To Understand

As a child, it is very difficult to fully comprehend some of the things that we are meant to learn.  Fuentes was taught about Mexico from a very young age.  It was their heritage that his father wanted him to know.  But growing up in America, he did not realize that Mexico was a real place at first.  It was among the lands of storybooks and legends at first.  It wasn't until Mexico nationalized the holdings of foreign oil countries did he realize that it was a real place.  Not only that it was a real place, but that it could affect him with how his classmates were cruel to him for where he was from.

As a child, there are many things that fall under this category of being real but not real.  Sure we may know that something is real, but it is not really real until we can touch it for ourselves.  This can even carry into our adulthood with some things.  We may know that people are suffering in other countries, that people are starving.  But we cannot comprehend it having never suffered the way that they have ourselves.  Having never starved at all.  We are often told not to think of people in broad terms, but it is difficult to do that when we have no specific terms to apply to them.

As Fuentes got older, he realized more of his heritage and understood it better.  He spoke of how he did not find modernity as difficult to find as his own countries heritage and tradition.  But he realized that, just like his entrance into the world was a confusion of not being where either his mother or father didn't want him born and being baptized twice to fulfill both his mother's Catholicism and his father's Catholicism,  he would never quite fit anywhere specific.  He was a wanderer.  But no matter where he wandered, he would not let go of his past, of his heritage.  He had seen Mexico and he now understood his heritage and he wasn't willing to let go.

Her and Him

I have never been married.  I have never dated anyone.  I have never even been asked on a date by someone.  It is hard for me to imagine being married to someone while having so many differences and even so many explosive arguments. 

To me, this didn't seem like a very healthy relationship.  That may be because it was primarily in her point of and because we don't get his idea of what is going on in this relationship.  Whenever he is making fun of her, does he think of it as just teasing?  They seem to do a lot of what he wants to do, is that just because either she does not want to do much or that they do what she wants on other occasions that she does not mention. 

By the end of this story, I felt very bad for the women and was kind of angry at the man.  I kept waiting to read about them doing something that she wanted to do, of him encouraging her, or something along those lines.  But then I read about how he reinforced her insecurities and possibly made them worse.  These two may have been in love but all I wanted was for him to get his act on straight and actually be kind to his wife and do some of the things with her that she wanted to do without any mockery or judgment.  Note how it wasn't because of him that she was still able to work but because of her other friends.

Executions

The human race in general has a very odd fascination with death.  People are terrified of it and try to avoid it if at all possible, but at the same time, from very early in our history, people have gone to enjoy watching other people die.

There have been many stories that I have read that have touched at least briefly upon people enjoying watch other people die.  Some people went as far as to bring a picnic basket and made it a family outing with their children.  But this story made its way to a whole new level of disturbing with its description.  At the beginning, the man thought that he was lucky with what he was about to go and see.  He thought that it was an honor to be given a coveted spot to watch the execution.  By the end, his thoughts have completely changed.

The man who was being punished for the brutal murders of an entire family was a hot topic for the people in the area and many came to watch it.  Today, when someone is on death row and is executed, only a few people are allowed to watch it.  Often it is the victim's families  and the criminal's families and the media and a few others go to see it as witnesses to the person dying.  Often, it is with a grim feeling of satisfaction as the person dies.  But this story is not like that at all.  People have turned it into a carnival or something to watch the man die.  It is to entertain more of them than it is to be satisfied at him getting his dues.  It is almost as sick and twisted as the crime itself.

This story's thesis was not apparent until the very end on capital punishment and his views on it.  Whatever our personal views on it are, it is undoubtable that an execution like this is wrong.  People should not be treating the death of a person like it is something to view and enjoy.

The Jealous Brothers and Joseph

To say that Jacob had always treated Joseph different from his other sons would be a lie.  At one point he had treated them all equally, equal indifference.  Reuben had been a better father to his brothers than their actual father was.  Reuben had known that he treated Aunt Rachel better than his mom and Bilhah and Zilpah but that had never meant anything to him except that his mother was often sad.  His father had loved Rachel to the point of ignoring everyone else.  Though Reuben was angry on behalf of his mother, it didn’t affect him much so he just raised his brothers and sister and watched them run to his father when he remembered them.  None of this changed when Joseph was born.  It did, however, change when Benjamin was born.

I have always interpreted Benjamin being born before Joseph was taken to Egypt.  This made more sense in my mind as to why Jacob doted so much on Joseph if Rachel, his favorite wife, was already dead.  It also made sense that Benjamin was excluded from being a favorite since he was Rachel’s last child if Jacob blamed Benjamin for his beloved’s death.  I also imagine that the boys were treated differently once Joseph was favorite than they were after.  It would contribute to the bitterness if they knew it could be different.

My parents have never personally had favorites.   Or at least, they never treated us as if they did.  We may have teased them about favorites or claimed in anger that another was their favorite, but they never treated us that way.  I, however, have always believed myself to not be the favorite if there was one.  I counted presents at birthday parties for years and always determined that since my brothers had more, they must be liked by more people, and thus less people liked me than liked them.  This was how I looked at it for years.

When Benjamin was born, Reuben saw everything change.  Suddenly, he was no longer the one being a father to Joseph but his father had stepped into that role.  Also, Benjamin was not even looked at by his father for years.  It wasn’t until he was older did Reuben realize that his father blamed Benjamin for Rachel’s death.  His mom had cried for her sister’s death and was often seen with Jacob trying to comfort him.  Suddenly, his mom was too busy with his father to spend as much time with him and his brothers than she had before.

