song for this class

サヨナラじゃない-funky monkey babys~~

Inquiry#4

Writing is Sunshine

        Writing is a process, which just like you put your own pieces of life together through words to make them more delicate and in-depth. Beyond the real life, writing is more like one followed heart and to the ideological and spiritual realm in the boundless life. Writing is the sunshine for me to encourage the “photosynthesis”, which is the process to help myself think deeper and give me fresh thought. Like keep writing dairy is the sunshine for me when I feel upset or boring because writing helps me to sort out my thinking and can be a good way to narrate.

Although I define writing is the sunshine for me, I am not very into writing even afraid of it sometimes. Before take ENG112 I really worried about how can I finish the writing assignments based on my poor expression and even resistance to writing?  But after the three projects I think writing is not that bad and I kind of find my own way to organize my thought and express them through words. Those words just like a medium between your thought and the reader’s understanding. Thus, in order to make our readers having complete enough ideas the writer like me should do the expression in the best way.

What is the best way to express our thought? This will depend on different person. For me to find this way needs a long period even I didn’t find it yet but I think I am approaching it. I will find the best way sooner or later as long as I keep writing. Set up what to write is the first thing and the key to reach a good writing and then I will push myself to think deeper and deeper until I want to get a headache. Because a great writing is not based on rhetorical flourishes but the soul, which is the main thought from the writer. In the three projects I tried to deeper my thought as much as possible.  From the writings I did this semester, I improved my ability of divergent thinking and also the ability to start a paper with main topic to build a strong structure of the paper on my way to be a writer.

The first piece of my writing I put in the final portfolio is the first writing assignment in this semester. Because this was the first time I deep thought about the movie Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain although I watched this movie several times. From my point of view I think helping people is the shallow thinking based on this movie and can be easy caught but is important. After we helped people, we can share their happiness. Just like Amélie, when she describes the street, the stores, the customers, the food even the potpourri, she also can absorbs happiness from the beautiful goods. When we make them feel happy, at the same time, we also share the happiness from them. Actually, what we gained may more than what we paid. But for deeper, I need to think what’s the thing to support Amélie to help others. After close reading this movie, I recognized that we’d better to keep childlike innocence during our short life that can lead us happy and color. Her happiness is from the childlike innocence. Then after deep thinking I will consider how the thought I caught can be related to myself even improve. From this projects and thought deep thinking I may try to do the things like her, wearing smile on my face to bring good feeling to others, being ready to help anyone who need a hand, keeping my childlike innocence to find the beauty of life.

For the second piece of my writing I want to talk about my proposal for Inquiry 1 because it showed the process how can I make a topic from a “close reading material” and do brainstorm to extend the though or ideas as much broader as I can for divergent thinking, which is weakness in writing. I lack of the training about divergent thinking according most school in China do not pay much attention on it. Then when I face with some topic I will feel poor to catch up with so many ideas. What I did is to get a piece of blank paper to write the theme I chose and begin to extend my thought. No matter what I get I wrote it down, and based on each points I extend again. As a result I got a net of my thinking. Then sort the thoughts and do the outline of the paper. By using this method, I did my following assignments and it works very well. After wrote down what I found according to close reading of the movie Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain I tried to think how it relate to myself and how the points I got from close reading effect me in some ways.  So as I trying to be a writer, I improved my ability of divergent thinking.

