Inception in CFHS: Glueing Our Ideas to Classmates

Tangible panic surrounded Chagrin Falls High School today as all the AP English 12 students prepared for their in-class essay throughout every period in a sort of scared-out-of-their-minds panic. Everywhere I turned, I saw some stressed out classmate mumbling quotes to themselves like a crazy person, nervously jittering, madly flipping back and forth between worn out data sheet pages, or (my personal favorite) incepting other students. This inception of AP English 12 students apparently does not take much because it seemed to engulf all of our lives today, and I believe that it only requires these 4 simple steps:

     1. An AP English 12 student approaches a fellow classmate in the hall or class and eyes meet as the venting about how stressed they feel begins even before they reach speaking distance.

     2.One of them says their idea of what they predict the essay will deal with.

     3.The other then walks away in a state of panic as they start to obsess over this prediction, until it consumes them so much they feel they must memorize more quotes and analysis dealing with the (probably outlandish and overly specific) prediction their classmate just made.

     4.The incepted student then starts the whole process all over and approaches another innocent victim to incept.

This painful process surrounded us all, and I had not completely realized its relevance and frequency until today as stress about the writing swarmed all over the school. I think that every one of us should rightfully accept the accusation that we, at some point or another, fell guilty to scaring, and ultimately incepting, a fellow classmate in the grueling hours leading up to an in-class essay.

After sitting down in my desk today and scanning the room before the writing, I have concluded that we ended up going into a manageable essay that we had the ability to do, as a group of slightly insane, extremely paranoid, and unnecessarily incepted, AP English 12 students. 

Sticking "The Namesake" and My Christmas Traditions Together

I think one of the reasons our class, and my self included, struggled liking Ashima and Ashoke throughout reading the The Namesake because we could not actually understand their internal conflict of attempting to maintain their own native traditions, while also accepting new ones. Yesterday my family went on our annual trip to cut down our Christmas tree at this place about 30 minutes away called “Whispering Pines”, the same place we have gone for the last eight years or so. While driving there we always listen to the same Bing Crosby Christmas CD, and then once we get our tree we listen to it on the way back as well. Once we get home, my brother and dad trim the tree outside, put it in the stand, and put the lights on it while my mom and I bring the boxes of ornaments and decorations up from the basement. With Christmas music blasting through the house, we all sip on eggnog and sing along while we put up the decorations. We always do the ornaments last and then after we finish everything, we turn off most of the living room lights and sit to talk while looking at the glowing tree for a while. Basically, this day of tradition has remained the same for as long as I can remember, and I cannot explain how upset I would feel if it changed. No one can truly understand how much silly traditions may matter to and impact someone else. So, as I thought about my life in relation to The Namesake (which I do a little too much these days), I finally began to understand Ashima and Ashoke’s situation a little more. I cannot imagine changing this tradition, probably the way they felt about many traditions that began to die when they moved to America. I feel like if I moved somewhere that did not accept listening to Bing Crosby or drinking eggnog, I would not know what to do with myself.  

Pasting Reading into My Routine

I blink open my eyes, reach out my hand, grab my cell phone, and squint to see the bright 9:25 glaring back at me. The attraction of returning to sleep for another two hours tempts me as I lie there for a moment and realize my serious lack of responsibilities for the day ahead. By a wonderful stroke of luck, I did not have to wake up at my usual 6:15 and drag myself to work for seven hours this morning, with the data sheet completed, the English section of my planner reads the word “none”(an extremely rare occurrence), with most of my college apps finished I do not have to dwell on that, and the miniscule rest of my homework, for some strange reason, does not weigh down on me like usual. So as I reach over and am about to turn out the light and take full advantage of my chance for a ‘lazy Sunday’, I see the book beside my bed that has waited patiently on my nightstand for a disgraceful 3 months or so for my time to read it. Recommended by brother over the summer, I remember the day I had taken The Shadow of the Wind from his shelf and put it in my room to remind myself to get around to it one day.  So, instead of grabbing the light switch, my hand veers off course and picks up the book. I feel foolish as I have the instant mental response of “I need a pen to make notes”, because of AP English brain washing, as I suddenly realize how long it has been since I last read a book just for fun. Two hours fly by and I set down the book at 11:30, with a good start and a satisfied feeling of accomplishment as I walk down to get breakfast and my mom’s comments on how I slept late today just enhance my content feeling. With everything going so fast and free time as the seven hours allotted for sleep, the rare occurrence of a moment for something as simple as reading really deserves serious cherishing. Slowing down and taking time for reading depicts a great challenge, so Gogol…good job. 

