Another vocab word...

Finally, I can use my second vocab word! Dustin Long is very good at using this tactic: synaesthesia. It means "a sensation that normally occurs in one sense modality occurs when another modality is stimulated." Or, in other words, stimulating more than one sense at a time, in our case through literature. A wonderful example comes from Dustin Long's novel Icelander: "She smelled smoke before she saw it, a buttery blend, brimming visibly, volubly, from Mr. Wible's short and wide pipe" (28). This sentence gives an image of the smoke brimming, while also giving us a sense of its smell, taste, and smooth texture. And that is the beauty of synaesthesia.

Romance vs. Tragedy

In class we discussed the many ways in which Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife could be read as either a tragedy or a romance. Personally, I don't think you can separate the two. Romance, in the Disney form of the word, implies love, passion, and a happily-ever-after. But we, characters of the real world, know this to be false. Love and romance are often quite tragic. After all, we come from a society where over half of marriages end in divorce, children grow up in broken homes, and people are surprised to meet someone whose parents are still married. If you've ever loved and lost, you know love can be a tragedy. Therefore, I don't know what to classify this book as. It seems more like a tragedy to me due to the overwhelming themes of death and loss. Of course, I didn't view the end of the novel as a tragic case. I thought it was bittersweet the way Henry died but lived through time travel to meet up with his daughter at times and even got to see Clare grow old. Many argued that Clare's "waiting around for Henry all her life" is tragic, but I think she was quite lucky to have known her love ever since she was six. The letter Henry left her did make me cry, but it was a way of letting her know she should move on and he'd always be there. The way she never moved on from Henry was also bittersweet, and I don't think it was tragic because she was so used to waiting for Henry that it probably came as completely natural for her. Having said this, I just call The Time Traveler's Wife a "tear-jerker," because that could suggest either romance or tragedy. Either way, I like books that can make me cry.

Time Traveling

I've given this quite some thought since we've discussed time traveling in class. There are so many different times I wish I could travel back to in my life. For instance, I'd love to go back and see myself as a young child and observe how I viewed the world. I think I had it all figured out back then. Of course, It'd always be interesting to go back to when I was about sixteen and had just moved accross the country in the middle of high school. This was one of the hardest times in my life, because 16-year-olds over-dramaztize everything. If I could see my future self back then, I wouldn't look much different at all, but I'd know that everything was going to be fine no matter how much I hated the world. Also, for my present self, it would be fun to experience that emotionally charged couple years again. I think I could only handle a couple days of it at the most, though.

One of the times that I really wish I could relive (if time travel was a bit different than in The Time Traveler's Wife) was when my family and I lived in Germany and my parents would take us sightseeing all over Europe. I was only about 3 or 4, and my sister was a baby. I would have loved to remember all this and actually have known the significance of the sights or been able to appreciate kissing the Blarney Stone and riding a gondola up the Alps. If I could time travel back to this period in time, I wouldn't do it like Henry did, where he found himself naked in a time where he aldready existed. I'd hopefully be able to just be a 20-year old inside a 4-year old's body. Then I could just pretend to say cute little things about airplanes flying by, but really be soaking in the experiences. It would also be an extra perk to go back to a time when my sister couldn't talk yet.

Extremely Confused and Incredibly Far Away

I do not remember 9/11/01 very well with the exception of the first couple hours of my day. I was curling my hair, getting ready for another day of 8th grade. My mother came downstairs and told me to come up to her room and watch the news with her. She told me the World Trade Center got hit by an airplane. I had no idea what the World Trade Center was, where it was, or why this was really such an incredible event. The only thing I remember was being worried about the plane crash. I wanted to be a pilot, and it worried me to hear about crashes. However, my mother had a hint of emergency in her voice and I could tell something was off about this. I went with her to her room, my dad was out of town on business and I guess my little sister was probably still sleeping. I looked up at the television, and saw the images which have now been burned into every American's memory. First, it was only the one tower smoking, then they showed another plane flying into the second, the first collapsing, the people on the streets of New York crying. Also, they showed clips of the Pentagon. Before that moment, airplanes flying into skyscrapers was something I never even bothered to imagine. Watching this occur was like watching someone do something grotesque or abnormal. I don't think I ate breakfast, I had to hurry up and catch the schoolbus. At the bus stop, we discussed this situation like we knew anything about the world besides suburban America. We weren't aware of any enemies, and I had never heard the word "terrorist" actually used to describe anyone, a word I could have frankly done without. At school, the news was on all day in every classroom. The teachers started giving us more insight as to the potential attackers, and we saw the footage of the plane that crashed in the field not far from my hometown in PA. At this time I lived in WA, though, so I was much further from the event. That's about all I remember about the actual day. The whole week after 9/11, my Arab friends were kept home from school by their mother, who feared they'd be attacked. They did suffer much discrimination and humiliation at school that year. I remember I still didn't understand why, because they were Americans like the rest of us. I remember the American flags being sold out at every store, and feeling ashamed of our patriotism. I don't know why, but I never really liked it when people displayed American flags or when we had to say the pledge of allegiance. I can't explain why. Anyway, then Bush announced we were going to war, and I began to watch the news every night. I was very afraid, for the world I had always known was the world of Internet, Clinton, glitter, TLC, and Baby Spice....never war. I was pretty angry. My family and I moved back to the east coast, and I met people who were actually affected by 9/11. Their brothers/in-laws/uncles/cousins had died in the towers. The schools began to teach students about the Middle East and Islam so they could understand an entire race, religion and region of the world was not responsible for this, but rather a select few extremists. Anyway, that's about all I have to say about 9/11. I'm actually really sick of hearing about it. I was sort of disappointed to hear this novel was about it, but it's turned out to be really disconnected from world affairs and mostly about the relationships between people, so I'm content for now.

