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Ordinary Girls Section 4, The End

As a grown up Jaquira somewhere in her early 20s after graduated community college, she received word that her grandma Mercy has dies. She inform the information to Alaina, but she doesn’t care. Jaquira realize the same when she thought to herself that “When Abuela, my real grandmother, died two years ago, I felt deep, insurmountable grief, like I was completely lost. It was because of her that Mercy didn’t destroy my sense of worth” (Diaz, 253). She understand that Mercy was a terrible person and she could understand on why Alaina doesn’t care. Jaquira and her husband went back to Miami to see Mercy body, as she arrived she saw her mother who has missing teeth, a drug addict and homeless. The cause of death was suicide by pills since it turns out Mercy was suicidal all the time and that she will hang out with her daughter (Jaquira mother) by doing drugs. Few years later, her mother had more mental illness and drug addictive were two part of her organs were remove and has to frequently see her mother to make sure she is living. Jaquira moved back to Miami to take care of her mother. She mention on how she missed her before she became a drug addict and remembering the good times with her mother. She hear that two of her friends died and most of her friends who were alive had kids and have families while Jaquira doesn’t. In 2018, she meant her friends were they use to party as teens (ah, nostalgia) and partied. It reminded her about her friends (either dead or alive), the good times they had and that they will always have their back. Jaquira conclude her memoir by saying that she created for every girls just like her, if she could go back in time she will just say to take care, she wishes all the girls to care, love, dance and most importantly to live.

The message that she said about her reasoning about writing her memoir because she wants to connect to girls who have been through the same as Jaquira did in their life. It is amazing on how Jaquira told her life story in order to relate/connect to other girls (or people who faced struggles like her). She shows that people could manage to face their struggles and find a good life.

Fairest, by Meredith Talusan, analysis #4

After reading from pages 109-149, Meredith began to have a new life at Harvard away from her parents, mainly her mother whom she told to stay away from her and that if she wanted to feel better and start acting like a real mother that they began to send her money because she didn’t need anything else from her. On the other hand, she tried to focus on her studies, and at the same time, while also looking to experience love with different men. In her first year in college, her life was a bit lonely because she had no friends and one of the only men by her side was Matt. She met Matt in Professor Miller’s class, a class that was based on gay people and their sexuality, through the day’s Matt pretended to feel something for her, but Meredith didn’t feel the same but wanted to experience the sexual act with him and be friends if things don’t work out between them, he used her because he just wanted to sleep with her and Meredith was already tired of being used when she told her to stop, while he responds, ” Well this is over,” he said, then began to put on his shirt and jeans. “You know what we call you? Fresh meat.” I can say about that quote that Meredith was not sad about what he said to her, she was relieved to be rid of him, because he was neither the first nor the last man she slept with her freshman year of college. Finally, in her sophomore year of college, she meets her new friend Lucy, and she begins to think that her gender transition promotes great freedom of expression and abilities to be able to determine femininity.

Why Is Harvard Getting $9 Million In Stimulus Money When It Has A $40 Billion Endowment?
A Mother Giving Daughter Money As An Allowance Or Help With Expenses. Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 104973121.

Ordinary Girls Session 4- As a whole

With this session being the last as we finally reach the ending of Ordinary girls I find myself having mixed feelings about the book. I found reading through her past experiences enjoyable however the time skips and flashbacks do get pretty confusing and hard to keep track of with Jaquira referring to the future or the past multiple times during one point. Another gripe i have with Ordinary girls was many things were left in the air and were not concluded on such as her relationship with her brother or the sexual assault she dives into at the end of the book or even regarding her mother and their relationship. However Ordinary Girls still help me captivated and interested as i wanted to know more about her experiences and how she dealt with them.

Ordinary Girls Summary 4

In the final section Jaquira graduates school and travels to Puerto Rico a few times as well. Jaquira’s mother was also in the hospital battling schizophrenia and other health problems she had. In the section “Returning” it states “as I’m lining up with all the other graduates, I will look for my family in the crowd, Abuela sitting next to Alaina, Papi, Meira, Anthony, Tio, and Chieto.” (Diaz 194) This shows how Jaquiras family supported her when she graduated even though she grew apart from her family. Jaquira was very happy and felt emotional that her family supported her and how proud they were that she graduated. Another example, in the section “Returning” it states “I can’t stop smiling. I am overwhelmed with happiness, with love, with hope, with the certainty that I will be a writer someday, but also,more than anything else, I wish my mother was here.” (Diaz 194) This shows how Jaquira became very successful all though she faced many struggles throughout her life. Jaquira is a prime example of overcoming adversity because she was doing drugs and even dropped out of school countless times, but in the end she graduated college and became a successful author. 

