Sunday, April 27, 2008

in response...

Yeah! Only a couple more weeks of class! So Jen, I was at the advance screening of Forbidden Kingdom, too. I was funny, but really corny as well. I just have to say though that when I saw that white guy show up on screen, the first thought that came to mind was that there was no way they could make a movie of just asians, right? sure it starred jackie chan and jet li, but the main protagonist was the white kid. He was the guy who the story was based around, not the other way around. it felt like the story of jackie chan and jet li just supported the white kid's story. that was one of the main things i didn't like about the film because came to see the movie to watch jackie chan and jet li but this nobody kid is the star. It felt like they just put their names on it to produce more revenue and get the kid out there. but i didn't really like his acting. i thought the movie was going to be more epic, with more action. don't get me wrong, i loved the comedy but i felt like it wasn't what i wanted to see in the first place. i'm a major fan of jackie and jet li, so i guess i was just anticipating them as the stars ONLY. you know, for once a film of all asians but in the mainstream?

Laurie, i know i told you that you performed very well last week in PCN, but seriously, you guys did an awesome job. it was suprisingly good show quality considering that it is a student-run show. i didn't expect it to turn-out that good. it was my first PCN, but some people i know said its the best they've seen so far. I felt like the message of the entire show was so strong because it was completely pertenant to being Filipino, even if we Filipino Americans don't experience those troubles. The problem of poverty, the unresolved issues of the veteranos, and the abuse of the OFWs are what I've heard about before and sympathized with but didn't necessarily touch me as it did as i watched the show go on. One of the problems featured in the showcase is on its way, the bill for the pension of the filipino veteranos. Hopefully makes it through so that these soldiers get what has been a long time coming. So that just means that next year's PCN should raise the bar even higher, since this is the only PCN i've been to and the only one i can make comparisons to. I know a couple people that didn't take part in PCN this year that were inspired by the show to part-take in next year's PCN. I personally don't think I would participate in it, serious case of stage freight and all, but am so excited to watch you all in the years to come. And Laurie, the idea of your paper sounds really good, for sure something I wouldn't have been able to come up with on my own. The connections you made are really out there but when you think of it, its true. I just get this feeling that everyone's second paper is going to be better than their first. I guess that's good, that way that would make up for my exam grade.

Well from Obasan, I felt like their internment wasn't as bad as the Japanese American internment. Don't get me wrong, internment is bad under any circumstance and projected upon any race, but I think the fact that the attack on Pearl Harbor was US territory and not Canadian had an impact on the strictness of internment. True the families didn't get to stay together as in American internment, but the areas they were put in we not as concentrated. The Canadians also got a little choice on where they wanted to go, at least compared to the Americans. I felt that the book was touching and definitely a story I never heard told before. I wasn't even aware that Japanese Canadian internment occured. When they told us that this book was Japanese internment, I just assumed it was American internment. Do any of you girls know if the internment had the same effect on out-marriage rates on Japanese Canadians as it did to Japanese Americans? That would be a very interestying fact to know.

So I guess that's it for now. Good luck with everything Ladies!

Precious Guan

only a few more weeks!!

I’m sorry too that I didn’t get to write in my journal last week!! I was a little preoccupied because …

PCN FINALLY ARRIVED!! So my life was consumed by that for the entire week. No joke. We had practices every night from 5pm to midnight, rehearsing the entire show and cleaning our performances. In the end, it was completely worth it. During the opening of the show, I was in the audience as part of the piece. Watching from that perspective, I could feel the energy of the performers. I was so excited. After months of preparation and stress and sacrifice, the big night was finally here. And we blew everyone away. People have said that it was the best PCN everrrrr, which makes me super proud. But I would’ve been proud of us regardless of what other people had to say. We had HUGE technical difficulties, but we still got our message across. Hopefully, we were able to mobilize members of our community for social change, and were able to educate individuals who aren’t Filipino about the issues that affect us. I hope that people understood what we were trying to say, and were empowered themselves to go out there and make change for themselves.

Yeah … because of PCN, I also got sick, which is another reason why I was unable to write in the blog last week. Considering I was sleep-deprived, I basically knocked out in my parents’ hotel room after the show. And I didn’t wake up until a few hours before our class the Monday morning after.

