Irene Holmes
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
June 20, 2009
Reading Response #3: Contextualizing
The Rainy River
O’Brien brings his audience back in time in the short story, The Rainy River, by using dates, name of landmarks and names of the characters. O’Brien begins by telling his audience that he has never told this story to anyone because of the shame it brought him. O’Brien portrays a young man who receives a draft letter in the summer of 1968 right after he graduates college and faced with a decision that will impact his life forever. He was against the Vietnam War because he believed that it was not justified enough to have lives taken. Despite his disposition, he was unable to get out of being drafted and his home town and family impose pressure that young men should serve their country.. With emotions running high, O’Brien decides to make a run for the Canadian border to escape from the U.S. draft for military. As he ventures closer to Canada O’Brien is welcomed into a resort run by an elderly man who lives right along a river which divides the United States and Canada. During his stay he learns about himself and comes to a final decision, to drafted or not to be drafted.
Based on the reading O’Brien receives a draft letter for the Vietnam War in “June of 1968, a month after graduating from Macalester College…a war I hated. I was only twenty one years old.“. (O’Brien 630). Based on internet research the “United States involvement in Vietnam war dated from 1948 to 1973...December 1, 1969 marked the date of the first draft lottery held since 1942...affecting men between 18 and 26 years old.“ (http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/Vietnam/). This allows the reader to place themselves in that part of time while reading the short story and the dates are relevant to time and era. Since this website was last modified march 2009 contains contact information, the resource is reliable.
During the Vietnam War, by 1972 more than “70,000 draft evaders and deserters were living in Canada” (http://www.landscaper.net/draft.htm), which was O’Brien’s initial goal to flee into Canada to avoid drafting, “in mid-July I began thinking serious about Canada. the border lay a few hundred miles north, an eight hour drive. Both my conscience and my instincts were telling me to make a break for it, just take off and run like hell and never stop…Run.” (O’Brien 633). This website was last modified March 2009 and also has contact numbers which makes it a reliable source. Being able to find sources with statistical information gives the readers that men like O’Brien did really flee into Canada to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War era.
The O’Brien’s place of exile during his run to Canada was at a “fishing resort called Tip Top Lodge…a place to lie low for a day or two.” (O’Brien 636) which was along Rainy River, Minnesota. This river is “85 miles long that forms part of the U.S.-Canada border separating northern Minnesota and Northwestern Ontario” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainy_River). The name and landmark is detailed information allowing the reader to visualize and place themselves in the story making it more realistic. The website was last updated June 2009 and has no contact numbers, so again one would have to be careful about using the site as a resource and anyone can state anything without facts so again not a good resource.
O’Brien is welcome into the lodge by an elderly man name “Elroy Berdahl: eighty-one years old, skinny and shrunken and mostly bald…as he peered up at me I felt a strange sharpness, almost painful, a cutting sensation, as if his gaze were somehow slicing me open…the old man took one look and went to the heart of things-a kid in trouble.” (O’Brien 636). Berdahl was quiet and kept to himself, without question, O’Brien had a hunch “that he already knew. At least the basic. After all it was 1968 and guys were burning draft cards, and Canada was just a boat ride away. Elroy Berdahl was no hick.” (O’Brien 637). Berdahl gave O’Brien his own personal time to figure out his inner personal dilemma and feeling of the draft, so when the day came to be release out from Berdahl’s wings, “he must have planned it. I’ll never be certain, of course, but I think he meant to bring me up against the realities, to guide me across the river and take me to the edge and to stand a kind of vigil as I chose a life for myself.” (O’Brien 642). This Elroy Berdahl character is a name of a real person living in Minnesota and now 99 years of age based on the internet search under white pages. (http://www.whitepages.com/). This is a good resource site in finding names but does not give the life history of the person. To prove if Berdahl is the real person in the story would be hard to prove, because there is no bibliography.
As O’Brien’s shame to ever tell his story brought him courage to make a stand on a personal and emotional decision about being drafted to go to war during the Vietnam War and to admit to one’s self on courage. “The day was cloudy. I passed through towns with familiar names, through the pine forest and down to the prairie, and then to Vietnam, where I was a soldier, and the home again. I survived, but it’s not a happy ending. I was a coward. I went to the war.” (O’Brien 645).
Oates, Joyce Carol and Beha, Christopher R. The ecco anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction. 1. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008 O’Brien, Tim. On The Rainy River.
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/Vietnam/
http://www.landscaper.net/draft.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainy_River
http://www.whitepages.com/
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Blog #2: Research Project
Community: Pima Indians and Diabetes
1. Internet resource: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/DM/pubs/pima/obesity/obesity.htm
This internet site will be useful to the community that I will be researching. The site states the reason why Diabetes Type II is more prevelant to the Pima Indians than any other tribes. Still will allow me to prove a point of what kind of prevention and intervention is best to reduce the incidence rate of Diabetes Type II among the Pima Indians.
