Table Of Contents

Table of Contents Reflection First Communities: Judge One- Judge All Second The "O Word" Third In My Purse/Wallet Fourth Self Mutilation Or Art

Reflection

So this is my “official” reflection letter for English 101. My name is Olga, I am about 5’5”, I am 16 years old, I have brown hair (right now, it changes whenever I get around to getting it done), my eye colour changes, and my favourite colour is yellow. I got into this English class by accident. I needed an English class because I hated English at the high school, and I am in running start and needed the English credits. I thought I was signing up for a regular, every day English class, but ended up with an online class about culture. At first I was scared because I thought everyone would be really judgmental about my opinions and about my papers and assignments. Today I realize that that was not even close to the truth. I have no clue where I’m going in life, but I am glad I took this English class to get me at least a little bit started on my path to wherever I may end up.

The overall theme of this class was culture. We learned about different aspects of culture by learning about identity, community, and traditions. Talking about different papers and movies with this class helped me learn to organize my thoughts and look deeper into the meanings of the movies I watch, or the books that I read. When we watched the movie Fight Club, I noticed so many different things in it that I had never noticed before, even though I have seen fight club multiple times.

I have four separate pieces for my E Portfolio. The piece that I chose because I thought it best showed critical thinking skills was my communities’ paper. In this paper I had to think a lot about the different types of communities and how they came to be a community in the first place, and why people are or aren’t accepted into them. My assignment that could benefit most from a re-write was the name assignment written when the class first started. It was one of the first assignments, so it makes sense for it to need more work. The assignment itself was really interesting, but I now realize that I could have done a way better job when I wrote it. For the third piece I chose the wallet blog. I thought that it was a lot of fun to write and it was interesting to be able to learn about classmates when reading their blog. The audience, the class members, could guess what someone was like when reading their description of what they kept in their wallet, which is why I think this piece best shows voice. For my fourth and final piece, I chose our final paper. It seems to make sense that the final assignment would be the best, because it is written when you have all the knowledge from the whole quarter. It is my favourite because I was really interested in the topic, body art, and I think that I did the best with this paper when it came to keeping all of my ideas in order.

Taking this class is one of the best things I could have done this year. I learned more in this past quarter then I have in my past two years of English classes at a high school. I learned a lot about different ways of interpreting stories, movies, people, and culture. Even though I am still not the best at writing, I know I’ve defiantly grown and will hopefully continue to grow after being done with this class. This reflection letter just keeps getting longer and longer, so I’ll end it now. Thank you for reading this and I hope you enjoy my blog in its entirety.

First

I think that out of all of my papers and assignments, I best showed my critical thinking skills in the paper having to do with communities. I called it "Judge One- Judge All." I had some trouble keeping on track but overall I came up with the conclusion that "Communities don’t always accept everyone, but when someone is accepted, they know it, and want to be there because they feel very cared for and much more content then they would in the opposite situation." Writing this paper taught me that people are very judgemental and if we want things to change, we have to work on it day by day. Things like racism and hate twords people doesn’t stop in one day. Since this paper, I feel I've grown in the analysis department of paper writing, but I think that I did a nice job writing the analysis for this paper.

Communities: Judge One- Judge All

Home is where you feel most comfortable. Communities do not always accept the people that live in the community. They don’t always make the community a good home for those that they don’t accept. When this happens in a community it creates an awkward environment for people that are different, or not exactly cookie cutter material, according to the majority of the particular community. There are quite a few reasons that people stay in what they consider to be unfit communities. Communities do not accept everyone and you hear about it in the news constantly with hate crimes and other rude acts that happen because someone acts on their judgmental ideas that their neighbor doesn’t fit into the neighborhood. When someone does feel they fit in, they will put more effort into being involved with their home and with those that are around them. When they aren’t accepted, they will not put as much heart into fitting into the community that is shunning them. Home really is where the heart is.