I basically spent all my free time (and even time when I should’ve been in class) working on our paper last week because I wasn’t able to focus on it during all of that business. I ended up writing about the role of white women in Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart. I was going to focus on the importance of the minor characters in Bulosan’s life, but while I was gathering textual evidence, I realized that the majority of the minor characters I was highlighting were women. And not only just women, but white women. So … I wanted to analyze more about the importance of that. I concluded that white women became the personification of Bulosan’s ideals about America. They represented education (Mary Strandon), kindness and support (Marian), ability to create change (Dora), acceptance of culture and race (Alice Odell), and steady companionship (Eileen). The reason why them being white is significant because they were foreign to Bulosan. He was not accustomed to their culture. He feared them because he thought they would be unable to understand him. These are all things he feared of America. In the end, however, they overcame these fears and proved to Bulosan that America was a place where he could belong. They allowed him to understand his emotions rather than ignore them. Thus, he learned that in order to understand what America is, he must look within and define it for himself.

Have a great week, ladies!

Laurie Bailon

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Two Weeks Worth

Hi girls!

Wow! What a week! I’m sorry I couldn’t write my journal last week. I just finished my Econ 1 midterm today/yesterday (I see that it’s past 12 midnight now but I still feel like it’s the 23rd) and have been studying this past week. I’m so dead tired and yet, I still managed to turn in my short response for Obasan. I must say, this week is more stressful than last week. So I guess I’ll just double my words on this essay to make up for last week.
Precious, I know what you mean about the test. It was quite a hard one. At least we know that we’re not the only ones who struggled. I’m sure Christine and Chia-Chi will put that into consideration so don’t worry. At least this quiz showed us the intenseness of college quote tests because before this exam, I did not consider quote tests this difficult. But according to Christine, this exam is considered simple compared to other quote exams where you have to identify about 80 quotes in an hour. Now that’s difficult! Hopefully none of us will have to experience that!
So let’s talk about Obasan by Joy Kogawa. Firstly, I admit that I didn’t get to finish the book this time. I usually do but because of the midterm, I had to rearrange my schedule. I’ve read up to the part about Naomi talks about when she first learns about Hastings Park, where the Japanese/Japanese Canadians are interned. I’m actually excited to read about the Japanese Canadian internment because I’ve heard so much about Japanese internment in America but have no clue about the Canadian internment. I also find the themes and symbols in this book very interesting. I enjoyed the presenting group’s thoughts about themes and symbols. I will be sure to look out for them when I read through this book. I also find that this book ties with a few of the books we’ve already read, like the “perpetual foreigner” idea from My Country Versus Me, the search for identity from The Namesake combined with A Gesture Life. This book ties a lot of these themes with the other books and I find that interesting. Since this is the last book we’re reading, it seems like this book is a combination of past books. The only thing that is confusing is the constant flashbacks and the fact that this story is not told in chronological order. But then again, we have experience reading non-chronological ordered novels, like A Gesture Life and The Gangster We Are All Looking For.
Ever since I was young, I’ve always wondered why is it that in elementary school, I’ve read a lot of books about WWII and a lot about the internment and genocide of the Jews in Germany but my class never emphasized about the internment of the Japanese. I can see that, in some ways, the genocide of the Jews is a more serious situation and more horrible than what were happening to the Japanese but still, I think schools should also show the perspectives of those Japanese in internment camps. I feel like when I was in elementary and middle school, I learned much more about the imprisonment of the Jews than the Japanese—almost like they don’t really want to emphasize on that because the internment of the Japanese is the U.S.’s government’s fault while in the story of Jews in the camps, the U.S. government was viewed as the rescuing hero. I have a feeling that the U.S. government wouldn’t want to teach the students the various mistakes and racisms the U.S. made. This is why I enjoy Asian American classes so much and have taken Asian American Studies 20A, joined APATH, and am now taking Asian American R2A. I feel like I was never provided information about Asian Americans in the U.S. during elementary, middle, and even high school. I mean, why do we have to learn about the Civil Rights Movement but not about the discrimination and hate crimes against Asian Americans? What about some of our “civil rights movement”? Even though these movements are not as huge as the African Americans’ Civil Rights Movement, I think it’s still important to learn about it.
I don’t know if this can tie into Asian American studies, but last week on Thursday, as some of you know, there was a early screening of Jackie Chan’s and Jet Li’s new movie, The Forbidden Kingdom. Christine actually mentioned this movie during our discussion. Well, on that day, a bunch of us from APATH went to watch it (the line, by the way, went from Wheeler all the way up to the Campanili). I also noticed that the majority of the people are Asian. So the movie starts and of course, there were trailers. One of the most memorable trailers is the trailer for Bangkok Dangerous. This movie stars Nicholas Cage and takes place in Thailand. It depicts the Asians in this movie as evil or bad (at least that’s what I sensed). They were either gangsters or drug dealers. And Nicholas Cage, for some reason, is the hero and tries to stop the crimes. So again, the Caucasian is the hero and Asians are seen as criminals. In the whole movie, I only remember Nicholas Cage being the only non-Asian. Even being a foreigner in Thailand, Cage is seen as the only good person, seen trying to talk some “sense” to these Thai people. I think it’s movies like these that generates further stereotypes of Asians.
Anyway, to the actual movie: I’m not going to lie. This movie is funny. I personally like Jackie Chan movies but hate it when they insert stereotypical things. But in this movie, Jackie Chan and Jet Li are portraying ancient Chinese people so there was less of that. To me, this movie is a major improvement for Asian Americans because they eliminated a lot of stereotypical roles of Asian Americans, like the Chinadoll. In the movie, the main character (who is White) naturally falls in love with the Asian main character girl. But he never really got her. The movie doesn’t make the White guy almighty and powerful, getting all the girls or learning martial arts easily. And for once, I think, the movie credited Jackie Chan and Jet Li first, before the White main character. I was very surprised at that. But there were some flaws with the movie. Again, the movie portrayed China or ancient China as some place foreign, some place mythical and mystical. The Chinese were portrayed as kung-fu fighting people again. There were other things but I forgot. But overall, I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was hilarious. More power to Asians/Asian Americans!!


