"IN THE END WE ONLY REGRET THE CHANCES WE DIDN'T TAKE" -ANONYMOUS
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Are sacrifices worth it?
The big...reveal?
Hi everyone! Welcome back to another blog post! Before I do anything, I must start off with this: "Aunt Baba had sworn her to secrecy and advised her not to reveal to Niang Grand Aunt's wedding gift of a jade pendant, she had decided to ignore Baba's instruction..." (Yen 90). The reason I started off with this quote for this week's blog is because it made me think about a time when someone should reveal or not reveal a secret to their friends. What do you think? Is there a specific time when you had to keep a secret from someone and why do you think that? From the evidence above, Big Sister is shown to have revealed a secret even though her aunt suggested her not to. In her viewpoint, she sees the secret to be as unimportant and since her conscience was eating her alive, she knew she had to spill it one way or another. For this situation, I found out that a time one can spill a secret to others is if the secret will not hurt their feelings or harm them in any way. The secret could also not be as serious. However, I also realized the time one should not reveal a secret to their friends is if it was during an emergency situation or if it will impact them. For example, let's say your friend woke up from a coma and was very confused on what happened before and how they ended up getting a coma. This is a time where you would not reveal about the past events and would keep these a secret for yourself because they should not be reminded of them. If you revealed them, you know it may permanently impact them emotionally. That is why I think we must think twice and be super careful in when or when not to reveal secrets to other people. However, be careful with this because if you held in a secret for too long, it may be hazardous to your health! ;) For this week, there were many tests (one of them was the AP test) that I had to prepare for, so I did not have time to stay on track with my reading. Thankfully, I am now caught up and will continue staying on track next week. See you soon!! ~Kelly
Pets...are siblings?
Yet another post...but this time with quotes! :) "'I just heard you speaking to PLT as if she were your baby sister, in a tone both proud and loving" (Yen). "Despite the pain and commotion caused by my brother's blows, I found immense consolation in the knowledge that PLT was staying right by me" (Yen). Hi there! I return with another weekly post!! On a side note, the amount of reading I had to read this week was somewhat very little compared to previous weeks which means I can easily discuss what has happened in the chapter so far so that you would feel as if you read the book too!(: Hmm, where here should I begin...oh! so this week's reading consisted of two somewhat short chapters. In the first chapter, Wu Mei reveals the jealously she has for her rich and athletic friend from school. She portrays her friend as being perfect at everything she does. (who doesn't have that one friend we're jealous of though, right?) Her friend even has her own personal chauffeur!! In addition, Mei even goes on about describing the frustrating relationship between her and her siblings because she can no longer trust them in anything. For example, they once pranked her and gave her a cup of orange juice mixed with their urine. (Yes, you read that correctly!) Since she trusted them and did not know it contained urine, she drank it thinking they actually were congratulating her for her excellence in school. However in the next chapter, she describes her experiences after receiving a pet duckling and how she names it PLT for "precious little treasure". Based on the quotes above, you can see the relationship between Wu Mei and her pet duckling. It is clear that she treats her pet as if it were her little sister (which makes sense because she no longer depends on her real siblings). She constantly thinks about her pet almost every time of the day because it helps her get through the struggles she deals with at home. To Mei, PLT is a necessity to her life. This of course, brings me the the curiosity of you and your pets! :) Do you have any pets? If so, what are they? Do you own anything cool like a hedgehog or a piglet? Would you consider them as another family member? How much would you depend on them if no one in your family listened to you just like Wu Mei's situation? If you don't own any pets, would you still do the same if you did? Anyways, for this week's scholarly plan, I promised I would write chapter summaries on post it notes. I have tried this technique and can say that they were very useful since there is a lot that goes on in her life. I hope to continue doing this for future chapters. I will continue enjoying this book and post more about it next week :) See you all then! By the way, both Cinderellas have a love for birds...coincidence??
Family...is family
I just wanted to first start off with these questions: Have you ever been betrayed by your own family member or relative? Do your parents have a favorite child even though they don't admit it? Lastly, how far would you go to get your parents' attention or just anyone's attention in general? The reason I ask these questions is because they were what came into my mind as I read the book and I really wanted to hear your opinion!! (: So, hi guys! I'm back with other analysis after another week of reading this wonderful book! Unfortunately, for this week, I haven't been on track with reading or began writing summaries on the post it notes but don't worry because I will fulfill my promise for next week's reading! :) In any case, if you do not recall, last week I learned about the imperfections that comes with every family when reading about Wu Mei and her uncaring family. For this week's reading, however, I learned people will do just about anything to draw attention to themselves. The way they do it is quite interesting too. I mean, we all know or have heard of those irrelevant stories about what celebrities do just so people will continue talking about them. Yes...those. Those stories where the actions of the celebrity do not benefit society or help anyone in anyway. I could go on about this topic but I don't want this to turn into a rant. Anyhow, I do think it's very interesting how people are willing to do anything to make themselves well known or stand out. Similarly to those celebrities, Wu Mei and a few of her siblings focused on getting the attention of their step-mother because she shows favoritism towards only her own children and treats them and the rest of the kids very differently. The siblings even thought about going on a hunger strike but then realized that she still would not care about them starving to death. But later in the reading, Mah reveals that Mei's sister, or Big Sister, betrays the rest of the siblings as she makes her way to being the step-mother's best friend after gaining her attention. The mother even allowed her to move her room on a separate floor from everyone else. Due to this whole gaining attention situation, I am now wondering if getting the attention of someone else is really that important and if what the kids are doing is actually worth it. Anyways, as always, thank you so much for taking the time to read my post! I will see you again next week hopefully with some more insightful ideas! :] ~Kelly Hello all! This week, I read a little bit of Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah. The book displays the life of a Chinese young girl, Wu Mei, who comes from what seems to be a typical Chinese family. However, just like the original version of Cinderella, Wu Mei is very much unwanted by her many siblings, step-mother, and sometimes by her own father. For example, one day she brought home an award from school and immediately, her sister slapped her across the face. Her sister also told her to stop showing off even though those were not her intentions. Her family thinks of her as bad luck since her biological mother passed away right after she was born. As a result, Wu Mei tries to become independent while living with a family who sees her as undesirable. After reading this, I realized that not all families are perfect where everyone loves each other despite the fighting or arguments that happen. Wu Mei's relationship with her siblings is the complete opposite between my brother and I and probably many other siblings. For example, sometimes my brother and I have huge arguments with each other but by the end of the day, we still care about one another. What about you? If you have siblings, what happens after your arguments? Do you make up with each other by the end of the day or do you ignore each other for a while? Throughout this week, I read 32 pages of the book. Half of those pages I read in my living room while the rest I read in class. I am really enjoying this book because it is not only a spin off of the original Cinderella, but this story actually happened to this ten-year-old girl. Overall, I have not been doing anything to this book besides reading it but now I think I will use post-it notes to write sentence summaries for each chapter because it makes me think about what I just read. Wow, you made it this far! Thanks so much for taking your time to read this! Your comments are very much appreciated too! (: Be on the look out for my return next week with another post based on part 2 of my reading journey! ~Kelly |
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