If communities accepted everyone in them, there wouldn’t be any hate crimes against different races, sexual orientations, or just people that are a little bit different in normally unnoticeable ways. America is a community full of many different races, but like Richard Rodriguez states in “Blaxicans and Other Reinvented Americans,” “Race mixture has not been a point of pride in America.” America hasn’t accepted those that are different in a lot of cases. Not being accepted makes people not want to try to be accepted. There are many every day occurrences where people immigrated many years ago, yet they still don’t speak English. This happens because they don’t want to fit in to where they aren’t accepted by Americans that do speak English. Although they live in America, and spend their days living their lives in a community full of people speaking English, they chose to speak their original language because that is the language they are comfortable speaking.

In “Reclaiming Our Home Place,” Maya Angelou says “In exile, and in many cases, not realizing it but terribly uncomfortable” when she is talking about black people living in the North. They have lived there for so long without being accepted, technically without fitting in, without having a complete sense of being home. When out of place in a community, there isn’t always a chance to leave. This may be because of financial situations, because of a lack of another place to go, or because of the lack of motivation to make a move. Just because someone stays somewhere, it doesn’t mean that that is where they belong. Maya Angelou said “Wherever home is, the closer one gets to it, the more one relaxes.” Communities don’t always accept everyone, but when someone is accepted, they know it, and want to be there because they feel very cared for and much more content then they would in the opposite situation.

If communities accepted everyone for who they were, it would only be because they happen to fit into the general populace of said community. In “Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia,” David Brooks wrote about a man in a community that fit in very well.
“He has come to be surrounded by regular, friendly people who do not scoff at his daughter’s competitive cheerleading obsession and whose wardrobes are as Lands’ End-dependent as his is.”

This man fit in because they are all similar to each other. They accept each other, because they are all in the same boat. They wear clothes that make it hard to decipher between each person from their neighbor. The homes resemble the other houses in the neighborhood, as well as the people. This works for some people. They put their heart and soul into fitting in because the harder they work to fit in, the more people accept them for trying. Some may even consider their community to be their family. They judge each other, but they accept that fact about one another.

Society today is, overall, very judgmental. Not one person can say that they do not make assumptions about someone when they first see and meet a co-worker, friend of a friend, some random person the street, or anyone in general. In some communities this is considered to be a very large issue, in others, it is not very noticeable. Communities defiantly do not accept everyone for who they are and are normally very open about their dislike for what they consider to be odd. Sometimes, people even go out of their way, to find something that is wrong with someone else.

Second

For my second piece I chose an assignment where we were supposed to explain our name, how we got it, and the experiences that came with the name. In my original writing I was slightly more dis-organised, and had problems with punctuation and I used alot of paranthasese. I think I got the general point across pretty well, but it definatly could have been better. I could have included the infomation that I had in paranthasese in a way that didn't inclue paranthases, which I did in the second draft of this assignment.

The "O Word"

First Draft

For the first couple days after I was born I didn't have a name. My older sisters would make up a new name every day, or whenever they decided a new one was prettier. In the end of it all I was named after my mom's aunt.

Olga is one of the more common names where I'm from (Russia) so it was just like everyone elses name. In America on the other hand its a slightly different situation. In school I hated introducing myself or correcting people when they pronounced my name wrong. To this day I hate saying my own name when I meet new people. In elementary school people would call me "Oga", I'm not exactly sure where the "l" went. Some kids would call me "Toga-Oga" and they made a song about it. Just recently at a job interview the boss said "Olga?! That sounds like OGER." But my family has always called me "Oluh" (pronounced like "hola" without so much of the "h") for short.

Around 8th grade my sister, Lyuda (who has heard the "LYUDA?!? LIKE LUDACRIS?!?!?" joke one too many times), began calling me "Oluh" more in public and writing it everywhere and other people would hear her say it and it caught on. Now my friends, family, and sometimes people I barely even know call me Oluh.


My Re-Write

The girl's name Olga is pronounced OL-gah.It it means "blessed, holy: successful". Olga is a really popular name in Russia, but not so much in America.

For the first few days after being born, I was still name-less. My older sisters would make up new names for me every day, depending on what sounded nice to them that particular day. After the long trial of many different names, my parents decided to name me after my mom’s aunt.

