2nd Response on "Girl In Translation"

In the book Girl In Translation, Kimberly goes through her coming-of-age process in America, having moved there as a complete foreigner around age 11. There are many similarities and differences between child and adult Kimberly, but a change I see clearly is how much more mature Kimberly became as she ‘came-of-age’. One of the primary aspects of coming-of-age is maturity, including how you deal with problems and face your responsibilities. As and adult, people expect you to be mature, even if it can be very hard to be the ‘bigger person’, and Kimberly takes on that expectation head-on.

Kimberly and her mother are extremely poor, working in an illegal sweatshop for long hours and living in a roach-ridden apartment in the projects of Brooklyn. One of Kimberly’s only friends in America, Annette, doesn’t have a clue what a rough life Kim has. Besides the language barrier, it is extremely hard for Kim to deal with, much less tell her wealthier best-friend, about her home and financial situation. In the beginning, Annette doesn’t seem much to notice, and their friendship glides along, but as they get into high school, Annette starts to wonder why she can’t call Kim, and why Kimberly can’t even afford to wear nice underwear to gym class. Later on in the book, Kim finally comes clean about how she lives when Annette shows up at her house. “I knew you didn’t have a lot of money, but this is ridiculous. No one in America lives like this.” [Annette said]. I stated the obvious. “Actually, they do.” (p. 242) A part of maturing is accepting who you are, and if you don’t like, then you try to change it. Kim does both those things, by toughing it out in her home and working her butt off trying to make a better life for her and her mom.

Another part of maturing is voicing things and taking stands for what you believe in to get things done, rather than waiting around for things to happen on their own. Since the beginning, Kimberly’s Aunt Paula has held over her head that she was the one that brought Kim and her mother to America. She makes them pay her back almost immediately, and puts them in a crappy apartment, secretly not wanting them to ‘make it’ in America. “America! If I hadn’t brought you here, you’d still be in Hong Kong. I even gave you another address so you could go to a better school.” [said Aunt Paula]. “You did that because it’s illegal for us to be living where we are.” [said Kimberly]. In this moment, towards the end of the book, Kim finally voices what she knows, and then she and her mother quit their jobs in Aunt Paula’s sweatshop so Kim can go to Yale, something Aunt Paula didn’t want her to do since it was a sign that Kim was better than her son.

One last way that shows how Kim matured is by getting a boyfriend, and showing Matt that she cares about him. I know this may seem like an odd example of maturity, but telling and showing someone you like them is incredibly hard, which I would know from personal experience. In the beginning of the book, Kim acts as if she is afraid of boys. While reluctantly going on a motorcycle tour with Matt, she says “I did desperately want to put my arms around him but...shyness overwhelmed me just at the thought of it.” Telling someone you like them not only shows bravery, but it shows that you have the power to lay-out who you are and what you’re thinking, instead of being afraid and hiding your whole life.

In conclusion, the main aspect of Kimberly’s coming-of-age that shined through was how much she matured, and took life by the reigns. As a young adult, you can’t always wait for life to make the decisions, you have to, even if that can be scary or tough. Life doesn’t always work out the way you may want it to, and the only way you can try to fix things is by getting up and fixing them yourself.

Response on Prompt #6

Rebelling, I feel, is a necessary part of growing up. Rebelling is such a general term though. When I say we should all rebel, I don’t immediately think about going out every night to drink and party. Everyone has their own boundaries, and we should rebel to our own limits. If you’re born n’ raised in a religious suburb, your tolerance for ‘crazy’ may be slightly lower than a born-and-raised New Yorker like myself.

To me, the term rebelling just means a way of going ‘against the system’, whether the system is the authority in your life, social norms etc. To learn who-we-are, we need to see where our moral beliefs and stance is. For example, do you think it is ok to be gay, or not? Going against the ‘system’ is also good just to, maybe, see how you deal with things you don’t believe in, whether that’s thinking it’s not fair to have to say ‘please’ or having a curfew before midnight. Part of getting our feet stabilized on the ground is learning how to fall. Like the saying “Forward two steps, back one step”, life isn’t always going to be up, so we need to fall a few times and see which way we can pick ourselves back up.

