kathie lee mi 201 blog

Willy Harris I did it. I successfully convinced Bobo and Walter to hand over all of their spare money to me. Haha, it was too easy. I have more money than I could’ve ever dreamed of in my hands right now. I can run away and start a new life. I won’t have to work as a servant for white people no more. But can I really do this? Bobo and Walter are my friends after all… my entire life is here in Chicago. Will I feel guilty for deceiving them? No, no I won’t. I have to be selfish and think for myself. Beneatha used to say behind my back that I was a “man even Travis wouldn’t have trusted with his most worn-out marbles” (132). Huh, well who would’ve known, that girl was right for once. I wouldn’t even trust myself either. But it’s not my fault. They were the ones dumb enough to believe me. They were the ones who trusted me with their life savings.  They were the ones that actually thought that a liquor store would be a smart form of business. I need to leave before Bobo and I had ...

     Once upon a time, the Washington family drowned in wealth and resided deep in the isolated mountains far away from society (with the exception of their slaves and prisoners). While everyone in the world should have been attempting to create a life full of happiness for themselves, people were obsessed with money and attempted to do anything to attain it. The Washington family was lucky and possessed a diamond as big as a mountain that was of enormous wealth. Their own affluence imprisoned them by trapping them from conversing with the outside world in order to keep their wealth a secret. Suffering from a lack of outside influence, the Washington’s invite friends to entertain them: only to murder them in the end. After the Washington daughter Kismine accidentally reveals her family’s secret with stuttering rhetoric to the guest John, the depth of their corruption is uncovered. Their riches are ironic because although they have so much of it, they cannot do anything w...

 “And I know just why you could not come along with me. This was not your dream but you always believed in me” -Home by Michael Bubl é  Michael Bubl é is a famous singer who lives the high celebrity life. Although he wishes he could take his fiancé with him to where ever he travels, he realizes he cannot because she did not dream for this life; he did so he can’t force her to travel with him. He is living out his dream as he’s a worldwide singing sensation but this is not what his fiancé dreamed of. Everyone has a dream, big or small. Whether you dream of becoming the next big rock star or to pass your Calculus class, you have a dream. However, these dreams are ones that you have imagined for yourself. When your dreams begin to affect others reams often become your life and affect everyone around you and may alter relationships if those people are part of the dream. In Gatsby’s case, his dream becomes his life and he strives to get Daisy to be in a relationsh...

“The most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about” (Wallace). The quote is one hundred percent true. The media often influences our perspectives as a society of what we should think about certain things. Let’s take the big booty craze that dominated this summer. It may not be hard to see in a literal sense but it did take a while before society realized that the craze was unhealthy. It also became a touchy subject to speak about because the trend began as a way to tell people to promote and embrace different body types but it resulted in women going to extremes to attain the new “ideal body type”.   In elementary school, if someone told you that you had a “big butt” you were deeply offended by the insult that basically meant “you’re fat”. This summer however, singers fueled the big booty craze with anthems like “Anaconda” and “Booty”. The obsession took over social media as celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Igg...

The world is a rapidly changing place and the reality is, people are changing and they are the ones who choose how to change the use of language and its punctuation. However, punctuation needs to still have concrete rules so a downfall of literacy will not occur and ruin the future. Social media has become a part of our everyday lives. Our hours are consumed by spending hours on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, texts, and emails. Most of the time these sites force users to contain their thoughts into a word limit and “users are forced to be concise and less flowery with language” (Source F). Although a site like Twitter “discourages wordiness” and “can actually make you a better writer”, in the words of Amanda Cosco, it is also damaging the abilities an everyday person should have. The executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller is “worried that new technologies erode our ability to do things like remember directions or memorize phone numbers…he argues that new technologies en...

“She eats the candy, and its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane." (Morrison 50). Pecola’s naive thoughts leads to her believe that she has a simple and innocent desire to be beautiful. It is the only way she knows how to deal with her ugliness; she has convinced herself that it will work because it gives her a glimpse of what it would be like to be white. I can relate to Pecola. In elementary school, I wanted nothing more than to be a white girl. Like Pecola, I prayed and wished. No, I did not do anything drastic such as try to change the tone of my skin by using lightening cream or eating candy like Pecola but I sure did dream. I thought about how much better my life would be if I was white. Nearly all of my friends were white and I admired how lucky they were. All of their family members spoke the same language so there was no such thing as a language barrier that held them back from being able to ...

All across the world women consider different skin tones desirable and have contrasting beauty standards. In America, girls crave to be tan. They often spend hundreds on tanning salons and waste hours lying out in the sun. Being pasty is embarrassing and is insulting to the eye. Besides, who wants to be pale in the summer? Women purchase bronzer and tanning cream to create a fake tanned look. In India, girls are purchasing products like the cream Fair and Lovely, to maintain a fair complexion. Women force themselves to sit inside in the summer to avoid the sun because the Indian culture has told them, “the lighter you are the prettier”. Miss India and Bollywood stars look more Caucasian than they do Indian; Nina Davuluri, last year’s Miss America, is apparently “too dark” to even win a beauty pageant in India. Indians women also buy the lightest foundation and powder and cake their faces in these makeup products to feel beautiful. Similarly, in Eastern Asia, women...

