world in some ways because there are some good
people who are stuck in a situation that brings the worst out of them and
they don't deserve it, like Alex he doesn't deserve to be in that situation
being all by himself with his sisters while other kids have their parents and
don't need to worry. I think this book makes the reader understand what
kind of person it takes to be to drag yourself through a situation like this
and ever thought their might be light at the end of the tunnel.
   In real life the chances of finding people like this are low. I think that guys
should take an example of Alex strength and be like him more. He is brave,
determined, and someone who take care of himself. My topic was made
because I felt that maybe I should become somewhat like Alex. The readers
should see in my opinion what a good person really is (except the part where
he steals food from the other apartments, but they didn't need them anyway).
Its only normal to see a person like this character to admire them, like I do
for the people in the Army. The whole reason I'm writing this post is for the
people that are reading this post; I want people to think about what kind of
character they have and ask them selves, Is this how I want myself to be.

Blog Responses

Blog 1. I liked Isaiah's blog because all of his blog posts were neatly
in oder and for each blog post he had a title that explained what the
blog was nearly or is about. I think on all of his blog posts he spended
a lot of time and effort to make them really perfect, so it has a actually
lasting effect on you.
Blog 2. On one of Mohammad's post he was doing his research topics
he had a video that was made by some organization that felt the same
way that he did on that topic. It helped in bringing some information and
life to his blog post. He also had many links so the reader could do some
researching on their own.
Blog 3. On Mahir's blog he had a reading challenge done and that tells
me that he really likes to read and write. Theres also proof to this
by his other blogs since he seemingly had fun while he types them up.

Poem

Used "Shake me down" as source by Cage the Elephant

Who Knows

  People laying on the ground
  Sea, Constantly plagued by memories
  Not a lot of love
  Broken sound,Broken dreams
  Lonely times indeed
  People wanna know the future
  I keep my eyes on the way
  People stopped in the past
  with eyes cast around the corner,
  fixed upon Memories
  I'll never turn back
 
 
 

Narrative poem

Lone wanderer 

has treaded paths no men tread before

walked from battlefield to battle field

fights for his only belief

Friends that are temporialy

never lingering somewhere too long

his life is like a clock

he is always on moving

even at the end of his life

Memoriable poem

I remember the time

when I was little 

the time where school was something I did not know of

where my grandma ussually took me out to the

parks

I used to sit there and listen to the birds

but its in the past now 

looking into the past and hoping it to come are for idiots

we all need to look forward into the future and present 

Poem response to Photograph

   I tried to focus on my objective

but in the end I focused on what really mattered to me

My life

and as I struggle through this beach water 

everything seemed out of focus 

The photographer next to me taking a photo 

The dying men up front catching all of the bullets up front

My enemies and their guns ahead 

All that was clear to me was to stay alive

nothing more

Poetry interpretaion

   My painting that I've chosen is a Japanese painting.
Observations
I see water, clear as if you were looking through air and gazing at the school of
fishes on the bottom. The small river on top looks like its reflecting the sky though.
The colors in the picture go from bottom having the lightest color to the top having
the darkest colors. The trees curve at angles that are normal for the tree. This image
is a bird's eye view of the scene. The scene is almost painted out as a 2d style picture
since the angles don't change at all where the picture should be.
Inferences
I guess this image tells me how amazing the water looks in our world. It shows
peace,natural flow and a clear path in life. I also think that the birds,people,and fishes
are there because the river shows a great amount of life and supports life with
water.
Interpretation
My interpretations of this image is that it is just problably a painting the artist wanted
to do because he/she felt like painting. This image feels so calm so maybe pictures
like this are made out of artist that have no pressure on painting a good painting.

First Draft of Author's note

 
   America, Most describe it as the land of the free, where whatever
religion you had it didn't matter. Did this apply to everyone? no, African
Americans who were first brought to America in colonial times were slaves
striped their freedom and religions they had since they had to convert to
Christianity or they were considered people that are to look down upon.
If America was the "land of the free" why have the Africans and other
races at the time were forced into being an American. The mistreating of
African Americans stretched far from the early days of America till now and
probably even into the future. The problem is that it is a belief that someone
can judge a person by their color,religion, and race and say that all people of
the same race,color, or religion is this type of person. This belief is stamped
so hard into some people's mind that racism will never fade away or solved.
This issue although could be stopped over time. This book is dedicated to
giving young children so that they know that racism is wrong since when a
child is young their minds are easily acceptable to change unlike older people
who can not change that easily. This book can be a first step to solve racism
so that in the future people, like the African Americans who were
discriminated all over history could finally feel like they were free from
the bonds of discrimination which gave them so much disadvantages.


