A Good Man is Hard to Find

[In the short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," there is a grandmother, and I will discuss how the grandmother has developed and changed throughout the story,] with a link down below to the story. In the beginning of the story, the grandmother was very exclusive of outsiders and was quite worried about things she didn't know much of- this is shown in the very first paragraph where they talk about the Misfit. Later on in this story when the grandmother meets the Misfit she gets more comfortable with him after she learns more about his story, and starts to talk about a subject that she knows much about- religion. The way her character develops through the story is shown in the way she interacts with outside characters and other entities. 

http://www.discerninghearts.com/catholic-podcasts/a-good-man-is-hard-to-find-read-by-flannery-oconnor/ 

Reflect on the Process of the OHP

In ELA and IHSS, we just finished our oral history projects. What I found most interesting about this project was listening to to these people who have gone through these traumatic events and how they coped with these experiences. I especially enjoyed listening to how they plan to rebuild and become stronger, not just as individuals but as a family. These people only stopped helping when incapable or in direct danger themselves. They talked about how people Houston want to get to a place where they can help others. 

This is a trend I have seen through these interviews. 

I believe I handled of working in a group well for this particular project. Personally, I do not like working in groups for a couple reasons, one being that communication is difficult and finding time to work together face to face is even more difficult. But, for this project, working in the group made the heavy lifting easier because we could delegate work between group members for the actual interviews [video/audio, interviewer, notetaker]. Working in a group also made it easier and more efficient to do the multimedia work presentation. This is because we delegated the work pretty evenly. Granted, some people had harder jobs than others because of how much effort each task required, like making the website. Overall, the work we did as a group was well thought out and divided well which made working in a group easier. 

Blog 10/26/17

This week, we were asked to answer a question and this was: What led to Marjane's grandmother to yelling at her? Was the yelling justified? Why or why not? This scene occurred on page 291 in the Complete Persepolis book. Marjane's Grandma yells at Marjane because she tells her a story of how she got some random man arrested and finds this amusing. Marjane's Grandmother finds this offensive and insulting because her husband- who is Marjane's grandfather- spent a third of his life in prison defending the innocent, and Marjane's uncle Anoosh died in a prison. So, getting someone arrested for no apparent/real reason is insulting because of all the heartache that this family has gone through with the police. Therefore, Marjane's grandma's yelling was justified in my personal opinion, because Marjane had a lack of respect for her family's suffering. After Marjane's Grandma leaves Marjane feels really bad about how her grandma yelled at her and plans that this never happens again. One factor why I believe she took this so hard is because her grandma reminded her of all the pain and suffering her family went through mainly the death of her uncle on page 70.     

Blog 9/28/17

Mariane started wanting to make her past disappear while she is in Europe and she saw Iran on the news. She saw lots of unbearable news, and felt guilty for leaving her family, and so wishes to forget her past so she does not have to feel guilty any more for living in a safer part of the world. She makes some lifestyle changes shortly after that seem to connect her to her past in some ways. For example, she grows out her hair, similar to when she was a child. A line I thought was really meaningful was "always keep your dignity and be true to yourself" that she remembers being said by her grandmother on page 195. This mindset plays a big role in these pages. In the next scene, she contradicts her wishes of forgetting and instead defends her Iranian background to people she overhears speaking poorly about her and her country. So while initially she wanted to forget, she stayed true to herself and her roots. 

The Art of War

I know last week I said that that would be my last blog post, but I was wrong. I apologize. This final blog post is about the book I read over the past couple of weeks. The book I read was the Art of War by Sun Tzu, which was quite interesting. This book is mainly about how to win wars or the process to winning wars in a quick and effective manner. The book begins with laying out plans. This mainly refers to one particular force. Sun Tzu outlines what a good general should have planned for his forces and how to lead them based on Moral Law. Moral Law is the men of the army’s respect for their leaders and each other, and belief in their leaders. time.

