Category Archives: Homework Responses

My Photobiography

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bizz

This is a picture of my sister, my brother and I. I am not sure what year but I must have been a year or so. My mother says so. Unfortunately this is the only picture of me as a baby. I was told that we did not have a camera back then. We couldn’t afford to have a camera and all the pictures were taken in studios, privately. This was one of those days my parents took us to the botanical garden in the beautiful city of Mersin in Turkey.  I don’t know who took our picture. My mother does not even know now. My dress must have been white or light pink I am not sure…my mother is not even sure now. My sister’s dress is floral. It must have been dark red prints, maybe. Or black prints. My mother is not even sure now. My expression is priceless. The sun must have been shining on my face. A pair of squinty eyes with chubby cheeks. My sister and my brother are hugging me tight with one of their arms and they have one of their hands on top of my hand. This sure was something planned I believe. My sister is holding my other hand so I won’t push their hands off of my hand and ruin the picture, I believe.  Now that I look at this picture, I realized how my brother smiles the same way still to this day. His smile still gives me comfort and assurance. He has always been the one person in my life that makes me laugh. How come he couldn’t make me laugh during this photo shoot? He must have been exited to take his first picture also. This must have mean he does not have a baby picture at all. My mother says so. 

Woman Hollering Creek

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What function do the telelnovelas play in the Woman Hollering Creek?

Cleofilas is a woman from Mexico who grew up her watching telenovelas while she was still with her parents. She grew up fantasizing her own life would be similar to the ones she watched. When she is in the States she is married with a kid and spends a lot of time alone. She doesnt have the luxury of a television set anymore so she often goes to her neighbors house to enjoy this taste of fantasy she used to lose herself in. At this point it is the only escape she has from her painful life with her husband who doesnt seem to treat her with much respect. The telenovelas give her a little bit of hope for the future and for the lack of love in her current relationship. She is able to live vicariously through the telenovelas

Telenovelas

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The telenovelas describe the love and life many girls anticipated as they grow up to be young women.  Clefilas enjoyed watching telenovelas.  Although often in the telenovelas, hearts were broken and betrayal was common, they depicted the perfect life to live. She has an image that women from the telenovelas possess wonderful lives. She would do her hair and wear her make just like they do. This shows that she is not content with her looks and appearance.  They were also her guide for learning about love. She fantasized of finding her true love, “the great love of one’s life” as she stated.  When she married Juan Pedro, she thought her life would shift and be like the ones from the telenovelas. She dreamed of living a life similar but she finds out that life does not always turn out the way she wants it to be.   Telenovas can also been seen as an escape for Cleofila from the reality of her own life in which the “kind of the books and songs and telenovelas describe when one finds, finally, the great love of one’s life and does whatever one can, must do, at whatever the cost” (page 280, paragraph 1).  She constantly evaluates her love for her husband to that of a soap opera.  She finally realizes that marriage is not always like a fairytale or as it is portrayed on soap operas.  After that she gets the courage to leave her abusive husband for a simpler life back at home and possibly live with her father and six brothers.

Women Hollering creek

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In the short story “women Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, Cleofilas who marries Juan Pedro. She leaves behind his father and six brothers who looked over her for an unknown future for her. She feels trapped in an abusive marriage She finds out that life does not work like the telenovelas she watched at home. Cleofilas looks back to the days before she is married and remembers how happy she was. She got married and moved to Seguin, Texas, She think you have to suffer for love to be good. She knows from watching her telenovelas, but life will not always be easy but things will work out. Soon her husband begins to beat her and she realizes that her life is not a dream life. Her marriage did not contained positive scene from the telenovelas but just the negative side. She goes to the doctor and they notice her bruises from an abusive relationship and arrange for her escape back home.

Woman Hollering Creek: Telenovela

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The Telenovela in “Woman Hollering creek” by Sandra Cianeros stands as a blueprint for the life that Cleofilas sought for when she married Juan Pedro. The telenovela functions asher escape and a comparison to her abusive husband. The soap opera conditions her view about romance. It has fixed views on love and life and Cleofilas anticipated this same treatment from her husband. She wanted “passion in its purest crystalline essence. The kind of books and songs and telenovela describe when one finds, finally, the great love of ones life.”(Cisneros 1401)

Before getting married, her life was full of chores and dealing with her family. Getting married she thought her life would be different but it took a different road.she became a victim of domestic violence , “when the moment came, and he slapped her once , and then again and again; until the lip split and bled an orchid of blood.”(1403)

The telenovela also functions as enjoyment to Cleofilas in “Women Hollering creek”. She enjoys watching the soup operas because she knew her life will never be like the beautiful married and happy people she sees. Every time her husband puts his hand on her, she explains a new telenovela she has been watching . The telenovela serves as a friend to Cleofilas and something to confines too. It’s very important to her.

Wrongly corrected

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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.

A Metaphor?

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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?

 

 

My mom and Me

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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

The 80’s

Pot Thai or Pad Thai?

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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. 

Photobiography: My mom and I

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securedownload

This photo of my mom and I was certainly taken years ago. We were living in our old house in Rosedale, NY. I absolutely love this picture of my mom and I because it just shows how much of a caring and loving my mom is. I remember our old dining room and that table clearly like it was yesterday, even that wooden chair that we’re sitting on. In this picture my mom was feeding me a banana. I always laugh at this picture only because as a child my mom always had to constantly babysit me eating or even had to feed me when I didn’t want to eat. This photo reminded me of how much I hated eating as a kid. For some odd reason, I just never wanted to eat. But, I assume that’s how a lot of kids are when they were younger. My mom always had patience with me, no matter how slow and long it took me to eat. She would always make sure that I had a solid meal so that I wouldn’t be fussy or starving. I remember sometimes she’d sit with me on the floor, just feeding me for hours because the TV or some toy would always distract me. This photo also reminded me of how much a genuine and kind person my mom is. My mom is an amazing person, my rock. She’s constantly taking care and looking out for our family no matter how old we get. Not only with us, with anyone. She would do anything possible to help someone in need. If I could give the world to my mom, I would. We may not have much, but she always tries to give back. My mom always puts everyone first before herself. I don’t know how I’d ever be able to re-pay my mom for the amount of love and support she gives my brothers and I.