Cited Sources
"Racism Timeline." Leading issues time lines.21 jun 2010:n.p. Sirs
Researcher. web 09DEC2010
Stoff Michael , Pedro Castillo, James west Davidson. The American Nation.
United States of America, Prentice Hall, 2002

Research topic #2 Poverty

   I think that poverty is a issue that should have been solved in this time
already, I mean there are still a lot of countries that are barely getting by
in their days of working and grow hungry. Even if they live in a poor
country the US should at least get them some food supplies.
Feeding other nations do not benefit the US but at least it can help our
nation in some ways. Like if we donated more food to nations which need
it we have less food supplies and then our nation doesn't have to have the
issue of obesity by raising the food price here. It can also benefit our
nation by making alliances with those many small nations so that our country
can grow bigger in size. My mom would know somethings about the time
she was in Vietnam, since at that time there was poverty since the Vietnam
war was over the country was poor. She had 5 siblings and both her parents
at that time.  My mother told me that in Vietnam she had to eat plain
noodles everyday without anything to eat with it, she couldn't get
any meat for it no chicken, no pork, no fish. The only thing close a
candy she ever ate was a brown raw bar  made from melted sugar.
She also didn't know what choco;ate was until coming to america for the
first time. Having the food we have here was like heaven for her so think
about poverty in that way.

Research Topic 1 Racism

   Racism in America It started three hundred years ago and sadly is still
happening in this country. In racism it is a belief in which people are judge on
by their skin color, where they come from, and their religion. This kind of
stuff pisses me off every time, it makes me embarrassed to actually be human.
Every time I hear of this stuff I ask myself how stupid and childish these
people can be. It feels like this is a kind of bullying that happens in school,
except sized to a larger scale. Even when we are grown we have
these childish acts of bullying others because they are weak, different,
and weird. In this article it talks about America's police brutality.
I think this exactly supports my idea of how these people with more
power can just do what ever they want. They work for the government and
you can't fight back against them in this country. It seems to me the ranks of the government is enlisted with some racist people. You should see what happens
if you give someone racist power in a government, for example Hitler was
a racist person and he was given power to lead a country, that is when the
Holocaust happened. In this other article this woman figured out that one of her
family member was in the ku klux klan and that reminded me about what we
were studying in social studies. It was the time period in which African
Americans were terrorized by the ku klux klan after president Lincoln and
Andrew Johnson stood in his place. While African Americans were being killed
he just watched while it happened. In all I think racism is another way ho we
are killing ourselves, this what makes us truly human and there is no way to
change from this. The only solution to end this is to all is to end the human race.

Social action 3

   This is a remake for the first one I had to do because I wrote using read
and respond to songs and/or poems on social problems not New/Media
Immersion.

   What I saw on the news of these days were mostly about criminal/terriost
and natural disasters. One thing I think of out of all of this is the things
I wouldn't have thought would still be undergoing of today, These drug
lords and empire are actively going on openly in today's world. It disgusts
me that we know of these drug lords in other countries, even their names
and where they live and yet there is no action taken to stop them. I know
our country can't do anything without permission from that county that
drug lords live in. They are criminals and yet they have almost equal power
to a government. Also another thing I've noticed in media/news is that
a lot of natural disasters began around the world, one is of them is
the Indonesia volcano eruption which killed 130 people which seems
impossible to happen since the volcano was already active before it erupted
which seems weird because of why the government didn't seem to tell them
to get out of the area before the volcano explodes. Even today we get killed
from natural disasters like these in which we already see coming.

   My reflection on this is that to me, these daily events happen every day
and I think that the human race has really have no chance of surviving into
at least 2500 since there are so much conflicts/problems around the world,
political,war,disaster. I wonder why we couldn't all relax just for one day
where there arn't any crimes committed, any political debate, why can't
we just have peace? But that question to me is already answered, its
because we're all humans, and its natural for us to try and make problems
all around us.

Social Awareness #2

   I am responding to this song that I heard, Rage Against The Machines,
Testify Which is a band in which really devoted to singing songs about
the U.S government and the wrongs they did, I think, because the songs
sometimes are hard to understand  but this song to me was easier to
understand. I think it talks about how President Bush and how he sends
solders to Middle East to fight a war that is not really their business,
instead he just wants to gain a favor of getting the oil resources from
that country. Maybe this song talks about the death of solders fighting
in a war that they have no reasons to fight in are dying while the
government are just carelessly using up people. This may be a
wrong summary of the song but its what it feels like to me.

Social Awareness #1 option 5

   This post is to respond to the song World on Fire by Sarah McLachlan
on how she writes a song and makes a video without any of the
professional equipment to work with so that she could donate to people
in need all around the world instead. She would've needed $150,000 for
that entire video too, so that shows that she is really dedicated to helping
people out. Also her video that she showed instead could be very usefull
in raising other people awareness because of the examples of how much
of some money could help many people, and to proof for this is that
the proportions she showed amazed me how $3000 could provide 10,950
meals for all those starving. It also saddens me that we people in America
are really wasteful though, and that with $3000 we used on wasteful
things like buying $100 shoes which you'd threw away after a year or
so. I think this music video is a big eye opener and we should spread this
video around.

