Creative writing

Reading and Not Reading

By: Monica de la Cruz A01374485

It can be argued that books and their existence is essential in our society now at days, developing the human mind by teaching various point of views in a subject. This generates an immense fight between the ones who believes in this argument and the ones who don’t.  I am a firmly believer of this argument, since I have seen in front row seats the difference between a “bookworm” and a not reader. In this small essay I will try to persuade you to agree with me.

Lets look at persons close to us, people who are easy to analyze, since we see them every day. In every debate we should do a previous research about our subject, since we have to find data that supports our arguments, but when we are in the heat of the argument, we use all the arguments that we can think of to make the other person agree with us, or at least to say enough convincing arguments to persuade the public to take our side. The information obtained from our research might not always be enough, even when we feel like experts on the subject, there are sometimes not enough things to say that will help us win. In this case reading and its consequences kick in, we might say a quote from an author, or bring a book`s plot into the debate that will help us. Known quotes of persuasion such as “Neglected but Undefeated I stand today living the life I was told I would never live all because my faith grew.” will help us win or not. I`ve been to some debates, and I have take participation in some. In all of them the ones who reed the most have better arguments, since they have solid information to back them up and a convincing structure, all of the reader have a ability of forming a argument in seconds, since books help a person have a more open mind about subjects, and shows different points of view of a subject.

Reading stimulates the mind; it opens it to new world and new situations with every chapter that we read. This becomes a enormous help when we are put in a difficult situation, readers don’t stand still and goes with the flow, they create their own flow and are available to have better persuasive arguments. In this 400 word essay I only exposed one close reason that I have lived that help me realize what reading does to your mind.

Final Project - Sixth Entry MRojo

Vida con mi Viuda by José Agustín

I just finished Vida con mi Viuda today. And even though I admire José Agustín, in my opinion this wasn’t his best novel. I have read several essays and short stories written by him, and what I like the most about his works is the way he uses the Spanish language, because it’s really funny and easy to follow. His is also recognized as the Mexican author who mixes punctuation signs in his works, so this requires a reader who likes challenges and who has complete knowledge over Spanish, otherwise it gets tricky to understand the ideas. So they recommended me to read a novel instead of essays from him, and I decided to read the Vida con mi Viuda’s trilogy. What I expected to find in this novel was at least a credible Mexican story, but it is in fact a fiction novel with an unbelievable story that combines ancient magic and a Mexican mafia.

Vida con mi Viuda is a Mexican novel, published in 2004. This is the first part of a trilogy, the second one is Arma Blanca and the last one is yet to come. The plot has as a protagonist a film director named Onelio de la Sierra. One day when he was about to leave his job, he sees a man identical to him dying in front of him. At that time he decides to change identities with the dead man in order to know what would happen in his family and in his work after his death. This decision reveals that he has also acquired the commitments of its new identity, which was a mysterious Russian man linked to a well-known mafia. And in order to understand this decision of switching identities the author tells us the whole biography of this character and his ancestors.

The first page of the book contains a family tree. This remained my One Hundred Years of Solitude and since that moment I thought that the novel will be very confusing. And in fact the whole biography of de la Sierra family in my opinion it was really boring and unnecessary for the protagonist current conflict, which was the exchange of identities with this mafia guy.

So I honestly don’t recommend this novel, mainly because it’s difficult to follow and also because the story doesn’t make any sense. Also the publishing house states about his author that he’s one of the most original and provocative of the Mexican contemporary literature (“una de las voces más originales y provocadoras de la literatura mexicana contemporánea”), but this novel in particular affirms the opposite.

Final Project - Fifth Entry MRojo

Lovecraft Secondary Sources: Read the following articles and write an expository essay discussing them. The Classic Horror Stories by Jess Nevins & Read chapters 1 and 2 only.

H.P. Lovecraft was an elitist and racist writer, who is recognized as the creator of “cosmic horror”. However he wasn’t the creator of it, there were other authors in the nineteenth century who developed this particular feature. So what he actually did was to recreate it in the twentieth century with a different approach, where he stated that there is no spiritual meaning to any actions and that the human existence is not significant in any way. This was the most important legacy he left through within his works.

He is not only remembered today because of this legacy, but also because of his particular style. The style of an author refers to the way in which language is used in a given context, by a given person, for a given purpose; and Lovecraft’s purpose was to create fear to the reader. He used to think that fear is the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind and he wanted to transmit that particular emotion to his readers.