The third piece of my writing I chosen to put in my portfolio is the argumentation about the term reading “Middlesex”. Honestly, I haven’t finish reading any English novel before and I thought this reading is truly a challenge for me to finish in two months. At the beginning, I fall behind a lot and then I think I need to improve my method of reading. Thus, I will have a look at the summary of chapters online and back to the book to read. But in the end, I still just can get the meaning roughly. After decided which part or theme of my assignment 2, I went back to the book “Middlesex” again to find the evidence or details, which can support my arguments. In this assignment, I tried to summary some background from “Middlesex” to make an interesting introduction to capture readers’ attention. This project is the one, which left me a deep impression because I had a really struggle time when I on the way to reach my final draft. But only in this way that makes you think deeper and more even push myself to do it can be key to open the “door” of writing. It is not an easy thing to be a writer to put a much stronger soul into each paper. No matter doing which writing, the soul is the first thing also the most necessary thing the writer should do. From the inquiry 2, I learned how to find a theme topic and set up the subtopics then find the details and resources. Thus, I “sew” each piece together to have a complete paper, which is strong in logical and enrich the contents with supportive details and relative resources. When I looked back what I did in the first two projects I still cannot believe I can finish it. Although doing these writing assignments gave me struggling time but it just like going up on the stairs to be a writer. It cost time and energy but it worth to be a good player with words even though I will not be a professional writer in the future, I need writing to be a tool to express my thought clear and efficiency enough.

Overall, I am very glad that I got such improvements on my English writing through this semester. When I looked back this semester I really shocked because first I finished my first novel in my second language and second I searched and read a lot resources then pick out the key points to support my arguments. Also I focused on divergent thinking this semester and I think I am a good player right now and I can apply those abilities on my other work. Nice, I come to love writing  right now!

Internet

I typically use internet for social network and studying. I get news from several pathway, like message, newspaper and TV. Hanging on the several newworks is really funny. Not only we can get the recent news from the people we know but also this is a good way to realize this society. I don’t think ther is a significant difference betweet my “internet” and “real life”. Actually I think the internet is pretty much a “stage” for my real life. Overall, I think I am an active user in internet, who is using the internet as a tool to show themselves and get news forom that media. Opposite, the passive user, who I think is just get information from internet.

Proposal for Inquiry 3

As to the Inquiry 3, I decide to focus on my identity that based on the music I like. I listen to all kind s of music everyday and it pretty much the drug of me. The music is not just simply to listen to but the most important is the music can let you know something and change the mode. But as long as I grew up, I fond music gives a chance to deep think about my life. It’s may surprised that music can impact life, but for me it is and I enjoy my life with music. Whenever I feel happy the music can be the oxygen for the fire to let it last longer; I feel sad the music can be medicine to heal my pain. But the most important is the music can shape my nature.

About the election

I had a interesting about the election in United States, because in China or Japan we actually cannot vote for the candidate directly and also do not have a debates between the candidates. I went to Chicago last weekend and saw a lot of flags and slogans on the road. In my point of view the election in United States is pretty much like a really big debate or even a  “blueprint” for this country for the next four years. The debate actually not only between Obama and Romney, but also among the people who are really cares about their home country.

talented

funny

different

open-mind

asian

outgoing

musical

healthy

humorous

friend

Middlesex

Greece, the myth, immigrants, epic, and the combination of these elements easily make people reminiscent of the Greek movie director Theodoros Angelopoulos immediately. After the last page of  “Middlesex”, we can realize that Jeffrey Eugenides tells us about the dispute between Greece and Turkey, the immigration to the United States, the Great Depression, the temperance movement, the Watergate, Detroit race riots grand event, plus up to eight years the fate of the ups and downs strung plots with three generations. The works of Theodoros Angelopoulos also full of compassion and pity usual Greek nationalism, history, religion, culture, and those things seems to be hidden under the paper, but faint surging. However, Jeffrey Eugenides is not Theodoros Angelopoulos. He described Calliope as Middlesex who has both male and female reproductive organs. This unique character, as the author’s writing style: serious and harmonic that converse between Greek tragedy and American comedy freely. Also, the perspective of first and third person combined and converted is to become one of the biggest bright spot in the novel. If say Homer is the ancestors of the story, Darwin is another. Once returned to Homer, to return to the field of the history of the novel, we immediately can be found, “Middlesex” is not a new trend, just the old tradition.

