The short story, Girl, seems like a personal story of the author that addresses and describes multiple young girls across all race. In the story, Kincaid talks about how a typical young girl would spend her day. She said “wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil.” The author also seems to recalled life in her early childhood and apply it to women and poor people. Kincaid explains what should be done before cooking a salt fish. And she further advices in what way to eat so it can’t offend other people who doesn’t have it. Those statements are about what a young girl should do in the presence of poor people.

The author also talked about abortion and how to keep a man. She said “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child;” and she describes how to behave in the presence of men. These seem like inner struggle she was going through and wanting to express it in the next person or second person point of view.  This story shows a strong connection between the author’s inner struggle and how she perceived other young girls to be.

A large landscape painting is painted in one of the many rooms in the Carlton Arms Hotel that expresses the artist exchange of energy with her subjects and depicts the tension between presence and absence in her portraiture and architectural landscapes. The painting is about the figure negative space and the void surrounding it. The figure in the portrait is looking back at us while expressing a person inner self, and questioning what’s behind the mask.

This oil painting on the wall shows how we look at our self, inwardly and how other perceive us. We tend to hide our true identity and look at the world through other people eyes, because we don’t want to face that negative space of criticism and the void surrounding it.  For instance, in the novel Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa hide her true identity as a person who love men; but if you look behind her mask, she truly wishes to be with a woman. This was the inner tension Clarissa was struggling with throughout the novel.

Helen Oliver Adelson has worked over 40 years long as a painter. Her painting work is mainly oil on canvas and she is known for her large scale portraits. And, she has painter over 3 rooms at the Carlton Arms Hotel since 1980. Unfortunately, I was not lucky to see her personally. But the hotel staff was very pleased to show me the gallery of painting she has done.

Sirleaf journey to Baruch College this morning at 10:00 am was very interesting and he had a lot to observed and think about while on his way.

He left his house at 10:00 am to go to the corner store to grap a breakfast but the uncanny happened. The grocery owner asked him I thought your profession was a taxi driver but I am seeing with a hand and books. This question was embarrassing to Sirleaf and he responded by saying I’m not a taxi driver and it not my pprofession. This led him to think that he needed to graduate and find a job in his career of interest. Later, he left and took the E-Train at Sutphin Blvd and get off at Lexington and transfer on the 6-train and then get off at 23 street and Lexington.

And by 11:45 am, he was in the elevator upto the 11 floor and then walked down the stairs to the 9 floor and to his class English 2850 hybrid.

The painting and sculpture section displayed numerous painting with great history attached to them but one of the painting that caught my attention was The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.  van Gogh was a post-impressionism painter in the French art movement that was developed between 1886 and 1905. The Starry Night which is oil on canvas was painted in 1889 during the post-impressionism period.  The painting above emphasized on the nightly imagination of Vincent van Gogh. This imaginative painting focus our attention on brushstroke painting of a blue sky fill with illuminating stars and moon that shows almost everything in the painting is in circle. The composition and linear perspective allow us to pay close attention to the center of the sky and the center of the town. This period was a period of religion, as a result, in the middle of the town stood a church to show stability within the town. In the foreground, we see a green-thick smoke like tree rising to the blue sky to show the perseverance of religion in the Town. On the other hand, the rolling hills with the town beneath it matches the color of the sky to signify purity.

This painting reminds me of a poem that we read in class called  Discourse on the Logic of Language by M.N. Philip. The author of the poem was using her imaginative style of language to understand why slaves were not allow to speak their mother tongue. Likewise, van Gogh a painter in the post-impressionism period used painting to expressed his imagination of purity and the heaven.

In addition, the great work of Vincent van Gogh is a priceless gift to those who want to understand imaginative painting during the post-impressionism period.

The autobiography of Fredrick Douglas and the poem “The Discourse of the logic of language” by M. NourbeSe Philip emphasized on the destruction of human connection through language during slavery. Slave master used language as a tool for oppression. In the poem, Philip talked about how a slave has no mother tongue, no tongue to mother, and therefore became tongue dumb. Slaves were not allow to speak one common language because their masters thought this will breed rebellion. As a result, slaves were mixed with others from different region that could not understand their mother tongue. And also, As mention in Douglas autobiography that slaves were not allow to keep their children before they breathe their tongue into their children. “It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age.”( Douglas,1). These were strategies used by slave master to hinder the human connection between a child and the mother.

In addition, the repetitions in Philip poem suggest that she is trying to use logic to understand the conflict of language during slavery “a mother tongue is not a foreign lan lan, lang, language, anguish, anguish, a foreign anguish.” Similarity, Douglas was trying to understand why a slave was not allowed to learned English the foreign language of his mother tongue. These were the conflict of language they both were trying to understand.

However, these two exceptional writers have broadened our mind of how language was used to break the chain of human connection in the era of slavery.

http://goo.gl/maps/HabyP
It all started at my house on Ferndale Ave, Jamaica, Queens,New York. When you read the poem song of myself, it talks about self-fulfillment and self-actullization through our interconnection with the world. This reminds of my journey yesterday from my house to Uber office and to LIRR Taxi stand in Queens.
I woke up yesterday to the sound of my two weeks son’s crying. Thank God that babies in thier first one month always cry early in the morning to set their parents off to their daily routine. Yesterday at home wasn’t just a typical day. The celebration of the world through Whitman eyes in Song of Myself set thing up for me at home. I normally leave the house to go to work or school and my wife takes over after me but yesterday was diffferent. She wasn’t well due to her c-section with our son. So, I had to organized everything and prepared the baby food before leaving to Uber office to fulfill that need of self actuallization.

http://goo.gl/maps/havDO
When I got to Uber office, things were different. As mention in the Heart Sutra that “form is emptiness and emptiness is form.” This actually became a reality, when I visited Uber office. Their use of emptiness through form in their customer service office where every desk is far apart but interconnection through the work they all share. Their customer service office is rectangular: on both sides of the wall there is a long line of customers service representatives and in the middle of this rectangular form–the customers form line to await their names to be call. I was called to interact with this emptiness that connected all of us as mention the Heart Sutra. I was able to signup for Uber as one of their professional vehicle owner. Eventhough needs are endless, but I was able to fulfill that need of self actualization that I now owned an SUV that is with Uber.

http://goo.gl/maps/xIMXL
At the LIRR Taxi stand in Queens. After leaving Uber office where form was emptiness and emptiness was form, I was set to face the celebration of the world through Whitman. I was excited of my new fulfillment and actuallization that I am now ready to interact with the world. At the Station, my Uber apps on the Iphone flash for pickup and I 0kay it. This customer approach my car and asked” what is your initial” and she said it. But this connection through Uber app and the customer is manificent that this world is actually interconnected as rightfully said by Whitman in Song of Myself that people see the world through him.