Journal #4

The experience at CESL was very interesting! I met three sympathetic Asian students, two from China and one from Korea.

 I did not discover anything particular about “being foreign” and learning another language because, coming from France, English was my second language, too.

I noticed that, compared to students from other parts of the world, the Asian students had the most difficulty articulating English words clearly. And that reminded me of my own experience and the troubles associated with learning a new language: some sounds in our native tongue cannot be found in other languages, and vice versa, which is why we can’t replicate certain of these sounds. It made me realize that the language in which we are raised determines the sounds that we will be able to produce later in life. And once we reach a certain age, it becomes more and more difficult not to have an accent!

The international students definitely had a cultural identity (by that I mean that they were not totally “Americanized”). But their cultural identity greatly differed from the one discussed in Eula Biss’s text. Her story focused more on poverty and America becoming the “death sentence” of Mexico. She mainly emphasized the differences between the American culture and the Mexican one, but how they were analogous in the case of poverty. She also mentions the hatred and negative outlook of Mexicans towards Americans.

Her text was pessimistic compared to the experience we had with the international students, which was very positive. Most of us and most of the foreign students come from similar backgrounds: none were richer or poorer than the others, which is what created this gap in Eula Biss's story.

Journal #2

For my persona text, I think I will use an essay that I wrote in 10th grade. The paper is called "Egg Head" (pretty original, huh?) and I describe my worst teacher ever. He actually wasn't the WORST teacher ever, just his physical appearance was beyond the ridicule. It seems like writing that essay helped me to expand in creativity of descriptions: use fancier words, make extensive use of punctuation, etc.
I'm not completely sure why I want to use this text, but I have a good feeling that it will fit in with the "persona" theme of our final paper. In a way, it did have an impact on my identity as a writer since I now am much more descriptive in my writing, and I pay much closer attention to details when reading (like noticing the implicit meaning behind certain words, punctuation or phrases).

Compared to Tapahonso's style of writing, yes, my persona text is much different. She uses the simple tone of the narrator recounting a story...I'm not saying that it's dull or boring -- the topic of her story is very interesting, but the tone is one that is bringing back a memory; there's no irony, sarcasm, etc.
My persona text has a "mocking" tone...which is necessary since I am mocking my teacher's ridiculous physiognomy. At the end of my paper, though, there is a transformation: the mocking turns into admiration for my teacher, and the same admiration can be felt in Tapahonso's reverence for her culture.
Next to Lohan's video, I find an important similarity: there is that same mocking tone -- she is mocking the people who believe in all the rumors about her. My persona text though, lacks the sarcasm that is evident in her voice and body language.