The thing about rebelling though is that it can have major consequences. While going against the ‘system’, we find that we like it too much and take it from experimental zone to a more permanent place in your life. For example, though I don’t want to take drugs, I understand if maybe you try it out. Well, maybe not understand, but I probably won’t blow up on you and give you an intervention. I think if we don’t try something ‘bad’, we will never understand ourselves that they are bad or disgusting. All we will know is what everyone else thinks, which to most people isn’t good enough. When this one-time thing though becomes permanent, that’s where the problem begins.

Why would so many people rebel though, if it does come with a high risk? Besides my opinion of it being necessary, the honest answer I have is that rebelling can be fun. Since I am a bit grounded, rebelling to me is not too huge, but I still remember the time I openly chewed gum in class and put my legs on the table. Wild, huh? Though it sounds stupid, a small moment of rebellion like this leads to a huge feeling of satisfaction that for many people is enough. Ok, I tried it out, I’m cool now. Rebelling is definitely something to avoid if you tend to maximize problems, but small moments of breaking the rules teach you who you are and what you can do (without hopefully getting in too much trouble...)

Response on "Girl in Translation"

Though I believe Kimberly Chang began her coming-of-age process as soon as her feet hit American soil, there is clearly a difference in her from the beginning to the end of the book Girl In Translation. Alongside the many differences though, there are many similarities between adult and child Kimberly. I feel like being a kid is a time we all cherish, and though we come-of-age, we never completely get rid of it. Many parts of us as a kid actually follow us into our adult life, whether prominent in who-we-are or just another one of our hidden personalities.

An aspect of child Kim that seems to creep up on us in adulthood is being insecure and wanting to fit in. “It became harder and harder to pull the sweater over all the under-layers I wore (unlike the other girls), but I had no choice.” This feeling of needing to be like the other kids is one I know well. Though I am far from being poor, I am not the most ‘in-with-the-trends’ and find it hard to deal with the other kids that will laugh at you if you aren’t. I think we all want to be normal, since then you can live under the radar without any negative attention. This happens more so when you’re a kid and a teenager though. It’s human nature to want to ‘fit-in’ and be normal, but as an adult you know yourself better and are more stable overall.

A second trait of Kim’s that follows her into adulthood shows when Kim goes to school in America for the first time. She gets outcasted, accused of cheating, and naturally becomes very upset. “After my talk with Ma about Mr.Bogart, I did what any sensible kid would do: I started playing hooky.” Instead of solving the problem (by maybe talking to Mr. Bogart about her trouble accustoming to American culture), she decides to cut school. Though this could be looked at as a form of rebellion, in the context she does this action in, I don’t consider it rebellion. She is not trying to make the authority (her mother and teacher) angry, she is trying to hide from her problem. Though hiding from any problem is a childish thing to do, Kim does something very similar in the end of the book. When she becomes pregnant at age 18, she doesn’t tell Matt, the father, in fear of making a bigger deal out of it. She didn’t want to “Tye him to her with a baby”, so she runs off to Yale, being a college student by day and a mother by night. Adults and parents are supposed to be the people that solve problems and face their duties, but as Kim matures, she still hangs on to her childhood shy and scared self.

The last way Kim acts like a child is by being afraid to stand-up for herself. Now, I say that like it is an easy thing, which it’s not, but another part of coming-of-age is being able to take care of yourself in a world that does not always play in your favor. When Kim and her mother treat themselves to ice-cream, they get ripped off, and they both know it. “When he rang up the price, it was three times more than it said on the carton...I didn’t know if I should speak up or how you complained about prices in English, so I kept silent as well.” The interesting part is that her mother, who in theory has already experienced her coming-of-age, didn’t stand up for herself or say anything either. I guess none of us completely turn into an ‘adults’, since most times it is just so much easier to be a kid.

