Who is Makot? Do you feel sorry for him? What are your thoughts about him and the way he copes with his parents?

Makot is a seventh grade kid who lives in Filipino Camp with his parents even though they are Japanese. He used to play with the guys younger than him for which he was made fun of by his fellow friends.  He always had money to spend due to which the young kids like author, himself was fond of him. As being the biggest member of the group, he always wants to become the leader and he feels that everyone in his group should follow him. He makes the young kids do risky jobs like following him across the breakers, climb the coconut trees etc. He always chooses the safe side and makes other younger kids do all the unsafe works. He believes that he is the brain of their little gang. Even though he always makes the kids do all the work he also spend money for them and feeds them.

The mischievous ideas which he always had were not the place to feel sorry for him. But when it comes to his parents, it seems that his parents care less about him. They just give them money to spend, but they do not give him any guidance which a parent gives to their children. His father does not work and all he does was riding his brand new Ford Model T around. Even though he had luxurious house and plenty of food to eat than other Japanese children, he lack the love of parents.

The way he tells his mother to shut up and shove her in the house, clearly shows that he was rude towards his mother. As author said that he would had never treated her mother like the way Makot treated also shows that Japanese people have a great respect for their parents. However, as presented in the movie, Makot’s parents also do not seem to be decent Japanese people.

Punctuation: The Comma

To prevent the collision of the sentence and to prevent misreading we have to use comma. There are various rules to use comma, they are as follows:

·         Put comma before a coordinating conjunction like and, but, or, nor, for, so, and yet. Coordinating conjunction helps to join the independent clauses. Comma directs the reader about the end of independent clause and the beginning of new clause.

·         A comma should be used after an introductory clause or phrase.  Here comma tells reader that introduction is over and the main part of the sentence is beginning. These introductory clauses usually answer the question when, where, how, why, or under what condition.

·         When three or more items are presented in series, those items should be separated using comma. We usually avoid comma for the last two items but it is better to use comma between last two items to avoid misreading.

·         While using two or more coordinate adjective in a sentence, we are suppose to use commas instead of and. However, while using cumulative adjective we are not suppose to use comma.

·         Comma should also be used to set off nonrestrictive elements, but for restrictive elements like adjective clauses, adjective phrases, and appositives comma should be avoided.

·         Comma is used to set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases and elements expressing contrast.

·         Comma is used to set off nouns of direct address, the words “yes and no,” interrogative tags, and mild interjections.

·         Comma is also used with expressions such as he said to set off direct quotations.

·         Comma is used with dates, addresses, titles, and numbers. Only if the date is inverted or the month and year are given, comma is not necessary.

·         To prevent confusion comma is used.

Before reading this chapter I use to think comma is use in only certain places to prevent long sentences. But now I have realized that use of comma is also a vast subject. Using comma between coordinating adjective is completely new thing to me. I have also learnt that we are supposed to use commas before coordinating conjunction.

Writing about Film:

It is not always easy to write a film paper. Different perspective and analysis come in to play when a writer writes paper. Especially when one has to study by breaking down a movie in to small pieces or by know its history. Like all movies are not made same, its study and papers differs too. Ideological papers explain beliefs and purpose of a film. And cultural studies reflect local values and cultures of a place/country where film was made. Writes has to watch a film very carefully before he starts writing about it. If one can watch movie or its certain parts again and again then possibility of better paper increases. A film takes a big team of people to be completed and everyone has a major contribution too. It’s not only actors who appear on screen but also whole bunch of crew members who work behind screen play major parts in making of a movie. There are also large amount of terminology that a writer has to be familiar with to write a good paper. And last but not least, It’s very important to include key components like who the director is, what other movies has he directed. What kind of condition and period the film was made, and of course what did critics say about it.

What role does forgiveness play in Smoke Signals?

Guilty feeling is one of the worse feelings in our life which could be self-destructive. Guilt crushes our sprite and makes us constantly feel so miserable until the time we lock ourselves away from the world. To overcome guilt we must be able to forgive ourselves. It is said that before we be able to forgive others, we must be able to forgive ourselves first. If we feel guilty of something, we have to be able to accept it as a mistake and we should be able to move on with our lives. Holding back in this kind of situation of guilt will only harm us and we will be compelled to stick with our bitter past.

The movie “Smoke Signals,” written by Sherman Alexie is full of situation of feeling of guiltiness and struggle to forgive ourselves and others; in fact the whole movie is based on the lesson of forgiveness. There are three major situations where the movie tries to teach the lesson of forgiveness.

Since his childhood, Victor used to dislike his parent’s drinking habit. It was due to him that his mother and father got separated and his father left the house. This feeling of guilt was eating Victor all his life till he decides to go to Phoenix and collect his father’s ashes. He always felt that it was his fault that his dad left him and his mom. Forgiveness gets too complicated when it comes to the loved ones. It is very difficult to forgive a person who used to be really close to you. Here Victor finds it too difficult to forgive his father but during the trip he learned more about his father form Suzy, he came to know how his father had to battle himself to stop drinking and also found out that he used to love him. When his first left him, Victor was very angry and when Thomas asked him, why his father left, Victor answered him my beating up. But at the end of the movie after all the realization and after forgiving his father when Thomas asked again about why his father left, Victor answered, “He didn’t mean to, Thomas.”

