Hello, dearest reader, and welcome to my final blog post. I’d like to quickly thank you, dearest reader (whoever ‘you’ may be) for reading up until now. It’s been a pleasure writing these blog posts, and I hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I did writing them. This blog post will be a recap of my experience in ASTU which will include (most) of the things I’ve learned, my favourite part of the course, what I did well in, and addressing the mistakes I made in this class and how I could improve on them moving forward.

This class really pushed me to further improve my writing skills and gave me the tools to transition from a high school to university level of writing. Did my grades translate on the same level? Nope, but that’s to be expected like when finding the rhythm to a piece of music or adjusting to a different recipe (yeah, adjusting, that’s it). The point is that ASTU, regardless of my grade, gave me the tools to write a great essay. The most notable feature I learned was the “discursive ‘I'” as the usage of ‘I’ is discouraged in my high school, and this feature definitely made essay writing a lot more flexible.

My favourite part of the entire course was definitely the dramatization of The Reluctant Fundamentalist because it was extremely enjoyable (reminded me of my high school theater days) and allowed me to connect with the text a lot more. And the dramatization was probably what I the best in the entire year, because I definitely didn’t do as well as I could have in terms of writing and analyzing text. Again, it’s to be expected because of the transition period, and external distractions like social media and the internet in general did not help me stay focused. But at the same time, I’m thankful that what happened, happened, because now I know what my faults are and knowing is half the battle. With new found confidence, I can now face the next year head-on knowing that everything I’ve learned from my peers and professors will carry-on and support me in the future.

Hello dearest reader, and welcome back. It’s been awhile, and I hope you’ve been taking care of yourself properly because a few of my friends have caught horrible colds. Not just ‘walk it off’ colds, these buggers surge through the body, every nook and cranny, causing migraines and despicable fevers. Paralyzing conditions that leave them house ridden for a few days, possibly even weeks. Now, lets say that this cold has taken a turn for the worst, unable to leave the house for months and unable to do much but endure and hope and pray to recover. Being stuck in a secluded environment, no physical communication with the outside world, ignorant of the events unraveling around the neighbourhood, there could be a slight culture shock once that step is taken from the void to the outside world. A slight pinch might equate to the ‘shock’ experienced, yet changes are still noticeable. An unrecognizable elongated hound resembling a hot dog frolics irritably around the uncommonly trimmed grass, that’s odd. The neighbours were allergic to hounds, and canines synonymous to the one on the grass. The lilacs seem to have replaced the lilies, the Explorer parked closely adjacent to the driveway has transformed into an Adventure (its moved back a little, probably in the midst of its transformation), and an unsettling feeling of curiosity and uncertainty occupies the air of the newly discovered neighbourhood.

Newly? That’s incorrect, because the area should feel familiar, like home. Sweet home. Home sweet home. And at the same time, it’s not. This quality of unfamiliarity was also felt by Sgt. Price in Redeployment after stepping into the celebratory ‘welcome home’ atmosphere, filled with friends, family members, loved ones, and bouncy castles. “A fucking bouncy castle,” notes Sgt. Price. After being integrated in military culture, his concept of ‘home’ was very different when he and his squad had arrived. ‘Home,’ Sgt. Price felt, was not here. Was it back in the front lines? Was it back at the barracks with the rest of his ‘family?’ Was it with or without Cheryl?

Whatever the feeling of ‘home’ was for Sgt. Price, what he thought he had longed for, it certainly was not where ‘home’ previously was. Similarly to birds of prey, home sweet home had migrated elsewhere to the land of milk and honey.

Hello dear reader, and welcome back. Today’s blog post will be a little bit heavier than usual, as we will be looking into poetry regarding 9/11. The two poems I would like to discuss in this blog post are Photograph from September 11 by Wislawa Szymborkska and The Names by Billy Collins, because I feel that there are definitely concepts that these two poems can relate to.

In Szymborkska’s poem, “one, two, a few more” individuals can be visualized leaping away from the burning buildings and towards the ‘end,’ only to be held in their places by photograph. As I read the poem, I felt like time was moving slower and slower – “There’s enough time / for hair to come loose, / for keys and coins / to fall from pockets.” And as time slowly began to halt to a glide, the faces of these people could almost be seen, but never identified. Szymborkska never gave them a label – a “name” – for they are all “complete, / with a particular face / and blood well hidden.” Szymborkska incompletely concludes her poem, suggesting that it is up to the reader to find their own ‘conclusion’ with regards to those who are still held up in the air.

“I can only do only to things for them – / describe this flight / and not add a last line.”