As I flipped back through the pages of my book, I realized that many aspects of being a kid follow you to your adult life. Though I would like to think that as an adult you are always in control, that’s not true. As I read about Kim getting scared as a police called from behind, I immediately thought Not ready to be an adult and play it cool yet, huh? After some thought, I realized most people, kids or adults, would be scared in a situation like that. I also need to give credit to Kim for having to experience her coming-of-age in a completely foreign place with a very different language and culture. Coming-of-age means changing, but more in the way that you build on what you already know. Though being a kid and being an adult are so very different, and coming-of-age feels like a slap in the face sometimes, we always have a part in us that still wants our old teddy-bear to hug or our mommies to tuck us into bed at night.

Response to "My Papa's Waltz"

***Finally, I can express my opinions in a place where every 2 seconds people aren’t shouting ‘racist’ or ‘H.A.M’ (cough cough Aaron and Gabriel, no help from Tomin)...***

So today we read ‘My Papa’s Waltz.” I want to start off by saying that every one has their own interpretations, and that is ok, but here is mine: I think the father is drunk, I think the ‘waltz’ is the father’s staggering around while his son is clinging on to him, I think that though maybe not intentionally, the father is hurting the son, and that even with all of this ‘drama’, the little boy calls it a waltz and still loves his father because it is hard for people to see the bad in their parents.

So, I’ll start with backing up to the father being drunk. First, there is whiskey on his breath. And yes, whiskey on your breath doesn’t automatically make you drunk, but when there is enough to ‘make a small boy dizzy’, yes not uncomfortable but DIZZY, something is up. Also, ‘every step you miss’ to me seems as if not that the father simply is getting the counts wrong, but that he is at least ‘tipsy’. Another thing is that the father is dirty with a ‘palm caked hard by dirt’ and a battered knuckle could mean that either the father is a construction worker as Charlie said, or that the dart is from being out late roaming the streets in a drunk frenzy, hurting himself or other people getting his hand dirty.

Another belief I have is that whether purposely or not, the father is hurting the son. “My right ear scraped a buckle” sounds pretty harsh, and “you beat time on my head” could mean a number of things from hurting him physically or by threats of memories and the future. Also, people say that since the mother is pretty much just being a bystander that the father isn’t drunk and possibly hurting his son, since if he was she would do something. Well, I hate to break it to people, but not every one is brave. What if this is a normal thing for the papa to be drunk, and in the past he has hit the mother too? Sure, I guess from mother’s we expect there to be a lot of protection for their children, but what about protecting themselves? If they get hurt, who knows what could happen to her son’s life without a mom?!

Another thing I believe is that the waltz is actually the father staggering around while his son clings to him. “Romping” means acting in a rough and noisy (boisterous) way, which could show up if the son is clinging on, and the father is angry and wants him off. The son says (the poem is in the boy’s perspective) “BUT I hung on like DEATH.” Hmm, interesting. The fact that the son used the word ‘death’ rather than something like ‘I hung on tight’ shows that possibly he is in a situation not so far from what brings death, or what emotions come with death. Maybe the boy doesn’t exactly know what ‘drunk’ is, but is a bit scared of his papa staggering and trying to shrug him off.

Also, usually when people say ‘but’, they are trying to justify something, or explain something. In the poem’s context, what is being explained or justified is that the whiskey on the father’s breath could make a small boy dizzy. The thing about this poem that I truly find so beautiful and true is that the little boy clearly loves his father. Whether actually dancing or getting abused, and being with a drunk or just tipsy father, the little boy wants to be and possibly dance with his father. He defends the whiskey on the breath, and clings on to him ‘for dear life’, whether for support or simply wanting love, when ‘waltzing’ and being doomed to bed. As I mentioned, for us (especially little boys, but even me sometimes), we look up to our parents, and so we find it hard to fault them. No matter what, (hopefully), we love our parents even if they ground us, take away the computer, etc. We all as teenagers have those times of ‘No one understands me!’ or ‘WHATEVER MOM!’ and then the occasional ‘I hate you!’, but how can we truly hate the people that provide so much for us? *rhetorical question* The son may be in the risk of getting seriously hurt by his drunk dad, but instead of thinking of that, he thinks his father’s staggers and pushes are a dance or waltz of a kind. The waltz of a son and his father.

