A New Perspective

Like any other student entering high school for the first time, I woke up on my first day as a freshman with butterflies in my stomach. I was worried about classes, teachers, and, most of all, about making friends. Little did I know that I would meet a friend on the first day that would greatly impact my world view.

I remember arriving to homeroom bright and early at 7:00. It seemed that everyone knew each other and already had someone to talk to. I was rather shy, so I felt uncomfortable joining in an already-started conversation. Instead, I looked for someone who seemed to be quiet, like myself. I happened upon a girl who was sitting at a table alone and doodling absentmindedly on a piece of notebook paper. I approached and sat down, introducing myself soon after. She introduced herself as "Amalia," and I could immediately tell from her accent that she was not from Las Vegas, or even the United States. I asked where she was from, and she explained that she was an exchange student from Germany. This amazed me, as it was my first experience with meeting someone my age that was from another country. I was completely intrigued, and asked her so many questions. I cannot remember exactly what I asked her or how she answered, but I do remember the impact of meeting someone who came from somewhere completely different than what I was used to. Indeed, when my parents asked me if I had made any friends that day, I enthusiastically told them all about Amalia and Germany.

As I said, this was my first encounter with a young student from another country. I had always realized that people lived across the globe, but I had never really stopped to ponder that people actually lived other places. I mean, foreign countries always appeared to me as outlines of land with a name printed across it, as seen on a map. I never thought about how people live there and carry out their lives in the same manner that we do here. Talking with Amalia and learning about her culture completely opened my eyes to the fact that the world is a big place- with different people living in different places and engaging in different activities. This creates so many different perspectives and different world views. This epiphany, of sorts, greatly influenced me and made me interested in other cultures and traveling. I love living here, but I think that it is so interesting to learn about the way other people live. And, thanks to Amalia, I realized that it is important to learn about the people that live in other countries because it makes you realize that they are actually people living there, and not just numbers in a population map. It is important to know this, as it keeps perspective on humanity. In all, Amalia taught me much about both myself and the way that I believe the world should be viewed.

通訊

The title of this post is the Chinese translation for "communication". I chose to title it in a different language to highlight the differences in communication that my conversation partner, Simon, and I went through. When we were first assigned to our partners and received their contact information, I had assumed that email would be the best means of communication. However, I waited close to two weeks without a reply, and finally received a phone call from an unknown number. I answered, and was pleased to be met with a voice who introduced himself as Linze Hu (Simon is his American name) and informed me that he had problems with his internet and that the best way to contact him in the future would be through text. We hung up, and I texted him a little later saying that I was glad to have talked to him and asking when the best time to meet would be. He promptly texted back, and we had a great conversation establishing a meeting date/time, and also some essentials like major, age, and that sort of thing.

For the first few weeks, our method of texting and keeping the same meeting day and place worked out well. However, we hit a problem when Simon needed to pay his phone bill. His service had been cut off for a bit until he paid. Instead, I received a text from his friend, Mikko (See blog, "An Eager New Face",) saying that she was acting as Simon's communicator, as he had not gone to the phone store yet. This worked well for a bit, as Mikko was trying to meet with us, too. However, she soon informed me that she had received her own communication partner, and that she would no longer be meeting with us. So, I went back to trying to email Simon, yet with the same success I first had. This problem in communication was demoralizing, and made it very difficult to try and set up meeting times.

Thus, problems in communication would probably be the one thing that I would try and simplify in next semester's partner program. It really is an amazing idea, with the chance for both the IEP and Lit/Civ students to learn much about one another and to grow as individuals with more of a global mindset. Problems in communication detract some from this, and thus it would be easier to have a mandated day, place, and time to meet. I really liked the idea brought up in class of meeting the students outside of their IEP class. This way, everyone would be in the same place. Other than this, I would maybe further emphasize the idea of having a concrete day/time picked out with your partner from the beginning, and sticking with that. This could be emphasized in the syllabus. Part of the problem with our conversation set-up was that we had to switch days often due to prior commitments from the both of us. It made it difficult to know what to expect, and thus made communication a key. If we had emphasized keeping the same day/time from the beginning, perhaps it would have been easier to meet and we would have depended less on technology for communication. However, I greatly enjoyed the program and know that, if given the opportunity to participate again in the future, I would be much more understanding of the possible problems of contacting and organizing. In all, despite the communication problems, I am extremely thankful for the time I spent conversing with Simon!