Collins’ poem may seem a tad uplifting due to the A-Z pattern that’s present. A little walk down memory lane as children learning the alphabet for the first time, and associating various objects and images with the respective letters. However, this uplifting feeling quickly fades to grey as ‘Ackerman’ and ‘Baxter,’ families that lost families in the flames or the earth, replace the uplifting ‘apples’ and ‘bunnies’ of the alphabet. Unlike Szymborkska, Collin leads us through a trail of identification, contemplating the names that may have been burned in the fire or buried beneath the earth. “Names blown over the earth and out to sea [….] Names etched on the head of a pin. / One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.” Instead of letting the reader draw their own conclusions, Collins puts a name to the face. Names of different heritage, and of different cultures, from A-Z.

“So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.”

Although these poems may materialize contrasting images (one focusing on the individual, another putting a name to a face), they both contribute to the question of identification. It wasn’t only pure-bread Americans that lost their lives in that event, it was also individuals of different cultural backgrounds and heritage. There might have been Afghans/Afghani who suffered loses in the same attack, so who has the right to say that they should suffer more and be discriminated against? Because “the voice of our country” said so? Regardless, the bottom line is that tremendous amounts of life were lost that day, and instead of a “call for arms” there should have been a “call for peace.”

Maybe I’m just being naive and ignorant, but I believe that hatred breeds more hatred. So doesn’t it work the same way for love?

Welcome back, dear reader. Today, I will be discussing the significance of imagery used in Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. As the title suggests, I refer to Foer’s novel as a ‘pseudo-comic book’ because of how both imagery and text are present throughout the novel – but the novel does not look like a traditional graphic novel like Persepolis or Safe Area Gorazde . But does this enhance the readers experience of the traumatic narratives within the novel, or impede it?

As an individual who is more of a visual learner, I believe that the pseudo-comic book style Foer presents in his novel enhances the reading experience by weaving in some pictures after a couple pages of text. For example, on page 45 Foer includes a page full of scribbles and doodles with what seems to be random words written in different colours. Some words correspond with the ink colour, while others appear to be the names of people – one of which is Oskar’s father. Having the father’s name appear in a location acted as a clue for Oskar, indicating that his father had been here before. However, we do learn later on that it was actually Oskar’s grandfather that wrote the father’s name on the notepad.

The visualization of the notepad’s contents gives the reader a sense of familiarization with Oskar. Being able to see what he saw coupled with the description of his emotions allows for a greater sense of reliability between the reader and the novel, enhancing the reading experience and adds extra emphasis to the weight of the traumatic experience.

Having both graphic and text narration definitely allows the author to put extra emphasis on key narrations and important areas of the plot, whilst catering to both graphic novelists and traditional readers. Of course the combination must be done tastefully, otherwise it would impede the narration of the novel and disrupt the readers pace.

Hello dearest reader, and welcome back! Breaks and holidays are much like double-edged swords in my opinion. Because on one hand, we’re able to rest and take a break from our responsibilities. But on the other hand, we dread the day when reality hits us like a brick, and all of a sudden it’s Monday again. Ugh. I guess that means we should do our best to create a reality we don’t want to escape from. Wouldn’t you agree?

“Anyway.”

For the past few weeks, our class has been reading Jonathan Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a novel regarding the traumatic events of 9/11 experienced through the lens of a young nine-year-old boy named Oskar. While I was reading through the novel, I found Oskar to be quite an obnoxious character and quite a brat. Of course this is debatable, but I was able to find at least one diamond in the rough (the rough known as Oskar) – his use of language.

My other classmates have also caught on to this, but I believe it is one of the important themes that can be seen throughout the book. Oskar is very blunt. He will tell the reader exactly how he’s feeling, and after 9/11, how he feels about the Arabs. “There was a lot of stuff that made me panicky [….] Arab people on the subway (even though I’m not racist), Arab people in restaurants and coffee shops and public places (page 36).” It’s not the theme of ‘Oskar disliking Arabs’ that is a reoccurring, but the theme of ‘language’ and how language is used during times of trauma, loss, and fear.

When some idiot on the road cuts you off which almost results in a car crash, what is the immediate response? ‘F**k you!’ What about when the media persuades you that a certain demographic are terrible drivers, and said idiot is of that demographic? ‘F**k you [insert stereotyped demographic] people!’ Now lets take this car example and translate it into an example which involves airplanes and thousands of lost lives, plus the government wanting to take revenge on a whole nation for the actions of the few. Filled with trauma, loss, fear, and revenge, what is the immediate response?

