Post #27: The End(ing)

It's strange, but some of my favorite films, books, and short stories are not ones that I would say have the best and most memorable endings.  I loved them for other reasons; maybe they stick in my mind because of the crazy and twisted plot, because of the unexpected and entertaining characters, or because the writing was absolutely superb.  But even the best films, books, and short stories I have ever seen may not know how to end a story well.

Some great endings to films that I have seen have come from The Departed, Million Dollar Baby, and Titanic.  Each of these ending are extremely well and almost perfectly sum up the story of the film.

In The Departed, the movie ends with Mark Wahlberg killing Matt Damon and a rat scurrying across the windowsill.  This was a perfect ending, actually the first thing I thought of when asked, "What is a good ending?"  There is that element of foreshadowing, as the purpose of the movie is for the Boston police to find the "rat" infiltrating their force and for the Irish mob to find the "rat" hidden among their men.  And, as Leo DiCaprio and Matt Damon had both been brutally murdered, the actual rat running across the windowsill is the only "rat" to survive.  There is no other word to describe how I felt at the end of this film but excited.  First of all, I was excited because the bad guys didn't get away with their plan--the good guys didn't, either, but I'd rather have nobody win than a victory for the enemy.  Secondly, and most importantly, having an actual live rat in the last seconds of the film ties everything together.  You know that feeling when you finally see how the elements of a story connect, and you think you are the smartest person in the world for realizing it?  That's how I felt.  That's why I was excited.

Whereas The Departed ended in a way that was memorable for its cleverness, Million Dollar Baby's ending made me sad.  Clint Eastwood follows Hilary Swank's wishes and pulls the plug--literally--on her breathing machine and walks away, and Morgan Freeman ends his letter to Clint's estranged daughter.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, we view people who kill other people as evil, but Clint Eastwood is different.  What he does is illegal, but he is complying with Hilary's dying wish.  He doesn't want her to die, but he puts her happiness ahead of his own.  He is like a best friend and father combined, and maybe, as Morgan Freeman suggest, Clint's own daughter can recognize this, too.  That ending made me hate the movie, but hate it in a good way.  Hate it because it killed me to watch, killed me that this girl who came from such a horrible life ended up dying, when she deserved so much
better--not because I didn't enjoy watching it.  It was the right ending for the film.



I, too, am a sucker for happy endings, so when Titanic ended with Young Rose finding Jack at the top of the stairs in the ship's ballroom in Heaven, I couldn't stop bawling.  The film is a love story, and so of course, it has to end with the two people together in some way; preferably physically, but if not, at least spiritually.  I am a very emotional person--sometimes too much so--so I cried a ton when Jack dies, and I cried a ton--happy tears this time--when he and Rose finally find each other in the afterlife in the end.  Had they still been alive, this would have been every girl's fantasy; two people utterly in love and finding each other for the first time after years apart.  However, it's not so much this fantasy that makes this ending memorable; it the fact that after all these characters have gone through, they are finally getting their happy ending.  Like I said, I am a sucker for happy endings.

Some great endings that I have read/seen in works of literature have come from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Thirteen Reasons Why, and Les Miserables.  Some are ordinary, or offer a simple message, but they are still unforgettable.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ends the present story with Harry having just defeated the darkest wizard who ever lived, and even in his glory, he remains modest and just wants everything to go back to normal--or as normal as it ever was.  After seeing Voldemort, Young Dumbledore, and Grindelwald, Harry realizes how crazy and evil immense power can make a person and he locks up the Elder Wand where no one can ever get to it.  This almost makes me feel bad about myself; Harry has suffered so much and always pushed through it, has seen others suffer and has always fought for them, and now that he is probably the most loved and admired person in all of the Wizarding World, he doesn't even try to take advantage of it.  That is why it's memorable; such a good person could be considered cheesy, but the genuineness of his character make him an aspiration, not someone to mock.  The epilogue of Harry's future is just as good, because it provides me closure with the characters.  That is probably the number one thing I need when it comes to moving on from a situation: closure.  I need to know how it all ends, that everyone will be okay.  And showing me how Harry, Ron, Hermione, and their families end up gives me that, so I can finally move on (as hard as it is to move on from Harry Potter).

The ending of Thirteen Reasons Why is another ending that I really enjoyed.  Again, not because I actually liked it, but because it fit the story and made sense.  In the end of Thirteen Reasons Why, Clay Jensen packs up Hannah Baker's seven tapes, the thirteen reasons why she committed suicide, and ships them off to the next person intended to hear the tapes.  There is nothing out of the ordinary that happens in the end, just the fact that Clay is now miserable because of these tapes, and the next person on the list is destined for that same fate.  It's this kind of thing that I can relate to the most, because it can so easily happen in real life.  Though these stories occur externally from Clay, they have an enormous impact, messing with his emotions, triggering his internal struggle, and destroying his preconceived ideas about reality.  Maybe all that happens in the end is that Clay packs up a box and takes it to the post office, but under the surface, between the lines, lies so much more: everything that people don't want to acknowledge.

