The Test

Only by retelling his interviews with schizophrenia patients, the author provides the readers sufficient ideas about the illness and how hard and pitiful their lives are. The author cleverly leads the readers to his own life which is not less pitiful than the schizophrenia patients' whom he has written about. Life is so ironic!

Susie Bayer's T-shirt

George Packer interviewed Susie Bayer about her T-shirt that she gave to charity. He described her T-shirt vividly to leave an impressive and curious on the readers about what special would happen next to the T-shirt. The author spent time visiting the thrift shop and the recycling factory to see what happened to the T-shirt and it was so funny that Susie Bayer's T-shirt wasn’t in the donation and was shipped to Africa for sale as used clothes. He also discovered that most of other donated clothes were shipped to Asia, South America, and Africa for sale. It was so impressive that he continued his journey with the T-shirt to Africa just to discover that Susie Bayer’s T-shirt was sold to Yusaf Mama for $1.20. But it is his true observation and follow-up made his article worthy and reliable to the readers. His conclusion about the fact that Americans are such wasting money by buying clothes in disposable quantities becomes much stronger!

It is to say that we need true and good and entire observations for a good and influential piece of writing.

The Test

Only by retelling his interviews with schizophrenia patients, the author provides the readers sufficient ideas about the illness and how hard and pitiful their lives are. The author cleverly leads the readers to his own life which is not less pitiful than the schizophrenia patients' whom he has written about. Life is so ironic!

What is a True Vietnam in Me?

I was born and grew up in a beautiful sea town in central Vietnam called Nhatrang. My childhood was the early mornings when I went swimming with the kids in my neighborhood, was the moments when we enjoyed the amazing sunrise, was the afternoons when we rode along the beach on Tran Phu Street, was the evenings when we played hide and seek in the community yard not far from my house, was the flooded days when we could row the wooden rafts made by ourselves. Those beautiful things together with the knowledge I learned at school built up a pride about my country in me.

Vietnam was a country of independence, freedom and happiness. That was what I learned at school! I can never forget the slogan we said proudly every Monday morning under the national red flag with yellow star waving in the air: “For The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, for the ideals of our Great Uncle Ho, Be Ready!” I was so proud of my country that I could never think there would be any Vietnamese person who did not love my country.

I would never doubt what I learned at school until the day I met a gentle man who later became my husband.

It was the year 2004 when I was twenty-four years old. I moved to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) for my master degree in language teaching methodology as my hometown was too small to have post-graduate education.........

Kobe Bryant - He doesn't want your love

“Kobe Bryant”

Five questions I think Sager asked during the interview:

-          How did you feel after the accident? What did you do to overcome the situation?

-          What did you do when you noticed that your shot were rotating to the right?

-          How hard did you practice?

-          Can you tell us something about your private life, I mean your love story?

-          How do you feel now when you are successful and?

"Insurgent’s Tale"

Downey told a whole story of an insurgent who was proud of all the fighting he had in the past and the changes in his viewpoint about wars.

All wars are amoral. Those who are for wars, finally will discover that they are wrong. They will finally feel tired and just want an ordinary life with their family, an ordinary desire of any ordinary person.

Downey observed Khalid at a qat chew and Khalid’s attitude and feelings in the evening when a soldier who had been killed was brought back for burial.

Elizabeth Kolbert's article "The scales fall"

Elizabeth Kolbert reported the eating and catching history of the Atlantic bluefins and listed some researches with specific statistics to figure out the extinct risk of the bluefins as well as some other sea species. However, according to Kolbert, though people and some organizations have carried out programs and policies and called to action but they are not really effective. So, Kolbert very much suggests that worthy proposals on this issue should be instituted in a large enough scale to prevent the ocean-wide slide into slime.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2010/08/02/100802crbo_books_kolbert

Sager's essay on Kobe Bryant-Kobe Bryant Doesn't want your love

"Do you know Kobe Bryant, Thu?", my teacher asked - and a smile on my face means "No". All of the students in my class know him except me!!!!!!!

Westbury Court

My second.....

first reading of E101, MWF 10:10-11:05

It's a big surprise to me when the first handouts the teacher assigned us to read were about the war in Vietnam. I was born and grew up in Vietnam. I am Vietnamese. My father was once a soldier in the Vietnamese American War. I can feel and see what is happening in the story. When I was at school, what I was taught was the pride for my country, the love for my people, and the love for unlucky lives. This explained for my extreme anger at the stupid soldier who threw the carton of milk to the poor man for no reason in "The man at the Well". And I was even more surprised when no one had an action or just a word on that stupid guy. I always expected a hero, or just a normal person that would appear and do something. But nothing happened, and no one did anything. That's non-fiction, I know. There will never be a knight in such a real life. We cannot make up, or change the truth to meet our expectations in non-fictions! Non-fictions deal with real events and people. Characters, settings, and events must conform to what is true. Story cannot be manipulated by the writer’s imagination. That's what I learn from the two stories on the same subject."The man at the well" and "The things they carried". They were written by the same author Tim O'Brien but they are different, completely different just because one is non-fiction and the other is not. I learn that what happened is never exactly the same with what you see happened. What I should do in my immersion project? I have to write exactly and objectively what my characters, Vietnamese people who left Vietnam during 1975-1990, say and think about their motherland now though I like or do not like.