Plato said that the earliest human beings are bisexual, body like a ball, half male and half female, later on it was split from the middle, so everyone is trying to get back for the other half, in order to re-attributed to the full. By the 1970s, everyone believes that the postnatal environment created man, and now everyone thinks genetic edifying. Before come to be him or her, there is always an unknown phase or period. Concerned of philosophy, Jeffrey Eugenides needs the unknown phase to get rid of the gender shackles. What could be more appropriate than Middlesex do? So Cal as a Middlesex walks between the very different worlds of the sexes.

A pair of eyes, one is belonging to a 14-year-old girl, one is belonging to the 14-year-old boy. Moreover, even if it is under the dual perspectives of women and men, Jeffrey Eugenides still concerned about the reality. This is kind of reality reflects in the “Middlesex”: not only described the boom and slump of Detroit and a hundred years of history of the United States on the macro level, but also from the micro level, described the emotion of Calliope who is the descendant of immigrants. As to this novel, the micro level is more particular.

From eyes of Calliope, we can see alertness, unfamiliar, estrangement and even at a loss of the future in his or her life. Those may from human malformations lust of previous generations. But Jeffrey Eugenides let her grew up and became men “Cal” from women “Callie” ultimately. By Cal’s eyes, Jeffrey Eugenides showed that this world contains so many lives, every life, every event, which may be ignored, is the most important thing in life. And in the “Middlesex” Jeffrey Eugenides may want to express the understanding for life, the respect for humanity and the extended human dignity to the dead and disabled.

Cal experiencing all kinds of things in the world, we can realize the other side of the world of ourselves by following him. The two sides of the world just as a pair of cuff links, which belongs to Milton, father of Cal, one, is a comedy, a tragedy. We can perceive one side of the world, but for another side, which is far from us, we indeed need a kind of media to feel it. The media for Cal probable is the “change”.

As to the “change”, I want to about the change of Cal from childhood to adulthood. Those changes happen in different aspects and related to his family culture and even society. The thought of Calliope, the thought of Cal about the Middlesex, the life of before and after, also the social interaction in family and society even in his love all involved in “changing”. The anxiety of Calliope in her Middlesex is not any better than his grandparents faced with incestuous temptation. And he is brave to show his peculiar body in sex club rather than do the sex reassignment surgery, which may seems lack of impulses compare to he his father’s madness to join the Navy for his beloved cousin. He is a teenager when he faced those changing, he needs to help himself to have a new life and do the decision by himself rather than others. So the finding of his particular biological body is not only a turning point of his life, but also a turning point of psychology.

Calliope Stephanides undergoes birth and rebirth as she discovers that she is a hermaphrodite. At the beginning, when Cal was Calliope who rose as a girl, she found she was falling in love with her female best friend, a girl with red hair loves smoking, then after Calliope went a tractor in New York City, she realized that she is Middlesex. It is a big shock to Callie who was just 14 years old and she was too young to have to be psychologically mature to accept the reality of her special body. Callie comes to realize her body change when she grows up.  When she saw Carol Horning came to school with brand-new breasts, she anxious about she was still have nothing, later on, she noticed that her voice was beginning to change, she didn’t know if the way she felt about the obscure object was normal or not, even when she know she hasn’t gotten her period, those evidences thoughtout her childhood had filled her with sense of security, had become a source of anxiety and panic (Middlesex, Page. 295, 303, 327). From there we can realize that when Callie feels the anxiety about her body she does not want to accept the reality, thus she did cramps the way Meryl Streep did accents, she pretend she got the pain at the period time. She imagined there was the twinge, the dull ache, the sucker punch that made her curl up on her bed (Middlesex, Page. 361).  After she went to doctor for “Sexual Disorders and Gender Identity Clinic”, she goes to the New York Public Library and searches for the meaning of the word “hermaphrodite” she was shocked when the Webster dictionary entry concludes with “See synonyms at monster” and after she went with extremely complex mental activity and struggle, Callie decide to go away to where no one knows her and lead her life as Cal. Although she did not do the operation, the changing is based on Cal himself. Not only the physical body changed, but also the emotion changed. Not to deal with sexuality openly can and does separate sexuality and emotions, which can create distrust between men and women, fostering feelings of threat to the self and problems for society. (Weil, Mildred W. Sex and Sexuality) During the Callie aging, she just was a little girl in school, the immature psychology promote the anxiety about her own physical body. After Cal decide to live as a man he becomes more mature and calmly to accept the reality.

