Sunday, October 21, 2012


Passive Voice/ Transitive Verbs
Abstract Subjects
Linking Verbs
Part of an old paper I wrote for multicultural lit…
The concept of otherness has been a huge theme throughout the second half of the semester. The actual dictionary.com definition for “otherness” is the state or fact of being different or distinct. These characters feel like the other, because they are comparing themselves to other people and feel that if they are of a different race, gender, class, religion, ethnic group or sexuality then they are very different and distinct in that social environment. If being different is based on this, then everyone must be considered an “other”, it just depends on where you go. Specifically, in the text that we have read in this half of the semester, race and culture seem to be the prominent traits of otherness.  In the Bluest Eye, for example, the little African American girls wanted to be blonde haired and blue eyed so they could finally call themselves beautiful. In Sherman Alexie’s short stories, he was treated differently by the white people because he was Native American, and in The Woman Warrior, the main characters were treated differently in America because of their Chinese culture. These people were regarded as “other” because they had a different skin color or come from a different culture than white Americans. The characters from the short stories, Woman Warrior, and the Bluest Eye were mainly treated with disrespect and not treated like everyone else mostly because of things out of their control.
………
In the Woman Warrior Chinese culture is explained, and Chinese American culture is exemplified. When the main character’s aunt gets pregnant out of wedlock, she gets persecuted and definitely treated like the other, buy the people in her Chinese village. When they finally move to America, I think that the Chinese Americans actually treat the white people as others, and seclude them from their lives. Even though the main character is educated, she feels like she’s not good enough, and feels like an “other” in that scenario also.
            In conclusion, all of these stories exemplify the definition of otherness, by being different.  I think that our society in general, treat “others” like an untouchable creature that they’re scared of, but in all actuality they are the same as everyone else. In our society, most people want to be individualistic and different, so then why do we treat someone who is that way so harshly, and judge them so severely? The way our country constructs the other is not in a positive light, and I think that creates barriers between different cultures, because no one is open to anything different. All in all I think that our country is a melting pot for different cultures, it’s just an underestimated, impervious pot.
 
“Otherness” has been a reoccurring theme in the novels that we read for the second half of the semester. The characters feel like others because they compare themselves to other people and find that they are different. In the Bluest Eye, Sherman Alexie’s short stories, and The Woman Warrior, race and culture were the reason the characters were regarded as “other”. These characters were treated with disrespect because of their race and culture—things that they couldn’t control.
In the Woman Warrior Chinese culture is explained, and Chinese American culture is exemplified. The Chinese culture is very strict, and when a woman gets pregnant out of wedlock, she was disrespected and persecuted by the people in her village. The Chinese Americans treated the Caucasians as others. The main character is educated, but feels like she’s not good enough—so she’s an “other” also.
These stories exemplify “otherness” by being different. Society epitomizes individuality, but when someone different comes along, they are judged harshly. American society constructs the “other” in a negative light, which creates barriers between different cultures. Our country is a melting pot for different cultures; it’s just an underestimated, impervious pot.
446 words to 193!

Saturday, October 13, 2012


This is a couple paragraphs of a paper I wrote for my Multicultural Literature class at a college I previously attended. The topic of my paper is postmodernism.

Participle

Absolute

Appositive

Adjectives

Active Voice

Passive Voice

 

            Death was a very prevalent theme in White Noise. I’ve also come to the conclusion that death is a major, maybe even the major, theme in postmodernity. In White Noise, Jack and Babette were so afraid to die that they would do almost anything to suppress the fear, or stay as far away from death as possible. Babette took Dylar, an experimental drug barely tested on humans, just to try and suppress her fear of death. Even though it is highly ironic that she is risking her life, sleeping with a strange man for the pills and taking a highly experimental drug to suppress her fear of dying, death seems to be an idea, awful and terrifying, lingering over Jack and Babette’s heads like a dark cloud that never leaves. They often had conversations about who would die first, even though both of them are afraid of the correct answer.

Death was also a strong theme in Fight Club. The novel more focused on the idea of living in the moment and doing things that you wouldn’t regret before you die. The scene with the mechanic still sticks in my head; the car was driven by the mechanic, head on into traffic about to kill all the other passengers. The narrator was afraid that he was going to get killed at first, but then decided he wanted to die. He realized that everything that was a part of his life wasn’t important at all--his Ikea furniture, all of the other the things he owned. He apprehended that material items don’t mean anything at all when a person dies. Is it the exhaustion of progress when everyone just gives up?

Sunday, October 7, 2012


Participles

Absolutes

Appositives

Adjectives

            Sitting in a chair, staring at the standard Microsoft Word template, I wonder what I should write about this week for my grammar blog.    Every week it gets harder for me to write this blog, because I’m running out of things to write about. The clock ticking, anxiety overtaking, the time is speeding up faster and faster, as I’m trying to write this blog on schedule. I’m only a few sentences in, and I have twenty minutes to do this blog and post it on time. As I’m writing this, I still haven’t decided on a topic for my blog. The clock, a ticking time bomb, keeps speeding forward, the second hand going faster than I thought possible. I try to read my other classmates blogs to get inspired. Their blogs, great and interesting, are too good to snag a topic from – I could never do them justice.

            I am back to the drawing board. Somehow, I got all four patterns of the week in my first paragraph. At least that’s something I can check off the list, but I should probably get another paragraph or two in my blog. I know I shouldn’t procrastinate so much, but it is a habit I’ve been struggling with for my whole schooling career. I remember waiting to study for spelling tests until the night before in second grade. Yes, I’ve definitely had the procrastination problem for a while now. I usually post my blog an hour or so before its due; but unfortunately, this is the one day my body decides it wants to sleep in.

            Even though I like to procrastinate, I know I need to get my work done—which, I always do. The problem is, my work usually gets done at two in the morning. My logic is that if I have free time, let’s say two days before, I will think “well it’s due in two days, I don’t have to worry about it” so I’ll usually read instead. Even though it’s my logic, I know that I shouldn’t be procrastinating so much. It’s definitely easier to talk the talk, then to walk the walk, but I’m going to challenge myself this week not to procrastinate so much. We’ll see how that goes!