Ms. Quinson\'s Period 5 Blog 2008-09

Please write one post for each of the three books you read off the summer reading list.  If you read more than three books, and many of you have, please choose your three favorite books from the summer reading list.  The actual assignment can be accessed from the blogroll.

 In addition, please comment (in a respectful way, of course) on at least five posts by your classmates.  You will most likely want to comment on a post about a book that you have also read, which is fine.  Remember, though, that it is lots of fun to get a comment, so be sure to look for posts which havet yet had a comment, and consider writing a comment there!

Most of all, though, enjoy this forum for expressing and sharing your ideas about your reading.

-josh 

I live on Mango Street and I’ve been here long enough. I need to get away from here. Somewhere that’s far away. Away from Mango Street. Somewhere else where the grass is greener where the sky is bluer. Just anywhere but here. Away from the monkey garden that I don’t play in any more, away from the boys and the nuns and the red clowns. Everything here in Mango.

For now I am trapped in Mango Street. It is holding me like a dog with his bone. I am a prisoner here. Trapped and handcuffed. One day yes one day I will break these bonds of Mango Street. I will break free. I will come out like a butterfly out its chrysalis. Beautiful, like a vase of flowers.

I can’t forget my friends and my family though. Well, that’s what those three sisters who never came back said. I don’t know when or if I will come back one day to Mango Street. I probably will come back only because of the others here who are forever trapped. First, I will need to leave. Far away from Mango Street.

 [Before "Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays" and after "No Speak English". By Marnie Pimentel.]

Ana sat behind me and made my hair slick with sweat. But it wasn’t her fault. Her eyes were always like that. Huge and wide, gaping like the gutters catching rain. They collected every second and piece of light, camera lenses, black and clear and endless. Like there was nothing else to see. I wish she would blink sometimes. I wondered if she ever saw the red insides of her head. She drinks and drinks and drinks, but the air around her is empty.

She doesn’t talk very much. She just likes looking out the window. And playing with dolls. So strange at this age. She makes them out of paper and has them fall in love and run away forever. They are free for a few minutes until she packs them away in a little tin box. And she likes being inside mostly, paler than all of us. Just looking. She floats in the rush and looks like nothing. There was one time I saw her being something, though. Ana running to the back of the bathroom. Ana sticking her long fingers down her throat. Ana coughing up white pills and coming out red-faced and puffy and exhausted. And her eyes are broken every morning.

            I don’t know. They talk about her sometimes, the teachers, they say where did her mother go, her father must be so lonely there, why doesn’t he go out and find another woman? Ana Ultima, future of Mango Street. Ana Ana Ana. The name she hasn’t heard in years. Her house is silent mostly. She carries it through the hallways like a permanent shawl. And we want to talk to her but she won’t talk back.

The address 4006 Mango Street is no longer the same as it was before. It is big and red with white steps in the front and the windows so big, you would think that they were still exhaling, and ready to take the next breath. The crumbling bricks replaced with, new strong and sturdy ones. The front door that was so swollen that you would have to push hard had been removed, and in its place was a mahogany door, intricate in design that opened at the slightest touch. The four little elm trees that had been planted as an excuse by the government matured, spreading its arms around each other, the same way that your mother did when you were you were young and scared. The inside still had hallway stairs, yet, they felt as grand as ever. The monkey garden was no longer there. Instead were little miniature houses, each a replica of the other. Rachael and Lucy, married, and gone on their own ways. Mr. Benny no longer owned the grocery. In its place instead was the shoe maker, with his house on top, and store on the bottom, and on display, were a pair of shoes, the strappy kind that Lucy, Rachael, and I had walked in for the first time…

…I felt like an outsider. Before I was just an eagle, looking for his prey from a contour point of view… a fish trying to float on top of the water, indifferent, yet different at the same time. I do not know what made me do it, but it took me seventeen years to realize it… the more I wanted to be away from Mango Street, the closer I got to it.

