I  never listen to my mom. And now I think I should. Sometimes it helps to listen to women, especially mothers, because I think they have much more common sense.
  I found my boss on an Craigslist while in Russia. We e-mailed each other a lot and we exchanged pictures and other get-to-know-each-other-stuff. I couldn't meet him for the interview, so that was I had to do. My mom didn't lile him right away. She told me he had looked very creepy and suspicious. I was laughing at her and I think it was silly from her. However, it turned out silly from me. I was a douche.
 
It was a great view right below me. The vast blocks of houses streched to the horizon where it bordered with the high mountains with the snow on the top. The sun was shining very brightly and you could see tall palm trees and big sandy bitches. This place looked like I saw it in a movies. Not a movie like a Blade Runner (I love this movie though), but like in all other happy end Hollywood movies you watch. Welcome to America! To be more precise, Los Angeles, California!
  I was so excited to get off the plane and start my journey. Besides, my boss was waiting for me at the airport.
  I saw him bold and in shades in his late 50s. Typical californian creep. The first thing he did is took a picture of me on his cell phone. That was really weird! But, hey! I've never been to America before, so how could I know it wasn't just a usual American tradition. He was really nice when he spoke and he told me we were to go to Santa Barbara, where he has his food track.
  As a sucky narrator as I am, I forgot to say that I was supposed to work for him in a food track, catering racing events all around West coast. Sounds pretty cool for a useless guy like me!
  But before going to Santa Barbara, he took me to spa. Yes, spa. You read it right guys. However, I'm a really hard-headed person. I took it as a great American tradition too. I mean, the guy (my boss) didn't have a moustache, so he would go for a maniac or crazy type right away.
  After leisuring at the spa, we went to Santa Barbara. It was very beautiful road. It was something like coast highway, between the ocean and high SoCal hills.
  Being sleepy after a long way, I fell asleep in a car. I wasn't driving so I considered myself eligible for the sleeping procedure. When I woke up an hour later approaching Santa Barbara my boss showed me the pictures he took of a sleeping me. That was beyond creepy.  Only then I started to feel really uncomforable with this situation.
  When we got to his house (nice californian suburban house), he showed me the bed where I would sleep and he showed me a food track. After the brief observation, I started noticing very weird thing about this house.... It was only one bed there! Two people, one bed...Doesn't compute (unless you married or in a relationship). I asked him about that and he told me  "yea! we are going to sleep in one bed! You didn't know?". Yes, I didn't know. I didn't know I had to do it and I didn't know what to do. For some time I felt really lonely and alienated. Imagine my situation: 18-year old idiot in another country doesn't know anybody, doesn't know where to go!
  What did I do you may ask me (which is not probable, because stroy is not the most interesting you'll ever read)?
  I just packed my things. Said by to the boss, told him to get a moustache so people would know who he is and went to the bus station. The best idea I had is to go back to Los Angeles and try to find a job there. Which turned out to be not that of a good idea afterall! (Economic downturn and stuff).
  This night I got the room in a hotel, bought chineese food. Turn the TV on.
  This night I was watching soccer and "Every body hates Chris" eating my misery away with orange chicken and noodles.
  A lonely kid with a little common sense. I should have listened to my mother.

 

Outline template:

I. Orientation.

a. Draw a reader to the hook.

I have never been living or at least staying somewhere alone for a long time. Moreover, I have never been to the other country alone, just by myself. But moment came and I had to go. I came to America June 9th, 2010.

b.Introduce characters and setting.

I met my boss at LAX in Los Angeles. I was supposed to work at the summer cafe with him, travelling around the whole West Coast. But everything seemed to be wrong with the very beginning.

II. Complication

a.Introduce and explore conflict.

Charlie, my boss took me to spa. It seemed very strange to me but I thought that's what they do in America. Hey! I have never been here before. Then he told me we're going to his home to Santa Barbara, however I old him that I had an arrangements for the room in Santa Monica. But he insisted on me going with him, he was my boss, so I had nothing to do but comply. I didn't like it at all.

b.Details

I came to his house. It was nice Californian house with bright sun and palm trees outside. I kind of like it. He had to cats (I hate cats): Pete and Repete (or Repeat, I don't know). He had only one bad and I was wondering where would I sleep. When he told me he would sleep in one bed with me, I was paralyzed. I could move. I was so scared alone in another country, I didn't know anybody or anything! Many more other details.

III. Resolution

a.Explain how the conflict is resolved.

I escaped with all my clothes took the taxi than the amtrak straight to Los Angeles. Here I was, alone, far away from home with no job and $300 in my pocket!

a

• A time when you wish you would've been honest but weren't.

I lied to my mother about my semester grade at school. She found out later this day. 

• A time when you felt you were growing apart from a friend or loved one.

I used to have a good friend back in my home country. But we started to have different interests and now we live on the different sides of the  Earth and barely talk.

• A time when you were made to feel different or isolated. 

When I first came to America, I felt really different and isolation was unbearable, but then, I got used to it!

• A time when you lost someone or something you loved.

When my grandfather passed away because of a lung cancer (he was 60-cigarettes-a-day chain smoker), I felt really awful and down for a while. I still miss him.

• A time when someone's behaviors differed from your expectations.

Me and my cousin used to be very close and we still are. But I thought he would be a great computer guy like me but all he talks about now is's music and it's very annoying.

• A time when you disappointed someone else.

My girlfriend is very disappointed that I always let people take advantage of , She thinks it will be hard for me in life if i keep doing that.

• A time when you surprised someone else or differed from their expectations.

Few people thought I could get by on my own far away from home. And I do that! Sometimes I exceed my own expectations on that matter!

Homework #2 "The Help"

 

    From the very beginning of the chapter I can notice the tension between Skeeter and her mother. The mother is the traditional southern lady, ex-beauty queen who want her daughter to get married and get settled with her life. However, Skeeter doesn't meet her expectations.  She's awkwardly tall, she’s not really concerned about getting married (though she probably wants to find a nice man), and maybe she’s just too thinking kind of a person to get settled with her life without making any change about the social and political life.

  A lot of people are being pressured by their parents’ expectations. That kind of thing had happened to me to. My mom always wanted me to be a lawyer but I didn’t.  I had no idea who I wanted to be, because I always did well in school and I couldn’t choose what I enjoyed the most. But I definitely didn’t want to be a lawyer. However, without any particular choice my mom urged me to enthrall into University to pursue a criminal justice. I didn’t enjoy it all. I passed all of my exams with A in the end of a year but never returned

again. I found my passion a couple years earlier. And even my mom is happy now!

Stereotypes in "The Help"

  Some people might not like the way the author descibes the language and thoughts of the African-American maids circa 1960. Public might find it very stereotypical and, maybe even racist.
  Yes, she uses incorrect. sometimes even profane language. She uses a lot stereotypes about black people. On the other hand, the maids are not only people who are stereotyped. It is also wealthy and not-to-do-so-well white people. A lot of them are cold, calculating folks. Even Mrs.Skeeter fits the stereoype of the soon to be a civil rights fighter who tries to help black folks but she's totally disconnected from them and find little understanding at times.
  However, I think that author uses one of the most important skills that distinguish human being from other animals. This skill is the power of abstraction. It makes people put themselfs in a shoes of the other person. It makes them think what other person might feel. And it leads to compassion and empathy. Sometimes we lack of it.
  Kathryn Stockett probably uses a lot of stereotypes ineed. But all in all, stereotypes are not always wrong. In fact a lot of them might be true. That's why they exist.