In Chapter 35 Offred receives a gift from the commander’s wife that she has been waiting for since the day she got assigned to live with Serena Joy and the Commander. Even though she only had a minute with that special gift, at the end it didn’t feel like a gift anymore; it felt like a punishment, like she was pulled even deeper into her new life as a handmaid. Serena Joy gave Offred a polaroid of her daughter. “I take it from her, turn it around so I can see it right-side up. Is this her, is this what she’s like? My Treasure. So tall and changed. Smiling a little now, so soon, and in her white dress as if for an olden-days First Communion. Time has not stood still. It has washed over me, washed me away, as if I’m nothing more than a woman of sand, left by a careless child too near the water. I have been obliterated for her. I am only a shadow now, far back behind the glib shiny surface of this photograph. A shadow, as dead mothers become. You can see it in her eyes: I am not there. But she exists, in her white dress. She grows and lives. Isn’t that a good thing? A blessing? Still, I can’t bear it, to have been erased like that. Better she’d brought me nothing.” Knowing that her daughter, her treasure, is healthy, beautiful, alive and hopefully happy made all of those years of Offred’s suffering worth it. Every mother wants their child to be alive and safe, have them with them at all times, be able to see them everyday and give them a hug. A mother loves their child no matter what their relationship is like, no matter what they went though, and no matter where they are. Having the feeling of knowing that you have someone, and they have you but not being able to say it or show it is one of the harder things anyone could go through, especially a mother that has been there for you since the first day you met. Offred seeing her daughter without her mom in that picture made her feel like it’s her fault, feeling like she’s dead to her, and even maybe out of her memories. This made me think of the time in the book where all the handmaids had to go through “Testifying” where they tell their personal stories about being raped, getting abortions, being catcalled, and then being forced to belive that its their fault, and they deserved it. Offred already has that empty feeling inside her, sitting in her room all by herself, or being used by the commander; receiving that polaroid from Serena Joy did not help with that feeling, deep inside it made Offred feel even worse, an even more disappointment than she already believes she is. Is it better to just live in the present? Leave the past behind and hope that the good things from it come back to the future? I feel like seeing her daughter will make her days in the Gilead go by even slower than they already have been. I really believe that it would have been better for Offred to never see that polaroid, but just keep on hoping and dreaming that her daughter is out there somewhere, happy and alive.

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood all of the handmaids are basically prisoners. The only thing that people can’t stop them from doing is remembering their old life, and imagining who they would have been if they weren’t handmaids. “The night is mine, my own time, to do with as I will, as long as I am quiet. The night is my time out. Where should I go?…I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling… if it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending.” The main character Offred talks about what she did when she was younger with her mom, and remembers the old times with her best friend Moira. Those parts make me think of myself, when I sit at school during lunch or lay in bed trying to fall asleep. I think about my home, Poland. I like to go back to Poland in my head, I like to keep the memories just how they are, remember all the vacations with my parents, my childhood friends and all the things we would do at the park and in our little town. However, at the end, a lot of the times I end the story a different way than it actually happened, so that I feel better about moving here. I just tell myself a story about how coming here was better for me. Tell myself that if I was in Poland I wouldn’t have met all my friends, played sports, and had all the opportunities that I have here. Sometimes deep down I hope I would have hated it more in Poland than I do here, even though deeper down I know I would be happy there. Offred talks about her memories more than actually thinking about how her life would be right now, if everything was still normal; but I still feel like I have a personal connection to Offred, when she mentions having her free time. This connects to when Offred would watch television in the morning, and if there was nothing to watch she would put on “Growing Souls Gospel Hour ” where they told Bible stories for children and sang hymns. “The first time was on television, when I was eight or nine… one of the women was called Serena Joy. She was the lead soprano…the woman sitting in front of me was Serena joy. Or had been, once.” When she was 8, Offred used to watch Serena on television, 25 years later she’s her handmaid; this represents how we never know what will happen next, everything can change overnight; the only thing that will never really change is our ability to make stories, and remember everything that has happened to us before. Serena used to be this big, famous, person, but now she’s a nobody; her life changed out of nowhere, and now she’s doing the same thing to Offred. I used to watch American movies with my parents. I would dream about going to an American high school with a football field and going to games with my friends… but now that I’m actually here, it’s nothing like the movies I watched. “ the things I believe can’t all be true, though one of them must be. But I believe in all of them, all three versions of Luke. Whatever the truth is, I will be ready for it.” This part from Chapter 18 I feel summarizes Offred’s true feelings. She needs to have hope; hope that everything will end soon, she gets to see Luke again and her daughter. She hopes to get to live with them again, cross the border successfully and never have to worry about being taken away from them, and being killed for something that people shouldn’t have to worry about getting killed over. She hopes that she can go outside anytime she wants, go to the store and talk to people, find Moira and tell her everything that has happened to her. She hopes for her “old life” back. The Handmaid’s Tale is a representation of the word hope, and shows the reader that anything can change in life, but the past is never gone, and imagination can make or break a person.