We did not always live on Mango Street. Before that, we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler, it was Paulina. But now, I am back again…
I would put this vignette directly at the end. I think that it would have more meaning if it was directly in the end, rather at the beginning! The address 4006 Mango Street is no longer the same as it was before. It is big and red with white steps in the front and the windows so big, you would think that they were still exhaling, and ready to take the next breath. The crumbling bricks replaced with, new strong and sturdy ones. The front door that was so swollen that you would have to push hard had been removed, and in its place was a mahogany door, intricate in design that opened at the slightest touch. The four little elm trees that had been planted as an excuse by the government matured, spreading its arms around each other, the same way that your mother did when you were you were young and scared. The inside still had hallway stairs, yet, they felt as grand as ever. The monkey garden was no longer there. Instead were little miniature houses, each a replica of the other. Rachael and Lucy, married, and gone on their own ways. Mr. Benny no longer owned the grocery. In its place instead was the shoe maker, with his house on top, and store on the bottom, and on display, were a pair of shoes, the strappy kind that Lucy, Rachael, and I had walked in for the first time…

…I felt like an outsider. Before I was just an eagle, looking for his prey from a contour point of view… a fish trying to float on top of the water, indifferent, yet different at the same time. I do not know what made me do it, but it took me seventeen years to realize it… the more I wanted to be away from Mango Street, the closer I got to it.

We did not always live on Mango Street. Before that, we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler, it was Paulina. But now, I am back again…

ICECREAM TRUCK

On Mango Street people don’t have a lot of extra money.  So most of the times the icecream trucks skip us because no one ever buys anything.  But today there must have been a new driver. Because just as I was riding the bike into the street (it was my turn with it) I heard a sound.  A strange sound I could vaguely remember but I hadn’t heard in a while.  It sounded like bells.  Not real bells.  Bells like the ones on the bike’s handle bars or the one Cathy used to play with her cats with or the one Rosa Vargas rang everyday to the deaf ears of her kids.  Every time it rang Rosa would yell out Come home! It’s time for dinner.  But the Vargas kids just ignored her and just kept on playing.  They knew their mama would keep the dinner out on the table for them.  But the sounds I heard that day were not the same as the sad hopeless bell that no one but Rosa heard.  It wasn’t the tinny ring of the bicycle bells or the tiny ringing of cat’s toys either.  It was happy and strong.  It had a feeling of hope that called out all the children from their houses.  At first it was soft.  Almost too soft to hear.  So soft, that I thought that something was stuck in my ear.  I thought it was an earwig.  Cathy had once told me that earwigs crawled into your ears at night to eat your earwax and keep it from clogging up.  But sometimes, she said, they got stuck and would make you hear things.  So I tried sticking my pinky in my ear to try to pull it out.  But then, I saw the other kids looking down the street to where the sounds of bells were coming from.  It was louder now.  I could see a white truck coming around the corner.  At first we all thought it was the mail truck.  We were all wondering who was going to get the mail that played happy bell music.  But then as it got closer, we saw that it was no mail truck.  It had too many stickers and colors.  Then, as Mr. Benny was coming back from grocery shopping, he said it looked like the icecream truck is here.  I heard about icecream from Cathy. She said that in France everybody ate icecream and that it was the most delicious thing in the world.  When heard Mr. Benny say it was the icecream truck, I saw some of the Vargas kids running up asking for icecream.  They had no idea what it was, but they saw from the stickers on the truck that it made people happy.  The truck stopped, and a person inside opened a window and stuck out his head.  I heard him say that icecream was one dollar.  I ran inside and got the money I saved.  Since I helped buy the bike, I only had a quarter left.  I ran to get it from Nenny, and told her about how Cathy said icecream was delicious.  But she also only had a quarter.  We walked into the street, and saw Lucy and Rachel looking for money on the floor.  They had found a quarter, a dime, six pennies, and two nickels.  We decided we were going to buy an icecream and share.  We bought it and it was a rolled up hard waffle with some cold soft stuff in the top.  We licked it, and it was delicious!  It tasted like that vanilla milk Mr. Benny let us have when he bought more than he needed, except creamier and colder.  We took bites after a while, but then our heads began to feel weird.  Then, there was a feeling like someone was squeezing my brain.  We dropped the icecream, but we were all happy.  When I live in my giant house, I’m going to buy icecream and I’ll eat it with the bums everyday.

