Enrique's Journey- The Wrap Up

     Hello everynyan! I wish I were a bird. How are you? Fine, thank you.

     Anyways. Hello readers, just A+_Student_1997 coming to you with the finial blog. This is all about wrapping up this series and we will do that by finishing two sentences.

     First, we will finish the sentence "To overcome the obstacles they faced, all of these individuals...". Now to complete this sentence let's break it down. If you noticed, the word "they" is used. So for the sake of having to find different examples, we will just use Enrique, Percy Jackson, and Batman (man, I never thought I would use those names in the same sentence). Now, let's revisit the obstacles that they all faced and how they are similar. The main obstacle for Enrique was that he missed his mother, which can be said for all of them. To overcome such an obstacle on the other hand, they all took different actions but still managed to have one thing in common. 

     To overcome the obstacles they faced, all these individuals had to forget the fear of the unknown and just hope for the best.

     Alright, second we need to answer the question: What does it take to be a survivor in life?

     To be a survivor in life, one must understand what he is surviving and why he even wishes to survive. In Enrique’s Journey we see how ones will to see a beloved can make someone explore the realms of the unknown and travel to a mysterious land. On his journey, Enrique has to face many fears and in such a struggle you see a true hero emerge out of a small, rebellious child. Along the way, there a very few friends and often times they even turn to foes. In response to such a challenge as crossing two countries (in one of the most dangerous ways) and to the challenge of sneaking around trained officials, he does an incredibly remarkable job and it can be surprising that it didn’t take more attempts. He had to understand what he had to hide from and survive because they don’t teach you that in school. Also, he had to have enough will and determination to completely go against the odds and find his mother. To be a survivor in life, one must understand what he is surviving and why he even wishes to survive. For if he does not, then there is no reason for him to survive and he will not survive in the end.

And that’s what I’m going to leave you guys with! Thank you so much for reading!

Be sure to check out my upcoming blogs!

A+_Student_1997 signing out! *^-^*

Enrique's Journey- The Solution (Fully Explained)

     Hey readers, just A+_Student_1997 here with another blog. I do hope that you enjoyed that gif I made. That was a very rough description of the problem and the solution. Today we are going to go into more detail about the obstacle and how it was over come in Enrique’s Journey.

     Now, as I have stated many times before, Enrique sets out on his great adventure to find his mother. We also know that his mother left to find work in America to pay for his and his sister’s schooling. The biggest motivator for Enrique was that he was so lonely and he missed his mother so much that all he could do is think about her. That is the real problem. Let’s take a look at how the obstacle was overcome and what Enrique’s solution was.

     After years of grief and years of hearing the same lie about coming home for Christmas, Enrique decides to leave Honduras and go to America to find his mother and to be with her. This of course presents the problems of how he going to get there and how he going to hide from the Immigration Agents when he gets out of Honduras. His solution for this obstacle was to hop onto trains and when they get close to a check point (a place where a train stops so they can check for immigrants riding on them) jump off quickly and run into a town nearby. It of course takes many attempts and he didn't even make it to the boarder until his seventh attempt. At this point, crossing a boarder is a very big gamble because if he gets caught on the other side, others will only be deported to Mexico. He will be deported all the way back to Honduras.

     Enrique works as a car washer next to a taco stand and directs cars into spots in the back parking lot. He needs to earn enough money to get phone cards so he can call his family and ask them for his mother’s number. And then he can call his mother and ask her to pay for a smuggler to take him across the border. Eventually he gets enough money and calls his mother. He asks her for $1,200 and to request El Tirindaro (a friend of his that is a part of a smuggling crew). She agrees and in no time he is trekking his way across the Rio Grande (the river that runs in-between Mexico and America).

     Soon he is put into the back of the van and driven to Huston, Texas past a check point. Then he is taken to and old house where he is given new clothes and asked to call his mother for an additional $500 dollars. She transfers the money over and then his mother’s boyfriend drives down and picks up Enrique. At this point he is taken to his mother and they are once again reunited.

     This is a phenomenal tale that is a nice example of how to overcome an obstacle. Next time we will finish the sentence "To overcome the obstacles they faced, all of these individuals…” and the sentence "To be a survivor in life, one must…". See you next time!

Thanks for reading! *^-^*

The Solution Gif

     Unfortunately, the gif I have made (being 601 layers) is too big to upload and I will see if I can post it somewhere else and give a link.
     Sorry for the let down. It took me 7 hours to make this so I was hoping that it would work. But, oh well.

Thanks for reading! *^-^*

Enrique's Journey- Applying the Obstacle to Others

     Hey readers! Just A+_Student_1997 coming to you with another blog. This time we will assess and compare the obstacle that Enrique must face with others who have faced the same. If you will remember from yesterday's blog, I stated that I believed the biggest obstacle to be fear of the unknown.