Les Miserables is my favorite play of all that I have ever seen, and it is the ending in part that makes an impact on me.  Each character has had their own struggles--whether that be always being on the run, being forced into prostitution to save her daughter, fighting the government because of their mistreatment of the public, etc.--and yet they still steadfastly believe that love conquers all.  Maybe this is a cheesy statement, that "love conquers all," but it is still true.  The bishop excuses Jean val Jean for stealing, and gives him a new chance at life.  Fantine, who loved her daughter with all of her being, died so that Cosette could have a better life.  Jean val Jean, who had been running from Javert's wrath for years and years, finally has the chance to kill him, but his love is what finally makes the policeman back off.  And, connecting them all, having given Cosette a loving home is what makes Fantine takes Jean val Jean to heaven.  In the end, it is being a good person that makes not just your life worthwhile, but the others' lives around you, as well.

Lastly, short stories.  I am fairly picky about the endings I like, especially in short stories, because with so little time to state the plot, there is even less time to end the story in a satisfactory way.  But, here is one that I think did a pretty good job.

"A Temporary Matter" has an ending that, though I didn't particularly like it, left an impact on me.  It was a horrible, horrible thing that this couple lost their child, but I didn't want them to get a divorce from this.  This tragic incident should have strengthened their relationship instead of weakened it, for "when the going gets tough get going."  But, as my mother works in a children's hospital where she deals with stories like this quite often, I have learned that these outcomes are quite common.  Thus, these things do happen in real life, so the somewhat ordinariness of this ending is what makes it relatable and memorable.  I have never dealt with this kind of situation, but I can easily see it happening.  In a way, this kind of ending scares me because of that, reminding me that reality is not perfect.

Okay, so this post is already over 1,500 words--that's more than five times what Louis asked for.  So I'm going to be quick:
Basically, I have stated all the qualities I like in an ending: cleverness, sadness, happiness, closure, relatability, a message of perseverance, and ordinary lives.  Not all together--trying to incorporate all of these qualities into one ending would be disastrous--but in separate stories.  It depends on the context.  I guess I am not so picky after all.

I think that I will write the ending to my own story that is ordinary, is relatable, and ties everything together.  I like endings that seem to solve a puzzle and connect all prior elements of the story, and so, to the best of my ability, I will try to do that.

Post #26: Cheating Is Wrong

The article "Cheating Upwards" begins with the story of Nayeem Ahsan and his incredible cheating scandal at Stuyvesant, an elite academy in lower Manhattan.  There are no thoughts, reflections, or even related facts stated by the author in the first one and a half pages; he just describes what happened this historic event, and so it reads like a short story.  However, at this point, the article shifts to listing and briefly describing related incidents of cheating, and as a result, the research that has been done to discover cheating statistics and why students cheat.  The author even throws in an experiment about what people think is acceptable to do without even realizing that it is cheating, and talks about the biological, psychological, and outside influences that make teenagers want to cheat.  In the last third of the article, the author shifts back to describing Nayeem Ahsan's cheating history up until this most recent scandal, and what will happen to him--and all the 140 others--now that he has been caught.

In "Cheating Upwards," Nayeem Ahsan is the main character, or the protagonist, and his cheating scandal is the rising action being caught by the principal and kicked out of school is the climax.  However, the passage about Nayeem's years of cheating leading up to the climax is also part of the rising action, and the discussion of what is to be done with him (in terms of where he will finish school), the other 140 students who were part of the cheating scandal, and the school itself is the resolution.  And everything in the middle--the related incidents of cheating, the research that has been done about why it happens, when cheating is acceptable vs. when it's not, biological/psychological/outside influences on students to cheat, etc.--is the falling action, the information we are learning that leads us up to the resolution.

I remembered a fair amount of the article before I read it--that Nayeem cheated, that he had cheated many times before, that he had been kicked out of school, etc.--but I had forgotten, or maybe had not even noticed, Nayeem's attitude toward all of this, even in the end.  I was shocked at how unwavering he was in his notion that his cheating has helped people, and he would do it all over again if he could, despite where it had gotten him.  I just don't understand that; I believe that, especially when it comes to academic work, people have to earn their own way.  They can be helped, and tutored, and tested endlessly, but when it comes to a test, or writing a paper, they can't have someone answering the questions and doing the work for them.  I understand that the teenagers who are more prone to cheating don't yet have fully developed brains like the adults who punish them do, that they prioritize the "thrill" of something over the morals it provides.  I understand that families, colleges, and other outside sources are pressuring their children to produce amazing pieces of work, and that said children are just trying to do what they can to live up to those expectations.  But, I stand by the decision I made back in May when I first read this article: cheating is still wrong.

Post #25: What Is Academic Writing?

In high school, I always wrote academic papers.  We had journal time for the first year or two, where we could just write about anything, but we were only even graded and critiqued on our academic papers; the traditional and clichéd five-paragraph essay.

