Coming Home Again

What comes to mind when you think about family? It can hold a different meaning depending on the individual. According to Chang-rae Lee, the essence of him feeling at home and family unity highly involved food. The closeness and contentment was experienced when his family was all together around the table to consume the exquisite food that had been prepared. His mother had been the sole preparer of meals most of his life. As a child, he had taken great pleasure in admiring and watching as she prepared the food in hopes to possess the ability of cooking as well as she did.

The mere subject of food was his mother's favorite subject; it was her passion in life. She possessed her own methods and techniques of preparing her native Korean cuisine, but she was not close minded to learning new dishes. She welcomed her neighbor to teach her on preparing "exotic American dishes" as well. Cooking was how she expressed her love, therefore, the family was joined together with her tasteful talents.

As his mother became ill with cancer, he resumed her household duties including preparing all the meals for the family. Ironically, his mother's cancer was in her stomach after all her years and love for cooking. She never lost her love for food even after she was unable to eat any longer as her cancer had progressed through its last stages. Chang-rae Lee was often monitored by his mother while preparing the food for the family and patiently accepted his mother's advice. After consuming the meal, his mother and him would discuss the outcome of the success of the meal. This communication was the core of their relationship; this is how they bonded and maintained their closeness until the end.

Rules for Writers Chapter 3

After the rough draft is complete, most of your ideas will be down on paper in front of you. This does not mean that the structure and thesis will be in the correct format. Now it is time to take a look at the essay as a whole, not the grammar and spelling. Ensure that the essay has focus and organization throughout the entire essay. It is also important to review the content and maintain the attention of the readers. Throughout this process, it is common to withdraw sections of the essay and add new sections after looking at the big picture of the essay's structure as a whole.

When the global revision is complete, the next steps are grammar and spelling. Grammar corrections involve sentence structuring. Common issues with sentence structure is "wordiness" and can be improved by restructuring sentences. You may need to take one sentence and break it into two or three. Reliance on grammar checker is not advised. Proofreading is also necessary and can be a tedious task. It can be a time consuming task but a vital one as well. Like grammar checkers, spelling checkers should not be relied upon. A good recommendation is having a friend help in the proofreading to get an outside perspective and eye for errors that you may not see.

All the points above is what I plan to use in my following essays. I have used some of these suggestions on my past essay but still need improvement. The global revision is the first and foremost step in the revision process that I will exercise. This must happen before grammar and spelling. Although, I will not lessen the importance of grammar and spelling. All three of these steps are equally important. I will work at using all of them in my upcoming essays.

Rules for Writers Chapter 2

Rough drafts are another step in the writing process that you can be creative to form ideas. At this point you should have such tools already established such as "lists, diagrams, outlines, freewrites, and so on". Similar to freewrites, the rough draft should not be concerned with the exact grammar and choice words. But rather should be concentrated on the structure and formatting.

The structure of the rough draft should include an introduction with a clear thesis, the body with facts supporting the thesis and a strong conclusion that bring it all back together. The introduction should be not only include your main point, or thesis, but grab hold of the attention of the reader. The body of the essay must include supporting evidence of your thesis. The ideas presented in each paragraph should also tie back the the thesis. The conclusion should without a doubt drive home the thesis and main idea, leaving the reader with memorable thoughts of reading your essay.

Many start these essays with care to detail, this is the way I have always written. The introduction first, then the body and last the conclusion. After constructive feedback, I have changed my strategy of forming my rough draft. My thesis is the first and foremost which is in my mind already obvious. Then I will attentively construct the body with supporting evidence that ties to my thesis. Lastly I will create a strong persuasive conclusion to make a lasting impression on my readers.

Essay 1

Friends are a precious possession that you should hold dear. These kind of good friends are difficult to come by and they are one of the select few that will always be in your life. These types of friends are those who should not be taken for granted. Friends like these should be cherished, treasured and adored.

That is just the type of friend that you see in this photograph. My very good friend Allison is on the left and myself is on the right. When I look at this photograph, I am reminded of the immense closeness and incredible friendship that we share. The smiles in the photograph portray the love and affection we feel toward each other. Our friendship was established 11 years ago when we began working together and has developed into a friendship that can be compared to the close bond sisters possess. A friendship that will last a lifetime and a friendship that you know will last the rest of our lives. This photograph was taken last summer at a Rodney Strong concert with the performance of Chris Issac. The significance of the event is that we both have our own busy and hectic lives but always find times to relax and enjoy each other’s company. We often strive to get together once a month for an evening of “girl talk” which can be challenging at times because of our schedules. Regular annual and sometimes biannual vacations with the girls are made a priority to escape our stressful lives and unwind and relax. These vacations are meant to alleviate our minds of work, family responsibilities and stress as a refresher. When we are on the road to our destination, no matter how far and how many hours, we are without silence in the car. We just keep talking and sharing with each other. When we arrive to the vacation destination, there are no plans in place. We just do what we feel like, even if it is just curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book. The whole experience is about relaxation. It proves beneficial for all to be able to reward ourselves with this relaxation so that we may return to our lives refreshed and rejuvenated. Many fond memories have been created. We work hard and we play hard. There are times that we are consumed in the daily grind and responsibilities that we may not talk for a couple months but then we get together and catch up on each other’s lives. The closeness is always there no matter how much time has passed.

