English Final

    The blogging process has been an interesting experience this year. It was a new way for me to express my feelings over the Internet. I think that while, I like to blog, I will not continue to post as often. I recently found out a new way to track the people that view my blog. That will make it cool to see who views my blog and I will be able to change what I write to cater to who reads it.

    The post that is my favorite and the post that I am most proud of is the vignette post that I modeled after Sandra Cisnero’s book, “The House on Mango Street”. I spent the most time on this post out of any of mine. To more experienced authors, it may not seem like a lot, but to me 1500 words seems like a very high amount. I put the most time and effort by far on this post because I have a much easier time writing about my life instead of something that I don’t necessarily have a strong knowledge about, such as an academic book. I enjoy writing about vivid memories rather than someonelse’s opinion. In the vignettes, I was able to express myself and it did not have to be concrete and it can be a lot subjective.
    To write the vignettes, I started with the ECHO that we did of one of Cisnero’s stories titled “names”. I did some research and asked my parents about why they named me what they did and what it means.

“My names have much significance to me. In Greek, my first name means helper of mankind. To acquire my first name, my parents were traveling in Paris, France when my mom was pregnant with me. They were walking around enjoying the many sights of The City of Lights, when they came across a marble statue of Alexander The Great. They thought that the statue was so magnificent that they wanted to name their son after it.

My middle name was passed down from my grandfather on my mom’s side, his full name was Edwin Martin Quinn. My grandfather was a spy in World War II and he gathered intelligence to help the allies defeat the Germans. He was deceased before I was born, so I was named in his honor. Sometimes people scoff at the name, Edwin, but when I hear this I just smile inside because I know that I was named after a very brave man, brave like a lion.

My last name also has a very interesting story. My great grandfather on my dad’s side was was orphaned by a fire at a young age, at this time his last name, Freund. He was later adopted by his mother parents and he took their last name, Noble.  I like the name Noble because it gives me a goal to live up to, to be noble.”

The next vignette I wrote was about how I raised money for the 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. This was a very personal event to write about because I |earned a lot from the whole experience. While I was writing it, I tried to recall the major theme of the memory. I tried to portray it in a story-like format.

“One of the most interesting can donors was a Vietnam war Veteran with a really bad drinking problem. With the consistency of old faithful, he would call over and request to talk me.

Is Alex available?, he would say in an slightly inebriated voice.

Yes I’m here, I would always reply.

I have some recyclables ready for you to pick up, come on down, he would say, barley slurring his words together.

Ok, I’ll be right over, I retorted.

I would always wonder if he was ok when I heard him on the phone because he seemed to always be impaired due to alcohol.

The first time I ever made the trek over to him house, my nose was assaulted with the thick stench of alcohol that wafted from his house. When I saw the three hefty garbage bags full of recyclables, I figured that he had been saving them up for many, many months because of the sheer volume. I happily collected them and hauled them back to my yard. When I looked to investigate my loot, I found that only 25% of the recyclables were actually available for the California Redemption Value. The other 75% filled up all of my blue bin. The next week at the same time, I received a call and went over to my donor, very surprised that he was ready for me to pick up already. I didn't expect it, but there were three full garbage bags of recyclable again! When I looked through the bag, to my dismay, it was full of blue bin clogging items that I would receive no money for. At first I thought of all the extra work that this would cause me to endure, but then I thought about how badly that all that alcohol was affecting my neighbor.

On the trip that I worked so hard to go to, I saw many sights, including the  Vietnam War memorial. Later, I thought of how my neighbor was negatively affected by the war and was forced by post-traumatic stress disorder to start drinking the pain away.  When I was visiting in DC I sent him a postcard  thanking him for the support. To this day, whenever I walk by he will always call me over and talk to me.”

The next vignette I wrote about was my family’s handwriting. This was directly modeled off of Sandra Cisneros’ vignette in her book, “Hairs”. I tried to describe the different members of my family and how their personality connected to how they wrote.