It was good that we learned how to write in this way.  The five-paragraph essay gave us structure, and taught us how to organize writing so that it was argumentative and proved a point to the reader.  However, once the skill of writing organized papers is accomplished, it is okay to evolve to the more personalized, comedic, and in-depth writing that focusing on one specific blog topic can give.  It is very true; term papers are really only written to be rewarded with As, whereas with blogs, people write because, as Matt Richtel says, "they love writing for an audience, engaging with it" and "feel as if they’re actually producing something personally rewarding and valuable."  It is more fun to write something that is interesting and that people feel a connection with, and it is easier to do a good job when the task is more enjoyable.

In essence, structure and organization are basics that everyone needs to learn how to do and how to do well, but after, there is no reason why they can't break from the pattern and explore.

I can see the transition from structured and organized academic writing to more free-spirited and personal thoughts and analysis even in my blog posts over these last few months.  My first post, a reflection on the short story "First Day," and in it, I don't talk about my own thoughts or feelings at all--just what I observed in the text.  I was still in that mindset of "just analyze what is there; subjective writing is not professional."  Moving to my post about Jaja from Purple Hibiscus, I include more about what is happening in between the lines of the story, my predictions on what is going to happen, and even an image, but I don't use the word "I," because that is not professional.  But after that, I am not afraid to share my opinions in my writing, like with "Great Movies" when I discuss what it is that (I think) makes a movie great.  

I am someone who has a lot of opinions, but the more structured academic writing a always wrote in school, I never got to share that.  It is nice to be able to do, not just because I am very opinionated, but because being able to see my own thoughts helps me see connections in the text, thus analyzing them more thoroughly.  The audience started out as someone how I basically described the narrative of the text I was reading and the description of its characters to, but that someone became an audience who's purpose was to hear my opinions and ideas of the story and these characters and the connections made between them--intra-post, inter-post, or worldly.

However, I sometimes worry that all this personal yet informal writing has infiltrated the more formal writing that I still do have to do.  I often don't realize when I'm writing informally now, and so when the words "I" or "like" show up in my paper, I don't notice until it is too late.  While it's true that those words can help personalize a paper, they are definitely not professional.  

I seem to have reached both ends of the writing spectrum: the extremely structured, organized, and predictable academic writing of the five-paragraph essay, and the personalized and comedic writing of the blog.  Now, I need to find a happy medium between the two.

Post #24: Sleep is a Very Complex Thing

I don't understand sleep.  I feel like college students are on a COMPLETELY different sleep schedule from normal people, both in when they sleep and when they feel like sleeping.

I don't understand how I was able to get up at 6am in high school.  Getting up at 10am for class is bad enough.  How has my body adjusted to this so badly?  I just don't understand.

I get so tired in the middle of the day, too.  I just want to go to bed, but when I try to take a nap, I end up playing stupid games on my phone or computer, which is an even LESS productive use of my than sleeping would be.  And at night?  I can't help but going out or hanging with friends when something fun is going on.  It's basically impossible for me to do work on Friday or Saturday nights, but sleeping? I can do that.  I should do that.  But I DON'T do that.

I am so tired.  Like, right now.  Writing this post is a struggle, because sleep is fatiguing me.  Sleep is actually making me tired.

These are the kind of things I say when I am too tired to write.

Post #23: A Good Blog Post

What makes a good blog, or rather, a good blog post?  Well, it's got to have some color to it.  Whether that's color in the background, crazy images in the individual posts, it doesn't matter--it just needs to be appealing to the eye, not bland and boring.  Then nobody will want to read it.

I also love blog posts that are about more than just facts--they tell a story or a personal memory, are relatable to their readers, and can sometimes have a humorous tone that makes people laugh.  Like my post about good movies, if a person can't identify with or make a connection to a blog post, it isn't worth reading.

Kelly L.'s posts are great--the blog has a background of crazy colors, and she never fails to include images that catch my eye in her posts.  Her latest post is about John, someone she saw doing his math homework.  Even though she know absolutely nothing about him, she is able to describe him in immense detail, from the town in which he grew up to his goodbyes at the airport before coming to the University of Michigan.  I love all the metaphors Kelly uses--they made her writing sound very sophisticated, and yet the things she describes, like a boy in a messed-up situation with his parents, are not at all complex to us, and we can really identify with them, or at least understand them.

I also really like Matthew's posts; he doesn't have all the spurts of color that Kelly has, but the title of his blog, "Kippin' It Real," is a funny play on words.  That alone makes me want to read more of his blog.  His most recent post is about The Michigan Daily, which already makes it sound very professional.  I like how Matthew was able to take something professional and make it relatable to the readers, talking about how a newspaper is hard work, especially because of all the strict deadlines.  In school, we all have due dates for homework, but if we miss those due dates, it really only affects us.  If Matthew misses those deadlines, it not only affects him, but also all the people who read The Michigan Daily.

You can't have a post that includes all of things--personal stories, professionalism, and humor--because then it would just come off a chaotic.  You need to find a good balance between the three, like these previous posts have done, to attract a reader's attention.

