#aplit18reading

[sycamorestudies]

staring my senior year with a “light” summer reading! I’m reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami for APLit. if I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know if I can finish this book in time for the start of school. there’s 1,157 pages... definitely should’ve looked into the number of pages beforehand. if anyone’s read this book, lmk what you thought of it! I’m going in blind, so hopefully I made the right choice in picking this book (:

[onceupon-a-tima-blog]

[themessenger151]

Yo, so get ready to be bombarded with memes about seductive plant fucking, how Zenobia is a two face bitch, and that talents are bad

[poetic-ramen]

Send help

AM I THE OBLY PERSON WHO WROTE OLIVER??

[zaremc]

what i love about my piece

something that i absolutely love about the draft of my paper:

i feel very strongly about it. not always am i writing about something in class that i can feel strongly about and actually agree with. when i was reading my book, i got confused and lost a lot because of the strong diction, but i was always using aides and online interpretations to help me figure things out. they always gave their opinions on the book too, however, i never really took a stance on any topic until i was done reading. once i started reading criticisms, they brought to light even more and more ideas that i had never even thought about before and i was so excited when i found them because i actually agreed with them fully. i had an idea in my head about the insane nature of darl and how he was portrayed throughout the book, and reading some of my criticisms talking about that and explaining the strong difference between words and actions was almost a relief. when i came across those specific words too, “the strong separation and difference between what the characters say and do.” i was SOO excited to begin writing this. for once, i had actually done solid research that led me to an idea that i felt passionate about and other’s saw that too. i felt like my paper could possibly be something great. as i’ve been writing, i’ve fallen deeper into the chasm of thinking about this idea. i never thought i would actually enjoy writing this (simply because of all the talk about how hard this assignment can be). i most definitely have. while i am about half way done i’d say (or all caught up to where i am supposed to be) i feel so strongly about what i have written. i am excited to share my ideas and my feelings with my reader. one of the best feelings is finding evidence in your actual book that backs up your claim so perfectly. i actually wrote and annotated 5 portions and had to slim them down because everything seemed so fitting. i can’t wait to keep writing the bulk of this piece and see where it takes me because from where i am now, i cannot wait to keep writing:) 

[aisha-shamim-blog]

Colorism in my own life

Chapter three hit me kind of hard. A lighter-skinned black girl named Maureen comes into the picture. She seems to get away with more things because she is lighter than Frieda, Claudia, and Pecola and she knows her societal level is higher because she tells the other girls they are black and ugly. Claudia is envious of the privileges Maureen receives and her beauty as a result of her lighter skin tone. I am no stranger to this. I have always been pushed by my mother (not to push her under the bus per-se) to be fair skinned and not go into the sun and become darker. I cannot count the number of times I have received praise from my family and other member of my south asian community not because I am simply “pretty” but because I am pretty with my “light” skin. I remember wearing a traditional salwar kameez once and a lady told me that it looked good on me only because I had light skin. My grandma will sometimes tell me that she wishes that my face was as light as the rest of my body. As a society, both here and in Asia, lightness is valued greater than darkness. As a minority, I have gone through struggles, but those who have a darker skin tone than me have different, likely more difficult, struggles than me. Even though I’m considered light within my community, I’ll admit I get envious when I see someone lighter than me. I’ve been programmed to think this way from birth and its an ugly feeling and I can feel myself trying to stop myself from doing it but sometimes I cant resist. I can understand what Claudia is feeling, but at the same time as someone who is lighter than her, I cannot.

[kennedy-christl]

Things Fall Apart #4

The way Achebe illustrate the Umuofia women is both simultaneously complex, and straightforward to say the least. At first, when Okonkwo's wives are introduced, they are shown to be equal. All three live in a separate hut from him, and equally share duties and responsibilities in the household. Yet inorder to marry, a man must pay a ‘bride price’. At first, this reminded me of what would basically equate to a dowry, but in reality is quite opposite. Unlike a dowry, where a woman's family must pay the man’s family, a bride price is where a man pays a woman's family inorder to marry them. To me, by adding this to the story, Achebe is showing how women might hold different ranks in the Igbo society. That women from a wealthier family or who can be considered more ‘valuable’, will have a higher price. And that the amount of money a man were to use would establish a higher amount of wealth.

[wildmooseshark-blog]

This Romantic Sheep

Two interesting observations from my last reading session.

One: The reviews commenting about awkward pacing in Dick’s book were completely right. Starting the book out, the author chose to go on pages and pages discussing the utility of Rick’s electric sheep and the philosophical values behind the society’s attitude towards people with animals. In stark contrast, where I’m at now, Dick uses half a page to describe how Rick identified, tussled with, and “retired” (killed) an android. There is a huge disparity of page use between these two events that really COULD have had their page counts flipped if necessary. However, I believe the page distributions are accurately proportionate to what Dick really wanted to use the book to discuss: random philosophical values in modern society.

Two: Stemming off of the previous observation, Dick really uses every other page to cram in as much philosophical material as he can. Every choice in the book has some sort of modern social dilemma attached to it. For example: When Rick meets Phil Resch, there is a clear push from other character’s for the reader and Rick to believe Phil is an android, and Rick is put in a position between killing Phil and trusting him. After some events we simply learn that Phil isn’t an android. I believe Dick used this small arch to demonstrate how our (or just my) predisposition to believe new information causes us (or just me) to overlook logic, which would be an important tool in real life to harness the power of people’s perceptions.