-Jennifer Yeung

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Slowly getting a little better...

Well i have to say that this week went by sooo fast and wasn't as bad as last week. It is a slow recuperation but i'm glad its coming along for me. So Laurie, i know you can do this! PCN is today and i know you'll rock the show!



So after getting the grade back from the exam, which i didn't do that well in, i have to say that i really wasn't suprised. A part of my wishes that i had done better but its past now. Like Laurie said, I can't do anything about it now. Other than the sad results of the exam and wishing everyone good luck on their second paper, i really don't have too much to say about this week's classes. I guess its just the fact that My Country Versus Me is a pretty self-explanatory book, that we really can't get too much into it.



One thing i do want to talk about is the VSA Culture Show i went to last night and PCN, which i'll be attending later this afternoon. VSA Culture Show was pretty good, it was set up differently than i would've expected but it just meant that there was only one story going on for the entire show, unifying and strengthening its message. The only downsides i thought of the production was that the story lagged in some parts and longer than the typical musical, causing me to lose focus and interest at some parts. However, i'm really excited about PCN, the only thing that i'm wondering about is how the entire show would be tied together under one message to the masses. In contrast with VSA, which was really one story, PCN sounds like a lot of different stories put together. I'm just hoping the message will be as or more powerful than VSA's.

As for next week, i'm slowly making my way through Obasan. In my opinion, the start was kind of slow and a little confusing but, for me, the story is starting to come together. The part that started to catch my attention is when they are beginning to be taken to the concentration camps. One of the points that they make in the book is that the canadian-born nissei are being rounded up while the german-born germans in canada roam free. And I agree with that statement. There could be no other reason for this than straight-up prejudice. The japanese definitely look different from the regular white man, and they get unfairly punished for it. I'll save all my thought for next week though, i haven't finished the book yet. haha. =P

So message to all of you: KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK because we're almost done with this semester, just about a month left. We can all do this, even if sometimes we feel as if we'll never get through all this.

Precious Guan

Sunday, April 13, 2008

I really wish it was over.

April is the worst month ever.

As all of you know (mostly because I’ve announced it so many times), I’m participating in PCN, the Pilipino Cultural Night. There are over a 100 Berkeley students participating with me, and we’ve been working HELLA hard for the past two months. The producers and writers have even been working since last semester and last SUMMER even. We’re putting our all into this show, and I hope you guys can make it out to watch the show. It’s a really powerful showcase of Filipino and Filipino American culture and the issues that affect our community. The program will include spoken word, four vignettes (or skits), singing, and dance—traditional Filipino, jazz, hip hop, and swing. I’m SOOOO EXCITED but also SOOOOO STRESSED OUT. We’re rehearsing five days this week for five hours each. And then the big show is on Sunday. AAHHHH!!!!

