Syllabus: Nervous Conditions?

I agree, Nervous Conditions should be consolidated into our syllabus. Nervous Conditions proves itself extremely useful teaching the many aspects of reading, analyzing, and comprehending literature:

The answer to our overall course question is reinforced through the numerous themes and events presented in Nervous Conditions. The collision between culture and community obviously show tangible effects as exemplified by Tambu and Nyasha's family. This book will be very significant portion of my essay during the exam; the examples that support the course question are clearly displayed and might as well be highlighted.

Of course, there are several other reasons. The text Tsitsi Dangarembga uses in her book uses relatively simple terminology, all the while maintaining a sophisticated voice. Her method of writing portrays a literal meaning, but a closer insight reveals a deeper meaning which frequently involves eminent themes; this style forces readers to pinpoint and analyze specific events. Through discovering these themes, the reader gains a sense of awareness to similar moments in the text. It helps readers become accustomed to uncovering essential text.

Nervous Conditions also provides a situation readers can learn from. It explores a unique culture which differs greatly from ours in America. Before this book, students knew life in Africa was tough, but throughout the discussions and evaluations of this book, we have discovered moments that illustrate many obstacles Africa has to overcome. Through the exposure of another culture, we as students have learned to accept other ethnic groups and realize troubles they experience. Personally, I have become more grateful for what I have been given and feel sorrow for those who are locked into a harder lifestyle solely based on their location.

Despite the flame and hate against Nervous Conditions, I believe Nervous Conditions should be included in our syllabus. It offers support to our course question, practice interpreting literature, and an open mind to other cultures. I recommend "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. It takes place after the civil war of the United States, during a period in which tensions between whites and blacks were high. Rather than two different cultures, two ethnic groups are caught in an argument over equality and superiority.

3/13 - 45 min., 3/14 - 45min., 3/15 - 45min., 3/16 - 30min., 3/16 - 45min.
Total - 210min., (B Layer), (A Layer)

Nervous Conditions: Chapter Responses (6 - 10)

Chapter Six:

In this chapter, numerous events occur but most importantly, Nyasha gets herself into a heated argument with her father. I think this part fully establishes a defined relationship between Babamukuru and Nyasha. It completely cleared up Nyasha's personality for me. At first, she was a mess. Polite at certain times whereas she'd be disrespectful at others. For example, she greeted Tambu enthusiastically, but failed to spend time with her. The dispute in this chapter really emphasized and highlighted her character.

"'Thanks, Tambu. You saved my life'" (121).

This quote seemed very confusing at first glance. However, after looking into it, I can assume that Tambu considered suicide. During the argument, one might say that Babamukuru threatened to kill her and Tambu saved her from that situation. But that statement clearly neglects the fact that Tambu didn't interfere with Nyasha or Babamukuru at the time, so there was no possible way she could've "saved" Nyasha...

Chapter Seven:

Many, many things happened in chapter seven. What I noticed the most was separation between women and men. This relates to not only labor, but to also privileges. Many of the duties a woman had were listed in pages 136, 137, and 138. In terms of privileges, men all stayed in a single room discussing conflicts whereas all of the women stayed in a different room.

"'You think I am dirt now, me, your mother'" (143).

Ma' Shingayi tells off Tambu, accusing her of looking down to her own mother. Ma' Shingayi's rant highlights a major theme of the story, education. She claims that Maiguru attained power alongside her education and has stolen Tambu away from her with her money "and her white ways" (143). So as we can clearly see, there are links connecting education, money, and power.

Chapter Eight:

In this chapter, I was surprised to see a change in character relationship. This change was between Tambu and Babamukuru. For the first time yet, Tambu is reprimanded for being disobedient, which is against what we've seen of her already. I'm curious to know how she feels about Babamukuru now. At first, she had praised him for his gifts and knowledge; but now, I have no idea if she thinks his anger was understandable or not.

In addition to the argument, Maiguru defends Tambu. This leads into another fight between Maiguru and Babamukuru, and resulted in Maiguru leaving the house. After this scene, my views on Babamukuru changed drastically. He has been in three arguments already, two involving violence. Chapter eight left me questionning Babamukuru as a father and educator.

Chapter Nine:

Two significant events happens in chapter nine; Tambu earns a scholarship to  a school far away and we learn about Nyasha as a character. There is a discussion back at Tambu's house involving the scholarship. Once she is accepted, Ma' Shingayi's condition worsens. Tambu's dedication to education compensates for the lack of dedication to her family -- knowing her mother's condition and future, she still continues forth along her path of education. Keep in mind, this has already happened once before, during her trip to the mission.

