All I Asking For Is My Body, Part II, Dialogue

b.     Why does Kiyoshi believe Obaban is a substitute for his mom?
The idea of substitution in this book comes from Kiyoshi's Mother's belief in superstition. She feels that if someone has gotten away with a bad deed someone has to pay for it. This doesn't necessarily mean the person who committed the bad deed, this could be anyone replacing them. Tha t is where the term "Substitute comes from. Kiyoshi's mom become very ill and was in the hospital. When the son felt like she was nearing death, she explained to him her substitute theory, and how she felt like she was receiving the punishment for someone's bad deeds in her family. Kiyoshi starts to believe her ideas. He asks question about it to other people. 
WHen she comes her closes to death, Kiyoshi receives bad news. Worried about it being his mother, he finds out later that it is Obaban who dies of a stroke. This is very fortunate to Kiyoshi. We can later see that his mother shows up to Obaban's house, where she seems a lot better. I can see how Kiyoshi can sum up what happened by saying Obaban took his mother's place in dieing as a substitute for someone else's sins.

Writing Topic: Chapter TBD by you

         I chose the grammar chapter in the book, Rules for Writers. Although the chapter sounds like it just shows something we all would already know about, I picked it because I still make small grammar mistakes without even noticing. Mistakes that I didn't even realize I was making until I read this chapter. I think grammar is the most important thing to maintain when writing an essay, because It only takes a couple mistakes to make the whole essay sound unproffesional.
      This chapter started out talking about sentence fragments. These are the little unfinished sentence that are either missing a verb or a subject. To fix these you can tag them onto another sentence, or finish the sentence with a subject or a verb. This isn't a common mistake for me, because I tend to add a lot of commas and jam sentences together. The next subject is my real problem. Run on sentences can be hard to notice and seeing as though i put a lot of my sentences together I have this problem. Run on sentences are sentences that are jammed together making two independent clauses connect. This can be avoided by separating the sentences or adding a word down the middle that brings them together.
     The next subject brought up is about connecting the right verbs with nouns. It is important to get in the habit of connecting nouns past, present, or future with the right verbs. "He says" makes a lot more sense than "He Say". I have a good habit of this, and probably most people who have grown up with the English language.

All I Asking For Is My Body, Part I, Dialogue

b.     Who is Makot?  Do you feel sorry for him?  What are your thoughts about him and the way he copes with his parents?  

In the book, All I asking for is My Body, Makot is one of the narrator's best friend. He hangs out with him almost everyday and eats lunch with him before coming home to his family. Makot happens to be the oldest one within all of his friends, and hangs out with the younger kids because he doesn't get along too well with the other ones that are his age. On the lighter note Makot is part of a wealthy family, and because of this he is able to support his friends with tickets to movies, and ice cream. he comes up with a lot of ideas when it comes to activities to do with his friends, including hanging out near 'breakers' and buying a shotgun. Unfortunetly, Kiyo's parents have a problem with him hanging out with Makot. They think he is trouble, and his mom is ashamed of her son eating at Makot's house more than at his own house.


I do feel bad for Makot. This is because of the incident at the end of part I, where Kiyo announces that his parents will no longer let him hang out with Makot. I think the sadness hits a real climax when it says Makot was about to cry. From reading about his character, it seems like it would take a lot to make him feel sad enough to the point where he is about to cry. I do not think he deserved what came to him. Although he seems a bit pushy he still means well and treats his friends very nicely. It seems like he has to put up with a little bit from his parents, seeing her rudeness towards the main character. He copes with his parents well though by being a little demanding when they act rude.

