CHARACTER STUDY (III)

     With the heartfelt greetings completed, Allyson and the other women started hiking.  At first, Allyson felt like there was an elephant in the room or on the trail.  She knew that the possible death of Lindsey, their friend, was hanging over all of them, but nonetheless she trudged on with them because she knew it was her duty to Lindsey.  Melissa, the most athletic and the naturalist of the group, led the way.  Rebecca followed closely behind her, but willing to go ahead of the group to explore the sights along the trail.  Allyson thought, that is the same Rebecca from high school, adventurous and independent.  In the middle, Allyson walked with Brenna, and behind them, Rachel and Miki brought up the end of the line of friends Allyson was to spend the next twenty-two weeks hiking with. 
     It had only been a half an hour when the group heard loud, obnoxious laughter, and other noises that weren't part of the nature soundtrack that had been playing in the background until then.  A group of guys emerged around the next curve on the path.  There were three of them, two of them dark-skinned and one light.  When they saw the group of women, they started whispering to each other.  This made Allyson and her friends nervous, but it was six against three so they felt safe.  When the men reached them, they stopped and one of them exclaimed,
"Hi! I'm Javaris Jamar Javarison-Lamar.  Are you girls looking for the body?"
His cheerfulness made Allyson suspect that he was up to something, but when her friends' curiosity got the better of them, and they responded the affirmative to his question, his response assured her that the group would be out of their way soon.
"Yeah, we wanted the reward too, but Quatro Quatro here," he said as he gestured to the other dark-skinned guy who looked like a former gang member, "Is so deathly afraid of the bugs that he kept having panic attacks every five minutes.  Then, if that wasn't enough for me to deal with, Dan Smith, Mr. Brilliant, here," he stated as he motioned to his pale friend, "Kept reminding me of all the possible ways we could die on this trail by pointing out an immense number of poisonous berries and mushrooms along the trail.  Finally, I'd had about enough of it all, and I told them so.  I said, 'No reward is big enough for me to endure twenty-two weeks of torture with you guys.  We are turning back.' So here we are now. I wouldn't go on if I were you.  I don't think you girls can handle it.  It's a rough trail, and at nights, strange sounds, like you've never heard, come from all directions at you.  It'd drive anybody crazy.  It drove me crazy."
Then, Javaris grinned, and Allyson shivered.  She didn't have a good feeling about these men, and so she stepped to the front of the group and said,
"Thanks for the advice.  You're not too far from the beginning of the trail; it's about a mile and a half walk more.  I hope you all get your sanity back when you leave the trail."
With that, she tugged on Melissa and Rebecca's arms to get everyone moving again, and once the group of guys passed them completely, Allyson soon forgot about them.  It seemed that the odd encounter had given Allyson and her friends something to relate to, and soon their conversations reminded Allyson of how they used to be in high school, except that Lindsey wasn't there.  Rachel was still the jokester of the group and the social butterfly.  She had kept in touch with every one of the friends, and so when Melissa couldn't find one person from the group, Allyson learned that Rachel contacted them instead.  Brenna's comments revealed to Allyson that she was still as cynical as she was in high school and that she still brought her dark sense of humor everywhere.  Miki was as sweet as she had always been, but Allyson observed that she was slightly more dependent on the rest of the group for what to do.  In the end, the reunited friends chose the icebreaker of sharing the story of where they had all been when they heard that Lindsey was missing on the Pacific Crest Trail.  Allyson listened closely, waiting to share her part, but all the while, keeping one eye out for anything out of the ordinary that indicated the presence of Lindsey.  She could only picture her alive, of course, the alternative was too dismal for her mind to handle.

CHARACTER STUDY (II)

Allyson had been told to meet them at the start of the Pacific Crest Trail.  "Them" was a group of her old high school friends consisting of Melissa, Brenna, Rachel, Miki, and Rebecca.  It all started a week ago when it was announce on the news that someone had gone missing somewhere along the Pacific Crest Trail.  When the picture of the hiker was displayed on the television screen, Allyson saw it was one of her old friends Lindsey from high school.  A couple of days later, Melissa had contacted her with the idea of reuniting their main group of friends in high school to hike the trail and search for Lindsey.  Allyson was feeling nostalgic and curious, and she accepted the invitation.

When Allyson arrived at the Pacific Crest Trail, she recognized them at once.  She couldn't remember how many years had gone by since she had seen some of them, ten years maybe.  Her stomach was full of butterflies as she got out of her small electric car and approached everyone.  After the standard greetings, she observed how the years had treated all of them.  They all seemed very healthy and relatively happy.  She recognized that everyone seemed prepared for the long hike, but she felt like she had packed too many warm clothes.  If only she hadn't had temporary amnesia from being kicked in the head by an alpaca the morning that she packed.  Oh well, it was too late to turn back now, hundreds of miles from home.  Let the journey begin.