Contact NNIDK: General inquiries may be addressed to: Office of Communications & Public LiaisonNIDDK, NIHBuilding 31. Rm 9A0631 Center Drive, MSC 2560Bethesda, MD 20892-2560USA For information about NIDDK programs: 301.496.3583
Last updated May 2002.
The material is useful but if I need to research for numbers of incidence rate with the current date then I may have to find other sources to find the information needed to support my research paper.
2. Article resource: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/may/native-americas-alleles
Since this article is a magazine article, no work sited is found. Although it is still a good resource that quotes are found through out the article.
1. Internet resource: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/DM/pubs/pima/obesity/obesity.htm
This internet site will be useful to the community that I will be researching. The site states the reason why Diabetes Type II is more prevelant to the Pima Indians than any other tribes. Still will allow me to prove a point of what kind of prevention and intervention is best to reduce the incidence rate of Diabetes Type II among the Pima Indians.
Contact NNIDK: General inquiries may be addressed to: Office of Communications & Public LiaisonNIDDK, NIHBuilding 31. Rm 9A0631 Center Drive, MSC 2560Bethesda, MD 20892-2560USA For information about NIDDK programs: 301.496.3583
Last updated May 2002.
The material is useful but if I need to research for numbers of incidence rate with the current date then I may have to find other sources to find the information needed to support my research paper.
2. Article resource: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/may/native-americas-alleles
Since this article is a magazine article, no work sited is found. Although it is still a good resource that quotes are found through out the article.
Reading Response #2: Explication/close Reading
Irene Holmes
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
June 15, 2009
Reading Response #2: Explication/Close Reading
Night Women
Edwidge Danticat, the author of Night Women, introduces the narrator “night women” who lives a unique life afar from those who live the life of the “day women”. Although her living conditions and the way she earns a dollar maybe some what discouraging, “night women” like any other female, is still a very protective and compassionate mother to her little boy.
“Night women” like any other person has to make a living to shelter and feed herself and her family, “The night is the time I dread most in my life. Yet if I am to live, I must depend on it.” (Danticat 203). As “night women” gets ready for work, her son also settles into bed for the night, with only a fabric to separate their space. “Night women” is presented a protective mother by offering her son her “long blood-red scarf” which she only uses “during the day to tempt” her “suitors”. The red scarf is a symbol safety and comfort, “he always has something of mine when my face is out of sight.” (Danticat 204). As any mother would, giving a child something that will symbolize comfort will engage the child to be more comfortable in a given place or time.
The protective mode continues as “night women” implements a plan of action should her son awaken to her nightly work, “Should my son wake up, I have prepared my fabrication….I will tell him that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from Heaven for a while.” (Danticat 206). When a child is scared or sees something that is inappropriate, a mother will fabricate the story to lessen the fear of a child or to shield the child of inappropriate behavior induced by adults.
Through out the passage, the physical actions between “night women” and her son implies the loving compassion she has toward her son, “When my smallest finger caresses the narrow cleft beneath his nose…He moans and turns away, perhaps thinking that this too is a part of a dream.” (Danticat 205) and “I whisper my mountain stories in his ears…my fingers coil themselves into visions of birds on his nose. I want him to forget that we live in a place where nothing lasts.” (Danticat 205) Though “ night women” may be getting ready for work every night she still takes the time to interact with her son as he falls asleep which shows affection and compassion of a mother.
Danticat presents a very controversial issue of how a mother whose duties begin at night and at that same moment she continues to care for a child. Danticat use of words to portray the mother as “night women” is very tasteful to the reader, in reality a “night women” is usually presented in propane language which makes it distasteful especially if the story involves a child. The narrator is presented in tactful way that makes it acceptable despite her nightly duties, “night women” is still a very protective and compassionate mother to a young boy.
Oates, Joyce Carol and Beha, Christopher R. The ecco anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction. 1. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008 Danticat, Edwidge. Night Women.
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
June 15, 2009
Reading Response #2: Explication/Close Reading
Night Women
Edwidge Danticat, the author of Night Women, introduces the narrator “night women” who lives a unique life afar from those who live the life of the “day women”. Although her living conditions and the way she earns a dollar maybe some what discouraging, “night women” like any other female, is still a very protective and compassionate mother to her little boy.
“Night women” like any other person has to make a living to shelter and feed herself and her family, “The night is the time I dread most in my life. Yet if I am to live, I must depend on it.” (Danticat 203). As “night women” gets ready for work, her son also settles into bed for the night, with only a fabric to separate their space. “Night women” is presented a protective mother by offering her son her “long blood-red scarf” which she only uses “during the day to tempt” her “suitors”. The red scarf is a symbol safety and comfort, “he always has something of mine when my face is out of sight.” (Danticat 204). As any mother would, giving a child something that will symbolize comfort will engage the child to be more comfortable in a given place or time.
