Class Journey

Initially in this class the topics were about destinations and facts about areas in California, and sometimes outside of California. The further into the course we got the topics became more reflective. I need to try to relate to the readings in order to write my posts. The first part of class seemed to composed of research projects, and the text readings were more about information retention and how to explain the stories in a way that others would understand without having to read the story themselves.

In regards to the book Train Go Sorry, I did not find to much variation in the opinions. We all read the same story, and other than choosing a line from the book to include in our post, much of the essays were similar. The My California readings were intersting because not everyone read the same stories. Again, there was not much exchange of opinions here, but seemed to be more about people's story telling capabilities. I think the first half of class showed more variation of topics because we could choose our places to post about. Those topics were often different then the topics that I choose for most of the assignments.

I had to keep reminding myself that I needed to write in a way that would help another person, or peer rather, understand the story as if they hadn't read it themselves. That is a relatively new way of writing for me. I am not much of a writer to begin with, so that was the most challenging thing for me. I think that writing this way encompasses Freire's way of teaching. To write as if you are teaching others.

I had a great time with this class and with these topics. It was interesting to do research on places in California that I had heard of before but didn't know much about. I am a California native and with each assignment I learned more and more about my state. I enjoyed the text part of class as well. Each story was a story that I would not have choosen on my own. I knew very little about Deaf Culture before this class, and I walk away knowing much more.

5b Lori, Ly, Frank

REFLECTION
Choose any 3 classmates of project 5a. Read each of these 3 essays.

Create a blog post with the classmates names as references. Tell us one thing you learned from each classmate.

I chose Lori, Ly, and Frank to write about for this component. I found all of their essays to be interesting to read, and learned something new from each of them. Finding new information was somewhat difficult as we all read the same story for this project. I found for each of the essays that my learned information came from the last section, five facts about Deaf culture or American Sign Language.

While reading Lori's essay I learned that she is a hearing student. I read in Lori's essay that while there are over 2 million hearing impaired individuals in the United States, only about two hundred thousand people are culturally deaf. I love the quote that was included in her essay about ASL, "Its very existence is a testament to people's will to communicate. It pays tribute to our determination to make connections in the face of incredible odds" (page 274).

Ly is also a hearing student in our class. I know from her essay that she had a cousin named Quang, means the Sun. When he was three years old his dad changed his name to Xau, which means Ugly. In old Vietnamese culture, it is believed that if the children’s names are not nice in meaning, the evil spirit wouldn’t want to take them away. Even after Xau had his name changed, the bad spirit did not go away, and Xau was gone shortly after that. The hospital had advised treatment, but the child was taken to a village medicine man for treatment. He died of malaria when he was 3. I did not know that in Vietnamese culture changing a name to a not so nice meaning is believed to keep an evil spirit away.

Frank is a hearing student in our class as well. He had many interesting facts about Deaf culture and ASL. The fact that stood out to me the most is that bacterial meningitis is a major cause of deafness in children.

5a Train Go Sorry

Questions:
1. What does Train Go Sorry mean (who in the book is this referring to; there is a specific person, include his name and his outcome. Remember that good college writing assumes no one has read the information and you must present it or 'teach' it by giving us details.)?

2. What pair of 'shoes' do you think the main person in the book is walking in and what did she learn? In other words, who or what culture does she want to belong to and why?

3. What is one image you won't ever forget? Draw us a picture in words to explain this. What chapter is it in?

4. What are 5 facts about ASL or Deaf culture you think everyone should know after your reading of this book?

I am a hearing student assigned the book Train Go Sorry in my Introduction to Humanities Class. Other readings assigned in this class include several essays from the book My California. In both books, we examined the cultures of California that form a microcosm of the U.S. In this essay, I will incorporate 4 required questions.