“Everyone in my family has different handwriting. My Dad’s handwriting looks like quick scratch, where every word seems to blend together, but surprisingly it is still readable. My Dad’s messy handwriting is derived from the thousands of papers my Dad has written due to the fact that he is a lawyer. My handwriting is very messy and it closely resembles Dad’s handwriting because we both are bad at keeping it neat. My sister who is 11, has handwriting similar to mine, but it has something mine is lacking, that little girly touch, that all girls seem to have present in their handwriting. My Mom’s handwriting seems to be infused with bubbles because it is very flowy and big and easy to read, much like her personality. She tries to write neatly because she is a teacher and she wants to set a good example for her students. My sister who is 4 has handwriting that I cant categorize yet because she doesn’t write very often, but from what I have seen she might be destined to the fate that is bad handwriting, well I guess it runs in the family.”

While writing this, I tried to connect my family’s persona’s with how there hand writing appeared to me.

All in all,  my blog was a good experience for me. I learned how to express myself in a safe environment in front of my peers. It was a nice way to reflect on my blog to finish up the end of the year. I liked to go behind the scenes and explain how and why I wrote what I did. It is a relief to finally be done with this school year; this assignment wrapped up this blog and made me feel accomplished after the reflecting on the whole year.

Daniel X Book Post Final Draft

The book Daniel X: Watch the Skies,  is a fantasy novel by James Patterson and Ned Rust. It is the second book in the Daniel X series. The book follows an alien that takes the form of a fourteen year old human and his job is to hunt down all of the evil aliens inhabiting earth on “the list”. The list is a compilation of all the the aliens on earth. He uses his powerful imagination to produce some sidekicks. He also uses his imagination to produce his family, killed by the List Alien Number One when he was only a small toddler.

    I think that this book is intended for teenage boys around fourteen, the main character’s age. This is because the book uses slang and has a storyline that would be appealing to that age because it is full of action that people of that age would enjoy. The main character, Daniel seems to “talk” to the reader as they are his peers. That is good evidence for the hypothesis that this book is meant for teenage boys. I think that if a book is written in the perspective of a certain age, then the readers should be that age in order for them to sympathize with them and understand their thoughts and views.

    The main character uses slang from the modern era to relate to the reader and add some comedic interest.

“He moved some wires to different jacks and threw a couple of switches. And then we saw what might have been the most sickening thing I’d ever seen. And yes I’ve been on the Internet before.”

In this quote, Daniel is describing the scene that he saw after hacking into the Alien’s computer. He called it the most sickening thing he had ever seen, even though he has been on the Internet. This is poking fun at some of the Internet pranks that circulate around. This may be funny to the reader because it may connect to their life.

Daniel is a very interesting character because he represents himself in many ways. His best friends are purely figments of his imagination. He expresses different parts of him imagination through his different friends. His friends are physically present and not completely imaginary. They can think for themselves and discover new things even though they are not 100% real. Daniel also creates a family to replace the one that was murdered and to interact with and get advice from. It seems weird to me that he can get advice from them even though he created them from his mind. Therefore he should know everything that they know.

“‘This is great, Dad,’ I said. ‘So how’s everything work?’

‘Its all very user-friendly,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t think any of you will have any trouble getting the hang of it.’”

I think that if all of the stuff that the author says is true in the story, then Daniel should have already known how to work the van and he should not have required any explanation. This is weird because if they come from his imagination, then they should not be intellectually superior to him. The relationship between Daniel and his imaginary companions is very interesting and makes the book better even though the system has a few flaws.

Daniel X: Watch the Skies  is a fantasy novel that was a great read.  The book follows a young alien hunter that tracks down all of the evil earth dwelling aliens. Daniel chooses to take the form of a fourteen year old boy. On his quest to rid the earth of bad extra terrestrials he references the list, an advanced laptop that keeps all of his information about alien hunting. This book is perfect for fourteen year-old boys because of its voice. The characters are also very interesting to read about and hear about their weird connections. Overall, this was a very good book.

Blog responses

Melissa
I agree that you need to add the TAGS in the introduction of your review. That would help the audience understand what the book was about. It would be more clear if you differentiated between the questions that you answered.I would like to hear a more detailed summary at the beginning of the post so I could understand the plot better.

