Quote Sandwich - My Tortilla MVP - Soul Sistahs

We've almost completed the novel The Tortilla Curtain, but I already know who my MVP is.  That's my Most Valuable Part.  It's going to be about America.  While the men are the LOUDEST, America is the STRONGEST.  She never gives up. 

America is my MVP.  Through the chaos and violence of The Tortilla Curtain, America keeps her cool.  She has her dream. She knows life is rough, but she’s not going to let anything or anybody get between her and her goal. 

My favorite scene comes when she meets face to face with a coyote in the woods.  She doesn’t even blink: "She looked at the coyote so long and so hard that she began to hallucinate, to image herself inside those eyes looking out...” ( Boyle 179 ).  They have no money.  Her husband beats her.  She has just been raped.  But, she’s not taking a step back.  She focuses on this little white house that she wants to live in.  The one with a gas stove and a refrigerator and chickens in the yard.  Like the coyote, she keeps moving forward,   She is a survivor.  She is relentless.

Black Geishas - First Announcement

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Run With Your Dreams

In English 61, we read a "Tuff-Stuff" story about a young woman who was abused and beaten by her boyfriend, but she did everything she could to make the relationship work.  It was her first love, or that's what she thought. After reading her story, Mr Lewenstein asked us to develop a "Tuff-Stuff" narrative of our own.  We began writing about a difficult challenge we've seen or experienced on our own lives.  Today I'm writing about my friend Suzy and Teen Pregnancy.

Suzy is a dreamer, not a “dreamer” the way we use the word today, but she has always had the goal of being the first in her family to graduate from college.  She came to this country without knowing a word of Spanish, but she persevered. 

Not only did she learn English, now she wants to teach it.  However, When she  became pregnant in her senior year of high school, all her plans had to be put on hold.  The father of the child wanted nothing to do with marriage.  When it came time to have the baby, Suzy found herself all alone.  Suzy’s mother was a full-time nurse.  Her father was so angry at his daughter, he refused to speak with her.  He certainly wouldn’t support her.  Suzy had no other option but to take matters into her own hands.  Suzy decided to raise her child as a single mother.

Yes, she knew of the hardship and challenge of raising a baby by herself in today’s economy,  but this was Suzy being Suzy.  She still had her dream of becoming an English professor.  Nothing was going to get in her way.  A counselor on the COD campus told her that with her grades, she was eligible for a Pell grant.  With this subsidy, she would be able to raise her child and continue her education.  Although many single mothers may feel trapped in their lives, Suzy saw no obstacle in her way for moving on in her life. She is inspired by the idea of becoming a role model for her daughter.  Every day she wakes up, she wants to be strong for her.

Whatever people think about her decision to go at it as a single mother, she just doesn’t care.  “The look at me from the outside,” she told me, “but they don’t know me.” Suzy doesn’t feel trapped at all with her baby.  No matter what happens, she will always have  her love and dream and vision.  Her baby will be her guiding light.

"Fever" - A Story I Never Recovered From

Mr. Lewenstein asked us to share a "Book Out of Our Past" on the class discussion board.  He didn't want us to write a book report.  He said  it should come out more like a book experience.  Here I try to show what I got out of  the reading.   I never was much of a reader before I discovered Raymond Carver.  

Back in English class at Kent State University in Ohio, I read a book I didn’t really like or understand. The author’s name was Raymond Carver. He wrote a collection of short stories entitled Cathedral. I’m telling you I didn’t like the stories at first because in each one of them the author didn’t seem to go much of anywhere and not much of anything really ever happened. But because they were short stories, I read them over and over – I thought I was missing out. 

Hey. More sooner than later, I realized I wasn’t missing out. The more Raymond Carver stories I read, the more I understood what he wrote about. I mean, not every book has to have a lesson or finish in a happy ending. I began to appreciate how Carver’s stories show a slice of life. In fact, they seem to concentrate on the very unglamorous side of life.

My favorite story of this collection is “Fever”. It starts with the line, “Carlyle was in a spot.” That’s how Carver writes. He doesn’t waste a lot of adjectives or details, but as you move through the story, you pick up that Carlyle is a sad alcoholic with a crazy wife who has just left him. Here he is trying to forget her and get on with his life, but his wife keeps calling him to find out how he’s doing. And like a lot of other Carver characters, he wasn’t doing very well at all. He still had to take care of his work and his kids, and on top of that, he had come down with a horrible fever.

