D Uzuga Mendez’s Online Journal

Dear Mr Baca,

I am writing to you because i find your poems really interesting and i have a few questions based on your poetry and past life.

My name is Daniel and i go to the London Nautical School in England. One day, my English teacher, Mr O’Brien introduced us to your poem ” Who understands me but me.” after reading another poem by Langston Hughes.

After reading the poem, i wonder what your childhood must of been like. I have only learned a little about how you grew up but i still have a few questions about your childhood. First of all, is it true you grew up in an orphanage? If it’s true how did it feel and i don’t want to sound rude but was it hard going through hard times in the orphanage? How did you overcome those problems?

Also i heard that you didn’t really send time with your parents since you went to an orphanage from very young. I don’t want to upset you or anything, but when was it the last time you have been in contact with your parents and why did they leave you?

I also found out that you were sentenced to prison for an unfortunate reason. I wanted to ask what was the overall feeling of being in ”hell”. I know tat you were kept in solitary confinement and everyday you must have seen things that could have upset you, if so what kept your head up and what made you stay so positive in such a terrible place? Being in prison, you decided to learn literature which helped you become who you are now and not having great education why did you choose literature and not something else?

At the moment in school our main subject is called ” being an outsider”. For me, you are an ”outsider” as well. Basically an outsider is a person that is not like any other person or we could just say that you are different from others. You are an outsider because when you were younger, you weren’t like other kids because you went to an orphanage and never got to meet your parents properly. Also you are different because i don’t know a single person that becomes a famous poet after being in prison for so long. That’s why i think you’re an outsider. Wouldn’t you agree with this?

Now that you are finally out of prison what is your current life like? I don’t want to sound rude or upset you, but have you been able to be back in contact with your parents. I think you have been a strong and brave person considering what you have went through and not having that extra support you could of got by your parents. Wouldn’t you say so? One main question that I wanted to ask about this topic is that now that you are a famous poet, has your life changed in all type of ways and are you pleased on what you have accomplished after being a horrible place? Anyway those are the only questions I had about your current life .

So if I ever get a chance to meet you, it would be a great opportunity to meet an inspirational and strong person. Overall the reason I am writing to you is because I just had these few questions about you that you will hopefully respond back to them. Thank you for reading my letter and I wish the best for you.

Kind Regards,

Daniel

In Sherman Alexies book, The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian, Junior, the protagonist, is arguably the most important character. Sherman Alexie uses the character of Junior to express events which Sherman Alexie experienced when he was younger too and to explore the theme of being an outsider. In the book, Junior ism presented as an outsider in many occasions. In this essay, I will write about five major events. One way in which he is presented as an outsider is Sherman Alexie  explaining that he has ”water on his brain” and having extra body parts than others. Another occasion is when he moves out the reservation to find a better school and better future and ends up in a white people school where he’s the only Indian and poorest there.Third occasion demonstrates how he is poor and his situation through poverty. He goes out with his friends to a pancake party and had to lie about not having money but in fact it is because he is poor. Fourth way is not an occasion but a fact. The number of deaths in his hometown Wellpinit represents him as an outsider because in Reardan it is not a normal thing for them to have such number of deaths. Final and last occasion is when he has a basketball match against his hometown Wellpinit and is the only Indian in the team and everyone from Wellpinit treats him as a traitor by booing and throwing things at him.

The reason why the quote “water on my brain” demonstrates that he is an outsider is because it is saying that he is physically different from other people and treat him differently because of this. Another way in which this presents him as an outsider is because he is more smarter than other kids and people bully him because of jealousy.

• Also the occasion of when he moves out of Wellpinit to go to a better school and future in Reardan represents him as an outsider because it is telling us that he is more smarter than other people and that his school in Wellpinit is not enough for his future. Also like in the previous occasion he is treated differently and gets alienated and bullied. A quote that demonstrates this occasion is when Junior was having a chat with Mr. P about leaving the reservation and Mr. P said ” You can’t give, you won’t give up”. This quote

One day in a cool summer afternoon a normal happy family were getting ready to the new theme park ride called the SWARM. The normal ordinary kid called Omari Hutchinson and his dad and mum were now ready to go. Omari and his parents had arrived at the theme park and Omari was really excited about the new ride. Omari had always been a fan of roller coasters and more daring and extreme stuff. Omari and their parents paid for the tickets and entered ” the coolest theme park ever”. Obviously Omari zoomed to the new ride that he had been dreaming about going to for a long time. Omari had a weird feeling about going on the ride. He got butterflies in his stomach as soon as he saw how hight it went, he wasn’t sure if he was going to go on the ride.

If I could change the story I would…I would change it by making father and the soldier see Bruno’s dead body in the chamber.I wanted to see more of an reaction and more explanation on what happened to Bruno at the end. The original ending for me was very simple

Dear Diary,

This day was different. I heard people shouting and babies crying. I was removed from my home and into this small room we had to stay in. The next morning I woke up in a mess and my mother and papa had gone. I had no reaction. They where seeming to move into a weird type of train and locked up them up. After a few minutes a soldier came for me and dragged me towards the train. It was dark and it smelt really bad. They didn’t let me come in with my bag so I had to leave it behind. Before I  got on the train I seemed to have spotted an armband with the star of David on it. Their was a wall separating the road but I didn’t seem to see it properly. Their were people on either sides. It was quite weird. The train reached the destination and the place didn’t look very nice and it was extremely dull and foggy. I was shocked.

In my point of view, Bruno’s dad doesn’t seem to be a happy man, but a very strict and serious man. I say this because from the quote ” you need to realize you are at home!”.This suggests that they are not going to get along really well and that there not going to talk to each other that much. This creates an image of anger and stress because their quite a crazy family. This  makes the reader feel quite sad and dissapointed on whats going on with their family

Today in class we were discussing our predictions about the story “The boy in the striped pyjamas”. My first prediction of this story is that his facial expression shows sadness because of the way is lip is drowsing downwards.They probably are not showing his face because its private and maybe its a true story or they just want to make the cover more interesting to the reader.From what I know when a person has striped pyjamas and a number tag on it its because they are probably in jail.Also because to sort out the different prisoners by numbers.

Prediction 2

I think the “striped pyjamas” belong to the prison.