Post #22: Martha

This girl has long, brown, curly hair and a round face.  Her eyes are big and brown, and she keeps rubbing them, as well as rubbing her nose, her forehead--her whole face, really.  Her eyelashes are very black, most likely with mascara.  She often twirls strands of her hair around her finger, making it even curlier.  She has a smaller nose, which is pierced on the left side, and her lips are very pink and pointed.  She has light skin and is wearing a black-and-white-striped short-sleeved shirt, where the stripes are diagonal on the sleeves and horizontal on the bodice.  She is also wearing red pants, which could possibly be jeans but I think are corduroy pants, and rugged black boots finish off her look.  She is reading a textbook, some type of math I think, but as she keeps playing with her hair and face, I don't think it is holding her attention very well.  She was also texting on a cell phone earlier, maybe talking to a friend or a parent, but she is here alone.

This is Martha, who is supposed to meet her friends for a calculus study group at the Shapiro library, but they all never showed up.  This makes Martha nervous, as she had trouble making friends in high school and thought that this was finally her chance, but it is not at all working out as she had planned.  She gets out her cell phone to call or text them, to ask where they are and if they are coming, but she chickened out at the last minute.  She doesn't want to seem too desperate, because then people won't like her.  Martha gets out her textbook, thinking maybe if she stops paying attention to who is coming in and out of the library and actually gets some work done, her friends will show up.  But this is to no avail, as Martha can't help but glance around as she tries to do her calculus homework, and she keeps twirling her hair around her fingers, a sign of anxiety.  She is constantly rubbing her face, trying to keep herself awake and focusing on calculus rather than what she could be doing if her friends were there, and finally, she gives up and accepts reality that not only are her friends not showing up, but she is getting nothing done.  Martha puts her calculus textbook back in her backpack, puts on her headphones, gets up, and leaves the library.  Maybe she will head to dinner, where her friends are eating dinner...or maybe she will eat alone tonight.

Post #21: Learning is Hard, But I Think Teaching is Even Harder

The most exciting thing that has happened to me lately is my Education 118 Teaching and Learning: Historical Investigation final paper.  I got the assignment last Wednesday for it to be due this morning, and of course, I didn't even start on it until yesterday.  And it was a 1,800 word paper.  AAAHHHHH!!!!!!

It's not usually like me to procrastinate like that, but we write so many papers for that class that I was just tired of it.  So, as a result, I started writing yesterday afternoon, had to make the appendix (which annoyingly took a few hours), was still writing last night, and didn't finish until about 3am.  And then I went down to the Community Learning Center of Alice Lloyd to print the entire assignment, AND THE PRINTER WAS BROKEN.  Yeah.  The printer was broken.  So I had to angrily go back upstairs and get up earlier than I would have liked so I could go to Mojo and hope someone would be nice enough to let me into their Community Learning Center so I could use their printer.

So when I went upstairs, I was super tired, the lack of a working printer put me in a bad mood, so I decided to play Candy Crush Saga on my phone.  It is the stupidest game, like a little-kid Candyland version of Bejeweled, but I am addicted to it.  Plus, it was a bad idea to play because it was already 3am, I was really tired, and I would have to get up and go out of my way to Mojo (okay, so not really out of my way as it's right there, but still).  But I still did, even though I am dead today, which was a terrible idea, but whatever.  This is college.  College is full of terrible ideas.

But guess what?!?!?!  I printed my paper this morning!  And I turned it in!  All 1,798 words!  I am actually pretty proud of myself--not just that I was able to write a 1,798-word paper in one day, but I was pretty pleased with my writing, too.  It was on a few of the learning claims (thesis statements) I had made, a few of the teaching claims I had made, and the history lesson I had taught to my brother.  In mid-October, we were all taught a simple but in-depth lesson about Pearl Harbor and Japanese internment camps by our professor, observed the professor teach this same lesson to a local high school student, and then had to go out and find an individual we could teach it to ourselves.  I taught my brother, with was an interesting experience, but I really enjoyed it, and he did a really good job.  I got some really interesting information, mostly his thoughts, feelings, and opinions on the material, out of him, and I was able to use most of it in my paper.  I think I did a good job, hopefully A-worthy.

Post #20: Dani Shapiro's Blog

Blogs are not usually things that interest me; many are just about the creator’s reviews of book, songs, and movies, about the events he is trying to promote, or random tidbits he finds interesting but doesn’t describe enough to hold my attention, but Dani Shapiro’s blog is different.  She is a writer, an actual author of novels and short stories, who has been featured everywhere from shows such as Oprah! to another blog on this list, called “The Millions,” and I find her work very interesting.

Dani’s blog consists of many different pages: the home page, advertising her most popular books, interviews, and upcoming appearance; the traditional blog page where she keeps us up to date with her posts (mainly essays); a list of the books she has written; upcoming appearances; recordings (visual, audio, and written) of the interviews she has done; contact and bibliographical information; a schedule of writing workshops given by her; and my personal favorite, her written works.  She wrote one particular story, “The Me My Child Mustn’t Know,” that really moved me.  It starts out with her son wanting to listen to NPR in the car, but she, usually grateful of the fact that they share a liking for the same radio stations, doesn’t want to listen to it that particular day.  That day, a reading of one of her older books, which she wrote in response to being in a car accident, dropping out of college with an alcohol and drug addiction, and having an affair with a married man, will be on NPR, and she does not want him to hear it.  Dani doesn’t want her son to know about her life before him and all the mistakes she has made; she does not want to give him the opportunity to judge her, but more importantly, she does not want the opportunity to judge herself for being a reckless mother.