If we are not able to forgive ourselves and if we let our guilt to eat us, we will be self-destructive just like Arnold Joseph. After Arnold sets the fire on July 4^th celebration killing Thomas’s parents, he let himself eaten by his guilt and becomes alcoholic. He was not able to forgive himself till the end and dies in guilt. Here due to him not being able to forgive himself he ruins his life in alcohol and zeopertize his family’s life too.

Another lesson of forgiveness is shown from the relation between Thomas and Victor. Victor is good looking and spends most of his time playing basket ball where as Thomas is nerdy kind of person who always like to tell stories. Most of the people used to dislike Thomas; even Victor used to dislike him and was always rude to him. His perspective towards Thomas changed when they had to travel together to bring back Arnold’s ashes. Here, Arnold is the main connection between them. On their journey, Victor began to respect Thomas for what he is doing for him. Moreover he was surprised how Thomas could forgive Arnold even after knowing the truth that he as the one to start fire killing both his parents and how he could forgive Victor for all his rude behavior.   

The last one and the most important lesson of forgiveness is presented through the relation between Thomas and Arnold. Arnold out of guilt of killing Thomas’s parents tries to get close to him and treat him well. Thomas on the other hand is and innocent character with good heart, miss his parents and get close to Arnold. Thomas has always appreciated Arnold for saving him from the fire. He regards him as a father figure and was very fond of him. Thomas true test of forgiveness came to him when he found out that Arnold was the one who started the fire which kill his parents. He did not hesitate to forgive him. He remembers Arnold more like hero who saved him from fire rather than the one who killed his parents.

“We are all given one thing by which our lives are measured, one determination (72).”

Even though everyone in the reservation dislikes Thomas because of all the stories after stories he used to tell, he feels that it was his purpose to tell stories to the people. He believed that it does not matter if his stories changes the world or it does not, the only thing he wanted to do and the only thing he got was the stories that comes to his mind.

Lesson of determination presented by Thomas in this story could be a valuable example to everyone living in a society. If we really want to be a responsible person and take positive part in the society we have to be determined to help the people in need. Determination here represents the willpower a person could possess or develop during their life time with positive attitude.

For example; only if you are determined to study you will get good grade and eventually be able to successfully complete studies and get better job which could secure yours and your family’s future. There might be people who believe education is not important in life and tries to brain wash you, there might be difficulties  financially, there might be other problems, but if you have determination you will be able surpass all these obstructions. Like in the story how Victor was determined to bring his father’s ashes and was successful in surpassing his financial problem and be able to go to Phoenix and get his father’s ashes back to reservation.  

What do you think about the relationship between Thomas and Victor?

Thomas Joseph and Victor Builds-the-Fire are the two main character of the movie “Smoke Signal,” directed by Sherman Alexie. Thomas and Victor are friends who grew up in Native American reservation. They have totally different character; Thomas is kind, gentle, optimistic and traditional character with nerdy looks and Victor is kind of realistic kind of person but he was also a rude person at first and has got some attitude problem but at the end due to the friendship of Thomas and the experience of their journey made him change his perspective towards Thomas and his own father.

Thomas has always felt the strong relation with Victor because Victor’s father (Arnold) saved him from the fire when he was an infant. He felt that he should be the part of Victor’s journey to get his father’s ashes as Thomas has strong feeling towards Arnold, he consider Arnold like his own father. So, Thomas helps Victor with all the money he needs to get to Phoenix. At the begging of their journey they could barely understand each other’s nature; however it was their first time out of reservation and each other was all they got during their journey.  

Even after knowing that it was due to Arnold his parents died, Thomas had no feeling of hatred which made Victor respect him more. When Arnold left the reservation, it’s not only Vector who lost his father Thomas who use to hang out with Arnold also felt like he lost his father. It was the death of Arnold who brought both of them together and helped to build a good relation. From this what we can say is Arnold and the life of reservation was the crucial relationship between Thomas and Victor.

Chapter 58: Citing sources; avoiding plagiarism

Research paper is the clarification we derived from the sources available. Whenever we use some other writer’s work to do our research paper we have to give credit to the writer. If we do not acknowledge our writing with the original writer we will be committing serious academic offense which is plagiarism. Three acts which are regarded as plagiarism are failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas, failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words (Hacker p.480).   

Direct quotations from the original one should be cited. Common knowledge or the general ideas does not need to be cite beside that any ideas like summary, paraphrases, statistics, etc. taken from certain source should be cited. “The American Psychological Association recommends an author date system of citations” (p. 480). Author date systems of citations are as follows: “the source is introduced by a signal phrase that includes the last names of the authors followed by the date of publication in parentheses, the material being cited is followed by a page number in parentheses, at the end of the paper and alphabetized list of references gives complete publication information about the source” (p. 480). Borrowed exact language should be enclosed in quotation marks. At the end while writing summaries and paraphrases we have to write it in our own words.

Before learning citation I had less idea about how to do it. Now I know how to write citation at least in APA format which was taught in this chapter. I use to just write the author’s last name after the paraphrase of the writer and I always use to miss the parenthesis. After learning about the citation system I will use writer’s last name and page number form where the paraphrase is taken and will use parenthesis for the sentences copied exactly form the original source.