Memory

My 6th grade year was my first year in the Sycamore Symphonic band- for a middle school band we were actually decent. We traveled- more for fun, but there was always a bit of competition added in. The aspect of the trip that stays impressed upon my memory, however, was on a dinner cruise one night. I ate dinner with my friends, a group of girls that I usually hung out with. One of them had a “boyfriend”, (we'll call her Anne) , and she danced with him. It was a big deal at the time, and although boys weren’t necessarily the first thing on my mind, I recall taking a sideways glance at one named (we'll call him Sam) and thinking that maybe later I would ask him to dance. His friend, (we'll call him William) , sat a little ways down, making some humorous, sarcastic comment. I took no notice, and walked off the boat with some of my older friends- the 7th graders. We spit over the sides, chugged sugar packets, and made jokes on the front of the boat. When the dancing started, however, I wandered back in the room to find my friends jumping sporadically in all directions and swinging jackets. I joined in, of course, in the party on the top of the boat. However, as it began to get dark, people migrated inside, and though I went with them for a little bit, I found myself wanting some time alone to just absorb the peace of floating down the river. I climbed up the stairs to the top of the boat, where rain was starting to fall in deft little drops all around me. It didn’t faze me; it wasn’t enough water to make me cold. I put my hands around the cold metal of the handrail and gripped, sailing through the air as if the boat never existed. The sound of footsteps brought me out of my trance, and I turned to see William coming to a halt a few feet in front of me. He gave a hint of a crooked smile, and then looked shyly down at the ground. The gesture was so unlike his confident, sarcastic personality, that it caught my attention. “You look different without your glasses” he said simply, barely glancing in my direction. My mind hadn’t registered enough to have jammed yet, and laughing, I quickly explained: “I hope I look better without them.” William said nothing- or if he did, it was carried away by the wind. We stood in silence for a few minutes, feeling the rain blow across our cheeks, until William said something about going back inside. I agreed, a little too readily, and followed him down the curved stairs into the room where the dance was going on. I didn’t talk to William again until a little bit later, but at that moment on the top of the boat, my entire world was thrown into disarray. It shocked me that a comment so innocent, a compliment that was barely even a compliment, forever changed the way I saw this person- and so many people after that. It was an event, however small, that has one of the largest imprints on my memory.

Tuesdays class

I've always enjoyed English classes. Most people I know think that is strange, but it's true. It's because of the thought process and the ideas that are presented- I've always found it interesting that I can read something, and have a certain interperetation of it, or sometimes no interperetation of it, but after a class- AP english, and Mr. Priest's class last year- can walk away thinking something completely different. Most of the time they are conclusions that I would come to on my own if I were to sit and think about it for a while, but sometimes the interperetation of the teacher is completely different from what I had taken it to mean myself- in which case it is interesting to see two different interperetions. That kind of leads into the story we read for last night- the interperetations of a memoir. When Hample first states her "memory", she has written it in a way that fills in the empty spots in her memory with things that she wanted. This is perfectly okay, but of course inaccurate. Not that most memoirs are truly accurate, because the human memory isn't nessecarily accurate. However, what is important is what is taken away from the piece; the overall message that the piece delivers; the interperetation. This is why Hample explains her inaccuracies, even though explaining them causes the overall illusion of the piece to be destroyed.

Fuentes

The purpose of why he wrote this essay is hazy, as well as the other points. It is possible that Fuentes wanted to clear up some things about why he began to write, and escpecially why he writes in Spanish- which he said, literature-wise, is struggling. It is true that English is a language that is very kind to writers, and it is admirable that a multilingual writer would choose to use Spanish. This says something about the audience most of his writing is directed to, becaues obviiously most of his writing is directed to a Mexican audience. However, this essay obviously isn't, which is curious- why would he do most of his writing in Spanish, but write this essay in English? it's always possible that the essay was directed to explain the fact that he wrote in Spanish to an audience that generally speaks English, but what would be his reasons for that? In reality, what he's done here is confusing. His style is autobiographical, which would make sense because the essay is an autobiographical essay, but it gives truth to the situation and helps him to explain himself, although his motives behind writing this essay are rather unclear.

storytelling

Storytelling is the only way to relay something that has already occurred. Books, tv shows, movies, even conversation- it’s all stories. A drawing is a story. This is what makes the woman’s quote in the piece so significant. It is extremely difficult to interpret. “I could tell you stories”, as we talked about in class, can mean one- or more- of many different things. The two that jumped out at me the most, though, were the “unable to give justice to reality”, and the idea that she could have been a liar. These are completely opposite interpretations in a way, but both perfectly realistic. However, what really strikes me is the idea that she could be trying to explain her real past with a fabricated story- such as Fitzgerald did with The Great Gatsby. The woman, who never starts her story, and who decides that she isn’t going to tell it, is different from Fitzgerald in the sense that she chooses not to disclose the information that she obviously has the choice to disclose. The idea that the story wouldn’t give real life justice applies, too, because the interaction between she and her husband is something that the narrator has never seen before, and it is reason to believe that there could have been a wonderful story behind it that no one is articulate enough to tell. Often times this is the reason why facts and stories can get distorted so much.

Wednesday's class

I found wednesday's discussion extremely interesting. Although I have read The Great Gatsby in the past, the discussion covered a lot of things that I haven't thought of before- such as, mankind's eternal struggle for the symbolic green light. Also, the similarities between Nickel and Dimed and The Great Gatsby are much more than what I had previously thought; the entire theme of creating a face to appear well off and rich was something that hadn't crossed my mind (at least in the case of Nickel and Dimed), but as we discussed it, i found it more and more to be true. In all, the classes and discussions on The Great Gatsby have been very interesting and enlightening, and it causes one to realize how a mediocre story on the surface (and on the surface, the story is pretty mediocre) can be changed into a great work by the use of symbolism and interpretation.