Two Truths and One Lie

Queridos Amigos,

Welcome to my "Double Life" Blog. My name is Ana Lucia. I'm like
any other student.  I go to school,  I work part-time, and I do my homework.  That's pretty much it.   By night, I write in my blog.  That's the "double life."    This is where I feel free to express myself. No one tells me what to write.  I decide.

I let the butterflies loose....

Below are three paragraphs about me.  Two are true.  And, one is a lie.  Can you guess which one?

1.  I love my family very much.  We are very close.  My father is an accountant.  My mother designs dresses.  My sister is an elite level high-school swimmer. My brother is kind of nut, but doesn't every family have someone like that? Welive in a nice house in the suburbs in the south of Colombia.  Life is great!  My family loves my boyfriend David, and he loves them.   We haven't told anyone yet, but you can count David as part of the family - We're getting married!  (If you are reading this, please don't tell my family.  It's going to be such a great surprise...)

2.  When I'm not with David or my family, I attend a local university.  I study medicine, but I want to be a psychologist.  Currently, I'm creating my own mental health blog page.  I want to share my thoughts and experiences with young  people who suffer from anxiety or stress.   My ultimate goal to to create an advice column  to help them pursue their dreams. David, by the way, is a graphic artist.  I will look to him to design my page. 

3. To help my family out of a financial disaster, I began doing tricks for an escort service.  In Colombia I'm not called a prostitute; I'm called a prepago.  This all began when my father lost his job.  He had been working at the same place for like thirty years when the company changed hands.  He spent months looking for another job, but everyone told him he was too old to hire.  He ended up working a doorman in a downtown hotel.  My brother - the idiota - somehow got his hands on what little savings our family had and began buying and selling stolen cars.  I'm not sure if he knew they were stolen or not, but when he was caught, our family lost everything.  We lost our savings.  The cars.  The house.  I began working as a prepago every night - I felt there were no other options to save my family from living in the streets. 

Can you guess which one is the lie?  Let me know.

Con mucho carino,

Ana Lucia

The Outsiders - Janis and Taylor - Defiant to the End

In English 61, Mr. Lewenstein asked us to compare our sixties subject to something or someone more familiar from today's age.  He told us the deeper we went into our comparison, the better we would understand our topic.  When I first thought of it, I couldn't think of anyone more different than Janis Joplin and Taylor Swift.  Their looks, their styles, their attitudes are opposite extremes.  But the more I read, the closer they became.  They are both ambitious in their love and their music.  They are two of a kind.

As young girls, both Janis and Taylor found themselves socially on the outside looking in, but that’s probably what pushed them both to songwriting.   They didn’t really fit into their high-school crowd.  They weren’t really followers.  They were free-spirits.  They were dreamers. 

Janis grew up in an affluent family in Port Arthur, Texas, but she ran away at age 17 because she felt like such an outcast.    While her high-school classmates were listening to Top 40 coming out of the AM radio, Janis was crazy for black blues legends like Bessie Smith, Big Mama Thorton, and Leadbelly.   In 1963, she landed in the psychedelic, drug-energized San Francisco music scene where she established her own unique sound as white blues queen and rock ‘n’roll mama. Janis  once said, "Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday....They are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can go no farther than from A to B, and they can make you feel like they told you the whole universe.”  

While Janis sought inspiration from the blues, Taylor’s songs often come straight out of her personal experience.  She writes about her her feelings, her dreams, and her heartbreaks.  Beginning  in middle school and continuing through high-school, Taylor didn’t have many friends or people to talk to.  She felt like an outsider looking in.  But all that misery and rejection pushed her towards songwriting.   She spilled her guts on paper.  Writing songs was like keeping a diary.  According to Taylor, she tries to write songs that people her age could relate to.  When she writes,  Taylor says she writes in real time.   She strives to be personal and honest..  In her songs, she shares the sadness and letdowns of her own relationships because she wants to let her fans know they are not alone: “Nobody ever lets me in/ I can still see you, this ain’t the best view/  On the outside looking in.” (from a song she wrote when she was twelve: “The Outside.”) 

 I read that both Janis and Taylor were often teased and bullied in high school. It’s like whatever makes you different at that age makes you somehow uncool.  At a certain point, they must have thought there was no chance to be part of the crowd.  I can only imagine their insecurities.  

