In class today Mr. Watson told us to write about our hero tonight because tomorrow we are going to read the second chapter of Woman Warrior, in which Maxine talks about Mulan being her hero. My hero is probably Alisa. She's not a crime fighting super hero, but she's one of the strongest people I know. Alisa is a ballerina that used to dance with Ballet Hawaii, but now dances with Inland Pacific Ballet as a company apprentice.
The story all begins when Alisa was 14 years old. She was getting ready to go to the prestigious American Ballet Theatre summer intensive, when she got a cold. She thought it was no big deal until she began coughing up blood. Her mother rushed her to the hospital. There they ran blood test and saw something was seriously wrong. It seemed that her body wasn't functioning properly and she appeared to be very anemic. Doctors had to take action quickly. They put Alisa into a four week coma so that she wouldn't feel any pain.
While she was in the coma, her condition worsened and her organs were starting to fail. She was put into the intensive care unit at Kapiolani Medical Center. She was also hooked up to many machines that pumped her organs for her. No doctors could tell what exactly was wrong with Alisa and they told her parents that she might die.
After spending seven weeks in the hospital, Alisa regained consciousness and her parents hired caregivers so she could finally go home. The first thing her father did when she got home was he installed a ballet barre in her room. He knew that even though she couldn't move yet, the barre would motivate her to become strong again. Alisa slowly learned how to walk again with help from her physical therapist. Alisa started to become healthier and healthier, but she still had some medical complications.
Her kidneys were still not functioning. She was forced to go on dialysis three times a week for three years while preparing for a kidney transplant. During those three years, she regained a lot of strength and even started to go to beginning ballet classes. When she was finally ready, she joined her old ballet class again. On the first day back Alisa was discouraged at first because she realized that while she was gone everyone had improved and she could barely do what she could before.
When it came close to the time of Alisa's transplant, her and her family moved to San Fransisco (where the procedure would take place). Alisa wasn't the only one that had to prep for this surgery, her dad had to also because he was giving one of his kidneys to her. On December 14, 2001 the surgery took place without a flaw. Alisa and her family stayed in San Fransisco at the Ronald McDonald House for a year while she recovered.
Once Alisa returned to Hawaii, she began to dance. She took as many ballet classes as she could and she spent more time in the studio than anyone else. This perseverance is why she is my hero. Some days she would be in pain, but she kept dancing because she loved it. All of Alisa's hard work payed off, during the summer of 2004 she attended the San Fransisco Ballet's six week summer intensive. At the end of the intensive she was one of the few people that were invited to study for the whole year with the company and on top of that she was offered a full scholarship for the year.
Alisa attended San Fransisco Ballet that whole year and came home in the summer of 2005. When she got home she took part in Ballet Hawaii's three week summer intensive. At that summer intensive there was a teacher that had connections with the Inland Pacific Ballet. This teacher was very impressed with Alisa's technique and attitude while she danced that she invited Alisa to study with Inland Pacific Ballet as an apprentice dancer (the level before becoming a professional). Alisa has trained since 2005 with the Inland Pacific Ballet and she has also made many appearances in the professional productions put on by the company.
Alisa is the bravest and most hard-working person I know. My goal is to be more like her. She missed out on her entire high school experience because she was always sick. She also missed out on the prime training years for a professional dancer, but that didn't stop Alisa at all. She still is pursuing her dream of being a dancer. Also she is not bitter at all about missing out on many things, instead she is the sweetest person I know and is always smiling. She says its because she now realizes how lucky she is to be healthy and to be able to dance everyday.
Showing posts with label Cycle 18. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cycle 18. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Methods of Characterization
Since at the moment I'm kind of favoring my family story about my great grandfather I will do my characterization analysis on him.
Name: John Von Pabst
Appearance: In his forties, a bit worn out from his many years of surviving in the Navy
Inner Thoughts: His inner thoughts were about how he knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before it even happened, he was also probably wondering what he should do because he wasn't sure if it was really going to happen and he didn't want to get in trouble by worrying everyone over a false alarm
Environment: Chicago, 1941 working for the US Navy as an intelligence officer because he could speak and translate German for them
What They Say: He said that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor a week before it actually happened, we don't know that if this was merely a prediction or if he actually heard something while we was working as an intelligence officer
What Others Say About Them: His son thought he was crazy when John Von Pabst told him that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, later after the attack however his son was quite amazed that the prediction came true
Actions: He told his son that he thinks the attack was going to happen, but he didn't tell anyone else
Name: John Von Pabst
Appearance: In his forties, a bit worn out from his many years of surviving in the Navy
Inner Thoughts: His inner thoughts were about how he knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before it even happened, he was also probably wondering what he should do because he wasn't sure if it was really going to happen and he didn't want to get in trouble by worrying everyone over a false alarm
Environment: Chicago, 1941 working for the US Navy as an intelligence officer because he could speak and translate German for them
What They Say: He said that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor a week before it actually happened, we don't know that if this was merely a prediction or if he actually heard something while we was working as an intelligence officer
What Others Say About Them: His son thought he was crazy when John Von Pabst told him that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, later after the attack however his son was quite amazed that the prediction came true
Actions: He told his son that he thinks the attack was going to happen, but he didn't tell anyone else
Family Stories
I have decided that I don't want to use the fishing story anymore because it doesn't really say anything about my culture or family beliefs. However, now I'm in a dilemma because I can't chose between two other family stories. So I'll just tell both stories right now and then decide which one I like better later. For each of the stories I won't go into much detail because I can do that later when I do the final drafts. These two drafts are mainly just the significant details of each story.
