ATAI ISAEV – Page 3 – ENG 2100: Writing 1 with Jay Thompson

Atai Isaev Week 4(?), When elephants fight it is the grass that suffers

Even though I never met him, Nishimura Hiroyuki has been a “literacy sponsor” for me in more ways than one. Hiroyuki is an “internet entrepreneur” who founded the most successful Japanese message board called 2channel and is now the administrator of 4chan, an English-language imageboard website. He has blown up on the Japanese inter-webs recently for his YouTube streams where he drinks beer and gives meaningless talks about the most random things. I’ve been listening to him a lot lately, and I have picked up a lot of “conversational” Japanese from him. That has been very helpful because most of my Japanese came from literature and casual day-to-day slang is one area that I was lacking at.

He has introduced me many-many fun words like “guguru” — to Google something, or “disuru” — to diss someone, “kodomo beya ojisan/obasan” — a person over 30 who still lives with their parents, or “oya no sune wo kajiru” — “to bite on your parents’ knees” i.e. to be financially dependent on your parents (especially when referring to kodomo beya ojisan/obasan). [As you can see this is not the vocabulary you would encounter in books, so once again, it was very helpful]. Through listening to him so much I have also picked up his vocabulary and speaking mannerisms which helped to make my Japanese quite a bit more natural. On a side note, I just really like his personality. Like one time I remember he said something along the lines of “I don’t know if you know this guys, but everyone is going to die one day. And so anything that happens in your life won’t matter one day. And so that’s why I just play video games and watch movies for days on end.” What a lad.

Atai Isaev Week 4(?), Reading Responses

What Baldwin is essentially trying to convey is that language is a live tool that people create and it can be born out of necessity and can be changed through time. In his essay, he mentions how African Americans have created their own language through a common idiolect. He also states that white Americans have translanguaged black English words into their English. Both Anzaldua and Liao refer to translanguaging when conversing with different peoples of different backgrounds. Anzaldua specifically mentions on many occasions about Chicana language and how it’s a mix of English and Spanish.
“Thinking of the assignment” advice was helpful to me because it was so obvious that I overlooked it as a necessary first step. It will help me focus when commenting on other people’s essays. “The writer’s interests and claims” advice is brand new to me. It never even occurred to me as a technique to analyze the author’s motives behind the scene. It could be very helpful when commenting to think about what the author of the paper was trying to go for/what their thought process behind it was.

Atai Isaev Week 4(?), Reading Response

In the past, anxiety and aversion weren’t that big of a problem for me. I have come to peace that I’m not a good writer and no matter how hard I try or how much time I put into a single essay it’s not gonna become a masterpiece, so I don’t suffer from anxiety. As for aversion, I don’t see writing essays as fun so it doesn’t matter if I don’t like the topic, class, etc. — it’s just something I have to do. That said, it doesn’t mean I don’t suffer from procrastination — I very much do. (And I believe reasons for procrastination brought up in the reading like “I get better grades when I write the night before” are all just blatant excuses that we say, but what it really is is that writing or doing schoolwork in general is just inherently not fun and there are so many other things in our modern lives that seem so much more appealing to us; however we can’t really just say that to our teachers’ faces because they will not be very happy about it, so we have to keep on saying these silly excuses to humor our mentors, or otherwise our society wouldn’t be functioning.)
I plan on abusing Eickmeyer’s “Break it down” technique for writing my literacy narrative thing. I fix to break the entire writing process in many-many smaller pieces and then slap some vibe breaks in between them to maximize the enjoyment out of the assignment.
I think I’m stuck between linguistical worlds. I feel kind of embarrassed for that one time in middle school when I talked to an English-speaking classmate and answered “Да” to their question. Or that one time I almost said “ありがとう” to a worker at Carvel. I speak multiple languages and sometimes when you spend too much time in one of them, it’s really hard to make your brain to switch. Nowadays when I write anything I frequently pull out a dictionary to remember how to say that one thing in English just to be disappointed that a word/phrase/idea like that doesn’t exist in English.

Atai Isaev Week 3, Object of Affection

I’ve never pondered about this before, but the most treasured object in my house is my fridge. It is literally the source of life. It is a white stainless steel refrigerator that my family has been utilizing for the last 5-ish years. It is about 5’4” tall. I used to be shorter than it, but then puberty hit and now I’m a whole head taller than it. It is decorated full of magnets from all the various states than my dad has been in, as well as family pictures. In the freezer there are my beloved dumplings, meat, and vodka that my dad drinks when he comes home. In the fridge itself, there are fruits, vegetables, a meal my mother cooked for a given day, eggs, milk, kompot, cake, beans, and then that one infamous bottle of soy sauce that I bought that one time to make gyudon and never touched since, as well as many other friends.

I love checking out the fridge when I come home late at night hungry. It always patiently waits for me there. It never lets me down. I cherish every time I open it every once in a while when I’m bored as if the food is going to miraculously appear in there. It is said that ancient civilizations have all been developed near a riverbank, but I would argue that modern world is built around the fridge.

Atai Isaev Week 3, Reading Response

Anzaldua does not believe that languages have firm lines. To prove that she mentioned Chicano Spanish, which is a border tongue that uses Spanish slang with English words thrown in here and there. She also mentioned that it is ever-changing: “Chicano Spanish is not incorrect, it is a living language”. Anzaldua also wrote that she speaks many different variations of Spanish and English with different people proving that people who speak different languages CAN share the same universe.
Anzaldua throws in a lot of Spanish words, sentences, and cultural references in her writing: “We are your linguistic nightmare, your linguistic aberration, your linguistic mestisaje, the subject of your burla”. I think she does that to create a unique style and appeal to Spanish-speaking readers. She also plays the victim card pretty often: “Chicanas feel uncomfortable talking in Spanish to Latinas, afraid of their censure. Their language was outlawed in their countries”. SHe does that to urge a sense of sympathy and make her essay more emotional.
The “change” convention seems apparent in Sedaris’s essay. He went from not completely understanding what his French teacher was saying (“Were you always this palicmkrexis?”), to *understanding her slightly better* (“It was mid-October when the teacher singled me 15 out, saying, ‘Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.’ And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.”).
He also uses “show and tell” because his entire literacy narrative is just a big anecdote about learning French.
However his essay doesn’t seem to have any specific message to talk away, not does it include any hidden meanings in it.
Towards the end of the essay Manson changes her mind. She accepts that silence isn’t always the answer: “While accepting silence as a means of communication was helpful, it wasn’t always enough. There were times when it was important for me to verbally com-municate even if I couldn’t fully express myself.” She learned words like “Setsunai” to convey her emotions. “I’m not sad,” I said. “I feel something, but I don’t know what it is.”