Fittings

"Fittings" by Floyd Skloot was another great memoir about her time with her mother. Because the mother lose her memories, she had to take her of her. Sher would take her mother out to buy bra and be a safe guardian. I thought the daughter perform her duties well and the mother sometime was funny. I understand what she going through, but I don't think I'll ever let my mother lived in a nuring home.

Life in Motion

"Life In Motion" by Nicole Lamy was her photo project. She gather photos of their family previous homes and falliable memory of where they had been. Her family did lots of moving from Maine to New Hampshire and to Massachusetts. Her father took her back to visit those places and took pictures of them to be remembered. Then she goes into her life shortly after the seperation of her parents. She became closer to her mother rather than her father. At the end, she finally give her mother her photo project, filled with historian's satisfaction.

Slient Dancing

"Slient Dancing" by Judith Ortiz Cofer was about her experience of moving to the New World, discovering the life of another. Because of economic pressures, her father was to joined the United States Navy and soon moved the family to America. Living in El Building and becoming more americanize., sharing the same likes and dislikes toward the New World. Althought, their family had changed, many Puerto Rican still remained the same. Throughtout the memoir, she tells about a tv show that had remind her of her life in the United States.

Out of the Garden

"Out of the Garden" by Jocelyn Bartkevicius was about her childhood life with her grandmother till the day her grandmother had passed away. In this memoir, she give out lots of descriptive characters and stories. She also talks about herslef as an American and Lithuanian, addressed by her grandmother. Then she goes into her experience with her father's and mother's life and the stories carries on. Then into her grandmother illness at the age of ninety-three and finally her camping trip. I though that this memoir was very emtional because it makes me think about my grandparents as well. She was lucky enough to be like by them and spend her childhood with them. Unlike me, I never have that chance.

The Unwanted Child

"The Unwanted Child" by Mary Clearman Blew, a memoir about her mother that faced harsh situations, including herself. This memoir was interesting to me because it open my mind to lots of my owm flashbacks.
I was a bit confuse when I finished reading the memoir because I wasn't sure who is the memoir supposely written about. But from what I read, the memoir open up with the situation of her pregnancy then into her mother's life, as the unwanted child, and then back to her.
I think the writer was trying to tell the readers that no matter what happened, you'll have to believe in what you desire. Beacause there's a part where her mother-in-law told her to stop her education, due to her baby. That part make me think about some situations where I had seen it in my life. Where's the mother-in-law told their daughter-in-law to stop going to school and work because of the family. I believe it's not fair, just because you're having a family doesn't mean you can't go to school and be successful in your dream career.

The Year of Magical Thinking

"The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion was a wonderful book about her husband's death and her dauther in a comma. Throughout the book, she talks about her research of her husband's death and the worries she went through with her daughter. She start the scene with her husband and her coming from the hospital, visiting their daughter. Suddenly after her husband first drink, he just knocked out. After her husband's death, her daughter awoke from her comma and started life, but soon went back into another comma. At the end, everything came together and make sense to her. She found what she was looking for and got a better understanding.

The Ashes of August

"The Ashes of August" by Kim Barnes, the whole summary of the essay is about the tense of the month of August, how storms, fire, rain, and sesan change can affect their living. It's really unpredictable. The author address the event to her personal experience and how she overcome it. They survive the fire by the help of the graces of the Clearwater-Potlatch Timber Protective Association, who had sent the helicopter. The envirnoment in the town turn into ashes after the fire was settled down.

I don't know what I would have done if I was in her position, maybe I wouldn't even let my husband go out there, including the helps of my children. Life is unknown, you'll never know what will happen next.

My father Always Said

"My father Always Said" by Mimi Schwartz was a wonderful adventure of her father's life. His meaning of how and why he treasure life so much with the repeated line, "In Rindheim, you didn't do such things." How the father wants both of his daughters to see the importance in Rindheim, for them to understand and beware. It was a great memoir how her father describe his past memory with each location. It was interesting to learn many things about your past ancestors.

Dumpling

"Dumpling" by Angela M. Balcita was a wonderful story about a Filipino girl, who took others words. It was about a young girl who just start to learn how to cook her family tradational food and decided to take it to school to share, but it turn out that the students were disgust by it and makes her feel humiliated. Because of what happen at school, she did the wrong thing by yelling at her mother for her chink food instead of cooking normal food. She probably feel guilt after woking up, knowing that her mother is hurted. I believe the point of the story wasn't about the dumpling, but the important of the family tradation. You should never takes others people words and believe in yourself.

Independence Day

On the Independence Day of 1975, a little twelve years old girl had moved to Manley Hot Springs, Alaska with her mother to experience the lifestyle of it. The chapter was called "Independence Day, Manley Hot Springs, Alaska" by Lisa D. Chavez. A mother that took her chid to explore the life in Alaska, believing that everything will go as plan, but big mistake. Although they had face many things, Manley Hot Springs was still a defining moment of their life in Alaska.

Teacher Training

The chapter called "Teacher Training" by Mary Elizabeth Pope was about the experience of a teacher in her childhood compared to her being the teacher. The form that the author used in the article is also the same form that Robert L. Root Jr. used in "Collage, Montage, Mosaic, Vignette, Eposide, Segment." Another form that relates to the way the author wrote this article is analepsis, an interjcted scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. The article called "Finding the inner story in memoirs and personal essays", addressed the meaning of the inner story of "Teacher Training". I believed that the inner story of the article, Teacher Training, was the difference behaviors that she developed in both time. During her fifth grade year, she has always inspired Mrs. Crane and wants to be her best student, but Mrs. Crane never show her the same feeling back. While she was a teacher assistant in her adulthood, she has inspired many of her students. The different feelings between the time period and the situation that she faced cause her not to be like Mrs. Crane to her fellow students. The comparative event in the article are her first day of fifth grade and her first day of being a graduate teacher assistant.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The Things They Carried is a collection of related stories by Tim O'Brien, about a platoon of American soldiers in the Vietnam War, originally published in 1990. While apparently based on some of O'Brien's own experiences, the title page refers to the book as "a work of fiction." He puts individuals stories that relates to the war and combine them together to develop a story about his experiencement with the war.

Writers Blog

1. Do you read any blogs? Yes I did read other blogs as well and I also found many interesting things.
2. Which blogs do you read? I read MetaCab - MetaHipster's Home Arcade Endeavors, This Mortal Coil, NF2 odyssey, The Rootless Wanderer, and many more.


3. Was setting up the blog easy? Yes it was very simple, nothing hard at all.


4. What 's you experience reading and writing memoirs? One of the blog that I just got done reading, The Rootless Wanderer, talks about her recently travel to the heart of mesmerisingly beautiful Swedish Lapland. The area is the home of one of Europe's last indigenous people - Sami and is one of the four Nordic countries that are termed "lapland". This part of the world boasts of the last undisturbed flora and fauna in the entire continent.