We have many life experience that we have shared together and trials that we have leaned on each other for. My friend Allison has been there for me through an immense amount of trials that I have experienced and mistakes I have made. She is always supportive and is non-judgmental. There are countless times that she has been there to get me on my feet after several terrible and abusive relationships. Sometimes I think of all the times she has helped me move to escape the abuse and I get emotional thinking of how she has never complained about it. Her house has been extended to me several times when I had nowhere to go. Her husband and she are filled with such hospitality. She is just always there. She has proven to be a good listener and supplies me with advice when needed. The friendship that we share is not only emotional but is on a physical level as well. We have experienced each others pain and recovery through several illnesses and surgeries. There are countless good memories of our friendship that we have shared.

Everlasting friends can go long periods of time without contact and never question their friendship and pick right up where they left off. They speak as though they were in contact yesterday. They could even move miles apart and have the same closeness. Life can be extremely busy but these types of friends understand and love you anyway. It is an eternally bond that you share. I will never take Allison for granted.

The Ways We Lie

Is it possible to tell lies and still be an honest person?

At first glance at the question, I was quick to respond that is not possible to tell lies and still be an honest person. The more I began to review the reading, the question seemed to turn complicated. When I think of someone who lies, I think of the out and out lies or those that seem to lie to cover up for their own mistakes. In this case, I despise those who lie. I always have felt it is better to be honesty and have everything out in the open and on the table. If you dont have honesty, what do you have?

As I pondered over the reading again, I paid close attention to the introduction and the section on white lies and omission. Omission is withholding information that may make the story appear differently than if the listener had all the information. Examples of this kind of lie is seen daily. I think some people may use this kind of lie unintentionally without realizing the consquence it may have on the situation. The majority of white lies are also presently without thinking sometimes. The perfect example is when someone asks you, "How are you?", any you reply "Fine". You may reply in that same manner even when you are not fine, it may be the most stressful day and you respond the same way.

There exists many forms of lies. I think that the unintentional ones are unconscience thought that come out as responses without putting the thought into it. I do believe that the intentional lies that has extensive thought and meditation behind it does not make a person honest. I think we must make a conscience effort to think every response through so that we are honest yet do not lie either.

Superman and Me

Education can save lives and empower individuals to have goals and to achieve success. This is especially true in low class communites stricken with poverty where the "indian children are expected to be stupid". (p. 13) The majority of Indians live in poor conditions and this is the expected norm which also becomes their comfort zone. Therefore, reaching beyond the expected norm is portrayed as becoming an outcast. Ridicule is the result of reaching out for education and success. In a sense, lives have the potential of becoming lost in to the realm of hardship and distress of poverty.

Alexie has strong conviction and determination to save the lives of as many of these Indian children as he can. He saves lives for those who learn to read and write which provides them with a gateway to knowledge and success. Education provides basic survival skills and opportunities to break them free from the norm. Unfortunately there are those who are arrogant and already defeated that may not heed the viable education presented in front of them. This does not stop Alexie in trying to break through their walls because his ultimate goal is to save their lives.

Alexie saved his own life by following and imitating his father's love for books. He learned to read on his own at an extremely young age. His love for books and education grew. He refused to fail or be influenced to settle for the norm. He stepped out from the expected behavior and read, ask questions and spoke up in class in an attempt to obtain success. By all of these efforts, he obtain success and thus saved his own life.

Rules for Writers Chapter 1

When beginning a writing assignment one must gather ideas which can be devised by many different methods and formulate a general plan and outline. First, you must "assess the situation" (p. 4) in the following ways. Identifying the subject whether the instructor provides one or you select one on your own. Search the destination from where you will retrieve your sources of information whether it be from personal experience, reading materials, observations or interviews and questionaires. Determine the purpose of your writing assignment which includes understanding what is expected as to the length and document designs and deadlines from the instructor. The type of audience also must be considered.

There are several ways in which you can begin generating ideas. Talking with friends or family, annotating the reading, taking notes as you read, listing, clustering, freewriting, asking the journalist's questions or keeping a journal. A tentative thesis should also be created towards the beginning to start a centralized main point to stay on track with your subject. Next, sketch a formal outline to capture your ideas and thoughts.

Freewriting will be my first attempt to gather my ideas for my writing assignment. For the most part, freewriting seems like a successful way to let your ideas flow and then you can sift through them and take what you want to use from them. Annotating texts and taking notes is another technique that I would like to try. It seems like it is a good way to highlight the main points and also ask yourself questions along the way to analyze what the author was trying to relay. The first essay should be bittersweet; I am excited to try out these techniques yet fearful of how successful I will be.