Connections in Family Stories

Some of the stories my classmates wrote were about tragedies. In fact, mine was about a tragedy,  but sometimes the events and tragedies that happen can change people's lives. In my story, my grandfather was mistreated during the Honduras-El Salvador war in 1969. He was mistreated for being from El Salvador and living in Honduras. The soldiers from Honduras came to his house and took him to prison, where they tortured him and treated him bad. When he was let free, his life changed and he was not the same person. He became a sad person and his personality changed a lot.
I found other stories written by my classmates that were similar, or that had the same ideas that mine had.. I think that the stories that involve tragedies are the ones that connect to mine.

This is from Carly's story:

His leg had been cut off of circulation for too long, it was already dead. On that day, the doctors amputated my Uncle’s left leg at the age of twenty.
The loosing of his leg depressed and hurt my Uncle so deeply; he tried to commit suicide multiple times.

In Carly's story,  she talks about the story of her uncle who was traveling to "the city" in a train. Something happened to the train that caused it to go out of control so the people in the train thought that the best way to survive before the train crashed was to jump off from it. Well, Carly's uncle (which is actually her great-uncle) decided that he, with the other passengers would jump off the train, but it was too late. By the time he jumped off the train, the train had already crashed into a house of boulders. His left leg was jammed by the boulders. He survived, thankfully, but his left leg had to be amputated when he was only 20 years old.

After the accident he became really depressed and always thought about suicide. This incident changed his life for ever. Eventually he changed though; he did not think about suicide anymore and looked more happy. This was because all the support his family gave him. The strength that his family gave him helped him feel better about his life. This is the kind of tragedy that can put someone down, make them feel like giving  up, like Carly's uncle.

In Rahni's story, she says:

So they left the baby and came to California. They got settled in and were doing their thing, when my great grandmother got word that her baby Charles and her mother died in a burning house. they said the KKK was responsible for it but they did not know, so she had to go back and confirm it to make sure.

 In this story, her great grandparents get married but struggled so they move around a lot. They have a kid and they leave it with her mother, and then move again, but one day the baby and her mother(great grandma's mother) are killed in a fire. This was a tragedy that changed the lives of that family. Rahni's grandparents were hurt a lot because their kid was killed probably by the KKK, and her mother was killed as well. That caused suffering to the family.

Tragedies change people's lives and make them suffer. Sometimes the effects are permanent but sometimes people learn to let go and continue their lives normally, not forgetting about the past but putting it aside. I have actually done this in my life.

These three stories have tragedies that caused struggles. I guess that's all what tragedies do...

The cycle of daughters and mothers

Mothers influence their daughters to become like them when their daughters grow up, but they don't always do it directly. Sometimes they kind of force their daughters to do whatever they think their daughters should do, in other words, they make the decisions for their daughters so that when they are older, they are shaped similar to them.

In the short stories from The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The mothers in most of the stories treat their daughters in a very similar way. They make their daughters do things that they want them to do and not actually what the daughters want to do.

I think that this is a big part of the Chinese culture, and i also think that it could be part of other cultures around the world but the Chinese are the ones that show it the most.

In the story Rules of The Game, Waverly Jong is the daughter of a mother who tells her what to do, what is according to her what will make Waverly a successful person. Waverly learns by herself that she is good at something; playing chess. She slowly starts to show the people around her the big talent she has. Once her mother sees that her daughter is doing something with her life by herself, she interferes and starts pressuring her daughter to work harder on her chess skills, which just makes it hard for Waverly to be able to do good.

 As her men drew closer to my edge, i felt myself growing light. I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiled roofs, where i was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and i was alone. (pg. 101)

Eventually, her mother caused Waverly to quit chess. Her mother was just trying to help her with her pushing, but Waverly could not take it. This mother was trying to make her daughter be what she wanted her to be and did not let her deal with her dream independently causing her to quit what she was so good at.

One of the main characters, Suyuan Woo who died from a brain aneurysm years after she moved from China and lived in the US. She created the Joy Luck Club, and she got a group of women to join her (They were Chinese too). After her death, the other women that formed part of the Joy Luck Club saw Jing-Mei Woo as the next leader of the group. They kind of expected her to continue what her mother had started.

'You are responsible', said my mother. (pg. 28)

This doesn't show how the women from the club wanted her to replace her m,other, but that does show how the mother, Suyuan, talked to Jing-Mei, telling her that she is responsible. This kind of shows that her mom considers her or could consider her responsible for whatever she leaves behind when she dies, in this case the club.

Mothers influence their daughters in life, they want them to turn out a certain way, but they pick the way they'll turn out and the daughters are dependent on doing things from their mothers.

What am I going to do this summer?

