First Rough Draft of the book "Crank"

    The book, “Crank” described Kristina as a smart girl at school, but she had challenged many kinds of problems at school and her family. There are so many saddness thing happen to her: her parents got divorced when she was 5 years old, then she lived with her mom and her step-father. Unfortunately, as time goes on, there are many things happened to Kristina and changed her personality and characteristics. An influence from someone’s opinion is able to change a person’s fate in both ways.

     Kristina tries very hard at school to act perfect, but inside of her mind, she wants a perfect family instead of getting perfect grade in school. Her desire is to live in a family with her siblings and her parents who have the blood relationship with her. When Kristina went visit her father and lived with him for a while, her father did not care about her so much because he got so much work to do and left her at home by herself alone. This make Kristina feels like her father tries to ignore her:

"Work?" "You have heard of work" "You couldn't take one day off?" "You don't know my boss" "Does he know about me?" "She knows you're here." "Your daughter comes to visit..." "She doesn't know." "Know what?" "That you're my daughter." "Who am  I then?" "A long-lost relative." (P30)

     Since after the divorced, Kristina's father lives pretty far away from where her mom lives, so it is not so easy to visit her father. Although Kristina tried very hard to get some free days hang out with her father, but he told Kristina that work is more important than daughter. Kristina feels pissed off of what her father did because she begged her mother for so long in order to get the permission of going to her father's house, and now her father expected her as a "long lost relative". I think it is pretty rude, and it just hurts a high school student's feeling. Kristina was dissapointed at what his father did to her. And later on the book, she talks about her marriage in her life. When people are putting a bad mood onto something, things would always turn worse. 

    After Kritina knows she is pregnant, she was trying to hide the fact and not to tell anyone, not even her husband. The reason why is that she does not want to distract him from his job, and also she was thinking if she should tell her parents. Once she does not feel well because she was pregnant for six months, and Adam was driving her home from a party. While Adam was driving, he told Kritina that she should tell her parents about the baby, and also fix the relationship:

"He suggested, Maybe you should talk to your mom"(P501)

            Then Kristina replied:

"What was he thinking? How could i talk to her? We hadn't really talked in years. What would I tell her now?" (P502)

         From their conversation, I can tell that Kristina was not willing to tell her parents that she is pregnant, because she felt strange to how selfish they actually are. Adam knows Kristina is just scared  to talk to her parents, so he presses the number to her parents, and give the phone to her after connected it. Her parents feel so surprise and happy after Kristina told them she is pregnant. And they started building up their relationship because of the baby.Sometimes, things will just get easier if people give more forgiveness and tolerant to each other. "I told you once before that life is full of choices, sometimes, good or bad, hard or easy, we make the right choices. When I told my mom, she cried and cursed. Then she softened and thanked me for honoring"(P525) This quote shows that if Kristina and her mom have known the misunderstanding before they are being ignoring to each other, things will get easier. Oftentime, forgiveness and tolerant could make life easier, and more success, espectially in people's relationship.
         So I think the writer expresses the ideas of family issues by writing this book and how we can treat the problems. Sometimes saddness things just happen, and we cannot stop them. Instead of complaining whose fault is it, we should rather look forward, and find out the solutions for it. Like in Kristina's case, if Adam did not make the phone call for her, she would not know it was a misunderstanding betwwen her and her parents, and she would not be able to know the truth. People sometims might just get mad and make some misunderstandings for no reasons, but then it will cause more troubles and problems, and hurting people around them. If we can start to learn how to forgive and tolerant to people, there would be less misunderstanding between each other; if there are less misunderstanding in our life, things will just become wonderful. Each good and bad choice in one's life is  effecting and changing their fate.

Rough draft of book

First Rough Draft of the book "Crank"

"Crank" Question 5

            Finally finish reading this kind of thick book! The book, "Crank" has a very deep meaning base on family's problem. The main character, Kristina, is a perfect girl both at school and family. She is quiet, talent, and friendly to people; however, her parents got divorced when she was still little. Therefore, she has problems that deal with her family. At the beginning of the book, Kritina claimed that at the beginning, she thought her father betrayed her mother, so she started to hate on him. By the time pass on, she found out that her mom is not as nice as she thought she is, and started to hate on her and does not like the way she is. Thus after she has a job, she moves out and lives by herself, until she marries to Adam. By the time she moves out, she does not have a good contact with her parents.
           After Kritina knows she is pregnant, she was trying to hide the fact and not to tell anyone, not even her husband. The reason why is that she does not want to distract him from his job, and also she was thinking if she should tell her parents. Once she does not feel well because she was pregnant for six months, and Adam was driving her home from a party. While Adam was driving, he told Kritina that she should tell her parents about the baby, and also fix the relationship:

"He suggested, Maybe you should talk to your mom"(P501)

            Then Kristina replied:

"What was he thinking? How could i talk to her? We hadn't really talked in years. What would I tell her now?" (P502)

         From their conversation, I can tell that Kristina was not willing to tell her parents that she is pregnant, because she felt strange to how selfish they actually are. Adam knows Kristina is just scared  to talk to her parents, so he presses the number to her parents, and give the phone to her after connected it. Her parents feel so surprise and happy after Kristina told them she is pregnant. And they started building up their relationship because of the baby.
         So I think the writer expresses the ideas of family issue by writing this book. Sometimes things just happen, and we cannot stop them. Instead of complaining whose fault is it, we should rather look forward, and find out the solutions for it. Like in Kristina's case, if Adam did not make the phone call for her, she would not know it was a misunderstanding betwwen her and her parents, and she would not be able to know the truth. It is glad that "Crank" has some meaningful lessons to share with the readers.

