Overcoming Problems

What are some of the conflicts Amir faces, and what does he do to over come it? Do you see a trend in his actions? How does it effect him?

The historical fiction novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini portrays a young Amir, who Throughout the story, faces many internal problems. He goes through a "tough love" relationship with his father, he faces problematic relationship with his best friend, Hassan,(and his guilt), he faces his fathers death, and he, in the end, faces all the problems that he ran away from in the past.



Amir, first of all, faces his father, who seems to show more fatherly love to Hassan than to Amir. He does not show much affection to Amir who yearns for his love and works hard to it. For example, he tries and wins the kite running tournament because his father shows a hint of encouragement that he might twin this year's contest. While competing, he sees his father standing on top of a roof, pumping his fists, rooting for him. He had finally saw proof of his father's love and he is happy. He avoided ever facing his father.  He went on through life, taking his advice and sometimes neglect.  California changed things.  His father, with the absence of Hassan, began to bond with Amir and treat him more as a close son.  Amir likes this, and never really had to confront his problem, America fixed it.  This is so because in America, Baba didn't really have the pressure of being the great man everyone saw him as; he could go through life being like a normal citizen because in California, all the Afghans started out the same: In america, Amir suggested going back to Afghanistan to his father,

 "'You were happier there, Baba.   It was more like home,' I said

'Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you.'" (page 129)

He shows that he will sacrifice for his son, and suffer in order to give Amir what is best for him.

His relationship with Hassan started as any normal friendship would be. Amir struggles through a complicated friendship with his servant’s son, Hassan.  Their relationship starts off like normal one; they play and make mischief together all the time, but, strangely, Hassan always takes the blame for all the troubles they cause together.  It seems like Hassan knows his place as Amir’s servant, but doesn’t let it come in their friendship’s way.  On the other hand, as Amir grows older, he begins to realize the differences between him and his best friend.  They come from two different races, they come from different ends of the social ladder, and have different traits (Hassan is athletic and Amir is educated).  After Hassan's rape, Amir begins to feel guilty that he hadn't done anything to help his best friend out. He has an internal conflict overtime he hangs out with his best friend because he is constantly reminded of what he did not do. He tries to get Hassan to pelt him with pomegranates, as if he was getting his revenge, but that does not work. After Hassan proves himself unable to inflict any physical harm to him, Amir feels as though it is hopeless to get Hassan to take revenge on him, and he won’t let go, so He finally figures that being away from Hassan, running away from his problems, would solve it. And so Amir sends him off by framing him for stealing his watch. His whole life is lived in the shadow of the mistakes of not helping Hassan, throwing pomegranates at him, and expelling him from his life.

He then faces his father's death.  His father, although he didn't show it often, loved him very much.  He said that Amir lets others fight for him, and even Amir, himself, admits this.  He leans on Baba throughout his whole life, and is not ready to let go.  He recalls that in the ambulance, he felt powerless, unable to do anything to help his father.  He had no idea what to do.  His father survived that visit to the hospital but he was diagnosed with cancer.  Baba went on living, getting weaker little by little, continuing to treat Amir well, and soon past. After his father dies, he is unsure of how he would survive on his own.  Luckily, he married Soraya before his father died.  She was always there to help Amir through life, taking the place of Baba.


Throughout his whole life, Amir avoids actually facing his problems.  He expels Hassan from his life, running away from his troubles.  He flees Afghanistan, leaving his home country in it's time of need (according to the people who stayed), when the wars became worsened. And later, when his father dies, he doesn't face living alone, or overcoming his loneliness, Baba is replaced by his wife, Soraya, who, like Baba, gives him advice and love.

Finally, once he finally returns to Afghanistan, he is flooded with the many problems he has left behind.  The most obvious was the problem with Hassan's son.  Since he feels as though he is in debt to Hassan, he has an urge to do what his heart tells him to do, but his heart tells him not to.  He finally faces his problem after many, many years, and goes to save Hassan's son, Sorhab, and feels better.  Once he faces his conflict within himself, he instantly feels better, after all the years of guilt that he bubbles up inside of him.  He also do this by admitting his whole story to Soraya, a story he never admitted to anyone. He is also faced with his childhood towns and life turned to rubble.  He grew up living in these towns, playing in these towns, and eating in these towns, but when he returns, his once beautiful, great childhood environment completely destroyed and all the culture left crushed.  The incident of overcoming his internal conflict made him stronger, and he was able to endure this, the destruction of his childhood country, as well as the beating he received from Assef:

"I don't at what point I started laughing, but i did.  It hurt to laugh... But i was laughing and laughing."(page 289)

Amir laughed because he was finally free from his burden on guilt.  He freed himself through standing up for himself, and fighting his battles, not running away, or having someone else fight them for him.  Facing his own problems welcomed Amir into manly-hood.

