Quicksand
Refute – Noun
Definition: Disprove, rebut
Passage: This great community, she thought, was
no longer a school. It had grown into a ma-
chine. It was now a show place in the black belt,
exemplification of the white rain’s magnanim-
ity, refutation of the black man’s inefficiency.
Understanding; I understand that Helga thinks that the school she is working at is disproving to the black man’s inefficiency.
Source: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/refute?s=t
In the story “A Short Essay on Being” by Jenny Boully, the protagonist reminded me of myself a lot. She learned a few years ago that there is a type of Thai noodle dish called “pad Thai”. She went to visit her friend from graduate school and told her that she made her “pot Thai”. She said “She told me, “It’s pad Thai.” And even though she knew I was Thai and even though she knew that I was born in Thailand and had been back numerous times and even though she knew that my mother raised me to speak Thai and still spoke to me in Thai, I thanked her for correcting me.” The protagonist in this short story was a little offended but out of respect of herself and her culture, she kindly said “Thank you” and left it alone, although she knew the correct way of saying it. She even said “Instead of correcting her, I thanked my friend from grad school for correcting me, because that is just the Thai way. You move about quietly. You don’t show others their errors—you let them eventually come to learn the errors of their ways and have them come to you for forgiveness later.” I completely agreed with the protagonist instead of her correcting her friend. I think everyone eventually always figures out their mistakes, it’s just a matter of time. I believe the ancestors from Thailand have instilled the Thai way in their children so that they can be respectful and realize that others will eventually come to their senses. I’ve came across a few people as well before that corrected me while they were actually the wrong one, but I would never say anything. I don’t believe that there’s any point of correcting them once I knew the right thing in my head. I believed that they would eventually find out the correct way by themselves.
What do the indications of setting (time/place) do for your experience of reading Saed’s poem, “What the Scar Revealed”?
Reading, what the scar revealed by Saed was interesting. knowing the setting of the poem made it easier to understand. The indication of where and when this took place brought attention to a lot of the details. It feels like the details could almost have been metaphorical, to what was happening in that country at the time that this poem was written. When I think Afghanistan in 1977 it reminds me of war. ” Young mother sees spirits walking across the sky with stars, blossoming at each step”. This is in a way reflecting, the spirits of children, women, and men( especially) soldiers in Afghanistan. The stars joining as a single thread of daylight would represent a better day.
Wounds – these wounds in comparison to a navel would Intrigue you to think. In this country in this time wounds would have been inflicted due to chaos and war. “To heal, the cut navel swallows the city and remembers its fragrance”. its almost like saying, “you live to tell the story”. This is in memory of the wounds gained in Afghanistan, and someone able to tell the story of healing.
The setting helps to bring life to the story being told in this poem What The Scar Revealed by Zohra Saed. Knowing the setting is a huge help in visualizing. being aware of the place and time gives an understanding to the story. You actually had the opportunity to not only move through the times with the characters but enables you to put yourself in their shoes.
overall though it seems that knowing the setting helps you to understand the details, I am still stuck wondering
Are the details in this poem metaphorical or are they concrete?
This is a photograph of my grandmother, great grandmother and my older brother, around late 1980’s or earlier. My grandmother is wearing a red and white lace African outfit with her head customarily tied with my bother on her lap. That leaves my great grandmother wearing a dark brown outfit with colorful patterns. They are comfortably sitting down on a tan sofa visiting a relative or two or so it seems. The house could be where I lived back home with just different arrangements.
This is one of the few pictures I have of my grand parents. A lot of the memorable photos that my family had, all were destroyed and misplaced. But this photo survived,
My mother first tired to enlarge this photo from a 4 by 4 size to a 8 by 8 inch size. This picture has always been so special to me because this is the only picture I have of both of my grandparents together. I never met my grandmother because she died before I was born, but I knew my great grand mother growing up
Every time I look at this picture, it remains me of the times me and siblings bothered my great grandmother. I was around seven years old or younger. I remember making fun of how she walked and how she spoke so softly you had to came close to her lips to hear whatever it was she was saying. She used to always say “you guys leave me,” in my native language creole. She didn’t say much but her disciple ways were always something to look back on and laugh.
