j9- rough draft

Gender roles
Thesis: Even though the responsibilities of a female in the family have sufficiently increased over the years, women are still looked down upon in the eyes of men.
Intro: women are expected to be the stay at home moms.
- Society’s social norm
- Even though women fought hard for their rights, still not taken seriously
- An issue seen on a daily business
- Real life as well as media and television
o I love lucy and house husbands
• Similar relations between the 2
- Men assume women have it easy
o Don’t fully understand how hardworking women are
Paragraph 1: discuss I love lucy
- Women were portrayed as the stay at home wives
o Takes care of the house chores and cooking
- The men patronized the women about their lives being easy
- Decided to switch roles
- Learned that their lives were a lot harder than they assumed.
Paragraph 2: discuss house husbands trailer
- The men started out being working guys
- Their lives became stressful and difficult
o Figured being stay at home dads were easy
- “the new black”
o Joking about how simple life would be if roles were switched
Paragraph 3: relating with I love lucy through house husbands trailer
- The 2 male leads in I love lucy stated that “anybody can cook and clean”
- “discover the freedom, the fun, the fashion, of being a stay at home husband”
- Both exposes the idea that female roles are less complicated compared to the male roles
o Stay at home, cook, clean, take care of the kids, do nothing.
Paragraph 4: history’s view on women
- Worthless/ property
- Household chores
- Bearing children
Paragraph 5: today’s view on women
- Still expected to cook and clean
o Even after a long days of work
- More responsibilities
o Yet still little respect
Paragraph 6: how have the views (not) changed
- men have always looked down upon women
- Both clips showed the mentality of the men
o Female roles are easier than male roles
o It’s a lot less difficult to be a woman
- Thoughts and beliefs are still similar
Conclusion: unequal gender roles
- Women have more responsibilities than men
o Even with work, are still expected to cook, clean, and take care of the kids.
- Women get treated differently.
- Men should realize that it’s tough to be a woman.
o I love lucy- “We don’t know how you girls feel about it, but we’d like to forget the whole thing. We’re lousy housewives.”
o House husbands trailer- Just a trailer, but throughout the season, the men run into some tough situations
• Realized that it’s harder than it seems
- These clips effectively portray the misleading male’s perspective on women.
o Men who assume that female roles are far more less complicated should watch these clips

j7- glee

I like that this unit is on gender identity. I think it’s a really interesting topic and to view it from different perspectives is quite fascinating. I have friends that range from the extremely gay to major bigots. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The clip I’m analyzing is actually the episode of glee. In this particular episode there is a new guy in glee club and at first everyone assumes he’s gay. I guess there were a couple of things that led all the other members to believe in that. He started out with a dr. suess quote which had the girls thinking he doesn’t have game, which I suppose in turn means he doesn’t hit on much girls. Then the gay guy in the club noticed his hair colour. He said he has what’s called, “gaydar” and can tell when a guy dyes his hair. I think it’s implying that a straight guy can’t have good hair. Nor can he know show tunes; when the gay guy listed a bunch of it to the new guy, he hadn’t a clue, and the gay guy said, “Wow, maybe you ARE straight!” Society has certain rules that people need to follow, unless they want to be categorized in certain sex groups. If two guys sing a duet together, then they are up for hell. If a guy is fashionable, he is gay. If he is in glee club, he is gay. I like that the gay guy in this episode says that when you’re different, you’re alone. Yet, he’s proud to be different if that means showing who he really is. He embraced both the male and female roles through song. I thought that was pretty cool the way he sang the male’s part with the right side of his body and the girl’s part with the left. It was a really creative way to combine the two. There’s a lot of ridicule that comes with being unlike the rest. The main guy in the show (football player, popular, jock) said that a guy singing with another guy in a duet means there’s a “bullet” on their backs. People tend to pick on people that are different than them. Maybe it’s because they don’t understand, or just don’t care for dissimilarity. The same jock guy said something about it being “their world” and in “their world” being gay is a death sentence. It’s kind of sad to think about everything that a gay person goes through and the experiences that they won’t ever get to have. The gay guy confesses to his dad about how he thinks it’s unfair that he’s the only openly gay and doesn’t ever get the opportunity to walk hand in hand down the hallway of school or slow dance at his prom. Everybody should have equal rights. Gay people are just the same as straight people.