Fortunately for them, music became their own form of therapy.  They may have not had anyone to talk to, but they were only a guitar away from saying something special.   Their music tells us it’s okay to stand apart.

Janis and Taylor - Compare and Contrast - The Runaways

In English 61, I'm writing my sixties research paper on Janis Joplin.  You can consider her a rock 'n' roll pioneer.  She was one of the first women performers to take center stage in the decade of the sixties.  You can say she paved the way for women rockers to follow - one of them, of course, being Taylor Swift.  Here, I compare their musical beginnings.

As soon as they possibly could, both Janis and Taylor left home to pursue their musical dreams on the big stage.  Janis ran away from home and fled to San Francisco.  Taylor took her family with her south to Nashville, Tennessee to become a star. In 1965, Janis found home in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco.  This area was known as a mecca for young hippies.  Young people  dressed in bright colors, beads and feathers were coming in from all over the world, and they listened to loud, crazy psychedelic rock.  Janis jammed with the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish and the Jefferson Airplane.  Her rough and  raucous voice pushed the music to the edge.  “They loved to see her get crazy,” said Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish. “It was part of her image: the wild woman, the blues mama” (Angel 42).  At 14 years of age, Taylor had the talent to earn a songwriting contract with Sony/ATV Records. She was the youngest songwriter they had ever  hired. For Taylor, it was the double life:  during the day, she attended high school like any normal teenager, but at night she was writing songs with professionals two and three times her age. She was right there in the middle of it, that same place – Nashville, Tennessee – that had skyrocketed the careers of music’s biggest stars: Elvis Presley, Patsy Cline, and Dolly Parton. Taylor was especially inspired by the young women that had come through town like Lee Ann Rimes and Shania Twain. Most of all, Taylor explained she loved these stars for  “We don’t care what you think” quirkiness (Spencer 16). While most teens spend their high school years finding themselves, both Janis and Taylor were clearly driven by their music.  As soon as they reached a certain age, there would be no waiting and hoping like the rest of us do.  The time for them to move was “now.”

                                    Works Cited 

Angel, Ann.  Janis Joplin: Rise Up Singing. New York: Amulet Books,  2010. Print. 

Spencer, Liv.  Taylor Swift: Everyday is a Fairytale.  Ontario: EECW Press, 2010. Print.

Janis Joplin and Taylor Swift - Freedom through Their Music

As passionate as Janis and Taylor are for their music, it’s no surprise that their lyrics often express their heartbreak for relationships lost.  I mean they are both free spirits. It’s hard to imagine either of them slowing down. How hard that must be to maintain a normal relationship? Their lovers must always feel secondary to their music.  

Janis most famous song – “Me and Bobby McGee” - was actually written by her lover at the time, Kris Kristofferson. It’s a song about discovering the world on your own terms.  There is a line the song about independence that goes like this: “Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin', don't mean nothin' hon' if it ain't free.”  What brought Janis and Kris together was what drove them apart.   They both wanted to be free, but they would never feel that way in a long-term relationship. 

In the same way, Taylor’s best songs are the most painful.  As much as she dreams of enchanted love, she sings of crushing despair.  In “White Horse,” her lyrics probably approach Janis’s “Me and Bobby McGee” in the way they express the hope to be with a person, and then there is that moment when you know it’s never going to happen.  She sings, “Holding on The days drag on..Stupid girl…I should have known.. I should have known.” Man, all she wanted was the truth. 

When I listen to these songs, I think of one sad disappointment after another.  One’s driving off into the distance.  One dreams of riding off on a white horse.  Whatever are looking for, they’re never going to find it.  The only place to feel free and honest is in their music.

The Times They Are A Changin' - Yoli Grows Up Right Before Our Eyes

     Motorcycle on the Sea of Tranquility gives us deep and insightful perpesctive into the Chicano experience.  This story isn’t so much about fighting as it is about loving.       Oquei, Chuy leaves the scene, both physically and emotionally, but in the middle of the night as he terrorizes the whole neighbourhood with his Harley Chopper,  he  seems to wake up a spirit in his little sister. 