The term Train Go Sorry means that one has missed the boat, or missed an opportunity. James uses the term train go sorry when he goes to visit his younger brother Joseph at Rikers, which is a prison. He gets there to visit and after checking in and waiting for hours to see his brother he is told that Joseph is in court. James thinks to himself that he has "missed the boat." James returns to the prison the following day only to be told the same thing, that Joseph is in court. On his third try he finally gets to see Joseph. As James is at Rikers visiting his brother that day, he realizes that he is not the only one that missed the boat, Joseph missed the boat on life. James has become a model student, made it onto the honor roll, and is seen as showing "promise." Joseph is a rough and tough boy in prison, a criminal.

Leah is a hearing person who lives at the Lexington school for the death in New York. She has grandparents who are deaf, and her parents and siblings are hearing. Her father works at Lexington and the family lives there at the school. There are dormitories for the students that attend the school and so Leah is brought up in a world of non-hearing people. Aside from her immediate family of her mom, dad, adopted brother, and sister, all of students are deaf. She is surrounded by a culture different than what she would belong if she were to walk out onto the street. If she were to walk on the street she would be able to converse with others using their voice. Inside Lexington she watches everyone use his or her own language, American Sign Language. She watches the students struggle with their English classes where they are trying to learn to speak. She watches their frustration as they attempt to speak just as she can. She feels the frustration of not being a part of their culture. Leah longs to be a part of the deaf community.

In Chapter 12 as James is at the Honors Breakfast he realizes that if he were not deaf he probably would have ended up the same way as his brother Joseph, in prison. He remembers those times in his past when he was Joseph's partner in crime. They once set a car on fire. Joseph is the one who got caught. James was a faster runner and did not. As he comes to realize how far he has come in life he comes to terms with the fact that he is no longer that person who caused trouble and broke the law. He is a good student and believes that he can be something better than what his brother and some of his closest friends have become.

After reading this book I think that it is important for other's to know that being deaf, or have a hearing impairment does not affect a person's intelligence level. Deaf students can excel in school just as hearing students can. It is important to realize that American Sign Language is the third most used language in the United States. Sweden is the only nation that officially recognizes two languages, a spoken language and a visual language. I didn't realize before reading this book that there is such debate about cochlear implants. I understand the debate now having thought about it after reading this book. To the Deaf culture, there is nothing that needs to be repaired. There is no reason for an implant. To people outside of their culture, one may think, "Why would they not want to hear?", but that would be assuming that a deaf person believes that there is something wrong with their way of life.

4c INLAND AREAS COMPONENT, KENDRA & ALFREDO

1. Who is your classmate, what is the component category, what is the name of the choice?
Classmate Alfredo, inland areas component, Sacramento and San Jose

2. What is something similar this classmate said about the choice?
Alfredo and I both wrote about Sacramento as one of our inland area's for project 3, component c. We both chose to include information about Sacramento's climate in our post.

3. What is something different this classmate said about the choice?

Alfredo and I focused on different aspects of Sacramento. I focused on the fact that Sacramento has its own NBA team, The Kings, and that there are a few very popular CSU's and UC's in and around the city. Alfredo focused more on the history and activities of Sacramento and that it is the state capital.

4. How would you relate this to Freire's ideas regarding dialogue? For example, you went in thinking one idea, your classmate had a different idea. What new idea emerged from this process?

I think that I wrote about Sacramento from the prospective of a visitor or a non California native. I focused on obvious things about Sacramento, such as the fact that there is an NBA team, and the well known colleges in and around the city. For me, Alfredo's writing about Sacramento seemed as if it were written as a California native, with knowledge and facts about the city itself. He mentioned things in his blog about the crime in Sacramento and I find that interesting because I am a native of the state, yet when reading his post and mine, I feel like mine could be considered to be the view of a non-native.

4b Reflection Assignment of My California

REFLECTION ASSIGNMENT OF My California

1. Choose any 1 classmate that wrote about your same essays and briefly compare/contrast their choices and ideas versus what you said (eg "In my readings of these same authors I found that BLANK and my classmate also thought BLANK. An interesting point of view I didn't think of that my classmate said is BLANK")

2. Choose any 1 classmate that wrote about a different set of essays and tell us one thing you learned per author presented.