Anyway, since I’ve done my part and publicized that… yeah, this past week in ASAM R2A world was kinda ridiculous. I feel like the workload, while we are in college and should be able to handle it, was a little too much. An exam, a paper, and a short response due all in one week? Yet, there seem to be other weeks where we don’t have anything due. In addition, we were misinformed about our exam, especially in regards to the historical part. I thought I remember the instructors saying that all of that wasn’t going to be on the exam, so I didn’t study it as well as I would have liked to. I just feel like the assignments could have been spread out a little more, considering we are taking other classes. Oh, well … can’t do anything about it now.

In addition to writing two papers and rehearsing from 9am to 3pm on Saturday AND Sunday, it was bridges SENIOR WEEKEND!! just as Precious and I had mentioned in our past entries. I was so excited to meet all the different kids who were accepted into Berkeley. I hosted a girl from around the same area I live and she was the sweetest thing ever. It seems as though a lot of the seniors are debating between UCLA and Cal, and she was no exception. After staying for a few days and getting a feel of the school, she said she really, really liked it up here, but she still wanted to check LA out just in case. I hope she comes, though! I was really impressed by some of the other kids who came up. On Friday, I left our class early because I was facilitating a workshop for the Gabriela Network, a network fighting for women’s rights and against domestic violence and human trafficking. During the workshop, we broke out into discussion with the seniors. I definitely underestimated their knowledge about the subject, and I knew that from what they were saying and the topics we touched, they were made to come here.

I forget that it was only a year ago that I was in their position, trying to figure out what school I was to go to. And now, here I am, almost finished with my first year, and I can’t believe how much I’ve grown and learned. CRAZYYYYYY!

Fortunately and unfortunately, it’s not over yet.

Laurie Bailon

The terror is (almost) over...

First of all, I want to congratulate everyone for surviving this week! I know it was a killer, but, at least, its over. Not only did we have a lot to do for ASAMST R2A, but for other classes, meetings, and events as well. I know that alot of people taking CHEM 1A, CHEM 3B, MATH 1B, PHYSICS 8B, and probably some other classes have midterms this upcoming week. So it may not be over quite yet, but i want to encourage everyone to hang in there. You can do it.

Well 1 thing i need to say about the exam was that it was not what i expected. The thing with that exam was that it already is pretty difficult to identify the correct character and book from which the quote originates, and identifying who is being spoken to and the context of the quote isn't too bad once you know for certain who said it and from what book BUT the analysis, etc. was not my favorite. In addition, covering materical from 4 full-length novels was a daunting task because there really is sooo much context to cover. I actually felt that I had I really hard tme studying for the exam bacause I didn't know how to go about it. Sure, some of the quotes were pretty obvious but others could fit into any novel. I don't think I did that well on the exam but am intent on doing better on my next paper so that I could counterbalance that grade.

So for my next paper, I'm writing on America is in the Heart, partly for the same reason as Jen is writing on A Gesture Life. But really the main reason is because I really enjoyed the book, even though it was so dense. It was pretty evident from all the highlighting and notes on the book that i took, that it would also be a logical book to choose. I decided to write about how Carlos is inspired by people who he doesn't necessarily know too well or for that long. But that doesn't deviate from the fact that they left him valuable life-lessons that, based on his pattern of behavior, remain with him with each action that he takes. He learns about nature from his father, who he technically lived with on the farm but he didn't really know his dad in the sense that he didn't know too much about his dad's past and such. That mainly could be accounted for because Carlos is still a child on the farm and doesn't completely comprehend everything that a grown man would. Amado's instillment of the importance of education and Pascual's advice concerning writing.I also talked about Millar's friendship and Marion's love. Then Leon's teaching of sticking to one's convictions and Claro's call to duty for Carlos. I felt like the majority of these characters were overlooked, but as I was perrusing my book to support my original thesis, I realized the importance of what these characters had to say. I honestly felt that this paper is alot better than my first one. It probably helped that i wrote it in one sitting, I shut myself out of the world and stayed in the library for hours so that I could crank this paper out and enjoy the rest of my week since I had SENIOR WEEKEND! coming up. So i finished it and had my conference with Chia-Chi and was glad with the feedback I received. He agreed that it was a stronger paper than my first one, but, once again, I needed a stronger more concise thesis. But the ironic thing is that this time the thesis was too specific, and more like four thesi rather than one. So my mission is to find a way to connect all of the into one unifying idea/theme. I hope your essays are going well for you as well.

Saturday, April 12, 2008

calday

Hi!

