Me, Eleven, and Homework

In the article Homework the protagonist of the story Michael is unhappy because his dog was hit by a cart and eventually dies. He skipped school for a week and states how the only thing he misses is homework. His mother then explains to him how he is not the only one that’s unhappy but it doesn’t stop her from going to school. This is when he notices that his mother was aware of him skipping school. Yet it didn’t give the serious impression that what he was doing was bad. Instead his moms insist on if he’s not going to go to school then he could at least clean his room. Michael haves algebra problems that get him through the day. Eventually he wakes up with the perception that he was going to school, and since he was eighteen he is able to write his own excuse for school. His mother couldn’t believe what he wrote. He states “Please excuse my absence from February 17-24. I was unhappy and did not feel able to attend school”. Then he turns it in to school and the guidance counselor approaches him to ask him about the note. He tells her that he wrote the note this morning at breakfast and he knows it may not be acceptable but it’s the truth. She explains to him how she wants him to graduate. Takes his not crumbles it and attempts to throw it in the trash in his face but misses. He is told that he is okay this time but still has to make up the work. Michael leaves and then goes to meet his sister at work.

There are always connections with text to self. Were I take the protagonist feelings or behavior and connect them to behaviors or experiences of my own. In this article Michael isn’t happy because of the lost of his dog. He didn’t attend school because of his depression. The action to losing a love one is always devastating. I recently   lost my father in February and I was overwhelmed with depression. Not only was I unhappy and depressed I couldn’t function. Like, in Homework Michael used homework and algebra problems as his way of coping. When I lost my father I used basketball as my element of coping. Having our coping method made us feel better in the moments where we would usually be unhappy.

However in the short story Eleven the narrator is not too happy about being eleven. Rachel is having the worst eleventh birthday. She explains how it’s really nothing special about being eleven. She gives an explanation about how “when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one." She is really miserable in her because her teacher places an embarrassing sweater on her desk that her peers said was hers. However the sweater was not her and she explains it to the teacher but the teacher still thinks it’s hers. So she talks throughout the story about how she wishes that she was “one hundred and two”. She uses one hundred and two to represent the old and the wise. She believe that if she was older and wiser she would’ve new exactly how to handle the situation with the teacher and the sweater. Even though she wishes to be a hundred and two she expresses some really childish behaviors.

I love the out look of this situation. Because as Rachel felt about her age is the same way I feel about age and life in general. It’s like if your young its nothing and it doesn’t matter because it’s like the adults always through in your face in an argument, that they lived (bluh bluh) years so how can you tell them anything. So in the story she wishes that she was one hundred and two. I only know one man that’s 100 and that’s my grandfather, and because he is so old he gets so much respect and know one really argues with what he say at any point.  So when I’m in an argument with my mother and she tries to blame me for something that is not mines like the “sweater” in Eleven I can flash my age in her face with no question about it. I understand what Rachel is say when she explains being eleven “when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one” because as you get older you are suppose to be maturing however you still have all these ages bottled up inside you. So you have your moments when you don’t get your way and you act three. And the days where you fall and hurt yourself and you cry like a five. Therefore in the story it expresses how with older age it brings you the strength of the wise old man and that brings you happiness.