Having no children of my own, I couldn’t identify so much with this piece, but I could definitely understand where she is coming from.  You may have completely changed since having children, but the past will always be there, and no matter who a person is, it can make them be seen in a different light.  It reminds me of a story I heard about Madonna and how she wouldn’t let her kids watch television until a certain age for fear that they would see her as the vivacious singer she once was, the life she led away from and previous to her family.  She, too, was worried about what her children would think of her, and how she would think of herself knowing about their awareness.

In addition to the depth, it is also the first person of the story—of all the stories she writes, really—that attracts my attention.  I feel like I have a more personal connection to writers who write in the first person, like I am hearing their thoughts and recollections first-hand and not interpreted by someone else.  Sure, many of the other blogs were written in first person, but they were more factual, a lot more about how “this is happening on this date” and “come to this to see my version of this,” which can be good to know, but not as interesting to me.

I like the interviews and brief reviews of her books that are on the blog as well because it shows me how far she has come in her writing, and by me being able to explore her very personal blog, I feel like I know and am proud of her.  I know it’s a strange thing to feel, but the personality and personableness (Is that a word?  If not, I’m making it up.) make it so.  They themselves are also interesting to see/hear/read, to see if the writer Dani is as similar to the Dani written about as you would think.

I chose this blog to write about and recommend for others to read because this is what I strive to make my own blog like.  Obviously, I don’t have the appearance, interviews, book lists, and workshops that I am teaching (unless I am secretly a world-famous author leading a double life), but I try to make my posts meaningful, about my thoughts on a particular subject or goings-on in my life, and not just about objective thoughts on an objective event that is going on.  To me, that is what makes for an interesting read.

Post #19: Changes

When I was in high school, I was pretty quiet with a fairly small group of friends.  Since coming to the University of Michigan, I have really been trying to be more outgoing with friends, classmates, and fellow residents of Alice Lloyd, and though I feel like I am meeting more friends and getting to know people, I haven't totally changed.  I'm still a fairly quiet person--that is, when I don't know a person very well--but I've been taking more risks socially.  I guess that's something that's changed since I got to college.



I've also developed a much better work ethic.  In high school, I got good grades, but didn't really put as much effort and thoroughness into my homework and essays as I should have.  Since being here, I have realized that's it's not possible to turn in papers and projects and to do well on exams without putting a lot of effort into it, whether that means writing multiple drafts or studying the same terms for hours at a time.  And as a result, I feel like I am learning more from the mistakes I make on assignments and fixing them so to do better.  I really feel like I am succeeding academically more now than I was before college.

Before coming to the University of Michigan, I was so ready to get out of the house.  I was going out more and giving my parents a hard time the few times I actually was home, but now that I'm here, I realize how much I relied on them before, and that I really miss them.  True, my parents are just across town, so I can visit practically anytime I want to, but the fact that I'm not actually living there right now just kind of makes me sad sometimes.  I guess this will get better as time goes on, but this was one change that I didn't expect to happen at college.

Post #18: The Road (or rather, Train Tracks) Not Taken

I think that I am going to "go this way," or write about the train tracks pictured on the course blog because, as I wasn't quite sure what to talk about, that picture seemed welcoming and somewhat familiar to me.

Those train tracks look exactly like the ones by my house, or rather, my parents' house, near the Huron River on the north-west region of Ann Arbor.  It's where my mom used to take my dog, Misty, for walks, and boy, did she love playing in the river.  My mom would go with some of her friends and their dogs sometimes, and occasionally, I would go with them.  It was fun to watch Misty and the other dogs play in the water; well, Misty didn't really play, she more just dipped in and out, as she was afraid of the floating twigs and rare waves that would flow by.  But, she did love to get wet, and that made for a great mess.  But she enjoyed herself, and that was all that mattered.

I remember another time when we took Misty to the train tracks--my mom's friend from work came to take professional photos of me and my brother, and we walked the short distance to the Huron River because it made for a pretty background.  My mom and brother were with the photographer over on the bridge while I was holding Misty on a leash near the train tracks; we were just wandering around and exploring when suddenly, a train came by.  I admit, I was a little unsettled, being so close to the train and hearing its extremely loud chugging, but she was totally freaked.  Now Misty, when she got scared, she froze in place, and you could practically hear her heart thumping.  In fact, in that moment, I could practically hear her heart thumping.  She was okay, just shocked.

On her last day, that's where we took her; to the Huron River and those train tracks.  I think that that was her favorite place, one that she knew and yet could always be exploring.  I was--am--really glad that she got to go there again.  We still haven't done anything with Misty's ashes, but I want to put them there, by the tracks and plants, even in the water.  We thought about burying them in our yard, under a little memorial stone, but I don't want to do that.  She deserves to be where she loved, in the Huron River, in the grass that grows tall, and by those train tracks.

Post #17: Great Movies

I actually did a project my senior year of high school where I watched the Academy Award-winning film from years 2000-2012, and so I got to see a lot of what makes a movie award-worthy and what is lacking from every great movie, and what I saw kind of surprised me.