Rocky
I liked the way that you were very thorough when you introduced the book in the beginning. This helped me understand the rest of the post because I knew some background about the book. It would be more clear if you differentiated between the questions that you answered.

Jesse
You need to add an introduction to your post because you sort of just jumped in to the post and I was not prepared to read the post. I liked the way that you introduced each question at the top. That really helped me understand what question was being answered.

Daniel X Book Review (Draft)

The book Daniel X: Watch the Skies,  is a fantasy novel by James Patterson and Ned Rust. It is the second book in the Daniel X series. The book follows an alien that takes the form of a fourteen year old human and his job is to hunt down all of the evil aliens inhabiting earth on “the list”. The list is a compilation of all the the aliens on earth. He uses his powerful imagination to produce some sidekicks. He also uses his imagination to produce his family, killed by the List Alien Number One when he was only a small toddler.

    I think that this book is intended for teenage boys around fourteen, the main character’s age. This is because the book uses slang and has a storyline that would be appealing to that age because it is full of action that people of that age would enjoy. The main character, Daniel seems to “talk” to the reader as they are his peers. That is good evidence for the hypothesis that this book is meant for teenage boys. I think that if a book is written in the perspective of a certain age, then the readers should be that age in order for them to sympathize with them and understand their thoughts and views.

    The main character uses slang from the modern era to relate to the reader and add some comedic interest.

“He moved some wires to different jacks and threw a couple of switches. And then we saw what might have been the most sickening thing I’d ever seen. And yes I’ve been on the Internet before.”

In this quote, Daniel is describing the scene that he saw after hacking into the Alien’s computer. He called it the most sickening thing he had ever seen, even though he has been on the Internet. This is poking fun at some of the Internet pranks that circulate around. This may be funny to the reader because it may connect to their life.

Daniel is a very interesting character because he represents himself in many ways. His best friends are purely figments of his imagination. He expresses different parts of him imagination through his different friends. His friends are physically present and not completely imaginary. They can think for themselves and discover new things even though they are not 100% real. Daniel also creates a family to replace the one that was murdered and to interact with and get advice from. It seems weird to me that he can get advice from them even though he created them from his mind. Therefore he should know everything that they know.

“‘This is great, Dad,’ I said. ‘So how’s everything work?’

‘Its all very user-friendly,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t think any of you will have any trouble getting the hang of it.’”

I think that if all of the stuff that the author says is true in the story, then Daniel should have already known how to work the van and he should not have required any explanation. This is weird because if they come from his imagination, then they should not be intellectually superior to him. The relationship between Daniel and his imaginary companions is very interesting and makes the book better even though the system has a few flaws.

Daniel X: Watch the Skies  is a fantasy novel that was a great read.  The book follows a young alien hunter that tracks down all of the evil earth dwelling aliens. Daniel chooses to take the form of a fourteen year old boy. On his quest to rid the earth of bad extra terrestrials he references the list, an advanced laptop that keeps all of his information about alien hunting. This book is perfect for fourteen year-old boys because of its voice. The characters are also very interesting to read about and hear about their weird connections. Overall, this was a very good book.

Daniel X Book Post 2

Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze a relationship between two different characters.

The book Daniel X: Watch the Skies,  is a fantasy novel by James Patterson and Ned Rust. It is the second book in the Daniel X series. The book follows an alien that takes the form of a fourteen year old human and his job is to hunt down all of the evil aliens inhabiting earth on “the list”. The list is a compilation of all the the aliens on earth. He uses his powerful imagination to produce some sidekicks. He also uses his imagination to produce his family, killed by the List Alien Number One when he was only a small toddler.

Daniel is a very interesting character because he represents himself in many ways. His best friends are purely figments of his imagination. He expresses different parts of him imagination through his different friends. His friends are physically present and not completely imaginary. They can think for themselves and discover new things even though they are not 100% real. Daniel also creates a family to replace the one that was murdered and to interact with and get advice from. It seems weird to me that he can get advice from them even though he created them from his mind. Therefore he should know everything that they know.

“‘This is great, Dad,’ I said. ‘So how’s everything work?’