3. Like number 2, choose any 1 classmate that wrote about a set of essays that you didn't read.

5% of total grade

Choose any 1 classmate that wrote about your same essays

ODE TO CALTRANS BY HECTOR TOBAR
Liz also wrote about group 2 essays. In Ode To Caltrans by Hector Tobar, I was reminded of the convenience aspect of the highways, Liz was reminded of the dangers of the highways. I had made a trip to Los Angeles just before our essay readings and I felt the same as the author did initially, that the highways are a great source of transportation. Liz had a friend who was dangerously close to having a highway car accident, so for Liz the essay was a reminder of how dangerous they can be. We both agree that while the highways are a great source of transportation they are also very dangerous as one slip up can cause a huge accident affecting many people.

MONTALVO, MYTHS, AND DREAMS BY THOMAS STEINBECK
I am a California native and I think that I take our mild climate for granted. While we both acknowledge that the climate in our area isn't exactly endless summers and warm beaches it is mild in comparison to many other states. Liz is not a California native and previously dreamed of California as a place of endless summers and mile long beaches.

THE LAST LITTLE BEACH TOWN BY EDWARD HUMES
Both Liz and I found the idea of living or visiting a quaint little beach town to be a novel idea and praised the thought of Seal Beach maintaining its small town feeling. However, it seems that Seal Beach may be losing that feeling.

SURFACING BY MATT WARSHAW
My classmate that I have contrasting ideas all-around on this essay. While I also didn't know that Santa Cruz was the first surfing locale, that was not what I wrote, so I don't know that counts as like ideas for this assignments purpose. I did see many contrasting ideas however. Liz was reminded of surfing itself. She has tried surfing before and so the story reminded her of her personal experience with surfing. The essay reminded me of all of the news stories I have heard throughout the years about the Maverick's Surfing Contest.


2. GROUP 1 ESSAYS

From Sierra in the group 1 essays I learned about The Big Valley by Mark Arax, Transients in Paradise by Aimee Liu, Showing Off the Owens by T. Jefferson Parker, and The distant cataract about which we do not speak by Mary Mackey.
In the essay about The Big Valley, I learned that the author's grandfather owned a farm in California. His father attempted to open a bar. When the bar didn't take off he planted a garden as their family's "farm". He promised that subsequent years would be just as prosperous as the first, but he passed away. The author now plants a new plant every year in his father's honor.

Aimee Liu, who wrote the essay Transients In Paradise. She is writing about Beverly Hills. She thinks very little its residents according to the essay summary. There is a transient who sits in front of a deli and asks for money everyday. She also points out that Beverly Hills is a city that does not have a garbage dump, cemetery, or a hospital.

The essay Sowing Off the Owens is about a novelist from New York and a man who takes him fishing at the Owens River. They are both fishing enthusiasts. They go with a guide on their fishing trip to get away from LA and back to nature.

The distant cataract about which we do not speak by Mary Mackey is about her trips to the American River to observe the wildlife. The river is just a 5 minute drive from her and her husbands home, but they like to imagine they are far away from civilization while they are there. Mary observes the wildlife of the water at the American River. They are so close to the city that they can actually hear the sounds of the highway above them, but they imagine that they are far away from the city life. While at the river Mary and her husband see others using the river for religious ceremonies.

3. GROUP 3 ESSAYS

From Jennifer I read group 3 essays Bienvendios a Newport Beach by Firoozeh Dumas, Cotton Candy Mirrors by Devorah Major, Berkley by Micheal Chabon, and California Honky-tonk by Kathi Kamen Goldmark.
Bienvendios a Newport Beach is about a man that moves from Whittier, CA to Newport Beach, CA. People in Whittier think he must be rich if he is moving to Newport Beach. In Whittier there are yards with old cars, tires, and other such things. His rental has the view of many fast food chain restaurants. When he moves to Newport the neighborhood has a HOA. Since there is a HOA, the yards of the new neighborhood are all clean and manicured. He has a neighborhood swimming pool that they take full advantage of. His parents still live in the Newport Beach home. This author seems to like the qualities of his Newport Beach home more than he did of his Whittier home.

