PechaKucha Response

I watched a PechaKucha called Music Moves Me. It was about a girl who lost her dad at the age of twenty because of suicide. She went through a really deep depression and decided to take guitar lessons because that's what her dad use to do. She described a memory of him sitting at the edge of his bed, watching a VHS tape and teaching himself how to play the guitar. So she learned and got good at it. Three years after her dad's passing her younger brother was killed in a car accident because a guy fell asleep at the wheel and was going fifty-eight mph when he hit him. She got through his death by writing songs and continuing to play the guitar.

I thought her pictures were really well. They were personal pictures and were pictures of her dad and her brother. When she was describing a song that she wrote for her brother she had a picture of a grave with four roses on it. It's nice just listening to the presentation and just let the words flow along with the pictures that she had presented. The only downfall of her presentation was she spoke very quickly and would stumble on her words and get tongue twisted. It might have been because she was speaking in front of an audience but she is use to performing in front of people. She mentioned that she performs on stage at least once a week. So I think she stumbled because she was talking a bit too fast and that could be because she was trying to keep up with the twenty second slides.

I think it is going to be difficult to present my PechaKucha because I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep up with my slides. I think it will be hard to find pictures to go along with my topic as well but I'll find a way to make it work. Overall I'm excited and can't wait to see what everyone else has.

Chinese Weddings

My correspondence from China, Emma Li, is going to be attending a wedding soon! Her brother is going to be getting married and while I was reading her autobiography I was intrigued on how their weddings were like. I found out a lot from Emma and did a little research based off of the things that she told me. I've always liked weddings and was very pleased to have someone that could tell me more about it.

I found out that Chinese weddings aren't as different from American weddings if their modern weddings. Traditional Chinese wedding are very different from American weddings. The type of music they play at their weddings is a little different as well. Emma said, "The instruments were often suona, erhu, drum, etc." She sent along an attachment with pictures of these instruments.

The suona is is an important instrument in the folk music of northern China. The erhu is a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, which may also be called a "southern fiddle", and sometimes known in the Western world as the "Chinese violin" or a "Chinese two-stringed fiddle". And then a drum, which us self-explanatory. They’ll play this while the bride is walking down the aisle. Emma also said, “Brides usually wore red dresses to show the pleased celebrate of atmosphere. When a couple was holding their wedding, they would kowtow to the world and their parents. The next day the bride should serve tea to her parents in law to show her respect.

I found it very cool that the bride would have tea with the parent in laws the next morning after the wedding. It just put in perspective the old traditions and how much they valued their relationships with their in-laws. The bride would typically wear a red dress in a traditional wedding. Although it’s not like the types of dresses that we think of. They’re silkier and robe like. Nothing like the dresses that we wear at our weddings in America. Although they are quite different, I do find them very beautiful.

“Nowadays, people won’t hold the traditional weddings. Some will go to the church but most will hold the weddings in restaurants. Brides usually wear white or red wedding dresses. They do not need to kowtow to anyone,” Emma Li writes to me in the email. She then attached two more photos of what people would typically wear and what the wedding would look like. I’m not sure what type of wedding her brother will have but I think they’ll have a more modern wedding like most people. I will probably end up asking and finding out for sure. There’s one thing to remember though, “But either traditional weddings or modern weddings, they all mean true love of couples.” –Emma Li-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Response to "Face to Face"

I listened to the stories of Golzar Kheiltash and Anjum Mir. They are both Muslim and were watching when the two planes hit the towers. One thing Mir said during one of her interviews that this was going to affect her child. He was not even a year old when the World Trade Center was hit. She knew that because they were Muslim, it wouldn't matter that he was only a baby at the time. That people would still treat him differently because of what happened that day.

During Kheiltash's interview she was telling us that she was at her college when the Trade Center was hit. She heard about it and ran to the student lounge because she knew they would have a television there. That was when she first saw all the images and videos of the crash. She watched as the people jumped out of the building and felt overwhelmed with grief. She then became aware of the people around her and started to feel claustrophobic. She realized how much this was going to impact her life at that exact moment. She could see the stereotypes that were going to evolve and what people were going to think or her and others like her. No later than a few seconds that she thought this a man a couple of feet from her said "They should just nuke the whole middle east."

The last account that I found interesting was Muhammed El Nasal's story. He went into work four days after the World Trade Center was hit with the airplanes. The first thing his co-workers said to him was "Hey Muhammed, why'd your cousins blow up the World Trade Center?" Then they said that his boss told them that he had to check Nasal for bombs when he came into work. Nasal thought the guys were just joking because they didn't really like their boss. Later Nasal's boss called him into the office and said that he had to check him for bombs. He meant it as a joke but Nasal was very offended and didn't think it was funny, especially since it was four days after the bombing.

All these stories were big eye openers for me. Being a white american and my family being white it obviously didn't affect us in the same way. I never realized how quickly it happened though. With the two accounts, Kheiltash and Nasal, it seemed very immediate when people started to stereotype and put them into categories. With Kheiltash someone not even five feet away from her mentioned bombing the middle east and with Nasal it was his co-workers. I can't possibly imagine the difficult obstacles that Muslims have to go through these days because of what happened at the Trade Center. Most of the Muslims in America are actually born in America and have nothing to do with the Middle East other than your ethnicity.