An Eager New Face

One day, on the day before I was to meet with my conversation partner, Simon, I received a text from him saying that he was going to bring a friend from his IEP class to our meeting. I was excited about this, and I became even more excited when I received a text from his friend, Mikko, the next day before out meeting. In the text, she wanted to confirm the time, and also wanted to introduce herself and tell me that she was communicating for Simon as well, since his phone had run out of service. Sadly, however, on this day I was feeling ill and had decided to visit the Health Center. This visit made me 40 minutes late to the meeting, time during which Mikko continued to text me and let me know that it was okay.

When I finally arrived at our meeting spot, the Barnes & Noble bookstore, I found the familiar face of Simon sitting with a girl around our same age. The girl introduced herself as Mikko, and let me know again that it was okay that I was late, as I was taking care of myself. She was really sweet, and it was a lot of fun getting to know her. One of the first things that she told me was that she was glad to be meeting with me as she had not been assigned a conversation partner of her own. She explained to me that she really wanted one, because she wanted to improve her English. Thus, she had asked Simon if she could accompany him to his conversation meetings.

This was very interesting to me, as it made me think about the nature of our meetings. To be completely honest, I had viewed the meetings as part of a checklist- something to get done for a grade and cross off the list. However, Mikko reminded me that having a conversation partner was truly beneficial, as it helped the IEP students to learn and helped me to open my eyes. Also, Mikko's enthusiasm was an inspiration. She had gone out of her way to make sure that she had a conversation partner, despite the fact that she had not been assigned one to begin with. This was amazing to me, and definitely a lesson in determination.

Yellow

"Under the Ridge" is truly a dismal story. It involves melancholy, infected limbs, and a bleak landscape, all of which can promote a vision of the color yellow. Yet, the "yellow" that the story is most concerned with is that of cowardice. Indeed, on the second page there is an argument between soldiers about the presence of fear in battle, with one claiming it as normal as "the truth" and the other denying it. A little later, the stories of Paco and the Frenchman further emphasize the presence of a tension between bravey and cowardice. Paco became fearful and tried to find a way out of the situation, yet he ultimately met the same end, only in worse condition and not expecting to die. His cowardice was severely punished. The Frenchman, too, was punished, yet his story creates an interesting parallel to bravery. He was described as walking away in a dignified manner with his head held high. He was not ashamed of leaving, and the narrator recognizes that the Frenchman saw that what they were doing was pointless. They had little chance of winning, and it made no sense to stay and die in an unsuccessful campaign. He saw the "idiocy" of the war, and decided to walk away. The most interesting part of this story is that the narrator sees the Frenchman, rather than a coward, "as a man."(466) His actions were not seen as cowardly, but as the actions a man would take.

This reminded me of part of a book I read, called "The Things They Carried". In this book, there is a story of a boy who was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. He did not want to go, and tried to run away to Canada. However, he returned because he claimed that he did not have the bravery to deny his being drafted. This was so counter-intuitive to me, because it had always seemed that going off to war was the brave, patriotic thing to do. Yet, it makes sense that everyone was expecting that. The boy's desire to run from a war that he saw as pointless, in his view, was the brave thing to do because it matched his beliefs. By going along with what everyone expected him to do, he was falling to others' conceptions and being a coward to opinion. I see the story of the Frenchman as much the same; by walking away from something that he did not believe in and that he knew would kill him without purpose, he was being brave. Staying would represent a non-action, and would mean that he did not have the courage to act on his feelings. It is a strange approach, especially when taken with the fact that both he and Paco died for their desertion, yet it is an interesting view to look at.

