A lesson from Me and You

  I would describe the last night Lorenzo and Olivia spent together in the cellar was a turning point of their lives. Lorenzo had danced with Olivia, he had felt and enjoyed this feeling of love and happiness from a sister, a friend that he had never had in his life before. I felt glad when Olivia hugged Lorenzo and promised him not to touch drugs anymore; I also felt happy when Lorenzo had finally told someone how he really felt behind all of these lies he had made up. Lorenzo said,"And yet I knew behind that beyond that door the world was waiting for me, and that I would be able to talk to others like I was one of them. Decide to do things and then actually do them". This quote showed how they both felt hope that moment and might be planing about a brighter future after they step out of that door, facing the world and changing the way they live their life into a more positive way. Right after the flashbacks had stopped with happines and warmth, the story had immediately gave me this shocking ending that was a total different tone from the end of the days Olivia and Lorenzo spent in the cellar. Olivia was dead because of an overdose after all these years they were separated. This was not what I had expected the ending to be, I read the ending twice to make sure that I did not misunderstood it. 

     I felt this emptiness after I read the ending of this story. Olivia was talking about her future with a great man in a warm place—Bali, having a job, a husband and moreover a brighter life without drugs the night with Lorenzo. But the ending made this even a darker story. Therefore, I felt even more sympathy towards Olivia, I could not imagine what kind of realistic and harsh world she was facing that made her drop back into this terrible addictive mistake. This story made me ponder the relationship and distance between one person's dream and the reality one person might be facing that hugely impacts one's originally beautiful dream. Sometimes people chooses the wrong path and makes bad decisions for themselves. But as what I've been told since young, it is never too late to admit to your mistake and learn from it, change from it. There are many factors and causes in this world that would make you feel unfair, anger and disappointment. Whenever people are emotional, we make the wrong choice and sometimes people hurt themselves because of the anger that couldn't go anywhere else. After this story, I see how regretting might not always turn a person back to where he or she wanted to be. More over, reality forces all these weak people to fall back on the ground. But there is always a famous remark I've heard saying that a pathetic person must have a certain spiteful character. Due to a person's background born and the environment a person's facing will affect one's decision. In my opinion, only two kinds of people would be created and forced from a bad situation—a person that is weak, degenerate and pityingly or a person that is tough and strong that would try to overcome every obstacles he meet. What I learned from this story was to be strong and to control yourself not to stuck into bad habits nor any bad decisions you made in the past. 

How has Lorenzo changed by the end?

Lorenzo had changed into a more confident person that felt hope and felt ready to face the world with who he really is. Throughout these days Lorenzo had spent with Olivia in the cellar, they encouraged and helped each other, therefore created the feeling of love between sister and brother which they have never had before. "That evening I danced, and when I danced I felt something I'd never felt before. I felt alive—it took my breath away." This was how Lorenzo described his experience and feeling with his sister dancing and enjoying this feeling of friendship and connection between people that he had never felt with others. Lorenzo help saved her sister from the pain of withdrawal then felt himself as a useful person then they have these similarities shared between each other, further more they gave each other hope then consequently changed Lorenzo into a better person with confident and hope about his life outside the cellar, in the world. 

Chapter 5,6. Olivia and Lorenzo

Marinda Hsu

2016.01.18

    At first, Olivia went to the basement where Lorenzo was staying and tried to find a box she owns. During that paragraph, Lorenzo slightly explained and told his relationship between his half-sister and some stories. Olivia was a daughter his dad had with a dentist before having Lorenzo. In the picture Lorenzo found in Olivia's box, his dad looked happy and was wearing informal clothes which made him felt funny and unusual. I think that marriage between Lorenzo's dad and the dentist might be happier comparing to his marriage now to Lorenzo's mother even though they ended up devorcing. According to the story further, Lorenzo's parents were living their own lives even if they're living under the same roof. We also understands from this paragraph that Olivia's relationship with their dad wasn't really good even though their dad helped out Olivia a lot whenever she caused troubles. In addition, they don't talk about Olivia a lot in front of Lorenzo so they weren't close neither. Lorenzo had met Olivia during Easter about two years ago and she was beautiful as Lorenzo had described. 

    Latter on, Olivia went back to the basement and knocked on the door asking for a place to stay and sleep. Lorenzo did not agree to let her sleep in his cellar, but then Olivia tried yelling upstairs telling that Lorenzo was hiding in the basement. Therefore, Lorenzo reluctantly let her stay as promised that she'll leave tomorrow morning. When the next day came, Olivia wasn't leaving and was arguing with Lorenzo. Olivia seemed really sick and uncomfortable as the story said"it took her half and hour ro sit-up. She had cushion marks on her cheek and forehead. She kept rubbing her eyes....", so Lorenzo felt a little bit sorry for her. Just as Olivia was leaving the basement, Lorenzo's mother called and was still angry and wanting to speak to Alessia's mother on the phone. Olivia then made Lorenzo promised to let her stay and be her slave, treat her nice so she'll pretend to be Aleesia's mom and talk to his mother on the phone waiting. It worked out and Olivia did a great job lying to his mom. 

    But here's a problem with Olvia, she seemed really weak and was sweaty during her time in the basement. Lorenzo said that she has malaria. A quote in the story showed how bad her body condition could be :"she kept on vomiting in the bathroom. then she flopped down on the sette exhausted and took her trousers off.". Latter on Olivia wanted to eat and shower, during the time Olivia was in the shower, Lorenzo found syringes in Olivia's bag. This made me thinks that Olivia could be on drug because she's dizzy, uncomfortable, she smokes and she was kind of a trouble maker as we're being told due to the events. Or maybe Olivia is really sick that she'll have to inject medicines to maintain her health. 