j5- sloan's text

I think comparatively, sloan's hypertext was much more effective. The text from the book was understandable, but it didn't hold my interest for long. As for the hypertext, there were pictures and other links that allowed for a much better grasp on the subject. The links weren't distracting at all. It allowed me to go back after a paragraph or two to check out the terms/ people. It actually provided more information than the book. Then again, I didn't click on every link. I think that might've been distracting. I only clicked on the links that I wanted to know more about. However, I feel as if I hadn't read the book, I wouldn't understood it as much. The book gives more detail of the subject, but it was really dry. Although both the book and the hypertext had its pros and cons, I'm a visual learner and having the pictures there allowed me to see exactly what the text was about.

j4- cesl experience

I really enjoyed meeting the international students at cesl. I met a guy and girl, both from China. It was pretty interesting to see our similarities and differences. Since I met the girl first and had a longer time with her, she was the one I actually interviewed. The questions that Jenna had given us to ask the cesl students were kind of just core questions to help us get started. The girl and I talked about a lot of other stuff that weren’t on there. One of the questions was, “what is something you wish to get out of your experience of being abroad?” (or something to that nature). Her reply was being away from parents. She explained that her parents are really strict on grades and she didn’t have much freedom when she was at home because she spent all her time on chores and then studying to better herself at school. I felt the exact same way about college. My parents have always been really big on education, then again which parent isn’t. However, it feels nice being only 2 hours away from them. It’s far enough where they can’t just drop by randomly, but close enough for me to visit if I ever get homesick. I think it’s very courageous for the international students to travel so far to a new place where they don’t know anybody. I, myself, don’t think I’d ever be able to do it. The girl and I talked about future aspirations, what we were doing this weekend, what we wished to get out of school (along with what she should expect from English 101). It was really easy talking to her, but at one point, I had to explain the question, “what is something people misunderstand about you?” (something like that). I tried my best to explain, but I guess I did a really poor job, because we ended up just staring at each other with blank expressions, followed by awkward laughter. I tried my best to ask her the question, and she tried her best to answer. I believe she said something on the lines of, “I don’t know what it is, but I always smile. People may think I’m up to no good.” Well, maybe telling of this story in text isn’t as funny as it is if I were to say it out loud, because when she said smile, it sounded like smell. Again with the blank expression and awkward laughter because, yeah.. I sniffed the air and said she smelt fine. :D she had to write the word SMILE on paper for me.

I can relate what I learned today about cultural identity to the reading. The girl I met with had a hard time with grammar, speaking, fitting in, etc. It’s always the same when you go to a new place and don’t know anyone. The narrator of reading talks about how he had to learn a whole new language and interact with the family. He said he and the mother didn’t talk much during dinners and such because the words he knew how to say weren’t anything meaningful enough for conversations. It’s easy to relate, because when you don’t know much about another culture and you’re submerged into that culture, everything’s new. The narrator looks at what the other people are doing and he finds it sort of odd, but goes along with it, because it’s the social norm. I think that’s how to cesl students feel.

j2- my persona text

My title to this blog is absolutely false. I’m not using any persona texts, let alone mine. I found a couple identity texts I’ve written in the past, but not any that I really liked and/or consisted enough to analyze for an analysis/ reflective essay. Ms. Pack said we could choose any text we wanted, so long as it was self-written. That’s exactly what I did. I chose an essay I had written last year for one of my classes about the Pros of legalizing marijuana. So, seeing as how this journal is to compare with one of the persona texts we read in class, my text is completely different. It doesn’t have any cultural backgrounds nor songs and lyrics. And it has nothing to do with me, other than the fact that I guess it should be legalized. My actual essay for this assignment, however, will still meet its purpose; I’ll still be analyzing my writing. I think I’ll critique my writing in ways of how I constructed my ideas, my style as a student, as well as my style in general. I think it’s going to be a bit challenging though. I’ve never REALLY ANALYZED anything I’ve written before (I doubt editing a first draft counts).

