Week 3 Prompt #4

After the revolution in Iran, as many as 3000 war prisoners were released. Some of these men included some of Marjane's parent’s friends. One of them happened to be was her friend Laly's father, whom she’d told Laly was dead. Marjane hears their magnificent prison stories and soon becomes a bit jealous of Laly, for having a father who got to go to prison for standing up for his country and beliefs. A few weeks later she meets her uncle Anoosh, who had been imprisoned for nine-years, which was much longer the Laly's father, giving Marjane much pride. Anoosh tells Marjane many of his stories; how he got into politics, moving to Moscow, about how he got married and had children, and how he missed his country so much that he determinedly wore a disguise at all times to come back and live in Iran, but is eventually caught. When he is sent to prison his Russian wife gets a divorce with him, leaving him devastated and deeply hurt. Marjane loves hearing all of her uncle’s stories and is deeply fond of him. She often listens or eves drops on her fathers and Anoosh's conversations and debates about the governments actions. Anoosh is living with Marjane’s family for a while, until they start hearing stories that one after another many of the old prisoners are found dead or have escaped the country. One day Anoosh doesn't pick Marjane up from school and she instantly knows something is wrong. At first the maid tells her that Anoosh has gone back to Moscow to visit his wife, but Marjane knows that he hates his wife, which only confirms her fears that he is dead. Her father eventually tells her that Anoosh is in prison and can only have one visitor, which he has chosen to be Marjane. Marjane is proud yet nervous to be his only visitor, she has never been to a prison. When she gets there they talk and Anoosh tells her how much he loves her. A few days later Anoosh is executed and Marjane is crushed, she has lost yet another one of her favorite people to this war with the government. At this point she pushes God out of her life, soon after her house is bombed.

Anoosh seems to have been very important to the plot because he was someone Marjane extremely loved and was killed by the government. He reinforces and deepens Marjane’s dislike for the ever so changing government of that time. His death is also the last of many tests towards Marjane’s belief in God. After he dies Marjane completely pushes God out of her life and when she wants and needs him back he is gone. I think as the stories goes on Marjane will stop believing in God completely and she’ll displace her feelings of losing Anoosh and frustration with the government onto other people. I also think more bombings and raids will occur as time goes on and that life will become even worse in Iran. Eventually I think her family will decide to move somewhere else till Iran settles down enough to live there peacefully.

Week 2 Prompt #2

In the chapter The Jewels (pgs 87-93), Iraq bombs Abadan, Iran. Marjane's mom is worried because one of her best friends lives there. When they get home her mom tries to call her friend, but no one is answering the phone, this makes Marjane's mom even more worrisome. A few days later her mom’s friend, Mali, shows up at their door in the middle of the night with her husband and two boys. After a while Marjane starts to get annoyed with the boys because they are very bratty and a bit stuck up, they are used to getting everything they want and living in a huge house. Marjane's father also isn't very fond of Mali's husband because he is extremely materialistic. Even though the boys were pretty hard to deal with, Marjane felt that Mali's mother was the worst of the family to deal with because she complains often and is judgmental. In the end Mali has to sell the only thing she had left, her jewelry, so that her family could start over again. This part of the story I can relate to the best out of the chapters we read this week because at times in my early childhood my parents had friends stay with us or we’d stay with them. Though it was normally just the mom and her children, I remember not enjoying theirs or ours stay. Because I didn’t have siblings around my age or was never put around children I didn’t get along with, I always had problems with the children I had to deal with when we were in these situations. Sometimes our parents could also get into fights with each other or with the spouse, it wasn’t always the best situation for any of us. It was always a relief when we'd find a new home or the family staying with us would find a new place to go.

As far as why Marjane decided to add this story into the book, I think it really impacts the story because it shows the violence and how frightening the state of the country was in at the time, and she wanted to share that with the reader. The big cities are getting bombed, people that Marjane's family may know may be hurt or dead, and they are extremely worried. It shows how families who survived these bombings had to relocate and stay with friends till they could afford to find a new home (I’m sure there were many who had no food, nowhere to go, and had to stay on the streets). Sometimes families like Mali's lost everything they had worked so hard for; they lost their huge home, the boys lost all their toys, and their father lost all the money he had earned. She shows the difficulties many of her people had to endure because of the government and war. At the end of the chapter Mali’s mother tells them how women in Abadan had started prostituting to make money. She looks at them in disgust, but I think it shows that in a country where a women’s body is very precious to them they wouldn’t start doing something like that for no reason, these women had to go that far to survive.

I think Marjane and my reactions towards the situation were quiet similar, we both were annoyed by the situation, but dealt with it because we knew there wasn't anything we could really do about it. Our parents had to help out our family and family friends when they needed us most.

My Mother Never...

My mother has never been one to crush people’s dreams. She's pretty good at talking the talk but not walking the walk... So far from everyone's blogs I've read, everyone has pretty decent or amazing moms. I can't really think of anything good to say about mine, besides that she's always encouraged people to do what they want to do with their lives and to not give up.

