Monday, November 22, 2010

The Namesake

Blog about one of questions for discussion.  Include quotations with page numbers. 


Well, I don't know what or where i get the questions for discussion from, so I am going to write about how I felt about the reading.  I actually enjoying the novel very much.  This story is about a Bengali couple who moves to America and is trying to find their identity.  The mother, Ashima is struggling to find her self identity in America.  She wants to go back to her home country because she doesn't know the American culture. She is also is pregnant, so she wants to be back home, where her family can help take care of the child.  She is "terrified to raise a child in a country where she is related to no one" (6). Even after she gave birth to her child, Gogol, and three years after she gave birth, she feels like she is trying to find her self identity.  She doesn't like the idea that her child is adapting to the American culture instead of raising her child as a Bengali.  The reason why she wants to hold on to her Bengali because she wasn't planning to live in America and raise a family.  Her husband, Ashoke was in Cambridge to finish up his education and leave the states after he got his education. But Ashoke got a job in America and did not want to leave his job or his income.  If Ashima did not meet Ashoke, she would of have a career of her own.  "Before she was married, she was working toward a college degree. ...She was nineteen, in the middle of her studies, in no rush to be a bride" (7).  But her parents and Asoke's parents had an arrange marriage for their children and that is the end of Ashima's dream.  This really robbed her dreams because within two weeks of meeting Asoke, she is already married to him.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

"Faint"

Blog about your favorite song. Type out the lyrics and explain how the sounds and rhythm of the song work to enhance the meaning.  Explain why the song is important to you. 

Choosing a song for this blog took me awhile because I was debating in between five songs of my favorite songs.  I finally choose the song "Faint" by Linking Park. This song is featured in the album Meteora, which was released back in 2003.

Even though I do not listening to rap, Linkin Park does a good job incorporating rap with rock, which I like.  The rap is important because it states the theme.  The theme of the could be interpret in many different ways.  How I interpret the song can go for how a love or friendship relationship went wrong.  This song is important to me because I feel like a lot of my friendship ended poorly because a lot of these people went behind back, resulting them losing my trust. But a lot of theses 'friends' ended up of wanting to be friends again because they realize that they are needy and realize that I am a good friend.  But before I wanted to be their friends again, I tell them that they lost my trust and a lot of these people does not want to hear what I have to say.  They do turn their backs on me because they know what ever I say is true and is afraid of facing the truth.  I am a very straight forward person and a lot of people does not like that personality trait of mine.

The main chorus is when the 'rock' section of the song is played. I think that the group decided to use more of a rock influence on the main chorus because this shows how the group feels frustrated when certain people goes behind their backs.

"Faint"-Linkin Park 
I am a little bit of loneliness, a little bit of disregard
Handful of complaints but I can't help the fact
That everyone can see these scars

I am what I want you to want, what I want you to feel
But it's like no matter what I do
I can't convince you to just believe this is real

So, I let go watchin' you, turn your back
Like you always do, face away and pretend that I'm not
But I'll be here 'cause you are all that I've got

I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored, time won't heal this damage anymore
Don't turn your back on me, I won't be ignored

I am a little bit insecure, a little unconfident
'Cause you don't understand, I do what I can
But sometimes I don't make sense

I am what you never want to say but I've never
Had a doubt, it's like no matter what I do
I can't convince you for once just to hear me out

So, I let go watchin' you, turn your back
Like you always do, face away and pretend that I'm not
But  I'll be here 'cause you are all that I've got

I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored, time won't heal this damage anymore
Don't turn your back on me, I won't be ignored

No, hear me out now, you're gonna listen to me
Like it or not, right now, hear me out now,
You're gonna listen to me like or not, right now

I can't feel the way i did before
Don't turn your back on me, I won't be ignored

I can't feel the way I did before, don't turn your back on me
I won't be ignored, time won't heal this damage anymore
Don't turn your back on me, I wont be ignored

I can't feel, I won't be ignored, time won't heal
Don't turn your back on me, I won't be ignored

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Elizabeth Bishop's "The Fish"

Blog about one poem that you read for today.  Explain its denotative and connotative meaning.  Discuss its use of imagery and/or figures of speech.  Use the checklists to help you think of what to analyze about the poem you selected.  Make sure you include specific quotes form the poem. 

