Introduction to Fiction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4kZvkVO8bA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6wSrFkqZAY

Section A:
1. Happliy Ever After= 6
2. John and Mary Smith= 4
3. A Life= 1
4. A Happy Marriage= 1
5. It’s A Wonderful Life= 9

Section B
1. Love’s a Bitch= 5
2. Twenty-First Century Love= 3
3. One-Sided Love= 3
4. Reality= 2
5. There’s Always Somebody Else= 1
6. Crazy Stupid Love= 4
7. She’s Gotta Have It= 1

8. Cross My Heart and Hope to Die= 3
9. Feminist Revenge Fantasy= 0

Section C
1. Mad Men= 3
2. Midlife Crisis= 7
3. Love and Other Drugs= 4
4. Can’t Resist the Bad Boys= 1

5.none of the above= 2 

D:
1. Meant to Be= 10
2. Tidal Wave=2
3. It Happens=5
4. 12/26/05= 4

E:
1. What Does That Even Mean?=2
2. Confused= 3
3. Unknown= 3
4. Survival of the Fittest= 1
5. In Medias Res= 2
7. Til Death Do Us Part= 6
8. Bird Watching= 3

F:
1. John and Mary Die= 12
2. From Canada With Love= 6
3. Maybe We Should All Move to Canada
4. O Canada!= 2
5. Canada is Boring=0
6. Everybody Dies in Canada= 0

I found it to be very entertaining the way Juniot Diaz spoke to the audience. I feel that his choice of words were very interesting because the audience seemed to enjoy it. He used many curses while talking about his experience in Brooklyn. He read a short passage from his story, answered  the questions from the audience and quickly left the stage to catch his plane back home. I got the chance to talk to him before he went on stage for a couple of minutes and he seemed to be a very social person, the way he spoke just kept our conversation going. Although I don’t attend events such as this, I was excited to be there.

In my experience at the Literary Arts Festival I thought Junot Diaz was very crowd-pleasing and relative with many of the dominican students who were in the congregation. Within the first few moments on stage Junot set the atmosphere to be very down-to-earth. I feel that Junot was very honest to himself and the crowd as he spoke not only of his upcoming book How To Lose Her but also about his style of writing and how he came to be inspired to write in the first place. My first reaction to Junot was, “OMG is this guy for real!?” I was a bit thrown at first because i didn’t expect him to curse so much, I though maybe that was just something he did in his writings to portray something, but now I’m pretty sure the man just loves to curse.

Just left the Literary Arts Festival and unfortunately I accidentally deleted about 12 minutes of footage I recorded of Junot speaking. Nonetheless, from the very beginning of his speaking, the audience came alive with a multitude of reactions. From heavy laughter to appalled faces from the crowd, references to “be-nutted condoms” and graphic sexual activities to comments of gratitude like, “Thanks for coming out tonight. It’s a Thursday night in Brooklyn there’s about a billion fucking things you can be doing right about now.” Junot, who is in my opinion very talented from what i’ve heard and read so far, held mostly everyones attention throughout.

An Introduction to Junot Diaz

From my point of view i thought Junot Diaz would have carried himself a bit more professionally. Having already came across a few videos of him doing readings on YouTube I feel that he chose to act the way he did so that he can make us as students feel comfortable with him. Many of his word choices were curse words and raunchy comments at the LAF, though I expected a more professional Junot Diaz that he portrayed on YouTube in other speakings. Honestly I have no issues with his writings. People have the right to write whatever they want and I personally feel that his writings are very real  to what goes on in life. Nothing has changed in my view of him or his works after having seen him speak at the LAF, although I don’t think i’ll be getting his next book.

Edgar Angel
Professor Rodgers
Introduction to Fiction
January 31 2012

My name is Edgar Angel; I live in Woodhaven, Queens, and I’m a Communication Design major. I love graphic and web design, as well as typography, and pretty much anything related to my field. This is my third year in City Tech, and I’m just three semesters away from getting my Bachelor’s degree. I graduated from BMCC in 2010 and transferred to City Tech later that year. Over the past few months I’ve been reading graphic design magazines, web design blogs, and I’m currently reading a book on designing brand identity. I also finished reading “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck a couple of weeks ago.

Questions About Our Syllabus.

• 1. What does the term Anthology mean?
• 2. Do we always have to bring an English handbook, a dictionary
  and / or a thesaurus to class?
• 3.  Is there any extra credit?

Questions To Help Us Get To Know One Another.

• 1. Do you have a job?
• 2. What’s your background?
• 3. Do you have any hobbies?

Texts Review.
I’m not familiar with any of the texts, but they sound interesting, and I’m looking forward to reading them. So far, I think the package that was given to us on the first day of class, 10 Things You Need to Know About Writing and 10 Things to Write About (College Edition) is really interesting, and helpful, as it provides a vast amount of useful pointers, definitions and literary terms. I haven’t written a paper in more than two years, so I’m sure this package would come in handy. I don’t have any questions regarding these texts.

I think fiction is a collection of stories, life experiences, and cultural beliefs which are lived and explained by a fictional, or imaginary character(s), which is in fact a way of expressing and reflecting on the author’s own life. I think we should read fiction, not only for entertainment, but a as way to learn from said characters, and their lives.