Next, he mainly focuses on the economic standpoint of war. First of all, war is expensive for everyone. So, if someone strikes their enemy when their enemy’s economy is in a downturn, the attacker will be at an advantage. Another aspect Sun Tzu emphasizes is how victory is always the main goal without a lengthy campaign because with a lengthy campaign you always lose a significant amount of money.

In the middle of the book, his ideas focused on strategies and tactics, including what to do when preparing for war like calculating chances of victory. Another strategy he discusses is attacking places that are undefended and defend places that cannot be attacked to increase your chances of victory. Another idea he mentions is that everyone can see the tactics but no one can see the strategy since the tactics are the way you are set up beforehand and the strategy is what actions follow after. The terrain is also a key aspect to winning wars and can affect how you position your troops and the strategies you use with them to defend themselves. The final takeaway message is the role of information and how to obtain that information. Sun Tzu states that spies and spying on your enemy is a very valuable asset to achieving your goal of winning the war.

I believe the central argument of this book is a proposal for a proper and effective method to win wars. I agree that this is one of the best if not the best strategies to winning wars in general, no matter what the dispute is about. These strategies have been used in the past and are still relevant today. Every general will have their own variation of this set of strategies or will follow these set of strategies but in a much looser regimen. Since these strategies can be used more like guidelines, that is why they have been used so much in the past to now.

I would recommend this book to others because it was quite interesting and intricate. I liked seeing the viewpoints of what strategies ancient generals fought with, compared to fighting with modern technology. I believe the strategies still hold true to this day making it valuable for everyone to read.

Final Blog Post

This is the last blog post for the year so I will wrap this up by discussing which book is my favorite and which one is my least favorite, as well as why. To be honest I enjoyed all the books we read except for The Merchant of Venice. The reason why is not because I didn’t like the story, but because of how Shylock the Jew could never have won during that time. My groups response project to The Merchant of Venice shows this with an alternate ending depicting what would've happened if Shylock choose mercy instead of justice. Other than that one reason I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

I know I said in my last post I was done with The Great Gatsby but that was before I knew what my next prompt was. The Great Gatsby is indeed my favorite book that I read this year. The main reason for me is the character Gatsby himself because of how mysterious he was and how I see bits of him in people I love and care about. Another big contributor was all the color symbolism throughout this book; I loved how Fitzgerald, the author of the The Great Gatsby, used color symbolism as such a powerful tool in his arsenal.  

The Great Gatsby Part 5

This is the final blog post on the Great Gatsby. This week's prompt was to write about anything having to do with The Great Gatsby that I haven't discussed already. I have decided to write about what is revealed about Gatsby and Daisy based upon their reactions to each other when they meet at Nick’s house in chapter 5. When I went back to review this scene I saw two people who had a very deep love for each other.  Why I saw this was from how worried and nervous Gatsby was when first meeting with Daisy. Another point that showed the love they felt for one another is their conversation, since they talked for hours trying to catch up all the lost time.

What this scene all so shows are these characters insecurities, mainly Gatsby’s. We see a whole new side of Gatsby with him being not just awkward but having low self confidence. We first see this low self confidence at the very start when Gatsby has trouble even facing her much less starting a conversation with Daisy, but he finally builds enough courage to say hello and thankfully the conversation went on from there. In Daisy's case she was more surprised and alarmed than anything, and of course full of joy, the only problem was what do you say to a person that you loved 5 years ago. So, this also reveals the awkward side of Daisy. Over all bringing people together after a long period of time will result in people lacking self confidence and creating a awkward situation, but after you get through the difficult parts everything becomes easier.

The Great Gatsby Part 4

This week the prompt I choose was how Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel, fundamentally change over the course of the novel, and how is this change caused by the central conflict(s) that Gatsby faces? 