The protective mode continues as “night women” implements a plan of action should her son awaken to her nightly work, “Should my son wake up, I have prepared my fabrication….I will tell him that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from Heaven for a while.” (Danticat 206). When a child is scared or sees something that is inappropriate, a mother will fabricate the story to lessen the fear of a child or to shield the child of inappropriate behavior induced by adults.
Through out the passage, the physical actions between “night women” and her son implies the loving compassion she has toward her son, “When my smallest finger caresses the narrow cleft beneath his nose…He moans and turns away, perhaps thinking that this too is a part of a dream.” (Danticat 205) and “I whisper my mountain stories in his ears…my fingers coil themselves into visions of birds on his nose. I want him to forget that we live in a place where nothing lasts.” (Danticat 205) Though “ night women” may be getting ready for work every night she still takes the time to interact with her son as he falls asleep which shows affection and compassion of a mother.
Danticat presents a very controversial issue of how a mother whose duties begin at night and at that same moment she continues to care for a child. Danticat use of words to portray the mother as “night women” is very tasteful to the reader, in reality a “night women” is usually presented in propane language which makes it distasteful especially if the story involves a child. The narrator is presented in tactful way that makes it acceptable despite her nightly duties, “night women” is still a very protective and compassionate mother to a young boy.
Oates, Joyce Carol and Beha, Christopher R. The ecco anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction. 1. New York, NY. HarperCollins Publishers. 2008 Danticat, Edwidge. Night Women.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Blog Entry #1 Research Ideas
10 Communities I belong to:
1) Nursing Student
2) Teaching Hopi Culture to Young Children**
3) Working with Veterans*
4) Living Off the Reservation, Effects on Personal Life
5) Cooking
6) Saving the Environment
7) Teaching Toddlers ABC's, Colors, and Numbers
8) Benefits of Sports
9) Pittsburg Steelers
10) Diabetes Among Native American Indians***
1) Teaching Hopi Culture to Young Children
web search: The Hopi Nation In 1980: This web site is about how to revitalize the Hopi language and culture. But since Hopi children are not initiated into certain society that Hopi culture should not be taught in a classroom setting. Cultural teaching should take place in the home between the child, parents and grandparents.
2) Working with Veterans
web search: Homelessness in America: This web site is about what risk factors that lead to veterans becoming homeless and what population group is at higer risk and findings interventions to solve and aid in homelessness.
3) Diabetes among Native American Indians
web search: Native Americans and Diabetes: This web site is about awareness of diabetes among the Native American population. Awareness of diabetes for prevention and intervention and changing life styles of Native American Indian communities. Pros and cons of what prevention and intervention will work.
1) Nursing Student
2) Teaching Hopi Culture to Young Children**
3) Working with Veterans*
4) Living Off the Reservation, Effects on Personal Life
5) Cooking
6) Saving the Environment
7) Teaching Toddlers ABC's, Colors, and Numbers
8) Benefits of Sports
9) Pittsburg Steelers
10) Diabetes Among Native American Indians***
1) Teaching Hopi Culture to Young Children
web search: The Hopi Nation In 1980: This web site is about how to revitalize the Hopi language and culture. But since Hopi children are not initiated into certain society that Hopi culture should not be taught in a classroom setting. Cultural teaching should take place in the home between the child, parents and grandparents.
2) Working with Veterans
web search: Homelessness in America: This web site is about what risk factors that lead to veterans becoming homeless and what population group is at higer risk and findings interventions to solve and aid in homelessness.
3) Diabetes among Native American Indians
web search: Native Americans and Diabetes: This web site is about awareness of diabetes among the Native American population. Awareness of diabetes for prevention and intervention and changing life styles of Native American Indian communities. Pros and cons of what prevention and intervention will work.
This so hard to chose, but in the end I will get more internet search support with the Diabetes among Native American Indians as to why the rate of diabetes is continously increasing even with implentation of prevention and interventions.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Reading Response #1: Reader Response
Irene Holmes
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
7 June 2009
Reading Response #1: Reader Response
Love of My Life
The short essay, The Love of My Life by T.C. Boyle is about two young high school couple, China and Jeremy who both are madly in love with each other and appeared inseparable. As summer breaks the couple have more time to spend with each other before parting to two different colleges in the fall. A moment of heated passion by the lake will change their lives for ever. By fall, China goes off to college pregnant and so does Jeremy. China and Jeremy keep in touch by phone as months pass and one night China wakes up with her bed wet and in a lot of pain. China phones Jeremy and the couple meet a motel, where a new nightmare begins. China has her baby in a motel and Jeremy get rid of the baby by tossing it into a dumpster. The couple think they both solve their problem, but this is just a beginning of their new lives. Both pay a price by going to jail and being held a hostage at home with a house arrest anklet.