Narrative Poem

Hello

Goodbye
I say as I wave to my parents

Though I’m nervous, I am a big girl
and I can do this
I can do this
and if my friends can do this
Then I Can Do This

right?

This place, it’s not a monster
it’s my new home, kind-of
I will love it, I’m sure
my friends love it
and I will love it

I walk up to a women waiting for me at the door
“Hey,” she says all i-won’t-remember-your-name
but why not tell it to me anyway?
I stutter it out and tell her about myself
say where I live, what pets I have, what I like to do
and she nods and points me up ‘that way’
I don’t see where she is pointing but I know I can find my way
my friends found there way and
I will find my way

am I cheating if I ask her again?

I walk up the hill, looking around as I go
it looks like a typical camp
trees, birds, rocks, plants
I take a left, like she said
and walk into the log cabin
other big-people greet me and I repeat everything I said to the other one
and since they seem a bit more interested
I tell them a bit more
and ask if I can have a top-bunk even though I am afraid of heights
but I can get over that
my friends got over their fears
and so I will get over mine

they say 'sure' enthusiastically
and one says “just like me. Adventurous”
I nod once and look down
they take my bags and put them in a closet
I walk up to a bed and wonder how the hell I am supposed to get up
climb? jump? fly?
I step onto the lower one, and for dear life fling myself up
my muscles strain, but thank god, I make it
and then I almost fall down a bit dizzy from the journey
but I stay put

A girl walks inside now, looking a bit pale like I’m sure I do
she follows the status-quo and keeps polite
her hands stick-straight at her side and then
she looks over at me
her eyes widen
she takes her bag and puts it
hesitantly
on the bed below mine
she waits a few seconds
I don’t move
and she sits down and looks up at me
I lean over, forget that there is a 99 percent chance that I will fall, and whisper

Hello.

Picture Book, 3rd draft

pg.1: I woke up today not feeling like myself. I reached up to pat my head, thinking that maybe my favorite pink bow had fallen off while I was sleeping...it was still there.
pg.2: I pushed my covers down, stepped out of bed, and walked toward my mirror. I gasped. I was a green, hairy, slimy, fat, gross monster! I touched my hair and felt worms. I poked my stomach, and green slime oozed on my finger. I opened my mouth, and out came bug juice. “AHHHHH!”
pg.3: When my friends came over, like they usually do on Saturdays, they rang the doorbell and I peeked out of the mail slot. Ava and Julie looked down and smiled at me. I opened the door, and then after they were inside slammed it shut. Luckily, no-one but Ava and Julie were outside to see me. “What’s wrong?” Ava asked. I shushed them and pulled them up the stairs to my room.
pg.4: “I woke up today,” I gulped, “A MONSTER!” They looked at each other, then replied “No silly! You’re not a monster! You’re pretty! Now can we go back outside to play house? You can be the mommy this time!” “Are you crazy! I can’t go outside looking like this! I am ugly and fat and green and slimy! Can’t you see?” “What are you talking about? You look completely normal!”
pg.5: After Ava and Julie left early, since they were bored with me stuck inside, my mom asked if I wanted to go out for pizza, or maybe ice-cream. Yikes! I thought. I can’t have all my friends seeing me like this! They will laugh at me! “No thanks mommy. Let’s just stay home tonight.”
pg.6: On Sunday, instead of playing with my friends like I usually do on Sundays, I was sitting on my couch, waiting for them. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. They never came!
pg.7: I was looking out the window when I saw Ava and Julie walking straight towards my house, ice-creams in hand, laughing in the sun. Finally! But then...they walked past my door to go a few houses down to Julie’s house. I jumped up and through the mail slot called out to them. “Guys! Why didn’t you come over?” “Um, well, yesterday all you did was sulk around your room. Today we kind of wanted to go outside to have fun! You aren’t a monster, and we don’t know how many more times we have to say it!” Then they walked away. Tears started coming to my eyes, and my face grew hot and red.
pg.8: I stormed back up to my room to the mirror. “HEY! Everyone says I look normal, so they must be right! Stop lying to me about who I am! I am not a monster! I know if I went outside, no-one would look at me strange. Go away!”
pg.9: And just like that, the monster slowly became me again.
MAYBE: pg.10: When I woke up the next day, feeling totally normal, bow still on my head, I walked towards my mirror. There was a girl standing there, with plain black hair, pale skin, and only a tongue in her mouth. (OR just show image)
pg.10 (IMAGE):- Annie’s back (mostly dominant part of page), then front in mirror (smiling) and have room colorful and happy, with girl with messy black hair, petite, skirt, etc with a pink bow on her head
pg.11: It was me OR/AND I was back