Glossary Term

I want to present my glossary term tomorrow since I found the actual word in our reading of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. There are also a few examples, which I find helped me out a lot as far as presenting the term goes. The word is "idiom." It means, "a phrase established by usage and not immediately comprehensible form the words used." That was the definition from the Oxford Dictionary. Oskar's Grandma's examples from the novel we're reading are, "Chew the fat. Blow off some steam. Close but no cigar. Rings a bell" (80). Oskar himself often uses an idiom when he talks about things making his boots heavier of lighter. So I tought it seemed like a decent time to share my glossary term!

My First Encounter With a Graphic Novel

Satrapi's "Persepolis" was the first graphic novel I have ever even picked up. It was a good experience, I really enjoyed it and could see myself getting into her other 3 follow-up stories, or some other graphic novels. I still like regular, written novels better just because it leaves the scene and characters up to the reader's imagination. However, I think it was an interesting experience being able to see the characters' reactions based on the memory of the author. The fact that this was a memoir made the story more intriguing for me because it was about a history and culture I am pretty clueless about, so I felt like it was for my educational benefit to read this "comic book." I guess I felt a little more justified in sitting around at Hillside reading it while everyone gave me strange looks for reading a picture book, because of the historical context. I think it's also an important culture to be introduced to as an American; we have so much background in the Middle East yet not many Americans know anything at all about that culture. Marjane's age was important to the story as well; since it began when she was so young, you could see her opinions and values changed throughout the story like any normal child's development into the person they grow to be. I think she was the main character but the story wasn't just about her, it was a kind of history and since she was a child, Satrapi found ways to bring her parents secretly into the main picture. They were the ones who explained most of what was going on in the country, and they helped shape her political activism. As Americans I think we can find it easy to read about what we think of as such a different, distant place. From Satrapi's eyes, Iran seemed similar to America, minus the religious revolution and dictatorship. In this way, readers are able to sympathize with the "actual" people of Iran, instead of focusing on the religious extremists. I think if many young Americans get their hands on this book, it might help us understand the history of Iran more and get our minds out of the immediate "terrorist" mode. It's interesting that Marji wanted to be a prophet because in way she kind of is. She has written down her version of a period in history, and in such a way that makes it easy and fun to read.

Strange Fantasy

Having read Susanna Clarke's novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrel, I think I probably enjoyed her short story more because I was used to her writing style. She jumps around from place to place quite often, which I think is meant to inspire a sense that something mysterious is going on in each place, but the reader is allowed the ability to secretly view the mystery. Still, the reader isn't in on everything, the characters' personalities and secrets are usually pretty hard to read. Also, I think if I hadn't read her novel, I would be thoroughly confused reading this short story. A lot of the plot and characters revert back to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Jonathan Strange is actually one of the main characters in this short story, which I found intriguing but also kind of unoriginal. The short story actually seems to have taken place before the end of her novel, which makes me feel like this story was supposed to be in the novel, but the novel was too long already so she had to make them separate! Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was one of those books I could have read every day for the rest of my life, though, so I really enjoyed hearing more of the story. I just love the way Clarke writes about magic, like it's a well-known fact that it exists and if you try really hard you can find a gateway to the fairy world. She definitely made me believe in the Raven King, what can I say.

On another note, I ended up being pleased but saddened at the ending of Never Let Me Go. The last couple pages were beautiful, I certainly cried. I was upset at how nonchalantly Kathy left Tommy for the last time, though. There did not seem to be enough emotion in that scene, and it made me think maybe these kids do have a little less soul than others. But the last couple pages kind of made up for that I suppose. I love the fact that they were let down by the reality of no deferrals, and how Miss Emily and Madame explained the truth to Kathy and Tommy. This was like when a child, being told by your parents that there is really no Santa Claus...sorry if I spoiled it for someone. It is also like realizing that we really don't have much time to live; we can't get deferrals in real life either. Of course, I still have no answer as to why Kathy and Tommy didn't just run away from it all. I must admit I had my doubts about this book in the beginning, but I felt myself really involved in the characters' lives and very saddened by the idea of them having to go through what they did.