Some of my favorite movies I saw were Million Dollar Baby, The Departed, Slumdog Millionaire, and Argo, and all of those movies were dramas, not comedies or horror movies.  In fact, none of the movies I saw were comedies or horror movies; they were all dramas (with the exception of Chicago, a musical, but that was still about a drama).  In order for a movie to be successful and for people to really enjoy it, it has to be relatable--not just the events, but the emotions, too.  No one wants to watch a movie about aliens taking over some far-off universe, because no one can actually relate to what is going on.  Sure, there have been successful movies about aliens taking over this universe, but because it has human characters who feel emotions like fear for their lives, love for others in danger, and even anger to overthrow those opposing them, people can connect to the film.  

Argo is about an outrageous yet completely triumphant mission in history, but because it had war, kidnapping, and a whole lot of suspense, people could relate aspects of their own lives, or at least the lives around them to it.  Slumdog Millionaire is about the poverty, religious prejudice, prostitution, and mistreatment that goes on halfway around the world, and yet people in America could still feel sympathy and empathy for the characters because their emotions were real, and they know that to at least some extent, those events do happen in actuality.  The Departed isn't quite so relatable, as it was about the Irish mafia, but it depicted the lives of two men, similar in natural being and yet raised to (unknowingly) be opposing forces and double agents for the opposite teams--a game of life and death that creates a suspense all of its own.  And, Million Dollar Baby is about an extremely relatable, not-so-bright southern girl who just wants to do what she loves, a lonely, grumpy old man, owner of a gym and who longs for his daughter to speak to him again, and how the two, in their own way, create a father-daughter bond and become a family.

So basically, as we have seen here, a movie doesn't have to be completely original to be great; it just has to be able to connect to people's emotions, either with edge-of-your-seat tension or with relatable characters and circumstances.

Post #16: It's Grown On Me

-Ella Enchanted
-The Hangover
-The Office (Mom)

At first when I began writing this post, I could not think of anything to write about.  If I don't like a movie or TV show, I typically don't watch it again.  If I don't like a book, I typically don't read again.  But I have made some exceptions.

When I was in elementary school, I started reading Ella Enchanted, but I did not like it and gave up on it after just a few pages because it was too sad.  I was upset by the fact that her mother died, her father didn't care about her, and her stepmother and stepsisters treated her terribly, taking advantage of her forced obedience.  At that young age, I didn't like to hear about sad things because it made me really upset, but when I got a little older, sometime in middle school, I picked up the book again.  This time, I wasn't upset by and actually really enjoyed the plot line because I was more mature and was able to see past the obstacles that Ella faced and got to the ending, which of course ended happily ever after.  They did make a Disney movie out of it, after all.

In middle school, I first watched The Hangover with my family.  It is a comedy, and as I thoroughly enjoy comedies, I was excited to see it; however, I didn't find the humor in the movie to be particularly funny.  Everyone else--the rest of my family, my friends and neighbors, even people I rarely associate with in school--loved it, though that it was extremely funny and one of the more well-done comedies made recently, but I disagreed.  A lot of the movie is stupid, even crude humor, but I think most of the reason I didn't like it was because everyone else did, an I wanted to be different.  Kind of silly, I know.  But after watching it again just recently, I found myself laughing at the parts I didn't enjoy before, and at the stupidity of the characters and their actions.  It took a few years, but the movie really did grow on me.

In early high school, my cousins introduced me to "The Office," and my brother and I loved it.  However, my mom didn't--she thought that the jokes were stupid and the characters were rude, especially the protagonist, Michael.  She did end up buying the first season of the show for my brother and I as a holiday gift, because we really enjoyed watching it, but she, unlike my dad, refused to watch it with us.  One day, though, she sat down on the couch while the rest of the family was watching "The Office," and--whether it was a change of heart or the particular episode's plotline, we'll never know--she actually laughed aloud at some of Michael, Jim, and Dwight's jokes.  It seemed like the second time was really the charm for her.

Post #15: The Ending of "Purple Hibiscus"

I was kind of disappointed with the ending of Purple Hibiscus; it just didn't end as I hoped it would.  However, I have to explain my feelings first.

I have to admit that I was a little relieved when the father died, firstly because it was him and not the mother (for I was scared to death that something had happened to her when first getting the phone call), and secondly, because he had done some really awful things to Kambili, Jaja, and Beatrice, and they deserved to be free of him.  Not saying that anyone deserves to die, but people deserve their freedom, nonetheless.

Back in Enugu, I was surprised that Beatrice was the one to poison Eugene, and yet it made perfect sense to me.  I think that out of everyone, he was the most (physically) abusive to her, and so, excuse the cliché, he had it coming.  She may have been a bit extreme, but I'm proud of Beatrice for taking action, for after the beating Eugene gave Kambili that landed her in the hospital, something needed to be done.

However, I was so sad when Jaja took the blame for his father's murder, and I was even sadder--and almost angry--that his mother let him do it.  Jaja was obedient to his father for so long, and grew into someone who could stand up for himself, and he gets punished for it.  I know that he was trying to be the man of the family and take care of his mother and sister, but I really wish that things had turned out differently.