My grandmother, whose maiden name was Judith Gagnon, is from New Hampshire of French Canadian descent. People of that ancestry often manifest humble and hard working characteristics. My grandmother’s second cousin, Rene Gagnon, who as a young child worked in the mills to help support his mother, experienced his brief period of fame as one of the American servicemen pictured, and later immortalized in the famous statue, raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.
The characteristics of my grandmother’s culture were needed at Iwo Jima, as the fighting to take the island was intense and deadly with the US losing 6,825 soldiers in the battle. The impromptu raising of the flag on the fourth day of the battle was followed by another three days of fighting in which three of the six Americans who raised the flag in AP photographer Joe Rosenthal’s famous photo were killed. The raising of the flag helped to rekindle the nationalism the solders had. This helped them to keep fighting for the country they loved.
The other story is about my great grandfather, John Von Pabst, who was born in the US to German parents and then raised as young boy in Germany. Later, as a young man, he returned to America and served in the US Navy during the WWI. Following the war he obtained an education in the US and went on to become a successful insurance executive in the Chicago area. Throughout his life he was an extremely loyal and patriotic citizen, which are often traits associated with people of German Ancestry. He also possessed the typical Germanic temper. As a young sailor in WWI he was almost court martial when he punched out his commanding petty officer for calling him a profane name that he felt insulted his mother.
My great grandfather’s sense of duty and patriotism remained strong and, two years prior the US entering WWII he resigned from his high paying job and enlisted in US Navy as an intelligence officer, using his fluent German language skills to infiltrate the German American Bunds (fraternal organizations) prevalent in the Chicago area at that time. In early December of 1941 he quietly told my grandfather, a young Naval ROTC officer at Northwestern, that we would be at war with Japan within a week. It has never been determined within our family whether this prediction was conjecture based on his intelligence work or actual knowledge. Just that he could make such a prediction is remarkable.
My grandmother, whose maiden name was Judith Gagnon, is from New Hampshire of French Canadian descent. People of that ancestry often manifest humble and hard working characteristics. My grandmother’s second cousin, Rene Gagnon, who as a young child worked in the mills to help support his mother, experienced his brief period of fame as one of the American servicemen pictured, and later immortalized in the famous statue, raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.
The characteristics of my grandmother’s culture were needed at Iwo Jima, as the fighting to take the island was intense and deadly with the US losing 6,825 soldiers in the battle. The impromptu raising of the flag on the fourth day of the battle was followed by another three days of fighting in which three of the six Americans who raised the flag in AP photographer Joe Rosenthal’s famous photo were killed. The raising of the flag helped to rekindle the nationalism the solders had. This helped them to keep fighting for the country they loved.
The other story is about my great grandfather, John Von Pabst, who was born in the US to German parents and then raised as young boy in Germany. Later, as a young man, he returned to America and served in the US Navy during the WWI. Following the war he obtained an education in the US and went on to become a successful insurance executive in the Chicago area. Throughout his life he was an extremely loyal and patriotic citizen, which are often traits associated with people of German Ancestry. He also possessed the typical Germanic temper. As a young sailor in WWI he was almost court martial when he punched out his commanding petty officer for calling him a profane name that he felt insulted his mother.
My great grandfather’s sense of duty and patriotism remained strong and, two years prior the US entering WWII he resigned from his high paying job and enlisted in US Navy as an intelligence officer, using his fluent German language skills to infiltrate the German American Bunds (fraternal organizations) prevalent in the Chicago area at that time. In early December of 1941 he quietly told my grandfather, a young Naval ROTC officer at Northwestern, that we would be at war with Japan within a week. It has never been determined within our family whether this prediction was conjecture based on his intelligence work or actual knowledge. Just that he could make such a prediction is remarkable.
No Name Woman Continued
Well, apparently I did the last assignment about "No Name Woman" wrong because I thought we were supposed to answer the question: what do we learn about Maxine by the way she imagines the rest of the story about her aunt? However, we didn't have to because we were just supposed to do an analysis of quotes that were in the chapter. So, now I'm going to add to that post with two more quotes and more information about Maxine that I gained from the way that she imagined the rest of the story about her aunt.
