Reading Blog: Persepolis-The Passport

When I read the title of this chapter, I immediately imagined the passport that was going to be explained was for the girl to leave the country. As I actually started reading, I was shocked by her going from a child to an adult. Later in, I encountered the remarkable man that I considered Taher to be, after surviving two heart attacks and living on happily. When I was happy with this character, I stumbled with the tragedy of a grenade landing close to his apartment, which caused yet another heart attack. For a moment there, I thought the author was going to make his stay at the hospital a tragic bump in the road but nothing big. Then I was shocked to see the passport was actually to get him to England for a strongly equipped surgery, which he needed. At that moment, I suspected he wasn't going to make it, specially since the whole chapter was dedicated to the attempt to save him. Sadly, I was right and Taher passed away.

Reading Blog: Persepolis-Persepolis

When I saw the title of this chapter, I knew it was going to confuse me in some way or another. As I read it, I felt a scary connection between the little girl and me. For starters, she tries to find out about her grandfather by talking to her grandmother, who only avoids talking about him. Here, I was able to connect because my grandfather died when I was about 10 years old, but I never really got to know him. I probably saw him once a year and truly regret not sharing with him. Now that he has passed, if the topic arrises in a family conversation, it is immediately avoided, Im not sure why. As the chapter went on, it was late one night when the girl´s father hadnt returned. The family started to think he was dead and were very concerned about him. In this part, I had my deepest connection beacuse her family started to worry for their dad as well as my family did for my father. I had just began school when he suffered internal bleeding in his brain, rushed out of the country in a plane-ambulance I truly didnt know about how he was doing for a whole month, as well and my mom not being here but instedad being in the US with him, on my month of school. Fortunetly, we both got our fathers back healthy, him being late at night photographing the rebel take over around the hospital and the deaths that it caused.
Overall, the chapter was not as confusing as I imagined it, but rather interesting. My questions remained as well as my anxiety to keep reading.

Reading Blog: Persepolis-The Veil

The comic book Persepolis starts with an odd but rather interesting introduction. The author started the first chapter by criticizing the Islamic culture from a child, the main charater´s, point of view. The introduction told the reader how the girl was born at the beginning of the Islamic revolution and how this affected her life as a little girl. She questioned that suddenly her school required the girls to wear veils. Then the school breaks apart to different boy and girl schools. This puts her in much doubt, as well as seeing the changes in society with the beginning of the revolution. In this chapter, the author also introduces the fact that this girl´s dream is to become the last prophet. With this, she starts living that part of her life and talking to god every night before going to sleep. I personally had never thought of these point of views when I see the news about a new reform in the Middle East for example. The children´s point of view is usually ignored and not taken into consideration for public awareness. So mostly, I was left with three questions from this chapter: 1. What is the girl´s name? 2. How does she make her point of view important to society and 3. How will she succeed as the prophet she wants to be.

Reading Blog tablet XI

When I first entered this very long but interesting tablet, I was confused. I first thought Gilgamesh was very sad about Enkidu, full of hate, maybe even blaming himself. In this Tablet he seeks immortality. This shows me that he is greedy. He was sad that Enkidu died and now he doesn't want that to happen to him so its now all bout him becoming immortal. When he reaches Utnapishtim and the adventure is told, I started thinking how I could have ever considered the two others as heroes if their courage and path don´t have comparison to all Utnapishtim. I connected this to the Hunger Games book, when the bravery of Katniss joining Peeta and willing the kill them both instead of her winning, that shocked me. It showed me what a hero is like, putting themselves in danger while keeping others from harm`s way.

Reading Blog Tablets VI-VII

As I kept reading to find only the tragic death of Enkidu. It was truly sad to read the pain and sadness that poor Gilgamesh experienced through those tablets and see how the loss truly hit him so hard. Again, I was able to connect to the movie Shooter when Swagger´s partner, Donney, is shot in the field. The film, as well as the text, show the other characters pain very deeply. In the movie, Swagger quits the army and "gets off the grid" for about 3 years. In the text, Gilgamesh agonizes his friend´s death by putting up a statue and dreaming several nights about him. Its clear that in both stories, the survivors suffered for their loss a lot.

Reading Blog Tablets IV-V

As I continued reading through these action packed tablets, I did what i thought impossible. I was able to connect even more to the book! It was astonishing to see that the powerful partners were able to defeat Huwawa and felt very happy that our two characters and I could connect that well. The way they moved also let me connect to the movie "Shooter", when the two snipers were such good friends as well as buddies in combat. In the movie as well as in the book, they fought and moved as one. They seemed to read each other`s thought to who did what at what moment and fought incredibly. The bravery and courage that these men in the two stories had, it totally blew my mind, specially because I would never be able to go that far. I really admire these heroes and cant wait to keep on reading to find what other adventures they go to.

Reading Blog Tablet I-III

Tablets I-III

In this part of the book, I truly connected to Enkidu and Gilgamesh. They started competing with each other to see who was the greatest and mightiest of all, in a way that I did in my old school. When I lived in London, my best friend and I had a very interesting relationship. We fought for "power" in the playground but were still very close. I saw this with Enkidu and Gilgamesh at the beginning of their relationship. What truly connected them later on was a sort of hate. They both went and fought Huwawa, which gave them a common enemy and unconciounsely united them. That is what happened to Jack and Me; when we both started getting bullied by the same kid in our class. We united forces and got everyone in our class to turn against him, a thing which I am ashamed of now. Since this happened to me in real life, I predict that Enkidu and Gilgamesh will be able to defeat Huwawa uniting their great strength and force.