My Last Blog Reflection

In this my last class reflection I am going to be writing about my experience in my English class and what I enjoyed the most of it. During my first semester of English class at the university, which was from August 2008 to December 2008, I as an assignment had to do a reflection on all the stories the professor assigned and then put them on a portfolio. This semester I had to do the same thing but with a little twist. This time I had to also do a blog and in the blog post all of the reflections.

From all of the reflections the one I enjoyed the most was the reflection on the group oral report about the contemporary marriages. I enjoyed this one the most because first of all I enjoyed the class because of all the new things I learned about the marriages that are different from ours. Also because I found it curios that things like raping a woman in some places are considered as a marriage, something I didn’t agreed of but still founded it curious. I also founded curious that some people in India married animals, in the case I presented dogs, to prevent bad spirits and also being attacked by animals. Maybe for me the most strange marriages, presented in the class in the oral reports, should be named weird marriages but that’s only on my opinion because for people some other people specially the ones that practiced the marriages don’t consider those marriages as weird.

Besides the mentioned before on my blog I posted some other reflections about the stories I read in class. I enjoyed reading also “George and the pink house” because the story changed the perspective of what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a kind of cute story because it was a man in a pink house, and for girls pink is not related to bad things, well not only for girls people in general can consider pink a nice and cute color, even though there’s people that do consider it as the hideous color invented. This story was about a bad man that abused of his family because he made his wife do ALL the shores in the house and didn’t help her in anything. Also he liked to scare his son’s friends and when his wife died he made his daughter do all the shores in the house.

This semester’s class for me was really good not only because I enjoyed some of the activities and reflections. Also because I found challenging in a way having to use a blog as a class project and having to post everything on a specific time and day.

Reflection 11 on: Daisy Miller by Henry James

This novel is about a young girl named Daisy Miller. She and her family were Americas but that lived in hotels all around Europe. At the beginning of the story daisy meets a man named Winterbourne, she started talking to him and telling him about her life. After tat and in less than two hours of talking with this man she planned to do out with him to a castle in Venvey were she was staying. They couldn’t go the same day they meted but two days later they went to the castle all alone and winterbourne told daisy that he has leaving Venvey. Daisy got really mad at him, at a man he only new a few days, but then made him promise her that when he came back he would visit her in Rome. For Winterbourne all of what was happening with Daisy was really strange, since in Europe girls didn’t act that easily towards a man.

As soon as Winterbourne arrived to Rome he went visit Daisy at the hotel she was staying. They meted also in a party in were Winterbourne presented Daisy his friend Mrs. Walker and Daisy presented to them her new friend Giovanelli. After the activity Daisy was going to take a walk with Giovanelli at night what seemed wrong for all of the Europeans. Mrs. Walker tried to prevent and teach her for doing these things but she didn’t wanted to learn because she didn’t consider that to be wrong. Daisy spend a lot of time with Giovanelli something Winterbourne didn’t like, and people started saying that she was a bad girl, that what she was doing was wrong, that she was a flirt and also that she maybe was engaged to Giovanelli, something that wasn’t true. Winterbourne for this didn’t wanted to be with Daisy no more. In the last night that she went out with Giovanelli also talked with winterbourne about being and not being engaged to Giovanelli, something that made Winterbourne really mad, she got sick of the roman fiver and a few days later died. Winterbourne and Giovanelli coincided in her tomb, and when they talked a little about her, Giovanelli said that she was really innocent, something that leaved winterbourne thinking but finally continued with his life.

Bust I think that this story the massage that wanted to send us is about the difference in culture and how we shouldn’t judge people because of what they do, because we really don’t know what they are truly doing and also we don’t know their culture. In this story the cultural differences are represented by Daisy that was the American, Winterbourne that was an Europeanized American and Mrs. Walked that practiced European culture all the time an tried to teach it to Daisy.