My mom was a party animal as a kid and into her twenties, fortunately she had me in her thirties (unlike my brother who she had in her early twenties). My father was still into the lifestyle when I came around and my mom always liked to have her girlfriends over doing God knows what. I was a pretty oblivious child though, they pretty much threw me onto the computer and video games and I was hooked (or outside with my friends). My mom was always extremely lenient on me, she never made me do something I didn't want to do, even if it was for my own good. She always had me with her everywhere she went, she even had a job where I could hang out (On their computers...). Even though I was with her I always shut her out of my life, I don't know why but I've never liked her. Now that I'm older I feel bad that I was so mean to her, but she's always annoyed me and I've always thought she was daft.

My father ended up cleaning up when I was about eleven and realized how toxic his and my mom's relationship was. A few months later he ended up meeting my older sister, who he hadn't seen since she was a baby, then about six months later he moved in with her and her family. My mom was pretty depressed about the break up (Even though she'd been trying to leave him for years!) and went back to substances she hadn't touched since I was born. When I finished fifth grade she forces me to go with my father for the "summer" and I was left to learn what it's like to share, be around people you don't necessarily like, and all the other good things she had sheltered me from (I should add in that we we're constantly fighting and looking back on it, it was the best thing for me. I was really upset about it at the time though). When the summer ended I was still on good terms with my sister’s mom, so I decided I wanted to stay for a while longer. My mom was hurt by this and probably got deeper into drugs, so it went from only seeing her once every two weeks, from only talking to her every three. I think at one point when I was around fifteen I didn't hear from her for three months.

So yeah...I didn't really start talking to her again till I was seventeen almost eighteen (I did see her and talk to her from when I was 11-17 but it was very sporadic and rare) . She cleaned up and moved in with my brother to be a full time babysitter for my nephew and it was around that time she told me she wanted to start seeing me regularly. I had also grown up a lot and could now handle her. So here I am at twenty, for the last 2 years I've gone over to my family’s house once a week to eat dinner and talk. When I call my mom she is almost always there for me and even she's amazed at how much better our relationship has become. As a kid I was always shutting her out of my life, I never wanted to be close to her, even as a toddler, but now I'd say she's one of the closest people in my life. I still can't stand her at times though, I'm okay for six or seven hours if I'm in a good mood and in a bad mood she really pushes my buttons. But she is always there when I need her and she encourages me to be the best I can be, which I can say is much more encouraging then my father.

I Am

Hello! I'm Ashley I'm a rather short but opinionated child.
I grew up in San Jose and have always had a ton of pets.
I really enjoy hanging out with my friends, drawing, gaming, reading and watching anime.
At the moment I go to San Jose Community College and hope to transfer to UCSC by Fall '13.
I know for sure that I'd like to major in Marine Bio...but I also want to double major but I'm unsure what that second subject would be.
I have a super sweet tooth and munch on candy constantly...sour candy is my favorite : 3.
I always have a couple of pets, right now my favorite are my chinchillas.

I went to Oak Grove for my first two years of high school but at the end of my sophomore year my dad wanted to move in with his then girlfriend, so we up and left San Jose to go to Morgan Hill. All the new friends I had made there ended up graduating that year, so I decided to get my proficiency and then took a year off of school. Last summer I started taking classes at San Jose CC and tried out a couple computer language classes that year. By the end of spring semester I decided I didn't really want to program. This year I'm finishing up my iGETC and next semester I'll start up on biology classes and see if this is what I really want to do. Like I've said before I really enjoy animals, especially sea creatures, so I think I would enjoy Marine Bio...hopefully it all works out, I just want a job where I'm happy to be there.

I enjoy doodling and have been drawing for quite a few years. Originally I was going to go to The Arts Institute but after a bit of thinking I decided to go to community college first. I took a couple of arts classes and decided that animation was probably not for me. I get wrist cramps after an hour or so of writing, typing, and drawing and I don't want that to get any worse, I'm also not confident enough to go spend thirty to forty thousand dollars a year at an art school...soo for now drawing will just be a hobby.

As far as my personality I'm very opinionated but open minded, I like conspiracy's and things that can't be exactly proven. I'm rather shy unless I can be a know it all...then I'll just talk and talk. I do have a temper...if I know you, if not I'll just keep quiet. I like to take care of people and to be helpful but I'm also very blunt. Sometimes I say things too harshly and I'm very sarcastic.

I really like horoscopes! I don't read or believe in daily horoscopes, but I love knowing peoples signs and natal charts (It's a chart based on the day, year, and time you were born & that what determines everything). I also praise myself on being able to determine peoples sign correctly with just a little bit of observation. As for myself I am definitely an Aries to the T ^^;.

Soo I think that's about everything if I can think of anything else I'll probably edit this.
-Ashii