Yoli is  almost 15 and  she sees herself as a writer.  Where other girls her age are busy talking about boys and makeup, Yoli has her journal out and is considering the wanderlust spirit she was born with.  She thinks about her father “searching for his El Dorado, a wife and pile of kids in tow.  She thinks about her brother blasting down the highway, and she feels that same  spirit of freedom and wonder tingling between her legs.

     Through Yoli, Santana takes us on a bumpy ride through the Chicano experience of her youth.  And it’s not all that  pretty.  First, and foremost, there is little chance to escape the oppressive role of women in Mexican culture -  Yoli doesn’t even have to leave the house.  Her father dominates her mother and makes the decisions for his daughters.  Her brothers mistreat, abuse and discard some of her closest friends.  Yoli, herself, is hot for a guy named Francisco Valdivia, but if she makes the first move, she knows what she will be labelled as.   How ironic is it that in a time where a man takes his first steps on the moon, the chicana woman is can’t approach a man without being called a puta.

     But with pain, there is growth.   As the legend of Chuy storms toward a violent forboding climax Yoli develops a quiet sense confidence and  independent thought.   What a surprise! In the end, it’s little sister Yoli who steps up to meet the needs of her cowering older brother.  Like  the journey of the moon, Santana’s story comes full circle.  We see at the end of the book that Yoli is ready for her quinceñera.  She is already a woman with secret knowledge and a broken heart.

Real Surprise at the Surprise Party - "Motorcycle" Is Not What You Expect!

      Take a look at the cover to Motorcycle ride on the Sea of Tranquility and amidst the mosaic of bright and happy colors you‘ll catch the blast of a street bike and a young girl’s naked thigh.  What you don´t get is a frightening story that takes place along the mean streets of an East San Diego Barrio. Yoli is 14 and is feeling it -  emotion,  culture and  sex – on the verge of her coming out party.  For Chuy, her favourite brother and returning Vietnam veteran, the party is over.  Patricia Santana paints a picture of a young girl´s innoncence that she will never get back. 

You see, her brother has changed since returning from overseas.  His voice is distant. The gleam in his eye is violent.  The picture is dark and brooding.  Chuy’s soul has  gone up in smoke like the exhaust out of a tailpipe.  

 Santana takes us back to a family reunion cerca April 1969.  A huge pachanga has been planned to celebrate their conquering hero, and  everyone has got their patriotic spirit on.  There`s red, white and blue streamers, frosted sheet cake and Ray Charles on the box. Of course, Yoli´s house is a ten-minute motorcycle ride from Tijuana, so you know there will be  the Mexican colors and plenty of carne asada.  Everyone is singing and dancing and eating.  The Sagahun family has “thrown the house out the window for this one,”   and the only person not digging it, is of course the man of honor, Chuy.  He`s not at all into peace and relaxation.  He’s still a soldier at heart.  He’s not going to give up himself up without a fight.  

He spends his time at the celebration trying to insult and disrespect anything and everything he can.  The world is his piñata.

Motorcycle MVP - "The Look"

Somwhere in the middle of the book, Yoli’s sister tells her not to be a tonta, or not to be a boba. According to Ana Maria, Yoli should just do as she does to make men pay attention.   But its when Yoli comes up with her own “Look”, I think she  establishes herself as her own person.  I vote “The Look” for MVP.

I  can see  how  “The Look” might annoy some readers.    After all, Yoli is clearly smarter and more compassionate than any of the other characters in the novel.   She reads classic literature. She writes poetry in her journal.  And probably most important,  she’s always there first  for her family and friends.  So when we see her strutting down down the locker hall at school all made up like some chola gangster chick, it’s kind of letdown.  I mean, we expect more from Yoli. 

She has enough going on where she doesn’t have to resort to the same old tired stuff that every other girl is trying in that hallway.  Yoli.. where’s the creativity?  The ideas?  Remember,  you are a mad poet!

But , then again Yoli’s new  Look has little to do with  eyelash curler, the mascara or the lipstick that  her sister loaned her.   For Yoli’s sisters and friend, the Look comes from hours spent priming and practicing in front of the mirror, wishing and hoping that their man will notice.   Yoli, however, isn’t the type of person to wait around and let things happen.  She pays more attention  what she feels in her heart than what she sees in the mirror.   Yoli’s Look  came out with her true emotion when she started throwing books in the hallway.   