Author's Note

When I was around 11 I started looking at myself, and rejecting what I knew. I started believing my perfectly normal body shape was fat. I always was a chubby youngster, and those comments I got from family as I finally started to grow out of my baby fat, like 'Look how much weight you lost!" and "Wow, Tulah, you are looking great!" had gotten to me, turned around in my mind. I became obsessed with food labels, exercise, and calculating how much food I 'deserved' in a day.

Anorexia, I believe, is not only a disease where your body gets malnourished. Anorexia is when your mind gets malnourished, too. Instead of food, we feed our mind insults and constant work to simply not hate yourself. About 1 in 200 Americans will develop anorexia at some point in their life (Harvard Mental Health Letter, Feb 2003 edition, pp. 1-4). It can start from a diet, having a need for peer’s approval, or our minds becoming ‘a lot less smart about ourselves’ (Psychology Today, The Skinny Sweepstakes, SKS.SIRS.com). Anorexia not only makes us thin, but it can cause major detriments to our social life and health beyond weight. Anorexia can cause heart failure, liver disorders, and possibly swollen joints. People suffering from Anorexia Nervosa are often ‘shy, neat, quiet, conscientious, and hyper sensitive to rejection’ (Anorexia Nervosa part 1). Anorexia patients push people away, not accepting their help because they ‘deny that anything is wrong’ (Harvard Mental Health Letter, Feb 2003 edition, pp. 1-4).

I am not anorexic, but I know what it feels like to think that I am never good enough for everyone around me, including myself. This story came out of my feeling for wanting to share what it feels like to be alone and lost, which almost everyone feels at some point, and how we simply need to be strong and stay true to ourselves. We are all beautiful, truly no matter what size or shape.

Works Cited
- Marano, Hara Estroff. "The Skinny Sweepstakes." Psychology Today Vol. 41, No. 1. Jan./Feb. 2008: 88-95. SIRS Researcher. Web. 12 Dec 2010.
- Unknown. "Anorexia Nervosa--Part I." Harvard Mental Health Letter. Feb. 2003: 1-4. SIRS Researcher. Web. 12 Dec 2010.

EXTRA CREDIT 1ST QUARTER-- response to The Lorax

"Why does the onceler not ever show his face?" -Daniel A. 807

In the lorax, all we see of the greedy, money hungry creature is his green arms.  The onceler  literally destroys the environment around him, defies the lorax's pleas to stop, and later when the lorax leaves, feels awful about it and holes himself up.  In response to Daniel's question, I say that the onceler never shows his face, because in a way of money and greed and regret, he is all of us with many faces. By that I mean, we are humans, bound to make mistakes, and since we now live in a world where money and power are the solution to almost everything, we can't help but to always want more of it to get ahead.  