Gogol Unsticks From Past in Final Line

"Often time it happens we live our lives in chains and we never even know we have the key". This line of lyrics from The Eagles’ “Already Gone” embodies one of my all time favorite song quotations. 

These lyrics popped into my head during discussion today as we talked about the last line of this book and the class began to debate over our satisfaction with the end of this novel. The class seemed almost perfectly divided with defenders and detesters of Lahiri's closing sentence, "for now, he starts to read"(291). I think that despite our satisfaction with Lahiri's ending choice, Gogol's life, or even the plot of the novel overall, this last line undoubtedly draws a full circle ending that shows Gogol's step towards self improvement and maturity. I felt satisfaction at the end because Gogol seemed to realize that life depicts exactly what you make of it, and he took the conscious effort to mature through reading this important book concerning his identity. Throughout chapter 12, Gogol began to realize that the only person chaining him down and preventing him from finding the key to happiness in his life was himself. In this last line he finally abandoned his resentment of his culture, name, and parents, and he took the first small step and read the book. Lahiri's use of "for now" implies that in order to change, one must take initiative and begin the process, just as Gogol took at the close of this novel. Maybe because I had these lyrics in my head throughout the class, but I felt proud of the main character and hopeful of his future as the book concluded and he came to the realization that he had the key to his chained life and he began towards improvement. 

Unfair Blame in Chapter 10's Sticky Situation

I turned on the television tonight after work to watch an episode of “The Office” before starting my homework, and by shocking coincidence “The Chump” episode was playing. In this episode Michael discovers that his girlfriend Donna has a husband and he struggles throughout the episode with defending his actions, and then finally realizes his shame and breaks it off with her at the end. This seemed a little too relevant to chapter 10 of The Namesake to not blog about how this made me realize how our class discussion today overlooked the fault of Dimitri in the unfaithful situation. After writing our journal about our current perceptions of Moushumi, I found myself, like most other people in our class, thoroughly frustrated and disgusted by her actions and decisions throughout the chapter. After watching this episode of “The Office” though, I realized how half of this frustration should become more focused on Dimitri, and I became angry at Lahiri’s minimal involvement of details on this minor, yet extremely integral, character. Most of our hatred towards Moushumi seems justified because of her betrayal of the main character in this story, but a portion of this detest becomes skewed unfairly to her due to the lack of details about Dimitri. The reader overlooks the “man who is enabling her to wreck her marriage” and his fault in the whole situation (266).  This realization actually made me loathe Moushumi a little less as some of the disapproval I felt towards her shifted to Dimitri and his revolting apathy towards ruining Moushumi’s life. Though Moushumi makes this choice to cheat on Gogol, I now realize that Dimitri also plays a role in her unfaithfulness. Unlike Michael from “The Office”, Dimitri continues the affair without question, indirectly characterizing him as inconsiderate and impulsive. I believe that both these characters deserve equal reproach, and Lahiri makes this nearly impossible by focusing the entire chapter on Moushumi, while barely mentioning any background information about Dimitri. This makes my hatred seem biased and I wish that the author chose to better distribute the blame by giving equal details on both Moushumi and Dimitri. 

Stuck On Last Names: Chapter 9 Discussion Reflection

     During our class discussion of chapter 9 today, we spent considerable time dissecting and criticizing various characteristics and decisions of both Gogol and Moushumi, and further analyzed our perceptions of these two characters. At one point our discussion focused in our Moushumi's choice to keep her last name and how "the thought of changing her last name to Ganguli has never crossed [her] mind"(227). When asked whether we believe that women should adopt their husband's last name after marriage, many people agreed that they should to show commitment and honor this tradition. I did not get a chance to voice my opinion today in class about my disagreement with this statement. I do not think that simply a name shows commitment, actions do. I do not at all feel against women adopting their spouse's last name, I do agree that it makes a couple seem more cohesive and together, but I believe that admonishing a woman for her decision to keep her maiden name seems outdated and close-minded. A common last name serves the same purpose as marital rings, they simply depict symbols for the relationship, not actual indispensable factors that would cause a loving relationship to crumble in their absence. In the context of this novel, Moushumi's refusal to accept her title of Mrs. Ganguli only seems disturbing to the reader because it personifies her indirect characterization throughout this chapter as distant and detached from her and Gogol's relationship. With the larger occasion of gender equality in modern day America, I do not think that Moushumi keeping her own last name seems disturbing, I think that her disgust towards this idea, which foreshadows further relationship conflicts, seems bothersome. I think that women, even Moushumi, deserve societal approval in the choice to keep their own surnames because men do not even have to make this choice, and why should different genders abide by unequal standards?