    After all I am interested to see what will happen in the next few paragraphs and I wonder if the relationship "me and you" will be about Olivia and Lorenzo. And wanted to know why did Lorenzo's father change from a happy person to more likely a serious man according to the description from the photo and from recent events. 

Me and You :: chapter one (2 sentences)

Lorenzo is leaving home for a week going to a skiing trip. Lorenzo has a close relationship with his mother. 

Once upon a time.....

    Once upon a time in a winter at Taiwan, Marinda felt sunshine and smelled foods. It was winter break and she was back home. That day, the sun was extremely warm and it felt like summer during December. No snowy days as usual and the weather was too good that I could not waste it. Marinda's cousin—Sandy went on a picnic that day with her. They were walking around in the morning trying to find good foods for picnic in a famous street filled of tourists and traditional Taiwanese foods' store. They bought steamed dumplings, Korean foods, sandwiches and fruits all in the street then headed to the park. 

    Daan park is a famous park in the middle of a busy city. People were playing basketball, walking around and we found a quite grassland under the shade. Marinda and Sandy turned on our music and was chatting for a long time since we have not seen each other for three months. They missed each other, Sandy was like Marinda's best friend and they grew up together. But a problem jumped out while they're eating Korean foods that shocked all both of them. There was a dead cockroach inside the bowl, it was disgusting! They quickly threw that away and tried to make themselves concentrate on other foods. 

    After a few hours, they were done with their foods and done talking. Time past by too quick and the time they spent together was too happy that they have all forgot about the cockroach in the end of picnic. Marinda and Sandy could not say goodbye so went to the shopping mall and have their dinner then went back home late. It was a wonderful day and beautiful, warm winter they have. 

Self-Assesment of Diary project

     My work turned out not as well as I expected. I chose Marci as my diary's character but then found out that I was paying too much attention to Sookan instead of Marci, therefore I only knew a few things about Marci that I'd had to look back into the story to find details about her. I was actually happy to write in Marci's perspective, this showed many things differently. I wrote details for a few paragraphs describing the surroundings and also Marci's feeling inside. But if I would have more time or another chance to work on it again, I'll add more details using the five senses to make the diary more lively and realistic. I'll also pay more attention to details and descibe every person, everything more attentively. My diary's clarity and correctness might not result in a good way, I always turned out to have lots of grammar mistakes. But I also think what I did good was to clearly show Marci's attitude's change after a school year. How she disliked her parents including living at home then she turned out missing home and also gradually understanding her parents' careful intention. One problem I realized after printing out my diary was the length of it, I found out my diary shorter than my classmates'. Even though I said my project did not turned out as well as I first expected, but after all I think my project was done also not as bad since I rarely had done any diary written in another person's perspective. My diary's creativity was pretty good in my opinion, but I am also afraid that this would make my project looks informal. In conclusion, I found after evaluating that there are still a lot of things for me to improve on my writing but I also had accomplished most of the goals. I involved creativity and tried to give the small changes of Marci's idea after a school year; I gave detailed describing the environment and especially Marci's inside feelings that she never told anyone.  In my opinion, this is a good start for writing diaries in different perspectives since I knew what were my errors and mistakes so I could do a greater job for the next few times when someone asks me to write. 

Writing center reflection

   Writing was always one of my headaches while doing school works. I had never tried asking for helps on my own, all I did was wrote and waited for my paper fulled of mistakes returned to me. Last few days I went to the writing center to see Ms. Swift and asked for help on my writing project. It is my first time writing a journal as another person and from her view rather than mine. This made me think harder since I had to refer how the character might be thinking and writing down according to the novel. I went to the writing center at first because Mrs. Guarino asked all of us to go, so I went there without thinking what should I ask her. The first thing she said to me was:"How can I help you?" And "What do you want me to look over?" I stopped and was shocked at the moment, I did not know how to answer her. Eventually, I showed her the longest part of my diary and asked her to read it over for me. As soon as Ms. Swift started reading my writing, she found out so much mistakes including run-on sentences, grammar errors and incorrect vocabularies. Therefore, the rest of the time I spent in the writing center, we were working and fixing on my sentences that could be improved better and correctly. My diary was written in past tense but sometimes I jumped out having several present tense. My writing also included many run-on sentences that were too long, difficult for the reader to understand and sounded weird when I read it aloud. 

    Ms. Swift also asked me questions on what kind of characteristics and personality Marci are described in the novel. This made me tried harder to think deep and detailed into the story events so I could tell someone that hadn't read the book what kind of person Marci is and involve these into the diary. Marci was a girl with mostly an opposite personality than Ellen. The novel we written in the view of Sookan, Marci was one of her best friends in the novel. It was difficult and caused me to pay more attention to a few events in the story to write as Marci. Since Marci was not as outgoing as Ellen and had less friends, so I decided that Marci might be writing more of her inside thoughts in her diary because she most likely kept her ideas to herself and only to really close friends. Another problem I had writing this project was the dates and separation between each paragraphs. In the novel, Marci are being mentioned by Sookan a lot but sometimes there were blanks for one to two months without any writing about Marci which needed my imaginations to predict what might Marci be doing during these days so I could fill in the blanks. So other than the dates given in the novel about Marci, I'll have to add up more details on the events and things that might be going on with Marci during times Sookan didn't mentioned in the story. After all, I had received useful helps from Ms. Swift and fixed most of the mistakes in my writting. I might consider going to the writing center more often to learn more about my mistake made often while writing. It was a great experience for the first time visiting writing center.