It's obviously a bad thing to always want more, but are problems ever justified if we fix them?  In the end of The Lorax, the onceler gave the boy the last truffula tree seed for him to plant, and though we never found out what happens with the seed, we still get a feeling of hope from it.  Yet, I wonder, does fixing something make the problem go away completely?  It seemed as if even though the onceler did a notion of getting back a rich truffula tree forest, he still regretted what he had done.  In a way, we never can truly fix a problem, because the impact for that time being (before we fix it) will always exist.  Also, we can't just forget what we have done wrong, because if we did, we would never learn from our mistakes. 

That leads me to the next point of why didn't the onceler plant the tree seed himself?  Was it because he didn't want to start the problem of killing the environment again, or did he simply not want to be reminded of the wrong he did (further than he is reminded of it from all the barren gray around him already)?  To me, it seems a bit less greedy, the fact that the onceler gave the seed away to some boy to plant.  Some say it could be that he is too cowardly, but I think it shows that he wants to make a difference to the world by teaching others to help and respect the land they live on.  In a sense, I feel like the onceler knows he can't ever personally cover up his mistake, so why not let someone else get a chance to do a good thing.  

When we are kids, we are taught to be accepted as a kind person again is to say 'sorry', but as we get older we realize that sometimes, sorry isn't good enough.  In a way, I guess we learn it the hard way, simply realizing one day sorry doesn't go too far, but it's a lesson we all need to learn to take a step toward making less errors and more accomplishments.  I always thought the saying 'you need to fail to succeed' was BS, but in a way it is true, because if we learn that mistakes will be made, we will also learn that we should try to live without a lot of them, or learn from them and move on.  I guess we can never truly erase a mistake we have made, but we can always hope for a future where we progress beyond simply fixing the mistake we made, but making the world better on top of fixing the original thing.

Appreciation on The Giver

Even as a young girl, I loved The Giver.  It perfectly encompasses our world with new twists and turns that rack your mind until you are sore, and relates to you to the point where you think it is not a mere book, but a crystal ball following our every move  When I read it, I get lost in this world, and always try to stay and live in it for a while, just to try it out.  Every time I read it, something new each page comes to me and goes into the big stewing pot that is called my brain, until a little while later it is spooned out at the most unexpected moment, to apply a bit of The Giver to my life.     

Jonas, the main character, lives in the world of Sameness.  While I was a little girl with not a care in the world, I didn’t see any relation between me an Jonas.  He was a pre-teen boy, so obviously we must have been on 2 opposite planets.  Yet, now, after I avoid the fact that he is a boy, the only thing I can focus on is how truly similar we are.  All we want to know is who we are.  We are both lost in this world, searching for ourselves blindly. 

 Jonas tries to be the best he can be, with good ethics such as respecting elders, and finding time for his ‘family’.  At the same time, just like any teenage boy, he has hormones and likes to play war games.  What makes Jonas relatable to everyone though, is the world he lives in.  Dictatorship and communism are pretty close to sameness -- right?  We may not have sameness, but houses, bikes, family dinners, jobs, death (no matter how many words you find for it, death is death), even the simplicity of childhood elements such as playgrounds, snack-time, and stuffed toys are shown throughout the Giver and our life.  Instead of having flying cars and clone machines in the future, Lowry makes the world ‘progress’ in the way of achieving life the easiest it can be -- without creating too much more to get there.  

Before I read this book as a mature teenager, me and many of my peers thought it would be a miracle to all be the same.  No more competing on who has the best clothes, how rich one another families are, how many friends we have, and how much money we can spend.  We have no idea what sameness would be like, but we all believe it would be better than what we have become familiar with, almost tired of.  Jonas never questions the world he lives in, until he matures and receives his job as receiver of memories.  When he gets the memories, his view changes on his world, and he starts to see how individuality and choices can be good.  In a way, I sort of matured or ‘grew’ with the Giver.  Part of ‘finding yourself’ is realizing that differences are what make the world go around, and that without them life is pretty useless.  As a kid, I read this book and drooled over their world, and know I look at it as the worst place you could possibly live.  Like Jonas, I have learned the value of genuineness just from 180 pages of pure genius.  