For some reason, this story stuck with me. His wife kept telling him that if he had a fever, now was the time to write down his feelings. This is what got to me: His heart must have been broken. He must have had a ulcer burning deep in his stomach. And things were just going to get worse, but his wife kept calling him back over and over and over, reminding him to write down his feelings. Like she was the last person he wanted to hear from. He thought she was completely insane.

I don’t know if you know what it’s like to concentrate when you feel like you are going to throw up. It’s like you are moving in two different directions. How can you understand much of anything?

That’s when I began to understand and respect Raymond Carver. When I read him, I stop waiting for the obvious; instead, I look forward to discomfort. When Carlyle in ”Fever” came to terms with the temperature of his skin, he developed a better understanding of who he was.

I think everyone can learn something about themselves from reading Raymond Carver. Here, his stories aren't action adventures that everyone could dream about. There more like everyday moments that we can all relate to.

For me, Carver’s stories aren’t about Magic.  They are about Us.  I mean the writing will connect with the real you.

Broken Dreams? No, Just New Ones!

Below I write about the same "Tuff Stuff" topic.  It's Suzy again.  I've decided to describe her life before her pregnancy.  This might help us understand Suzy as a mother.  Not much change, really.  Her baby has only made her stronger.


Before Suzy became pregnant, we were very close friends. In high school, we used to sit together in the back of the room in all of our classes.  Suzy always used to take the spot next to the window and draw pictures in her notebook.  She was a dreamer. 

She was also a runner.  She was on the cross country team.  She spent a lot of her time in class drawing pictures of running shoes she liked in her notebook.  She was good with the Nike and Puma symbols.  They covered her pages.  Her teachers didn’t seem to mind.  They said she was very talented.  Suzy planned to continue running and drawing in college.  She was going to study art.

When she told me she was pregnant, we both cried.  We both knew she wouldn’t be able to go to college any time soon.  Suzy had to drop out for a while.  I was the one who sat by the window.   While I was able to go to college, Suzy worked to take care of her family.  She has different priorities now.  I miss her.   With our crazy schedules, we don’t see each other very often.  Lately, however, I’ve see she’s running again.  I see her in her Nikes pushing her stroller along the side of the road when I go to school.  She doesn’t look like your typical drop-out.  She looks determined and full of life. It’s just that she has a whole new set of goals.  I always HONK:  “You Go Girl! Nothing can stop you!”

Black Geishas - About Us Page - Black Is Beautiful!

Nǐ hǎo to all of you.  Welcome to our Black Geisha page.
On the left is Hissie.  On the right is Ana Lucia.  That's me - Arish - in the middle.
By reading our pages in CANVAS groups, we invite you to follow our journey through English 110.
 For us, Writing is Magic.  Writing is Power.  Writing is Freedom. 
Below are our student profiles as they appear in our class blogs:

	My name is Ana Lucia.  I’m from Bogota, Columbia.  I look forward to sharing with you this semester on my brand new  The Double Life  I like to read,  I like to write,  and  I like to cook, but with this blog, I hope to  stand up for important social issues regarding equality, immigration reform, and drug and alcohol abuse.  Look for me this semester to write about women’s rights. I’m excited to have a voice and a place to use it.  Count on me as your IVC Friend of the Earth.
My name is Hissie Chrynde.  These are my interests: Cooking without meat, Long bike rides, Spanish-language telenovelas, Antique typewriters.  I'm studying art on this campus.  I want to transfer to Hofstra University in New York.  I want to see the world.  This semester I'm writing a research paper about Frida Kahlo. She inspires me with her spirit and determination.  Very Cool!  Are you ready for my blog?  Whenever I get real down and depressed, I try to write down what I feel.  It's not a very complicated or sophisticated process. I just type and type and type until the sadness goes away. When I began to think of an appropriate title for a blog, I came up with "Stop Your Sobbing.""  I think it just might work.	;
	My name is Arish.  Actually, my real name is Sira – that’s Arish spelled backwards.  I was born in Spain, but my destiny led to me to  Morroco.  That’s my story. I grew up as Sira in peace time and ended up Arish when World War II broke out. Sira is my softer, youthful self.  Arish is my harder edge.  I need them both.  In my blog, I hope to share a diversity of experience and emotion.  I can’t write one without the other. In English 009, I’m basing my research paper on the film Girl, Interrupted.   The film is a true-to-life story about a young women who struggled with mental illness.  She was intelligent, compassionate, and pretty, but she had developed bipolar personality disorder. Her parents committed her to a mental hospital.  My goal is to be nurse some day.  I want to be there to help people in need.  There are a lot of people suffering out there.  We have to open our eyes. Be more understanding.

Remember: Black is Beautiful!
Con mucho carino,
Hissie, Arish, and Ana Lucia.