Blog 102214

My Goal: My goal is to complete all of my research for my project by Friday.

Part I

• Specific:
• Addresses the amount of research and when to complete it by
• Measurable
• It is measured by having enough facts and quotations to write my ten page paper off of
• Action-Oriented
• Must complete all facts via noodle tools in the specified time period
• Realistic
• It's realistic in the sense that it follows the class guidelines as well
• Tangible
• I'll know when I'm finished once I'm comfortable with the facts I've written and gathered

Part II

• Being that the end of the week is tomorrow, I'm getting close to finishing. I would say I'm about 80% finished, and should be 100% by the end of class on Friday. I will need to continue my research and complete 3 or so more note cards.

Blog 101514

Discussion Notes

• go deeper into the meaning and effect
• stay away from simply describing
• analyze what the author is doing, trying to say, teach, and show
• reasons for telling certain stories
• what are they saying similarly and differently about the holocaust
• why are they portraying it in this way?
• the line between ignorance and innocence
• what does the author want the reader to get out of this?
• informally write about what's important about the two books in my opinion
• loss of humanity

Blog 100614

In both The Girl Who Fell From The Sky and The Perks of Being A Wallflower, the topic of coming of age is clearly shown. Both the main characters in these texts go through difficult situations and journies in their young adult life. A lesson that both The Girl Who Fell From The Sky and The Perks of Being A Wallflower teach you is that these situations are what develops you as a person and shapes you into the best possible person you can be.

Although I haven't experienced the same situations as Rachel and Charlie, or at the same extreme circumstances, I believe everyone has gone through difficult paths or "forks in the road" so far in their life. I believe these issues are an important and common occurrence in peoples lives, that teach them lessons about who has a good or bad presence in their life.

Blog 092614

         I've never been asked that question, but if someone was to come up to me and ask "What are you?", at first I would be a bit confused. When I describe myself, I don't think to simply say my race, because I believe there's many other factors to determine and describe yourself as a person.
         I don't believe society necessarily makes mixed race people take a side, but I do think they don't really know how to "define" them. I guess in a way, some people may think to themselves if they consider them to be black or white. I personally find it completely unnecessary to force that choice upon someone. In The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, I've never noticed people asking for Rachel's take on whether she's black or white. I've more noticed them defining her without her input, calling her a white girl. In the beginning of the novel when one of her classmates was talking about how she's a "blue eyed white girl" that showed evidence of this. I saw a hint of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky in the article and video mostly through when they were discussing how people would ask them "what they are". In fact, Rachel once asked Brick the same question.
         After watching the interview with Heidi Durrow, the author of The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, I have gained more of an understanding of her take on mixed race in America and being defined by your race. I believe Heidi would be in support and proud of this club, where you can share your feelings and thoughts about having a mixed heritage. I've gathered this opinion through the interview because she often talked about how rare it is to meet people like her, so I think she would see it as a good place to talk and bond with others. Heidi would always respond with "I am a story, and I bet you are too.", this connects directly to the article's quote because it proves that when someone asks who you are, you shouldn't have to respond with your racial background. You should be able to explain who you are as a person.

Blog 092414

          After meeting with Mr. Cheng and conferencing about my possible essay thesis, I feel less stressed about having to write four pages based on it. I can't think of something that I didn't like in the conference, I actually think we were able to go over all the expectations thoroughly. In my essay, I will add more components about analyzing my thesis and the characters, not just stating the facts.

Blog 092514

          When I think of beauty, I think about the goodness and warmth of a person. A superficial viewpoint many people have of being beautiful is being thin and pretty with clear skin. I would not see someone who puts other people down or thinks too highly of themselves as beautiful, I believe beauty is based off of being a good person with a positive outlook on life. At times I would say I can show beauty through treating others with kindness and being inclusive, but of course, like most people I've had my weak moments. There have been times where I've shown little to no beauty, like most everyone has in their lifetime. In a physical point of view, I believe everyone is beautiful. The previous question made me feel slightly uncomfortable, because I believe beauty can be defined in many ways. I would see beauty in America as a negative thing because of all of the standards and unrealistic expectations people have in their minds in order to become "beautiful". I don't think gender makes a difference in peoples definition of beauty, and I believe that everyone has beauty and it's a fairly important characteristic.
          I believe if Rachel had watched the Ted video, she would've been pleased by the model speakers words. It would've been encouraging and comforting to hear that everyone deals with insecurities in their body type. I think Rachel could connect to, but also be slightly insulted by the video about curly hair. Although it is possible to get your hair chemically straightened, it's important to feel comfortable with your natural hair too. On page 11, Rachel says "Aunt Loretta puts her nails in my hair and makes one part then another.". This shows the painful and timely process Rachel and her family would go through to simply achieve a certain hair look.
          In the physical sense, I believe these videos relate to what I wrote earlier about beauty and societies perception of it. If it was up to me, I wish everyone could be comfortable with who they are and not have certain goals to attain based off of other peoples bodies.

Blog 092314

Blog 092314

Passage:

“If there’s no one else to tell another side - the only story that can be told is the story that becomes true.” (p 173)

Text-to-self:

This passage/quote from The Girl Who Fell From The Sky spoke to me through the deeper meaning of the sentence. It’s saying that without another side to a story, you can only share your side which soon becomes the truth. Many times I’ve heard people share stories with me, and this quote made me think deeper about if that could’ve been the truth, or simply their interpretation of the scenario. There could be many ways to look at this quote by Heidi W. Durrow, but from what I gathered I saw it as a relation to peoples interpretations of situations or lies. In correlation with the book, I think this quote was about Rachel losing her virginity to John Bailey. No one else was there to show evidence of this happening, so Rachel telling people that this occurred makes this the only option as a true story. In my lifetime, I have told people things that could be slightly out of proportion, but no one else could rebuttal it or believe it to be untrue because there’s no evidence for that reasoning. After sharing that slightly blown out of proportion story, you being to tell yourself that that is what truly occurred. I believe in some sense, Rachel would tell herself that she didn’t actually lose her virginity to John Bailey, when in fact, she did. This passage spoke to me in a big way, and I also think it could relate to many other people.