So in order to achieve this purpose he used several resources such as, first person narrators, lots of adjectives, the use catachresis, the use of words related to senses, among others.

The first person narrator is a very often resource used in horror stories, because this makes the reader to identify easier with the narrator, and gives him a more direct part in all the events. Also the adjectives help the reader to identify themselves with story and most of them appeal to senses. So the reader not only knows the same as the protagonist, but he also feels the same as the protagonist. Also Lovecraft used vague adjectives such as hideous, so that the reader could be able to use his imagination to interpret the story. So these resources make the text more pleasant for the reader and they also manage to maintain the reader’s attention.

Part of the success of Lovecraft is his unique style, but also his close relation to his fans. He is known as an extraordinary correspondent, who wrote and estimated hundred thousand letters in his lifetime. These letters were addressed to fans and other writers, so Lovecraft created a presence for himself in other people’s consciousness after his death.

Music has caused a lot of impact throughout history and more recent times are not the exception. One of the most influential rock bands in the world is Green Day, they have proven to be not only talented with their music but also a voice of protests and realization to problems that at the moment where happening, helping people not only to make them aware of the problems but inspired people to do something, they pointed out problems and suggested a solution.

The band was founded in 1986 and has lived till today, so they have lived the transition of millennium and paid attention, they paid attention to the problems in the emerging new millennium and thought about it, then they wrote songs about the problems and found major success. In the albums Twenty first century breakdown and  American idiot they spoke of problems emerging in the early 2000 like the reelection of Bush and the war of Iraq, one of the songs in the album American idiot actually contains a section which is supposed to be a representative from the people of California who makes a direct protest to the war and the suppression of any campaign protesting against said war.

The songs that green day has made in the albums American idiot and twenty first century breakdown are directed to the new generation of 21st century kids who are to grow with the conflicts of the past and are raised by older generations. The song 21st century breakdown states “I praise liberty The freedom to obey” and taking into account that the song is a first person narrative where the narrator is a 21st century kid then this clearly talks about problematic with the education of the new generations who at least the ones who had the opportunity to listen to the song can feel related and think about a solution.

Green day has opened the eyes of many 21st century kids and they were the voice of protests for older generations, they take music and merge it with both meaning and protests. I love the band, after all my generation is zero.

Translation is a theme as a whole in literature since language is the core from which literature emerged from and different languages mean different ways to feel literature. These period we have read work from Julio Cortazar, a writer who has made the entirety of his work in Spanish but since the subject is language and literature (in English) then the purpose would be to do analyze the work in English (translated) from Julio Cortazar taking into account translation as an element of analysts. Cortazar is considered one of the best writers from Latin America and the world this is why we are analyzing his work since he has proved that he can do amazing things using the language he has mastered to the point where he has reached enough recognition in order of having his work translated.

Spanish as a language is one of the hardest to master and understand completely since not only do words have a lot of colloquial meaning but it is really complex with conjunctions and a wide vocabulary. Translating Spanish means a loss of complexity and possibility to express certain things in, these loss is either significant or smaller depending on the quality of the translation.

Cortazar writing style uses a lot of surreal imagery and a theme referred as magical realism and these two can be easily misunderstood and loose part of the meaning the author wanted to transmit. Cortazar concentrates a lot in creating a tone an atmosphere around a non developed (not moving) plot and since these is his objective then we must analyze if  his objective is fulfilled with the translation. We can definitely argue that there is a loss in history telling caused by the translation after reading the short story Blow Up by Corazar we can see that not only names that are not translated do not sound well but also the story telling is not as fluid as other literary works we have read on this subject, these is cause of translation.

It is an interesting idea to base an analysis around translation in order to find the specific points moments and descriptions where there's loss in quality.

I'm Crying Right Now

Why am I still here? I mean, I literally am in the hallway of the hotel writing my eassay with face that yells: “F**k, F**k, F**k, F**k, F**k, F**k, F**k, F**k!!!!!” I spent the last two days trying to make an internal mock that csot me hours of sleep and really, any sense of hope towards myself and Mathematics at all (I sort of hate it more than anything right now) I now have to spit out four hundred words so I can just be okay with myself and say: “Well, at least I tried you know, not like expected anything more than just turning it in.” Yeah, that´s my life right now, and I also just got some cheap 120 words in about 6 minutes to start off. Not bad to be honest.

