Strewn

Part of speech: verb

Source Sent. & Page #:
“To my delight, I found that the lawn had been strewn with miniature Iranian flags.” Funny in Farsi 113

Context clues: Used logic with miniature Iranian flags and the lawn.

Definition: to cover or overspread with something scattered or sprinkled.

Your Original Sentence: When I finished trick-or-treating, i dumped all my candy and had strewn my bed full of goodies.

Frugal

Part of speech: adj

Source Sent. & Page #:
After having baby-sat for every frugal family in town, I eventually hit the mother lode. (Funny in Farsi, 123)

Context clues: logic, the sentence before shows that frugal means to be scanty or little expense

Definiton: costing little; inexpensive

Your Original Sentence: my mom tends to do her shopping at the 99cent store because of its frugal products.

Baklava

Part of speech: noun

Source Sent. & Page #:
In Berkeley, and only in Berkeley, my name drew people like flies to baklava. Funny in Farsi, 64

Context clues: logic, “drew people like flies”, flies are drawn to food

Definition: A Near Easter pastry made of many layers of paper-thin dough with filling of nuts, baked dough and honey

Your Original Sentence: Ms. Henderson brought baklava to class today to try.

Reflection

An event that shaped the person I am today, strong and independent, is when my mom was taken by immigration. My mom, who I depended on the most for everything and I loved so much, was in one quick instant taken away from me. It was one morning when I woke up and heard people talking in the room. I pretended to be asleep while I quietly listened in. I could hear my mom searching through papers as some other voices were telling her to hurry up. I was so scared but I tried to remain calm. Minutes later, my mom had left the room and out the apartment door. Soon enough I was told she was taken to be deported for failing to show up for court. Everything inside me had been crushed and broken to pieces. Even though I was heartbroken, I still had my younger brother and sister to take care of and tell them what had happened and for this I had to be strong about it. I tried to stay strong and not cry, tell them everything was going to be alright.

Hours later, my aunt had told me it was official she was being deported. It was very hard for me and it sucked that I couldn’t do anything to help her. My mom had called me the next morning telling me to stay strong and not to worry, to take care of my brother and sister and soon she’d see us again. The first week I was so devastated I felt weak. But as time passed, I grew to be more independent of myself now that my mom wasn’t around. I tried to be a mom to my brother and sister and helped them anyway I could. Since that day, I’ve learned to do things on my own and not depend on people to get things done for me anymore. I’ve grown to be a stronger woman and I’m soon going to bring my mother back especially now that I’m 18. When she sees me, she’s going to see how successful and well grown I’ve become and make her proud.

Reflection

In elementary school, I loved reading. Books fascinated me a lot that I would check out at least 5 books every two weeks. I developed to read faster and I finished reading books really quick. Then one day I told myself that before I graduated elementary school I would read all the books in the library, but of course that never happened. As I entered junior high I was introduced to sports so that was another thing that came to fascinated me a lot too. Eventually, sports took a lot of my time and I had less time too read books I wanted because I already had assigned books from teachers to read which sucked tremendously. As time went by, I lingered away from reading because I developed enjoying more time playing sports or hanging out with my friends. I knew I was distancing myself from a hobby I use to love but at that time I didn’t care. I knew how to read fast so I thought that was a strength being a reader and that’s all that really mattered in being a reader. Also, I never had problems reading or understanding text from books so it was even more reason for me to not read anymore. Then came high school and I finally came to the point where I just hated reading. It was very boring to me and while everyone else was reading I was either drawing on paper or passing notes or playing tic-tac-toe with my friend next to me. In my junior year of high school, we read this book called the Fountainhead, a very complex and interesting book. However, as we read through it, I had a hard time analyzing the author’s text sometimes. That’s when it hit me that I was missing as a reader more understanding and methods of analyzing text. All of those years of not reading had immensely dropped my reading skills. Now, I’m stuck in a reading class in college. Nonetheless, I’m trying to bring back up my reading skills I had as a young kid and hopefully stay and continue reading more like I use to back in the young days.