Moving From Russia to America when I was two, I got use to people asking about pronunciation for my name constantly. I’ve heard many different ways of pronouncing Olga, or rather mispronouncing. From first grade up until now, I’ve hated having to introduce myself to anyone for this exact reason. Because people like to pronounce my name so differently every time I hear it, I don’t like saying it myself because I feel like I am saying it wrong at this point.

In elementary school my classmates would call me “Oga.” I’m not exactly sure where the letter “l” went, but it wasn’t in my name! Some kids made a song about my name, calling me “Toga-Oga.” Just recently, at a job interview, the boss said “Olga?! That sounds like OGER!” Now, most people call me Oluh, pronounced sort of like “hola,” and that started because my family calls me that and my friends caught on, and now most people I meet get introduced to me using that version of my name.

Third

For my third piece, I chose a blog where we wrote about what is in our wallets or purses, and how someone might perceive us if they found our wallet/purse. This blog made me think about what I would assume about someone that has a cluttered purse full of things ranging from lip gloss to gum to books to earrings. This assignment really made me think about how people get judged based on their belongings or clothing. I think in this piece I did pretty well at writing for a specific audience and purpose, although I did list a lot of things and my blog did end up being pretty long. But in the end I think the audience got the point I was trying to get across.

In My purse/wallet

My purse is overflowing with what one would call "stuff." A long, long list of stuff. Maybe even longer then long, including: One Coconut Melon Juicie hand lotion, one mint container with a snowflake on it containing two mints and one Advil, one container of sour tropical icebreakers, one deodorant, one toothbrush, one thing of floss, one school schedule for college with an online English class and a painting class on it. Floating around in the midst of this stuff is more stuff, including: one Costco paper with a long number/letter sequence and a license plate number on it, one pack of gum, one strawberry gum Icebreakers container filled with different sized gauged earrings, one LARGE pair of sunglasses, three straws in a Summer Straws box. Adding to all of the above is: one container of hand sanitizer, one paper with a name, number, and web sight on it, a pack of empty gum, a copy of What Happened To Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci, an empty composition notebook, a key chain with more toys/whistles on it then keys, two lighters, four permanent markers, a pencil, two whistles, 3 lip glosses, one chap stick, mascara, and loose change. Incase you were wondering, yes, I do have an extremely large purse. In the wallet I have a couple of school ID cards, old and new, every copy of drivers permit I have ever received, my drivers license, a library card, a build-a-bear stamp card, a debit card, a random assortment of ID cards belonging to someone named LYUDA, random rolls of cash, a change section full of change, safety pins, hair pins, and earrings.

Putting all of my stuff back I realize that if I ever did lose my purse then I would be losing a lot that I find to be a necessity to get through every day. If someone ever found my purse and looked through it, they would probably think I am a pack rat that is overly prepared for any situation that might have bad breath involved. Someone might think that I am a smoker with my two lighters. One might think that I am a very obsessive person, because I tend to have a lot of one thing in my purse/wallet. They would know my exact weight, height, and the fact that I've had my bangs going in the same direction since eighth grade. They would know I drive some sort of a ford. A person searching through my things would probably assume that I am overly unorganized, but by thinking that they would be correct.

What someone wouldn't know about me by looking through my things is that although it says my eyes are green on my license, they change according to my clothes, surroundings, and mood. Or that even though I have two lighters in my purse, I have never smoked anything in my life and I am involved in Teens Against Tobacco Use. They wouldn't know that my red and white mint container with a snowflake on it just happens to match the sheets on my bed. Someone would not be able to know that I have a book in my purse that I've read at least ten times just in case i get bored or happen to have time when I'm not at home to read, same with the empty notebook but for writing. Someone wouldn't know that I am the kind of person that swerves while driving because I get too absorbed with how the moonlight is making the foggy sky looks. Or that I can hardly handle being without my cellphone because I keep it in my pocket instead of my purse. Any random person looking through my bag would not know that I am sitting here in pants that some would consider to be all-around "too tight," listening to Oasis, and watching my puppy climb around under my bedspread right this very second.

