The story, “Dancer,” was very sad and inspiring. The little girl, Clarissa, was full of sadness and her soul was black. Learning the dance was her salvation, which had lightened her world and soul. I was and still am in love with this story.

            It was a wonderful story to read. I can relate with Clarissa pretty well. It was nice to see the woman to take in Clarissa. The woman who took Clarissa in made a right decision on letting Clarissa to learn dance. Learning dance made her a happy five years old girl.

            Reason why I could relate to Clarissa was that I had some nightmares. Only that I was three years old. I remember sleeping on my parents’ bed. In my dream, a man with a long knife chased me right over the 100-stories building. I remember the man successfully stabbed the knife into my heart in the mid-air. I remember gagging when I woke up. That was very unnatural dream for a toddler.

            The title of this story applies to me because I was a dancer. I danced for 13 years, and last June was my last dance performance. I danced Jazz and Ballet. (If you want to see what I looked like in dance, then go to the links below this blog.) Dancing made me feel free and light. So does it to Clarissa. I could understand how she felt about watching and joining the dance.

            I wondered what does “A pair of pants barely holding a crotch,” meant? Maybe that means she got second-handed pants that was too big for her. I want to know if the woman who took in Clarissa knows what Sociopath means. Maybe the woman was not that educated. How or what made Clarissa have these kinds of dreams? Why did Clarissa try to kill the cat? Maybe she had bad experience with the cats. I wonder if Clarissa was an Indian. Because she joined Powwow and might be of Assiniboine tribe.

            It was terrible to see Clarissa being like that. Being called sociopath, has no real family, and has bad dreams. She might have gone through a lot of difficult time before she came upon to the woman who took her in. Dancing must be her sanctuary. I recommend everyone to read this story. I will have some of my friends to read it.

The links to pictures and gif of me dancing.

http://shorelinemedia.smugmug.com/Sports/Calista-Dance-Recital/12453143_rcEhF#891776174_KQh6E (Third from the left)

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/74/l_2e00f0f26cd1e84de184a0813f0cb7ac.gif

http://shorelinemedia.smugmug.com/Sports/Calista-Dance-Recital/12453143_rcEhF#891775634_beXML

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/106/l_afd1daa54f79b060ee8d9742454728f9.gif

http://shorelinemedia.smugmug.com/Sports/Calista-Dance-Recital/12453143_rcEhF#891773620_CWY6A (Third from the left)

"A House of My Own" by Sandra Cisneros, and "Saturday at the Canal" by Gary Soto.

These two poems are called “A House of My Own,” and “Saturday at the Canal.” When I read the first poem, the woman was very happy that she got her own home, and have it all for herself. Because the way she said about several things such as that she has her pillow, purple petunias, books, and stories.

I got the feeling that this woman is elderly because she said “Nobody to shake a stick at.” The saying sounds like she has a walking cane. Most of the time, old people will set their shoes right next to their bed. She said “Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go.” This also helped me to imagine her as an old lady.

I did not know what petunias was until I looked it up in the dictionary. It’s a flower, and it’s colored purple in the poem. One thing that I do not understand is what she meant by saying this, “…clean as paper before the poem.” I want to know what that saying means.

I want to know why was she so happy to have her own house and space? Why did she mention that it was not a man’s house of her dad’s house? Is it because she had horrible experiences with men? Or with her father? What kind of house did she own? If she really is an old lady? I will be so happy to find out the answers to those questions.

The second poem is about two boys (I see them as a boy, correct me if I am wrong). This part on they wanted to hitchhike reminded me of my sister. My sister hitchhiked to Mexico when she was thirteen years old. She went there because she was not happy in Michigan.

I do not understand this poem almost at all. I want to know what he meant by “The teachers were too close to dying to understand.” Does this mean that the teachers are old? “The years froze as we sat on the bank.” Does that mean that the time to them are very slow like a snail’s pace? I want to know why he wanted to be happy by age of seventeen? Why did they want to hitchhike to San Francisco? Is it because they hated the city/town/village they lived in? Why were they lonely? Is there nothing that has interesting events, and displays to keep them stay at where they live?

I did not like those two poems because the first one is too short, and vague. The second one is really hard to understand. Because I do not relate to them because I definitely am not lonely or wanting to leave my hometown. Also, that there’s many phrases that I do not understand. Only if the first poem was longer and has more descriptions. Only if the second poem is more clearer and understandable.

To me there are two common themes in the poems. Those two common themes are pursuit of happiness and escape-ness. The woman is happy to live on her own and the boys seem looking for their happiness by wishing that they leave from where they live. Both seem trying to escape from something like the woman seems to escape from people, men, and noises while the boys seem to try to escape from the loneliness.

Overall, both poems are unsatisfying to me. I want to find out more about both poems so I can quench my curiosity. The both poems deal with happiness and escape-ness.

"Learning my Native Language,""The Hands of My Father,""Recollections."

Those three pieces have a common theme, and this common theme is oppression/struggle of deafness. But each pieces has their own theme, which is being stuck in between two worlds, no communication access, and deaf identity.