CHARACTER STUDY (I)

In the plains of Montana, Allyson awakes at dawn in her small room.  She quietly slips on a pair of worn-out boots, ties up her dusty brown hair, and strolls outside of her quaint cottage, heading towards a burnt red barn nearby.  When she arrives at the entrance to the barn, she heaves open the broad doors, and various shapes, sizes, and colors of alpacas come racing out into the fenced yard.  In their excitement for breakfast, they are oblivious to the prospect that she will be leaving them in the care of a neighbor as she embarks on a journey, away from the life on her alpaca farm that she has always known.  For now, Allyson gently measures out the food for each alpaca, and greets each one with a pleasant "Good morning" and their name.  When she returns inside, she rummages through her drawers for versatile clothes that could be worn for any type of weather or any occasion.  She tries to make rational decisions about what to carry with her, and she smiles at the thought of being so unprepared that she has to wear a wool coat on a smoldering day somewhere.  The looming unknowns about her trip leave her no choice but to fit as much food, water, money, and clothing into an old hiking backpack as she can, hoping that what she brings will suffice for her journey.

CANTERBURY TALES (I)

I had only heard The Canterbury Tales mentioned a couple of times before we started the piece, so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect.  I think that the nature of the story as a very long poem adds to the humor and liveliness of the tone of the Prologue.  Words that normally may not be put together are put together for the sake of rhyming and rhythm.  Also, I was amused by Chaucer's extensive use of imagery as he describes the various character's.  My favorite simile that he includes is when he writes, "White as a daisy petal was his beard."  I enjoyed the irony in this phrase in that there are so many other more masculine comparisons that could have been made, but no, Chaucer sees fit to compare a franklin's beard to a flower, possibly implying the lower social status of a franklin.

I most want to read the miller's story in The Canterbury Tales.  I have heard some comments and innuendos about it, and I want to read for myself the details.  I want to see why it's so infamous and why it has the reputation it does.

Netvibes

Having the dashboard that I created is helpful for checking my email, keeping track of the things I need to do using a to-do list, and checking the course blog for this class all at once, without clicking on the links in my Favorites one by one.  I also like the ability to have a personalized theme and the ability to change the colors and arrangement of the widgets.  My glowing approval of this site, however, may be biased by the fact that I haven't searched for any other dashboard sites that could potentially be better that Netvibes and change my present opinion.

VOCAB #6

obsequious: showing servile complaisance; fawning; obedient; deferential
The obsequious child did whatever his parents wanted.

beatitude: exalted happiness; supreme blessedness
The beatitude she felt on her wedding day wiped away any doubts she had had.

bête noire: a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded
It is a sad thing when you become the bête noire of a community.

bode: to endure; to encounter; to wait; to dwell
He decided to bode his time wisely before asking his boss for a raise.

dank: unpleasantly moist or humid; damp and, often, chilly
The tourists took a guided tour through a dank and dark underground cave.

ecumenical: general; universal; promoting Christian unity throughout the world; interreligious or interdenominational
Their ecumenical relationship was criticized by their relatives.

fervid: vehement in spirit; overly enthusiastic; burning; glowing;
Her fervid attitude towards the group project had a positive effect on the attitudes of the other group members.

fetid: having an offensive odor; stinking
The fetid smell of trash stretches for miles on trash day.

gargantuan: gigantic; enormous; colossal
To an ant, an elephant must seem gargantuan.

heyday: the period of the greatest vigor, strength, success; prime
It was a sad time when he realized that the heyday of his acting career was over.

incubus: a nightmare; something that oppresses one like a nightmare
The incubus of her act of stealing the candy bar caused herself to turn herself in the next day.

infrastructure: the basic or underlying framework or features of a system or organization
The infrastructure of the store included a store manager and multiple clerks.

inveigle: to entice, lure, or snare by flattery; to acquire, win, or obtain by beguiling talk
She inveigled the boy into giving her the concert tickets for a cheaper price.

kudos: honor; glory; acclaim
Everyone wants kudos for their hard work.

lagniappe: a gratuity or tip; an unexpected benefit
They forgot to leave a lagniappe for the waiter for the meal in the restaurant.

prolix: extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy;
His prolix essay wasn't even comprehensible; it was filled with jargon.

protégé: a person under protection, patronage, or care of someone interested in his/her career or welfare
The carpenter's protégé was becoming better than the carpenter himself.

prototype: the original or model on which something is based or formed from; model; exemplar
The prototype of the airplane looked promising that it would fly properly.

sycophant: self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite
The sycophant hoped to earn a promotion by becoming the personal attendant of the boss.