Kite Runner Final Post

Finally, after reading the book, everything seems to connect, and make sense; everything ties together, and is wrapped up into a perfect, bitter sweet conclusion.  The relationship between Baba and Hassan finally makes sense, Amir is finally lifted of his guilt, and Amir finally gains a son.  But in betweens those events, Sohrab is hospitalized, after he attempts to commit suicide with a razor blade.  While in the hospital, Amir, for the first time in twenty years, prays.  He prays and prays and prays, relentlessly, making promises to Allah.  In the end, Sohrab's physical health is reborn, but his mental health is unstable.

This is Hosseini's way of expressing that Prayer can lead to some savior, but cannot fix everything.  He is saying that prayer is never a perfect thing to rely on in a time of distress or need, but if it is the only thing left to do, and it doesn't harm oneself, it can help.  It saved only half of Sohrab., but half is better than nothing.  Allah seemed to save Sohrab's physical form, but he couldnt manage to save his mental form.  Sorhab came back into the world, "given up" and pretty much without a soul, emotionless.  This shows that the true time for prayer is when one can not do anything physical to save people.  It should not be used during a earthquake or something of that sort, where physical actions can be taken to save oneself.  It should be used when one is isolated, and has no actual power over what happens.  Amir felt this helplessness when Baba was in the ambulance as well, but he didn't pray because Baba always frowned upon it.  Now, once he was released from Baba's wishes, he could do what he wanted.

Another thing i noticed was when he was trying to find out what his mother was like, Amir seemed so desperate to find out what his mother was actually like.  I think that on top of just wanting to find out what a parent he has never met was like, he had another reason for wanting to learn about her.  He had just found out that his all great, honorable father, Baba was actually sort of a fraud.  He has already followed in Baba's footsteps of betraying his best friend, and he wishes to find his "better half" in his mother.  Maybe he has a parent who was actually kind, and loving, and a real honorable person.  He wants to know he has good in himself as well.

Ipad?

This is a response to Billy's post about whether or not an iPad is a worthy thing to buy:

Why choose iPad ? Many have wondered about this and still have trouble finding why. Well, what is an iPad? An iPad is a tablet computer made by Apple. It is made for reading audio books,watching movies, browsing the web, listening to music, and most importantly playing games. An iPad is portable and a lot bigger than the Ipod touch or the Iphone, but it does mostly the same task like them. A iPad's starting price is 499 

My family recently put together our money and bought an ipad for the whole family, and i cant say i regret it, but at the same time, i cant say it was the best buy i made in a while.  Many people say that the ipad is just a big ipod, why buy it?  Before i bought the ipad, i thought "its a huge ipod, why NOT buy it? who doesnt was a gigantic ipod touch?"  Now, looking back, i think the ipad is way over priced.  I got the 64 giga byte one, and that set my family back almost a thousand dollars, including tax and the cover case.  I think that that is completely over priced for a piece of technology.  I have to admit that when i use it, i completely forget about the pricing.  It is an incredibly useful device.  For example, i wrote my blog about firemens' integrity on it last week, while away from home.  It was extremely cool to do so because it is much more portable than my laptop, and it works almost like one.  It was also easier to type than i expected, on a touch screen

I also use it for games.  The game-play on the huge, sharp display is incredible because i can see the rich colors in a screen many times larger than an ipod touch.  It is also Is much easier to handle because of the larger screen.  I can play, without having to scrunch up my hands.  The ipad is still way over priced, and i think that if Apple brought the price down, many more people would buy it.  The ipad is extremely useful, extremely fun, and extremely unique, but at such an extreme price, i don't think it is worth it.  I would much rather stay with an iphone, which can get 3g connection almost anywhere.

that brings me to my next point.  I don't see the ipad as a useful thing to have on a 3g broadband.  All you could do is surf the web, go to youtube, etc.  But you cant make phone calls on it, unless you have special apple headphones and a calling application.  Even with these, the calling app wasn't made to be used on a 3g network, and it would probably lag.  I don't think it would ever replace a cell phone, unless it got smaller, or maybe less in cost.  I strongly stand behind the iphone, which is the perfect medium between the ipod and the 3g ipad.