In the beginning of the novel, Little Yoli learned an important lesson  in the go-kart run from her brother Chuy: he explained to her that real freedom comes when you “ push yourself all the way.”  In this scene with the out-of-control gokart she pushes herself nearly to the point of explosion to experience the feeling.   The same thing happens with Francisco.  When she lets loose with her lethal weapons – her textbooks – sheisn’t thinking about becoming Prom Queen;  she’s Queen of the Javelin throwers, and that feels fine with her.   

“And when the pinches cabrones finally walked past me, silent and embarrassed, not knowing what kind of walk to walk, Francisco’s eyes and mine met, and I gave him The LooK.”

Here, Yoli has stepped out of the shadows of her brothers and sisters.  She is her own person, and she has her own Look.  She’s free at last.  You Go Girl!

Don't Let the Bastards Get You Down

In Mr. Lewenstein’s class, we began the semester with a visual analysis assignment. We wrote WHAT tattoos people choose to wear and WHY they choose to wear them. Below I write about the story behind the story of the tattoo on my back.

The Black Geishas - About Us Page

 Nǐ hǎo to all of you.  Welcome to our Black Geisha page.
On the left is Hissie.  On the right is Ana Lucia.  That's me - Arish - in the middle.
By reading our pages in CANVAS groups, we invite you to follow our journey through English 110.
 For us, Writing is Magic.  Writing is Power.  Writing is Freedom. 
Below are our student profiles as they appear in our class blogs:

	My name is Ana Lucia.  I’m from Bogota, Columbia.  I look forward to sharing with you this semester on my brand new  The Double Life  I like to read,  I like to write,  and  I like to cook, but with this blog, I hope to  stand up for important social issues regarding equality, immigration reform, and drug and alcohol abuse.  Look for me this semester to write about women’s rights. I’m excited to have a voice and a place to use it.  Count on me as your IVC Friend of the Earth.
My name is Hissie Chrynde.  These are my interests: Cooking without meat, Long bike rides, Spanish-language telenovelas, Antique typewriters.  I'm studying art on this campus.  I want to transfer to Hofstra University in New York.  I want to see the world.  This semester I'm writing a research paper about Frida Kahlo. She inspires me with her spirit and determination.  Very Cool!  Are you ready for my blog?  Whenever I get real down and depressed, I try to write down what I feel.  It's not a very complicated or sophisticated process. I just type and type and type until the sadness goes away. When I began to think of an appropriate title for a blog, I came up with "Stop Your Sobbing.""  I think it just might work.
	My name is Arish.  Actually, my real name is Sira – that’s Arish spelled backwards.  I was born in Spain, but my destiny led to me to  Morroco.  That’s my story. I grew up as Sira in peace time and ended up Arish when World War II broke out. Sira is my softer, youthful self.  Arish is my harder edge.  I need them both.  In my blog, I hope to share a diversity of experience and emotion.  I can’t write one without the other. In English 009, I’m basing my research paper on the film Girl, Interrupted.   The film is a true-to-life story about a young women who struggled with mental illness.  She was intelligent, compassionate, and pretty, but she had developed bipolar personality disorder. Her parents committed her to a mental hospital.  My goal is to be nurse some day.  I want to be there to help people in need.  There are a lot of people suffering out there.  We have to open our eyes. Be more understanding.

Remember: Black is Beautiful!
Con mucho carino,
Hissie, Arish, and Ana Lucia.

The Black Geishas - Homepage

Welcome to our Official Black Geisha homepage.
To find out more about us, CLICK on our "About Us" page - go to "Pages" in the menu bar.
We look forward to sharing our work with you.  Every day is Black Friday with us!