tautology: needless repetition of an idea without imparting additional clearness
Tautology can be tiring when it makes writing appear to be a very complex on the surface, but it really isn't.

truckle: to submit or yield obsequiously or tamely
He truckled to his cravings for sweets and went out for ice cream.

accolade: any award, honor, or laudatory notice; a touch on the shoulder with a sword during a knighthood ceremony
The accolade she received for her photograph in the art show came with a $50 check.

acerbity: sourness, with roughness of taste; harshness or severity in temper or expression
Because of the employee's acerbity, many people chose not to got to the store.

attrition: a decrease in numbers, size, or strength; the wearing down or weakening of resistance
She developed attrition towards her monotonous life.

bromide:  a platitude or trite saying; a person who is platitudinous and boring
His essay contained so many bromides that his teacher didn't find any original material in it.

chauvinist: a person who aggressively and blindly patriotic; a person who believes one gender is superior to the other
The male chauvinist thought that only men should go to work, while the women should stay home.

chronic: constant; habitual; recurring frequently
The child's chronic cough worried her parents, and they took her to see a doctor.

expound: to state in detail; to explain; to interpret
He expounded the process by which machine was supposed to be assembled.

factionalism: of a faction or factions; self-interested; partisan
The factionalism of our government inhibits its effectiveness.

immaculate: spotlessly clean; pure; free from errors
The mother always seemed to want the teenage daughter's room to be immaculate.

imprecation: the act of cursing; a curse; malediction
He cast all the imprecations he could think of at the hammer that had hit his thumb.

ineluctable: inescapable; incapable of being evaded
School is ineluctable to students who want to learn and get good grades.

mercurial: volatile; erratic; flighty; animated; lively; quick-witted
The teenager's mercurial and energetic personality puzzled her parents.

palliate: mitigate; alleviate; to relieve or lessen without curing
The ice pack palliated the pain from the inflammation of a sprained ankle.

protocol: the regulations and customs dealing with formality, precedence, and etiquette
Every teacher has a specific protocol of their classroom that they expect students to follow.

resplendent: shining brilliantly; gleaming; splendid
The resplendent snow excited the children, who rushed to go sledding through it.

stigmatize: to set some mark of disgrace or infamy upon; to mark with a stigma or brand
His disgraceful actions abroad stigmatized his family in their town.

sub rosa: confidentially; secretly; privately
The content of the business meeting was asked to be kept sub rosa because of ruthless competitors.

vainglory: excessive elation and pride over one's achievements; empty pomp or show
He didn't want someone to mistake his announcement of his achievement as vainglorious.

vestige: the mark, trace, or evidence of something that no longer exists; a slight trace or amount
Only small vestiges of love existed between the divorced couple.

volition: the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; a decision made by will
She didn't want to listen to her parents because she wanted to make decisions of her own volition.

Billy Collins - From Words to Animations

Check out this poet Billy Collins.   He was appointed the United States Poet Laureate from 2001 until 2003.  I was reminded of him after our class discussion with Amanda Lyons on Friday about portraying concepts as images because he consented to the animation of some of his poems.  Here is his TED talk, including examples of the animated poetry.  My favorite poem is the one he reads at the end of the talk about his 17-year old daughter.

WHAT A CHARACTER

The character that made an impression on me was Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  It was something about her wit and independence that made me remember her.  I liked how rebellious she was to certain customs that she felt were unnecessary.  For example, she was never oppressed into not speaking her mind or holding her own with the men, even though in her time period it was more customary for a woman, especially considering Elizabeth's position in society, to keep her thoughts to herself and to not contradict men or those of a higher position in society than her.  As a result, I was mostly amused by her intelligence when she engaged in banter with Mr. Darcy and sometimes won an argument.  Literary techniques that led to the impact of her character include both humor and irony in the dialogue between Elizabeth and the characters she speaks her mind to.  Also, a character foil between Elizabeth and her sister Jane Bennet emphasized how impulsive or judgmental Elizabeth can seem when Jane is presented as the opposite of Elizabeth's personality, as someone who looks for the good in people where Elizabeth already sees the bad.  Even still, through a calm and collected Jane as a foil, Elizabeth's character appears to be a lot more lively and spirited.

DECLARATION OF LEARNING INDEPENDENCE

How to incorporate my big question with the course....Well, my question addresses how we perceive the appearances of others, but I suppose I could stretch it to fit the more vague concept of how does our perception of others reflect our perception of ourselves? This one will still take some serious critical thinking.  On the topic of Collaborative Working Groups, I have always considered creating a website that answers those questions that you don't realize you have until they're asked, but they have a definite, possibly complex answer.  For example, how do mirrors work? or why do so many people sing in the shower of all places?  As for SMART goals, I am one of those people that like to make checklists.  Sometimes I have so many things to keep track of that I want to make sure they don't get lost in the chaos of my mind and forgotten, so I write them down in a checklist as I think of them.  I like motives and rewards for my actions, as most people do, even if this consists of being able to check the box after I have completed something.  Anyways, that's a side note.  My SMART goal is to submit all of the private college and university applications that are due by January 1st before winter break begins so I can have stress-free Christmas vacation.  I have already grouped all of the necessary essays together, I just need to do the hard part of writing them well enough to get accepted somewhere.  It's attainable and not unreasonable if I invest my mind and time into it.

