Mich ein Tag Sprechen Hübsch

This week when we read Why My Mother Can’t Speak English and Me Talk Pretty One Day, I found myself relating more to the latter. I took a year of French my sophomore year which I was just dreadful at. I found myself frequently turning to my good friend, Christian, who sat next to me asking him questions. True, I wasn’t in school much due to my medical issues, but something tells me even if I was there, I would still be terrible at it. My junior year, I decided to take German since a lot of my friends took it and I already had Herr Sedore for a math class. I absolutely love German! It took me the whole first semester to really get good at it. Herr Sedore speaks majority in German for us to get used to the language. Much like David in Me Talk Pretty One Day, I would hear: Hallo, meine Damen und Herren. Haben Sie askjfdhsa heute? Gut! It was with a lot of practice and patience, I could fully listen, read, and write German. Now, speaking….that’s a different story :P

Different Terms

I enjoyed Elaine Richardson's piece My Ill Literacy Narrative: Growing up Black, Po and A Girl in the Hood. I can definitely relate to having your own meanings for different terms. For example, I come from Dearborn which has a really large Arabic population. The term “boater” means something differently because of that. Boater to someone else might be someone who likes boats or maybe a Boater Hat. To people in Dearborn, boater is a word to describe someone who acts like a foreigner, someone “fresh off the boat.” It is sometimes used derogatory, but I have heard Arabic people use it to describe themselves. I generally just don’t use the word so I won’t offend anyone. I think it’s a little offensive, but I have heard people even describe their parents with it.

Writing the Narrative Story Vs. Poem

Writing the narrative story was much easier for me than the poem. I do not write poems well. I greatly enjoy poetry, but I think I don’t do well with condensing the poem. I can make a story flow a lot more than a poem. Writing my poem felt awkward because, to be honest, I didn’t know what to write about. I was dreading writing the story because I felt I couldn’t think of a story about home. Then I decided to take a much different approach. Why don’t I write about something I love that is my real home? Thus the idea of writing about my high school Performing Arts Department instead of my hometown was born. Writing about the department was so easy for me. I just wrote everything down and then organized it. It flowed a lot better for me and I thought of more creative ways to introduce the story. I really dislike my poem, but I absolutely love my story. It fits me a lot better than a brief description of my hometown.

I am from...

I am from the land of Ford,
From where my father gets his paychecks, where my high school is named after the son of Henry Ford, and where Henry Ford started his empire.
I am from the world of drama and music.
Hot stage lights, thick make-up, loud voices, and where the alphabet only goes to G.
I am from a group of friends who thrive off of laughter and Mexican food.
We fiesta where the corn chips are endless, the rice is spicy, and the food is cheap.
I am from a loving home,
The scent of laundry is fresh in the air and 3 cats and a dog run around wreaking havoc.
I am from the home of America’s greatest history attraction, The Henry Ford.
A place where I spent spring days with my family, ate ice cream, and learned about history.
I am from the suburbs near Detroit,
Where watching hockey and baseball is a must, where you spend your summers waiting for the Homecoming festival, and where Arabic food is around every corner.      

Introduction!

Guten Tag! My name is Rena. I am 17 years old and I'm a Freshman at WMU. I'm a performing arts kid having done dance, chorus, and theatre. I enjoy theatre, Broadway, show tunes, Glee, Harry Potter, cats, The Golden Girls, Disney, Batman, and making other people laugh. My favorite band is The Beatles and favorite movie is The Little Mermaid. This beautiful blog is for my English 1050 class~