Yay! It’s CalDay today! I hope everyone is having a good day. As you guys know, I’m in APATH, which is the Asian Pacific American Theme House Program. So for CalDay, which is our biggest recruiting event for future APATHers. Today, it was our day to present our skit that we’ve been working on for awhile. For our fall final, we split into groups to present a skit using Asian American terms such as Dragon Lady, China Doll, FOB, ABA, acculturation, assimilation, yellow fever, stereotypes of Asians, etc. Our group did our skit based on our own Korean Drama except the skit takes place in China, so it’s called Chinese Drama. The 2 skits that did well got to perform for seniors on Senior Weekend/CalDay. Our group won, along with “Asian Mario” (a parody of the video game). Our skit is supposed to entertain and educate these high schoolers about Asian American stuff. We practiced a lot and finally, today we performed our skit. It was nerve-racking but I feel very content. We also did commercials, dancing, and singing. Looking back at all our slideshows and all the events we’ve gone through, I’ve truly enjoyed my experience here at APATH. If you guys are interested or have incoming seniors who might be interested, then be sure to tell them about APATH. A lot of the issues that we’ve discussed in the Asian American Studies R2B class have been discussed in APATH. I’ve also taken Asian American 20A (as an APATH requirement) and so you really do get to learn a lot about the Asian American community and issues.
Ok, so back to the class, how’s everyone’s essay going? I thought that 30 minutes was definitely a good choice. I went in with a semi-looking outline because I really didn’t know what to do with all my ideas. Oh, I’m writing about A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee. I spent my time at the conference just going over my ideas with Christine and trying to find what I’m interested in writing about. This essay is going to be more difficult than the last because of the short amount of time we have but I think we now have a better understanding of how to write a good essay. I’m still in the mist of creating a good thesis. So basically, I haven’t written up anything yet. I hope you guys have better luck than I am having right now.
I just want to also say I liked the presentation very much. Dao, you did very well. I liked the game show idea. It was very creative. You interacted well with the audience. But one thing I must say, is that I didn’t get much information about the book, or at least I felt that way. I felt that if I didn’t read the book and went to this presentation, I would still be lost in your presentation. But overall, it was really engaging. I thought that having our discussion before the lecture is not really a good idea because we don’t really know how to talk about the book or what to talk about yet. I like the idea of a lecture before discussions.

OK, everyone have a good CalDay!!

Jennifer Y

Sunday, April 6, 2008

STRESSED OUT

but then what college student isn't?

I'm conflicted between studying for the Final tomorrow and working on my presentation for My Country Versus Me but I'm thinking that the presentation is worth more points so I'm going to focus on that more.

In response to your blog, Laurie, I recall that you got in a quite heated debate with our fellow classmate on the discussion of Hyphen and how they should go mainstream. I think I agree with you more than I did with the other person. I was going to point out that that person's argument seemed very strategic and a very businessman-like move. It also didn't really seem to me like the editors of Hyphen had a huge interest in going mainstream at all, and I didn't get the gist that they were "struggling" either. I feel like the readership they have (6,000) is pretty incredible for such an underground magazine. I was also very impressed that they've gotten themselves on newsstands nationally and internationally.

Yes, I do agree that if they mixed in "mainstream" stuff, they might be able to get more exposure because believe or not, it's what most people like to read. To be perfectly honest, when I was skimming through the magazine, I wasn't very interested. But that's just my opinion. However, I do respect and very much appreciate their efforts to keep an Asian American magazine alive which is why I do agree with you that if they were to go mainstream, it wouldn't be true to the mission they set out to fulfill.

In regards to my essay, I was pretty disappointed with the grade that I got. I thought I was going to do much better because I worked pretty hard on that paper but I guess it wasn't quite what Christine and Chia-Chi were looking for. According to the comments I got back, my essay "does not do a thorough job of deeply analyzing this correlation between affection (in both the familial and romantic senses) and Gogol's cultural development." I guess I didn't delve into the argument as I should have, although I thought I did. Rawr, I don't think I've ever analyzed a book this much in my life! haha.

Here's a sidenote though, I think for next semester, people who do presentations shouldn't have to do a short-response paper on their book :D just a thought.
I'm having a hard time understanding Wen Ho Lee when he goes on a scientific rant because I am personally not very interested in hearing about the details of how a nuclear reactor works. haha. Oh well. Okay I have to go work on my presentation, bye!

