Hello and welcome once again. This assignment was to create a counterfactual scene to the blog assignment five. It shows how things could have turned out differently. This post will be similar to my blog assignment five, but they don’t end in same way. Only a few things changed so the story could have another ending. For this assignment I’ve read Rewinding & Rewriting: The Alternate Universes in Our Heads (NPR Hidden Brain Episode), Two Views of the River (Mark Twain) and Kramer vs. Kramer: Action Scene (Shows/Deepens the Conflict). I hope you’ll enjoy reading it.
It is October 22, 2009 we are in Congo, Center Africa to help people after Boko Haram, a terrorist group attacked, burned and kidnaped people of three villages. We are here as voluntaries to help them with food, water and take injured people to the hospital. The rumors say that they kidnaped almost a hundred of young girls killed some men and burned almost everything around. We are sharing food and water when suddenly I see an old lady sitting alone. I can see how sad she is, crying and completely desperate. I walked to her and said, “Are you hurt?” “I can’t find my sons.” She said while crying. I told her that we are going to look for her sons and asked her if she needed something, maybe some water. “They kidnaped my grands daughters” She said with a trembling voice. “I’m really sorry about that”. That’s the only thing that came in my mind. I tried and gave her some water so she could get calm. Thirty minutes after, I wanted to see if she needed to be taken to the hospital. “Are you good now?” I asked her. “I would be good when I’ll see my family again” she responded. I had no idea of what to say to uplift her and then, I received a call from a friend who is in the army telling me that the government has sent soldiers to save the hostages. “I’m sorry son, I just don’t feel good. Things were already difficult for me here and now it’s going to be worst without my family”, she claimed. “The government has sent some soldiers to save the hostages, I think you’ll see your family soon” I responded her. “Are you sure about that?” she said looking at me with a happy face. “You know, they sexually abuse young girls and this is not what I want for my grands daughters” she said. The next few second that follow those questions, a lot of things came in my mind. I realized how lucky I was and in same time how stupid I was. Asking for needless things all the time, complaining about unnecessary things, spending my time arguing if you should put the milk or the cereal first with my peers and my brothers while having breakfast when some people have trouble to eat, are killed and abused by terrorist pretending to fight for God. What if I was in their conditions, why those people are abused and killed, but not us, what they have done? A lot of questions came in my mind. “You are doing a great job here, thanks for that” she said. I was very glad to see that she was least desperate after I told her about the soldiers. “You’re welcome, I’m here to help and I would do anything for that” I told her. “Thank you so much my son” that’s the last thing she said before she went to the hospital. We took her to the hospital and I went home. Three days later, I went to the hospital to visit her and she was with all her family. The soldiers sent by government to save the hostages succeeded in their mission and her sons were kept as hostage with her grands daughters.
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Hello and welcome once again! For this assignment, we were asked to create an emotional scene that we are sharing with someone. We have to do it using dialogue and symbolism, so in this assignment I will be talking about a time I’ve spent with an old lady in Congo after a terrorist group attack. I’ve got this inspiration after reading a story called Hills Like White Elephants (Ernest Hemingway), and I used this as a reference. I encourage you to take a look at this writing and I hope you will enjoy it!
It is October 22, 2009 we are in Congo, Center Africa to help people after Boko Haram, a terrorist group attacked, burned and kidnaped people of three villages. We are here as voluntaries to help them with food, water and take injured people to the hospital. They kidnaped almost a hundred young girls killed some men and burned almost everything around. We are sharing food and water when suddenly I see an old lady sitting alone. I can see how sad she is, crying and completely desperate. She might need my help, let’s see what she needs. I walk to her without knowing what to say first. “Are you hurt?” “They killed my two sons.” She said while crying. I told her that I’m sorry about her sons and asked her if she needed something, maybe some water. “They kidnaped my grands daughters” She said with a trembling voice. “I’m really sorry about that”. That’s the only thing that came in my mind. I tried and gave her some water so she could get calm. Thirty minutes after I gave her water, I wanted to talk to her and see if she needed to be taken to the hospital. “Are you good now?” “How can I ever be good after what happened here, do you know how it feels to see your sons being killed, do you know how it feels when people you depends on are taken away from you, how am I going to live now?” Now I felt so stupid for asking this question. I had no idea of what to say to uplift her. “I’m sorry son, I just don’t feel good. Things were already difficult here and now it’s going to be worst”, she said. “We had trouble to eat in this village and now they burned everything, all our crop, how are we going to live now”. “Why they are doing this?” I said asking myself if that was the good question to ask. “They pretend to be Muslim, they pretend to fight for God, is this what God ask for?” she said looking at me with a so desperate face. “They sexually abuse young girls and now they have my grands daughters, is this what God ask for my son?” she asked me one more time when crying. The next few second that follow those questions, a lot of things came in my mind. I realized how lucky I was and in same time how stupid I was. Asking for needless things all the time, complaining about unnecessary things, spending my time arguing if you should put the milk or the cereal first with my peers and my brothers while having breakfast when some people have trouble to eat, are killed and abused by terrorist pretending to fight for God. Why those people are abused and killed, but not us, what they have done? A lot of questions came in my mind. “Sorry son, I’m making you sad with my problem” she said. “No you are good, that’s why I’m here. I would do anything to help” I told her. “Thank you so much my son” that’s the last thing she ever said. We took her to the hospital and I went home. Three day later she died in the hospital, I’ve never get any new of her grands daughters after that and I realized with this story how life could be hard for some people and how lucky I am. Hello and welcome back! In this blog assignment for my English Composition class, I was asked to read and annotate texts from Don Murray, Marry Karr and Anne Lamott. I have to set my own scene for a writers’ roundtable discussion about the writing process and provided tree quotes from each reading creating, which will be a total of nine quotes. Creating this story was a kind of fun for me and hope reading it will as fun as it was for me. Here are the links for tree texts.