I have been thinking lately about what I will do this summer of 2011. I will probably have to take a college class again. I am interested on an art class, but I'm not sure about what I will take. I want to travel a lot. That is what I want the most. My parents are thinking about sending my brother and I to Brazil for a few weeks but we don't know yet. I'd love to go to Brazil, plus now that I know a little Portuguese and I can undestand it almost perfectly would make it good. But we are not sure about that yet, so maybe this summer or in 2014 for the world cup which will be there. I can't wait for that. I like Alameda, but last summer I spent 99% of the timehere and it got boring. I wanted to go out of Alameda badly. I'm excited for summer because we don't have school, but I am not excited about the annoying hot weather; I hate it. Summer is not my favorite time of the year, but unfortunately that's when I get a long break from school. Not when it's all nice and cold.
Um, I also want to hang out with friend and with Amber too! She won't be here most if the time though, she will be far away all summer, again. I want to play soccer. I want to spend more time with my brother too. I want to go to my grandma's house in Santa Cruz. I love it there, it's beautiful. I love the ocean.
I don't want to do community service stuff. Even though when I help others it makes me feel good about myself, I do not want to do anything like that, simply because it is boring. I don't like doing boring stuff when I don't have school.
Oh! One thing I don't want to do this summer is homework. I don't like homework during summer. It reminds me of school. If it was only, for example, a day of homework (3-5 hours) I would do it. When we have to do homework at least one day per week, that is annoying. I know it is good for us to practice for school and critical think but I just don't like it. So I'm not looking up to that this summer...
I want my summer to be fun, I want to remember this summer. Traveling would make me happy :)

Into The Wild reflection

The first part (the first six chapters) of "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer was really interesting. I really liked the first part. Even though the story is true, sometimes it seems like the writes makes some stuff up or kind of exaggerates. I really like the way this author writes, but the book wasn't what I expected. I thought that since I knew it was a true story, that it would have been the actually person telling their story, in this case Alex. I think the book would be much better and more interesting if it was all written by the actual character. Much like a diary.
The story itself seems really good to me and is an adventure I would be interested on doing but not under his same circumstances. I think that his personality really goes with the kind of things he does and the way he sees life is a way different than any other human in the story.
I think that in this book, one of the major conflicts there is is society. Alex seems to have something with society; he isolates himself from it. He lives in his own society. Alex is the one who doesn't like the government and hates rules. He likes to be free and to do whatever he wants, that's why he goes on this adventure unto the wildness.
Another conflict in this book is himself. Not as much as society, but he has or seems to have problems with himself. It seems in the story like he is mentally ill. He might have mental issues and he seems to struggle with his life a little. Even though he enjoys living in the wild.
These are the kind of books I like reading because they are really interesting. The cool thing about books. That are based on true stories is that the events in the story actually happened. There is a feeling when I read and I know that what I am reading happened. I feel impressed sometimes, or sad. Depending on what it was I get different feelings. When I read something fictional or made up, and there are things that impress me, I realize that it didn't happen so I feel disappointed. With documentaries, it is different. That is why I like books like this one.
This book is really good in general. I like the way it flows and everything else, just that if it was written from the character's point of view, it would have been better.

Where to?

I want to travel. Before I die, I want to have traveled to many, many different places all around the world, if I don't, I'll die disappointed.
There are some many places where I want to go. If I had the chance to pick a place to go tomorrow and stay there for a few days, I'd go to Barcelona, Spain. There are a lot of reasons why I want to go there, but the main one is because I've seen so many pictures and videos of it, and I just think it is beautiful; the architecture of te buildings, the people, and the environment. I'd go to Barcelona mañana if I could!
Another place I'd like to visit would be Rome, Italy. The main reason why I like places such as Rome, is because I love architecture and I think that Rome is a gorgeous place to go and see the variety of old and classical architecture from hundreds of years ago. I love art, and I think that art is a way of expressing happiness. I enjoy art, an I am really good at it. I want to build giant pieces of art. Oh, and I'd go to Spain to practice my drawing skills. But in Italy, I'd see great examples of what I like to see. Another place is Greece. Greece is full of wonderful places and lots of art, which is awesome and one of the reasons I want to go there.
I would like to go to South Africa too. I want to go to Africa because it is such an interesting continent. The country of South Africa interests me because of sone of the things that have happened there. I like about its history. South Africa is my Favorite African country.
I'd like to travel South of the American continent. I want to go to some countries in Central Amarica and South America, in Central America, I'd like to visit Costa Rica because of its beautiful nature; its forests are amazing and all its greenlands are great. In South Africa, I'd like to go to Peru, Brazil and Argentina. I want to visit Peru so I can go to Cuzco, where the Incas once lived. I just think that Brazil and Argentina are really cool countries and that I'd go there anytime.
These are just a few of the places I'd like to visit, but if I get to go to these, I'll be happy.
Traveling will be one of the things I'll love to do when I'm older. I want to go all around the world.