Looking at this photography brings me back to the times my great grand mother ate fufu and okra. This meal is serve in Sierra Leone. I remember always avoiding to eat with her or eat her left overs because she was old. As a child I hated eating left overs from old people because I thought it was grist. I remember her constantly screaming at me for this habit I had, but she loved me anyhow, she would say ate or you’re going to go to sleep hungry
I can also remember the day she died just from looking at this picture, her body was cold and she became very tiny. This picture means the world to me and I am glad to share this. I was influence by Zadie Smith “Scenes from the smith family Christmas.”
Sent from my iPhone
I may look too young to remember.This park was in the back of Tompkins Projects in Brooklyn. I lived there for a short time in my life, maybe between the ages of two and four. Back in the 1980’s floral print was the “in”. Apparently it was the norm for mom and her daughter to dress alike. Looking at myself makes me realize that times have obviously developed. I searched the back of the picture for a dare and there wasn’t one. That must have been one day in the spring when my mom picked me up from daycare. I think it was spring, and not summer. The sun was shining bright, and i didn’t have a jacket on, neither did my mom. The bright colors and trees already blossomed makes me know that this was spring.
I don’t think I was ever really entertained a this playground. It actually does not look that there was much to be entertained by. I was entertained at school playing with my classmates, learning my alphabet and running a muck. This orange bench i’m sitting on, which I think was some sort of object used for climbing, became a prop for photography. That was all the better for me, I was never really a climber anyway. Back to these floral prints and suspenders, in this playground that seemed more like a social court. With the lack of playground development and the fact that young ladies and little girls had oughta have shoes with buckles, is mostly the reason our fun was all in enjoying the sun, and taking pictures to remember this time, that would explain the huge smile on my moms face . People just seemed happier then. The fact that no one was in the picture but my mom and I, is pretty relevant since I was an only child. Nothing in the background but plant life and free air. I think I had a piece of mind when my eyes closed due to the lighting of the camera, and woke up to the sun after the flash .
The 80’s
In Jenny Boully’s short essay called, A Short Essay On Being she talks about being a Thai woman in America. The reader learns that in Thailand, it is common to say thank you when you are corrected, even if the one correcting you is wrong. We see this first hand when the narrator’s friend corrects her for saying Pot Thai, “I was going to visit a friend from graduate school in Austin. I told her that I would visit and make her pot Thai. She told me, “It’s pad Thai.” And even though she knew I was Thai and even though she knew that I was born in Thailand and had been back numerous times and even though she knew that my mother raised me to speak Thai and still spoke to me in Thai, I thanked her for correcting me.” Her friend knows that she was raised to speak Thai and completely dis-regarded the fact that she could be the one pronouncing the word wrong, and that is how they say Pad Thai in Thai. Instead of the narrator correcting her friend she thanks her and moves on. I can relate to the narrator because whenever someone corrects me and I know they are wrong, I tend to take a step back and watch them do what they corrected me on the wrong way until they are corrected and I just stand there and chuckle to myself.
In the passage “A Short Essay On Being” by Jenny Boully, the author talks about her life and experiences being a woman from Thailand. The common theme in this passage is how Jenny thanks people for correcting her. The first time someone corrects her is when she visits a friend from graduate school in Austin. She corrects Jenny when Jenny tells her she wants to make her “pot thai”. Then her friend tells her it’s “pad thai” and not “pot thai”. You can tell Jenny was a little upset when she says, “And even though she knew I was Thai and even through she knew I was born in Thailand and had been back numerous times and even though she knew that my mother raised me to speak Thai and still spoke to me in Thai, I thanked her for correcting me.” Jenny explains how it’s the Thai way to not to correct someone, instead just be the bigger man and say thank you. “You move about quietly…you don’t show others their errors- you let them eventually come to learn the errors of their ways and have them come to you for forgiveness later.” I agree with Jenny because I believe in the same thing and tend to do the same thing to my friends and even family.
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