Hello everyone and welcome back! In this blog assignment, we were asked to read Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway. It was about a couple on a train station arguing about whether or not they should have an abortion. In reading the story, we learned about motifs, symbols and how to write with some dialogue. I also felt many emotions and the two that I was able to relate to the most was discomfort and uncertainty. In this blog, I am going to write about the day I left the Philippines and how I was very unprepared for that moment. “Watch the house.” “What about it?” I asked my little brother. “It’s going to get smaller and smaller until you can’t see it.” My two brothers and I stuck our heads onto the car window. “Goodbye truck” “Goodbye house” “Goodbye Grandpa” We started naming a lot of the things and people we were leaving behind. We winced as the house got smaller. Finally my father took the slight turn which made the house vanish. My brothers and I screamed as we realized that that was the last time we would see the house. It felt like a sin to have the image fade slowly in our minds but there was nothing we could do to control it. I do still remember the dirty bricks with the vines growing over them, the rusty red gates with peeling paint and the dark brown soil which surrounded the front of the house. The place wasn't well taken care of but it was home. The car ride lasted for a couple hours. It may be a small country but due to how the roads were constructed and the heavy population, traffic was horrible. It was odd to see both my parents in the car together since they’ve been divorced for a very long time but my brothers and I were thankful that everything seems to be just fine and that our father was with us. The clouds began to darken and that made sense since it was late May, the rainy season of the Philippines was on its way. When we arrived at the airport, it started pouring. The front was packed with so many people and cars that I could not even see the entrance. “I’ll just drop you off here” said my dad. Our youngest sibling panicked, “No! You’re leaving this soon? I thought you were coming with us, please don’t leave.” “Don’t worry, I'm coming in,” my dad laughed, “I just have to find a good parking spot and we need to drop off a lot of luggage.” All of us kids were relieved as we were all thinking the same thing. We took our bags and got soaked in the cold rain. We waited for him inside at a 7 Eleven store. My dad arrived and we decided to eat together. This was also going to be one of those "last times." “Bhrodyne, sit here with daddy, I’ll take pictures of you two.” My dad wrapped his arms around my brother tightly and tickled him until he was screaming. “When you come back, you’re going to be such a big boy!” Bhrodyne giggled, “Yeah and I’ll finally get my 1 on 1 and beat you up!” “You wish.” “No way, you won’t be able to handle all my strength, not even 50 percent of it.” The scrawny little boy boasted. “Oh, you really think so?” He started tickling him again and even put him in a head lock until he yelled, "Tap, tap, tap!” We hung out for an hour or 2 in the 7 Eleven until it was time to go. My father turned to me, “Maxyne, you know what, we don’t really have to worry, I don’t want you and the boys to be sad. When we talk again, it will be as if we just saw each other yesterday. This is nothing.” I agreed and I knew this to be true because my dad would usually disappear for weeks at a time but whenever he came back, everything was always back to normal like nothing ever happened. As we were boarding our luggage onto the plane, my friend messages me, “Hey, do not board your guitar on the plane because they’ll toss it and you’ll have to buy a brand new one. It happened to me twice.” I told my mom that I had to give my guitar back to my dad and she let me. I ran as fast as I could, jumped over big carts, went through bags and crowds to get to my dad before he left. This was my first ever electric guitar which my father gave to me when I was 13, a black Gibson Les Paul. I didn't want to give it back because it was one of the only few things I had that reminded me of him. He saw me and I explained to him they’d snap my guitar’s neck and that I already had a hand carry. He took my guitar which was wrapped in a black fabric case and put it around his shoulder. I hugged him tightly, holding back all of my tears. We said our goodbyes and I love yous. I walked backwards and gave one final wave. The words of my brother echoed in the back of my mind: “Smaller and smaller until you can’t see it.” I watched him until he was swallowed by the crowed of people. Through the tight exit and big glass windows, the clouds were still dark outside, contrasting the bright white walls of the airport.
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Welcome back! This is my third blog assignment for my English Composition class. In this assignment we were asked to read several passages that would help us compose an emotional scene from our lives. The passages included “My Name Is Margaret,” which is a small section from Maya Angelou’s book, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”. In that passage, I read about how Mrs. Cullinan, changed Margaret’s name into “Mary” because “Margaret” was just too long for her. This then infuriated Margaret. Although my story will not be focused on anger, I did relate to the feeling of losing one's identity and isolation.
