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Hey, how is everyone, hope everyone is being able to pull through. Well this is the final approach and it is kind of weird that it has gone by this fast. Taking this class has taught me a lot, from the seaweed that we were made to analyze back in January during our first class to the creative portfolio we had to submit in our last class. The experiences in this class have been those to remember, it has involved a decent amount of work and a good amount of fun as well. The group presentations were a great way for us to get to know the other people in class. In any case I hope everyone takes care and I hope to see you around more often.

Had my final deliverable to client for my consulting project yesterday. It was great fun though I'm glad its over with so I can start studying for my finals and write my papers.

Good luck for finals everyone!

I really loved the final celebration. It was great hearing everyone speak and share some of their lives to us. It was really amazing. Also, the food was great! I really think it's a fantastic idea that should be implemented into any writing class. I'm gonna miss this class. This is one of the few classes in which I actually enjoyed coming to lecture. I may just take this class in the spring! Also, congratulations to Maria! :D

Hey, hope everyone had a great weekend, I know this week could be tiring for a lot of us but I hope everyone manages to pull through it. Our last class was a great way to end it. Hearing everyone talk about their creating pieces and seeing the videos that some people made were just fabulous. Not only did it provide a great way for us to express our work, but also a way for us to get to know each other better. As of now, we just have one final paper due, the comparative one. I know it seems really hard and daunting, but it will hopefully turn out okay. Hope everyone takes care and manages everything well.

Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the end of the year celebration. I havent had one in any of my other classes and I thought it was really cool to get together to show off different creative things we were working on. 

I also wanted to say that I really enjoyed this class and everyone in it. As a Mechanical Engineer, its really nice to get out of all the technicals that my major requires and be in a class filled with cool people that just engineers. I've met some pretty cool people in this class, and hope to keep in contact with them over the next three years so that I'm not stuck with just Engineers all my life like most engineering students are (ahahah). 

Good luck everyone on their respective finals and have a great summer! keep in contact and say hi whenever you see me! I'll definitely return the favor! 

The website includes a recording of the poet reading her poem out loud, as well as the text of the words.

http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/43/patel.html

The prompt was: Describe an image that you find powerful

It's been an amazing year here with everybody! It sucks that the year is almost over already... but I'll always cherish the memories I made in this class. 

Here's also my morsel that I forgot to upload last week! 

Background: Suji Kwock Kim (born 1969) is a Korean-American poet-playwright.  Suji Kwock Kim was educated at Yale College; the Iowa Writers' Workshop; Seoul National University, where she was a Fulbright Scholar; and Stanford University, where she was a Stegner Fellow. Her first book of poems, Notes from the Divided Country (Louisiana State University Press, 2003) was chosen by Yusef Komunyakaa for the 2002 Walt Whitman Award.

Occupation

The soldiers  are hard at work  building a house.  They hammer  bodies into the earth  like nails,  they paint the walls  with blood.  Inside the doors  stay shut, locked  as eyes of stone.  Inside the stairs  feel slippery,  all flights go down.  There is no floor:  only a roof,  where ash is falling— dark snow,  human snow,  thickly, mutely  falling.  Come, they say.  This house will  last forever.  You must occupy it.  And you, and you— And you, and you— Come, they say.  There is room  for everyone.

 Interpretation: In the first eight lines of the poem, the speaker describes the construction of the “house” that the Japanese government is building. A warm and cozy feeling is brought upon people when thinking about a house, however, the house Kim is describing is a much darker and haunting place. “They hammer/bodies into the earth/like nails,/they paint the walls/with blood.” The author’s usage of the gruesomeness of this metaphor expresses the atrocities done by the Japanese officials in order to attain control of Korea. “The house”, which was built on the death of many and painted with blood, is such brilliant sarcasm used by Suji Kwock Kim. 

Moving inside, Kim begins to reveal the characteristics and state of those who inhabit it. “Inside the doors/stay shut, locked/ as eyes of stone.” The image of the “the doors stay shut” and “locked as eyes of stone” tells the reader that whatever the house represents, it is restricting and confining the people in it, which is what Japanese officials did to the Koreans during the occupation.

Writing Prompt: Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt occupied? Trapped? If so, what did you do about it?

I am still reading Book of Salt and I have yet to start on my final paper. I finished my creative writing portfolio and i had fun writing it. 

This would be my last time writing in this blog. I've never had to write weekly blogs like this before. It was a new experience and I liked it. I also had a lot of fun in this class. Thanks!

Coincidentally enough, when I took a break 5 minutes ago and went onto YouTube, I stumbled upon a video from a person named Sam Futerman. It was under the "Recommended for You" videos that YouTube thinks I should watch. Normally I just scroll through these videos, but the title caught my eye: "How it feels to be adopted... I am Sam." Interesting enough, i watched the 2 minute video that came out four months ago, and at the end she mentioned that she may have just found out she has a twin sister. This was four months ago, but the twin sister she did not know about was adopted by French parents and lived in France. The two didn't know they were possibly twins until the one in France saw Sam on KevJumba's video "High School Virgin" and then most recently in the trailer for "21 & Over." After some research, she found out that Sam had the same birthday and was also born in Korea. After contacting Sam, they're now creating a documentary called Twinsters that received $43k in backing for its production on KickStarter 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1746892989/twinsters

I just found this really crazy how not only YouTube recommended something to me that was relevant to class, but also how they lived so many years apart not knowing the other existed. I think it will be a good story and definitely relates to other Korean Adoptee stories.

This is the home stretch of the semester. Im surprised at how fast my freshmen year as gone by. It has been a great experience.

The presentation group was really good last week. I enjoyed how they engaged with the audience as well as those lovely brownies.

See you tomorrow