Extra Credit: Optional Writing Topic Summary : Writing about film

The article, titled "Writing about film", digs into the real challenges of writing about movies, and films in general. It talks about how hard it can be to describe the elements of filmmaking and the techniques people use in movies. This is because we are too easily entertained. So entertained, infact, that we are distracted from the techniques that filmakers use, such as the way they move cameras, the tone of the the scene, and the composition. Besides talking about the challenges we face, the article continues with types of writings that are about film. This can be a film analysis, a writing about the history, or a summary of the idea the film is trying to portray.
 There are good tips to use when writing about a film. One I took from this is to not write so simple. Try not to just write the basic summary of the film and dig deeper into the meaning. Do even more than just discussing your opinion on the protagonist and the antagonist, discuss how the character gets developed.
I really liked this article for one reason, because I am a big movie buff. I love analyzing movies and trying to find a deep meaning. Every great movie isn't as simple as it looks. There is always something more to it. Writing about a film is a good technique to find that meaning and it can make a good movie great.

Essay 3 Workshop

Essay 3 Workshop

People tend to subconsciously criticize themselves about everything. They compare themselves to classmates, to celebrities, and even fictional people they see on TV. In the story, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Schooling and the Media have had a bad influence on Lovey because it makes her feel less perfect about the way she looks and acts. We can see this through her complaints about her physical traits, the way she speaks in class, and her perception of who she should be on television.
                The first chapter starts of with one of her favorite TV shows, "Shirley Temple". "I use to wish I was just like her, with perfect blonde ringlets and pink cheeks and pout lips, bright eyes and a happy ending every Sunday" pg 3. It seems to me like she has this vision of who is the perfect girl, and she definitely doesn't think it’s her. She thinks she’s not "deserving" of the kind of treatment she sees Shirley temple has on television. Lovey also notes how perfect the children look on the show, "The Checkers and Pogo Show". "The Spotlight finds the Merry UnBirthday child. Of course, it's the cutest one in the studio" pg 5. She also notes that it would be impossible for her to be on the show, and that only the rich kids get to be on the show. It’s this kind of discouraging feelings that put negative thoughts on Lovey about herself.
                 Through Schooling, Lovey has found ways to look at herself in a negative light. Her Pidgin English is unacceptable in English class, and Lovey notes that she is extremely ashamed of it. She points out her differences than other people in school. The food she eats, the car she drives and even the clothes she wears is something she hates. Her Asian traditions do not sit well with her at all, and like her thoughts of Shirley Temple, she views the traditionally white Americans as the people with better lives. "Sometimes I secretly wish to be haole. That my name could be Betty Smith, or Annie Anderson. pg 11" What ruins her self esteem even more, is the fact that kids at school pick on her because she is different.
                      She also uses the media as a source to come up with better ways to describe her. An Oompa Loompa is what her family calls her, based on the small orange creatures on the movie Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. To her this word is even worse than ugly. This tells me that she would rather be ugly, than be an oompa loompa, and unfortunately, she feels more like an oompa loompa. The Oompa loompa is a symbol for something she is trying to avoid becoming, and the "haole" is a symbol for something she is trying to become.
                       Both the media and schooling has given Lovey a false look on what she should be, and I think that it is a bad influence in this story. It seems to me that the students at her school have done a lot of damage to her self esteem, and media has alerted her perception on what it means to be perfect. Shirley Temple is something she constantly strives to be, and an oompa loompa is a symbol for something she is trying to escape. Through all of this her own traditions, physical features, and the way she speaks is something she hates.

“This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” Dialogue

b.     What’s one difference between this reading and the movie version?  How does the change affect the story, change the meaning and/or alter our perspectives of the characters?

It seems like to me that the movie gives Thomas more of a main role feel than the book. The movie, for instance, starts out with Thomas' character as a baby, surviving a fire. Because I am introduced to Thomas first i feel like I follow him a lot more than in the book, where he instead appears a little bit after introducing Victor. Although Thomas does have a huge role in the book, the theme of the book, and the challenges seem to revolve more aound Victor. The theme to me is, Victors struggle with his thoughts about his father. The movie, however, really brings Thomas more into this theme. We watch Victors father save Thomas, and we see more how important the father is to Thomas.
Although the story is incredibly similar to the movie, I feel like, because some events were showed first in the movie, we can feel different about the main characters roles. One exception is the relationship between Thomas and Victor. To me, both the story and the movie have the same feel between the two when it comes to the main characters relationship. The dialogue seems very familiar in the story, and they both develop the same like for each other.