‘Its all very user-friendly,’ said Dad. ‘I don’t think any of you will have any trouble getting the hang of it.’”

I think that if all of the stuff that the author says is true in the story, then Daniel should have already known how to work the van and he should not have required any explanation. This is weird because if they come from his imagination, then they should not be intellectually superior to him. The relationship between Daniel and his imaginary companions is very interesting and makes the book better even though the system has a few flaws.

Daniel X: Book Post One

For what audience(s) is this book intended, and how can you tell? (In other words, for whom would you recommend this book?
    The book Daniel X: Watch the Skies,  is a fantasy novel by James Patterson and Ned Rust. It is the second book in the Daniel X series. The book follows an alien that takes the form of a fourteen year old human and his job is to hunt down all of the evil aliens inhabiting earth on “the list”. The list is a compilation of all the the aliens on earth. He uses his powerful imagination to produce some sidekicks. He also uses his imagination to produce his family, killed by the List Alien Number One when he was only a small toddler.

    I think that this book is intended for teenage boys around fourteen, the main character’s age. This is because the book uses slang and has a storyline that would be appealing to that age because it is full of action that people of that age would enjoy. The main character, Daniel seems to “talk” to the reader as they are his peers. That is good evidence for the hypothesis that this book is meant for teenage boys. I think that if a book is written in the perspective of a certain age, then the readers should be that age in order for them to sympathize with them and understand their thoughts and views.

    The main character uses slang from the modern era to relate to the reader and add some comedic interest.

“He moved some wires to different jacks and threw a couple of switches. And then we saw what might have been the most sickening thing I’d ever seen. And yes I’ve been on the Internet before.”

In this quote, Daniel is describing the scene that he saw after hacking into the Alien’s computer. He called it the most sickening thing he had ever seen, even though he has been on the Internet. This is poking fun at some of the Internet pranks that circulate around. This may be funny to the reader because it may connect to their life.

Vignette Project Review

In the vignette project our class recently finished, there were many personal stories. I found a similarity that ran through several vignette. It was that people talk about their names and the origins of them. I think that this is because peoples’ name can define who they are. I think it is interesting to here about the names of my peers because it gives me insight about their background.

I found a quote on Victor Liangs vignette that described what his name meant to the person who gave it to him and what it means in languages.

“My first name, Victor, was given to be by my father. It means “winner”, something my father wants me to be. My middle name, Tao, means large waves. It is also my Chinese name, and is pronounced tou in Cantonese. There isn't much behind my father giving it to me for he gave it to me just as randomly as he gave my first name to me.”

It is interesting to see what Victor’s name means in English as well as in Chinese. I think that the definition, large waves, can partially describe Victor’s personality.
    Yen has a different story to tell about his name.
“My parents picked this because they thought that it would be easier to fit in to the  community, but I have always found it more difficult because I always want to correct people, but they think that they have already pronounced it correctly.  You see, when someone has a really Asian name, the teacher or anyone new would ask if they pronounced it correctly, but with yen, they pronounce it like the Japanese currency and move on.”
Yen also has some background about his name. The troubles that he has had with the pronunciation and integrating into the community. He indirectly brings up the point that when parents are choosing a name for their kids they should consider the repercussions that the kid might have to face later in life regarding the name.
    I enjoyed looking at my peers’ blog posts and it was interesting to make connections between them.

House on Mango Street: Where is Esperanza Going?

    The House on Mango Street,  by Sandra Cisneros, is a collection of vignettes that tells a Coming-of-Age-Story told through the eyes of an adolescent girl.I think that Esperanza will leave her home and not return. She has waited her whole life to get out of her house on Mango street because she is embarrassed by it and she does not like living there. At the first chance she gets, she will leave and try to forget the negative years on Mango street. In the beginning of the book and the end of the book, Esperanza states a list of all the places she has lived. “We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, but what I remember most is Mango Street, sad red house, the house I belong but do not belong to(109-10)”. When I read this, I got the feeling that Esperanza does not like any of the houses that she has lived in. She seems to really care about where she lives and it reflects in her feelings. She had  such a negative idea in her mind about her house that she would never want to return to it.