I had to go back. I remembered what the three sisters had said. So, I went back. I went back to Mango Street where all the buildings used to be monsters in my mind, where I was once ashamed to live. But now, a different feeling as I got out of my car staring at my childhood neighborhood. The small red building with the tight steps in front had welcomed me just as it did the day I moved into it fifteen years ago. This feeling, I don’t know exactly what it was but something inside me was telling me there was something I needed to do. Perhaps a reason why I came back. I didn’t know what it was or where to start. I went by the four little elm trees in our yard which had now grown a lot bigger. I knocked on the door and a little boy answered it. A boy? He was wearing plain blue jeans and I white torn up t-shirt.

He was very handsome for his age and he looked serious. I said hello politely. After two minutes of silence, someone emerged from behind him. It was a familiar face but I couldn’t put my finger on where I had seen this lady before. Then it hit me. It came crashing down on me as Sally’s father’s hand had crashed down on her that one time. It was Sally. But not the Sally I remember. She was all grown up, she had become even more beautiful than she was as a child. Mommy who is that? Why is she just standing there? The little boy spit out the words. Who was he? I thought to myself. It had to be Sally’s boy. Don’t worry Jairo, it’s just an old friend, the boy’s mother replied. I had nothing to say, I stood at the door step in awe until Sally invited me in.

I had dinner with Sally and her boy and all throughout it something had still been bothering me. I put it behind me and concentrated more on what the little boy was saying. And trust me, for such a small boy he had a lot to say.. He talked about a new place he had played in today. He described it and immediately I recognized what he was talking about. Yes, he was talking about a garden, but not just a garden. The little boy spoke of the monkey garden. His description of it was almost identical to mine. The garden had sunflowers as big as flowers from a different planet, he began. My mind dozed off again. He was talking about the garden whose sweet smell I would always remember. Not a good memory, I thought. That’s the garden in which I stood helplessly and watch Sally lose all her innocence.

The rest of dinner was very quiet. Besides a few questions Sally threw at me. Where did you go to? How did you get there? I told her my story and the look on the little boy’s face was just brilliant. It was as if he looked up to me, but really I looked up to him. I thought, he was braver than me, he’s better than me. He wasn’t ashamed of his home. He loved it. I was on my way out when I realized something. I realized that the name Jairo meant God enlightens. And finally I understood what the three sisters meant. Yes, I had to come back. I had to come back and tell my story to Jairo so that he could be just like me. To grow up and be successful. To grow up, come back, and tell another child on Mango Street that living there would shape their lives. And they had to just keep their heads straight. That living on Mango Street was not something to be ashamed of. It was something that was honorable. Living on Mango Street was an honor. You just had to know that life wouldn’t always be so difficult. And for you to know, you had to know that someone else had been in your same exact shoes and they lived through it to be successful. To this day, I go back every year. I go back just like the sisters told me to.

Nothing to Do

Some days I cannot decide what to do. I still need money, since I left my old job. That job was easy, but I did not enjoy feeling to lonely. I would be at school now, but my parents always say school costs too much. Now I’m stuck on the streets, with nothing to do. It’s a cold, cloudy day. I wish I could ride my bike with Lucy and Rachel, but they had to visit their sick grandparents at the other side of town. But now, I just watch the rain fall. Nenny is inside, but why would I play with her? She is childish, and could not even make up a simple rhyme the other day. I’d take a walk, but my ordinary brown and white shoes hurt too much.

As it is pouring, I still have nothing to do. Just to think of what I could be doing if I had a friend by my side. But hardly anyone on Mango Street is like me. They all sit, looking out their window, thinking of a life far from theirs. A life of happiness, not of gloom and sadness. But me, I can still achieve my happiness. I have only recently moved to Mango Street.

