Journal Entry (P160)

Girls in Front of 9/11 Mural (Photo)

What is the difference between the impact of the mural and the impact of the photo? Which do you find more moving? Why?

                       The impact of the mural is very strong and poignant. It is only the first anniversary of the attack on the towers at the World Trade Center. It is a time that is very hard for the whole country and for those people that lost loved ones in that tragic moment. I think that people would like to forget that moment, but at the same time they don't want to ever forget it because it is a day that became part of everyone's life. I was small when this happened and no one that I know suffered from the attack, but I still sympathize with the rest of the population. Even if the mural is not that professional it still conveys all the emotions that any other professional work of art would convey. The mural is a visual reminder of that sad day. Therefore, it has a strong impact. 
                       The photograph also shows strong emotions. The way that I have interpreted this photograph is that it is a way of telling people that it is okay to move on. It doesn't mean that people will forget, they just have to move one and not be still hung over the attack to much. This picture shows that the two little girls are running towards someone and they are obviously happy to see the person. It doesn't matter what way the photo is seen, the mural it's self will always mean something different from the photograph with the two little girls.
                         For me the one that is most emotional and moving would be the mural and not the photograph, because the mural shows the pain that people are still going through even after a year of the attack. It is more moving because almost everyone in the country will somehow relate to this day, but with the two girls there the center of the attention is not the mural, but the girls. The girls are far to happy for the photograph to be moving.

Writing Workshop

3. In paragraph 13, Allende describes the food she ate when she stayed in the jungle. Write a letter to one of the Amazon Indians, describing the food you eat on a particular holiday. Assume the person you write to has had little contact with the outside world and is not familiar with the food you describe. Be sure your essay conveys a clear dominant impression.

My Christmas Foods

        Dear Qircamo,

                 My favorite holiday is Christmas and it is not because of the presents either. I stopped receiving presents when I turned fourteen. You are probably wondering what Christmas is right? Christmas is a holiday that most of the world celebrated. It is during the winter months. Christmas is a holiday when family and friends can gather together and have a good time. Like in most holidays and times when the family gets together, a bunch of food is made. For Christmas my family almost always makes the same food and we drink the same things every year. When you read about them your mouth will water.

                 The whole family always gathers in one of my aunts' house, or my Mama's house. We rotate every year. When it is time for us to eat we always start with the Honduran tamales that my aunt Marlen makes. They are not my favorite, but they are still super good. Tamales are made of some kind of flour mixed with many ingredients that makes the flour tasty. After the flour is done and ready to be made into tamales my aunt Marlen puts a hand full of flour on a banana leaf. When the flour is on the leaf she puts in rice, olives, and a piece of chicken or pork. The chicken or pork has to be cooked as well as the rice before it can be put into the flour. Then the flour with the rice and other things are wrapped with the banana leaf, and then wrapped again with foil. After it is wrapped with everything it has to be put in a pot with water so it can boil until the flour turns hard enough to eat. When the tamales are done I get one and put a tomato sauce called ketchup on it and eat it all up. Along with the tamales the family drinks sodas of whatever flavor they desire. I prefer sprite because it is not as strong as other sodas, and it taste better than the other sodas.

                   Everyone has their share of tamales, but we are just getting started with the feast. After the tamales my aunt Jaque makes Honduran style sandwiches. They are by far my favorite, so I always end up eating more than three of them every time. In order to make the sandwiches my aunt Jaque has to roast a whole chicken, but first she has to put all the necessary ingredients to make the chicken a delicious Orange color. When the chicken is done the women have to tear the chicken into pieces, so that it can fit on the bread. For the sandwiches a certain kind of bread has to be used. The bread has to be white and soft to the touch. Next the sauce has to be made. It is made up of mayonnaise and mustered combined. Then the bread is lightly coated with the sauce, and cabbage that is cut into small pieces is put on it and then the chicken. The sandwich may be simple, bu it is the best that I have ever tried. With the sandwiches the family drinks pina colada the kind that is mixed with rum. At this moment everyone is most likely stuffed, but there is still room for a healthy tasty desert. 

                      The desert is not my favorite and I really do not have any because I hate yogurt, but that does not mean that it is not good. My Mama is the one that makes the fruit salad. It is simple to make. Mama cuts fruits, any kind that you can find, or your favorite it does not really matter. She normally uses strawberries, apples, and bananas. Then she puts the cut up fruit in a big container and pours creamy pink yogurt over the fruit. After that it is ready to be eaten. I wish that I could tell you that it is delicious, but I do not think that way. Everyone else in the family thinks that it is delicious. With the fruit salad we drink champagne. It is pink and I am only allowed to drink a glass because I am not old enough to drink more than that.

                      Christmas is filled of good memories and good food. Qircamo I hope that the way that I described the foods gave you a better understanding of foods that my family and I eat during Christmas.