    In the second to last vignette in The House on Mango Street, Esperanza describes her perfect house and all of the conditions to make it perfect. “Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own... Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after.” In this quote, Esperanza is describing her perfect house. She seems so attached to this idea, that if she were to leave, then I highly doubt that she would return because her house that she would find would be great. She seems to resent the work that she has to do when she says she does not want to pick up after anyone. That would be another reason for her not to return, because she might have to do more work and that was one of the main reasons she would have left.

House on Mango Street: Gender Differences

I think that girls and boys should be raised the same, because there should equality for all. Sandra Cisneros, author of “The House on Mango Street”, a Coming-of-age story, would has a similar idea on that issue. She shows her view point on the issue with this quote. “There is always the one with red lips who is beautiful and cruel.” With this quote, she is saying that girls should embrace their feminine side and should not let men control them and let them keep their independence. I think that this quote is saying that their is always an extra independent woman that controls people and does the opposite that the stereotypical women in Esperanza’s life. I think that it is interesting that Sandra Cisneros conveys how she thinks people should be raised in her book.

    The next quote that exemplifies Cisneros’ ideas about gender differences in her book. “All the books and magazines, every thing they told you is wrong” (100). I think that this quote is saying that Esperanza's expectations for what is males and females is different than the media, and that confused her. Sandra Cisneros, is trying to say that the expectations by the media and the actual expectations can be very confusing to people that are Esperanza’s adolescent age. This quote gives a very good idea about how Cisneros views the modern media and how it can drastically affect the expectations of teenagers.

    The next quote is showing how important it is to a character to be noticed by the opposite sex. “What matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them.”(27). This quote is by, Marin, an older female figure that Esperanza looks up to. This quote seems to be saying that girls and boys are raised differently in this society and that Cisneros is agreeing with this. She is also saying that physical attractiveness and appearance are important. Boys and girls are not raised to look deeper into personality. I think that this is a problem, because personality is important too.

This and That from My Life

1. My Name
2. Cans
3.Handwriting
4.Number 5

My Name

My names have much significance to me. In Greek, my first name means helper of mankind. To acquire my first name, my parents were traveling in Paris, France when my mom was pregnant with me. They were walking around enjoying the many sights of The City of Lights, when they came across a marble statue of Alexander The Great. They thought that the statue was so magnificent that they wanted to name their son after it.

My middle name was passed down from my grandfather on my mom’s side, his full name was Edwin Martin Quinn. My grandfather was a spy in World War II and he gathered intelligence to help the allies defeat the Germans. He was deceased before I was born, so I was named in his honor. Sometimes people scoff at the name, Edwin, but when I hear this I just smile inside because I know that I was named after a very brave man, brave like a lion.

My last name also has a very interesting story. My great grandfather on my dad’s side was was orphaned by a fire at a young age, at this time his last name, Freund. He was later adopted by his mother parents and he took their last name, Noble.  I like the name Noble because it gives me a goal to live up to, to be noble.

Cans

When I was trying to earn money for a Washington DC trip as an 8th grader I collected cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. At the beginning, I handed out fliers that asked for recyclables. There were many different types of can donors, the pick-ups and the drop-offs. To acquire cans from the pick-ups, I would take my wagon over to their house and load it up with the goods. For the drop-offs, they would kindly drop off anything that they had to offer. Between these groups, their were many differences. The people who dropped off seemed way more organized. Some people who I picked up from would put anything in the bag, from salsa containers to orange juice cartons that were still full, neither of them weren’t worth any California redemption value. One of the most interesting can donors was a Vietnam war Veteran with a really bad drinking problem. With the consistency of old faithful, he would call over and request to talk me.

Is Alex available?, he would say in an slightly inebriated voice.

Yes I’m here, I would always reply.

I have some recyclables ready for you to pick up, come on down, he would say, barley slurring his words together.

Ok, I’ll be right over, I retorted.

I would always wonder if he was ok when I heard him on the phone because he seemed to always be impaired due to alcohol.