"I could hear her gagging and choking" (193).

Right after being forced to eat her dinner, Nyasha escapes to the bathroom where she throws up the food she had just eaten. Nyasha talks to Tambu, telling her she didn't know why she did it. This can very well lead to the conclusion that Nyasha has a condition (anorexia). It has been three times already she has excused herself from dinner prematurely.

Chapter Ten:

I enjoyed the final chapter of Nervous Conditions. At first glance, it seemed very out of place for me. To end the book with another sojourn of education seemed out of place and left me hanging. However, the quiz question today really helped me understand chapter ten's real purpose. It wrapped up multiple aspects of the book, either by recurring or building upon them. I found it very interesting that Dangarembga included these details so close together without disrupting the flow of the book (they are three completely different subjects).

"...but about my escape and Lucia's; about my mother's and Maiguru's entrapment; and about Nyasha's rebellion..." (1).

Let's evaluate this early quote at the end of the book. First, I think Lucia and Tambu's escape is their escape from a poorer, less educated life to a richer, educated life. They both eventually take academic classes and leave the homestead. In this chapter, we learn that Tambu is driven to Sacred Heart and Lucia passes her form one. Secondly, Ma' Shingayi and Maiguru's entrapment is about duties. Even as an educated woman, Maiguru still takes care of a family as a poor one would, like Ma' Shingayi. In chapter ten, she prepares lunch and shops for Tambu. Lastly, Nyasha continues rebelling by disobeying her father and  refusing to eat food, when her condition is then revealed to them all.

Expectations and Locations

School: Like Tambu, I feel as though it is my duty to fulfill its purpose and receive an education. I prioritize my academics because my actions here affect my actions tomorrow. In lower school, my parents expected high scores and encouraged a proper demeanor, to both fellow students and faculty. However, nowadays I am no longer pushed as much I used to be. Thankfully, I was raised understanding the importance of education.  I am expected to push myself through the thick and thin and make my own future.

On the soccer field: As a soccer player, I  think I should play with effort. Contrarily (and unfortunately), my coaches expect me to play with skill. To a certain extent, these are two very similar characteristics of my actions.  If you play with effort, chances are you will play your best; if you play well, you are probably playing with effort. During games, I play with my all and hope for the best.

On the soccer field (as a referee): I'm sure many of you doubt this but I am truly a Louisiana certified soccer referee. In this position, I have two expectations coming from three different sources. The coordinators and administration expect me to be very objective during my work. I have to make proper decisions and stand my ground against the screaming soccer moms. I also believe in this expectation. I try to live up to standards, but in all honesty, I occasionally slack off and blame the sun for giving me a headache. My mother (specifically) expects me to accept games and stick to my word; it's her way of teaching me to be responsible and committed.

The Virtual World: Hah! For those people who know me well, I love my computers, so of course I couldn't let this one slip my mind. When I mention computers, I mean everything: the games, the internet, and the peoples inside of it. But all hobbies aside, I have to talk about expectations, so let's take a look at the community (which can't be done). You can't base assumptions on billions of people by a small set of people that vary. Different locations among the internet have different people who behave differently and expect differently. For example, league of legends (an RTS), has a ruthless community. The people who play this game will criticize your skills and do everything within their power to ruin your day (exaggeration). The picture of these gamers has led me to expect slim to nothing. When playing alongside fellow teammates, I don't expect them to be happy or be very good at the game. However, games like Mount&Blade: Warband have some really nice players. Because the game style is so involved in teamwork and has no permanent recordings, users tend to enjoy the game much more. I expect a lot from these people; they are nice people and have a great taste in games.

3/04 - 30min., 3/05 - 30min., 3/06 - 60min., 3/07 30min., 3/09 - 30min.
Total - 180min., Nervous Conditions (read 5 chapters and annotated 4)

Tambu's Trip

Feb 29:

Babamukuru just came home with some fantastic news: my brother died! Both my siblings and parents took it pretty badly. My dad (Jeremiah) was sad, but didn't take the blow as hard as my mother did. My mom bawled and mourned, all the while accusing Babamukuru of killing her son. Netsai cried too and Rambanai whimpered. It was a depressing moment. Despite the atmosphere, I was feeling great. Nhamo's death meant my education, and immediately opened up several doors for me. My mother claimed she would die from anxiety if I left; she didn't want me dying as well. But I decided to ignore her. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like this.