It was my third semester at Delaware County Community College and during that semester I had to take English composition I class. One day during the class time we were talking about the writing process when my teacher got the good idea to invite tree famous writers for us so we could discuss about writing with them and have some idea about how to develop our writing skills. Those three famous writers were Don Murray, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. We met a Tuesday afternoon in the cafeteria of the college and everyone was exited to talk with them. It was my turn to talk with Anne Lamott, so I went to her table and introduced myself and the first thing I started telling her was how bad I was in writhing. I even didn’t finish my sentence when she stopped me and looked me deep in eye. “Almost all good writhing begins with terrible first efforts”, “Very few writers really know what they are doing until they’ve done it”, she said. To be honest, those two sentences made me comfortable and confident a little bit, but the first question that came in my mind after was: was Anne Lamott a terrible writer at the beginning? However, I was too shy to ask her that question. We kept taking about writing and at a point, I told her that I’m lazy and easily get discouraged when it comes to writing. After I finished explaining her that, she told a sentence that comes in mind every time when I have a writing assignment. ”We are just going to take this bird by bird. But we are going to finish this one short assignment”. Then comes the time to meet and talk with Mary Karr, and we spent all our meeting time talking about revisions and inspiration. The first question that came in my mind when we met was “what can I do to avoid stress while beginning to write and how many time should I write the same text to get it perfect?”. Mary Karr just replies by “thinking, they’ve raised their taste beyond their skill levels. So when they stare down at their pages, they can no longer superimpose what’s in their heads onto the work” and “revision is the secret to their troubles and yours. That, and a sense of quality that exceeds what you can do that gives you something to strive for. Actually, every writer needs two selves, the generative self and the editor self”. She explained me the context of negative and editor self for a while and then asked me if I had another question for her. Then came my last question, how can I start to write if I have no inspiration? That’s when Mary Karr told me the last sentence that concluded our conversation. “In the beginning, when there are zero pages, you have to cheer yourself into cranking stuff out, even if it later lands on the cutting room floor”. That sentence concluded our conversation, but also my fear of beginning writing. “Writing is the act of producing a first draft. It is the fastest part of the process, and the most frightening, for it is a commitment”, Don Murry said at the beginning of our conversation. “Instead of teaching finished writing, we should teach unfinished writing, and glory in its unfinishedness” And “The writing process itself can be divided into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting”. Here are the tree main points I discussed with Don Murry during that afternoon meeting at school. My conversation with Don Murry was short, but very interesting and what he told still help me with my writing. “Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps”, “a writing process describes the series of physical and mental actions that people take in the course of producing any kind of text” and “creating a successful paper is a different process for everyone” were the only tree things I knew about the writing process before I met Don Murry, Mary Karr and Anne Lamott. Meeting those tree famous writers was very interesting and instructive, I learned a lot about writing and how to increase my writing skills. Dear Abdoul,
If writing can be a kind of way for living people to communicate with the dead, I think it can also be a way for someone to communicate with a part of himself. Today I’m writing you this letter not because you died. Just because I haven’t use the part of me you are since a long time. Writing is a way for some people to think about life, their experiences and communicate, but for others, it’s a way to free their mind. I think writing is important, but I don’t know how much it’s important for you because you are a part of me that I’ve been neglecting for a long time. I don’t really like writing, but I know you do and I can’t even imagine how hard it could be to live in someone who don’t like your passion and never let you express it. I’ve been thinking about you these last days and the first thing that comes in my mind when I think about you is that I have to apologize. Now I’m figuring out the importance of writing and I hope that with this letter you can accept my apologies and let us be a team. I don’t know if you still love writing or if you gave up on it because I was not letting you write. I also don’t know how you will react about this letter, but I really hope we can get back to work together. Now I think that writing can be a way to communicate, express yourself, your feelings and get people attention, and I want you to joy me so we can experiment that. As I told you, I don’t really like writing, but I like testing new things and now writing is mystery that I want to unlock. I just want to sit down sometimes, think and write to see how it feels to liberate your emotions through writing. We used to writing together a long time ago, I hope you remember that time because that’s exactly how I want us to be one more time. I want to feel, let you feel and express who we really are through our writhing. I