About Us Page - The Black Geishas

 Nǐ hǎo to all of you.  Welcome to our Black Geisha page. 
On the left is Hissie.  On the right is Ana Lucia.  That's me - Arish - in the middle.
By reading our pages in CANVAS groups, we invite you to follow our journey through English 110.
 For us, Writing is Magic.  Writing is Power.  Writing is Freedom. 
Below are our student profiles as they appear in our class blogs:

	My name is Ana Lucia.  I’m from Bogota, Columbia.  I look forward to sharing with you this semester on my brand new  The Double Life  I like to read,  I like to write,  and  I like to cook, but with this blog, I hope to  stand up for important social issues regarding equality, immigration reform, and drug and alcohol abuse.  Look for me this semester to write about women’s rights. I’m excited to have a voice and a place to use it.  Count on me as your IVC Friend of the Earth.
My name is Hissie Chrynde.  These are my interests: Cooking without meat, Long bike rides, Spanish-language telenovelas, Antique typewriters.  I'm studying art on this campus.  I want to transfer to Hofstra University in New York.  I want to see the world.  This semester I'm writing a research paper about Frida Kahlo. She inspires me with her spirit and determination.  Very Cool!  Are you ready for my blog?  Whenever I get real down and depressed, I try to write down what I feel.  It's not a very complicated or sophisticated process. I just type and type and type until the sadness goes away. When I began to think of an appropriate title for a blog, I came up with "Stop Your Sobbing.""  I think it just might work.
	My name is Arish.  Actually, my real name is Sira – that’s Arish spelled backwards.  I was born in Spain, but my destiny led to me to  Morroco.  That’s my story. I grew up as Sira in peace time and ended up Arish when World War II broke out. Sira is my softer, youthful self.  Arish is my harder edge.  I need them both.  In my blog, I hope to share a diversity of experience and emotion.  I can’t write one without the other. In English 009, I’m basing my research paper on the film Girl, Interrupted.   The film is a true-to-life story about a young women who struggled with mental illness.  She was intelligent, compassionate, and pretty, but she had developed bipolar personality disorder. Her parents committed her to a mental hospital.  My goal is to be nurse some day.  I want to be there to help people in need.  There are a lot of people suffering out there.  We have to open our eyes. Be more understanding.

Remember: Black is Beautiful!
Con mucho carino,
Hissie, Arish, and Ana Lucia.

Kiss Out of My Past

I think Stephen King said it: The best way to become a better writer is to become a better reader.  It makes sense. Stephen should know.   Mr. Lewenstein encourages us to read outside of class.  Here he has asked us to share a "Book Out of Our Past."


I love Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, but not for why you think.  It’s one of those books teachers might tell you to stay away from.  In fact when it was first published it was banned from Argentina for its graphic sex and violence.  It’s about two men locked up together in a horrible Argentine prison.  One is a macho Marxist rebel leader, and the other is a flaming homosexual hairdresser.   They’re stuck together suffering the same  in humane  punishment,  eating the same gruel.   Obviously they are so different in stature and attitude,  and you would think that if they don’t learn to love one another, they’ll kill each other.  

I probably read this to escape from my own misery.   All my life, it seems that  I’ve been bedstricken by one disease or injury after another.  I look to reading as an escape from my loneliness, and  when I’m at my lowest, reading startles my mind and churns my heart.   It makes me forget about myself and look beyond my problems – that’s what I looked forward to in reading “Kiss” even if the story looks really nasty.

But , like I said, it isn’t really like that.  In fact, it’s nothing like I ever expected.  These guys in their prison cell, as troubled as they are,  give each other something that goes well beyond their immediate needs and problems.    They give each other something to think and dream about that propels them far beyond the dank cell walls.  Molina, the hairdresser, spends most of the movie relating a his favorite movie, scene-by-scene, to Valentin, the rebel.   I mean, it’s the only thing they have in that cell.  At first, Valentin wants no part of it -  the movie is dark and strange, and according to him, pretty stupid, but  as Kiss of the Spider Woman advances, so does Molina’s storytelling and  so does Valentin’s involvement.

There’s little sex  here.  Maybe a little.  But the intimacy that develops is in the minds and hearts of these two men.  Molina teaches Valentin two things that he can’t rebel against – hope and imagination.  Valentin has lived his whole life distrusting his world, and it’s Molina who teaches him to finally let go.I like books that may be a challenge  to follow.  Here, the main characters remain in place, but their stories are allowed to ramble.   Sometimes, you just don’t know where you are or where the book is going, but why would you read a book if you knew what was going to happen in advance?  How interested could you be if your understood everything?