What then came to my head is the fact that I am doing this to feel that I am free. I’m talking now about the essay, I´m talking about the program (IB) and school as a whole. Only us in the program are the stupidest people in the high school to feel smart and capable of such task, I still remember when we first entered, everyone was just a show-off the their average grade in Middle School, most people has straight As and didn´t shy away from telling everybody that. Looking back on it, that just tells me how much morons we really are. At least half of us is about to quit on their lives and simply not do anything and get NE for the rest of the semester (me right now, sorry by the way, on the IOC, we never got the time to record each other, transcribe, and rerecord with the math project on top of these essays and the competitions knocking on the door, and also the IOC for Spanish, man do I want to cry. BTW, is it OK if we turn that in sometime later in the week?). I now have six minutes to get to four hundred words and the rant on my life is sort of getting dry and loosing sense like this.

I just want you to know that we are alive and kicking all three of us and that we are sorry for any inconvenience coming to you in the next few days from our part and please also tell every teacher that you know teaches us the same thing about us. I am very sleepy and I get weird when I’m sleepy and also my girlfiend in watching me type this right now but we love you Joel, and forgive us for this. And I did this in 3 minutes, victory was mine.

Cortazar

A translation is important to a work of art due to its effect on the author who crafted it, without translations of their best works, writers like Gacia Máquez or Julio Cortazar would never have been able to win the Nobel Prize. Speaking of which, Cortazar forms part of the most influential authors in Latin America an most of it is due to his surrealism planted into every work he has.

The problem with translations however, are the consequences that it has on the work along with its meaning and impact towards the reader and really, overall. Each language has its limitations and benefits of writing on, like English, while it offers virtually complete reachability in the world, its narration and diction can be seen as stiff when compared to Spanish, for example. But each also comes with a whole thousand-year-old heritage with it, it goes from idioms, references, jokes and interpretations that each language and culture have with it. Whenever an author is writing a book, he prints the language and everything mentioned before with it into his craft and makes it unique and makes sense to that language, it adds to it and makes it able to reach the readers on a more personal level. When there is a translations, the translator does his best to imitate all that baggage the language has with another one completely different and with a whole different one that affects how the story is perceived and interpreted. Cortazar´s allways present sense of ambiguitity and surrealism come from his diction, description, and themes he bases his writing on, all exclusive to his native Spanish. When I first read his works, I never imagined his style being replicated in another language, I never wanted to. The way he writes left me with nothing to be wished for improvement, but when you, teacher, suggested his name on the reading list, I immeadiatly thought to myself the biggest problem with the reading, I wished I would have read it in Spanish. I knew simply by the fact that the work I read of him before were all in Spanish, so the idea of him and his elements in his style never got changed in my mind. And when I read him in English, I realize they still didn´t and they sould´ve done so beforehand.

Cortazar is only one example, where his sense of awkwardness and fixation go away and feel forced when read in English due to its constrains in its narration and heritage it possesses. 

Lovecraft Secondary Sources

Read the following articles and write an expository essay discussing them.

The Classic Horror Stories by Jess Nevins

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7Yf3lF8m8xuU3hQQzRGdnQ0OUU


Read chapters 1 and 2 only

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7Yf3lF8m8xuanhoZkZfVnZJeTA

H.P. Lovecraft The Complete Works

Below you will find a link to a collection of Lovecraft's works.  We are only going to read the first two stories: "The Tomb" and "Dagon."


https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7Yf3lF8m8xuOUV2OHhVNnAwYVU

Fear

Fear is nothing more nor less than a natural process of the human body and if not mistaken, too- animal that works for our own survival. To stay in this very natural state, fear would be only a quality, a totally positive capacity ... But in the world in which we are, fear has distorted much and today, many times, it is nothing more than a locking face life we would like to live.

It is then that we apologize and we hide behind in fear to stop doing everything. To not take a test, not to buy a house, not closer to talk to that person, to not open our hearts to each other. And we are not entirely to blame for this situation. Since a lot of years ago, advertising takes advantage of this resource to sell their products and services (security doors, life insurance, auto, gated communities...), But today fear has had so many transformations it is sometimes difficult to recognize, and become normal, in situations that should not be.