3 years ago, my ex blindfolded me on the way to a surprise. I honestly thought we were going to his house and I was going to remove my blindfold to some nasty raw chicken like last time. It was pitch black and so quiet for a good 20 minutes until the driver yelled angrily "EJ, please sit down I can't see the damn road!" Wait, EJ is not my ex's name. I wasn't aware that there were several more people in the back of the car. We all burst out laughing and cussing the driver as he just uncovered my surprise birthday party! My friends told me to wait until we reached the venue. When I untied my blindfold, they all screamed, "Surprise!" We were in a sports plaza and after tiring ourselves by playing a bunch of different games and finally having delicious chocolate cake, one of my friends brought a box onto the table. It was about the size of a regular shoe box but with patterns and a little bow on top. What I found inside brought me to tears. It was multiple letters from many of my other close friends. The letters were all handwritten behind photographs of me with whoever wrote the letter. They made me this special present because they knew I was leaving the country in 3 months. That was probably the happiest and saddest day of my life. I left the Philippines on May 27 of 2017 and whenever I look at those letters now, I feel happy but also a sense of loneliness. Although leaving was going to be beneficial for me, it also sucked because had to leave many people who were close to my heart. Most of them I’ve known for over 10 years. I also left not knowing when I will ever see them again. My family, friends and I didn’t worry so much at first because we knew that we would be able to communicate through the internet. Unfortunately, when I moved, we realized our time zones were exactly 12 hours apart. That means when someone is going to bed, the other is just getting up. It was challenging to find a time that worked for both people especially with school, work and family to take care of. This was definitely hard for everyone, especially for me because I was in such a new environment with no one to really talk to. Being in a new country means experiencing a different culture. Learning about other people and the way they live can be fun but sometimes it made me feel alone. I didn’t really have anyone to relate with nor anyone to understand me fully. No one has had to deal with leaving their whole family and basically all of the people who has been by their side their whole life behind. I’ve tried making many friends here and I do get along with people easily but it never feels the same. I consider most of the people I meet as acquaintances rather than friends. Sometimes, I even have to deal with people who would treat me like garbage just because I’m Asian. I’ve heard a couple comments in the halls of my predominantly white and black high school. I only knew about 5 Asians there, most of them born here thus not knowing how the Asian culture is really like. In the process of living here, I find myself adapt to the new culture. There’s nothing wrong with it but I do occasionally get lost and forget who I am. My looks have changed, my values have changed, my sense of humor and just about everything. I’ve changed so much that I don’t even recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I'm worried and afraid that when I come back home, no one is going to recognize the person I’ve become inside and out. When I was little my dad taught me that “the only constant thing in life is change”. This has helped me go through life when it got tough. Sometimes reading the letters and looking at the photographs behind them brings tears to my eyes. It hurts to know that I will never get to experience or feel the same way again. I may be a little upset but at least I know I had a great time in the Philippines with a bunch great people. That somehow, although thousands of miles away, people still care about me. That despite growing apart, there will still always be a special connection between them that I can never have with anyone else here. Things may be different but when I read those letters, I feel at home. It gives me hope that maybe one day, I will feel the same way about this new place too. Hello and welcome back! I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. In this second blog assignment for my English Composition class, I was asked to read and annotate texts (which I will link down below) from Don Murray, Marry Karr and Anne Lamott. I will be setting my own scene for a writers’ roundtable discussion about the writing process. I have provided 3 quotes from each reading creating a total of 9 quotes (I may have added an extra 1 or 2 more). I had a fun time creating this little story as I experimented with my creative side. This assignment helped me open my eyes to the steps it takes to create a good writing composition.