VOCAB #5

obsequious: showing servile complaisance; fawning; obedient; deferential
The obsequious students always told the teacher what she wanted to hear.

beatitude: exalted happiness; supreme blessedness
When his girlfriend said "yes" to his marriage proposal, he was in a state of pure beatitude.

bête noire: a person or thing especially disliked or dreaded
He became the bête noire of the town when he committed a series of crimes.

bode: to endure; to encounter; to wait; to dwell
He didn't want to ask his parents for more money so he bode his time until his next paycheck.

dank: unpleasantly moist or humid; damp and, often, chilly
The child got lost in an dark and dank underground cave.

ecumenical: general; universal; promoting Christian unity throughout the world; interreligious or interdenominational
The talk of their ecumenical marriage created tension between their families.

fervid: vehement in spirit; overly enthusiastic; burning; glowing;
The new vice principal has a very fervid personality.

fetid: having an offensive odor; stinking
The fetid smell of the rotten egg warned the farmer not to sell it or eat it.

gargantuan: gigantic; enormous; colossal
To us, the universe seems gargantuan and possibly infinite.

heyday: the period of the greatest vigor, strength, success; prime
He reached the heyday of his career when he was promoted to the executive officer of the company.

incubus: a nightmare; something that oppresses one like a nightmare
The incubus of the lie the child had told forced him to confess the truth to his parents later.

infrastructure: the basic or underlying framework or features of a system or organization
The infrastructure of the company was compromised when the manager was fired and there was no one to take his place.

inveigle: to entice, lure, or snare by flattery; to acquire, win, or obtain by beguiling talk
She inveigled the security guard into letting her go even though she didn't have a hall pass.

kudos: honor; glory; acclaim
The hero received kudos from the city for defeating the evil villain.

lagniappe: a gratuity or tip; an unexpected benefit
They left more than the customary amount of a lagniappe for the waiter because of the good service.

prolix: extended to great, unnecessary, or tedious length; long and wordy;
His prolix essay wasn't even comprehensible; it was filled with jargon.

protégé: a person under protection, patronage, or care of someone interested in his/her career or welfare
The musician hoped that one day the young protégé would be as famous as he is.

prototype: the original or model on which something is based or formed from; model; exemplar
The prototype of the invention failed the inspection of the sponsor, and its production couldn't be afforded.

sycophant: self-seeking, servile flatterer; fawning parasite
The sycophant of an intern constantly followed the employee and offered to do anything for her to get on her good side.

tautology: needless repetition of an idea without imparting additional clearness
The examples of tautology found throughout her essay demonstrated that she didn't understand the meaning of some of the complex vocabulary terms she incorporated.

truckle: to submit or yield obsequiously or tamely
He repeatedly truckled to the requests of his wife to keep her happy.

LITERATURE ANALYSIS #1

1.  The Joy Luck by Amy Tan compares the relationship between Chinese immigrants and their mothers in China to the relationship between these Chinese immigrants and their American-born daughters.  The novel is divided into seven different perspectives: four Chinese American daughters and three Chinese mothers.  The anecdotes of both the past and the present of each of these characters fulfills that authors purpose of describing and demonstrating the similarities and differences between those two distinct relationships.

Jing-mei Woo (Daughter)

                Jing-mei Woo is the daughter of the late Suyuan Woo.  In the beginning of the novel, she takes her mother’s place at the fourth corner of a mah jong table during a Joy Luck Club meeting.  It is during a game of mah jong that her mother’s friends, An-mei, Lindo, and Ying-ying, reveal to her that the twins Suyuan abandoned in China because of times of hardship were still alive and wanted to meet Jing-mei’s mother.  They convinced Jing-mei to go to China to meet them instead.

                When Jing-mei was a little girl, her mother wanted her to be a prodigy in something, and the only activity Jing-mei could get away with was playing the piano because her teacher was deaf.  She ended up embarrassing her mother at a talent show by playing badly. 

                Another flashback describes the superstitions of Chinese culture when her mother wouldn’t buy or eat a crab with a missing leg at a New Year’s dinner.  After the crab dinner, however, her mother gave her a jade pendant and said it was Jing-mei’s life importance.