HARRY POTTER 1

Okay, i was thinking about what to write, and i couldn't think of anything, so i decided to just summarize the whole harry potter and the sorcerer's stone, since the new movie is coming out soon.

so Harry Potter, the main character starts out as a normal, scrawny boy who gets picked on by his cousin, who he lives with after his parents die in a car crash.  One day, he gets a letter saying that he is a wizard and that he should come to this special school for people with abilities like him, called Hogwarts.  His uncle doesn't want this, so he throws away the letter.  Soon, a bunch more arrives, and he starts burning them.  One day, his whole house was flooded with letters, literally flooded, and Harry's uncle decided to run away from the house, even though Harry actually wanted to attend Hogwarts.  They stay in this place, where a huge man comes and knocks the door down.  He comes in on Harry's birthday and presents him with a cake, confirms that Hogwarts is real and that he is a wizard, and gives Harry's cousin, Dudley, a pig's tail.  Later, he takes harry on a shopping trip in the wizard world, and it turns out that his parents left him a ton of money.  They go out and buy his uniform, an owl, a wand, and books.  Harry returns home, and awaits his trip to Hogwarts.

Finally his day comes, and he goes to the train station and looks for Platform 9 3/4 and finds that he has to run into a wall to get to the station.  He bravely does it, and is amazed at the other side.  He sees an enormous red train with many witches and wizards in their robes boarding the train.  He gets on and meets Ron and Hermione who become very close friends.  They get to Howarts and are sorted into houses, they all get Gryfindor.

Later they discover a plan to steal the sorcerer's stone(gives immortality), and tried to stop them.  They have to go through a series of tasks, such as passing a huge guard dog, defeating devil's snare, catching a key out of thousands, and winning a game of Wizard's Chess.  Then Harry faces Voldemort, the even wizard who was thought to be dead.  Voldemort was the actual reason Harry's parents are dead, he killed them.  Harry defeats him with a simple touch of his hands.  Harry was protected by his mother's spell of love, which protects him from the dangers of Voldemort.  The three come back as heroes.

The Kite Runner

Throughout this story, I have noticed many internal problems Amir faces. He goes through a "tough love" relatinship with his father, he faces problematic relationship with his best friend, Hassan, he faces his fathers death, and he, in the end, faces all the problems that he ran away from in the past. The novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hossieni cirlces an overall theme of character versus self.

Amir, first of all, faces his father, who seems to show more fatherly love to hassan than to amir. He does not show much affection to Amir who yearns for his love and works hard to it. For example, he tries and wins the kite running tournament because his father shows a hint of encouragement that he might twin this year's contest. While competing, he sees his father standing on top of a roof, pumping his fists, rooting for him. He had finally saw proof of his father's love and he is happy.

His relationship with Hassan started as any normal friendship would be. After hassan's rape, Amir begins to feel guilty that he hadn't done anything to help his best friend out. He has an internal conflict overtime he hangs out with his best friend because he is constantly reminded of what he did not do. He tries to get Hassan to pelt him with pomegranates, as if he was getting his revenge,but that does not work. He finally figures that being away from Hassan, running away from his problems, would solve them. And so Amir sends him off. His whole life is lived in the shadow of the mistakes of not helping Hassan, throwing pomegranates at him, and expelling him from his life.

He then faces his father's death.  His father, although he didn't show it often, loved him very much.  He said that Amir lets others fight for him, and even Amir, himself, admits this.  He leans on Baba throughout his whole life, and is not ready to let go.  After his father dies, he is unsure of how he would survive on his own.  Luckily, he married Soraya before his father died.  She was always there to help Amir through life, taking the place of Baba.

Once he finally returns to Afghanistan, he is flooded with the many problems he has left behind.  The most obvious was the problem with Hassan's son.  Since he feels as though he is in debt to Hassan, he has an urge to do what his heart tells him to do, but his heart tells him not to.  He is also faced with his childhood towns and life turned to ruble.  He grew up living in these towns, playing in these towns, and eating in these towns, but when he returns, his once beautiful, great childhood environment completely destroyed and all the culture left crushed.

Cross Country

Today, I went to my brother’s cross country meet right after school.  We arrived a little early, just in time to catch the beginning of the girls’ varsity race.  I had never been to a race before, so I was a little lost, in terms of what was going on.  I kept annoying my father with questions about where they would be coming from, how long the race was, etc. while he was trying to concentrate on taking pictures.  He finally started ignoring me, so I just stood in silence and watched.  After five minutes or so, a huge group of girls came running towards us.  I watched in amazement, as the kept their form and ran hard, drenched with sweat.  And as quickly as they came, they disappeared over the next hill, and around the corner.  My father started off to the next location they would come, and I hurried to catch up to him.  The next place was the finish line.  We waited another five minutes and the girls came again.  They raced down the stretch at a full stretch, pushing it top the limit.  The first few girls were happy with their time while the others scolded themselves.