Aside from a theme of the tension between bravery and cowardice, I believe that "Under the Ridge" is an anti-war story. It may differ from some of Hemingway's other war pieces in that it is more impersonal as told from an outsider's (the writer/photographer's) perspective, yet the atrocities and ill effects of war are still portrayed. Death is the most obvious detriment, with Paco's story making an impact. He was injured, and, just when he had hope of recovery and carrying on, he was killed. The Frenchman was also killed when he tried to walk away, just when he walked over the ridge and thought he was on his way to freedom. Last of the prominent deaths was that of the narrator's friend, who was killed two months after leaving the battle detailed in the story. Here, he had thought that as writers/photographers they would be able to "write afterwards," or save their stories until a later time. He assumed that they would live and be able to escape the same deaths that the soldiers faced. However, despite this fact he was still killed. All of these stories have the same trait in common; the victims had all thought that they would be able to escape, yet this hope proved futile. In essence, there is no escaping death and the tragedy of loss derived from the war. The narrator states this concisely when he says, "The nearest any man was to victory that day was proably the Frenchman who came, with his head held high, walking out of the battle. But his victory only lasted until he had walked halfway down the ridge."(469) If the closest person to victory ended up dead, then that means that no one escaped or was victorious. The tragedy of war affected everyone involved, without discrimination or exception.

Another, less prominent, anti-war message is seen in the actions of the Extremaduran. He hates all foreigners, and we come to find out that this is because of the way in which he saw the Russians treat Paco. Also, he outlines the wrongs which other nationalities have dealt his people, which namely deal with war crimes such as rape and pillaging. This shows that the war made people xenophobic and distrustful of others. It led to a decrease in world harmony and an increase in hatred and disullisionment with the ability to find  peace. Truly, this shows that the war created conflict that would rise above the duration of the war and would last throughout the lives of those involved.

"Of Modern Poetry"

I know that this relates to a poet that we covered in class quite awhile ago, but I recently read this poem by Wallace Stevens for my American Poetry class and thought that it fit into the modernist movement quite nicely. I thought I'd share!


"Of Modern Poetry"

The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice. It has not always had
To find: the scene was set; it repeated what
Was in the script.
 
                      Then the theatre was changed
To something else. Its past was a souvenir.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to face the men of the time and to meet
The women of the time. It has to think about war
And it has to find what will suffice. It has
To construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat,
Exactly, that which it wants to hear, at the sound
Of which, an invisible audience listens,
Not to the play, but to itself, expressed
In an emotion as of two people, as of two
Emotions becoming one. The actor is
A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.

                                         It must
Be the finding of a satisfaction, and may
Be of a man skating, a woman dancing, a woman
Combing. The poem of the act of the mind.


The poem opens with the idea that Modernism seeks to break from what was expected, or what, "Was in the script" (line 4.) It is the idea that, for previous poets, the ideas of what they were supposed to say and how was already planned out and here was not really a whole lot of "finding" or creativity going on, and repetition was common. This fits with what we learned in class, where Modernists seek to undo what the past dictated and wanted to repudiate the commonly held assumptions about what art and literature/poetry was.

This is further emphasized at the beginning of the second stanza, where Stevens talks about a new theatre and constructing a new stage. Moreover, he goes into detail about how this new stage should be constructed. He says that "the past was a souvenir", which fits with a modernist idea (especially articulated by modernist T.S. Eliot in "Tradition and the Individual Talent") that, while forging ahead into new modes of art and expression, the past cannot be forgotten and should still be recognized. The past of traditional poetry is here represented by a "souvenir". Also in this stanza, Stevens presents the idea that, farther than recognizing the past, poetry should also recognize what is going on in the present and react to it. This is asserted in lines 6-8, where he says that poetry should be "living" and able to meet prominent people and think about war. "It has to think about war"(9), especially, reflects the modernist reaction to express the changes that participating in the war made on culture.