Feb 30:

I just arrived at Babamukuru's house, and I'm amazed. At first, the small building I first assumed was his house disappointed me, but I was wrong. It was his garage! His real house was a big and colorless, just like the white people had. When I entered the house, I was really surprised. I was exposed to new luxuries I haven't ever seen before. The house was clean and nice. However, there were some changes I noticed with the people at his house. Nyasha had become more disrespectful than she had used to be. Maiguru blames the trip to England for her demeanor. Anna has also changed. Her talkative attitude disappeared soon after my arrival to Babamukuru's house. Her tone became more objective and monotonous. She seemed to have lost her enthusiasm. Besides Nyasha and Anna's changes, I look forward to my education. I'm still very excited and prepared for this experience.

C1 Layer Reflection

Yes, we've finally made it through one segment of our massive book project. For me, the C1 Layer was easy. I had picked the menu (10 points), 5 reading guides (50 points), and annotations (25 points) for a total of 85 points which capped at 79. I found the menu to be extremely simple and an easy 10 points. It took me around 5 minutes because I had already had a basic idea of what I wanted to do. On the other hand, the reading guides' questions at first proved a more challenging assignment. However, they did help me understand the book more thoroughly. They pinpointed important dialogue and events in the story and is definitely a strong study tool. Reading guides were satisfying to complete and useful to me.

Annotations were not as useful, but still worked towards the same idea. Reading guides emphasized significant events whereas annotations helped me develop critical thinking abilities which find important parts in the text. But annotations irritated the life out of me. They magnify my reading times; one chapter can easily become an hour. Yes, I understand I picked my poison, but I do have my reasons. Like I said before, it does help me comprehend the story. I can distinguish influential moments that highlight themes or dramatically affect the story. Secondly, I feel as though I can connect with the book. My predictions, questions, credit, and inferences can all be laid out on paper.

For the C2 Layer, I can't really have a change in plan. All I will have to do is adapt to the new assignments. In the second layer, I will have the NC  test (20 points), 5 blogs (50 points), and annotations (25 points). The test as well as the blogs take me in a completely new direction, so I can't really adjust according to my C1 Layer. However, for my annotations I want to make more inferences, predictions, and questions. But for now, we can all enjoy next week, devoid of any Nervous  Conditions assignments, and pat ourselves on the back for a successful (hopefully) C1 Layer.

2/25 - 30 min., 2/26 - 30 min., 2/26 - 40 min., 2/27 - 30 min., 2/28 - 40 min., 3/01 - 30 min.
Total - 200 min., Nervous Conditions (Ch. 4 - 7)

Paper Reflection

1. My writing process followed the assignments we were given: write rough draft, edit rough draft, and complete rough  draft. The most difficult part of this procedure was probably editing. After looking over Dr. deGravelles' comments, I realized there were quite a large amounts of errors in my paper. In the next few days I had to work hard to compensate for my mistakes. Though it was a difficult process, it still proved the most useful and productive part. However, the transition from edited draft to complete wasn't useful to me. I had cleaned up a lot of the problems during the editing process. The main two corrections I made in this part were connecting the paragraphs smoothly and creating a strong conclusion. Lastly, I think you've done fine in preparing students for this assignment. The due dates are nicely spread out with understandable amounts of homework to fill.

2. I received a fair amount of good, informational feedback. My fellow peers helped strengthen my paper in terms of word choice and sentence fluency. Matthew Garrett specifically pointed out I was missing a source (Thanks!). Both Dr. deGravelles and my classmates played a big role in my editing process; I used their advice in my paper.

3. I believe it is safe to say the word choice in my paper is strong. Ever since I was young, I loved using big, sophisticated words. But at those ages, I tended to use them incorrectly and ruin the sentence fluency. However, I am not so confident in my ideas. After talking about the disadvantages of social media, I began talking about the advantages. During this process, I started losing ideas. I felt as though I needed the amount of disadvantages to be equivalent to the amount of advantages. For this reason, I could have put in some useless filler unknowingly.

4. Nope, nothing much to say here.

2/18 - 60min., 2/19 - 60min., 2/20 - 30min., 2/21 - 60min., 2/22 - 45min.
Total - 255min., pp. 1 - 57 (Nervous Conditions), (Paper)

Reading Times

2/09 - 30min., 2/10 - 30min., 2/12 - 60min., 2/17 - 60min.,

Total - 180min., pp. 1 - 34 (read and annotated Nervous Conditions), (worked on paper)