Next, it was the boys’ turn.  When they ran their warm up pacers, I thought they were starting to actually run, so I started to cheer. No one else did, and I realized they were only warming up, and I felt dumb.  I think yen is weird; that is just my opinion. Oh no! Yen is leaving now (Janice).  After that incident, they actually began.  My brother, Duc, took the lead instantly and took off.  We then moved onto the next station, and waited.  They came, and were off again.  It was much like the girls’ run but much faster.  Finally, we headed towards the end of the circuit.  They soon came rushing over the hill at a full sprint.  Two Berkley High students were up front.  After about five seconds, I saw my brother heading towards us, neck and neck with another Berkley kid and… dog?  The dog kept cutting off Duc, forcing him to slow down.  It kept this up until the end of the race, not even bothering the other kid.  My brother made forth in the race, even thought the dog had been cutting him off for about half a mile.

Burning houses 2

This is a response to Bianca's blog post about fire fighters who refused to help a man in need just because he did not pay his yearly fee:

"Firefighters are trained and paid to put out fires for the safety of everybody, not stand there senselessly watch a house burn down. The firefighters in this town sure know how to follow the orders of "only help those who paid the fee". Foster states that even though the firefighters are already in front of the burning house and have what it takes to stop the fire, they chose not to because they expected to be compensated for their labor. Saving a house is fine, because everything inside are material things, but what if the owner of the house was inside and passed out, unable to escape? Would the firefighters still not save the man? Surely there must be certain extent where money drives a profession of saving lives."

I completely disagree with the thoughts of this town.  What happened to the firefighters who are the heroes, who want to sae lives to be good, not for money?   Even if the man was not inside of the house, all the stuff in his house was deystroyed.  There is no way of replacing the sentemence of the items inside the house, it losing that is pretty  much as bad as losing his life because what was in his house may be ireplaceable.  Also, could you imagine what it felt like to just watch his hous burn down, with the firefighters right next to him?  That could practically kill him on the inside. 

the firefighters shouldnt decide wheather or not to save someone's life (or house) based on weather or not he paid his yearly fee. It is inhumane to just stand by and watch a house get burned down if you can stop it, even if you are on orders. I believe that it is mainly the town rules that caused this conflict because of their orders to refuse saving a house if they didn't pay there payment. Because none of the firefighters knew what would happen if they helped put out the fire, they expected the worst. Maybe they would lose their job and not be able to feed their children or something. They couldn't risk their own life so they were afraid to help the person in need. Even though I understand their point of view, I would never actually just stand by and let the house burn down, if I could do something about it. I would just help the guy out, and let him pay the man pay the city back later. I couldn't live with myself if I let s house burn down, without trying to save it. Also, I can't imagine the look on the face of the man. Seeing his house burn down with firefighters just standing by and looking must have devastated him. I cannot imagine how the firefighters slept that night. And I wonder what they must have been thinking while they watch this man's life get deystroyed. They must have felt bad,q and the city was at fault for all of these harmful feelings to both the victim and the firefighters.

My First Impressions of The Kite Runner

The historical fiction novel, The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini portrays a young Amir, who struggles through complicated friendship with his servant’s son, Hassan.  Their relationship starts off like normal one; they play and make mischief together all the time, but, strangely, Hassan always takes the blame for all the troubles they cause together.  It seems like Hassan knows his place as Amir’s servant, but doesn’t let it come in their friendship’s way.  On the other hand, as Amir grows older, he begins to realize the differences between him and his best friend.  They come from two different races, they come from different ends of the social ladder, and have different traits (Hassan is athletic and Amir is educated).  He begins to isolate himself from Hassan, using this as an excuse, but the real reason is that he feels guilt. 

After Amir witnesses Hassan’s rape and doesn’t do anything to protect him, he feels regret.  He therefore separates himself from Hassan in order to separate himself from the constant reminder of what he didn’t do.  He then follows this up with asking Hassan to come up the hill for him to read a story to him.  It seems as though things were going well between hem, like old days, but then all of the sudden, the guild took over Amir, and he pelted Hassan with pomegranates, waiting for him to hit him back.  He wanted to feel as though Hassan had taken revenge on him, in order to take away some of the guilt.  After Hassan proves himself unable to inflict any physical harm to him, Amir feels as though it is hopeless to get Hassan to take revenge on him, and he won’t let go, so he thinks that he will get rid of his problems if he got rid of Hassan.  Amir frames Hassan of stealing his birthday money and watch.  All of Amir’s actions are an attempt to rid his extreme regret and guilt for not helping a friend in need.  Instead of admitting it, or letting go, he tries all of these things that result in a lost friend that could have been kept.  

Overall, I really, really enjoyed reading this book.  There were many surprises throughout the first third of the book, and it turned out much more interesting than I first thought it would be.