The next part of this stanza concentrates on the modernist idea that art is meant as more than mimetic or something to merely look at/read. Namely, it expresses the fact that much of modernism centered on creating a reaction in the reader that had nothing to do with interpretation and was natural. This is shown in the poem by the idea that the "actor", or poet, "speak words that in the ear,/ In the delicatest ear of the mind, repeat..."(13-14.) Here, "delicatest ear of the mind" can represent the extreme inner mind, or subconscious of the reader. Thus, the claim is that poetry should appeal to someone's subconscious, which is free from surface interpretations and meanings thought to be garnered from mere representations. This is also expressed when Stevens talks of the audience listening "to itself, expressed/ In an emotion as of two people, as of two/ Emotions becoming one"(17-19.) Apparent here, again, is the modernist tenet that art/literature/poetry should aim at the inner being of someone and affect him or her subconsciously, without that person really having to actively pursue a meaning.

The last stanza of the poem emphasizes this, with, "the finding of satisfaction"(26.) Also, the actions presented in skating, dancing, and combing serve to exemplify, "The poem of the act of the mind"(28). In this last stanza, Stevens is portraying the idea that poetry is more than words in a page- it should be directly attached to the workings of the mind. It should not involve analysis, and should instead directly produce true response.

It was fun to look a poem from a modernist writer and see so much of what we have learned about regarding the movement as whole apparent in his writing, and moreover, in his philosophy on writing. It provided a direct example of what the modernists did, and how they sought to get across their messages. Modernism is interesting, especially when directly expressed in a medium such as poetry.

Culture Differences

What a small, wide world we live in! I know, it's part cliché, part contradiction, but meeting with my conversation partner, Simon, has really showed me this. Simon is from China, and it has been so interesting getting to know him! He has only been in America since the beginning of the school year, and it is truly incredible to me how quickly he has grasped both English and the culture that surrounds him. For example, our very first communication occurred in the form of a text message. I had been having trouble contacting Simon, as his email service was down. Thus, one Thursday I was quite surprised when I received a text message from him introducing himself and proposing a time to meet. The text message was all in English, and I was so impressed with his confidence to text me about meeting! 

Our meetings have been interesting, although they make me feel a bit selfish because it seems like I learn so much about him and his culture, and I'm really not sure how much he has learned about American culture from me. You see, Simon loves to talk and he isn't daunted by not knowing a word or perhaps misunderstanding my question. He bravely continues, and asks for help when trying to articulate a word that he does not know (I love helping him out here- it makes me think that I am somehow returning the gift of learning.) Seriously, I admire him so much for this! I am in my fourth-ish year of Spanish, and I am still so intimidated by the prospect of speaking to native speakers. I get so tongue-tied and shy, and it is generally altogether an experience full of struggles. Simon is not afraid to fail, though, and this greatly impresses me.

I am also impressed with Simon's ability to travel so far from home. China is many miles away, both in miles and cultural differences. One of the subjects we have often talked about is food. He does not like cheese to the extent that we have it here, and has been adapting to eating meat like pork. He says that it is not common back home, and that fish is eaten much more often (although here I tried to explain that Market Square is not a good representation of how often seafood is consumed. Fish is rather rare at the BLUU.) He has also bemoaned the lack of real Chinese food, and he says that one of the things he misses most about home is the food. This definitely made me further reflect over how difficult it would be to travel to another country where most everything is different, especially food that I perhaps take for granted here. Food is an automatic need, but it would be so strange to have to adjust to a whole new set of dishes, as Simon has.

Although there have been obvious differences between Simon's life and the life we lead here, such as the fact that high schoolers go to school 6 days a week for like 10+ hours, there have been some fun similarities to find that reinforce the "it's a small world after all" idea. For example, although the holidays of Halloween and Christmas are not very widely celebrated in China, some people do celebrate them. I learned today from a friend of Simon's, Mikko, that Christmas is especially celebrated among young adults. Other similarities have been found in sports and music, where Simon likes Kobe Bryant, Yao Ming, and Michael Jackson. And, of course, there's always the McDonald's globalization phenomenon.

So, in short, while I have been learning so much about a completely different culture, I have also been finding some threads that connect our cultures. I am looking forward to continue meeting with Simon and learning more (and hopefully helping him, too!)

& reality sets in...