Entry 8

   In my response to the poem Mother to Son, I think its
a great poem about life and all of its flaws. Langston Hughes
really made a great metaphor of life to a staircase, how some
staircases could be smooth and straight while others could
be rough and crooked. To me Langston Hughes seem to
print the message of how life works for different people,
and that I think he really makes it real, like he been through
it before. What also makes this poem great is the accent that
the author uses, like
"I'se been a-climbin' on."
I like this way of adding more feeling to the poem so it
kind of makes a story. I think that the author really was
trying to make story of how a Mother seems to be
in one of those deep lessons where a mother talks to the
son in this long conversation. It's just the same, and in my
view shes trying to tell her son to not staying in one spot,
she wants him to keep living no matter how tough it gets
just like she lived her life. I also remember a lesson my mother
taught me when I was young so I could connect to the poem.

Appreciation First Draft

   Everyone on this planet has always thought about what they
were born for, and what reason that they were born into this
planet, this universe, this dimension. This is what everyone wants
to know, whether they were born for the reason so that they could
exist with a reason. The book, The Giver in my opinion relates to this
question everyone wants so much, and to me the author seems to
answered that anyone can make a change even if you are only one
person, Only if you want a change in this world, then you have to
be devoted to the idea of how the world should be, its like in this
book called, V for Vendetta in where at the end the main character
says " ideas are bulletproof" meaning even if you die you pass your
idea of the world you want it to be to another person to complete.
   The society is a place where people with no goals are made,
each and everyone of them are mold into what society
leaders make them into. Its a place where people are recorded
down in history as nobody, and when you die the name given
to you at birth is recycled again to be use again for the next
person to be repeated in this same depressing cycle. This is the
problem in Jonas's world. You live like a worker ant, if
you die you'll get replaced, This world is a world in which no one
is important, I hate that kind of world , because I believe that
everyone is born with a purpose in which they complete through-
out life.
   In a world like that, there is bound to be someone who would
change that kind of world. This is where a person, like Jonas
feels that the world doesn't fit his view, so he changes it using
all his efforts even if it means dying as a example he is ready to die for the
world to change on page 157,

" 'Music,"The Giver said, smiling 'I began to hear something truly
remarkable, and it is called music. I'll give you some before I go."
Jonas shook his head emphatically.'No,Giver,"he said.
"I want you to keep that,to have with you, when I'm gone."

 This paragraph tells that Jonas has overcome all of his
fears so that he devotes his life to making things better for people
that are near him, and in doing that he goes down the road that he
knows that he will die at the end, even though he wants to change
the world into a better place he won't be seeing it. To break the cycle of that
kept everyone inside a mental prison. That is a honorable sacrifice.
   In my past I have had this personal problem in which I
wanted to be different from everyone I didn't want to blend
in with the sea of people on earth, because I knew there were
millions of other people and you are just one person out of all
of them and its kind scary to know that some people will
live without a purpose in life since there are so much people
to take spaces up in our world. I wanted to make a mark in
my world, not literally but I wanted to leave something in
this world that I will lived for a reason. I want to be someone
that is known to actually change the world in some way for
the good or bad since every choice has both.
I think the Giver is a great book because it influences you actually want to
stand up and try to change the world so its better.

Entry 7 - research to know more about your book/author

   As my two research exercises I chosen were Author Isolations
 which is reading about the other books the author wrote and
relate them to the current book and Biography squats which is
to read about the authors life and see if it influences the book in
anyway.

   As I read about the books that Lois Lowry I noticed this book
that was familiar to me and I found that the book Number the
Stars was a book that I read in my old school and I really liked
that book because of its theme of how these people endured
pain and were hunted and as the main character witness these
events as a child she would undergo this transformation where
this is the world in front of her is the real world not blinded by
the mist where truths are hidden to you as a kid. It was just the
same in my childhood book The Giver as Jonas is changed by
the truth of how things worked in his world while he is a child
he could have chosen to ignore the fact like the kid he is or he
takes a wise decision and leave everything behind.
   Reading the biography made me notice that in her life she
talked about how all of her book related to her life, like for a
example she wrote the book A Summer to Die was a book
she wrote about her sister's early death and her feeling of loss
over it. So I've learned that great books require real life
experiences to actually make a connection to the reader or give
the book a meaning instead of just entertaining the reader.

Entry #6 The Giver

My most interesting note or the note that stood
out to me most was probably are the notes
I wrote on Jonas's parents because of how they are
well developed into that kind of character you would
expect them to be in this book. I really like how they
are designed like robots in this story and how cold they
are. For a example on page149 where Jonas's dad
just kills a baby and almost dust his hands off and
takes it as a joke about where he says "bye bye little guy".
Also on page 127 as if they were avoiding Jonas's question
of whether they love him or not, and they give these
automatic responses you would expect a lifeless
person would say. But still I should be hating these
characters but you have to feel sorry for them
since they don't feel anything for what they do since
it was taken away from them, their just simple doing
what they have to do, I think if they were given the
emotions to choose they would've done the right thing instead.