When you first hear you have cancer, the room kind of spins. You sit there and life kind of slows down. The whole world stops, but your brain can't stop racing. Now as someone who has anxiety, a racing brain is not a novel feeling. But this was different. See with anxiety, you can take a pill or exercise to erase it. However, with cancer, everything is an unknown.

On September 24th, 2016, I was diagnosed with Stage III melanoma. As someone in college and away from home, the news hit me one hundred times harder. The funny thing is when people learn that you have cancer, you get a lot of pity. People who you barely talk to start offering you everything. You get asked out on dates because everyone wants to be the hero. But the truth is I refuse all of it and here's why:

-I don't want your pity.

-I want true love.

-I don't want to be a charity case.

What I do want is love from this one guy. He's one of the most honest and loving people I've met. Just one problem: he's my ex. I thought cancer was a sign we should get back together because I know our love is still there, and we're meant to be. I knew that while I lose my hair and my cheeks swell, I wanted him by my side telling me I'm beautiful. I knew that this experience could bring us so close together, and his love would be honest. I guess that feeling of forever never goes away. You see, I fucked up. I lost the love of my life because everything was going to shit in my life, and I couldn't handle it. There were problems with my dad, anxiety from leaving everything familiar, and being scared of losing everything close to me. I'm scared, and I'm alone...all I want is him by my side and to make him happy. But hey, now I'm just a girl with cancer who fucks up everything she touches. I'm living my worst nightmare, and I'm living it alone.

Reflection Time: First Semester (Barbie Doll)

I chose to reflect on “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy. Even though the character in the story “was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity…everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs” (Piercy 7-9, 11). Although the girl in the poem posses good qualities, they are personality traits most associated with males, and therefore, undesirable for a girl. All the criticism the girl receives causes her to commit suicide and mutilate her body. At the funeral, while everyone is looking at the girl in the casket, they say, “doesn’t she look pretty” (Piercy 23)? They can only find beauty in her mutilated body, and compliment her when it is too late.

Growing up, I often faced problems with anorexia and body image issues. I was often bullied, like the girl in “Barbie Doll,” for not looking like how others wanted me to look. I got teased for being a bit overweight and not having blue eyes and blond hair like everyone else. When I began to lose weight, I still saw myself as fat when I looked in the mirror. It took me a while to be confident in myself, and embrace the other good qualities I have. We often judge a book by its cover instead of looking beyond the surface. In a world that focuses on images rather than personalities, we are forced to conform to what others want in order to escape judgment. 

Reflection Time: My Choice

My Choice Reflection

            Ender Ady really captivated me with his poem “I Should Love to be Loved” with his style of writing. He is able to distinguish his character’s relationship with others from the very beginning of the poem by saying, “I am neither infant nor happy grandfather
/ Nor parent, nor lover
/ Of anyone, of anyone” (1-3). I really liked how he casually eliminated relationships that his character could have in each line at the beginning of the poem. By taking away these basic relationships, Endre Ady’s character appears alone, and lost.

Further portraying Endre Ady’s character as lost, Endre Ady repeats himself twice at the each of each stanza. At the end of the poem, the character says, “I wish to be of someone, I wish to be of / someone,” which not only sounds like an echo, but also a desperate call to find someone who will care about him. Since he has no one, Endre Ady’s character just wants to find someone who will show the slightest bit of interest in him because he wants to be finally noticed.

Finally, throughout the entire poem, Endre Ady has his character desperately try and be noticed by those who are around him. He says, “I should like to show myself to the world, /
So that someone sees me, so that someone sees me. / This is why I sing and I torment myself” (9-11). Endre Ady has his character make obvious cries for attention because he wants the reader to get how desperate his character is to be noticed, and how he is done living his currently lonely lifestyle. Endre Ady displays his character’s entire life by using different writing styles such as repeating himself. 

Going Back to His Roots?

Is Gogol finally starting to become more confident in his heritage? In chapter 8, it really seemed like he was getting back to his family roots, and Moushumi is helping him step out of his rebellious phase. Gogol seemed to be really humbled by his father's death, and it probably made him realize how important family is, and how uncertain life can be. Gogol seems to be spending more time with his family, and even though "he is invited to join [his coworkers], he always says no" when they ask him to go out for drinks (190). Gogol not going out to party and him staying at home with his mother and sister show how deeply Ashoke's death hit Gogol, and how he is trying to rekindle the relationship between him and his mother.
Additionally, the relationship forming between Gogol and Moushumi is helping Gogol become more confident in his heritage because he has nothing to hide. Unlike all the other girls he has wooed, Moushumi is the first woman who know Gogol by his true name. Gogol and Moushumi grew up together, so he has nothing to hide and can be completely himself. Even when they go out to dinner, "they sometimes slip Bengali phrases into their conversation in order to comment with impunity on another diner's unfortunate hair or shoes" (211). Gogol speaking his native language is a huge stepping stone for him. Gogol communicating with Moushumi in Bengali is the first time in a while we have seen Gogol not embarrassed about who he is or his past.
So what do you think? Is Gogol embracing who he truly is? Or will he just go back on the American path?