                In the end of the novel, Jing-mei travels to China and meets her half-sisters.  She doesn’t understand what it means for her to be Chinese until she meets these family members, and they all already feel connected to one another because they reflect their mother.

Suyuan Woo (Mother)

                Suyuan married an army officer, and while she was in an impoverished refugee city, she came up with the concept of the Joy Luck Club in China so that the members could take a day from their miserable lives to actually live.  When the Japanese attacked, Suyuan left with her baby twin daughters and walked for miles to find a safe city.  Along the way, she had to leave the daughters on the side of the road because she felt that there was more hope that they would be found and taken care of than there was that they would survive another day’s journey.  She never stopped looking for them in the years before her death, and one of her friends located them just after her death.

An-mei Hsu (Mother)

                An-mei’s mother was forced into becoming a concubine to a wealthy man after her husband died.  An-mei lived with her mother for a short time in this wealthy man’s large house, after living with her aunt and uncle as a child.  A son that her mother had with the man was taken by one of the other wives to care for.  Her mother poisoned herself to escape her miserable life, and An-mei was raised by the wealthy man who wanted to please her mother’s spirit.

Rose Hsu Jordan (Daughter)

                When Rose was fourteen, her mother told her to watch her four little brothers at a family trip to the beach.  When the three older brothers were fighting, her mother told her to break up their fight, and as a result, she took her eyes off of her youngest brother who fell off of the reef and into the ocean.  They never found his body.

                As an adult, she went through a divorce with a husband who was cheating on her.  She finally followed her mother’s advice and decided to fight for the house, instead of giving it all away to her husband.

Lindo Jong (Mother)

                Lindo Jong was committed to an arranged marriage in China when she was two and married to the suitor when she was sixteen.  She escaped from that dreadful marriage through a cunning plot that took advantage of the Chinese reverence to their ancestors.  By lying about a dream where the ancestors disapproved of her marriage, she was free to travel to America years later.  There, she worked in a fortune cookie factory, and took the advice of someone in China to marry a man and have an anchor baby.  She was Suyuan Woo’s best friend, but the two friends competed against each other with their daughters’ accomplishments, Jing-mei and Waverly.

Waverly Jong (Daughter)

                When Waverly was a little girl, she was a chess champion.  One day, she became embarrassed at how her mother wouldn’t stop telling others about her accomplishments and taking the credit for them, so she took a break from chess and couldn’t win one tournament when she started playing again.

                As an adult, she had a daughter named Shoshana with her first husband who she later divorced, and then she worked up the courage to tell her mother that she was engaged to a man named Rich Shields.  Waverly is resistant to embrace her Chinese heritage.

Ying-ying St. Clair (Mother)

               When she was a little girl, she fell into a river during the Moon Festival in China, and she was lost for most of the night.  She wished to the Moon Lady to be found, and in the morning her family found her.  Her childhood innocence was crushed, though, because she found the person who played the Moon Lady in a skit, only she was actually a he.

                She grew up in a wealthy family, and was forced to marry a man who left her pregnant a couple of months later to pursue an opera singer.  She had an abortion, and she went to work as a shop attendant in a poorer district.  There, she met Mr. St. Clair, and she went with him to America to get married.

                She had Lena, and then she gave birth a few years later to a stillborn son.  She showed Chinese superstition once again in the book when she claimed that her son didn’t survive because the house was slanted so he fell out of her womb too quickly.

Lena St. Clair (Daughter)

                Lena St. Clair grew up listening to a fighting mother and daughter on the other side of her bedroom wall every night.  She also didn’t eat all of her rice, and so she was told that she would have a bad husband.

                She married a man named Harold, and they split the cost of everything that they bought and shared.  Eventually, she decided to leave the marriage, after her mother enlightened her to how miserable she actually was in that marriage.  Lena’s mother didn’t want her daughter to experience the same kind of marriage she had experienced when she was young.

 

2.  The theme of the novel is the divergence of Chinese and American cultures over generations of Chinese-American families resulting in a Chinese culture that is only present in elders.  Throughout the book, the mothers' perspectives often comment on how Americanized their daughters are.  Lindo Jong once states, "I wanted my children to have the best combination: American circumstances and Chinese character.  How could I know these two things do not mix?"  This statement is the perfect reflection of this theme.

 

3.  The author's tone is reflective and nostalgic.  The reflective tone results from the constant storytelling by the characters of their past tragedies or accomplishments, and from the way she writes the character's thoughts such as, "Yet today I can remember a time when I ran and shouted," (Page 64) or "But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning." (Page 83)  I believe the author has a nostalgic tone because she seems to be reflecting her mistakes and former beliefs through the daughters that she characterized in the novel.  This came to mind because her biography says that her parents immigrated from China before she was born in Oakland, California.