Reflection 10:Reading Lolita in Tehran Chapters 12- 17 by Azar Nafizi

These chapters begined talking about Azar Narizi returning to a university named Allame, in Tehran were she used to give class. She talked about some of the students that she remembered that used to teach and also how it have became a ritual of her when dressing to go to teach. She went back to teach a class in literature. She says that in almost the first two weeks of teaching in the second semester she received an envelope with her name and inside a paper that only contained a line that said “The adulterous Nafisi should be expelled”. This made her feel uncomfortable, but after a time she concluded that the message maybe was related to the liberty or liberal of her class and how she gave it. The class in literature that she was teaching was named Introduction to the Novel II, and in these chapters she was discussing about the author Henry James and his novel Daisy Millard. During the rest of the chapter the author talks about how controversial was Henry James, and his novel character Daisy Miller, to her students. She mentioned in particular some of her students specially Mr. Ghomi. He was the student that always contradicted the class specially the teacher, and mostly criticizing Henry James and Daisy Miller. She also mentioned that sometimes was better to let and express your feelings toward something like Mr. Ghomi that keeping them your yourself. In the things they discussed in the story’s class where if Daisy Milled was bad or wrong in how she acted towards men and towards everything or if she really was a heroine. Azar answered this question or problem with an exercise with a chair (mentioned on chapter 17). She concluded saying that depending on the angle you looked at it was its description but still was a chair, depending on the position in with you look at Daisy Millard is your judgment in a way. These chapters ended mentioning some of the different ways her students thought about Daisy Miller and some of them deciding to speak about what they think of the novels.

43rd Annual Literay Contest Awards Ceremony

The 43rd Annual Literary Contest Awards Ceremony was celebrated on April 22, 2009 in Aula Magna, Law School from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. This activity was the celebration of the 43rd Literary Contest made during the month of March in were you in order to participate needed to write for one, two or all of the three categories that were Essay, Story or Poem, an original writing and summit the piece to the English Department. Then it would be judged and then choose the best one of them to receive an award for being choose as the best.

The activity started almost sharp at 10:00 am, this impressed me because in Puerto Rico almost always the activities start long after the assigned time. The activity started with music by an invited band named Banda Sabananegra and then the welcoming. After that participated some invited people to give encouraging speeches like Rafael Matos, the editor of the Puerto Rico Daily Sun, that I think it is a Puerto Rico newspaper. He talked about the difference that’s made with journalism in English and also about the difference between journalism and literature that he said that are two really different things. I liked especially when he said to “never stop writing because the more you write the better it gets”, because I think that this is an encouraging phrase for all of the people that participated even though they dint win, not everyone could win. After the speeches and more music by the same band the presentation of the award started. There was give as a prize two movie rentals and a dictionary. Two of my English classmates like Israel and Normari won in the activity. Israel won in third place with his short story “Cannibals of Riverside” and Normari a honorific mention with a poem that talked about he mom. One of the first place winners was Stephanie Mayers, with her story “I regret” which I personally enjoyed. And finally the activity concluded with some more music.

The whole activity in my opinion was really good. It would have been better if by a chance I went there and I would have received an award by surprise, because I also participated in poetry but sadly didn’t qualify, and sadly that is not real life. Besides that I of all in the activity specially enjoyed the music because it was something different and I really enjoy listening music and also I liked some of the winner’s works like the story.

Contemporary Marriage: India and interesting things learned in class by Ednovi

In my colledge english class on April 3rd, 2009, the rest of my classmates and I were giving oral reports about contemporary marriages around the world. They talked about the different types of marriage depending of the place they chosed or just weird or unknown types of marriage that are practiced all around the world. They talked about same sex marriages, teen marriages, cousin marriages, arranged marriages, religious marriages like Muslims and Judaism and also bride kidnapping marriage also called raped marriage. This one of all the others was the one that mostly shocked and interest me because I had never heard of that before until that day. These marriages consist of a man choosing a woman he liked and actually kidnapping her and raping her and then just like that they are married. Some other times the family’s girl pays the man money to stay with the woman and in most of the cases after the kidnapped the woman never sees her family again.

Besides the before mentioned I gave my oral report about Indian religion and weird marriages coinciding also with some of my classmates. I fist talked about the various types of marriages in India like the Christian marriage act, Hindu marriage acts, Muslim marriage acts, Parsi Marriage act and Special marriage act. I mentioned a little about what is the Hindu marriage Act, 1955, that has the conditions that to get married the bridegroom should be the age of 21 years and the bride of 18 years. Both of the partners should be Hindu and should not be within the expansion of prohibited relationships. Another example I mentioned was the Muslims that also follow their own marriage acts that states that Nikah or marriage is a contract and it may be permanent or temporary. This act permits the man to have four wives if he treats then equally. but one of the most common things in marriage in India is that as traditional aspect in Indian marriages acts most of the times the marriages are arranged by the family’s groom and bride, because it’s an integral part of the Indian culture. But besides that I talked about two strange and unknown weddings for me that were both of a person marring an animal, in this case a dog. This they do it in India as a act to get rid off bad spirits, curses and to prevent bad things happening to them, even though Indian law does not recognize weddings between people and animals, but is a ritual that still survives in rural and tribal areas in the Indian country.