Remember that language can be a very powerful weapon that can be used for progression or destruction. When aiming a weapon, the identification of allies and enemies becomes very important. However, when the heavy fog known as misguidance or ignorance rolls in, it becomes very difficult to distinguish between them. Yesterdays allies can accidentally become todays enemies – all because of a bit of vision obscurity.

Language is powerful. Elements of trauma, loss, and fear may provoke irrational and hurtful  language that never would have materialized otherwise, which promotes more pain. Like aiming before firing, think before you speak.

Hello, dear reader, and welcome back. The final blog post (for the first semester) will be a recap of the experience of visiting the Joy Kogawa Fond. As a class, we went to the Irving K. Barber Library in UBC to take a look at the Joy Kogawa Fond, which is essentially a collection of artifacts and primary items related to her historical novel Obasan.

But before we were even able toenter the Joy Kogawa Fond, we had to go through a series of security requirements. We entered what seemed like a decontamination room, where we had to leave all of our belongings in a locker provided within the room. After being cleansed of our personal belongings (including coats and jackets – no pockets allowed!), our class was escorted to a meeting room containing the Joy Kogawa Fond.

Folders containing papers of all ages were found on top of tables, awaiting for someone to open the folder and examine its contents. Inside the folders contained all sorts of papers – old newspaper articles about Obasan, appreciation or rejection letters to Kogawa from editors and publishers, fan mail from the young and old, Kogawa’s many drafts with editorial notes and edits, and many more. This is the Joy Kogawa fond, a collection of artifacts (primary sources) from different time periods.

What I found very appealing was that anyone can contribute to the Joy Kogawa fond! Seeing the stacked folders felt very uplifting, because it confirms how controversial Kogawa’s work regarding the struggle of Japanese-Canadians really is, and we are also able to see Kogawa’s work process throughout the years. Having experienced these artifacts first-hand made me want to learn more about the struggle of Japanese-Canadians during the unfortunate events of WWII, and really made me wonder why the Canadian school system doesn’t cover this topic in more detail.

It’s almost reminds me of a term I learned not too long ago called ‘forgetting as humiliated silence,’  which essentially means to forget something (usually traumatic) by drawing the public’s attention to other things. I think that Canadian school systems are conditioning the next generation to forget about Canada’s dark history, which only makes studying and analyzing Kogawa’s work that much more important.

I’m going to make a bold statement that Obasan is an extremely important piece of literature that should be read by all Canadians, because it is important to remember the mistakes of the past so that we can prevent it from happening again in the future. Much like procrastinating, ignoring the problem isn’t going to fix anything. It’s important that the efforts of Kogawa and many other Japanese-Canadians in their struggle for equality should not be forgotten, and the Fond serves as the perfect place where we can experience their struggles first-hand.

Hello, and welcome back, dear readers! Its been awhile since the last update, so allow me to do a quick recap on what we’ve been learning in ASTU class before jumping in to the core part of this blog post. After looking at Satrapi’s Persepolis and a few scholarly articles, our class picked up Joe Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde (which is going to be the main focus for this blog post) and Joy Kogawa’s Obasan. Okay! End of recap! On to the core part of this blog!

Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde takes a look into the war in Eastern Bosnia during the 1990’s. The graphic narrative is a recount of the events that happened during the war from two perspectives: From our protagonist and journalist, Joe Sacco, and a third person perspective from the different survivors that Sacco interviews for their stories and perspectives on the war. What makes the book more compelling is that one could tell when the story is being told by Sacco or by one of the survivors, depending if the page boarders were white (Sacco) or black (survivors).

But the aspect of this book which I find the most inspiring is how Sacco is not like any other journalist that is portrayed in this book. Despite what seems like a desolate enclave, Sacco has the sac to live in difficult conditions for the sake of finding out the Real Truth of what happened during the Eastern Bosnian War.

On the day the U.N. relief convoys entered Gorazde, many of the journalists were in and out of Gorazde in less than a day after they had gotten their 15 minute scoop (Sacco 6).  But Sacco decides to stay, because he believes that by integrating himself into the culture, only then will he be able to fully understand what happened during the war, and how the citizens will continue to carry forward.

This really speaks to me because it is only by walking in someone else’s shoes can we truly understand the story one bears. 15 minute generalizations can only tell so much, and could possibly even be harmful by not fully understanding ones situation. This reminds me of the Ahmed Mohamed, the muslim teenager that got arrested by bringing a clock to school. Because of how muslim’s are being shown in the media, some people get false impressions and forget that there are also good people in the world, regardless of cultural background.