Old Promises Not Forgotten

I finally got out. I finally got out of Mango Street, and into the world. But I still feel something. Something inside me. As though, there is something missing. I can’t really explain it. It’s like when my papa started crying, because my abuelito died. Or when my friend Cathy moved away. I felt like something was missing, and I had a feeling that I knew what it was.
Some time ago I talked to the three sisters. I was still living on Mango Street, and they started reading my hand. They looked like they were looking for something, and as though they found it, excitedly told me that I was special. They told me to make a wish and I did. I had wished that I could escape Mango, and they then instructed me. I was told that I must come back. That I must return for those that can’t escape. I realized my selfishness in wishing for this, and promised to them that I would.
This must be why I am feeling this way, so I have promised to my self that I will return to Mango tomorrow.

 Zeze The X Saves The Day

I ride down Mango, in my new top of the line car. Everywhere people stare. As though I really don’t belong here. But I know. I know that this is my home. But I waver as I see the faces of the people turn from admiration and envy. To those of hatred and dislike. Their jealousy consumes them and they can’t fight it off any longer.
Its not until I get out of the car that their faces change. Some soon recognize me. The one they thought had left forever, and they become friendly. I see new faces, and old ones. People are whispering. Asking who I am, and others answering their questions. I feel great and that is when I remember my mission. What I really came here for. To save them.
I greet the people I remember. My parents, Nenny, Minerva, Sally, and many others. Sally had returned after she couldn’t take her husband any longer. I even learn that Alicia made it. She became a lawyer in the city.
After telling my family of my recent activities as a writer, I explain to them why I’m there. I finish telling them my goal and they have mixed reactions. My proud Papa and Mama quickly telling me that they are fine. But I know better than to listen to them. Nenny jumps to the idea and accepts the money and gift of new shoes wholeheartedly.
I finish with them, and I see them. The bums. It is then that I remember the other promise I had once made to myself. That I would have a bum in my attic. I walk up to them, and they cower away at first. But then they realize that I mean no harm, and let , me approach them. There are seven of them. Like the seven dwarves. I explain to them what I wanted, and they think I’m crazy. They then realize that I am serious, and they hesitate. Then they jump at the offer. Living in a home for free. This was an amazing idea for them, and they agree.
I bring them back to my house, and they make themselves at home. They settle down in the attic and I bring them some cots. And at that moment I realize. I realize that I really did make a difference.

Childhood (noun). The phase of human development the state or time of being a child. The perfect word to describe Esperanza in the beginning of The House on Mango Street. Adolescence (noun). The process or state of growing to maturity. The perfect word to describe Esperanza at the conclusion of The House on Mango Street.

            Esperanza, the narrator of the novella, is still in her childhood years in the development of the story. She believes that boys and girls live in two completely different worlds. Esperanza doesn’t even speak to her brothers outside of the house because she is “not allowed”. When she becomes an adolescent, she begins to experiment with the power she has over men. In “Red Clowns” Esperanza takes on uncharacteristic childish innocence. Esperanza has matured over the course of a year, but being assaulted leaves her helpless and scared. She blames the women in the town, movies, storybooks, and magazines. Blaming her attackers is evidence that she has not yet developed.

            The number one danger of maturing is knowing more about the things you never understood. Esperanza didn’t know anything about the more “mature” things in life and thought that everything was pleasant.

            Sandra Cisneros described the transition from childhood to adolescence in the novella. There are many pitfalls of this transition. Sandra Cisneros thinks to survive through this transition, you have to stay strong and be brave. I would also add that you have to choose which friends you want to keep and which ones you think aren’t real friends. Relating this to my own life experience; I have a lot of trustworthy friends. But some of my “friends” are never there to help me and they only care about themselves. You can also relate this to Esperanza. She realizes that being friends with Sally isn’t such a great thing because Sally wasn’t there for her when the boys assaulted her. Esperanza looses her loyalty and trust in Sally.

            There are many dangers and pitfalls in the transition from childhood to adolescence. Esperanza experiences dangers, but learns from her mistakes.