What I found almost the most upsetting was how Beatrice, who always believed she needed a man in her life to tell her what to do, turns out in the end.  When she said that she and the children can't leave Eugene, because they would have no where to go and nothing to do, I agreed with Aunt Ifeoma that Beatrice was wrong, that she is a strong woman, and that she definitely does not need a man in her life to be happy.  But in the end of the Purple Hibiscus, it seemed that Aunty Ifeoma was wrong; without Eugene, or even Jaja, Beatrice seemed to wilt, to go crazy, to stop caring what others thought not because she had confidence in herself, but because she did not care about life anymore.  Seeing how Jaja was imprisoned and refused to let anyone comfort him was one thing, but this was a whole other story.  I was so glad when Beatrice cheered up for the first time at the prospect of Jaja being released from jail, but she shouldn't have to "cheer up"--she should be happy with the family and the freedoms that she has left.

Post #14: Comparisons Between "Purple Hibiscus" and Short Stories

One safe comparison to write about in my paper would be the relationship between Beatrice's miscarriage in Purple Hibiscus and the loss of a child in "A Temporary Matter."  This interests me because of how loss is dealt with in each story; in Purple Hibiscus, Beatrice, who is so excited to overcome the obstacles and finally reach pregnancy, refuses to show her devastation when Eugene destroys the fetus by beating her and just brushes over the topic.  In "A Temporary Matter" however, we can clearly see how devastated Shoba really is by her behavior to always keep her mind occupied--to avoid thinking about her lost child--and how Shukumar does anything but just brush their loss off and move on.  It is just so fascinating to see how different the behaviors are of the two couples, even though they are encountering a similar situation--why is that so?  Is love, both that between spouses and that between parent and unborn child, somehow involved?

A risky and more complex comparison I could make in my paper is the relationship of Victor and his father in "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" and that of Eugene and Papa Nnukwu.  Both Victor and Eugene have not seen their fathers in years, and so when they receive news of their deaths, they do not actually feel anything but the obligation to retrieve the body (in Victor's case) or pay for the funeral (in Eugene's case).  I think it is really sad that their families have been torn apart like this, no matter whose fault it is, and wish that they felt something more than just objective responsibility in their fathers' passing.  To me, it feels very wrong that Eugene should completely disregard and stop caring for his father just because they have different beliefs, but at least I know why those two are estranged.  What happened between Victor and his father?  As this was just a short story, there was no time to really explain the reasoning behind their separation.

The comparison that I will probably use in my paper is that of the relationships between Kambili and Eugene and between Nnamabia and his mother in "Cell One."  Rather, this one is more of a contrast; Eugene is not afraid to brutally punish Kambili when he showcases disobedience in the slightest while Nnamabia's mother always babies her son, even if he does something horrible like stealing and reselling her jewelry for pocket money.  How is it that someone who commits some pretty horrendous crimes can get off scott-free while someone who is not ranked first in her class is terribly published?  Does it depend more on how the parent treats the child than what the child actually does?  I'm interested to explore how incredibly different each parent/child relationship is and the many differences between the actions and consequences of each one.

Post #13: Page 170

     "Amaka will do it, then," Aunty Ifeoma said.  She unfolded and refolded her wrapper around her waist, knotting it at her side.
     "Why?" Amaka burst out.  "Because rich people do not prepare orah in their houses?  Won't she participate in eating the orah soup?"
     Aunty Ifeoma's eyes hardened--she was not looking at Amaka, she was looking at me.  "O ginidi, Kambili, have you no mouth?  Talk back to her!"
     I watched a wilted African lily fall from its stalk in the garden.  The crotons rustled in the late morning breeze.  "You don't have to shout, Amaka," I said, finally.  "I don't know how to do the orah leaves, but you can show me."  I did not know where the calm words had come from.  I did not want to look at Amaka, did not want to see her scowl, did not want to prompt her to say something else to me, because I knew I could not keep up.  I thought I was imagining it when I heard the cackling, but then I looked at Amaka--and sure enough, she was laughing.
     "So your voice can be this loud, Kambili," she said.
     She showed me how to prepare the orah leaves.  The slippery, light green leaves had fibrous stalks that did not become tender from cooking and so had to be carefully plucked out.  I balanced the tray of vegetables on my lap and set to work, plucking the stalks and putting the leaves in a bowl at my feet.  I was done by the time Aunty Ifeoma drove in, about an hour later, and sank onto a stool, fanning herself with a newspaper.  Sweat streaks had washed away her pressed powder in parallel lines of darker-colored skin down the sides of her face.  Jaja and Obiora were bringing in the foodstuffs from the car, and Aunty Ifeoma asked Jaja to place the bunch of plantains on the verandah floor.
                                                                                       -Purple Hibiscus, page 170

