Persepolis Final Reflection

After leaning over the edge of the cliff that was the finally of the first half of Persepolis, I thought that it was a good graphic novel. I enjoyed mixing things up a bit with the aspect of reading a graphic novel, and I thought that the panels added both humor to the sometimes dullness of writing from another culture and gave another take on the literal meaning of the text.In many cases the art was just as good as the writing, which is very important in a good graphic novel, and Satrapi accomplished that perfectly.  I definitely think that reading a graphic novel is a good thing to keep in the class because you never know if you will have to read one in the future, and I had never read one before this class. I thought that Persepolis was interesting in that it was a new type of book, and it also provided time for research and facts about a country that we don't really get to learn about. For these reasons, I feel that it is definitely a good book to keep in the curriculum. I just wish that we would've had time to read the entire book (but still at the same pace).

Fun Facts About Iran

As a final blog post, I decided to continue researching Iran. This time I wanted to look up some more facts:

• Serious:
• "Iran" means "Land of the Aryans"
• Iran ranks second in the world in natural gas and third in oil reserves (its capital city, Tehran, suffers from smog).
• Iran has a literacy rate of 79% and a life expectancy of 69 years
• Iran's Mausoleum of Maussollos was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
• Fun:
• The Iranian flag has writing, making it irreversible.
• Eastern Iran is mostly deserts, but the northern part of Iran is oddly covered by temperate rainforests.
• Persian rugs are considered the best in the world.
• Iran is one of 8 countries that start with the letter "I"
• There is one telephone for every three Iranians and one mobile phone for every two. One in three Iranians are online.
• There are at three Iranian English Dailies: Tehran Times, Iran Daily, and the Iran News.

Persepolis Information

For my blog this week, I decided to do a little more research behind the book that we just started, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I learned that Persepolis was actually the ancient capital of the Persian Empire. The city itself has tons of history with many great palaces, tombs, and architectural structures. The oldest found ruins of the city date back to 515 BC, and the city is known to have fallen during the reign of Alexander the Great. As for the book, it has been translated into many different languages, and the various editions/stories are the reasons for the two volumes -- the first one is about childhood and the second about a return. There was also a film adaptation created in 2007 of the book which received 2 Oscar nominations. One thing that I am also interested in but couldn't find were why the sections have such odd names. I didn't look into too much detail for that, because I was hoping that that information would be found in the book. From my research I have found the book to be influential to people's views all throughout the world making me more inclined to reading it.

Jane Eyre Reflection

Throughout the dense reading of Jane Eyre, the book seemed to get more interesting, and after finishing the book, I thought that it fit very well with our unit of teen hood that we talked about in class. Not only did the book refer to Jane's outcast mentality, but it also allowed us to learn about the Victorian roles of women and how different Jane really was from what traditional social norms existed during that time. I liked how the book got better as it went on (thank god because its start was pretty rough) and I learned a lot of things about both the Victorian era (literature). Also it was neat how the book related the Bronte's real life, making it easy to remember her own biography. I thought the ending of this book was a little too predictable and the happiness didn't fit with the gloomy overall story of the book although Jane's goal was to find a place of solace. As for the unit, I think that most people knew about the stereotypes of teen hood, and that it could've gone into a little more detail or a broader subject like stereotypes as people grow up. A thing to change could be to make the PowerPoints on different things so that people learn (having one or two groups on a topic so that all of the points are covered). I think that this book should be taught in College Lit., but it should be given more time because of how dense it was so that people can stay caught up, because it fit the class very well besides for being a well-known book. Overall the book had both good and bad effects on the class and the unit, and I am happy that I toughed it out to the end.

Different Viewpoints

In class we talked about how viewpoints can really change a story, especially if the narrator is unreliable like in The Catcher in the Rye. These unique changes in viewpoints can cause various emotions about characters -- like Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre and unique viewpoint changes can completely change how a story is told or what was originally thought about the setting and characters (although the plot stays the same). A few movies that I thing would be unique from another point of view would be the good vs. evil movies like Lord of the Rings, where the movie would be completely different if it were from the view of Sauron, Saruman, Gollum, or even from the view of the ring itself. Other movies that would be cool and completely different from another point of view would be ones with a deranged criminal like No Country for Old Men or The Incredibles. Where people can see inside the troubled, seemingly unemotional mind of the killer, Anton Chigurh, or from the viewpoint of the criminal as it is depicted a little in The Incredibles. I feel that changes like this would be cool to watch and would completely change how this movies are thought about, and maybe even affect their popularity for better or worse (although movies from a good viewpoint are more popular).

Daniel Inouye

 While we were having our class discussion about heroes, I remembered thought of an amazing story that I once saw in a WWII documentary. Lieutenant Daniel Inouye were attacking a ridge in Italy during the war that was heavily defended. He skillfully directed his group through machine gun fire, but the amazing part was his complete disregard for his own safety. As a German machine gun pinned down his group, he worked his way up to the bunker, not realizing that he'd been shot by a sniper in the side, and tossed a grenade in the German bunker. He continued up the hill and threw two grenades a second bunker. His men tried to take a third bunker, but were pushed back. Inouye crawled towards the third bunker, pulling the pin of a grenade. Then a German shot a rifle grenade that almost tore off the arm that Inouye held the grenade in. He pried the grenade out of his dead right hand and threw it at the bunker. Then he cleared it out, shooting left handed. During this stand he was again shot, in the leg this time, and finally a medic got to him. He received morphine, but refused to be evacuated until the ridge was captured. The remnants of his right arm were later amputated and he received a medal of honor for his brave actions. He is currently a senator of Hawaii, and he is one of many who come to my head when I hear the word hero.

Our Generation

After our PowerPoint project in class, where we had to find pictures that define women in the Victorian and modern eras, I though about what thing really define our generation. On the Internet, I found that our high school student base is mostly a part of Generation Z (those usually born between 1990 and the early 2000's), and our parents are mostly "Baby Boomers," or they are included in Generation X. Included under Generation Z are subtopics that help define our generation such as Generations I,  of Internet, of Dreamers, or of Wisdom. Some of the main things that I found to define our generation were obviously the large network of data and technology that connects everyone on the planet such as the Internet or text messaging. From this, we are also called the silent generation, for our 'lack of verbal communication skills.' One thing that I found that was neat was about how Generation Z was thought of as emphasizing the individual more so than any other generation near our time, and that our parents were more like advisers than enforcers like days  past. I did have some trouble finding things like clothing styles, etc that would be distinct for our generation, and besides for the 'Pants on the Ground' thing, does anyone have any ideas? There have also been many negative outlooks on our generations lack of group and verbal skills, rise of bullying, fast food (some say we might be the first generation to have a shorter lifespan that our parents), as well as the rise of  mental illnesses, any thoughts?