Web Paper or Special Event

{At this point I’m writing about how Yumi was branded the bad seed but when I looked up the etymology, a bad seed is a genetic thing. Like it doesn’t just turn bad as they said Yumi did, it is already bad. Therefore, I believe it was her environment that shaped her identity. So, basically I state in my thesis that Yumi wasnt a bad seed, but in fact she was a good seed just overtaken by weeds and not planted in the soil she needed to flourish accordingly. -- Unfortunately the server was down when I woke up this morning to add the part below, and the library was closed so I couldn’t use the computer I used the other day to get the rest of my paper, so I had to just write this by itself and the rest of my paper is in my email.}

Ideas:

People at birth are given a name.   It is this name that follows us through our lives, and gains meaning to those around us as we develop who we ourselves are.  Yet, as we struggle through the process of growth and reform, the gaining of knowledge and the loss of innocence, our names become more pliable to the world around us.  Just as we become more able to define ourselves, as we open our view of the environment we are a member of, we become more aware of the roles we should be playing, and the environment has the ability to pressure our identities to shift accordingly.

Arguments include the topics below: 

Displacement 

The seed represents the beginning, survival, resistance, and a culture of farming. In Ruth Ozeki’s novel, All Over Creation, Ozeki redefines the meaning of seeds. Seeds are present in nearly every pivotal moment in the book and are used to show the characters’ willpower, hard work, skill, and concern for seeds. The seeds are a symbol of the characters’ strength, persistence, loss and will to survive. Though seeds evolve into plants-something new, they are compared to a cast of characters whose beliefs and personalities remain mostly static.

Selena Martinez

Rina Patel

Paper #8

10/24/2014

Connection between Humans and Plants through Memory and coding

• (I think the connection is going to be simply between the mother and the seeds, it could be stated later maybe next weeks paper how the connection between the mother and the seeds allows a healthy connection to the present day allowing her to fully function with others.)

    People change when they are under different environment, and they vary even when they are growing under similar environment. In Ruth Ozeki’s novel All Over Creation, she describes how two little girls Yumi and Cass become so different growing up in the similar environment, and ultimately going onto the completely opposite track.

The book, all over creation, told an interesting story between human and seed. Yumi, the protagonist, ran away from home at 14 and came back 25 years later. When she came back with three children, Yumi met her sick parents, Lloyd and Momoko, best friend, Cass, the hippie activists, and even her middle school teacher who slept with her and then abandoned her, Elliot. Written with different perspectives, the book narrated a vivid story about a genetic engineering protest happened in Yumi’s house. The book dug deeply into the relationship between identify and environment, the balance between culture and nature.

Poison

Rose Kooper-Johnson

Paper #7

Oct. 23. 2014

(sorry if it's a bit difficult to read the photo!) Ok so the general direction I was thinking of taking this in is talking about, obviously, the relation of identity vs environment. In a sort of "you are what you eat" kind of deal, I think that the book says that you only get what you put into things. For instance, Yumi took her life into her own hands by running away, and the Seeds of Resistance are trying to actively destroy GMOs. That's pretty generic on its own, so a step further might take to taking control of the environment as a means of instigating. Thinking along these lines, I started contrasting that "taking control" with a more passive "working with what you have".