4.  Imagery- "The same turquoise couch shaped in a semicircle of nubby tweed.  The colonial end tables made out of heavy maple.  A lamp of fake cracked porcelain.  Only the scroll-length calendar, free from the Bank of Canton, changes every year." (Page 16)
"I see a short bent woman in her seventies, with a heavy bosom and thin, shapeless legs.  She has the flattened soft fingertips of an old woman." (Page 19)
Historical Allusion/Extended Metaphor for the civil war in China that resulted in a communist government: "But they can do something else.  Now they no longer have to swallow their own tears or suffer the taunts of magpies.  I know this because I read this news in a magazine from China.  It said that for thousands of years birds had been tormenting peasants...when the people stood up, the birds would fly down and drink the tears and eat the seeds...But one day, all these tired peasants...they gathered in fields everywhere...they began to clap their hands, and bang sticks on pots and pans...and all these birds rose in the air, alaramed and confused by this new anger...waiting for the noise to stop...And this continued...until all those birds...fluttered to the ground, dead and still, until not one bird remained in the sky."  (Page 273)
Repetition to emphasize the importance of the subject the character is addressing:  "Something was always missing.  Something always needed improving.  Something was not in balance."  (Page 19)
"They see their own daughters...they see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese...they see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters...they see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hop passed from generation to generation." (Page 31)
Rhetorical Questions to provide a better sense of the natural thought process in someone's mind:  "Even if I had not wanted to marry, where would I go live instead? Even though I was as strong as a horse, how could I run away?"  (Page 51)
"What would your psychiatrist say if I told him that I shouted for joy when I read that this had happened?"  (Page 273)
"Why did I marry this man?"  (Page 278)
Similes allow the reader to picture concepts in a new way:  "Its walls close in like a coffin."  (Page 275)
"All of us are like stairs, one step after another, going up and down, but all going the same way."  (Page 241)
"It is like looking into a bowl and finding the last grains of rice you did not finish."  (Page 280)
Metaphor:  "I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water."  (Page 64)
Hyperbole:  "And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me."  (Page 64)
Dialect to demonstrate the broken English of the mothers and the difference between their fluency in the Chinese language and their fluency in the English language:  "You a smart girl.  You watch us, do the same.  Help us stack the tiles and make four walls."  (Page 23)
"Aii-ya, Mrs. Emerson good lady."  (Page 24)
Irony when Waverly's fiancée has good intentions, but they backfire:  "But the worst was when Rich criticized my mother's cooking, and he didn't even know what he had done.  As is the Chinese cook's custom, my mother always made disparaging remarks about her own cooking...'Ai! This dish not salty enough, no flavor,' she complained, after tasting a small bite...This was our family's cue to eat some and proclaim it the best she had ever made.  But before we could do so, Rich said, 'You know, all it needs is a little soy sauce.' And he proceeded to pour a riverful of the salty black stuff on the platter, right before my mother's horrified eyes."  (Page 197)
Foreshadowing to the subject of the anecdote that the character is about to mention:  "It is my earliest recollection: telling the Moon Lady my secret wish.  And because I forgot what I wished for, that memory remained hidden from me all these many years.  But now I remember the wish, and I can recall the details of that entire day..."  (Page 65)

ALL OF THE ABOVE

Regarding the multiple choice section of the 1987 practice AP exam, I got 33 out of 47 correct.  Maybe I need to give myself more credit for what I know because I set my expectations at getting half of the questions correct.  I know my results aren't the best results they could be, but I am still happy and surprised at them in a good way.  My perspective is that this was my first taste of the AP English Literature exam and so hopefully I can only improve from here on.  You aren't ready for a race until you've conditioned for it over time.  Most of the questions that I got wrong were a mixture of those with the I, II, III, IV options that you mix and match, and those that contained vocabulary terms about poetry that were unfamiliar to me, and so I couldn't answer the question to the best of my ability.

Vocabulary #4

accolade: any award, honor, or laudatory notice; a touch on the shoulder with a sword during a knighthood ceremony
The hard-working student received the accolade of an AP Scholar because of her test scores.

acerbity: sourness, with roughness of taste; harshness or severity in temper or expression
His acerbity towards others didn't earn him many friends.

attrition: a decrease in numbers, size, or strength; the wearing down or weakening of resistance
His developing attrition towards his daily routine caused him to have a mid-life crisis.

bromide:  a platitude or trite saying; a person who is platitudinous and boring
His speech was full of so many bromides that the audience didn't hear anything that they hadn't heard before.

chauvinist: a person who aggressively and blindly patriotic; a person who believes one gender is superior to the other
The male chauvinist thought it was a mistake that women were granted the right to vote, and he actively stated so to his wife.

chronic: constant; habitual; recurring frequently
Her chronic back pain made her go see her doctor for some medication to help get rid of it.