With all my love,

Sisley Herrera     

                                      

                               

                         

            

Writing Workshop

3. Write a subjective description of a scene you remember from you childhood. In your thesis Statement and in your conclusion, explain how you adult impressions of the scene differ from those of you childhood.

The Day my Mother Left

              Now that I look back to all of my childhood memories I can see the huge gap between the person I was then and the person I am now. Despite all of the differences, there are still situations that would make me think and feel the same way as I did when I was a child. The morning after my mom left still makes me feel the same way now as I did when I was four. There is just one difference now that I am older, and that would be that I did not understand back then that I was going to see my mom again.

             I remember it as if it were yesterday. When I was four my mother and I still lived in Honduras while my dad was in the United States. My parents had been apart for three years already, and my mom decided to leave her country to be with my dad again. At that time my mom did not have the money to take me with her, so she had to leave me behind. One day she told me that she was going to leave, and that I had to stay with my grandparents. I refused immediately, there was no way that I was going to let my mother leave me behind. My mom offered me anything she could think of such as: money, clothes, toys, and even candy. Still I refused, and finally after trying everything that she could think of, my mom gave me twenty lempiras, (Honduran currency) and told me that she was going to come back for me the next morning. Of course I believed her and let her go. Now that I think back on it I think that I should have asked my mom for more money. I could have taken the hundred lempiras that she had offered me first.

            Later the same day after my mom had already left I used the money that she gave me to buy myself a drink. When I used to live there, (I do not know if it is still the same) the sodas used to be sold in a clear bag with the straw tightly tied to the bag instead of a can. The soda was col against my fingers. I was careful not to hold the bag too tight, or the soda would travel up the straw and spill everywhere. I was so happy because it was not everyday that I was able to drink a soda, and my mother was going to come back for me in the morning. However, my happiness did not last.

            The next morning I remember waking up expecting to already see my mom there, but she was not. I jumped off the bed half naked and raced outside. I felt the jagged rocks underneath my small bare feet, but I did not care at all. All I wanted was to see my mother. My injured feet carried me as fast as they could to the edge of my grandparent's property. I was probably three feet from the road. Everything was quiet except for the birds' beautiful singing. There was not a single soul outside with me. The road was bare, everyone was sleeping, because it was still early. The sun was barely coming up, and I remember standing there alone waiting for me mother to come pick me up. I waited and waited and she never came, and I felt utterly alone. Desperation gripped my heart, so I began to scream loudly enough for my voice to echo. "Mama! Mama! Adonde esta," I kept screaming at nothing, just facing the bare road. My vision became blurry as salty tears rolled down my cheeks. At that moment I felt alone until I felt my grandmothers arms wrap around me. Her arms were warm and comforting. A whole year passed before I could see my mother again.

              Now that I am older I see how dumb I must have looked screaming fro my mother in the morning that day. The thought of never seeing my mother again was painful. If that were to happen to me again I would probably feel the same pain and desperation, but I would know that I could see my mom again. I still do not know why I believed her that time, I just know that I will not fall for that trick again. 

Joseph Mccarthy

          The 1950's became known as the period of Mccarthyism. It was similar to the Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1692 in many ways. Government officials mostly from the democratic party were falsely accused of being communist. Several democrats lost their jobs. The war of Vietnam was partly to blame for this hysteria, but the man that caused it all was Joseph Mccarthy. Mccarthy, a republican member of the senate let his fear of not being reelected lead him to defend his position with lies that destroyed many people's careers and reputations, terrorized the American population and harmed the country as a whole.
           Joseph Mccarthy was born on a farm in Appleton, Wisconsin, on November 14, 1908 (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk). Because of he had to begin working he had to leave school at the age of fourteen. Later in 1928 he returned to high school, and after the necessary qualifications he was able to attend Marquette University. He worked as a lawyer after he graduated from the university. He was not as successful as he had wished, so he had to play poker as a means of income. Mccarthy initially supported Franklin D. Rossevelt and his New Deal, but after he failed to become the democratic party candidate district attorney, he became a candidate of the republican party. Mccarthy shocked many with his dirty campaign. His success was based on lies and deceit.
            Even before he was elected to become republican circuit court judge, Mccarthy began to lie. He assured his position by falsely accusing his opponent Edgar Werner of being seventy-three when in reality Werner was sixty-six years old. When the United States became involved in the second world war Mccarthy left his circuit judge possition and joined the U.S. Marines. He lied about his level of of involvement in the war, and as a result was elected as republican candidate for the senate when he went up against Robert La Follette. Mccarthy attacked La Follette in such a way that La Follette committed suicide. In the 1950's Mccarthy was afraid that he was not going to be reelected, so he met with his closest advisers. A Roman Catholics priest came up with the idea that he should campaign against communist subversives working in the democratic administration. Many of his friends helped him in his deceit. Mccarthy accused about two hundred and five people of the West Virginia department of being part of the American communist party. Most of his lies did not even make sense because he kept talking them back and changing what he said. Mccarthy's accusations about communism during the unrest that the country was going through frightened many Americans.
              The united States of America is a democracy, and Americans love their rights. Communism threatens those rights and as a result the American people were terrorized and were ready to believe whatever they were told. The situation of the 1950's was in a way harming the country from the inside. Mccarthy's lies were like a disease that was spreading every where, and not one could stop it. Mccarthy's want for power and selfishness blinded him to the harm his was doing the country, or maybe he did want to harm the country, or he just didn't care.
               Greed can cause turmoil within a country. To think that one man was the cause of such a difficult situation in American history. The human population is too weak minded and let themselves to be guided by rotten men that only care about themselves. However, like everything else in this world the Mccarthyism period came to an end.

