We Are the Bogeymen, We Are the Bogeywomen

http://cre8here.com/2012/11/29/we-are-the-bogeymen-we-are-the-bogeywomen/

I haven't written anything about this story yet? Why is that? This must be remedied.

Maria Gartner's short story is defiant and sad. A teenager and her friends and other students at her school are being bullied, and there's nothing they can do about it. But that doesn't stop the narrator from deciding to take matters into her own hands, and fight back! While others became victims, she did what most others do not, and that is what I like the  most about this story. Bullying is an epidemic in high schools, and it is time for it to stop. Reading a story like this is one way to do that, by raising awareness of the problem and making people realize that this is not okay.

The other great thing about this story is the obvious black blocks in the text. Yes they're supposed to be there. The slurs and smears are not spelled out, and so they are left up to the imagination to fill in whatever words would hurt the most to the reader. That gives the story another dimension, another way to see the story aside from the obvious.

I loved this short story because it hurt. It brought up memories. I have always been on the receiving end of bullying, so I can't imagine how someone who has done the bullying could feel. But I hope that if they do read this, they can see what pain their actions cause.

Does My Head Look Big In This?

Randa Abdel-Fattah's novel Does My Head Look Big In This? is a book that I read as an independent reading project for my Young Adults Literature class. Our assignment was to read a book that was outside our normal reading genre, make a little speech about it to the class (with one a one-sentence summary) that also included who we would recommend the book to and what characteristics made it good young adult literature. As is obvious from the cover, the book is about a Muslim girl, but my one-sentence summary didn't focus on that, just like the book. The book is actually about 16-year-old Amal and her life, dealing with school, friends, family, and society, with the extra pressure of deciding to wear a hijab full-time. That decision - that was entirely her choice to make! - begins the book, and it covers a year in her life from there. Obviously the decision was a big deal to her - she wanted to show her devotion to her faith (and maaaybe for the attention) in a first-world country (Australia) at a time where tensions were high: the book was set one year after 9/11, and she actually faces the anniversary of the event wearing her hijab. While it was a big deal to her and her life, within the novel itself the act is not treated as a big deal. There is so much more to the novel than a girl who put on her head-scarf. Amal is a loud vibrant girl (I actually want to go for a coffee with her, because our personalities are very similar), who likes shopping, being there for her friends - girl and boy, Muslim and Christian - and has to deal with school pressures and parents. A point she makes in the book is that she's not just a Muslim girl, and I feel the book did very well conveying that.
Another important feature in the book is the emphasis on the difference between culture and religion. Amal and her parents are very straight-forward Muslims, her uncle and cousins are changing their behavior to act more Australian while still keeping their faith, and one of her friends has a mother who, because of the way she was raised, is very strict on her daughter about keeping to the appearances and rituals of their faith. The novel features many perceptions and stereotypes about those of Islamic faith (they also spelled out the difference between Muslim and Islam, and I'm really disappointed that I don't have the book next to me so I can write what she actually said, because it was really good) and destroys those illusions, such as the belief of Amal's classmates that her father is forcing her to wear the hijab, when he really tried to talk her out of wearing it full-time in an effort to protect her from any racist remarks. The religion was just a part of Amal's life, just a normal part of her day, and the novel didn't make a big deal of it. I chose this book because I don't normally read books in the "daily lives of teenage girls" genre, and also because I'm not a fan of religion in any way, shape, or form. I've read too many preachy Christian novels, and I hoped this novel wouldn't be like those - and I was right! Religion was just another part of Amal's life, just as important to her as her family and friends.
For me, the book was both relatable and unrelatable. Obviously, I am not an Australian-Pakistani Muslim girl who likes shopping, but Amal is still a teenage girl, and she and her friends act like teenagers! In most other young adult novels, the protagonist/narrator tends to be an outsider, someone on the edge with few friends. Amal has many friends in and out of school, and calls, emails, and talks to them the way that teenagers do: loudly, frantically, talking over each other, and randomly screaming. Her friends also have their own lives and their own troubles, which spill over into Amal's life, and that is another relatable feature of the book. One of the situations was so similar to something I personally went through that I actually got scared all over again. So refreshing after reading books where the dialogue is so wooden and unbelievable. Reading from someone with a different religion, place of living, and experiences is a good way to draw in readers and keep them interested, and this book really fulfilled.
A reader would need to have an open mind to read this book, and also a sense of humor, because Amal is funny. I can't understate the importance of this novel, because it deals with problems that are still a part of society today. This book did a great job of showing us the world of a girl very different than what readers know, and I am very tempted to buy the book to add to my own shelf. 4.5 out of 5 stars, would read again.

Surprise!