j1- an identity changing experience

I am a Vietnamese-american. My dad is full viet, whereas my mom is half viet half austrailian. Growing up I didn’t really care about my background and heritage. I felt as if it had nothing to do with the person I am. I wasn’t so much ashamed as I was proud. It basically was nothing to me. I figured my actions were solely based upon my personality and nothing more (surely not my culture.) A couple summers ago, my parents decided to take my older sister and me on a vacation to Vietnam to visit my dad’s side of the family. I hated the idea at first. I dreaded leaving behind my friends for a whole summer and going to a strange place and meeting family members, who, to be honest, I didn’t really care about. The airport was noisy and crowded; the plane ride was long and uncomfortable; the weather was humid and sticky. I hated everything. When my grandpa picked me and my family up from the airport, I remember sitting in the car with my arms crossed, staring outside the window, and thinking of all the other places in the world I’d rather be than there. Due to traffic, the car ride seemed forever. When we finally reached the house, I saw about 20 unfamiliar family members standing outside, awaiting our arrival. Everyone was so excited to see us. They all greeted us with smiles, grabbed our bags, pinched mine and my sister’s cheeks, and rushed us inside to feed upon the feast already prepared for the special occasion. The rest of the vacation was pretty much that. The adults would talk about how much my sister and I had grown and whatnot. My sister loved the attention, but I felt out of place. I was counting the days, hours, and minutes, until we were able to leave and I can get back to my friends.

One day of my stay in Vietnam, my dad had gone out with my grandpa and uncles to go fishing, while my mom went with my aunts into town to do some shopping. My sister and I were left at home with my grandma. The rest of the family was supposed to be out all day, so she and my sister were in the kitchen making lunch for the three of us. I, however, was in the living room watching a Vietnamese comedy, not really understanding the humor. My grandma called for me to go eat with them and I did. I pretty much stared at my plate the entire time; I hadn’t much to say to her. My grandma asked about my life in America, about school, friends, boys. She was trying to make the effort in getting to know me, but I thought it was pointless. After lunch, I went back to my movie, sitting on the opposite end of the room with my grandma and sister. The humor in the movie was so dry; it was so hard to understand. I stopped focusing on it and started eavesdropping on my grandma. She was telling my sister some old Vietnamese folk stories. I was so intrigued I turned off the movie and scooted closer to them. She even told several fairytales about mythical creatures and I loved every minute of it. I couldn’t believe such fabulous imagination, everything felt so real, yet magical at the same time. My grandma had explained to me that those stories were the same ones her grandma used to tell to her. She continued to tell me about how important stories in the Vietnamese culture were. Ancestors would pass down life lessons to the young ones and they would pass those down to their kids. Everything in the culture had a purpose and a reason. She carried on telling me about other aspects of the customs that I hadn’t really heard of and clarified any questions I had on the traditions. The respect I had for my ethnicity had increased magnificently. I learned a lot from the grandma that day and continue to learn more each day through books and my elders. I know now that my culture is a very important part of me and it’s an aspect that I should have high admirations and appreciations for. The choices I make everyday should prove to everyone that I am a proud Vietnamese-american.

This writing experience went fine for me. At first it was hard to organize my thoughts, but once I started typing, I couldn’t stop. I might have fictionalized a couple aspects, such as the activities that the rest of my family did when my sister and I were at home with my grandma. I don’t remember what they did that day, but I knew those were some of the things they did during the stay. I had a hard time, however, deciding on a topic (it was between the birth of my younger sister and my trip to Vietnam.) I tried to use descriptive language as much as I can to show my true feelings and emotions in writing.