American or Indian?

I knew Gogol, or should I say Nikhil, would be faced with the challenge of embracing his Indian heritage, while fitting in to American culture and find out who he truly is. He becomes almost obsessed with his image after finding out who he was named after, and goes as far as changing his name. Instead of thinking about how changing his name will affect his parents, Gogol "thinks of how many more women he can now approach" with his new name and sense of confidence(103). He thinks that people will be able to take him more seriously with a new name; however, "the only person who tormented him, the only person chronically aware of and afflicted by the embarrassment of his name, the only person who constantly questioned it and wished it were otherwise, was Gogol" (100). The self inflicted pain Gogol causes makes him more similar to the man he so desperately doesn't want to be named after.

Additionally, Gogol faces challenges embracing his heritage in personal conversations, and fails to identify with his culture. When Gogol is asked "why [isn't he] a member of the Indian association," Gogol comes up with an excuse and says "[he] just [doesn't] have the time" (119). With his new name, Gogol believes he is more American than ever, and is extremely self conscious of being viewed any other way. I think that eventually Gogol will embrace his Indian heritage, but it will take a while for him to get over his insecurities of being judged and being viewed as the odd one out. As for now, Gogol despairingly tries to be viewed as American.

Cultures Clashing

To begin with, I actually really like what I have read so far of the namesake. I know a little too much about Ashima, yet I feel a sense of empathy. We all experience those situations where we feel helplessly alone, or out of our comfort zone. Ashima just is dealing with that on a much larger scale.
Much of Ashima's loneliness stems from the extreme differences between American culture and Indian culture. Even her marriage is completely different than anything we would expect in the U.S. Her husband was a suitor who visits her house one day, and then "one week later the [wedding] invitations were printed" (Lahiri 9). I mean how crazy is that? However, to Ashima, it is completely normal. Also in the hospital, she hears a man say, "I love you" to his wife, and all she can think is, "words [she] has neither heard nor expects to hear from her own husband" (3). Her reaction further shows the difference in American and Indian cultures. We are so used to hearing people express their love publically, like on Valetine's Day or through social media, that we forget in some cultures, feelings are often harbored rather than expressed. American's fear what we don't know, so everything has to be made public.
Additionally, Indian traditions differ from American traditions. Ashima is forced to face a
clash of traditions at the hospital when naming her new baby boy. While the doctor suggests naming her son after a family member when Ashima and her husband fail to receive the letter from her grandmother, "[the] tradition doesn't exist for Bengalis, naming a song after a father or grandfather, a daughter after mother or grandmother. This sign of respect in America and Europe, this symbol of heritage and lineage, would be ridiculed in India" (28). Even the small differences in traditions make Ashima feel like an outcast and long for her homeland where everything is familiar.

After reading the two chapters, my question is will Ashima's baby boy face this culture clash growing up? Will he be stuck between making his parents happy by embracing his Indian heritage, and trying to fit in as an American?

Self Inflicted Pain

Let me begin with saying that the Underground Man is one depressed guy, who really likes to inflict unnecessary pain upon himself. Maybe his depression comes from the fact he is stuck in a corner all day, or how he is so caught up in his own thoughts. Not only is Dostokevsky's book a bit difficult to read, but his main character is quite dislikable.

The frustration I feel towards the Underground Man stems from the fact that he his own anguish, and does absolutely nothing about it. The Underground Man begins the book by talking about his liver problems, and deciding not to go to a doctor out of spite, and exclaims, "my liver is bad, well then--let it get even worse" (Dotoskevsky, 3)! Is he just trying to anger the reader, or have them feel some sort of pity towards him? Well either way, it is extremely annoying.

The Underground Man also reveals he is kind of a scapegoat for others in chapter 2. He admits "that [he] was always the most to blame in everything, and what [was] most humiliating of all, to blame for no fault but [his] own but, so to say, through the laws of nature" (8). This actually made me feel a bit bad for him. I mean maybe him being blamed for everything is what caused him to become so insecure, and spiteful of everyone.

Finally, the Underground Man inflicts self-suffering by his intense distrust of humanity. He asks the question, "but, after all, here is something amazing: why does it happen that all these statisticians, sages and lovers of humanity, when they calculate human advantages invariably leave one out" (20)? Out of all his sorrow, the Underground Man brings up a good point. When he mentioned this, I realized in any situation, one person is always left out.

Even though Notes from Underground is a challenging read, and sometimes a bit irritating, I like how the Underground Man makes me engage in the text, reflect on my own life, and think about the pain I inflict on myself.