She filled her bathtub, lowered herself into the warm water, and slowly spread her legs. With the door closed to her children, husband, and cousins, Henrietta slid a finger inside herself and rubbed it across her cervix until she found what she somehow knew she'd find: a hard lump, deep inside, as though someone had lodged a marble the size of her pinkie tip just to the left of the opening to her womb.
I feel this is an essential point in the Henrietta Lacks story form "Miracle Woman" because it vividly illustrates a pivotal moment that led HeLa to the realization that something was indeed wrong with her. This scene puts you in the midst of a very private moment that HeLa didn't even feel comfortable sharing with her own family. I think the author wanted the reader to be somewhat uncomfortable being present while she laid in the bath tub discovering what the reader already knows. ~ * ~ For Henrietta, walking into Hopkins was like entering a foreign country where she didn't speak the language. She knew about harvesting tobacco and butchering a pig, but she'd never heard the words cervix or biopsy. She didn't read or write much, and she hadn't studied science in school. She, like most black patients, only went to Hopkins when she thought she had no choice. I think these few sentences give so much background on Henrietta's life. The authors short expositions at this point carry weight in explaining how someone who was virtually a nobody, revolutionized modern medicine. It also gives insight on the social situation going on in that time period. ~ * ~ I think Henrietta's decision to visit the doctor was one of ill-fate and yet many great accomplishments came form her misfortune. She unknowingly constructed a legacy that would revolutionized medicine, therefore saving countless lives and driving medical advancements into the future. "Henrietta's husband and children wouldn't find out about those cells until 25 years later, when researchers from Johns Hopkins decided to track down Henrietta's family to do research on them to learn more about HeLa." This statement alone clarifies how insulting and greedy these corporations can be at attaining what they want without any sort of reparation. Her family deserves at least a portion of what the corporation make globally for what was taken from her without her acknowledgment. I think it's a little bit ironic that this story is called The Miracle Woman. Upon HeLa's arrival John Hopkins Hospital there's a spiritual under tone that foreshadows her visit. The author mentions that "In the next building, under an elegant domed copper roof, a ten-and-a-half-foot marble statue of Jesus stood, arms spread wide, holding court over what was once the main entrance of Hopkins. No one in Henrietta's family ever saw a Hopkins doctor without visiting the Jesus statue, laying flowers at his feet, saying a prayer, and rubbing his big toe for good luck. But that day Henrietta didn't stop." I think the author meant to put this in the story to keep the reader aware of the misfortune the would follow her through her ordeal. Even though she accepted her fate and went through the situation gracefully, I can't help to feel sorry for her as she was really the one in need of a miracle. Last thursdays English Comp class was thoroughly engaging. So far Mr. Mangini has kept a smooth pace and his transition eases me into the next topic and section of me paper. I don't find my self overwhelmed with work that I can't complete which is always good. The class interaction built teamwork give us a little bit of a understanding of how the class grasps the occasional reading assignment.
I'm learning to organize my work and establish a system of writing that works effectively for me. When we critiqued a few of our classmates work I could see they appreciated the live feedback that was given from the class. I got a few amazing tips that I would love to tweak and incorporate into my work. I felt inclined to feed my work to the class but I opted out because I knew it was too short for any noteworthy criticism. Mr. Mangini uses many examples of writing effectively and examples to back them in our class discussions. One of which was to question things you believe to be true i.e. God. In my life I learn that there are two variants of the truth: A truth and the truth. A truth would be that the sky is blue. The truth is that blue light is scattered more than any other color in the earths atmosphere which is why we see the sky as blue. Courtesy of NASA. I've had the conversion of God many times before. I usually leave the conversion feeling frustrated, because people will try to prove something is false just by saying its false without any warrant. Ten Chapters From My Life
Freewrite based on a Wordle item: Dropping out of college was so easy and freeing. Yet there was an unbearable sense of shame that came along with it and I carried that shame for almost two years before re-enrolling in college. I attended a previous college (which will remain anonymous) for 3 weeks. I hated it. I wasn't ready to be in a college setting. I felt as If I was forcing myself to be there. I dreaded everyday of my three week stint. Witnessing kids younger than me finishing up there last semester discouraged me and made me regret some earlier decisions. The atmosphere was conforming to an ideal I felt I had done away with and made me feel out of place. I still had that high school mentality of learning, where I felt it was my teachers responsibility to get me to comprehend simple concepts. I needed someone to break everything down from Barney style to crayons on my behalf. I became wayward and it reflected in my work. I felt I couldn't go on any further, so I woke up one school day and went back to slept never returning back to school. I guess in retrospect, what I really needed was a dose of reality to throw me back on course. At this level of learning much is expected of us. Many times a professor might give their students a pat on the back and a grade that reflect what the believe that students work is worth, but they seldom understand just how difficult it was for a student to complete something as simple as a 300 word paper. I understand that same professor has done his/her time in the trenches and would say something empathetic to relate to the struggle of being a college student but the reality is we all have different habits that lead off the course we're trying to maintain.