Fourth

For my fourth and final piece I chose a paper on written on a current fad and pop culture. I called my paper Mutilation Or Art. It is about body art, and how today’s culture perceives it. As the final paper, one would assume it is the best one because it was written after everything was learned. In this paper I concentrated on specific ideas and stayed on track throughout the paper. This past quarter I’ve had a lot of trouble keeping my thoughts organized when writing papers, but I was happy with this paper when I read through it.

Mutilation Or Art

Whether it is perceived as self mutilation, or as an expression of oneself, body art, such as tattoos and piercings, have been part of culture throughout history. Over the years peoples reasons for getting tattoos and piercings have changed, but the initial root of the reasoning has stayed the same. It is usually used as a form of identifying someone, or identifying something that is important to them. Pop culture today is many different things, but somewhere on that list of the current fads, is body art.

Popular culture is not necessarily the same as “high culture.” Unless someone is in a rock band, they normally don’t have their septum pierced and tattoo’s sleeves all up their arms. Pop culture has adopted piercings and tattoos because of recent TV shows like Miami Ink or Inked. Most of the time, more high class culture doesn’t include having facial, or other body piercings other then the more traditional ear piercing, showing that popular culture and high class culture doesn’t go hand in hand.

Although high class doesn’t usually accept tattoos all over the body, facial and other very noticeable tattoos have been considered a tradition for a long time. Ancient Asians and Africans have been found to have tattoos, quite literally, all over their bodies sometimes. Some examples of what they were used for were different religious ceremonies, for forms of identification and social class in tribes and as pledges of love. Also, from way back when, there have been mummies found with gauged piercings, or proof of people and tribes with their nipples pierced, and it was really popular in India for women to have their nose pierced. There were even nose rings mentioned in the bible.

Today the reasons for having tattoos, or something pierced, branch out from those original ideas. They have also expanded and grown into something that tends to have negative feelings associated with it, especially amongst the more traditional and habitual population of today’s culture. Today’s more common reasons for having tattoos is to remember a family member or friend that has passed away, to fit into a group, or maybe a gang, or to stand out from everyone else.

The concept of having a tattoo or piercing is sometimes taken way overboard. Even though it is a longstanding tradition for some cultures to have them, it isn’t necessarily fitting perfectly into the puzzle that is American culture. Pop culture is always changing and tomorrow what was popular today will not automatically be cool tomorrow. Just because it’s considered the “in” thing to have a tattoo of a sparrow across on the shoulder blades and to have lip rings, doesn’t mean that it is accepted across all of American culture. I’m sure Prince Harry won’t be seen tomorrow with his labret pierced, but there will, most likely, be someone walking down the streets of Seattle with that done.

Body art challenges the traditions of what might be called “bible thumpers,” and others that are in that group, or maybe even groups that are not that extreme. Although there were even nose rings mentioned in the bible, it is not always acceptable to have pierced body parts because of the “if God wanted holes in your body, he would have put them there in the first place” kind of idea. Today, even little kids are targeted by media to try to get them liking tattoos early. Some cereal boxes have temporary tattoos in them, or quarter machines outside of grocery stores, and they are of all of the ‘cool’ super heroes and other popular little kid icons. This is also causing a sort of problem among parents who don’t agree with tattoos, even if it is just a temporary tattoo. Some parents may think that once they get one, they will want a real one, which will lead to pierced faces and body parts. Next thing they know, their child will start doing drugs and riding in motorcycle gangs. A lot of different stereo-types are associated with tattoos, be it a motorcyclist, a stripper, or just a day-to-day freak.

Even though tattoos and piercings tend to be a kind of divider in today’s culture, they can also be a connector. They have been used as such in the past, and today are used similarly with gangs, for example. The popular tear drop tattoo signifies the amount of that person’s victims that have not survived. Tattoos of these kinds tend to be popular in the jail settings.
In Byrd and Tharp’s The Rituals Of Black Hair Culture, they say “Culture is a sticky subject and can be interpreted in many ways.” Today’s population might not fully agree on whether or not tattoos can be considered to be an accepted part of culture. Either way, it was once used for more cultural purposes, and like all pop culture, has just changed throughout the years and years of new fads and styles and will keep changing.