I enjoyed reading the short essay, The Love of My Life because the story takes a turn from being so romantic to a nightmare. The writer keeps the story realistic in time and place as the story takes place , especially China‘s pregnancy keeps up with the time line of the whole nine months of a pregnancy. Also the writer give a lot of details of where the event is taking place, “The rain, of course. It came midway through the third day, clouds the color of iron fillings, the lake hammered to iron too and the storm that crashed through the trees and beat at their tent with a thousand angry fist.” (Pg. 139).
My first reaction after reading the short essay, The Love of My Life was what ignorant and inhumane young couple. Spoiled kids who never think ahead and just live for the moment. It wants to make you slap them and tell them wake up. The story sort of give hints of what the couple may end up doing, like where it states, “And the sex. They were careful, always careful-I will never, never be like those breeders that brings their puffed-up squalling little red faced babies to class….but she had forgotten to pack her pills….” (Pg. 139). At this point I knew that China will probable get pregnant.
The short essay, The Love of My Life is written to entertain the audience because the story is not persuading or informing. It was about a romance that takes a turn and no matter what the case may be, China’s love for Jeremy is always there. The story begins by entertain the audience, “They wore each other like a pair of socks….their fingers were entwined, their shoulders touching, their hips joined in the slow triumphant sashay of love.” (Pg. 133) and ends the story with “She moved into his arms and they kissed,….He was Jeremy. He was the love of her life. And she closed her eyes and clung to him as if that were all that mattered.” (Pg. 152). Entertainment from beginning to the end.
Ms. Darrow
ENG 140
7 June 2009
Reading Response #1: Reader Response
Love of My Life
The short essay, The Love of My Life by T.C. Boyle is about two young high school couple, China and Jeremy who both are madly in love with each other and appeared inseparable. As summer breaks the couple have more time to spend with each other before parting to two different colleges in the fall. A moment of heated passion by the lake will change their lives for ever. By fall, China goes off to college pregnant and so does Jeremy. China and Jeremy keep in touch by phone as months pass and one night China wakes up with her bed wet and in a lot of pain. China phones Jeremy and the couple meet a motel, where a new nightmare begins. China has her baby in a motel and Jeremy get rid of the baby by tossing it into a dumpster. The couple think they both solve their problem, but this is just a beginning of their new lives. Both pay a price by going to jail and being held a hostage at home with a house arrest anklet.
I enjoyed reading the short essay, The Love of My Life because the story takes a turn from being so romantic to a nightmare. The writer keeps the story realistic in time and place as the story takes place , especially China‘s pregnancy keeps up with the time line of the whole nine months of a pregnancy. Also the writer give a lot of details of where the event is taking place, “The rain, of course. It came midway through the third day, clouds the color of iron fillings, the lake hammered to iron too and the storm that crashed through the trees and beat at their tent with a thousand angry fist.” (Pg. 139).
My first reaction after reading the short essay, The Love of My Life was what ignorant and inhumane young couple. Spoiled kids who never think ahead and just live for the moment. It wants to make you slap them and tell them wake up. The story sort of give hints of what the couple may end up doing, like where it states, “And the sex. They were careful, always careful-I will never, never be like those breeders that brings their puffed-up squalling little red faced babies to class….but she had forgotten to pack her pills….” (Pg. 139). At this point I knew that China will probable get pregnant.
The short essay, The Love of My Life is written to entertain the audience because the story is not persuading or informing. It was about a romance that takes a turn and no matter what the case may be, China’s love for Jeremy is always there. The story begins by entertain the audience, “They wore each other like a pair of socks….their fingers were entwined, their shoulders touching, their hips joined in the slow triumphant sashay of love.” (Pg. 133) and ends the story with “She moved into his arms and they kissed,….He was Jeremy. He was the love of her life. And she closed her eyes and clung to him as if that were all that mattered.” (Pg. 152). Entertainment from beginning to the end.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
ENG 140
Hello, my name is Irene Holmes. I am of Lakota and Navajo descent. I am taking this course for nursing.
My three goals for the course are:
1)Being able to apply critical thinking when making decisions while doing patient care.
2)Expanding my vocabulary, I feel that I only know the very basic usage of English. (help)
3)Comprehend what I am reading, I get lost in reading alot.
My three goals for the course are:
1)Being able to apply critical thinking when making decisions while doing patient care.
2)Expanding my vocabulary, I feel that I only know the very basic usage of English. (help)
3)Comprehend what I am reading, I get lost in reading alot.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)