"The Fish", written by Elizabeth Bishop, is about a fisher man who caught a fish.  Just by reading the title, the readers can concluded how the poem is about a fish and how the fish can represent many themes.  With this poem, the fish represented the life. When the fisherman caught the fish, the man so fascinated by the fish of how it appeared and behaved.  As the fish was hanging on the line in the beginning of the poem, the fish "didn't fight./ He hadn't fought at all./  He hung a grunting weight,/ battered and venerable/ and homely" (454).  By this description, this is quite amazing how the fish did not resist to be taken out of its natural environment.  Naturally, fishes will squirm around due to the fact that fish cannot breathe oxygen and will fight in every way to get into the water.  But, this fish was different because this fish already knew that he lost the fight and will shortly die.  This action can represent how the fish knows how there are always going to be a greater force that has the power to change one's course in life.  But, at the end of the poem, the fisher man let the fish go because man was so in the moment of observing the beauty of the fish and could not bear the fact that he could indeed end this beauty. 


Through the poem, Bishop describes the fish in great details from the "brown skin hung in strips/ like ancient wallpaper,/ and its pattern of darker brown/ was like wallpaper" and "the mechanism of his jaw," (455).  Bishop wanted to go in full details about describing this fish because she wanted the readers to have the visual image of how this fish looked like. When I was reading this poem, I felt as if the fish was in front of me. I was drawn into the detail of the fish because I imagined this fish to be a large fish while listening to "his gills were breathing in/ the terrible oxygen/-the frightening gills" (455). With this kind of effect on the readers, I wonder how the man's thought of about the details of the fish. I believe the affect on the man was more intensified because he was holding the fish in front of him, instead of reading the details. That is why he released the fish. 


Even though that the meaning the of the poem is depressing, this theme is balanced out about the value of life through the colors and body movements.  Bishop also went into great details of how the fish anatomy.  The man said how he "thought of the coarse white flesh/ packed in like feathers,/ the big bones and the little bones,/ the dramatic reds and blacks/ of his shiny entrails,/ and the pink swim-bladder" (455).  A part of life includes having a body.  With the fish, the man was fascinated by the fish because of the different anatomy.  The man probably have never seen a fish in this kind of manner or never considered the fact that he was in controlled of a destiny of a living object.  This ties into the colors of the poem.  Color in this poem is important because color help change the mood of the poem.  The mood of the poem is depressing. When Bishop wrote "rainbow, rainbow, rainbow", people automatically think of the typical colors that is found in a rainbow, like red, yellow, and green (456).  These colors are usually associated with good feelings, instead of depressing feelings.  So the readers can finish the poem on a happy note, instead of a sad note. 

Sunday, November 7, 2010

"The Student Life"

“The Student Life”
Written by Nichole Kimbell

Ring ring goes the alarm clock
Wiping my face free of drool
Then it is off to school
Backpack is heavy like a rock

Studying in the library
I forgot to bring my paper
It could be with the draper
It could be in the pantry

Running to the parking lot
Drove back to my home
The paper was on the comb
Came back to school on the dot

For all this, class got cancelled.
What a day. Such a hassle. 

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Poetry Blog

Write a blog entry about the person you sent your poem and how they reacted to it. 


I decided to sent a poem about a dangerous vampire who is on a hunt to my 14 year old sister, Allison.  She is currently in the cultural phase where vampires is consider 'cool'; and how vampires are not evil like the traditional image of the past. Her first obsession came from the Twilight series when she was about 11 years old. Since then, the only novels that she reads is about 'nice' vampires who comes to the recuse of saving innocent mortals humans.

The poem, "The Vampire" written by Conrad Aiken, is about a group of people who is running away from vampire who is trying to kill them. The people describe this vampire who as "basilisk eyes so ominous,/ With mouth so sweet, so poisonous."With this description, these people were afraid for their lives, but did not survive.  Aiken wrote how the "innocent souls turned carrion birds/ To perch upon the dead./ Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,/ The air became a charnel breath,/ Pale stones were splashed with red".  This poem really portrays how vampires were first portrayed as when Dracula first came out, compared to vampires today, where  vampires shines in the sunlight.

Allison really enjoyed this poem because not only the poem incorporated her favorite themes, vampires, into a style of writing that she does not like to read. She told me how she thinks how the theme of the poem is about how people is constantly fighting with one another and how in the end, the result usually ends in violent.  But on the other hand, she liked how the poem flowed. There is a lot of rhyme that made the flow of the poem really fluid.  This poem reminded her how these fictional characters were like when they first came out.