First Part of the Book "Crank"

       The book I picked to read is called "Crank", and it is written by Ellen Hopkins. Kristina is the character of the story--she is a perfect daughter: gifted high school junior, quiet, never make any trouble at school. The only thing that makes her life becomes imperfect is her family's issue. She had a step-father after her mom got divorced with her father, and lives in a 5 members family-- Kristina, her mom(Marie), her stepfather(Scott), her big sister(Leigh) and her little brother(Jake).
       Kristina tries very hard at school to act perfect, but inside of her mind, she wants a perfect family instead of getting perfect grade in school. Her desire is to live in a family with her siblings and her parents who have the blood relationship with her. When Kristina went visit her father and lived with him for a while, her father did not care about her so much because he got so much work to do and left her at home by herself alone. This make Kristina feels like her father tries to ignore her:

"Work?" "You have heard of work" "You couldn't take one day off?" "You don't know my boss" "Does he know about me?" "She knows you're here." "Your daughter comes to visit..." "She doesn't know." "Know what?" "That you're my daughter." "Who am  I then?" "A long-lost relative." (P30)

     Since after the divorced, Kristina's father lives pretty far away from where her mom lives, so it is not so easy to visit her father. Although Kristina tried very hard to get some free days hang out with her father, but he told Kristina that work is more important than daughter. Kristina feels pissed off of what her father did because she begged her mother for so long in order to get the permission of going to her father's house, and now her father expected her as a "long lost relative". I think it is pretty rude, and it just hurts a high school student's feeling. Kristina was dissapointed at what his father did to her. And later on the book, she talks about her boy friend and business in school.

Family History Response

       After publishing the family history and reading the wonderful stories that my friends wrote, I found some similarities and connections between few of my Asian friends' families.  After reading a bunch of readings, I got some quotes from Jay Pan, Andy Lau, and Shiyun Yang. All of the stories have one connection, which show that how strict Chinese family is, and how much hard work their mother had experienced back to their childhood.  First of all, this is a quote from Jay Pan:

When my mother was young, she went to an “advanced” math class at her school. She was an extremely studious and hardworking student that never slacked off or screwed around in class, (according to her anyway). She was apparently so hardworking that she was a well respected person in her village. They respected her as a student and as a hardworking member of society.

From Jay's quote, I can tell that Jay's mom was a "4.0" student in China back to the period, even though Chinese schools don't count GPA for their grade, but yah. The main point is that, although Jay's mom had a hard class and fortunately do well in the class, but she still had to get some times to do her housework. Going onto shiyun's quote, she shows the same connections of her mother's situation when she was young:

My mom would wake up at seven in the morning and head to school. When she comes back, she would be asked to do chores by her parents. Each of her siblings were assigned to do a different job. My mom had to take trips to the wells or to faucets to gather water for the family. For each bucket they got, they had to pay a cent. Back in the day, they had no access of water at homes.

   And this is Andy's quote:

Andy's quote:She described these as dirty and filthy places that she hated going to. Instead, my mom knew a friend who had a bathroom in their house with running water. She would go shower and use the restroom of one of her friends who was wealthy and had numerous bathrooms in their house. She said that she was very lucky and her parents and sister envied her because she got to shower in a clean and safe place.

    So, three of their quotes show an important connection in between Chinese families. From shiyun's quote, it basically shows how hard her mom's school life was, and how she was still working hard; from Andy's quote, it expresses a hard situation that Back to the time when their moms were still at school, I can see all of them were struggle on their familt situation while China was developing country. Thus its economic was not that rich compare to United States, so people owned a very low paying job, or even no jobs for them at all. So, their kids must to be mature early, and started doing housework. This is what my mom always tells me. I think this is what exactly the connection is showing: Back to our parents' childhood time period, kids are working hard to earn a good grade and having too much housework. These experiences are such alike what my mom told me she had before, and I think the memories are valuable because it shows a big different comparing to today.

The Joy Luck Club cyclical element writing

     Finally finish reading the Joy Luck Club, I think it is a great book which expresses the ideas of Chinese cultures in Chinese family. And it also shows an idea that is cyclical element between the family members, and how it effects their relationship. For example, the motherhood has a big impact on the daughters' life and the mothers led their daughters having a unique view to their life.
     For example, in the story, The Rules of the game,  Waverly Jong's mother pushed her so hard to be perfect on playing chess. Her mother is very strict at her, she pushed Waverly to learn how to play chess after she found her had such talent and gifted on playing chess. Also, she required her to lose as least as many pieces she could in the chess tournament. "Lost eight piece this time. Last time was eleven. What i tell you? Better off lose less!"(P97) This quote is from Waverly's mom, which is really mean and strict. As a chess player, I don't know the purpose of losing less is better than losing more, as long as you win the game at the end. The only purpose of doing that is to satisfy the desire from Waverly's mother of showing off to other people that Waverly is actually professional on playing chess. However, Waverly does not really like how the way her mother treat her as a way to show off, which make her dislike chess so much.
     Later on, after waverly grows up and has her own children, she tried to teach her child to have a good personality espectially not always want to show off. There is one quote that Waverly said" And My mom loves to show off a lot, like one of my many trophies she polished. she used to discuss my games as if she had devised the strategies" (P170) This is what Waverly really think about her mother while she was little. Because of her mother's bad personality influenced Waverly had a bad mind of what is going on in her childhood, she started to teach her daughter to be modest and respectful. This is how the cyclical relationship is--Waverly's mother pass her view of life to Waverly, and then Waverly gives a better view of life to her daughter as a mother. I believe this cyclical will turn better and better by the time pass by.