Specifically in my case I have a few die hard habits that lead me to wander, which subsequently sets the stage for procrastination. I tend to think that pressure is a friend of mine when writing, so by waiting until the last minute to complete something that needs days to fine tune, I'd rush and put together a well written paper that ends up being mediocre or worse. With social media being so prominent in my life having that available whenever can be both a blessing and a curse. I think it's axiomatic that Facebook acts as each individuals own personal community with those you trust and seek advice from when needed, so if I had a question about a specific topic, I could get a few real world answers from people I trust. Eventually I et caught in the endless scrolling to the bottom of my news feed and end up losing sight of what it was I was trying to accomplish. I believe that being a better writer requires a certain orthodox belief in how a person can and should write, sort of like staying in line with old school ways of writing, whether it's creativity, word play or just something genuinely worth reading, while at the same time disobeying the traditional structure of how an author should write. I also believe sometimes an author will forget that people from different backgrounds will read what they're writing and end up focusing on one specific group of readers. In my case the reader would be he teacher. So I think staying clear of pleasing one person and writing to everyone wouldn't only make me a better writer but more importantly a well rounded one. To help myself and keep an eye on the ultimate goal of being a better writer, I will list 6 ways I think will help make me a better writer. Who knows I might look at this through a retrospective lens someday and say I learned something. 1) Music I need music in order to keep my focus, sort of like my totem in reference to the movie Inception. I tend to get lost in my own body when I write in a silent room, music helps me recognize that something is happening outside of what I'm doing. 2) Without my specs I'm near sighted and my eyes get tired quickly when I stare a computer screen with either my glasses or contacts in. By writing without my specs I can dedicate more time with less breaks. 3) Less breaks When I take breaks frequently I tend to allow my thoughts and ideas to escape me. Fewer breaks mean more time to work and less likely I'd lose my train of thought. 4) Avoiding procrastination As I mentioned before, waiting on the last minute will only effect my work in a negative way. So keeping my priorities in order and maintaining a steady work flow will only help the quality of work I produce. 5) Solid rough draft I found that creating and putting a lot of time into my rough draft will reduce that amount of time it takes to type and submit the final version. 6) Feedback I think feedback from me to my classmate will generate discussions that can benefit us all in the long run. Hopefully these techniques will help improve my writing through the course of this semester. I'm relatively new to blogging. I asked a friend for some insight about blogging and the answers I got from her were quite surprising. When I was given this assignment I had no idea what a blog was, I've heard it being mentioned on numerous occasion but never picked up on it.
So I asked my friend and she told me it was similar to a Facebook post but more geared towards suicidal hipsters, needless to say her subjective view on blogging led me to the internet, where after a few minutes on google I understood and appreciated blogging as an art of expression and creative freedom. Knowing that our work in this class will be made public through blogging is a bit scary but I've yet to develop the habit of being self-conscious about my work. Never the less I look forward to building a constructive relationship with my classmates through our respective blogs by utilizing the comment option and other constructive feedback tools offered by the site. On most social media websites that I use, I usually use the comment option to post my shenanigans, but this is definitely a new way to communicate with people other than what I use it for on a day to day basis. The public nature of blogging gives the author complete autonomy while maintaining a progressive atmosphere to communicate with his or hers audience. I'm not sure on how a person can become popular from blogging but if I had to guess I would say there's many links being shared therefore a fan base would be established. I don't plan on writing about a 101 ways to save the world but I think anyone that truly appreciates blogging would get a kick out of what it is I have to blog about. During this accelerated Summer I semester, I want to see myself take responsibility for the work I create. I'm going to try and be a part of the knowledgeable class populous that gets credited for good work in this course.
From the examples of the types of students that try to get away with creative excuses on why something was not done, I will try and steer clear of being the "town crier". As unorthodox as my peers think the course work will be, I beg to differ being that I've yet to take a legitimate college class. So I don't think I have any bad habits following me from a previous class. The last time I was in a school environment was before I graduated high school in 2007. I would also explore new ways to generate ideas. I tend to be incogitant sometimes when coming up with ideas for a paper, I think it's because I focus on the actual length and character count of what I'm creating vice the substantial flow of the paper and whatever ideas I do have fade quickly before finishing a decent rough draft. To deter that I plan on being proactive rather than reactive with my research and the types of articles I absorb into my writings. I don't consider myself a writer in any sense of the word but I would like to have the part of me that's eager to learn new things take control this semester. The process of writing is usually a daunting one for me. I get frustrated with myself when my brain goes blank, then I usually end up staring at an empty sheet for several minutes before putting together something horrible and presenting it as a final draft. So to prevent that I think a subscription to Lumosity.com would help me out in sparking my creativity and also thinking out of the box. Knowing myself I think it's absurd to dismiss the fact that I will stumble and have doubts along the way only because I know I possess a few self defeating traits that hinder me from completing tasks I've been assigned. I'd like to learn effective ways to put a paper together, from choosing a topic to the construction of the paragraphs. I think inspiration is key to writing a good paper, so I'd like to draw inspiration from great works that were done before me. By having our work done publicly through blogging, I can draw inspiration from my classmates and my professor as well. |