Thursday, March 29, 2012

Style blog

If I was in the same scenario as Dobbins and Azar when they saw the girl dancing I think I would react the same way as Dobbins. At first I would be curious on why this girl is dancing because of what happened to her family. But I would be respectful about it, I wouldn't make fun of her because I wouldn't know what to do if my family was killed. She was doing something to keep her mentally content and to keep her from losing her mind.

Monday, March 26, 2012

A memory from the past

The field is important because it's a historical place where a lot of memories happened. It's where Jimmy witnessed the death of a friend and another life lesson to be learned. If my father had brought me back to an important memory I would try and soak it up as much as possible. I would try and feel the actions that went down at that special place, putting myself in a position where I can experience the memory for myself.

Friday, March 23, 2012

Speaking of courage

In the story "Speaking of Courage" Bowker shows how much courage he really has. He keeps his fathers medals to remind him of the great things he did. And since Bowker is in the war, there are always opportunities for him to rise to the occasion. Of course the time comes for him to jump into action but he turns out to be too much of a chicken to do so. He's in shame after doing what he did and looking at his father's medals, thinking that he let him down and couldn't make his father proud. 

Friday, March 16, 2012

Post #18


1) In the Sweetheart of the song Tra Bong there are a lot of figurative language that help the reader to understand better the text.  A lot of them are very strong, but they still give you the idea of what you should actually feel.
“Greenies were not social animals.  Animals, Rat said, but far from social”
“She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream.”
“Mark and Mary Anne strolled through the ville like a pair of tourist”
“This seventeen-year-old doll in her goddamn culottes, perky and fresh-faced, like a cheerleader visiting the opposing team’s locker room.”
“The seven silhouttes seemed to float across the surface of the earth, like spirits, vaporous and unreal.”
“The girl joined the zoo.  One more animal.”
“At the girl’s throat was a necklace of human tongues.  <elongated and narrow, like pieces of blackened leather, the tongues were threaded along a length of copper wire,”
“It’s like trying to tell somebody what chocolate tastes like.”
“She seemed to flow like water through the dark, like oil, without sound or center.”

2) With these words Mary Anne means that she want to live all those things at the same time.  She found herself in this country and now she can’t have enough of it.  Rat tells this thing to all his friends because this is an important passage for her, she says to her passed love of her life that she wasn’t anymore like he wanted her to be.  She was a killer, an animal and nobody would have brought her away from that.

3)The reader sees Vietnam as a deadly place where nothing has a sense.  All the things that I can see is the soldiers point of view and they see only deaths and the happiness of being still alive after all those missions.  I can understand how difficult it is to live in a world completely different from the world where we are use to live and Mary Anne just got into it too quickly!

4) “Transformation” and “gender” are tied to perspective of the reader, Rat Kiley, and even Mary Ann’s boyfriend Fossie. Since Marry Ann is a woman, coming to Vietnam has a different effect on her. Before arriving to Vietnam she had all the characteristics of a pretty and soft woman, having long flowing hair and a motherly personality by taking care of everyone. And after Mary has been in this setting for a while Fossie and a lot of the other men are noticing some changes in her behavior. It starts on her appearance and she starts to cut her hair short, learning some of the Vietnamese language, she starts going on sort of night missions, and even took part in some the rituals and bonfires. To top it all off Fossie caught her during one of the gatherings and she was wearing a necklace with tongues on it. Marry Ann had gone through a complete transformation from a prime example to a house wife to a downright savage.     


7) To make our presentation more effective we can use different type of presentation in different points of view.  We can do a normal power point to make everybody understand the basic



5. Rat Killey added many his own view about Mary Annie, which explained why Mary changed such a lot during those several weeks. Rat gave us the point that Mary Annie was just like every man here, not as sunny as before, became cold and sack less. The only difference was she changed more quickly. Sanders Mitchell thought Mary’s disappearance and being one of the Greenies was just like an animal went into the zoo.

6. The ending of this particular story does matter. At the end of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong”  Mary Ann had completely become one with the land. “She was wearing her culottes, her pink sweater, and a necklace of human tongues. She was dangerous. She was ready for the kill.” This would affect the reader by suggesting that war changes people to a great extent.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Post #17


If there is a class or group discussion I expect a reasonable amount of participation. In a group I expect for there to be an equal amount of participation. For one,  I hate it when I’m left doing all of the work. I mean honestly, who’s cool with that? I know I’m not and it happens a lot. So, if I ever get lucky and there is someone else who really understands the topic I do my best to try and take part in the discussion so that the other person doesn’t have to be saying everything for the group. Another thing I expect is for everyone in the group to at least show up! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen groups of five and I see about two people sitting there. It’s because other kids think it’s really easy and don’t have to be there for it and just show up at the presentation and spit out lines from sparknotes while their partners worked hard to come up with really good information.  And it’s basically the same thing with a whole class discussion. The teacher will ask the class for their opinion and about one or two people are consistently answering the question. I mean no one’s a genius and know everything; if you at least made an attempt and gave a little something I would respect that. But sitting there with a blank face won’t help you in life.