I never planned on doing anything over spring break - no vacation at the beach, no crazy parties, just sleeping in till noon every day. And I would've gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.

Yeah, these ones!! These adorable babies!

Look how proud he is for disturbing my sleep!

Especially this one! Look at him!

Pete (top picture) and Ole (bottom picture) were born sometime Wednesday morning, and we weren't prepared for them because we weren't expecting their mama - Daisy - to give birth That Day. She was fat, sure, and her udder was getting a bit full, but we've never had baby goats before, so we still weren't 100 percent sure.
So my dad went out to do morning chores - Mom had to go into her job early - and heard something odd coming from the goat pen. When he got there, he found two mysterious piles of white - that looked oddly like snow - that were making some very unhappy noises. Pete (who's not totally white, he's actually really beige) was already cleaned off, had a drink (we could feel his tummy was full), and walking around. Ole was still wet, still hungry, and half frozen. His legs were partially frozen and didn't work, the tips of his ears were frozen and black, and he was very very cold.
Dad came in to wake me up - I thought he was kidding - and brought all the goats into the warm part of the shed. When I showed up he put Ole in my lap and told me to dry him off and warm him up, which was pretty difficult because he was so cold.
We tried to get Daisy to feed them, but she wouldn't even pay attention to them. We got some milk out of her, and managed to squeeze some milk from a rag into Ole's mouth. He was still in bad shape, and Pete would need some milk soon too. Dad sent me into town to get nipples and bottles so we could manually feed them. When I got back from town, we brought the babies into the house, I sat in a recliner, and Dad put Pete and Ole on my lap to warm them up while he milked Daisy.

Pete was sleeping, but Ole was still trying to warm up (he's not really sleeping in the top picture, just resting). I got to see Ole finally take his first steps when he warmed up, and we managed to get lots of milk in him from the bottles. After another nap on my lap (which is the best experience ever) we brought them back to Daisy. Apparently all she needed to get her butt into gear was to be separated from them for a while. They started feeding and she began cleaning them.
They're a few days old now, and starting to bounce (bouncing baby goats are the best thing ever). Pete's started climbing things, and Ole is making a valiant effort to do the same, but he still hasn't quite figured out how legs work yet. Ole is much more friendly that Pete, and if he's picked up he falls asleep almost instantly in whoever's arms he's in - just like a cat, and they're almost the same size as our cats right now. They also sleep quite a bit, and they're just as hard to photograph as their mama.
Also, our Nanny goat, Petunia, really does not like being stuck in a pen with far too many small and active goats.

What I've read this semester

All of these short stories, poems, and essays were found in the Pushcart Prize, 2012 edition. Mishti Kukur, by Deborah Thompson; My Sky Diary, by Claire Bateman; Spell Against Gods, by Patrick Phillips; Glad to be Human, by Irene O'Garden; Theory of Lipstick, by Karla Huston; Family Math, by Alan Michael Parker; Dark Horse, by Lisa Couturier; and Little Wet Monster, by Chad Sweeny. My favorite short story was Mishti Kukur, mostly because it wasn't just a great story, but really touched the heart of this dog lover. The worst to read was Dark Horse, for nearly the same reasons, except it involved horses. My Sky Diary was nice in a very confusing way - it needed multiple readings to understand. Most of the poems were like that, especially Little Wet Monster, which became especially tragic after analysis. However, analyzing poems is something I'm very bad at, so I'll just have to take other's word for what they came up with.

Thoughts on My Sky Diary

My Sky Diary, by Claire Bateman, goes on a nice deceptive little journey with the reader. It starts one way, talking about books and learning to read and write, and then it suddenly goes in a slightly more fantastical direction. Yes, its possible that the narrator speaking about sleeping under the desk and learning to write cursive surrounded by students and faculty are just metaphors and slight exaggerations on truth, but I tend to read poems as literal (its more fun that way). The content of the story was fun, and the words painted a pretty picture, but it got pretty heavy with metaphors and symbolism. It was like eating a chocolate chip cookie with too many chocolate chips: on one hand, its a yummy cookie, but there's just too much happening at once.

Final Thoughts on Internship in Literary Careers

My final thought was that I really enjoyed this class. I liked reading the different pieces people submitted, I liked editing them (for the most part), and I liked working with my fellow students.  I will be in the class again next semester, so I'm really looking forward to it. And, just because I can, here's a picture of my cat with her kitten.

Thoughts on House of Prayer

First impression: this story is weird. This impression doesn't change as I finished reading this story. I liked the way it was written, from the point of view of a young boy who isn't quite right in the head. The descriptions were so real and gritty and disgusting. I really felt bad for the boy narrator, but he seems rather accepting of his situation. Overall I liked it, weird as it is.