In my previous post I talked about homelessness and how we should start helping them more. I talked about why I picked this issues and how we should and should not help the people that are currently homeless. I also posted this to show that there’s many different reasons why people become homeless; and not just because of alcohol or drug use. There’s lots of people and organizations like Project HOME, that take time from their day to help those in need. I think organizations like Project Home are doing a great thing; they have people donating things, volunteering; they have housing, Healthcare services, Education, adult education and employment. I decided to do this for my Agent of Change because I felt strongly about helping people, the only thing I could really do is help the people that currently don’t have a place to stay and need our help. So what I did was: I found a person that could help me. We made posters and walked around restaurants asking the managers if they could donate some amount of money for our school project. We went to at least 10 different places but that didn’t work out. So we just went to sit at Rittenhouse. I joked about how Reese should ask random people if they wanted to make a donation, but Reese took the challenge and started asking people. The first people that helped us gave us $5, the next gave us $1, and that is the amount of money people usually gave us. Someone then asked if they could venmo us the money, and we agreed because we realized lots of people now pay through apps on their phones. Then someone venmoned us $20 and we were so happy, we honestly thought this is going to be the most amount of money someone gave us. Later on a man came up to ask and started a conversation and just asked questions, we talked for about 5 minutes and then he left saying that he will venmo us some money. When I checked my phone we couldn’t believe that the man that we met like 5 minutes ago, venmoed us $250. We ran up to him asking if it was maybe a mistake and if he wanted us to venmo him the money back, but he said “Great job guys, never stop!” Reese and I were so happy and grateful. I honestly didn’t think this project would make me this happy, yes I love helping people but when I saw that this man trusted us and gave us that much money, I Knew I would never stop helping the people that need my help.

My Vlog Annotated Bibliography

“Don’t give him money, he’s going to buy drugs with it.” “She’s too young to be homeless, she’s probably faking it so she can get more money.” These are the things that I hear from the people that I talk to almost everyday, which is really sad because I honestly thought they would help and also support me, while I try to help the homeless. I live in a neighborhood where I see a homeless person either sleeping on the ground or holding up a sign that asks for food wherever I go. Before I came to the United States I never really saw or thought about homelessness; but since I started seeing more and more people on the streets, I felt this thing, a sort of passion, that I have to help them. There are many different ways and reasons on why we should help the people that are currently homeless , but just remember, [try not to give them money](Helping the Homeless: Making a Difference for Someone on the Streets (darkpeakgear.com)) Some people would go and buy drugs or alcohol and get addicted to it, and we don’t want that because we want to help them and not hurt them. I never really showed that I cared about homeless people in front of my friends and even some family members because they think that homeless people do not deserve our help. People think that others lose their homes because they are suffering from addictions and then they don’t show up for work, don’t pay the bills, and end up homeless. Which sometimes is true, but not all the time. Around 44% of homeless people were employed. For women in particular, domestic violence is a leading cause of homelessness. According to the most recent annual survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, major cities across the country report that top causes of homelessness among families were: [(1) lack of affordable housing, (2) unemployment, (3) poverty, and (4) low wages,](:Homeless_Stats_Fact_Sheet.pdf (nlchp.org))

As you can see, the number 1 reason for homelessness is job loss, alcohol or drug use is in second place but we also have to see that there are more reasons why people became homeless and not just because of addiction.

I believe that we should do everything we can to help people who are currently experiencing homelessness. However it is tough because there are many people without a home right now everywhere around the world. If we try really hard, I know that we can help them have a better life. So my main idea was: we should, or at least try to, build hotels around the world for homeless people. They would get a small room to themselves and they would get a small job; maybe like a school crossing guard, a school janitor or even something at the hotel, just so that they get used to the feeling of working. I think this will be a great start for them to remember how it is to have a house and have to earn money. After saving up their money and being able to get a place where they could stay, they would leave the hotel and hopefully start a new and better life. Like I said before, this will be hard, but they are humans that need our help. Anyone could end up in this situation and I know that everyone would want all the help they can get.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f2GqFcCQIbktZq-xo3hWUqKRINU22Sv0MJhMrNgGY2A/edit?usp=sharing