    This is probably the #1 fear and set back for most of all heroes. In fact, this fear has provoked motivation and risk with, as a result, has created survival and instinct to live. This has another outcome though. A less positive outcome and one that people face.

     In every hero's story there must be a turning point for that hero to have the chance to become something great. This is the point where they much choose: good or evil. Let's look at the classic comic book hero: Batman.

     Alright so as we can see above. Batman is having a hard time deciding if he wants to fight crime or eat cookies. This is not what we are going to analyze but I thought it was a funny gif to make. So, as all comic book/ superhero enthusiasts know, Batman's parents where killed when he was a child. This of course has created that "fear of the unknown" that we talked about. Batman, from this point on, has a choice. Good? Or evil? Does he fight crime and protect others so they don't have to endure the same pain? Or does he stay at home and eat cookies, while wasting all of his parents money?

     This superhero choose the road less traveled by and decided to fight crime. Back to that other outcome. What if Bruce Wayne (Batman's real name -Shh! Don't tell anyone-) had decided to run his parents business and never become the Batman? This is a road that I feel more people choose. The fear of the unknown tends to get to people. And because of that, they become an empty shell.

     We have covered the two polar opposites: springing into action or running away from the unknown. Let's take a look at a story that has a more similar scenario to Enrique's Journey. The book is called The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.

     In this story, there is a young boy named Perseus Jackson (or Percy Jackson) who fall into the world of Greek mythology thrown into modern day when he finds out that he is the son of Poseidon. When his mother goes missing, along Zeus' famous lightning bolt, Percy, his best friend Grover and a fast thinking daughter of Athena (Annabeth Chase) go on an adventure to retrieve his mother from the underworld and get the lightning bolt back before an all out war between the Gods erupts from the sky down onto Earth. Now this is an example of the third effect that an unknown fear can have on someone. They simply fall into adventure and are forced to go forward. Percy didn't chose who his parents were and as a result he is constantly fighting mythical monsters in modern day.

     Now, how do these things all relate to Enrique's Journey?

     The T-chart above just shows a brief description of each of the stories plot lines and compares them at the same time. As you can see, Enrique's Journey and The Lighting Thief have a lot more to do with one another. But they all deal with the same obstacle: fear of the unknown.

     Now that we know what the obstacle is and we have applied it to other scenarios, next time we will explore how the obstacle was actually overcome in Enrique's Journey.

Thanks for reading! *^-^*

Enrique's Journey - The Obstacle (Fully Analyzed)

      Hey there, just A+_Student_1997 coming to you with my first blog post. By the end of this blog I hope to have up a large variety of multimedia that all relates to the book: Enrique's Journey by Sonia Nazario. This blog is all about the book and to get the deeper meaning Nazario had to offer her readers.
     Alright, this being my first post I will start with something simple about Enrique's Journey: The Obstacle.
     Imagine you're a single parent with two children (one in school and one that will be starting soon) and in a tight bind for money. You are lost and feel out of touch with reality and as if God himself has abandoned you for no good reason. Then a miracle occurs and you hear that there is work outside of your country. This is, as you may look at it, your only option for you and your children to have a way out of poverty. Unfortunately  you get the bad news that it will only be possible for you to go and you must leave your two children behind with relatives. As a last resort you agree to leave you children behind for them to have a better life.
     Now, flip that and imagine yourself as one of those children. Mother leaves in the morning without even a goodbye. You figure that she just left to go to the market without. Hours pass and she does not return. Hours turns to days, then from days to months. No one seems too concerned about her whereabouts. Then about eight months later, your house gets a call. It is your mother on the other line. She tells you that she loves you very much and that she promises to come home by next Christmas. You ask her where she is, and she answers "America".
     For a child in a country such as Honduras, there are some big differences between Honduras and America. For one, the streets are nothing but dirt trails and you often see people and children as young as five selling things like flowers, old clothes and (in the alleys) drugs. For Enrique it was spices at the age of eight.
     The obstacle comes in around the your mother calls after she has missed Christmas for the fourth time. You begin to not even believe her when she says that she is coming back and your heart aches because you miss her so much. About ten years later, you have decided that enough is enough and that you will travel to America to see her. This is where Enrique's journey truly begins.
     The biggest obstacle that he has to face is not the long distance he must travel, or the fear of being caught by la migra. It is the obstacle of doing this all alone. I feel as though the hardest part of this would be the fact that you have to face this all by yourself. The only thing that can keep you going is will and just when you think you can slow down, a new enemy pops up on the horizon. The big picture obstacle is fear of the unknown. An obstacle that many face.
     But we will get into that next blog. Thanks for reading! *^-^*

The Journey is just Beginning!