For us all, life is about growing and learning.  The Giver taught me so much.  Lowry creates the perfect nightmare that is so hard to stop thinking about, much less stop reading.  Jonas’s truth in who he is has a piece of everyone, wether they live in your community or elsewhere.  Even Lowry, as said in her Newberry Acceptance speech, has a lot of herself in Jonas.  Jonas is simply a normal boy that can relate to everyone.  This book will always be in my heart, and hopefully whenever I am struggling along with everyone else on how annoying it can be to not have the easy life of ‘sameness’, I know I will think back to this very book and continue on my path of my unique life, head held high and proud, and maybe someday you will too...

Entry #7, Research on The Giver

The Giver is a book I read as a kid and teenager, and though both times I got very different themes from it, I loved it all the same.  It taught me (in a nutshell) that differences make the world only better, and that pain and suffering can help us achieve happiness and balance.  I found not many connections with The Giver, and so to start off my research, I looked at Lowry’s background to see it there is any resemblance between her life and Jonas’s world.

While looking at a biography about Lowry, http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Giver-Lois-Lowry-Biography.id-113,pageNum-3.html, it mentioned that since her father was an army officer, she moved around a lot as a kid.  In my opinion, moving around constantly would not only be scary, but also exhausting.  Having to always be the new kid, and never truly knowing where your home is sounds awful.  In a way, Lowry’s strength through it all shows in Jonas, because he isn’t afraid to go out into ‘Elsewhere’, and his tolerance of having to be one of the only people that experiences pain shows more strength.  Another similarity I found between Lowry and Jonas is that when Jonas asked about love, his parents shrugged off the idea, because the community is built so that you only enjoy and deal with your family.  In Lowry’s biography it said ‘her step-grandmother merely tolerated her’, which shows I suppose that she knew a bit about what it was like to not be loved.    

As another form of research into Jonas’s world and Lowry’s life, I looked at Lowry’s Newbery acceptance speech, and it gave me a similar feeling that Lowry’s life did have a lot to do with Jonas’s.  In her speech, http://loislowry.com/pdf/Newbery_Award.pdf, she mentions how so many aspects of the book are based on her own life, from feeling trapped by her parents, to meeting an old, blind man who only remembers color.  It’s interesting how in a way, I was looking for the bad in their world, and the good in ours (because the book’s world is awful, so typically the more differences I can find, the better).  In Lowry’s speech, she touches up on feeling safe and comfortable in what we know, which I feel is one of the reasons we are sometimes hesitant to criticize our own worlds, because like in our world and in ‘the community’, since we don’t know much else, we don’t always know how anything else would be like. 

As my last bit of research, I found out that in 2011, they were coming out with a movie of The Giver.  Anxious to see the trailer, I went on youtube, but only could find kid’s school and personal project versions of what they think the trailer should be like.  I found them all to be similar, in the way that Jonas’s world looks so sad, scary, and gloomy.  It’s interesting, because I took the community as a happy place, (unless you know the truth like Jonas).  The thing about the community is that the people in it are (or at least think they are) happy.  They don’t know any better, so they live with and fine greatness in the life they live.  This simply shows how differently everyone interprets the book.

In conclusion, through research, I truly understand how this book came to be, and how our world is so ‘not what meets the eye’.  

Entry #6, The Giver

Why do we always seem to protect ourselves from reality?  It is like, we try to either ignore what’s happening, or we try and shield the youth by simply keeping them uninformed of what actually happens.  Parents and guardians say it is to protect the youth, but isn’t knowledge a better protection?  If we go into the world like a bright-eyed deer, we will have to learn about life the hard way.  How is this protecting?

In The Giver, their system of life is called ‘sameness’, which is when there are no colors, music, emotions, or hardships.  Everyone’s life is planned out, to when kids get their bikes, who people get married to, how many kids each couple will have, and what profession they will have for the rest of their life.  Also, their life has been built so that no-one experiences pain, sadness, or confusion except for the receiver.  The elders do this to ‘protect’ the people from everything wrong with the world, but when a few memories of hardship do escape, the world goes into panic. 