Devorah Major wrote the essay Cotton Candy Mirrors about summer vacation. She writes about the days when the kids summer vacation was three solid months of being out from dawn until dusk. The kids would go to Playland. A carnival type place. It cost them 35 cents. They would always end up at the Fun House. It was full of mirrors and had little lighting. A wooden slide, and the barrel. Play Land has since been torn down.

Berkley by Michael Chabon is about his view of the city of Berkely, CA. He describes his city as being a city of different people, ideas, and professions. It seems like he must use some humor in his description of the city. In the end, Michael loves his city of Berkley despite all of its craziness.

Kathi Kamen Goldmark's essay California Honky-tonk is about a band called the El Rancho Motel. The band gets a gig at a bar. When they get there they realize that it is a biker bar, not what they were expecting. The musicians and the biker bar owner swap stories about different bars that they have been to. The summary that Jennifer wrote makes them seem like an eccentric group of people.

4a Group #2

Group 2 If your last name starts with letters G-O, READ the following author stories in MY CALIFORNIA: Tobar, Steinbeck, Humes, Warshaw


Ode to CalTrans by Hector Tobar

The essay, Ode to Caltrans by Hector Tobar is about his memories of the Los Angeles freeway's and how they have changed, for the better and for worse. As a child growing up in Los Angeles he remembers the freeway's being clean, and just a daily part of life. Whenever his famiy traveled they traveled on the freeway. As he gets older he realizes that those same freeways are part of air pollution, horrid car accidents, and the deaths of many Caltrans workers.

"Perhaps that was the first time I thought of the freeway as a place of pollution and peril. Up to then, it was just the byway of our family wanderings, the Sunset and Hollywood Boulevard onramps, the beginning of most of our visits to relatives and friends. To sit my father's Volkswagen with my nose pressed to the rear window, watching the traffic flow along with us at fifty miles per hour was as natural to me as walking along the fence posts of a country road would be to a boy from Nebraska." pg. 57

This reading made me think of the trip that I made to Los Angeles just last week. We traveled on all of the freeways that are mentioned in this reading. I viewed quite the same as the author did as a child. It is just the byway of our family wanderings, and natural it is more me to travel on freeways so often without even thinking of it as a convenience, only as a necessity.

I did not before this reading that CalTrans used to place a picture of a white helmet where ever a CalTrans worker died while on the job until there were so many signs that CalTrans took them down because, "a highway shouldn't look like cemetery."

Montalvo, Myths and Dreams of Home by Thomas Steinbeck

Montalvo, Myths and Dreams of Home is an essay about the myths of California. Montalvo writes a story about mythical California, a utopian island in the western sea. For many people California is utopia. Many can find just what they are looking for in California. The essay focuses in on The Big Sur, and how this is Thomas Steinbeck's utopia within California. In his youth he rode horses and mules, and camped my the mountains streams. He depicts the sunsets off of the cliffs of The Big Sur with the Pacific ocean just below him. The writer explains the myths of unexplained humanoids that live in the mountains. They are smaller than humans and never are seen in daylight. His grandmother atests to leaving little gift baskets with fruit and homeade candy for them, and in exchange they would always leave a seashell or a feather in the gifts place. According to the myth they were never harmful, they only watched silently over their territory.

"Even though I cannot now call those secluded canyons and cliffs home, my abiding memories of this lonely span of California coastline holds my soul in thrall and delights the imagination beyond all else I know." pg. 67

The reading by Thomas Steinbeck about The Big Sur made me think of how much there is around me in this state that I take for granted, and how one area may be treasured by one and not thought of at all by another.


The Last Little Beach Town by Edward Humes

The Last Little Beach Town is Seal Beach in Orange County California. Despite being in "the OC", Seal Beach has managed to maintain its small town feel. The cities housing is a pleasant mix of orignal beach bungalows along with million dollar mansions. Its Old Town is hidden from view when driving down the freeway, helping to maintain its small beach town feel. The city council decided in the past to forbid duplexes and apartment buildings for the most part. At one time (1913) the idea was for Seal Beach to be a tourist destination. It briefly became one and then failed. It is starting to become a tourist destination once again. The city is in need of the cash and there is a push to let go one of the last undeveloped piece of land. It is now being prepared for housing contruction.