Another quote is, "It could very well have been that, however that my aunt did not take subtle enjoyment of her friend, but, a wild woman, kept rollicking company. Imagining her free with sex doesn't fit, though." (Hong Kingston 8). In this quote we learn that Maxine is a very open person. When I say open I mean that she doesn't have closed thoughts about sex. She thinks about it freely, and isn't ashamed. If she still lived in China she probably wouldn't have these thoughts because the women had very sheltered lives.
From this first chapter we also learn that Maxine is very curious. This is obvious because she comes up with so many different theories about a person that she just heard about from a story told by her mother. For example she says, “Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil. I wonder whether he masked himself when he joined the raid on her family." (Hong Kingston 6) In this theory she thinks that the man that got her aunt pregnant was evil. He was sinister and forced her aunt to have sex with him. The next theory in the next paragraph is, "Or perhaps he first noticed her in the marketplace. He was not a stranger because the village housed no strangers." (Hong Kingston 6). This theory is totally different than a sinister man. For in this theory the man is no longer a stranger or sinister, instead he is someone that everyone knows because there aren't any strangers in the village. Just how her theories differ so much just from one to the next shows us how she has a very curious mind with a never-ending amount of theories.
Another quote is, "It could very well have been that, however that my aunt did not take subtle enjoyment of her friend, but, a wild woman, kept rollicking company. Imagining her free with sex doesn't fit, though." (Hong Kingston 8). In this quote we learn that Maxine is a very open person. When I say open I mean that she doesn't have closed thoughts about sex. She thinks about it freely, and isn't ashamed. If she still lived in China she probably wouldn't have these thoughts because the women had very sheltered lives.
From this first chapter we also learn that Maxine is very curious. This is obvious because she comes up with so many different theories about a person that she just heard about from a story told by her mother. For example she says, “Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil. I wonder whether he masked himself when he joined the raid on her family." (Hong Kingston 6) In this theory she thinks that the man that got her aunt pregnant was evil. He was sinister and forced her aunt to have sex with him. The next theory in the next paragraph is, "Or perhaps he first noticed her in the marketplace. He was not a stranger because the village housed no strangers." (Hong Kingston 6). This theory is totally different than a sinister man. For in this theory the man is no longer a stranger or sinister, instead he is someone that everyone knows because there aren't any strangers in the village. Just how her theories differ so much just from one to the next shows us how she has a very curious mind with a never-ending amount of theories.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Pulled to the Bottom
When I was about two-years-old my dad went fishing with my mom's stepfather in Washington. My mom's stepfather loved to fish and he actually lived on a boat before he moved to Hawaii and married my grandmother. My dad and step-grandfather flew to Washington just to go fishing and to visit some relatives.
On the boat my dad and step-grandfather were having a great time and were really bonding. They spent all day fishing and had many great catches. When it was starting to get late my step-grandfather accidentally dropped his fishing pole into the water, he told my dad to go under the boat and to get it.
My dad took a deep breath and dove into the icy water. He grabbed the pole successfully, however his shirt got stuck on the anchor. He didn't realize this at first so he pushed off from the bottom as hard as he could, but he didn't go up at all. My dad tried over and over to go, but he just couldn't. He then realized that his shirt was stuck to the anchor.
My dad thought he was going to die. He was running out of air quickly. He couldn't get his shirt off of the anchor and it was attached to the anchor so tightly that he couldn't even take it off. He started to see his life flash before his eyes. Right when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he felt himself start to rise up to the surface. Then he felt an arm go around his waist and start to pull him up to the surface.
This arm belonged to my step-grandfather. For step-grandfather was starting to wonder what was taking my dad so long to just dive down and get the pole. He figured that something must be wrong and dove into the water after my dad. Luckily, he dove with his pocket knife in his pocket so when he reached my dad he cut him lose from his shirt. My dad is very grateful that my step-grandfather dove into the water when he did, because my dad doesn't think that he could have held his breath for even a second more.
On the boat my dad and step-grandfather were having a great time and were really bonding. They spent all day fishing and had many great catches. When it was starting to get late my step-grandfather accidentally dropped his fishing pole into the water, he told my dad to go under the boat and to get it.
My dad took a deep breath and dove into the icy water. He grabbed the pole successfully, however his shirt got stuck on the anchor. He didn't realize this at first so he pushed off from the bottom as hard as he could, but he didn't go up at all. My dad tried over and over to go, but he just couldn't. He then realized that his shirt was stuck to the anchor.
My dad thought he was going to die. He was running out of air quickly. He couldn't get his shirt off of the anchor and it was attached to the anchor so tightly that he couldn't even take it off. He started to see his life flash before his eyes. Right when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he felt himself start to rise up to the surface. Then he felt an arm go around his waist and start to pull him up to the surface.
This arm belonged to my step-grandfather. For step-grandfather was starting to wonder what was taking my dad so long to just dive down and get the pole. He figured that something must be wrong and dove into the water after my dad. Luckily, he dove with his pocket knife in his pocket so when he reached my dad he cut him lose from his shirt. My dad is very grateful that my step-grandfather dove into the water when he did, because my dad doesn't think that he could have held his breath for even a second more.
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