My favorite part in this book comes in the end.  Molina is dead, and Valentin’s time is coming.  In his last days, he’s still in prison and  they are torturing him unmercifully. In probably the most confusing chapter you’ll ever read, Valentin somehow escapes and ends up on a desert island with the Spider Woman.  You don’t know if it’s a matter of pain, drugs, or pure love, but Valentin finally opens up his heart and soul.

I can’t spoil the end for you, but from the ugliest of existence  comes the most wonderful beauty.  You just want to stop and hold your breath.  Who could ban a book like that?  What teacher would direct you away from it? I say take this “Kiss” and close the door. 

Chuy Blocks Out the Sun in "Let the Sun Shine In"

In English 61, we are reading Motorcycle on the Sea of Tranquility.  Mr. Lewenstein told us it's going to be good.  I believe him.  It's a novel about the sixties, but the subject matter seems to be something we can all care about. The first two chapters are intense.  If the rest of the book is like the first two chapters, this is going to be a crazy ride.  Below I write about the Real Surprise at Chuy's Big Surprise Party.

Everyone was so happy that Chuy was returning from Vietnam safe and in one piece, but all it took was one look at him to know that something was missing. The Sahagun family had planned a "Welcome Home" party for their favorite son, Chuy.  He had gone to fight in the Vietnam War.  The event is a big deal for everyone.  It's clear everyone loves Chuy.  They are all so happy to see him again. 

But, here is the surprise:  Chuy doesn't look too happy to be back.  Clearly something has happened to him, but no one knows what. When Chuy stepped through the door, the house was packed with people.  They were so excited for his return.  There was food and drink and a picture of La Virgen Guadalupe hung between the flags of The United States and Mexico. A white frosted cake was decorated with the words, "Welcome Home CHUY!" Everybody was so happy for Chuy's return.  They were singing "Let the sun shine in." But, the only one who wasn't happy was Chuy.  He had a "stern and disapproving" look on his face, like this was the last place he wanted to be. I believe no one there could possibly understand what Chuy had seen and done in the war.  Most of all, Chuy himself.  He wasn't the same guy anymore. Today we might mention PTSD in this discussion.  Soldiers coming home from war zones often bring long-lasting trauma with them.  Back then, however, I'm not sure how much we knew about PTSD.  I'm sure Chuy's family - especially Yoli - is going to find out a lot more about it as the novel continues.

"Only Daughter" - Nothing "Only" about Sandra

This was the first week of class.  Mr. Lewenstein shared one of his favorite authors.  Her name is Sandra Cisneros.  Mr. Lewenstein said she writes with an edge.  We all agree!  We worked in groups to respond to her essay "Only Daughter."  She writes about her life-long struggle to gain acceptance from her father.

Sandra’s childhood experience of being “the only daughter” proved to be a great training ground for a writing career. In fact, it was her feelings of isolation and abandonment from her fathers and brothers that pushed her towards reading and writing. When she grew older, her skill for transferring her plight to the page enabled her to enter UC Berkeley and later become on of our most renown Latino authors. Her “ House on Mango Street”, for example, reflects many of the same childhood frustrations she describes in her essay. One story after another boasts the voice of a poor young girl struggling to make sense of her loneliness. When she writes in “Only Daughter” that she values her mistreatment from being an only daughter, We believe her. She learned how to convert her pain and confusion into beautiful, meaningful stories. In my opinion, her anger is her juice.

My Parents Divorce: Living Life Under Water

To begin the semester, we read a "Tuff Stuff" story about a young girl bullied and abused by her first boyfriend.  Mr. Lewenstein asked us to think about the causes and effects associated with this type of experience.  We all thought back to a challenge in our lives that we had to confront. The following is part of my own personal "Tuff-Stuff" essay. 

      The sudden news of my parents divorce shocked and confused me . I just didn't see it coming.  They never really argued or fought in front of us.  I thought we were one big, happy family.  I didn't know how to handle it.  Nothing in my life had prepared me for the deciding which parent to live with.  Everything I thought I knew turned out to be a lie.  For weeks, none of my brothers or sisters would even talk about it.  I mean, the more we thought about it, the more distant we became.  I remember eating dinner together like we always did, but no one would say a thing.  We ate in total silence.  It's like our house was underwater.  A sadness just drowned us out. When I look back now, I realize I must have been very naive to think I lived in the perfect family.  Statistics say 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce. But, that doesn't make me feel any better.