The first time I ever made the trek over to him house, my nose was assaulted with the thick stench of alcohol that wafted from his house. When I saw the three hefty garbage bags full of recyclables, I figured that he had been saving them up for many, many months because of the sheer volume. I happily collected them and hauled them back to my yard. When I looked to investigate my loot, I found that only 25% of the recyclables were actually available for the California Redemption Value. The other 75% filled up all of my blue bin. The next week at the same time, I received a call and went over to my donor, very surprised that he was ready for me to pick up already. I didn't expect it, but there were three full garbage bags of recyclable again! When I looked through the bag, to my dismay, it was full of blue bin clogging items that I would receive no money for. At first I thought of all the extra work that this would cause me to endure, but then I thought about how badly that all that alcohol was affecting my neighbor.

On the trip that I worked so hard to go to, I saw many sights, including the  Vietnam War memorial. Later, I thought of how my neighbor was negatively affected by the war and was forced by post-traumatic stress disorder to start drinking the pain away.  When I was visiting in DC I sent him a postcard  thanking him for the support. To this day, whenever I walk by he will always call me over and talk to me.

Handwriting

Everyone in my family has different handwriting. My Dad’s handwriting looks like quick scratch, where every word seems to blend together, but surprisingly it is still readable. My Dad’s messy handwriting is derived from the thousands of papers my Dad has written due to the fact that he is a lawyer. My handwriting is very messy and it closely resembles Dad’s handwriting because we both are bad at keeping it neat. My sister who is 11, has handwriting similar to mine, but it has something mine is lacking, that little girly touch, that all girls seem to have present in their handwriting. My Mom’s handwriting seems to be infused with bubbles because it is very flowy and big and easy to read, much like her personality. She tries to write neatly because she is a teacher and she wants to set a good example for her students. My sister who is 4 has handwriting that I cant categorize yet because she doesn’t write very often, but from what I have seen she might be destined to the fate that is bad handwriting, well I guess it runs in the family.

Number Five

    My sister and I sensed some big news as we ate spaghetti and meatballs at the kitchen table.  My dad`s fidgeting and my mom`s unusual silence signaled the coming changes. In the days before, my parents dropped subtle hints about the special surprise but my sister and I did not understand them. When my dad noticed my puzzled expression, he said, “We are having a baby!” Screams and cheers of approval and sheer happiness erupted from the kid’s side of the table while my parents beamed at the positive reaction. The cheers and applause sounding like we won the lottery.When he said that, I knew a monumental transformation would enter my life. My mind raced. Would it be a boy or a girl? Would it look like me? Would we have to share a room? Would I have to change diapers!?!
     Before I knew it, my mom turned into even more of a health nut. She dragged me and any other unsuspecting family member on vigorous walks, ate strangely named vitamins that I recognized from aggressive commercials and drank lots of herbal tea that smelled earthy like our compost pile to coax the baby out.  Instead of watching television, our family past time turned into feeling my mom’s belly for kicks and movements.
    In a flash, the eve of the big day arrived, the arrangements were made and everyone was ready for the arrival of the newest Noble. We did not know if she would arrive on her due date.  We  eagerly awaited her arrival.  On the Friday before her due date, my mom walked us to school before her doctor’s appointment.  She did not come to pick us up after school as usual.  Our neighbor picked us up and told us that our mom was in the hospital having the baby.
    Early next morning my dad picked my sister and me up to go visit my mom and new sister. My dad asked us if we wanted to get balloons to make the new baby feel welcome but my sister and I quickly refused because we did not want to wait any longer. On the drive to the hospital I interrogated my dad on the labor, he said it was quick and easy (for him at least, my mom had a different story).
    When we got to the hospital room, her tininess and fragileness confounded me;  afraid to even touch her for fear of hurting her. She looked like a little glass doll, free of imperfections. I could tell from the sweet innocent look on her face as I held her that we were going to be very close. At that moment I was genuinely happy to have a baby sister.
    My newborn sister got the name “number  five” by being the fifth person in the west coast Noble family. My dad tried to use this numbering system for all of us, but it never took flight similar to the idea of room cleaning. The only person stuck with this cheesy nickname was Allison Katherine Noble.