The separation of genders begins when children are young. Boys and girls grow up playing with toys designated for their sex. Although most of the time it is not purposely done to harm their children, mothers tend to make their kids play with the types of toys that are gender oriented. For example, if a young girl was playing with action figures and trying to make them “kill each other” a mother will most likely be appalled with her behavior and hand her some Barbies. Princesses and dolls are for the girls to nurture their caring personalities and action figures and Hot Wheels represent power and is to bring out the manliness in the boys. Even in school, teachers point out to students that statistics show girls perform better in English and history while boys tend to excel in science and math.  However, according to studies, the “statistics” teachers are talking about are incorrect. Girls actually perform better in all studies compared to boys. Telling each gender that they ...

The 4 th of July weekend is one of my favorites of the year. My family always travels up north and goes camping with friends; it is a day celebrated with hot dogs, burgers, lemonade, Frisbees, sand castles, and fireworks. Sure, my family celebrates it in honor of liberty, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, other old white men in powdered wigs, and how grateful we are to have independence but to be honest, my parents celebrate it more for the fact that they are in a country that has provided them and their children with better opportunities.  Emigrating almost 30 years ago from Taiwan, they have roots in two countries, history in both, and are purely happy with the great things America has had to offer.  I was born in America but I’m Taiwanese-American. Not just plain American. Optimistically though, I am a first-generation so there is still hope for those to come after me. Many of the Blacks (African-American is not politically correct) in the U.S. have been here for 3...

All weekend I sat around in my dark, empty room surrounded by homework and my thoughts thinking about what I was going to blog about. Just kidding, I actually have a life outside of school. But yes, I did think about what I was going to blog about and I came up with…nothing. I had run out of creative and witty ways to twist my thoughts into the Scarlet Letter . After talking to Jen and hearing about how she had blogged about how the class erupted into flames after Ms. Valentino said grades do not define us after the grammar test scores were handed back, I was inspired. Teachers and parents often attempt to inspire us by telling us it doesn't matter if we screw up once in a while on tests or quizzes because “we are worth more than a letter” and “a multiple-choice test doesn't define us”. Ok. I think we all know that’s pretty not true. (I could use more foul language but we have to keep it G rated here). To be perfectly honest, I enjoy going to school. I love to learn. I lov...

Deborah Tannen seemed to really dislike the term “mark” but being “marked” does not necessary have to have a negative connotation. The way someone dresses can give off a vibe of his or her personality. Girls are easy targets to mark and therefore judge and critique, but her style and personality can also really shine through while boys have a smaller range of flexibility. Instead of just skirting around the issue, let me take this weekend for example. (ahaha do you get my skirt pun) Almost everyone (hopefully everyone, c’mon people you only have four of them so you might as well go to all of them) went to homecoming this weekend but it was probably the way everyone dressed that mattered more than the way they danced. When everyone arrives at pictures, the males are dressed quite similarly; normally all the guys are sporting suits with ties/bow ties that match their dates dress (if he has one). Out of the hundred of boys that attend homecoming, only a handful will opt for a ...

In today’s day and age, reality TV seems to glorify every type of lifestyle. From crazy housewives to rich kids in Beverly Hills, wild lives seem to be glamorous and thrilling.   Show such as Teen Mom and 16 and Pregnant on MTV highlight the lives of teenage mothers. Although the shows touch on the topic of the struggles of being a teen mom and its consequences, it seems as if the end result of these shows are rewarding. The girls starring on the shows earn millions and are often featured on the covers of magazines which bring them publicity, endorsement deals, and open doors to opportunities in the entertainment business. Even though the shows do focus on a girl’s hardships of motherhood, being cut off by some of her friends, and the new responsibilities she must face, MTV chooses to direct most of the attention to what will bring in high ratings; a girl fighting with the " dead-beat baby daddy", her going out with her friends, and buying cute clothes for her b...

America is supposedly a melting pot or a mixed salad. Whatever you would like to call it, this country is an assortment of different cultures and it is what makes it so great. But white people are always stereotyped as “true Americans” while Taiwanese-Americans, Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, Indian-Americans, etc. are all labeled “Asian”, despite the fact that they are all natural born citizens of the United States. African-Americans are labeled as blacks and Mexican-Americans, Brazilian-Americans, etc. are all Latinos. A question that is nearly always asked is, “why is it that the word 'American' automatically gives off the connotation of white people?” It is as if white people are the only ones who have the privilege to be solely called “American”. Society has ingrained into our minds that an “All-American girl” is a blonde haired, blue eyed girl. Hopefully one day when the word “All-American girl” is said, people will think of a diverse group of y...

Searching through "The Glass Castle" twice for traces of fire and hunger, we focused on motifs this week. “I lived in a world that at any moment could erupt into fire. It was the sort of knowledge that kept you on your toes” (Walls 34). Through the novel, the motif fire is laced into aspects of her life. Sitting at my laptop, racking my brain for ideas of what to blog about, I have a video of the marching band halftime performance on replay in another tab which reminded me of something that happened earlier today. I was texting my friends about how much we love the show this year and how the peace, love and music symbols are incorporated into so many aspects of the show and that was when I realized the peace sign was the glaringly obvious motif of our show that no one had identified as a motif. Remembering this, I suddenly had an urge to begin blogging. One of my favorite lyrics of the song “Chasing Cars” is, “Would you lie with me and just forget the world” (Snow Patro...