Is that how we want to live our life?  When the smallest mention of the past of hardships gets out, we all go crazy?  How is that protecting you?  I think in life we have to roll with the punches, and accept what will eventually come, not try and only live in the moment.  Yet, many people say that ‘living life in the moment‘ and not worrying about what is to come is the best way to live life, because you get the most experiences out of it.  My dad, for instance, never plans anything and just does things when he wants to, even when he knows nothing about something and embarrasses me by asking the stupidest questions.  I feel though, that if I was warned for instance how stressful middle school can be, I would get a little nervous maybe but in time that pays off because then I would know what to expect from middle school and how to prepare for the stress that may come.   

In The Giver, one of the first things that the elder told Jonas about his job as receiver is that it would hurt.  It would hurt a lot.  Jonas, like me, adapted to the warning and learned that though it will hurt at times, it can be so amazing other times.  I feel like we all have different styles of living our life, and I guess I can’t truly say which one is wrong or right because it all depends on the person.  But I will say that when parents say they are ‘protecting‘ their kids, they are usually just hurting kids the more they keep them uninformed.  No-one wants to be a clueless person in life, with no map, so though you may get nervous, I know many people that would rather be nervous then stupid.

Entry #5, Theme in Charlotte's Web

Is doing what’s expected always the right thing?  I feel like a big theme in Charlotte’s Web is tradition of our daily lives, and how we carry out our duties.  A kind of mix between sexism and discrimination, this book portrays a world where everyone plays it safe, and silently lives their lives as others have planned them out to be.

An example of this, on page 133, is when Mr. Zuckerman wants to look at the tractors, while Mrs. Zuckerman wants to look at a deep freeze (or a refrigerator).  Back in the 1950s, it was a woman’s job to tend to the home, and a man’s to bring home the pay.  I guess there’s no big problem with doing what you’re supposed to, but I can’t help but wonder if it gets boring and awful sometimes!  For example, I try to do well in school and stuff, but when it comes to not J-walking or not talking back, it’s hard!  Having to do what your ‘assigned’ to do takes away the whole ‘finding yourself’ part of life!  We’re not all meant to be the same, because then the world would never progress.  Do some people simply do what they’re supposed to because they think that is who they are?

In the book Carpe Diem, the main character Vassar plays her parents game of ‘education all the time’ for basically her whole youth, but she never (until shipped to Cambodia for the summer) rebels against that by finally letting loose and allowing herself to have emotions.  She used to trick herself into thinking she’s happy.  How can we live like that?  Is it sometimes easier to do what people expect?  On page 124 of Charlotte's Web, the old sheep tells Wilbur to put up a fuss when he is being forced into his cage, because that is what is every ‘normal’ pig does.  When he does struggle, Mr. Zuckerman says "Nothing wrong with this pig."  So by doing a small thing ‘normal’, everything is ok with us?  I feel like there is so much more to an animal/person than one thing!  Just because I am a righty doesn't mean I am normal!  It seems like if we ever do the slightest bit wrong, it is blown out of proportion.  Is that why people always stick to the rules?  Because they are afraid that one ‘wrong’ thing they do will get blown up?   If this is the case, would it be better to fully be crazy so people will expect you to be crazy (and not make a big deal out of nothing)?  

In our lives now, the people that are different are both celebrated and scorned.  If someone follows the rules, some people take it as good, others as bad.  Typically the people not born in ‘my generation‘ take it as bad, while the ones around my age take it as ‘cool’.  Maybe people born in the 50s-70s (or about) are so used to tradition that they have a harder time accepting being more unique, while people born after then try to follow their own rhythm more.  I guess doing what you’re supposed to can suck and make you not be truly who you are, but in the 1950s, tradition was what mattered, and so that’s what people did to try to be themselves while being similar to everyone else.