expound: to state in detail; to explain; to interpret
He expounded his flaws to prove that he wasn't perfect.

factionalism: of a faction or factions; self-interested; partisan
The factionalism present in Congress prevented the passing of an important bill.

immaculate: spotlessly clean; pure; free from errors
She wanted her house to be immaculate before her critical mother arrived.

imprecation: the act of cursing; a curse; malediction
She was so angry that she screamed as many imprecations as she could at her parents.

ineluctable: inescapable; incapable of being evaded
The conversation about future colleges with his parents was ineluctable to the high school senior.'

mercurial: volatile; erratic; flighty; animated; lively; quick-witted
Her mercurial personality was too much for her friends to handle.

palliate: mitigate; alleviate; to relieve or lessen without curing
Her doctor attempted to palliate the chronic pain in her back with a prescription for a pain killer.

protocol: the regulations and customs dealing with formality, precedence, and etiquette
The little boy didn't follow the protocol of the classroom when he insisted on answering the question without raising his hand.

resplendent: shining brilliantly; gleaming; splendid
She looked resplendent on her wedding day as she walked down the aisle

stigmatize: to set some mark of disgrace or infamy upon; to mark with a stigma or brand
Her charges of theft stigmatized the family in the town.

sub rosa: confidentially; secretly; privately
She was kept the family matters sub rosa at the request of her parents.

vainglory: excessive elation and pride over one's achievements; empty pomp or show
His vainglory over his acceptance into Harvard University made his parents turn from feeling proud of his accomplishment to embarrassed by his blatant arrogance.

vestige: the mark, trace, or evidence of something that no longer exists; a slight trace or amount
The fighting couple was hoping they could still find some vestiges of happiness in their marriage.

volition: the act of willing, choosing, or resolving; a decision made by will
She returned to her husband of her own volition after they had separated.

BEOWULF ESSAY

     What defines a hero? Usually a hero is closely associated with the protagonist of a tale, the "good guy" that the audience is intended to sympathize with and support.  Typically, heroes save innocent people from death at the hands of the antagonist, and the background of the antagonist isn't normally explained in detail to better facilitate a connection between the deeper character of the hero and the audience  rather than one between the hero's enemy and the audience.  Often, a hero is who everyone aspires to be, and consequently, a hero's actions and beliefs can mirror the culture of the time period in which the story was created.  The classic hero Beowulf and the modern hero Luke Skywalker share similarities in character as heroes, but distinctions are also apparent between each hero and how they relate to the time periods in which they were written.

     In the epic poem Beowulf, the main character of the story, Beowulf, is the epitome of a hero according to the culture of the time period in which Beowulf was created.  Not only is he loyal to his king and the Danish king Hrothgar, an important value of his time, but he is also portrayed as self-confident, to a degree of slight arrogance, and accomplishes feats of strength in battle that lead to numerous victories against monsters terrorizing a kingdom.  This is comparable to the modern hero Luke Skywalker from the Star Wars series of movies from the 1970's.  Luke Skywalker doesn't have the strong self-confidence that Beowulf displays, but he fulfills the status quo of a hero who protects the innocent and fights evil when he volunteers to help destroy the Death Star, a sinister weapon of the Dark Side. 

     Both Luke Skywalker and Beowulf represent the religious influences of their time.  Beowulf's belief in God was influenced by the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxons in the fourth century as the tale of Beowulf was being transmitted orally from one generation to the next.  His belief is first alluded to when he proclaims that " 'God must decide/Who will be given to death's cold grip,' " prior to his battle with Grendel, which he plans to win without armor or a weapon.  Beowulf again mentions God when he says on his deathbed, " 'I thank/Our Father in Heaven, Ruler of the Earth-/For all of this, that His grace has given me.' "  Both of these textual examples demonstrate the importance of religious hero in the society of the creators of the epic.  Luke Skywalker, on the other hand, was guided in his endeavors by his belief in the Force, a concept that symbolized the renewed sense of Mother Earth as a power which exists in everyone that surfaced in the 1970's in the United States. 

     In addition, the actions of the characters Beowulf and Luke Skywalker in their respective stories reflect the idealistic views of both time periods that good will always triumph over evil.  This is evident when Beowulf succeeds in killing Grendel to save the banquet hall Heorot from Grendel's murderous rampages at night.  Beowulf saves the king's officials by ridding the kingdom of the beast and later, by killing Grendel's mother as well.  In relation, Luke Skywalker saves innocent lives also when he helps to destroy the Death Star of the Empire before it destroyed an inhabited planet.  In the end, he also rescues his father, Darth Vader, from the Dark Side by seeing a sliver of good left in him and reaching out to it.  The Dark Side, which is correlated to the evil Empire, could be a symbol of the communist and totalitarian governments present in the 1970's because the 1970's was in the middle of the Cold War between the democratic form of government that existed in the United States and the communist form of government that existed in the Soviet Union at the time.  The Soviet Union was seen as an oppressive enemy by the United States and consequently, by many Americans, which may have helped them relate to the cause of Luke Skywalker to stop the Empire.

