Essay on The absolutely true diary of a part-time indian

Manifesto

Life.  Full of experiences, emotions, and feelings. Everyone deals with their problems on their own way, and under their own terms but, if your life was to be more gloomy  than joyful, having  more problems instead of solutions, how optimistic would your mind and actions remain through it all? How would you be able to float and keep swimming in a sea full of reasons for you to give up on life? Many times, we can be able to encounter the sensation of doing something out of an inner will, an unknown inner will that, can be so powerful that for some reason makes us to want to keep on moving forward without hesitating. In the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie displays the situation in which Arnold has found himself to be in. He starts to experiment on life, making his own choices, and just like everybody, facing obstacles on the way and the more he keeps on going, the more he embraces his decisions the more he lets his feelings go out of control. Feeling like he’s disillusioning his own race, he seems to start experiencing new feelings.  Even thought he sounds pessimistic most of the time, he has this deep inner will inside of him, that makes him keep on going carrying on with life, not giving up for a second turning all the anger he holds on to into laughter, which is not commonly among the people to laugh instead of cry, but it’s certainly healthier than to let yourself being submerged by sorrow.

Since Arnold was born, the author displays the many difficulties he started to face initiating from his brain surgery he had when he was six months old. “I was only six months old and I was supposed to croak during the surgery”. As he grew up, he noticed his peers from the Rez always mistreated him, witched affected a huge part in his life.”Do you know what happens to retards on the rez? We get beat up. At least once a month.” He always had Rowdy, his best friend; on his side yet it was a handful to have to deal with people who did not like him simply because of his physical condition or for no apparent reason. Concluding he was not worth it, he was not able to believe in himself and, due to his past experiences he have already had with the bullies from the rez, he convinced himself he didn't deserve better. ”I couldn't say it. It wasn't true. I mean, I wanted to have it better but I didn't deserve it. I was the kid who threw books at teachers”. Said Arnold after having an extended talk with Mr. P. his geometry teacher. Perhaps, he made him change his mind a little, and also have some doubt about it. It was not until that moment, that night he talked with Mr. P that he started to open up his mind and decided he wanted a future, still believing to not deserve such thing, he still wanted it badly enough to make a choice.

The moment Arnold decided to attend a “white school” in Reardan, was the moment he knew that the people who also resides in the reservation with him will consider this choice as a betrayal “Shoot, I figured that my fellow tribal members are going to torture me” Not the way he saw it thought, his personal opinion about moving out to that school in particular was to progress. He had ambitions in life and he also came to realize that he did not want to live his life like most of his fellows did; wasting their little money they had on alcohol. For Arnold, the real struggle was just taking its course, barely beginning. All of those years for him were awful and nobody would like to go through that but, there was still more to come. More moments awaiting for him, more feelings to feel, more experiences to live, more things to learn such as the particular way he had to express his feelings and emotions, and without having any notice he will soon suffer loss.

When a person lives in a world full of cruelty and lust, this person will not know better other than safety first. That is the unconscious action humans will always put first than anything else. “But it’s safer to stay home. So I mostly hang out alone in my bedroom and read books and draw cartoons”, Said Arnold, introducing to the readers how much he likes drawing, and not only he would derive pleasure from drawing, but also was the unique form of expression he had. In other words, he had a genuinely unique way to see the world. “I draw because words are too unpredictable. I draw because words are too limited” His character mostly portrays a teenage boy who is creative, and does not know how to express his feelings to others. Sometimes he sounds way too pessimistic for a 14-year-old boy, but then some other times he shows the optimistic side of him that it seems, to want to get out of him but, he’s not letting that side of him show, to come out to the light and so let everyone else see his thinking.

Furthermore, after Junior started to attend school at Reardan not many things were different than how they used to be back at the school from the Rez, he would still not have as many friends, but he was looking forward for a fresh start, attracting positive vibes he accomplished many great things, great things that were going beyond his expectations. Building hope on his own, it was like he was sailing on the sea with a rowing boat, he was sailing towards the big ferry boat called future. Fear was taking place; Arnold was experiencing what being afraid was, not only about the bad unknown things that could go wrong, but strangely, also about the good things such as hope. “Man I was scared of those Reardan kids, and maybe I was scared of hope, too, but Rowdy absolutely hated all of this”. He was not being foolish at all, he could acknowledge that his best friend extremely disliked the idea of him going to that school, to him Rowdy was like a brother, and losing a brother is one of the most terrifying ideas that could go through anybody’s mind.

To continue, after learning how much the people from the rez disliked him, he started to create more of a bound with his school. He finally was having friends, he even experienced to be a popular cool kid of a white school, and he was awesome, dazzling at playing basketball. Although he was still being himself, drawing those priceless pieces he would always do. Sounds wonderful doesn't it? But Arnold cared more about his family and how much he loved them, showing off the great quality every member of his family had. His words were bitter and negative at times, but how small his ego could be if he was able to manifest so many great and pure feelings about the people he loved the most. Such love was giving him the strength to keep up with the good work, to not give up and take a look at how far he have already gotten on his own. Life brings people to the right place at its right time, even if you want to remove yourself from a situation or if you want to add yourself, not even then you can avoid what life has prepared for you.

Even when somebody had already thought of losing someone, nobody is really prepared when death comes knocking on your doorstep. After learning his grandmother, the person who he described to be wonderful and the most amazing person in the world, and along his dad’s best friend had left his side, instead of shading tears he shared laughter. Very strange, but it was in the moment of loss when the optimistic part of him that was eager to get out of him, that he seemed to had put a leash on it, well it was getting out, showing off letting himself keep afloat and looking strange but not letting himself being submerged by pain, sorrow, or depression. He was hurting in those moments, and who wouldn't? But his inner self told him not to give up, having a feeling better days were coming. And continue laughing, not letting his feelings to make him sink. He saw the bigger picture when climbing the tree with Rowdy, “We could see our entire world. And our entire world, at the moment, was green and golden and perfect”. After the storm comes the rainbow.