The story we read for this assignment, "The Way You'll Never Be", was extremely interesting to me. On the surface, it represented a divergence from the type of Nick Adams story we have been reading, with simple prose and, especially, sparsely worded dialogue. The prose in this story is a bit more detailed, if only because it gives war terminology, and the dialogue is much more complex than the general one or two lines given to us in previous stories. Moreover, "The Way You'll Never Be" includes much more of a glimpse into the mind of Nick (or Nicholas, here.) The view into his mind that we see is frightening, and adds credence to the idea that the more complex dialogue and prose represent a Nick that has grown up, both in years and maturity. One of the most specific contrasts between this Nicholas and the Nicky of younger years I saw is the difference of Nicholas, here, after being shot and seeing the destruction of war, against Nicky after he has seen the violent birth and suicide in "Indian Camp." There, he felt as if he would never die, which means that, ultimately, the experience had little effect on him. In this story, however, Nicholas is experiencing post-traumatic stress, which emphasizes that he has been severely affected by all he has been through and seen. This is rather stark contrast, and it certainly, above all else, portrays the maturing of Nicholas from the stories that we have previously read.

Perhaps another one of the reasons I enjoyed this story was due to its adherence to something beyond the conventional. I mean, most of Hemingway's work was not conventional, whether it be because of  breaching sensitive subjects or using simply narration, but this story seems to have another dimension to it. More specifically, it is quite confusing. Nick's perspective shifts often, from reality to dreams to memory, and there is little in the prose to demarcate these changes. Moreover, namely in the dreams/daydreams, the prose is confusing and unexplained. For example, on page 310 there is a stream of consciousness of a past time Nick had spent on patrol. It takes the form of a memory, but even within this memory there are shifts from pure stream of consciousness ("They'd all be worse. Break his nose. They've put it back to five-twenty. We've only got four minutes more.), to memory ("... you called me baby doll a year ago tadada..."), to reflection ("He never dreamed about the front now any more...".)  There is so much going on here that it is difficult to take it all in or understand much of it. The same phenomenon happens when Nick talks about grasshoppers starting on 312, and when he talks with Para about war matters which we, as the readers, have to do with their history, which we are not given the details of. All of this acts to create a rather hazy tone over the story, one that makes it hard to truly understand what is going on. This is so interesting to me because I see it as a reflection of Nick's mental state. He has gone through trauma in the war, and this has brought chaos to his mind. The sudden shifting of time in the story is a reflection of this, and works to give the reader a confused experience that relates to the mindset of Nick. I love this aspect, as it provides a whole new dimension to the reading. Where some prose is purely for reading, it seems as if this is for feeling, as well.

The confusion of Nick is semi-comical at a couple parts, such as when he asserts to the adjutant that he, "would rather talk about grasshoppers"(312.) As I read on, however, I came to realize that Nick's dialogue is far from comical. Indeed, it portrays a man who is dealing with post-traumatic stress, or "it/one/", as is explained on page 314 with, "'I can tell when I'm going to have on because I talk so much'." This realization struck me hard because it presented such a departure from the 'Nicky' of the earlier stories we have read. He was so carefree in those short narratives, and it was extremely disheartening to realize that this was the same boy, only grown up and dealing with the horrors of a war that actually happened. I'm assuming that the war in this story was based off of World War I, and it really struck me that this war that Hemingway fictionalized, and its effects on soldiers, had such true roots. Literally, my stomach clenched a little as I thought back to the other stories that we have read, and how Nick's problems have progressed from heartbreak at losing Prudence to death and helmets full of brains. Having someone's life so laid out in front of us in the form of anecdotes really made me relate it to the lives of actual soldiers who fought in the war. They had the same innocence that Nick did, and, likewise, were made to suffer the same realities that Nick had to deal with, with the same consequences. How terribly enlightening. While I am, by nature, fascinated by literature and the thoughts it leaves when you finish reading, few stories have struck me and made me think as much as this one did. Truly, "A Way You'll Never Be" made me realize how much about war I cannot, and will hopefully never, be able to comprehend, and how different the perspective is of people who have gone through it. I think this is the point that Hemingway may have been trying to emphasize, and he definitely succeeded in making me realize it.