Blog Post #4

Now we see that Laymon has started a new eating disorder, before it was overeating, now is not eating and doing more exercise just because of being bullied by white people in his college. He still couldn’t accept himself as he is. He was expelled from his college and was transferred to a new one due to racism. Later on, he becomes academically successful like his mother and becomes an English Teacher at Vassar. His mother started to get more money and more money from him, and he discovered her addiction too gambling. Due to exercise he broke his leg and after a while he regains all the weight he lost. Laymon was really down during this time, he begun to gamble like mother. Laymon reunites with his mother in a hotel room in a casino where he tells his mother to tell each other the truth of what they been through. At the end of the book Laymon makes clearly the following ““The most abusive parts of our nation obsessively neglect yesterday while peddling in possibility.” “I’m not sure if any of us are okay.” This is so deep and real, it shows that we all have our own insecurities, our own problems, our own worries, and our own experiences that has been the main instrument of our own destruction.

Heavy Session 2 (Laymon 63-116)

In this section, there are alot of things that happen as he begins in 8th grade in St. Richard Catholic School with his friend LaThon and Jabari along with the girls all from Holy Family.

Throughout the book, I notice how Laymon goes back in forth in trying to understand his position in being black and what is supposed to be expected of him according to his mother. His mother always tells his to correct his vocabulary, be good, show his excellence, to be careful around the white folk. But through Laymon’s eyes, he fights with himself for not being able to move freely. He gets frustrated as he encounters prejudice of his white teachers and police officers(page 81 The cops pulled him and his mom over, and in the situation he hated how the gun was close to her and how couldn’t do anything to defend them both).

Laymon also continues to go through sexual finding and touch in himself with girls one of them being Abby who is white. And due to the fact she is white, both Abby and Laymon face problems in their circle in schools and at home with their families. When Laymon’s mother found out she beat him as she didn’t want Laymon to with a white girl because it will cause even further problems. But Laymon continued to sneak around and pointed out her hypocrisy as his mother continued to be with Malachi Hunter who abused her(he punched her)

Class 18

Pairs!

Today: 

  • We’re going to try working in pairs in a few different ways today. First, you’ll move through a few sets of random pairs. You’ll talk for about five minutes in each pair, then come back and out chat waterfall a “big question” or a “small quote” that emerged from your conversation. You might structure your “elevator pitch” this way: 
    • Hey, [friend], I’m reading [BOOK], which is basically about _____. In the pages we read for today, the narrator was becoming a young adult. There was one scene that really stuck with me. [One sentence summary]. The line I keep thinking about is [quote with page number]. It got me thinking about [whatever it got you thinking about]. Were there any moments in your book that spoke to you like that? 
  •  After that “cross-book” talk, we’ll move into our book groups to discuss the particular pages for today. React to them and think about what passages are interesting to you, and what questions are emerging for you. 

Groups!

Research!

Replies!

Reaction

I was in awe, shocked, and impressed with the way Laymon ask questions, he’s thought process and they he corrects his grandmother when she doesn’t use the correct language. His grandmother reassures him he’s perfect just the way he is, and that I better to forget and move on than to live with those memories.

not so two-faced girls

“in the hallway between the bathroom and my bedroom, standing right in front of me in nothing but boxer shorts, it wasn’t benny. It was J.R, a kid I went to school with. A kid who’d tortured me since we were sixth graders at fisher. He tried to kiss me once” (Diaz, 119-120) in this section we see more double sided characters that still show themselves as more one-sided than anything. in the statement I’ve shown above we hear more about J.R, a character that already seems scummy at first but then does something that seems as innocent as kiss his crush during a fun event like something out of a Disney channel episode. Even if this was the case you could tell that the fallout of that kiss would be something that is deeply regrettable for Diaz given how she acted when J.R walked around her home so brazenly. what I’m trying to say is that some of the characters in the book who we believe we understand take left turns that seems out of character for them but we realize later on that that’s just on point with who they are for better or for worse. I think that’s something Diaz will keep in mind if she chooses to reconcile with anyone at the end of her story.

Ordinary Girls Summary 3

Diaz really never felt loved because of the dysfunction in her family. She always searched for love in friendships or relationships. Growing up she had a friend group that she did everything with. ¨ We wanted to be seen, finally, to exist in the lives we mapped out for ourselves. We were ordinary girls, but we would’ve given anything to be monsters. We weren’t creatures or aliens or women in disguise, but girls. We were girls. (Diaz,147)¨. Diaz felt that her friends were her safe place even if they did negative things like drinking and smoking. When she started high school, she met a boy two years older than her and that was the first boy she liked.¨He was funny as hell, and always asked what I wanted, and I liked everything about him (Diaz,151)¨. She caught feelings for Cheito fast and even wanted to marry him. They met each other’s family really fast and Diaz figured out the difference between their families. Cheitosś family is the definition of a real family and Diaz wanted that.