UW 20

My UW20 course just ended and I learned a lot of things about women's autobiography that I wasn't aware of before.
I didn't realize that one of my favorite genre of books is considered autobiography (autobiographical novel) so I enjoyed the class much more than I thought I would when I realized the topic was women's autobiography and I got to write my research paper on one of my favorite books, The Bell Jar. I also enjoyed the other readings for this class, including Sylvia Plath's diary, Meatless Days, and Baghdad Burning. The class made me realize how many types of interesting autobiography are out there, including blogs.

As far as my writing goes, I learned about things like a concession, "so what?" factor, and lit analysis which are key components to successful writing. I have learned to back up my argument in my writing better by linking everything back to the thesis statement and defending it, which was something I did not do effectively before.

I also learned to analyze these types of writings much better, especially with our activities with Meatless Days and the other short stories. When doing my research paper I also learned many more things present in The Bell Jar that I had not noticed before.

The library sessions for this class also taught me how to successfully utilize what the library has to offer, specifically research databases, which helped a lot for our second paper, which was comparing and contrasting two short stories.

Overall, I perfected my ability to complete research and write, and gained a better sense of the term "autobiography"

Baghdad Burning

Baghdad Burning is written by a 25 year old Iraqi woman who goes by the pseudonym "Riverbend". It is a blog that has just been turned into a book, still in the blog format. Riverbend began her blog with the start of the Iraq war and shares her views on the war and her personal experiences--how her life has been effected. She talks about how complicated the situation really is and her hate for the American people and the Bush administration. Regardless of how you feel on the issues addressed in the book, Riverbend successfully makes you think about the situation in Iraq, even if you have no interest in politics. She uses extremes when talking about her emotions and she obviously displays an extreme bias. She talks about her hatred toward Americans and regardless of if you are a democrat, republican, independent, or don't even care it makes you become defensive about your country and dislike what she is saying. As time continues, Riverbend's entries become more angry and bitter and she also becomes "cocky" with her entries, addressing the people who comment her blog entries. She is angry because people have a false impression of Iraq--she talks about how on tv there are pictures of dirt roads when there are paved highways and when she loses electricity it is a big deal. Ironically, Riverbend writes in impeccable English that is better than the English of the average American.
This book is an example of autobiography used as therapy. I think Riverbend uses her blog to cope with her situation. Whether or not someone likes this type of book depends on whether or not they can get along with the author's personality.

I think for my book review I'll focus on how Riverbend writes in her blog to deal with the situation and how the book being a blog is important because it captures the emotion in it. I think I'll also talk about how the honesty of it, regardless of the extreme bias, makes you think about the situation in Iraq, which I think is part of the point of the blog. I'll focus on those aspects and then go into other detail like the literary devices used that we discussed in class.

Meatless Days/Lost in Translation

I really liked Meatless Days and Lost in Translation because they tell stories about cultures different from our own, along with how the authors (Eva Hoffman and Sara Suleri dealt with blending their original cultures with a new one.

I liked the topic to begin with because I can relate to cultural differences and how combining the two is a difficult process.

I also think both readings really complemented each other-- I didn't really like Meatless Days the first time I read it, but after reading Lost in Translation, I reread Meatless Days and it made much more sense to me and I enjoyed it a lot more.

It's interesting how Hoffman associates the cultural changes with words, while Suleri relates everything to food.

Also, at the end of the readings, you find out that Suleri no longer celebrates Ramadan and clearly, Hoffman can wirte perfectly eloquent english.

I think I'm going to write my paper about these two readings, comparing/contrasting how although they were in similar situations, they went through their experiences differently, and how they have made their cultural changes.

heyyyy

This is my blog for University Writing 20-- Women's Lives.
I'm a freshman, living in Thurston Hall, room 229.
I'm originally from Allentown, PA which is part of the Lehigh Valley--the third most populated metropolitan area in PA after Philly and Pittsburgh.
My parents moved to the U.S. from India about 23 years ago and I've visited there four times and speak fluently in Bengali. Most of my extended family lives there, which is sad because in Indian culture you consider your cousins, regardless of how distantly they may really be related, to be like your own siblings. But anyway, I do have two sisters. One will be 23 soon and the other is 9 so I'm the middle child. I miss my little sister, more than anything and I hate that I can't see her whenever I want to. Although I have an amazing relationship with my older sister, she still has her own life apart from me, but my little sister's life and my life kind of revolved around each other. I watched her after school every day since I was in sixth grade. I picked her up from the bus stop, took her home, gave her her snack, made her do her homework and played with her until it was time for her to shower and go to bed. I made her practice piano and took her to ballet, and she often hung out with me and my friends. My guy friends enjoyed playing catch with her--literally, _she_ was the ball and my boyfriend and I would also take her out pretty regularly, despite the dirty looks we would get from people who thought she was our daughter. It's been really hard to know that she's kind of by herself now, but it's something we'll both have to get used to. She's an amazingly smart and talented girl and she'll be able to adjust.
Aside from missing all my friends and my sisters, I've been loving my life in DC. I have three room mates and I get along with all of them and we can steal everything from each other so my wardrobe has basically quadrupled in size which would make any girl happy. I love that I can walk to the right of my dorm and wind up at the White House and that if I want, I can study by the monuments. I am completely in love with gdubssss :)