"Confustion about Seal Beach's identity and location is key to its survivial" pg. 71

The writer's description of Seal Beach, the last little beach town, sounds like every little beach town that I have imagined going to.

Before this essay I did not know where Seal Beach was. I knew that it was in Southern California somewhere, but like the description given by the writer, many people who live down there drive by that area all the time and couldn't tell you where Seal Beach is located.


Surfacing by Matt Warshaw

Surfacing is about a small group of dedicated surfers the surf Pillar's Point, or Maverick's, in Half Moon Bay, California. Maverick's has long been known for the greatest waves outside of Hawaii. Jay Moriarity, a 16 year old surfer tells the story of his close call while surfing Maverick's. While surfing he is pulled under a wave and his board snaps in half. He goes back to the boat, grabs another board and goes back out there. As the story goes the name Maverick comes from a dog who shares an experience similar to Jay Moriarity, and so the story goes, the surfer that Maverick was with started to call that surfing spot after the dog.

"And as the untroubled imagination reduces fear and anxiety beforehand, it may also smooth things out afterward." pg. 87

I have heard of Maverick's, or Pillars Point, and Maverick's surfing contest every year on the radio. It reminded me of all of the people I have met that go out there and camp to watch the surfer's every year.

I didn't know previously that Half Moon Bay is the oldest city in San Mateo County. I also didn't know that Maverick's got the name Maverick from a dog!

3C Inland Areas Sacramento CA vs. Riverside CA

1.Contains a title using the format listed above .25 points

2.Contains a web link to your locations. (eg you can use the tools in your blog where you paste your work; there is a little icon that looks like a link) .25 points
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside,_California
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento,_California
http://media.point2.com/p2a/htmltext/20e0/89a7/7653/28f4b307c2152c98ecc6/original.jpg
http://www.businessfacilities.com/images/bfsep06p16b.jpg

3.Contains an explanation regarding how this component (any aspect of it; eg content of videos, content of websites) connects to your study of humanities. .25 point
This component connects to our study of humanities by exploring areas and learning about areas that we may not know about already. I am from California and it is always interesting to me learn new things about my state. Even though I have lived here all of my life, I find I am learning about new places and new facts every week with our projects.

4.Contains the following elements that will be used in upcoming projects for analytical purposes:
a.What are some assumptions/stereotypes you think people have of each location: 1 point
People often think of the Riverside area to be a "party" area because it is has a university and is very close to several other universities. Sacramento shares similar stereotypes in regards to being a "party" town due to the university. Sacramento is also suggested to be cheap.

b.List 3 things that make each location similar: 1 point
1.Both cities have universities in their city, and others in the surrounding area.
2.These cities have very similar climate in the late spring and summer.
3.In each city @ 15% of family's incomes are below the poverty line.

c.List 3 things that make each location so different: 1 point.
1.The cities are on opposite ends of the state with Sacramento being in the northern inland region and Riverside being in the southern region of the state.
2.Sacramento has an NBA team, the Sacramento Kings, and Riverside does not have any NBA teams.
3.Sacramento is the capital of California.

d.Questioning: What else would you like to know about these places? When completing the question section, lead your audience into the question by stating a fact you do know, yet you still have the related question. This way, both your audience and you will have an educational experience. .5 point
Each city is well known for their universities, what population of each city are college students?

5. Using your classmates work from last week, tell us one thing you learned from 1 student. Is this one thing some common experience you share or some experience that is completely different than what you experienced? Is this one thing related to our class theoretical foundation and if so, how? Is that one thing related to historical or cultural context of this country or a different one? Link that persons blog to this entry (eg cut paste that blog entry here) . .5 point
I have been to both beaches that Frank compared in his California Beach component of project 3. I learned from him that Half Moon Bay's beach has greater marine life than the Santa Monica beach.
http://humanities7fxd.blogspot.com/2009/03/half-moon-bay-state-beach-santa-monica.html