Test Time Oh Boy

There was not much ado about today, we only took a test. I suppose it was enjoyable trying to figure out the correct answers and practically feel my nerves at work. Like gears! The essay portion was also enjoyable, as I read a report about culture and individuality. I am just glad there was no lesson today, not because I am (very) lazy, but because I simply did not feel like listening to one today. Sorry, Mr. Rease.

Watch Your Tongue

I was lucky to read "Mother Tongue" by Amy Tan, a well-known Chinese-American novelist, today. Within the essay, the author depicted the different types of English she spoke in and how it affected her every day life from how she perceives to how she was perceived. Amy speaks perfect English, unlike her mother, who speaks in what is referred to as broken or limited language. I enjoyed the outlook Amy took on her mother's quality, not seeing the fractured speak as poor, but as something unique. The fact that there is more than one type of English was a nice fact to discover. Not language wise, but in dialect. The British speak English, but their dialect is not like an American's, and an English-speaking Indian would have a different dialect than an English-speaking Russian. The lesson the essay portrayed was very enjoyable because of that insight.

Blogs, Punctuation, and Titles Galore

I am quite content with the fact that today was less demanding. For the first part of class, we made fun of critiqued the class' first blog posts in order to improve our writing skills. It seemed there was a lot of struggling with the use of proper punctuation, which prompted a refresher on them as well as the correct way to write titles from short and long works. I greatly appreciated the extra detail overall, always finding it difficult to write the titles of different works in their correct form. There would have been an entirely different lesson at play, but half of the class was called out so the following assessments had to be altered. I am not complaining, not one bit.

Reflection of Stereotypes

Today, I learned how a common trope among Latina women that is generally disrespectful towards them. What a day! I never knew about the general attire of Latina women and why they wore such revealing clothes; I figured they were just the "sexy women" of Latin America. As it turns out, their clothing is revealing not to portray a sexual innuendo, but because it is simply in their culture, as well as it merely being hot in that area. These women are seen in various types of media as eager to please and poor English speakers, which was something I, too, held in my mind whether I knew it or not. The text I read opened my eyes through the use of another's account, and I came to terms with how rude stereotypes can be if that is all one uses to define a group of people. I place stereotypes on my fellow African-Americans every day, my arrogance allowing it to pass, yet now I know the obvious faults of this. This day was an educational one, that is true!