Is fear of fear itself that stops us. The fear that comes something to tell us that things are about to change, or even. Fear that something might not tell us that we will be able to control what comes in front of us.

Thar we understand that fear is nothing more than a general peace sign, telling you what to take this or that way; that fear is nothing more than another situation where we need to take one of two options, in a place where you and people around you fear has distorted much and today, many times, it is nothing more than a locking face life we would like to live.

Translation essay

Translation essay

By: Monica de la Cruz 

Julio Cortaza is one of the most influential writer of America Latina, it is expected for his Works to be translated. In fact his work has been translated into 45 different languages including English, and this is important to us since we are Reading his short tails in English. The definition of translation is “words that have been changed from one language into a different language: words that have been translated”

In both text we explored the meaning of a work being translated, and I concluded that the whole problem with people who does not like a book that has been translated is about the essence of the book itself. When a writer puts his thoughts into words, he is expecting to share it with the worl, and globalization has help do that exact thing, but as a book in French arrives into a country in Mexico, only a small portion of it population will be able to read and understand the book. Translation breaks this problem, since know a book written in any freight language can now be rewritten into the maternal language of a country. In a place like Mexico, this fact helps a lot, since know any idea of progression and inspiration can reach everyone and be comprehend. But translation problem has nothing to do with this facts, this only expose the context of why translation will keep happening, the trouble with changing a novel of language is loosing the idea. In some languages there are words only expressed there, take for example “Te quiero” and “Te amo”. In Spanish both phrases have different meanings, and they are not used in the same context for this reason, if we translate a book in English, this phrases will have to be change into “I love you”, in the second case there’s no trouble with that, in fact in a Spanish context “I love you” and “Te amo” means the same thing, but between a “Te Quiero” and a “ I love you” there are a world apart difference. In this case the essence of a scene or of the book is lost between translations.

By reading a novel by Julio Cortaza in English the essence of the book is lost, we can see this in the difference in the way of writing, he tends to write with allusions to surrealism in his text, but by reading the tale of axolotls the very essence if what he was trying to say is lost if we don’t think really hard about the text, and specially if we do not analyze the text itself. This idea is supported in one of the text it talks about how every writer has to interpret a text before translating it, and in this process the essence of what the person understood is put in the paper, meaning that what the writer meant could be lost in this process.

Meanwhile translation brings benefits to authors with big ideas like Julio Cortaza, it can also harm there work and change entirely the meaning, this is the main reason for the debate about translation and why it should or not happen.

Creative Writting

Lets talk about school.

By: Monica de la Cruz 

Lately everything in my life seems to be about school, what I am doing, what I am suppose to be doing, and what I have to do. I mean, the reason of this is really simple, I am at that point of the semester where if I don’t work I wont have a summer, because here I go summer school, the place where I re take my failed class, and I would not like that. So when I have six different things to do for Monday my first reaction is to work, but lets be honest, its me, I do more procrastination that any human being should do, and I blame it all on my teenage years, but no there’s only one person to blame, and that’s me.

I have a lot of things to do and this essay is one of them, but as I did not do it with time, even when my week was not that busy, I am here, sitting across from my computer at 11:38 at night, trying to write 400 words about something, so I can have my final project done and a wonderful summer, but what do I write about school. I am tired, I have been doing homework all day long, my eyes are as red as an apple and I have lost all of my mental health trying to figures out if I was going to do about this, I´ve reach the point of the semester where my jokes  about selling candy for living stop being a joke and actually the idea seams rarely nice.

I remember when I liked school, no actually I never like school, the whole process of getting up early and having trouble with remembering things for a pop quiz never attract me enough, but the idea of socializing and complaining about how much work I have to do keeps me talking for hours and helps me write an essay, a really bad one, but at least I try.  The only nice thing you can find at school is te experience, I have always thought that the best years of our live will be at school, no matter how much we hate it, it changes our lives, it puts lots of people together to fight on stupid things like a grade or things like that, kind of like the hunger games, and the capitol are the teachers, and instead of killing each other we are expecting to see who fails, if you think about it that makes sense. When you get a test, and you know you did really bad, you take comfort in the expectation that some one did worst than you, cause that means you are not the dumbest. That sounds really bad, but for any student who reads this will agree with me.

This essay does not make sense, I don’t even think it is an essay, but it just some random thoughts of mine put into words and they are throng out there for any one who wants to read them.