It would seem that a more appropriate approach is one, which looks at the differences between gender sex roles, recognizing that the differing behaviors of man and woman are complicated in their psychodynamics. (DeFries, Zira, Richard C. Friedman, and Ruth Corn. Sexuality, New Perspectives). The biological genetic differences are the basis for behavioral differences that can be a way to decide gender identity. Some researchers found that in hermaphrodites, when biological sex was incorrectly diagnosed at birth and later reversed due to a subsequent correct identification of the biological sex (Oakley, Ann. Sex, Gender and Society). Callie showed her characteristics of female when she was a child and her mother Tessie gave her a doll and she knew to nurses the doll with a milk bottle, which makes Dr. Luce to classify her as possessing a female gender identity. Dr. Luce observes Callie’s behaviors carefully and diagnoses them as feminine and then concluded that gender identity is nurtured and etched into children at young ages.

Man and woman are biologically and psychologically prepared for different responsibilities, social status and personality in the family, in the society. (Yip, Kam-Shing. Psychology of Gender Identity) Gender belief system can be served as a point of reference with a complex social interaction. When Callie got the idea of her Middlesex, Cal decided to be a man, a real man both in physical and psychosocial, he went to San Francisco and showed his special body in burlesque show. After heard about the death of his father from his bother Chapter Elven, he went back home.  Being the male-only role in Greek traditions to keep Milton’s spirit from re-entering the family home. After the ending of this story I just surprised that how can a people has such a big change and how Callie and Cal be responsible to her or his family. The idea I thought is not associated too much about the physical change, but the emotional change and the mature psychology of Cal.

 

Reference:

-Eugenides, Jeffrey. Middlesex. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2002. Print.

-Weil, Mildred W. Sex and Sexuality: From Repression to Expression. Lanham: University Press of America, 1990. Print.

-DeFries, Zira, Richard C. Friedman, and Ruth Corn. Sexuality, New Perspectives. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1985. Print.

-Oakley, Ann. Sex, Gender and Society. Aldershot, Hants., England: Gower/Maurice Temple Smith, 1985. Print.

-Yip, Kam-Shing. Psychology of Gender Identity: An International Perspective. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2006. Print.

Free Writing

Campus is the place for students stay together and learn how to do the social interaction. Also campus is somewhere you can obtain knowledge not only from the textbook, but also from others. The identity of campus has some difference with home. We need to lead a more independent life in campus than at home. And at home, u are the real you all the time. But on campus, sometimes we have to play other roles. For high school, which I think is a pre-society for every students where students come to a more colorful life and share with others. In my point of view, from home to college campus is a procedure for social interaction step by step. Students becomes more and more independent and there not only themselves in their world, but more others.

Coming of Age

The definition of “coming age” is a young person’s transition from childhood to adulthood. In the Middlesex, Cal not only experience different lifestyle in different sex, but also the most important is the mentation when she or he was growing up. At the beginning he or she confused and feel embarrass about his or her Middlesex in teenage, but he accept it and does not care too much about others’ thought. So in coming of age, Cal was changing.

Group discussion about Middlesex

During class, our group discussed change/adaption of the character in Middlesex. Through this activity, I think it helped me about the brainstorming for inquiry2. Also I have some new thought by sharing the opinion with my group. I will pick up a topic and list a rough structure about my inquiry before Friday and I will go back to chapters to find more details to support my argument.