ENG 274 Blog Assignment #4

The picture I chose to write about for my blog post number four is one by Edward Kelty from his collection of circus photography. The image was titled Ed and Midgets. In the image there is a Caucasian little boy wearing white shorts and a white shirt. He is standing in the middle of two Caucasian midgets. The midget on his left is probably two or three inches taller than the other one. He had his face painted a little because you can see his nose has a circle on the tip and some white paint around his face is smudged a little. The other midget is a little shorter than the other one and a little chunkier as well. He does not have his painted and seems to be a lot older than the taller midget. Both midgets are wearing Chef Hats, the older midget has a larger hat on then the younger one. They also have white collared shirts and have pants that seem to have a metal circle ring, two times the size of their waist, giving the illusion that they are a lot fatter than they really are. Since they look fatter it makes them look even shorter.

            In the picture the midgets are looking at the camera and seem to be forcing a smile. The child in the middle doesn’t seem to be amazed at their size because he doesn’t realize that they are adult, and adults are supposed to be tall. The little boy isn’t even paying attention at the camera when the picture is taken something else in the back ground caught his attention.  His parents probably told him to stand there and take a picture with the midgets because the parents were amazed at the midgets.  If I had speculate on their emotional state I would guess that they are sad and unsatisfied with their life because they are being used as entertainment. I feel like they joined the circus because being a midget in this world alone must be hard. Something outside what our society sees as normal always catches some ones attention. When they join the circus there are other people like them, seen as “different” that they could relate to. In the circus there are all types of people that are different, therefore the mid different anymore. I feel like they are un happy because although I could see that they put a smile on their face something about their eyes and face shows sorrow and pain.

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Blog Assignment #3 "Authors note'' on the Non-Fiction Vignette.

“When I saw my boyfriend I explained what happened. We then spoke with the doctors who informed us she was in the fourth stage of cancer and it was hard to predict how many days she had left. It was up to my boyfriend to decide when to pull the plugs, but this decision was too hard. His mother was all he had since he never got along with his dad. On July twelve two thousand nine she passed away a few hours after visiting hours were over. She never told anyone her time was almost up. She didn’t want to worry anyone but know all that’s left is a great feeling of nostalgia and guilt for not embracing the time she had left. When I went to put a complaint against the nurse that was negligent one of the staff members in the hospital told me Elmhurst Hospital was a public hospital in which the staff is under paid and isn’t regulated by anyone. They follow standard protocol and don’t get any bonuses. Since the staff doesn’t get rewarded for doing a good job, those who don’t absolutely love helping others just sit there at their desk and waste time just to add time to their pay check . Finally she said if I wanted to deal with friendly hard working staff to go to a private hospital.”

Picking a topic for my vignette was hard because I wanted to pick something that would interest the reader and be a strong peice. I began to think of the day that would change my boyfriend’s life forever. My mom is the kind of mom that would make me cook dinner and do the laundry after all in her eyes all members of the family had to help. My boyfriend, Andres had it easy. His mom cooked three homemade meals a day for him. Every two weeks she'd do his laundry and clean his room as well. If he had me or other friends over she'd invite all of us to eat. When I met her and learned about the way she spoiled her son, I was jealous. I wanted to be spoiled and now in a way she would spoil me too. The day she was hospitalized I was blown away by the horrible service they offered. It was a story I wanted to tell. I always think that maybe if she would have been in a better hospital she could have been with us a little longer and suffered less. In order to understand the piece a little background of the family is needed. The family is made up of a sweet caring mom, an abusive ignorant father, my boyfriend who is twenty-two and his little brother who was only six when this all happened. Now Andres is left to care for his brother as if that was his son. The audience also needs to know about cancer. Cancer is very dangerous; it kills a lot of people every year. It's very hard to overcome cancer. Kimo therapy not only drains a patient physically but emotionally too. It alters their state of well being, to the point that the person undergoing treatment is then forced to be in bed rest and can't even eat. There taste buds stop working and everything taste like rubber. There are four stages of cancer. The first stage is the longest one because the cancer is still developing slowly. The second and third stage goes by much quicker because the cancer will be already fully developed by then. The fourth stage is the shortest, most painful, and ends with death. I haven’t written a vignette before; I mostly had to write research papers and comparing books and stuff like that. I like personal writing better because I control what I want to say, it’s my story and it can’t be wrong.  The process I used to write this vignette is first I brain stormed. Then I wrote a first draft in pen and paper. I then edit it and type it up the next day; while I type I make some changes as well to make the piece better. I usually start to type it on my phone on the train or on the bus and email it to myself and finish typing it and editing on word in school.  I then took it to the writing center where I spend an hour with a tutor who helps me understand all my mistakes so in the future I will get better. It’s a long process but my hope is that with time my writing will just get better and better.

Blog Assignment #2 on Inherit The Sun by Demetria Martinez

Inherit the Earth by Demetria Martinez was a very strong piece that stood out to me. I could relate to it, not directly but my mom crossed the border from Mexico into the U.S. I shared this story with her because she’s always said that if people knew the huge struggle that immigrants had to go through,  they would worry more about aiding people around the border instead of closing off the border. I was extremely impressed by how the writer puts the reader in the dessert with the people and really describes the scenario with a list. A list so powerful that allows the reader to feel the hardship the people are going through all with the hope that at the other side of the border the  American dreams awaits them.

 The first quote I chose was the sentence she starts the piece off with. “The Arizona sun is melting like a pat of butter on the mountain that flanks Tucson’s west side”. This quote stood out to me because this simile is perfect to show how hot it can be in the dessert. I could picture the sun being like a melting piece of butter over the hot dry dessert. She doesn’t have to get into detail about how bad the conditions were, all she has to do is use this simile and the reader can picture the situation clearly in their head. This start really established a good sense of the scene and the mood of the place she was talking about. I could imagine my mom in that hot desert waiting to cross the border.

 The second quote that really stood out to me was one particular item from the list. “We’ve even found a baby’s cowboy boots with silver tips, said Hoover, adding that he doesn’t know what fate the owner of the stroller or the babies met”. This quote stood out a lot after my mom told me that as you walk the desert you can see small handmade graves for all the people that passed away in the desert due mostly to dehydration and lack of food and medicine. She said she saw many small baby sized graves. This quote left me thinking of what could have possibly happened to the baby.

The last quote that really grabbed my attention is “Humane Borders provides water to address the immediate emergency but its ultimate goal is, with other groups, to force changes in U.S. immigration policies—to “take death out of the migration equation,” as Hoover puts it”. This is an important quote to me because it’s a cry for help. Not only due people die because of the poor conditions of crossing the border but also from abuse of the authorities in the border. My mom said she even heard stories of woman being raped and robbed in the desert with no one to help them or save them. Authorities are also allowed to shot at a person if they are running away. We need to raise awareness of the horrible conditions many people of South American people go through to get to this country. Overall the piece was very well written, I loved her style of writing because she does very little explaining and mostly tells her story through the list. The list leaves space for the reader to use our imagination and interpret the list.