Dao Nguyen

BUSY BUSY BUSY BEEEEEESSSSS

I really enjoyed the members of the Hyphen Magazine staff coming to speak with us. I feel like they are doing something that I could really relate with. They are trying to create a space for people who are not normally allowed to voice their opinions in the “mainstream” media. In our discussion today, one of our classmates said that in order for them to stay afloat and to gain a wider audience, they should go more “mainstream,” but I tend to disagree with that. I understand that their work and content might be a little to … hipster, for lack of a better word. But they have the right to publish a magazine with this type of content. Obviously, it’s not going to attract all of the Asian American community. However, I feel that Hyphen is a magazine that will appeal to the more socially, politically, and creatively-savvy members of the Asian American community. Plus, A Magazine seemed to be geared more toward the mainstream and yet … it still went under. I think it’d be really cool to intern for the magazine. I’ve had experience with publications as the editor of my high school yearbook. But Hyphen, I think, would be more fulfilling and with a more compelling mission.

In terms of all the things we have going on this week in this class, I feel like it’s a bit overwhelming. We have an exam tomorrow, a paper due in conference, and we need to have finished My Country Versus Me by Thursday. This seems to be too much to be due all in one week, especially for Dao and her group who have to present also. Maybe next time, Chia-Chi and Christine, you can schedule the syllabus to have all of this spread out more. I think if the exam was maybe a week or two earlier, it would be a lot easier on us all. As for my essay, I am still working on my thesis. I know for sure that I am writing it on America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan. But we’ll see how this one ends up …

Coming up this week is Senior Weekend. It’s an event put on by the multicultural recruitment and retention centers on campus: PASS (Pilipino Academic Student Services), RAZA (the Latino/Latino and Chicano/Chicana Recruitment and Retention Center), NARC (the Native American Recruitment and Retention Center), BRRC (the Black Recruitment and Retention Center), and REACH! (the Asian and Pacific Islander Recruitment and Retention Center). Newly admitted high school seniors are invited to stay for a few days to get the feel of what it means to be a Cal student. This is important for members of minority groups in that it allows them to understand even more that they can be part of a community like Berkeley, and that they can be successful here too. Unfortunately did not go to Senior Weekend, but for those I know who did go, it was a deciding factor for them to coming to Cal. I’m going to be hosting a senior myself and I can’t wait to show them the right path to becoming a Golden Bear! Yay!

Laurie Bailon <3

Saturday, April 5, 2008

busy week

Hi girls!

Oh man, can you believe we have all these things due next week. It’s going to be a busy week for us. I hope everyone finished reading My Country versus Me and their response papers, studied for their exams, and found the book they’re going to write on. Whew! That’s quite a lot to do huh. But I’m sure we’ll get through this week soon enough.

So what did everything think of My Country versus Me? I thought it was a very interesting. It was an easy read but very deep. The things that happened to him must have had a great impact on him and his family. But I won’t get too into the book. I’ll save that for next week.

How did everyone do on their essays? I hope everyone did, seeing that only 2 people got A’s. Did any of you get helpful comments that could benefit the rest of the group (like any good advice)? I’ll start by telling you what advices I got from the professors. Let’s start with the good comments shall we? So one of the things that is good is that my essay is “tightly written and does a fine, concise job of addressing [my] thesis.” They said that stylistically, my “writing is clear and well-constructed; there were very few instances of confusion as to syntax or diction, and most of [my] paragraphs not only demonstrated an inner coherence, but also transitioned smoothly into each other.” The bad points: there are several points at which [I] begin to lose parts of the argument [I] had lay out in my introduction. This distracts from the essay’s overall conceptual unity-and, to some extent, the reader’s ease in following the logic of all of [my] arguments. For my next essay, I am advised to be more vigilant about making sure all parts of my essay hang together, and that I make it clear to the reader how certain parts of the argument fit into the overarching framework of the essay. Ok, I hope that helps you girls in your future essays. If you don’t mind, maybe you can also post some of your feedbacks from the professors.

So what is everyone writing their next essay on? I think I’m going to write my essay on A Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee. This is the book I did my presentation on and so I think I have the most knowledge of this book out of all the books I’ve read in this class. But still, I have not narrowed down my ideas for a thesis. There can be so many topics to talk about. It can’t be anything too broad and yet, it can’t be too detail or else there won’t be enough to talk about. I might talk about the relationship between Hata and his daughter, Sunny. I know that’s really broad for now, but I’ll figure something out before the conferences this week. I really hope I’ll finish everything on time. Good luck girls!! Please feel free to bounce ideas off us.

Jennifer Yeung