It was a chilly Saturday afternoon when I went into Barnes and Noble to finally buy the required book for my Sociology class. As I was trying to look for Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson in one of the aisles, I saw that there were long lines of people located close to the left side of the building. I was curious to see what all those people were waiting in line for as there were no counters on that side. As I approached, I saw that there were 3 long tables side by side. Behind one of them was a man sitting on an office chair and the other two had a woman each. The woman in the middle had beautiful long brown hair and the other lady beside her had blonde dreads that reached her shoulders. They looked oddly familiar and then it hit me, those are famous writers! It was Don Murray, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. They were having an autograph signing here at Barnes and Nobles. Anxiety began to fill my mind as I realize that I have a few blog assignments due for my English Composition class this coming week and I have not started on them yet! I was never quite good at writing nor even confident about my work so I took this as an opportunity for me to ask these three skilled writers for some advice. I decided to wait in one of the lines for Don Murray. When it was finally my turn, I introduced myself and informed him about my dilemma. I asked him what does a person or a student like me have to do in order to have quality work. He looked at me and adjusted his big chunky specs, “When we teach composition, we are not teaching a product, we are teaching a process”. Puzzled, I asked him another question, “Since it’s not about a product but a process instead, what kind of steps should I take? How is this writing process like?” He replied to me, “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: pre-writing, writing, and rewriting. The amount of time a writer spends in each stage depends on his personality, his work habits, his maturity as a craftsman, and the challenge of what he is trying to say.” “Do I really have to go through all of that?” “It is not a rigid lock-step process, but most writers most of the time pass through these three stages.” Mary Karr from the table next to us chimed in, “Revision is the secret to their troubles—and yours. That, and a sense of quality that exceeds what you can do—that gives you something to strive for. Actually, every writer needs two selves—the generative self and the editor self” Murray agreed with her and gestured a nod when he looked back at me. He and I talked for another minute or two and in my conversation with him, I learned that pre-writing takes most of the writer’s time, it can include daydreaming, note-making, outlining and so much more. The fastest part is the writing or producing the first draft. Rewriting is researching, rethinking, and redesigning the subject. Before I left, he told me, “Writing is a demanding, intellectual process; but sooner than you think, for the process can be put to work to produce a product which may be worth your reading.” Things started to make much more sense to me and I thanked him for his time. I then moved on to the next table hoping to speak with Mary Karr. As I waited in line for my turn, I heard her say “Every writer I know who’s worth a damn spends way more time “losing” than “winning"." When I approached her, I asked her what that had meant. “I’ve heard three truths from every mouth: (1) Writing is painful—it’s “fun” only for novices, the very young, and hacks; (2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision; (3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.” I remembered Murray and her advice about revision but I was confused by her last point so I asked, “What do you mean by the last thing you said? Does this mean for me to be a great writer I have to read a bunch of old books?” She explained how she read many literary biographies like Walter Jackson Bate on Keats and Coleridge; Enid Starkie on Baudelaire and Rimbaud; Diane Middlebrook on Anne Sexton; Ian Hamilton on Robert Lowell; Paul Mariani on William Carlos Williams. She explained that by reading those biographies, she got a sense of the person’s time in history which usually aided her to understand the styles of their writing in that context. You could see what kinds of literary pressures, fashions and values affected their work. Mary Karr moved some of the hair that was on her face behind an ear, “Reading through history cultivates in a writer a standard of quality higher than the marketplace." I was in awe with all this information I was hearing and realized that I should be reading a lot more. I smiled, thanked her as well for her time and left as there were many more people waiting in line behind me. Finally, I arrived in front of Anne Lamott’s table and introduced myself one last time. She asked me what brings such young person like me here and if I liked to write too. “A little bit, I’ve never been good at it, I’m horrible at writing” I said embarrassingly. She laughed, “Shitty first drafts. All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts." “That’s easy for you to say, you’re literally a pro at these things!” She laughed some more and explained, “People tend to look at successful writers, writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially, and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.” We both started laughing. Lammot said with a smile, “Don’t worry about doing it well yet, though. Just start getting it down. Try to get the words and memories down as they occur to you. Don’t worry if what you write is no good, because no one is going to see it." I've never felt so excited to start writing. I came home very inspired and thankful after speaking to these three amazing writers. I sat myself down in front of my computer and was able to begin writing my first draft. Words filled the paper so quick and I just didn’t know how to stop until I realized I had forgotten to buy the sociology book. Hello everyone! Welcome to my first blog assignment for my English Composition class. Here I will be answering all 35 questions from The Proust Questionnaire. It was made by Marcel Proust, a French essayist and novelist, 132 years ago. He believed that by answering these questions, an individual reveals his or her true nature. I had fun filling out these questions so to anybody who wants to give it try or learn more about Marcel Proust, I have provided some links down below. Marcel Proust Biography The Proust Questionnaire
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Maxyne LimcacoHi! Welcome to my blog. Archives
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