Book Review #4: The Night She Disappeared

The Night She Disappeared is about a girl named Kayla who got kidnapped when delivering pizzas. The guy who ordered the pizza specifically asked for Gabie, another employee, but Kayla traded shifts that night with Gabie. Not knowing that Gabie wasn't the one in the car, he kidnapped the wrong girl. Gabie later finds out that the guy was originally asking for her over the phone. Gabie decides to help look for Kayla, but the search gets difficult when the police think they found the culprit. Do they ever find Kayla alive? Will he come after Gabie next? Read the book to find out.

 Throughout the book, the chapters switch off between characters and they even switch to Kayla, the girl who was kidnapped. They also switch to the man who did the kidnapping. I think that was my favorite part of the book, was being inside his mind and seeing his perspective of what was going on. When Kayla finally awakes for the first time, it switches over to him. April Henry writes, "The screams rise again from the special room I built. Faint but still audible.I set down my X-Acto Number 11, pick up the TV clicker, and press the plus sign on the volume button. There. That takes care of that" (Pg 38).

I was kind of shocked and thrilled at the same time when I got to this chapter knowing that the author also wrote in his perspective. I've never read a book about a kidnapping where we got to be in their head. This was a really good action packed and thriller book. So if you're into those, you should check it out!

Book Review #3: Under the Never Sky

In "Under the Never Sky" there is a world controlled by the Aether, a storm that lingers in the air and never goes away. It funnels down to the earth to produce a tunnel of electricity and burns anything in its radius. The Aether storms come and go and are rather random and only the "Outsiders" can tell when they come. In this book there are two main characters, Aria and Peregrine, or "Perry" for short. Aria lives in Reverie which is one of the domes that serves as homes for the "chosen ones". The people who aren't chosen have to try their luck on the outside, also known as the wasteland. Perry is one of the "Outsiders" and lives in the Tides, one of the many tribes. One night Aria is thrown out of Reverie and has to figure out a way to survive. If she doesn't die from the outsiders, she'll die from the storms. Her only hope is to work with the one person her kind despises, Perry. They decide to put their differences aside, knowing the only way to survive is with each other. Their unlikely alliance forms into something more and decides the fates of everyone living under the Aether.


This book is a trilogy and I just finished the second book "Through the Ever Night". This book was kind of hard to get into in the beginning because of the author's writing style. She talks in third person and switches between Aria and Perry every chapter. Besides the writing style, the book has a great story line! If you're into the Divergent trilogy, Matched trilogy, Legend trilogy, or the Delirium trilogy you would love this book! The non-stop action and twists keep you hooked the entire time.


 "The Aether looked brighter than it had earlier. It knotted on the horizon in glowing blue waves. She watched the sky until she was sure. The waves were rolling toward her. Aria closed her eyes and listened to the flapping of the wind blowing past her ears, rising and falling." (Pg 98)

 I chose this quote to go with the pictures to give a small description of the Aether storm and what it looks like. They give more details in small glimpses throughout Aria's perspective as she travels the outside world for the first time. I chose a picture of a "Magic" card because it is actually an Aether storm, and I think that's where the author might have gotten it from. But I also think that the Aether storms look different when it is still and not funneling. I imagine it looking more like the Northern Lights because of the character's descriptions of how beautiful it is when it's calm.

Book Review #2: Revived

Revived is about a girl who is a part of organization with a vaccine that can bring someone back from the dead, hence the title "Revived". The main character is Daisy and the book starts off with Daisy getting stung by a bee, and she's highly allergic and she ends up dying. Every single time Daisy is revived they have to move towns so no one will get suspicious. Daisy has died a total of five times. When Daisy movies to Omaha she develops two friends, Audrey and Matt, and makes sure she stays alive so she won't have to move. Daisy's curiosity unfolds a huge secret that the Revived organization is trying to keep secret and puts her life in danger. Her friend Audrey is keeping a huge secret as well.

There's a lot of suspense in this book. In the beginning it's relaxing because you're still absorbing all the information about this drug that brings people back to life. And then right when everything is going good the author smacks you in the face with a loop. And then a little after that you get smacked again. Theoretically speaking of course. If you literally get smacked by the author you should get yourself some medication. Anyways this book is really great, I enjoyed it.

The excerpt I'm choosing to share with you is to show how descriptive the author is. This particular scene is when Daisy is in her English class for the first time at her new school, and this really attractive male walks into the class and sits down. (Pg. 34)

"He casually sweeps the front of his shaggy hair to the side with his thumb. The back of his hair flips out from behind his ears in that adorable way that makes it impossible to tell whether he needs a haircut or just got one. He's got dark eyebrows--the kind that sexy TV villains have-- and almond-shaped brown eyes that make him look like he has a secret. He's slouching ever so slightly in his faded green T-shirt and worn jeans, and he smiles at me in a way that looks...familiar."

I especially like this passage because it creates a very vivid image in your head. When reading this you can picture as if the character is sitting right in front of you. The author is like this throughout the entire book which helps keep you intrigued. Without the vast detail I don't believe the book would have kept my attention as much. With how the plot goes, the detail is very crucial.