Three Worded Paragraphs (Journal Entry 5)

Barthes shares his opinion on rhetoric and the different views he has on the multiple ways people use language.

When I think of reading, I only really think of the book series that I read multiple times over. The ones that I have grown feelings for and accustomed to. I am not sure if I want Barthes to change how I read them if I have grown so attached, but I understand where he is coming from. That every time you read something, look at all the perspectives; not of the characters, but of the readers' and the author. How the author put themselves in the book, or withheld a bit. I suppose the next time I want to cry and read Percy Jackson,  shouldn't pay so much attention to the story, but to what the words are saying? Yeah, the deep stuff.

Paragraph 1:

• Well-spoken
• Blacken
• Pure

Paragraph 2:

• Pleasure
• Grammarian
• Change of code
• Lexicographical 

Paragraph 3:

• Selective baffles
• Lost
• Always the other, the author

Paragraph 4:

• Disposessed
• I desire the author
• Prattle 

Paragraph 5:

• Ideological
• Every fiction is supported by a social jargon
• Sacerdotal

Paragraph 6:

• Regionality
• Agents of the State
• It is a warrior

Paragraph 7:

• Paranoias
• Jargon
• Marxist

Paragraph 8:

• Systems
• Us
• Inhabit

Paragraph 9: 

• Atopia 
• War of languages
• Dissociated 

Paragraph 10:

• Erethism 
• Desquamation 
• Writers hackles 

Paragraph 11:

• Outside languages
• Not a language
• War of fictions

The Case of (Note Taking) Reparations (Journal Entry 4)

Howdy. While reading "The Case For Reparations" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I wrote down every word I didn't recognize and the questions my brain produced while reading. I figured I would put part of my notes here, and build on them, to better understand the article.

Kleptocracy (mentioned more than once) - a government or state in which those in power exploit and steal; rule by a thief. Coates seems to be calling the local government of Chicago and the Red Lining districts a kleptocracy.

Debt peonage - the use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt. This is how the tenants of the Red Lining district couldn't get out of thier contracts.

Sharecropping - a tenant farmer who gives part of his crop up as rent.

Rosenwald School - this was apparently the informal term used for the "black only" schools in the South and the segregated community. 

Nuremberg Laws - Nazi law that prohibited relationships with people who basically weren't Aryan enough. The corrupted Federal Housing Administration set up "racial policies" around the Red Lining districts and other parts of Chicago that resembled the Nuremberg Laws.

Halcyon talk - halcyon- denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful. In relation to the article, basically people started realizing that segregation wasn't an actual necessity.

Brown vs. Board of Education - Supreme Court case that finally abolished segregated schools across the nation. 

There were a few things in the article that I do not recall ever hearing about, and want to look into. For one, why was I never made to know the Supreme Court cases? Like honestly? But as a future history teacher, I intend to know of all the things Coates spoke of in this article.

What to look up for next time: Chicago bombings; how normal home owning works vs why the CBL had to even form; negative wealth.

Food Review From A Fattie (Journal Entry 3)

Ah, food. The staple of every little fat kid such as myself. Does dessert count as “food”? I would say it does, for it is consumable. There is a special strawberry cake that my mother makes every few times a year. It is special because she invented it herself while trying to recreate a cake one of my brothers was so fond of as a teenager. What she does is she makes two layers of strawberry cake and between the layers she puts strawberry icing, Cool Whip, and sliced strawberries. She covers the top and sides with the whip and the berries and it ends up being this massive mound of sugar with an ending result of a dry mouth. It took me two years, roughly five cakes, to tell her that I wasn’t a fan of all the icing she put in the middle, for I felt it was too rich of a cake already. But I still loved it.

Mom makes it for Thanksgiving, and if we ask nicely, for Christmas Eve at her mother’s house every year. An additional cake would be made for the birthday I share with my niece, Payton. It wasn’t fun at first, sharing a birthday with a new baby, who everyone doted on, and myself already having terrible low self esteem and being the youngest of five. But I love her very much, and we love that cake. When she was about a year old, we all went to the store, Payton in the basket on top of the cart, and we wouldn’t let her eat the strawberries being sold at the store, so she cried. But the thing is, she faked the tears! About two tears fell down her cheeks while she threw a fake tantrum. Little brat.

For her ninth birthday, I baked our cake myself and took it to our joint party. When I showed up with our cake, she simply said, “you can put it with my other presents”. Uhm? What? You are a child? I don’t know. The cake represents too many memories is all I can say.

Blood Music? Yeah (Journal Entry 2)

A song that has become part of my bloodstream has to be one that I can listen to repeatedly, until even when I am annoyed by it, I still wait for it to end until I switch to a different tune. A song in my blood would have to be one that I listen to no matter the mood; and for that, I feel like it must be one I have heard all my life. While going into this blog entry, I was initially going to promote the always wonderful “Just Right” by the Korean-Pop boy band GOT7. (A true bop, I say, always listen to this, dear reader. Go investigate.) But if a song has truly become a part of me, it would have to be “Desperado” by the Eagles.

I was raised on the five or six CDs my mom kept in her car, whenever me and my siblings had to go along for the ride. My parents had gone to the Hell Freezes Over concert tour by the Eagles and had the soundtrack to prove it; and being good parents, wanted to start thier children out right. Desperado is the last song on that disc, a tale of a loner walking around, just going with the flow, never finding real love or friendship, just doing what he can to pay the bills and not living life to the fullest. As a kid, I just thought it was a slow song and accidentally learned the words after hearing it for years upon years. As I went into high school, the song became a coping strategy for me as I learned to be more social. As I understood what anxiety was and how to handle it. As I heard the news of what felt like half my family dying the first semester of freshman year. I would have all these emotions, and I would listen to “Desperado” as I sang softly to myself. Whispered the lyrics when my father would be a daily drunken asshole. Rocking back and forth to the slow beat after my aunt’s funeral. I would pace the floor and twiddle my hands before I went on stage to act, reminding myself of the words used in the song.

As much as I love K-pop, my blood was boiled due to Hell freezing over.

Sherman Alexie's Article (Journal Entry 1)

The first thing that really stood out to me in the article "Why the Best Kids' Books Are Written in Blood" by Sherman Alexie was a few paragraphs in when he says that he reads every single letter sent to him by fans. (In not so may words, granted.) I find that to be true dedication; even if it takes him a couple months- that is honestly something to boast about. His boastful tone surprises me a bit, especially when he talks on the "depravity" found in his own autobiography. I myself have never read his book, but if ten year olds are enjoying the true tales of murder and mayhem this man went through, I don't see why I shouldn't read it. I mean, I like a good novel that reminds me of the horrors of my home life as much as the next gal. 

I must agree with Mr. Alexie in a thought he proposes at the end of his article, "They aren't trying to protect the poor from poverty." It's an old argument that has many sides, where if kids see violence on television, they will reenact it for themselves in play, not realizing the dangers and moral complications. But, my bros, children are smart enough to realize for themselves that even an autobiography isn't saying "go do the drugs right now, Little Billy", it is warning them of the future implications it has. I feel as though Alexie is speaking on the topic of how people will shelter the good and pure little white kids from ever seeing poverty and drugs and rape, but do nothing to help the children already affected.

I have gone over the word count, so imma just stop here before my babble over takes.

Favourite quote from this reading: "Does she believe a dystopian novel will frighten a kid who already lives in hell?"