     Beowulf and Luke Skywalker were both heroes whose courage saved the lives of many in their epics, and whose values represented the values of the culture of their creators.  Beowulf's apparent invincibility as a brave warrior was meant to inspire children and townspeople to the dream that loyalty and greatness can come from physical and religious strength.  Luke Skywalker's journey in Star Wars, which was released after the bicentennial of the United States, was intended to access the patriotism of its audience by showing the success of a group of rebels that Luke Skywalker was part of in overthrowing a totalitarian government, similar to the ideals of the American Revolution.  The gloriously portrayed lives of heroes are fabricated to provide an escape for the audience from their own seemingly monotonous lives, and a larger-than-life figure to look up to when their lives get difficult.

WILL STUDY FOR FOOD

I think the Santa Maria Valley Chamber of Commerce Scholarship is worth applying for.  I heard about it through the handouts at College Boot Camp.  I need scholarship funds to attend a college where I think is a great place for my education to continue, so I don't have to settle going to a college that is affordable but that I can barely stand.  It may be a high goal, but I am going to set my total fundraising goal at $7,500 in scholarships.

Vocabulary #3

apostate: a person who renounces a religious or political belief; abandoning a religious principle
An apostate could be someone who has committed blasphemy against the Church.

effusive: lacking reserve; overly demonstrative; overflowing; pouring out
His effusive salutations were a  too much for a funeral reception.

impasse: a situation from which there is no escape; a deadlock; a road that has no outlet
The two arguing brothers found that they were at an impasse when neither would compromise on their share of the chores.

euphoria: a state of intense happiness and self-confidence; a feeling of well-being
The couple was filled with euphoria on their wedding day.

lugubrious: mournful; dismal; gloomy, especially in an unrelieved manner
The poet wrote many poems regarding his lugubrious childhood as an orphan.

bravado: a pretentious, swaggering display of courage
The hero's bravado when dealing with his enemies was admirable but somewhat annoying.

consensus: majority of opinion; general agreement or concord; harmony
The consensus of the class was that the homework assignment was not relevant to the course material.

dichotomy: division into two parts; division into two contradictory groups
A dichotomy exists between people that believe that children are born evil and those that believe children are raised to be evil through the environment.

constrict: compress; cause to contract or shrink; to slow the natural development of
Listening to loud music constricted her ability to read her book.

gothic: pertaining to a style of architecture originating in France in the 12th century; characterized by the use of the pointed arch and the ribbed vault
The mansion had a gothic feel to it, with both arches and spires as part of its architecture.

punctilio: a fine point, particular, or detail referring to conduct; strictness in the observance of formalities
His attention to punctilios during the ceremony took too long and annoyed everyone.

metamorphosis: complete change of form or in appearance or character
His metamorphosis from a high school drop out to the highest achiever in his class shocked everyone.

raconteur: a person who is skilled in relating stories and anecdotes interestingly
He was a such an excellent raconteur that he could make a trip to the grocery store sound like the most interesting story you have ever heard of the time.

sine qua non: an indispensable condition, element, or factor; something essential
Graduating from at least high school is seen as the sin qua non for getting a job in life with a livable salary.

quixotic: extravagantly romantic; impractical; impulsive; rashly unpredictable
Even though the student knew that the assignment was non-negotiable, he felt a quixotic urge to argue with the teacher to cancel the project.

vendetta: prolonged and bitter feud or rivalry
The Capulets had a vendetta with the Montagues in the play Romeo and Juliet.

non sequitur: a statement containing an illogical conclusion; an inference that doesn't follow from the premises
He came to non sequitur conclusion that rabbits are humans through the premises that rabbits have ears, and all humans have ears

mystique: a framework of doctrines, ideas, and beliefs constructed around a person or object
The mystique of the universe can be time consuming when thought about.

quagmire: a bog; a situation from which extrication is difficult; anything soft or flabby
She found herself in a quagmire when she missed her stop to get off of the bus, and the next stop was in the neighboring state.

parlous: perilous; dangerous; clever; shrewd
The parlous career path as a police officer can be very stressful.

WHY THIS BOOK?

I chose The Joy Luck Club for a couple of reasons.  The first one is that I looked for books that I already had in my house.  I decided from that pile to read The Joy Luck Club because I remembered reading an excerpt from it in junior high school, and I have heard a lot of good things about it from friends that read it for  one of the reading groups in Mrs. Byrne's class.