The fist one I found was about a Indian boy named Sagula, less than two years old was married to his neighbors Dog so he won't get killed by wild animals. This happened in eastern India because of the superstitions of the eastern villagers that said that it will stop the groom from being killed by wild animals. The boy’s father said that they preformed the marriage because it will overcome any curse that might fall on the child as well on us. The boy and the dog married in the village temple where a priest solemnized the marriage between Sagula and his bride, the dog Jyoti. Thankfully for the little boy, even though the boy was married to the dog, he will still be able to marry a human bride and without filling for divorce.

The other story I found was about a 33 years old man in India that married a dog in a Hindu temple in Tamil Nadu. The dog bride wore a traditional orange sari (Indian wedding dress to his size) and a flower bun. The man said that he married the dog because it was his way to get rid of his bad feeling of what happened to two other dogs death that he was involucrate, an incident that he believes left him cursed. Some people mocked him and also thanked it wasn’t a homosexual marriage.

As I mentioned before I enjoyed this project/oral report, because I learned new and for me strange things that people do when it comes to getting married or practice their wedding cultural ceremonies. I found it also interesting because since here in Puerto Rico we only practice one type of marriage that we can call love and heterosexual marriage based on our religion, but knowing that also know days people are trying to change that to aloud heterosexual marriages.

Reaction on 9: The Storm by Kate Chopin

This story was about a woman named Calixta and a man named Alcée that were in times before kind of a couple, but never got married and instead married two different people and continued their lives. One day Calixta's husband and her child went out and noticed when getting out of a store that a storm seemed to be coming so they decided to stay at the store, while calixta was at her home noticed it was going to rain and decided to go pick up her families clothes when she saw Alcée and invited him shelter while the rain passed. During the storm they got involves and ended up having an affair. When the storm ended they both continued with their lives as if anything had happened, and treated their family normally. For them everything was normally and as in the story said "So the storm passed and everyone’s was happy".

For me this story was really interesting because of the part were the two ex couple seeing each other again, that's something that is always really exiting to feel. But I didn't like that they used the storm to cheat on their new lives and their partners. I think that was wrong of these used to be couple to have an affair. Besides that I liked how the story was written and also the end sentence, because it described what happened in the story after the affair in a kind of sarcastic way.

Reflection 8: The Maternal Insinstincts by Migel Street

This story is about a woman named Laura that had 8 children with 7 different men. She used to go pregnant and then leave the baby’s dad. The first six children were from six different dads. The last two were from a man named Nathaniel. Laura one day binged him to Miguel Street were she lived and he stayed there living with her for the entire nine months of his first baby. He started socializing with the boys in that street and used to say to them that Laura hasn’t leaved him because he leaved her in her place beating her. But the truth was that Laura was the one that beat Nathaniel. They found it out when one day Nathaniel tried to hide his beaten eye and he could dent. When his first baby borne all the guys from the street thought he was going to leave Miguel Street since Laura had never been that much of a time with a baby’s dad. One day Laura asked Nathaniel to go with her and he said no and after a little beating she said to leave her for good. When her big daughter Lorna grew up she send her to study typing and came back with a baby. Laura started crying but what shocked of this was that no one ever saw or heard Laura cry. One day Lorna decided to go to Carenage, were she drowned and died. Laura received the news and she said that was better off that way.

This story for me was really sad and shocking. How a woman had that many kids and didn’t stayed with not only one of the babies dad. To add to that she was the one that committed the domestic abuse to her kids and to the baby’s fathers. Domestic abuse is when someone force or use its brutal force to obtain something for someone without the person wanting to do that. Laura in the story used to do this to her kinds and to the baby’s dads. But what mostly shocked me wasn’t that she was the one that committed domestic abuse, what shocked me was that when her daughter died she said that it was better that way. Yes, I understand that maybe she didn’t wanted her daughter to end up as she did and teached, and maybe she wanted a way to prevent that but for me saying that was better off that her daughter died wasn’t the way to react and to feel when receiving that news. This is why I didn’t really liked the story besides I think that its title didn’t had to do with what we call truly “Maternal Instincts”.