Persepolis Drawings

Persepolis Drawings

The drawings are important to understanding what things were like in Iran at the time that the book talks about and for understanding how Marji saw things.  She was just 10 years old at the time when her country had a revolution.  The country had just gotten rid of a leader that the people thought was bad.  Then, there were new leaders.  Many things were changing about how people lived their lives.  There were many new rules, and people were being put in jail, beaten and killed.  Since Marji was only 10 years old, she did not understand a lot of what was happening, or why.  The drawings help tell the story.  The drawings help the reader better understand the story of what is happening in the country, not just what a 10 year old girl can tell of the story.

When I first started to read the book, in the part called “The Veil”, I noticed that all of the girls looked the same.  They had the same kind of black veil covering their hair.  The drawings do not look like real people, but I could see that all of the girls looked unhappy.  The words did not say that the girls were unhappy, but the drawing did.  None of the drawings look like real people, but you can tell when people are happy or unhappy, or if something mean has happened.  There are drawings of people being beaten, some being burned, and a man whose body has been cut into pieces.  The words and the drawings both tell parts of the story.

            One drawing that stands out as important to me is the drawing on page 42, “The day he left, the country had the biggest celebration of its entire history”.  The drawing is full of happy people.  Everyone is happy because the old leader is gone.  People are dressed in all kinds of clothes.  Men, women, boys and girls are all together.  It looks like they are thinking that everything will be great now.  The people are celebrating their freedom, but from what the new leaders do, we know that the new leaders are not good.  With the new leaders, people are less free.  They have to live under all kinds of new rules.  People are all dressed alike in black clothes.  Women and girls had to cover their hair, and boys and girls were kept apart.  The colleges were closed for a while because the new leaders did not like what they were teaching.  The new leaders were beating and killing people too.  In that drawing, people were celebrating their freedom.  But, they were less free now.  Marji and her mother both found out that they were less free in the drawing one on page 76, “…when suddenly things got nasty”.  Marji and her mother had gone to a meeting to fight against the strict religious rules.  Marji wanted to go and her mother thought that it would be good if Marji learned to help defend the rights of women.  They did not have scarves covering their heads.  They ran into a crowd of angry religious men who were going to beat them because they were not wearing scarves, and they ran away.  Living under the new rules seemed worse than having the bad leader from before.

The Reader I Am

The Reader I Am

I read for many reasons and have different feelings about reading different things.  So, for our assignment to create a collage showing the kind of reader I am, I used pictures having to do with some of the reasons that I read and the different feelings that I have when I read.

I chose the picture of the boy and the girl reading with the world between them because it reminds me of when I used to read when I was living in China.  Once I got to the U.S., I found out that some of the stories that I had read in China were read by children here.  I think that people all over the world read some of the same things.  The picture “Imagination’s Destination” made me think about how I sometimes read a book about a faraway place, or even a place that is not real.  But, it is like I am in the place in the story.  It is like I am there. 

I chose the “Reading is Cool” picture, because it is cool that I can read something and learn about things and places that I have never seen.  The picture with the girl in bed and reading with the flashlight, and the one that says “346 Minutes Later” both remind me of when I was in China and reading a book that I really liked.  I did not want to stop reading until I finished the book.  Sometimes I would be reading when my bed time came.  I would use my flashlight to read when I was supposed to be going to sleep.  If the story was very good, I wanted to find out what happened next. If my parents found out that I was reading, they would make me turn off the light and stop reading.  I would be upset, because not being able to finish a good book is like not seeing all of a movie.

The woman with her hands on her face looking between the books, and the girl studying remind me of how much homework I have sometimes, and the boy sleeping with the book over his head shows what I want to do when I am too tired to study.

Songs that are Special to Me

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The first song that I chose that represents something having to do with the way that I think about my life is “I'm Yours”, by Jason Mraz.  I first heard the song in my guitar class last Spring  before we learned to play it.  The song was very cool and had a fun sound to it.  Then, I found out that the music was very simple, so it was easy to play.  That made me really like the song.  As I listened to the song more and more, I would sometimes sing along.  I started to think about the words that I was singing.  The song has several messages.  The main message is that the person singing the song is telling someone that he belongs to her.  But, that is not the message in the song that has to do with my life.  The part of the song:

Well, open up your mind and see like me,
Open up your plans and damn you're free.
Look into your heart and you'll find love, love, love, love.

reminds me that I should keep my mind open and not hold myself back.  Also, the part of the song:

So I won't hesitate
No more, no more.
It cannot wait,
I'm sure.
There's no need to complicate.
Our time is short

reminds me that I should not waste time.

The second song that I chose that represents something having to do with the way that I think about my life is “Keep Your Head Up”, by Andy Grammer.  This is one of the songs that I learned in Summer Camp at Cheshire Academy thos yeay.  This is also a really fun song.  Everybody in my class seemed very happy when we were singing this song.  At the beginning of the song, the person is singing about not having enough money.  Their bills are very high, and they do not make much money.  It sounds like he should be sad about his life, but he is not.  He keeps saying over and over “you’ve got to keep your head up” and “You're gonna turn out fine”.  The song helps me to have a good attitude, even when things do not seem good at the time.  Sometimes, I am sad because I am away from my family.  And, there are times when I have so much homework, it seems like I will never finish it.  The words in the song:

Only rainbows after rain
The sun will always come again.
And its a circle, circling,
Around again, it comes around again

remind me that things will get better again.

The third song that I chose that represents something having to do with the way that I think about my life is “In My Life”, by the Beatles.  I learned this song during Access Cheshire 2013, and the ESL Choir sang this song at the program at the end of Access Cheshire.  I liked the song as soon as I heard it, but when we learned about the Beatles in my American Culture class last fall, I liked the song even more.  The song made me think about different times in my life, and how things had been.  There were things that I had been happy about, and things that made me unhappy.  After I came to the States to attend Cheshire Academy, I really missed home. I kept thinking that everything would be good, if I could just go back home.  I spent Christmas with my Aunt and Uncle in Hamden, so I did not get to go home until Spring Break.  Once I got home to China, I was so happy, but things were different.  Things had changed.  I realized that what had made me happy was not ‘being in China’, but my memories of ‘being in China’.  And, I still have those memories, wherever I am.  It reminded me of the words in the song:

There are places I remember all my life
Though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments
Of lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I loved them all

Personal Academic Goals for this Class

1.    To improve my English vocabulary so that I can read English books without having to look up so many words.

2.    To improve my English writing skills to the point where I will not have to spend so much time correcting assignments before I turn them in.

3.    To become better at speaking English and more confident when expressing my ideas in English

I choose “Welcome the night.  Good sleep is your body's mending time. In it's sweet release, the fires of worry and anger will be subdued; and in your dreams you may learn to fly above any blaze, and let your secret self float free above a new world you must imagine and learn to embrace every day."  I like this because no matter what may be happening that may make me upset or afraid, when I am sleeping, everything seems ok. I am able to dream about anything that comes into my mind and feel that everything is good. I feel like there are no problems, even if nothing that was bothering me has changed. When I wake up after a good sleep, things always seem better.