I chose this page because it contains one of my favorite parts of the novel.  Aunty Ifeoma is a strong and defiant woman who is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in, and she has raised her children to be the same way.  Kambili, on the other hand, is afraid of her own shadow; she is scared to say anything at all, not wanting to overstep her boundaries or upset anyone, least of all her father.  So when Amaka makes fun of how "rich people do not prepare orah in their houses," it is the last straw for Aunty Ifeoma, and she yells at Kambili to stand up for herself, and for once, she kind of does.  This is a shining moment for not just Kambili but also Aunty Ifeoma, because she is finally able to get rid of some of the that Eugene put into his daughter and replace it with the freedom and pride that she wants her to have.  Above all, this is the tipping point for Kambili, where she begins to not just witness freedom and individuality, but also to embrace it.  I was so proud of Aunty Ifeoma for setting into motion Kambili's realization of this.
I love the fact that Adichie uses first-person voice to write this novel--it gives it a more personal feel, when you can see right in to a character's mind, and not feel so distant from the story.  It makes it easier to picture what is happening in my mind as well, and I can just see the emotions of all the characters: Amaka's vengeful sneer, Aunty Ifeoma's raging eyes, and Kambili's fearful reluctancy to do, well...anything.  I love writing that makes you feel what the characters feel and really empathize with them, because it makes me feel like I am a part of the story and like I know each and every one of the characters personally.  The details Adichie includes, like how "sweat streaks had washed away her pressed powder in parallel lines of darker-colored skin down the sides of [Aunty Ifeoma's] face," make it so much easier to be able to picture and analyze the characters, because not only do you know what they are saying, but how their actions make them appear gives incite into Aunty Ifeoma's weariness, or Amaka's ridiculing behavior, or Kambili's disquietude.
I can take a lot away from just one page of Adichie's writing.

Post #12: My Thoughts on Other Characters

In my last post, I chose to describe Jaja, because he was my favorite character.  I loved his love towards Kambili and his mother, his acceptance into his extended family's new way of life, and his defiance toward his father, but after reading this last passage, Aunty Ifeoma has almost pushed him out of the way for the title role of Number One.

Aunty Ifeoma

Before Jaja (and not counting the brief refusal to go to Mass in the beginning), Aunty Ifeoma was the only one who stood up to Eugene, and therefore, was the only one who ever got him to back down.  That is something that I am really proud of in her, that she is unafraid of the man who everyone fears, and by showing her outright defiance, she can get what she wants.  I really dislike Eugene; how he treats his kids, how he treats his wife, and how he treats his father, who gave him life and yet doesn't deserve to live because he is not a Catholic.  Aunty Ifeoma knows how horrible Eugene is but also knows that she isn't able to do anything to stop his behavior, so she does the only thing she can do: take Jaja and Kambili away for a week and treat them how she treats her own family.

Kambili

I feel sad that it has taken them up until now to witness it, but I love the respect and freedom that Aunty Ifeoma gives her children, and now her niece and nephew.  It lets them see a world outside their own, that you don't have to stay strictly on schedule and in a certain belief to have a good and successful life.  Jaja understood that early on, but it took Kambili a while to reach that mindset; parts of me were annoyed with her for disliking anything new and against her father's ways, because not only is life better when you are open-minded, but Papa is the person who Kambili should not be so keen to please and to strictly follow.  He is horrible to her, and instead of directly showing that, Aunty Ifeoma shows Kambili a life where she can stand up for herself and her freedoms without punishment.  One of my favorite parts of the novel is when Amaka makes fun of Kambili for not knowing how to prepare orah leaves, and instead of yelling at Amaka to be nice, like she usually does, Aunty Ifeoma yells at Kambili to stick up for herself.  It is this, more than anything else, that gives Kambili more confidence in the face of her family and friends.

Post #11: A Sketch of Jaja

Jaja is an important character in the story, as he is quiet and obedient like Kambili, yet also strong-willed and longs to be defiant towards his father.  We see this defiance at the beginning of the story, when he takes the rebellious road and refuses to go to Mass one day.  However, after that, his character becomes more passive, and the only times we hear him speak are when he says something pleasing to his father, or when he and Kambili are alone together.  It is the times when he and Kambili are alone that we see the true Jaja; at these times, he talks about things like wanting to keep their new baby sibling away from his father's wrath, or wanting to go to Aunty Ifeoma's house to get away from him.

There are many different characters that are influential to Jaja, and with each one, a connection can be made to an aspect of his personality.  When he is at his home, Jaja's father, and even Kambili, have a great effect on him.  As seen with Jaja's finger, his father beats him if he does not achieve perfection.  This pressures Jaja to be nothing but well-behaved, hard-working, and obedient to everyone, especially his father, for if he strays from this, another beating is on the way.  Jaja is similar to Kambili in this way, because he can be hesitant, quiet, and almost scared like her, not wanting to cross their father for fear of the consequences.  However, a difference between the two is that while she loves always aims to please their father, he goes through life listening to him but also hating him.  When he goes to Aunty Ifeoma's house, he sees how life could be with such a freedom that his father never allows, and he really likes what he sees.  Aunty Ifeoma's influence on him brings out his connection to Amaka, who is a free spirit who does what she wants and doesn't worry about the consequences.  Though I have not seen it yet, I predict that this connection will revert him back to his rebellious ways, and he will be less afraid of his father.