Convincing a teenager to read Sherman Alexie's book

Hey there! How have you been? I bet you're already stepping onto that grown-teenage life by now, A sing all of your tests and making everybody proud! Speaking of which, since you've always like to read stories and lots of books, escaping the real world for a while loosing up your mind in the pages of the books, I wanted to recommend you a really good one I happened to read just recently, it's called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I think you should totally read it, ease your mind some time and maybe take some notes on it, like you usually do on things that you like so you can learn a little about teenage. Since you're going through some changes in your life, and experiencing lots of  feelings now that you're going to High School and meeting new people, changing somewhat some of your likes or extending your points of view and sometimes be confused about certain thoughts and find no answer, yet keep looking for a reason for everything, it will help you to understand lots of things it won't be a list of answers to everything you're looking for but although this story is about an Indian-American 14 year-old boy you will relate yourself  to more than one feeling, and/or thought.

By now you might be trying to figure out the title, so let me break it down for you just a little, and maybe I can finish to totally convince you to read it!. So it has that title for a reason, a reason you understand by the middle of the book, but I'm going to save you the suspense and some time and talk you into it. This boy's name is Arnold he is a 14 year-old Indian-American boy who happens to be struggling life in his Indian reservation where he resides, due to a physical condition that he was born with and I guess just bad luck with his "people". But his bad luck totally changes, in my opinion, over time. He is kind of a dreamer, like us, more like me in the way he expresses things but like you in the why's, and under certain situations which, with that part I think you'll love it and you might think it's kind of goofy but I'm pretty sure you'll like it after all. This guy is poor, he has low self-esteem, bad luck with girls, and gets beat up by other kids constantly, but even all of these horrible things happen he still seems to have a better sense of life, he wants to do better, even when he thinks he does not deserve better, for some reason he embraces change, he wants to keep on going like if he had an inner will deep, but very deeply inside his conscious or maybe his heart? that keeps him somewhat motivated and willing to keep on going with life, to carry on with the choices he has made along the past years, but most importantly the choices he made in his first year of High School not to shine a side from the rest and shine so bright that he can blind others and dazzle on his own, but to be better on his own to have something to want, something to love, to be someone be normal, or simply just to want to be someone and break the cycle his family have always been through. Sounds any familiar yet? Well if you wanna find out what all of this is about I suggest you to read the story, explore other minds and gain piece of mind, or what I would called, mind experience. Let me know what you think about the ending (;

Sample Papers Evaluation

I chose sample paper #1, 'The Stupid Horse"
To start with, what is supposed to be a "hook", well is not. why? because it doesn't catch much attention due to the questions the writer have wrote. They are too much, it's immediately boring for a reader who doesn't know what you are talking about and has absolutely no interest on the topic. So instead, to hook the readers, in my opinion I think it's better to have questions that relate them more to the topic, that teases your mind and makes you want to read more so you actually read the whole story and do not think something such as: "This looks boring, next!".
It is not appealing to my eyes, so I do not consider this story much interesting. You can figure what the topic is, since pretty much is just like re-reading the textbook except it's like if it had instructions of how to interpret the events as you read, and you skip parts of the book.
It has many words, it's like ' I get the point, the horse got up over and over no matter what they did to him, so what's next?', in other words, the paper lacks excitement, it does not make you wonder so it needs a teaser, excitement in the words, the writer's own words not just something you can copy and paste from an online book or rewrite the story that is completely boring, the missing piece is mostly the writer's perspective and its very own opinion, or I rather say, their own style to expose the content of this story.

Something we talked about in class...

Guantanamo Bay. President Barack Obama mentioned how he was planing, or at least had the idea to release the prisoners, or I rather say, terrorists that are being kept in this american prison located in Cuba, during his "State of the Union" speech. As a class we discussed the different points of view that we all have, and lead us to question why our president would like to do such thing if we are talking about the most dangerous terrorists that were considered a real threat for the country.
Some of the ideas were that the reason for it could be, that Obama might want to win back some allies with the countries that United Sates has lost sympathy with. In addition, as spoken in class, it is pretty mysterious and confusing the reasons why the U.S. runs a prison like Guantanamo Bay inside this island country of Cuba which is known for most Americans to be more likely an enemy to the U.S. than a friendly neighbor, very disturbing. Personal opinion, I think that the government is now just outsourcing ideas because they don't know how to fix the big damages that have been caused over the years to our nation. 

About My Blog

Hey Everybody!

My name is Elizabeth, I'm taking English 102 because is a prerequisite in order to be able to transfer to a CSU later on, so I'll be sharing this semester with you all! 

This is my first English class I've had since 2012 which makes it a little hard because I haven't practice much of the writing, essays, research, and what you just usually see in an English class. I have many skills and hobbies, in my free time I like to write music lyrics and I also sing them and record them. I do drawings, not just any drawing, but hard ones. The reason why is because I like to challenge myself, I think that as the difficulty in whatever is that you are doing escalates, the more agile and stronger you become. I also like to study another languages, decorate and move things around my room a lot. I'm very artistic. But what I'm really passionate about is  fitness & health, and gymnastics which is related, you gotta be disciplined in both. I'm vegetarian, but I have my cheat meals. I have a part time job, which consumes most of my time a long with school and exercise, like going to the gym or simply outdoors activity. Can't wait to get to know you all!