Our view of Gatsby really does change from the start of the book to the end of the book. In the beginning, we see Gatsby through Nick's eyes and Nick doesn’t know Gatsby that well. Gatsby is on this hypothetical pillar held by a lot of people but especially Nick, the reason why is how everyone sees him. The thing is people don’t see Gatsby that much, he’s very mysterious but on those occasions that you do talk to him, he is very calm, cool, and collective. As we go on reading this book we see a whole new side of Gatsby and how he’s really like when panicking. When Gatsby is under pressure he starts to act nothing like he did before, it's like he completely loses that side of him with being calm, cool, and collective. Now we see what Gatsby is really like and that is because of two reasons, one we get to know Gatsby better through Nick's eyes and second Daisy enters the picture. What Daisy does to Gatsby is putting him under pressure causing Gatsby to lose his classy self. Overall Daisy was the trigger for Gatsby to fundamentally change throughout this book.

The Great Gatsby Part 3

We finished The Great Gatsby this week and the prompt for this blog is determining the central conflict. The central conflict is, I believe, person vs. self. The reason why this is the case is that Gatsby wanted to recreate his past as well as create a fake version of his current self, among other things. First off, he falsified his past in the way he interacted with his friends at parties and tried to conduct himself as if he had an elevated level of education, since this chapter reveals that he did not actually attend Oxford through graduation and instead only attended for 5 months. He also falsified the world around him by having his house look like it belonged in East Egg and spending money in flamboyant and erratic ways. The way colors are represented throughout the book all have a deeper meaning, in particular the color yellow. Gatsby owned a lot of yellow throughout his house, from his car to his tuxedo. The yellow represented the lie behind Gatsby’s money, self worth, and personal background. As you can see, the central conflict is person vs self, and how Gatsby is fighting to change who he is and where he came from, as well as where he wants to be in life.

The Great Gatsby Part 2

The prompt for this weeks blog post is “in chapter 5, when Daisy and Gatsby meet, how is weather used to create mood, and what mood(s) is created?”

The weather in this particular scene plays a big role on not just the mood of the scene but how the characters hold themselves, Gatsby is most effective by the weather and here’s why. Weather can set the mood in many situations, and can either worsen or improve a character’s emotional state depending on their present situation and how they react to the weather. From a mental and emotional standpoint, Gatsby was fearful for many reasons and the weather made this worse. For example, he was nervous about Daisy coming over and the weather made it worse because bad weather can be seen as a bad omen. Because Gatsby was so nervous to begin with, he fed off of the bad weather. He developed the mindset that something can and will go wrong. The author used the weather to show how vulnerable Gatsby was in this scenario, and create a sense of how far apart Daisy and Gatsby were. This was confirmed since at the end of the  conversation after tea they discuss the green light, with Gatsby discussing how he would observe the green light and their future happiness as far away.

The Great Gatsby Part 1

This is the first blog post since spring break and A-Term, within this time we started reading The Great Gatsby. The prompt for this blog is “In chapter 2 we are introduced to "the valley of ashes," a place between the Eggs and New York City. "The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg" watches over this desolate place. What are the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg and what do you think that these eyes and the valley of ashes represent? Use textual evidence to support your position.” I believe that these eyes represent the eyes of the rich looking out on the less fortunate. But these eyes are not sympathetic. For example, “his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over over the solemn dumping ground.” (24) The word to brood means to think about something that makes you unhappy. Here, the eyes are looking down upon the valley of ashes; in other words, looking condescendingly on the people working there. The valley of ashes represents the “other” portion of the population that is not well off and not a part of the financial elite.

Henry the V characteristics

This week we have moved on from The Merchant of Venice and now my group is reading Shakespeare’s Henry the V. The topic I will discuss on this blog is what type of play is Henry the V. Is it a comedy, history, or tragedy? In my view Henry the V is a history. I will be showing examples that will support the characteristics of a history play.
Henry the V has a lot of different aspects. It has some comedy, some tragedy and of course some history. It's not all black and white as there's that gray area in between that Shakespeare love to write. One aspect of the comedy that allies in this play is Act 4-5 where he is making fun of the French and their language. A characteristic of tragedy is the battle of Agincourt. In this battle both Earl of Suffolk and the Duke of York have been killed. The history of this play comes from the history behind the play itself as most of these events are true and they've just been elaborated. Historical plays should have all these characteristics because without there aspects the play would be black and white and history is far from black and white.

