Emi's English Blog

Jason Taylor is a guy we can get behind. He’s interesting and his thoughts and antics make us laugh. His shortcomings endeared him to me. I remember reading the start of the chapter Maggot where Jason was being bullied and outcasted for his stammer and exclaiming to Nika, “ I hate Ross Wilcox so much!” I know I wasn’t the only one who wanted Jason to rise up and tell Ross Wilcox to stuff it, winning the respect of the school and the heart of Dawn Madden (whom he would then reject because he realized he deserves respect). That’s why I felt that little rush of justice when Jason found Ross Wilcox’s wallet and then Dawn dumped Ross. The image of Ross’ dumb miserable face in my mind (I pictured him looking like Reese from Malcolm in the Middle) was a sweet one, as I thought Jason is rich now! Ross has fallen! Justice is served! Rah rah rah! It was a perfect blow to Ross—the rich bully lost his allowance, learned he can’t treat people badly, feels like an idiot, etc. We all know t...

Living from boxcar to boxcar? That means no immediate access to showers, food, Netflix, toilets, beds, etc. Honestly, what’s the appeal? I don’t see it. I don’t understand transients in the same way that I don’t understand monks. But there probably is an appeal, because otherwise like why would people do it. I decided to do some research on what makes people pursue a lifestyle that means giving up all those human comforts that we are so attached to. Unfortunately people on quora were really unhelpful, so I’ll just think of some possibilities. 1.       Because society is meaningless Ruth sometimes reminded me of Holden Caulfield. Holden didn’t like the b.s. he sensed in the fronts people put up. He wanted to get away from it all. Ruth could have joined in with the popular dress-making girls, but she didn’t see a point. Both of them were overwhelmed by the pointlessness of a lot of the things people do in an attempt to cohabitate. Ruth wanted to get away fro...

I enjoyed my elementary education for the most part, but there was one teacher who will always haunt my memory. Mrs. Verdell was someone whom every kid wanted to please. Not necessarily because she deserved respect, but because she was an adult, and always had something to say. Kids hang onto the words of adults like lifelines in the middle of a sea. The world is a very confusing place for a kid growing up, and all they have to guide them is what adults say and do. Until kids someday come across the startling realization that not everything an adult says or does is from the fount of all wisdom, they tend to assume that adults can do no wrong. Sometimes that’s not so good. Mrs. Verdell taught art to all third and fourth graders, and so twice a week it was my class’s turn to file into the four by eight feet wooden-walled art room and learn how to use crayons and markers and properly administer liquid glue (a drop will do). Sometimes she would twist mannequins into a lifelike positi...

           I wasn’t sure why the goddam room got so goddam hot all of a sudden. It was like someone had wrapped the whole stinking thing up in tinfoil and stuck it in an oven like a potato or something, it was that hot. My armpits started to work up this terrible sweat. Somewhere above, this rusty ceiling fan was spinning around and around . Slowest thing I ever saw. It kept on stirring that hot air up into even hotter air and all these guys in the bar kept loosening their collars and sneaking looks around as though they were checking to see if some random furnace had appeared or something. I had half a mind to take off my old jacket but this real nasty looking pack of girls over at the counter were sorta giving me eyes and I didn’t want to give them anything to look at. There really wasn’t much of a reason for me to keep sticking around, but I didn’t have anything better to do tonight. This nervous little guy over in the corner kept sneaking these nervou...

Portrait of a Young Artist has spoiled us. Joyce opens his very mind and allows us to step into the life of another person. Other novels sometimes seem to place a sort of video camera in front of the character, and that is the view we have of them. Sure, we get inside their minds a little, with statements like “Oh, he made Clara so furious!” and “Jack had never seen anything so heartbreaking before, and he thought of his own mother,” or whatever, but PYA makes it seem as though we are Stephen himself. I personally have never read anything like this book before. Of course, this quality of PYA is also what throws off a lot of readers, because it is incredibly intense to get to know another person-- deeply know them. We are deeply getting to know Stephen--his most shameful thoughts, his most innate tendencies (which even he himself might not realize exist). This process is overwhelming for us, and the reason for that is Stephen is absolutely insane. But it’s not his faul...

Maybe someone once told you that If you really want to know if you look bad, don’t ask your friends or your family--ask a child. Children are generally unabashed and quite honest. There’s a good reason for that: they have nothing to hide. Everything’s simpler as a child. You live life under the watchful eye of your parents. You are never unsupervised, you are constantly guided, and curiosity is smashed beneath the laws of behavior (in a good way). In your mind, everything makes sense. Nothing ever changes. You know who you are and what you stand for and that is simply what will always be. Of course, at some point in our lives we realize that everything is changing. It’s up to us to guide ourselves. Then we fall completely into the dark as to who we are, what we stand for, and what the future holds, stumbling towards any glimmer of light and grasping at things to find our way. It’s a long, hard, frustrating journey, coming of age, and sometimes we do some pretty weird thin...