           “Learning my Native Language’s” theme is being stuck in between two worlds. The woman has difficulties in deaf and hearing world. Like when she is at hearing school, teacher will point out her mistakes on test paper because of her deafness. While at deaf college, she does not have a good signing reception

“The Hands of My Father’s” theme is no communication access. The son’s father will not sign with him. He never had signed with his son. The son wanted to be able to talk with his father but could not. “Recollections’” theme is deaf identity. The woman as a child discovered that she does not want to take any speech classes. She wants to sign only, and not speak.

           An example of struggle is the woman who writes “Learning my Native Language,” struggles with hearing and deaf worlds. The woman is hard-of-hearing. In the hearing world, she cannot catch every word hearing people say. For example, when the teacher or the student speaks, the woman sometimes misses what they say but refuses to ask them to repeat themselves because she is embarrassed of her hearing problems.  In the deaf world she cannot quite catch all of people’s signing.  Also, she entered Gallaudet University, and from there she learned American Sign Language. The ASL teacher that the woman was under is very into the deaf world and looks down on hearing people. The woman feels that she was one of them. She was late at learning sign language, so I think this is one reason why she has problems with being able to talk with deaf people. So it is a struggle for her to exist in both worlds.

In “The Hands of My Father,” the son’s father does not want to sign at all. The son is oppressed because he has no communication access with his father. Father did not like people so he is a quiet man. Also he looks at his son as if he was diseased. The son said that he felt like he was a drought to his father, because he will not try to talk with him in his natural language. He felt oppressed from it.

In “Recollections, “ the author as a little girl goes to an oral school, called Camelot, which does not allow signing. If one get caught, he or she will be punished for it. At the oral school she takes speech lessons at Camelot and Kendall. Then at her last year of elementary, she dropped the speech class. She dropped it because she does not want to talk. After she dropped the class, the speech teacher had asked her why she dropped the class, and the girl responded that she does not want to take the class. The speech teacher looked down at her after that. She rather sign language over oral because when she went to Kendall school, she said that she liked that there is full of sign language while at oral school, she felt isolated because she was not allowed to sign. This is a struggle of deaf identity at the beginning.

          Rather it’s being stuck between both worlds in “Learning my Native Language,” struggling with communication access in “Hands of My Father,” or suffering from understanding and accepting one’s Deaf identity in “Recollections.” Each of the pieces deals with oppression.

Leaving Home: The First Day

Hello everyone, I have read the chapter called “The First Day.” It is in the book, the book title is “Leaving Home.” I am trying to not summarize the chapter. As I read through the chapter, I thought that the mother made right choice to follow the woman’s advice on getting her daughter enrolled into Walker-Jones school. This woman is member of Ebony, an advertising company, and she greets the new children Seaton Elementary School if the mother didn’t follow the advice, then her daughter probably wouldn’t have education like herself. If mother still tried to enroll her daughter into Seaton Elementary School, they still wouldn’t have accepted her daughter. This probably will also make the daughter have no education. When I was reading this chapter, it made me think about my first day of school, I felt similar to what the daughter felt. I remember when I entered with my mom, seeing many parents signing up their children to enroll in Michigan School for the Deaf (MSD). I remember feeling afraid because there were a lot of children around, and some of them were also crying and complaining. I remember my mom filling out the forms, and bringing the documents, identification, and other materials that is needed. I also thought that I was fortunate that my mom could read and write, because the process is faster. If my mom couldn’t read or write then filling out the forms would’ve lasted more longer than necessary. I was left with few questions after reading the chapter. 

Why doesn’t the mother knows how to read and write? Is it because when she was little, she was from a poor family and couldn’t afford to enroll in any school? Why did the mother stared at the teacher even though she told her daughter to not stare at people? Why did the mother became very serious with her daughter at the end of story? I wondered why the daughter kept hearing her mother’s footsteps over everything that is going on in the school? The significant of the chapter’s title is that it is all about first day at school. That the daughter was with her mother 24/7, now that she goes to school, she will see her mother less. This experience is similar to college students, they see their parents often when they are in high school. But when they become college student, they have to let go their parents. Like when the daughter kept hearing her mother’s footsteps, that is kind of like college student watching their parents leaving in the vehicle. That’s how I see it. There were few description of the characters, such as the daughter wore checkered blue and green cotton dress, with bits of yellow, white, and brown scattered on the dress. The woman from Ebony, wore pearls that is size of huge marbles and that it reaches to her navel. That’s about it.

Introduction

Hello people, my name is Asia Riedinger. I am from Michigan, and I attended Michigan School for the Deaf (MSD) for 9 years. I am from hearing family, and is the baby of my family.

Most of people know that I love to do something that is related to art, such as painting, and drawing animals. They also know that I love to read fantasy and mystery/thriller books.

My expectation on GSR 102 is that I will learn how to make my writing creative and very interesting. I think that we will use this blog to describe what we have learned from the class and talk about the books we have read.

In this link, the man's name is Michael, and he is a professional artist. He has several pictures that I like, and the pictures were painted by him. I noticed that Michael like to paint landscapes.

http://drawman.blogspot.com/