Diaries and Letters

The diaries and letters that we studied this semester was rather intriguing. It's really facinating to read people's letters actually, whether they are for illegal reasons or just academically, reading the letters of Keats made me see who he was, and well, how romantic he was. Though at first I was taken aback knowing that we could actually read and study the personal letters of the deceased writer. People even publish it worldwide, I wonder if I was the writer, I would let people to read my letters! Hello! It's mine and it is personal.Keats's letters dont exactly sound like a real letter but rather like one of his poems! His language is poetical that even in his letters, he cannot sound 'normal'.

Another letter that interest me was Vincent Van Gogh's letter to his brother. http://www.serve.com/Lucius/VanGogh.index.html In this website I learnt more on Van Gogh whom I believed, a genius. There are also letters by his nephew, Vincent Willem van Gogh, who wrote about his life.

Vincent was also an attentive reader. From the website, I found that The French philosophical historian Jules Michelet's L'Amour contained a mingling of ideas and images which appealed to him strongly. He quoted from it in his letter of October 11, 1873, to Carolien and Willem Stockum:
"From here I see a lady, I see her walk pensively in a not very large garden, bereft of its flowers early in the season, but sheltered, as you see them behind our cliffs in France or the dunes of Holland. The exotic shrubs have already been put back into the conservatory. The fallen leaves reveal a number of statues. An artistic luxury which contrasts a little with the lady's very simple, modest, dignified dress, of which the black (or grey) silk is almost imperceptibly brightened by a lilac ribbon.
"But haven't I seen her already in the museums of Amsterdam or The Hague? She reminds me of a lady by Philippe de Champaigne [Woman in Mourning] who took my heart, so candid, so honest, sufficiently intelligent, yet simple, without the cunning to extricate herself from the ruses of the world. This woman has remained in my mind for thirty years, persistently coming back to me, making me say: 'But what was she called? What happened to her? Did she know some happiness? And how did she cope with life?'" [Letter #11a, quoted in Hammacher, p. 18]

Artistic, genuine and intelligent; and he has this facination towards sensitive women. I realized after viewing his paintings that it showed emptiness and sorrow, it sort of reflects off the colours, characters and now and then there is hope. I let the readers to decide.

Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress

Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress

Talking about the plays written by Tennessee Williams, I realized that there are many Faded Belles and Damsels in Distress in his plays, it’s like there should be at least one with the traits in the play. The Streetcar Named Desire had Blanche DuBois, the faded Southern belle and in The Glass Menagerie, there was Amanda Wingfield and her daughter Laura.

Williams’ portrayal of the women in his plays are usually characterised as such; weak, lost and delusional. Blanche Dubois in The Streetcar Named Desire at first seemed to be chased out of the property, Belle Reve, then she lost hope and wanted to reunite with her sister, who already settled with Stanley Kowalski. When she arrived there, things got worse as the stronger male in the household sort of brought out her suppressed anxiety. Williams making a contrast here by using the character of a strong male in crushing the weak female character.

In The Glass Menagerie, two female characters were portrayed alongside with three strong male character, firstly, the mother, Amanda and her crippled daughter, Laura, who are dependant on Tom Wingfield, the sole breadwinner of the family. Though being a good son and brother, Tom was never contented with what his mother wants him to do. Laura who was getting more and more delusional day after day got her mother so worried that she asked her son to bring home agentkeman caller. When Laura finally fallen in love with Jim O'Connor, he told her that he is already engaged. This crushed the fragile girl, then Tom fled because he was too depressed.

In the end, two girls was left alone in the dark after Laura blew her candle. In two of his major plays, Williams portrayed how much women were anguished and left in depression by men; the son, father, husband and also brother-in-law. Has this got something to do with his life growing up with a prominent and strong figure of a man who was his father?

Movies on Educators

Movies on Educators

After watching Freedom Writers, I feel that this is one of the best ‘teacher’ movie that I have watched. Besides this another movie that moved me would be ‘The Emperor’s Club’ starring Kevin Kline as the History teacher. That movie was really great; because one of the reasons is I always felt that Kevin Kline performs best as an educator. In ‘Orange County’ he played the role of a writing professor at Stanford University who encouraged his student and also a fan of his book, The Straightjacket, Shaun Brumder, to believe that you don’t need to go to a renowned university to be a writer, everything about being a writer is who you are and your significant others. In ‘The Emporer’s Club’ it is clearly shown whether a teacher had succeeded in educating their students or the students turn out to be losers in the future. It is a story about an elderly professor returning to his old high school to teach again and he had reminiscent recollections of the classroom he used to teach. Recently I also watched The Dead Poets Society, the teacher’s role played by Robbie William. It is about a poetry teacher who had to get the notion of poetry into the students’ minds. Another movie yet to be watched is Dangerous Minds starring Michelle Pieffer.

Life of Tennessee Williams

Life of Tennessee Williams

Writing this research paper forced me to look into the life of Tennessee Williams for real and come up with a paper to show how much his life is reflected in his writings. Williams is a truly gifted playwright I would say, though he feels sad and pressured by his parents and sisters condition, he used all that as a great source in writing his plays.

My all time favourite would be The Glass Menagerie, which content has the most similarities with his life. The estranged brother (Tom) who is also the narrator, the mother who is lost in her own world and the crippled sister who is very fragile to the outer world, that she might break like her glass animals. I also learnt more on his childhood and teenage life. He had a great interest in writing but it was condemned by his father but then pursuit his studies and began writing seriously. I knew that he was a homosexual before, but now I learnt more about his lover, Frank Merlo, who had a calm influence on Williams’ chaotic life. Though he had so much of fortune and wealth I’m not sure if he was happy. After the death of his lover, Tennessee became more obsessed with drugs and he died of asphyxiation.