want us to think and keep thinking together so we can write and free ourselves. I want us to do new adventures so we can have inspiration and keep writing. I know that it’s not easy to just come back like that after all these years, but I’m sure you can do it and I feel like we’re going to do great jobs together again. This letter is coming to an end Abdoul, I hope you will accept my apologies and reveal yourself one more time. Thanks, sincerely, Abdoulaye NG Diouf. Welcome to my first blog for my English Composition class. My assignment is answering the thirty-five questions from the writer Marcel Proust, who was a French writer born in 1871 and dead in 1922. Marcel Proust was a great writer and winner of many literary prizes and his questionnaire is very interesting. Answering these questions was fun, but also important because it kept me thinking about myself and kind of man I truly am and I hope you will have fun reading my answer. The Proust Questionnaire 1.__What is your idea of perfect happiness? My idea of happiness is just love, love and being loved. Sometimes people figure out that they were happy once the happiness is gone because it’s more simple than they think. For me, just coming home after a hard and tiring day, take a shower and relax with the person you love while watching a good movie is a perfect happiness. 2.__What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear is dying without achieving my goals or becoming blind. I’ve being working really hard in my life to achieve my goals and I don’t want to die before I achieve them. Becoming blind is also my greatest fear. 3.__What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I don’t make connexion with people. I’m always alone, but to be honest it’s something I really like. Just sit down alone thinking about life and having fun in my head. __4.__What is the trait you most deplore in others? Their stupidity. Let say our stupidity because I’m not an exception. Sometimes I just tell myself that Humans are the worse Creature of God (if he is the one who created us). Most of us are selfish, we are killing each other and all the other creatures, destroying ourselves and everything around us. 5.__Which living person do you most admire? My dad, a very courageous man who would do anything to take care of his family. 6.__What is your greatest extravagance? Last month I spent like $500 in a PS4 and video games to figure out that I don’t like it at all. __8.__What do you consider the most overrated virtue? I really have no idea. 9.__On what occasion do you lie? I lie when I know that the truth will hurt someone else feelings. 10.__What do you most dislike about your appearance? My stomach. People don’t notice it, but now I got a big stomach because of American food. 11.__Which living person do you most despise? No one. 12.__What is the quality you most like in a man? Being responsible. As a man you should know that you got or will got responsibilities, so you have to be responsible or learn how to be. 13.__What is the quality you most like in a woman? When she is courageous, mature and knows what she wants. 14.__Which words or phrases do you most overuse? "shit" and "like" I use these two words a lot. 15.__What or who is the greatest love of your life? Saoudatou. That girl was the reincarnation of kindness. She always supported and pushed me to do my best. Things were really simple with her and everything was going well until her parents decided for her the man she was going to marry. 16.__When and where were you happiest? I think that was 4 years ago when I was with her and I hope my next relationship will be as perfect and stable as it was with her. 17.__Which talent would you most like to have? I would love to play an instrument or being a good dancer or singer. 18.__If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? I wouldn’t change anything. I think I’m good as I am. 19.__What do you consider your greatest achievement? I can’t really think of one, I’ve achieve a lot of thing these few years, but that’s just a beginning. 20.__If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? I would want to come back as an animal especially a wolf. Wolfs are my favorite animals. 21.__Where would you most like to live? In a countryside, with a beautiful wife and two kids. 22.__What is your most treasured possession? I don’t have any. 23.__What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? I have no idea. 24.__What is your favorite occupation? I love watching movies or just sit down and think. 25.__What is your most marked characteristic? I don’t really know. 26.__What do you most value in your friends? I don’t really know, but loyalty is very important to me. 27.__Who are your favorite writers? I don’t have any. 28.__Who is your hero of fiction? Michael Scofield from Prison Break. 29.__Which historical figure do you most identify with? I can’t really think of anyone I relate to. 30.__Who are your heroes in real life? Denis Mukwege. Every single person in this world must know who is this big guy and what he is doing. 31.__What are your favorite names? Monique, Poupete and Fatim. 32.__What is it that you most dislike? Being around people who think they are better than others or who are arrogant. 33.__What is your greatest regret? I don’t have any. I think before I make a decision or start something, but if it goes wrong or end bad, it is what it is. 34.__How would you like to die? I would prefer to die in my sleep. 35.__What is your motto? Succeed in life or succeed in life. Insert text |
AbdoulHi, welcome to my blog. My name is Abdoulaye Ngor Diouf and my goal here is to improve my writing skills and have a better connection with my other self. I hope you will enjoy reading my work. thanks ArchivesCategories |