A Vivid Understanding

Sijie's novel, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, allows it's readers to truly engage themselves into the history when learning about the re-education system. Learning about the time of Mao's Cultural Revolution in the form on a fictional book provides a more personal feel making the history behind it more alluring to the reader. What appeals to me most about learning the history within this novel, is the idea that we our following the journey of the two boys who are going through this process themselves. These everyday encounters that the two boys go through, helped me understand what it was like living within the re-education system in a more vivid way. It entices me how we get to witness the true atmosphere what it was truly like living in this time period on a more personal account rather than reading a textbook with strait facts. I am excited to learn more and continue to follow the journey of these two village boys to see what happens next!

Self Reflection

English II has definitely been more challenging than last year, however I believe I have grown a lot from the beginning of the year. I do my best participating in class and also working hard outside of class to improve my reading and writing abilities. Although I do believe that I have grown as a writer these past few months, there is a lot of room for improvement within my writing. I have trouble with the habit I have formed, telling not showing. I struggle juxtaposing the two as I always have but this year I hope to come to an epiphany. Something that I have increasingly picked up from this year, is understanding the deeper meaning behind text rather than taking the literally meaning. In regards the quizzes, I seem to be doing well in vocabulary, however slack in reading comprehension. Nonetheless, I can already see improvement from the beginning of the year and hopefully continue to progress with my new routine of thoroughly reading and annotating, rather than leaving it to the last minute. Overall English II has been successful and I am confident to grow into a more avid reader and writer throughout the year.

Banned Books

For this weeks journal entry we were assigned to write about our views on the governments right to ban books. It came to my surprise to just how many books have been banned over the years. A few of my favorite books such as The Complete Persepolis and The Perks of Being a Wallflower have been banned due to their excessive use of alcohol and other drugs, only representing the imperfection of reality. It was truly bewildering to see how much  power the government holds, especially in what we expose ourself's to. Enforcing the restriction of the books we read, in my opinion, is something the government does not have the right to do. It is understandable how the government censors and challenges the books we read, in order to shelter their power. However, this idea of censorship does not hold me back into something I am willing to divulge myself into, for it sounds like a personal rather than political ideal.

I believe competition pushes us to our limits. With complete equality, comes mediocrity. If everyone is a winner no one will push them selves to reach their maximum potential or even know what potential they carry.  Similar to Harrison in the short story "Harrison Burgeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, I am opposed of living in a society with complete equality, because it takes away from individuality and allows everyone to live life giving their bare minimum.  It is important for children to compete with each other to prepare for he real world. I believe in rather praising children for all being equally "perfect", we need them to be exposed to failure in order to survive in the real world. Without failure, their is no strife to be the winner. Shielding children from this matter in today's society gears kids away from the feeling of winning by making everyone the winner. So how will we really push ourselves to victory if we don't know what it feels like?