“Hope that you won’t forget that boldly giving up is courage as well.” – Min Yoongi As my time as a blogger comes to a close, I want to reflect what it was like to have to be a student during the coronavirus pandemic. Before I deleted social media, I saw a lot of posts …
Category Archives: Block 8
Books
When the Emperpor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka Follows a Japanese American family who were incarcerated in the Utah desert during World War 2 Fox Girl, Nora Okja Keller Three teenagers’ in America Town, the US military camp in South Korea in the 1960s, struggle to survive the impact of militarized intimacies, such as betrayal, violence, …
So, what now?
Excerpt from Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai: More is Not Better I now understand when they make fun of my name, yelling ha-ha-ha down the hall when they ask if I eat dog meat, barking and chewing and falling down laughing when they wonder if I lived in the …
Fox Girl
It took me a while to build up the courage to reflect on this book. Fox Girl by Nora Okja was so beautifully written, but so incredibly heart-breaking. When I imagine Korea, I think of vast oceans, development, music, idols, and industry. I don’t imagine a country that has been forever altered by a war, I don’t …
Spiral
Revolution By Ali Amin Speak to me with your tongue while it is still free, while your body is still yours. Let your words travel through the air, uncontrolled spontaneous necessary tumbling through clouds of dust that dim the sun. Until they reach my ear and so many ears, spilled onto the table, waiting. Speak the …
When Time Doesn’t Stop
“Her watch had said six o’clock for weeks. She had stopped winding it the day they had stepped off the train” – When the Emperor was Divine, Julie Otsuka We have all heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, but what do we know other than the Japanese had attacked America? In my …
A Bittersweet Moment
It has already been two months since we first received the move-out notice in March. In the beginning of this semester, we hardly thought about the coronavirus having such a huge impact on us because of its “distance.” I still remember how I was worried about missing my friends when I go study abroad blocks …
Motivation vs. Procrastination while Distance Learning
In my personal experience, it can be difficult to be productive while both distance learning and social distancing in tandem. The illusion of a purgatory-like free-time can curtail my motivation, but luckily I have begun to develop strategies to fight against my urge to procrastinate while weathering the COVID-19 pandemic. I start every day …
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Do you have a “story”?
Today, I will be reflecting on my our discussion about “true war stories”. During the first week of class, one of the stories we were asked to read was, Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice by Nam Le. In the story, the narrator is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to “sell out” …
Incarceration
Last Friday, we read When the Emperor was Divine, a story about a family’s experience during and after the Incarceration of Japanese peoples in America. By reading the story, it became more understandable as why so many internees were quiet about what happened to them. It wasn’t so much the time they spent in the …