Sometimes when I think about him, I feel sad that he was so talented and creative yet life wasn’t pleasing enough, especially watching your loved ones suffering, going astray and dead. He possessed genuine creativity as he wrote so many short plays as a result of rewriting his short stories and plays into short stories. But I also believe that his experiences had devoted to his success in life.

Position Paper's Results

Position Paper Marks

We received our position paper marks on the 17th of October, it was a fine evening, well it was fine, but will the weather actually foretell the marks? Not sure since the day was an eight, according to Hindu numerology, the day of eight isn’t very much a pleasurable day. Just a belief, but it could be true? My mark was 11 points from the full marks and I was wrenched…well that’s bad. Eleven? How bad could it be? Then hails the news that it was an error, and it meant that-duh, yea it’s not the actual one. Well I just waited for the actual mark, but it’s definitely something better than the one I witnessed on the 17th. Behind every cloud there is a silver lining.

Choose One

Choose One

Everything in life is about choosing one. I don’t know why things are like that but it’s always like that. I can’t seem to have two nice things at the same time, well, unfortunately it applies to almost everything I like. Money or wisdom, family or lover, looking up for yourself or others? Lord, it’s so unjust! Why? What would happen if I have both at the same time? Doomsday will fall upon earth, or just that the rules of life not to have and period? But I realized that how things work, and that’s the way things should be and I have to learn to abide the rules? I don’t know. What happened to the teacher in Freedom Writers chose her way, and she doesn’t regret it. It was quite clear when her husband asked her, ‘who would you choose us or the class?’ obviously she chose her class, while her husband voluntarily left her. Hmmm, why did he leave her? Because she didn’t pay attention to him? No, but it touched his male sense of ego I supposed, well, when he told her, ‘I’m not your wife’ ha! gotcha kind off statement actually, he feels inferior that she is doing ‘his jobs’ and taking decisions without confiding in him first. But her sacrifice for her students was just one in a million.

The Passion of a Career

The Passion of a Career

Passion about something we do is the most essential thing in life. Without passion and determination I don’t think we could create the stepping stones to pursuit even greater things and also made a difference in everyday living. From the movie ‘Freedom Writers’, Ms Erin was driven by great passion not just for her career but also her students, who she calls ‘kids’ instead of students. Calling them kids is something like calling her own children, her passion is reflected when she regards all her students in her freshmen class as her own and when the students were her own, they are her responsibility, and I guess she took full responsibility of their well being and also what they do and what they should do in the future, who should they become, it sort of like she took all these responsibility and wants them as how she already set her mind, in moulding them and turning them into useful people for the community and also they don’t feel useless to themselves. Passion could do wonders.

TEACHING: A COMMUNITY WELFARE JOB

Teaching: A Community Welfare Job

Teaching is definitely not just teaching, something really more than that. It’s about getting involved in a field which requires more than you see in the field itself, something beyond. Classrooms and schools just stay where they are but people who come to that places will eventually return somewhere, a place that influence them more than schools and classrooms. When they return home, see their friends, I don’t think schools and classrooms will matter, as they only consider significant things in their lives. When they have a troubled family, I don’t think school is a big deal when teachers don’t make it look like that. Teachers play a major role here in implanting the notion that school and what they learn in classroom make an impact in their lives, where they will return home and tell their parents what the teacher had taught them or said. That’s what Ms Erin did in her classroom, relating to their gang and mobster life by firstly, providing them with a brand new book on the lives of gangsters. Eva Benitez brought the book to her father in prison and asked him to read it. This is a good example which shows how school life dabbles in the life of a problematic teenager. Teaching is not about giving homework and marking it the next day but an ongoing life-changing business.

A TEACHER IS BORN NOT MADE?

A Teacher is born not Made?

The movie had probably put this notion in my head, to be a real teacher; the passion had to be innate. I am sure if I’d be able to swallow something that sounds like a teacher is made, because when you don’t have the strength within yourself I don’t think one go through what Erin Gruel had went through. I saw her inner strength the first day she reported to the Head of the department. The lesson plan mattered even in the first meeting, despite she was teaching the following day. Since Mrs Erin’s father was also a welfare person, she has the urge and need to help out the troubled kids and feel that she is the ultimate help for them, even if she has to jeopardise her marriage. Someone has to have this in their blood!

Make a Difference

When we say something cannot be fixed, it will remains as it is forever, until one day someone comes and says I will make a difference. It was a story I once read. It’s about a boy who saw an elderly man by the beach throwing a few stranded star fishes back to the ocean. As the old man was picking up the star fishes from the beach, the boy approached and asks what he was doing. The old man explained saying that if he didn’t do what he is doing; the fishes would die on the beach. Then the boy questioned that there a millions of stranded starfishes on the beaches, what difference would he make? The old man pick up the last starfish and said, ‘It would make a difference to this one.” I really think that this was a good parable to show how much it would make a difference about a silly matter, but we always took accounts on our behalf, if we looked from the eyes of others, we would see that it will mean the world to them.

There are also a few pictures that I once saw, made into posters and bookmarks about making a difference in a world where some people had long ago prohibited a change. It was a picture of a baby running out of a hatched egg. I know that sounds extremely outrageous and also, the expression-‘only God can make that difference’ on certain faces, but applying it to life situation is obviously a great challenge. What may seem to be a great ‘science-fiction’ breakthrough may be possible in the near future-I don’t know, but what miracles can human perform?

Ms Erin wanted to make a difference in the high school. The class which the other teachers abandoned was taken into consideration and great care by Ms Erin. Why she should do what the other teachers are doing? Abandon and ignore them just because the world did? She knew she could make them, not just making a difference in the school but also their lives. It was a great difference in the end; the students graduated and went to high school, because someone made a difference in their lives.