Sacco’s Safe Area Gorazde really expresses the importance of how important it is to walk in ones shoes, before making any quick judgements. It shows the reader that those living in Gorazde, despite having less-than ideal living conditions, are humans just like you and me. They want peace, they want to travel around the world, and some of them also want to buy a new pair of jeans.

With how many of today’s societies are becoming melting pots full of diverse cultures, it is very important to remember that at the end of the day we are all human beings, all wanting something out of life. This is the element of Sacco’s work that really inspires me to become a better person, and I hope that you too, dear reader, remember that life is more than just our own little bubble.

Hello, and welcome back! This weeks post will focus on a literary review that our ASTU class has been analyzing for the past few classes: American literary scholar, Hillary Chute‘s “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis.” The class split into three groups, and each group had to analyze one of the three sections in Chutes literary review of Persepolis. As a quick recap, Persepolis is a graphic memoir (comic book style) about Marjane Satrapi, and her childhood experience growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.

Bringing it back to Chute, the section “Style and Trauma: The Child” of Chute’s literary review is the section we (my group) have been analyzing for the past few days. A classmate of mine beautifully summarizes this particular section through a quote by Scott McCloud – “amplification through simplification.” There exists many quotes that acknowledges the power of simplicity – “the simplest answer is most often correct,” “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity,” and many more. However, what really caught my attention in Chute’s review is how she interprets and connects Satrapi’s drawing and narrative style with trauma – through the perspective of a child.

Satrapi’s drawing style utilizes the absence of colour (black and white) and synthesizes it with a very flat, lack of depth, 2D perspective (this corresponds to the lack of shading in her drawings). Chute’s analysis when Satrapi portrays violence, death, and the dismembering of human parts, suggests that through the imagination and perspective of a child, it is very difficult to truly portray trauma. When Satrapi illustrates how Marji (the protagonist and childhood version of Satrapi) imagines a cut-up human being, she illustrates the human as something that resembles lego. The body parts (arms, head, legs, torso) look hollow on the inside just like lego pieces.

This is really interesting because through Satrapi’s simplistic drawing style, she emphasizes the importance of understanding concepts through a child’s perspective, and gives insights on how children might experience and cope with traumatic experiences. But at the same time, Chute analyzes that Satrapi also emphasizes the importance of how difficult it really is to imagine true trauma, no matter the age. I strongly agree with this analysis because, as a young adult, it is very difficult for me to recreate the feeling of a true traumatic experience (nails on chalkboards…sorry). And if I really tried to recreate it, it wouldn’t do justice to the trauma, because I believe that trauma lacks depth without the first-hand experiential element.

Hello, dearest reader. Since this is the first post, allow me to give you a brief introduction on myself. My name is Diego Balce, and I’ll be your admin and content creator for this particular blog dedicated to the ASTU G03 class in the University of British Columbia.

Within the ASTU G03 offered at UBC, the current topic being discussed is a graphic memoir (comic book) called “Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood.” This memoir was illustrated and written by Marjane Satrapi, and she illustrates what it was like growing up in Iran during the late 1900’s. While she describes that this memoir is “far from the truth,” her work focuses on showing the west that Iran isn’t all full of radicals. That Iran, like the west, can also have decent, civilized, and patriotic individuals.

A theme within Satrapi’s graphic memoir which can be seen throughout the entire book is the theme of tradition with respect to social order. And this is shown by Satrapi’s protagonist “Marji” who always went against tradition and social norms, even though going against them could cost Marji her life.

This theme of tradition and social order is going to be the main focus of this post, because it seems like the 21st century is the time for change. There is a great influx of people who are slowly changing the flow of social norms, from controversial movements such as the gay rights movement, to more subtle but noticeable changes within photo sharing.

However, if there is something that is definitely going against the ebb and flow of tradition and social norms, it would definitely be the rise of professional gaming (more commonly known as “eSports“) within the west. Now a days, it isn’t “just a game” anymore.

The professional gaming scene begun over in Korea with a popular strategic game called “Starcraft” by Blizzard, where one needs to posses great micro and macro skills, and be able to perform at least 10 actions per second (apm). Currently, Riot Game’s League of Legends (as well as their 70 million player fan base) is leading the charge in the push for the global recognition of eSports, and professional gaming as a legitimate career.

If Marji challenges her societies social norm by buying jeaned jackets, Michael Jackson pins, and questioning her education system, then eSports challenges what it really means to be an athlete. Honestly, I can’t wait for the future of professional gaming, especially if MY kids want to pursue a professional career in gaming.

(If you have extra time)

-Diego Balce