The Mercant of Vinance Part 5

This blog post will reflect the project I worked on for ELA. Last ELA class my group and I presented a movie we worked on. The movie was about what would happen if Shylock choose Merce instead of Justis. I believe our project was very good. We made all due dates except for one where there was some miscommunication but other than that we worked proactively together. Our final project, the movie, I felt was a complete success. That doesn't mean it was perfect but we accomplished the goal we set and had fun doing it. The thing that wasn’t perfect or we could of improved was the filming. We could have taken a little bit more time with the filming. I enjoyed making the alternate ending video of the book with my friends because it's fun. I got to learn about a book and get creative with it. I plan to do another creative response like this one later in my Post Oak experience.

The Merchant of Venice Part 4

This week the prompt is to write about anything that interests you that you haven’t written about already. The theme I have decided for this week is how a modern audience would react to Shylock's punishment and if he deserves it.
I believe the modern day audience would see this punishment as too harsh for what Shylock did. The reason why Shylock was stopped was because of the Doctor A.K.A. Portia for finding a loophole. In our society and our modern day courtroom that loophole would cleared all charges against Antonio and nothing would of happen to Shylock except he didn't get a pound of flesh. The modern day audience sees Shylock's punishment as too harsh because there was an agreement between Shylock and Antonio and not just a verbal agreement but a written contract. What that shows me is Shylock did nothing wrong. He did what the contract said and when the Doctor pointed out the loophole telling him that he is not able to follow through with the contract he stop and didn’t break the rules. Even though Shylock stopped and didn't break the rules he was still punished which is why the modern day audience found Shylock to be unreasonable punished.

The Merchant of Venice pert 3

Last class we finished the book and within act 4 Portia gives a speech about mercy and justice, I found this quite interesting so the prompt I choose this week is, Portia’s speech and explain what Portia is saying about justice and mercy, and why is this important in the play?
First off, we will start with what Portia was saying in her speech. “The Quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” That is the first part of her speech. The way I interpreted this part is mercy is from God and later on in her speech she mentions we pray for mercy giving me this idea that mercy is from God. Another though this speech provoked is there is not that much mercy in the world and when it is used it's in a manner of forgiveness and beauty.
Portia’s speech played a major role in this act, scene, and book. It gave everyone something to think about, not just Shylock and the other characters but the audience too. What this also did was give the characters more depth, not just black and white. Portia’s speech may not of changed Shylock's mind on justice or mercy but it made everyone think on which one should of been chosen, and that is why I believe this speech play a major role in The Merchant of Venice.  

The Merchant of Venice part 2

The prompt I choose this week was, why did Shakespeare included Shylock's speech about 
anti-Semitism, and how does it change the way we think of Shylock.
We don't know very much about Shakespeare much less so if we know if he was a anti-Semitism or not. So was I'm going to do instead is making an argument for both sides. First let's say William Shakespeare was in fact a anti-Semitism, at this time that would not be uncommon for a white Christian man to be one. What this implies is he was poking fun at Jews thinking it was funny to watch get mad. This is what I would assume how people would interpret this performance. On the other hand this scene could have been used for awareness and to bring attention to how they were wrongfully treating the Jews. This would be the mind set of Shakespeare if he disagrees with anti-Semitism. My view of Shylock is very different after this scene, what this scene did for me was humanize Shylock giving him more emotion and sympathy. We all see that he is angry and also sad. That it's just normal to make fun at someone because of their religion. The biggest thing I see is he loves his religion enough to stand up for it, making it an act of love. 

The Merchant of Venice

This new year and semester we have stared reading The Merchant of Venice. In act one it helped us create a better idea of our characters or in other words our character development. With this blog post I plan to point out what character played a big role but not to take away from other characters. The Duke of Venice that big role because of how I interpreted his character and role. I saw him as a judge, in our society the judge has a lot of power, what this did is it related the Duke to power. Power will ultimately give anything a big role in almost every scenario, including this book. The Duke had the power in the courtroom allowing him to make choices, these choices can change in dramatic ways. This is why  the Duke of Venice plays and big role in the story of the book.