Wednesday, March 3, 2004

turtle soup

reading the poem turtle soup reminds me of how the vietnamese culture views the turtle to be symbol of longevity. it's considered a taboo to keep turtles as pets let alone eat them. so it was sort of a shock to me to just read the title, "turtle soup." i was not expecting the writing to be about eating turtles. Posted by Peter Mai on 3/3/04; 2:20:27 PM from the dept. Discuss

speaker's series

having sat through the creative/informative poems from the writer. it really opens up my eyes to the non-publicized poverty faced by the middle eastern countries. what she has to say was really sad. for quite a while now, i've always approached poems as just mere rhyming phrases; being that i haven't really been exposed to much poetry throughout my educational life. i really liked the fairly detailed way Senor Lovas analyzed the short poem with the underlying message, "I miss you," proudly pointed out by natan. this close analysis of the poem has struck some interests in me. i've always been a problem solver so to me, a poem is a problem and the solution to the problem is to find the underlying meaning of what the writer is trying to say or describe. Posted by Peter Mai on 3/3/04; 2:18:22 PM from the dept. Discuss

Wednesday, February 4, 2004

The essay

first thing that comes to mind after reading "the essay," is the movie "a beautiful mind." this is so because in the movie the main character john nash speaks about how going to class rots your mind, he believes that class will take your imagination away and just make you think the way they want you to. it's almost the same when compared to this essay. the idea that teacher dictates what we should or should not write about so the level of creativity for the piece of writing we have is gone. all we have is directions and or orders to follow. all of which goes against what the meaning of an "essay" should be. Posted by Peter Mai on 2/4/04; 2:37:05 PM from the dept. Discuss