September 17, 2012
 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthy.htm#source

Citizens of the World Research topic

View some video testimony of Holocaust survivors. What does this kind of historical documentation provide that other kinds do not?

                 The Holocaust is a very sorrowful period of this world's history. No matter what type of documentation it is, strong heart felt emotions will always be transmitted through the documentation. It can be a book, or a picture, or maybe even a video of someone talking about what they went through during the war and how they survived it. However, there is a very noticeable difference between reading a book that speaks about the Holocaust and what sort of things happened, and reading a book about someone that went through the Holocaust. The reader will sympathize with the writer more if he or she was the one that went through the Holocaust, because a person that did not go through it can not recreate the desperation and the need to survive that all the people that had to live it did.

                   A picture I believe is one of the documentations that affect us the most. Yes we get sad when we read about the Holocaust, but to see the things that men and women had to go through is a whole new story. Pictures capture show things that really happened and we don't have to analyse them to know what is happening. I still can not get out of my head the faces of all those emaciated children and men and women. I think that a picture stays with a person longer than words do. I think that if the German people would have seen all the things that are shown today the Holocaust wouldn't have happened. I just can't believe that a group of people could be so heartless as to follow Hitler being aware of what really was happening.  

                When I saw the video of Elie Wiesel going through Auschwitz years after the Holocaust I felt sadder than when I read his book Night. I think that it's because I was seeing a real person speak about his life in the concentration camp. I knew that he was a real person when I read the book, but it is different when you actually see a person. Throughout the whole video I was like, "this person really went through all of that." They were very strong because I don't think that I would have had the strength to do what they did. Different types of documentations provide different amounts of emotion, and different levels of reality.  

soapstone for "Me Talk Pretty One Day"

Speaker:
The speaker of the selection is David Sedaris.

Occasion:
The time and place of the piece is Paris and is when he is forty-one years old. What made him write this would be his desire to let his audience know what he went through and how it helped him.

Audience:
His audience would be the people that are trying to learn a new language.

Purpose:
I believe that David's Sedaris reason for writing "Me Talk Pretty One Day" is to encourage other people that want to learn another language and are too afraid to try.

Subject:
The subject of this selection would be how he learned how to speak french.

Tone:
When the story began the author was feeling unsure and scared. He lacked the confidence that other students in the class had. He didn't think that his vocabulary was enough. As he was going through the class he began to feel frustrated because of the teaching methods of his teacher. It was only towards the end of the story that he realized that he could understand what the teacher was telling him. He was elated.

Writing Workshop

Rewrite the article as if it were a diary entry of one of the thirty-eight people who watched the murder. Summarize what you saw, and explain why you decided not to call for help. (You may invent details that Gansberg does not include.)

Dear Diary,
I think that my husband and I have done something unforgivable. Is it our fault? Maybe if we had called the police as soon as we heard Kitty call for help, nothing of this would have happened. She would still be alive. It was so early in the morning and I didn't think that something like that would happen. If only I had known. I was scared when I heard Kitty scream and my husband and I turned on the apartment light. But we couldn't see well with the light one, so we decided to turn it off. I saw two figures. It was a man and a women, and I knew that the woman was Kitty. I know that a part of me deep down knew that she was in trouble, but I didn't listen to myself.
From an apartment somewhere near us I heard a man shout to the man to let Kitty go. Soon after the man left. But right before he left I was sure that he looked straight at my husband and me. Fear flooded my mind and body. I wanted to call the police right then, but my husband told me to stay out of it. It was none of our business he said. I couldn't close my eyes for the remainder of the night. I couldn't stop thinking about Kitty.
Only minutes after my husband and I went back to bed we heard the police. I had this nasty feeling in my heart. What had happened to Kitty? I walked out of the apartment just in time to see the ambulance leave with a very dead Kitty. Yes I believe that it was our fault. We didn't pick up the stupid phone to call the police. The police asked us why we didn't call them. There was nothing I could tell them. All of the excuses sound lame and stupid. "I don't know," I said.