Reuben remembered the first time that Jacob’s favoritism came clearly into effect.  Zebulun and Joseph had gotten in a fight over the game that they were playing and were wrestling around in the dirt.  Reuben had just been getting ready to step in and stop it when their father came in yelling.  Without listening to a word any of the brothers said, he grabbed Zebulun’s arm and pulled him away to be spanked.  Reuben protested and tried to stop him because none of them had ever been punished that way before but their father had just continued and then punished Reuben for interfering.  Then he gently picked up Joseph and carried him away to take care of his scrapes.  It had been the first time any of them had been punished by their father.  Though it hadn’t been as bad as it could have been, all of them were surprised at the unfairness of the treatment.

The favoritism had to have been carried out in different aspects of their lives in order for it to be important enough to be mentioned in the Bible.  Joseph probably got away with more than his brothers and possibly even contributed to the punishments of others by getting them in trouble for things that they hadn’t done.  It probably was a bit of surprise at first until it became the norm and was expected.  Joseph may even have taken advantage and got his brothers in trouble on purpose.

As a result of my beliefs, I often worked harder than my brothers on trying to keep on my parent’s good side.  I got really good at remembering my chores even when my brothers didn’t.  But one time, I came home and my mom was complaining about something not being done.  When I told her that it was Matthew’s chore, my older brother, she asked me why I didn’t get him to do it.  My mouth dropped open in surprise as this seemed to feed all of my insecurities.  Didn’t she know how hard it was to get Matthew to stop his games long enough to do his chores?  Didn’t she know that he yelled at me every time that I annoyed him at all over not doing his chores?  I went upstairs into my room and realized that my best would never be good enough for my mom, however inaccurate that statement actually was.

It wasn’t like all of a sudden, Jacob ignored the rest of his sons for Joseph.  It was slowly.  It took a while for Reuben to realize that when Jacob loves, he loves passionately to the exclusion of everything else.  That was what happened with his mother and Rachel, and that was what was happening with Joseph and the rest of them.  At first, Joseph still ran to him with all of his problems and questions.  Many of the questions were about why their father was acting so differently.  Reuben also had been the one that Joseph ran to while crying for his mother.  But slowly, Joseph started turning to their father for things like that.  The others also turned to their father less for things like that.  While Joseph would get a reply and a hug, the others were more often be brushed off or sent to Reuben.

Reuben remembered the time that Uncle Esau visited and they found out that he was the older brother.  Joseph had been maybe ten at the time and Reuben about sixteen.  When the accidently found out that Uncle Esau was older, Joseph had asked the question they all had been thinking.  “So why did Dad inherit everything as firstborn?”  After telling the story about how their father had tricked Uncle Esau, their father left with Esau to discuss trading some animals.  The rest of the boys there, except for Benjamin who was too young to understand, had looked between Joseph and Reuben a few times, clearly seeing the parallels and drawing the conclusions that he had.  Joseph looked a bit too thoughtful when he ran after their father and all the other boys looked at Reuben to see his reaction.  Reuben knew then, that if his father had his own way, he would never get his birthright but that Joseph would.  His father never had followed tradition. 

Without a word, Reuben tightened his jaw and stormed away.  That was the first time that he actually hated his brother.

We don’t really know what made Joseph be hated by his brothers or when it started.  We know that he was their father’s favorite but what did that mean for them?  I imagine that they were worried about their inheritances.  Is Joseph going to be given the birthright?  If not, is his inheritance going to be larger than theirs?  I imagine that he was spoiled by his father.  I also imagine that the story about how their father tricked his way into his inheritance worried them to no end.

My parents never spoiled any of us.  But I was jealous of when my little brother had birthday parties that I never got because I never asked for them.  I understood even then why I wasn’t getting parties, but I never managed to get rid of my guilt over possibly costing my parents money over a party so to ask them for one.  Even when I tried to explain my thoughts to them, I don’t think that they fully understood what was going on in my mind.  They didn’t understand because I didn’t even yet fully understand.

Whenever Dinah, their only sister, was raped, all of them were infuriated by their father’s lack of action.  By that point they were already furious at their father’s indifference to all but Joseph and this only exacerbated their anger against him.  Zebulun had overheard Hamor and Shechem asking for Dinah to marry Shechem and had come running to them with the news.  How could their father even consider allowing her to marry that rapist?  Simeon and Levi quickly came up with the plan of circumcising the entire town as a condition to marry her.  None of them ever thought that they would agree.  But they did.

Three days later, while the rest of them were still planning their next move, Simeon and Levi had snuck out without Reuben noticing.  By the time that he did notice, they were already avenging their sister.  When they realized what their brothers were doing they all grabbed their own weapons and hurried out after them.  Reuben wasn’t entirely sure what he was planning on doing, whether he was going to join in or stop them.  He wasn’t even sure what his other brothers were planning on doing either.  Only Joseph and Benjamin were not with them as they ran out.

The village was eerily silent as he ran in with his brothers.  The amount of red he saw everywhere was astounding.  It reminded him of a village nearby that had gotten hit by raiders.  No one in that village had been left alive.  In the house of Hamor, they could see the outlines of the women and children as they cowered.  They could only hope that they would become slaves rather than being killed for the sins of Shechem.  All of them stood there for a while, looking around, wondering what to do next.  Simeon and Levi had frozen near the well as the rinsed the blood off of their arms.  “What are we going to do?” Asher asked tremulously, as he stared in wide eyed shock at all the blood.  That’s right, he had been sick when they had come upon that village so hadn’t been with them.

After a moment of thought, Reuben said, “We loot it.  There should be enough to care for Dinah to be able to provide for herself until she dies.  We will still watch her, but she will never be a burden.  The survivors can be her slaves.”  The others nodded and began to take everything.  From clothes to jewelry to cattle.  Nothing was left for anyone who may have escaped.

When they returned and Jacob realized what they had done, he was furious and spent a long time just yelling at them for what they did while Joseph watched.  He could no longer cane them, but he did tell them that they would have to find their own food for the night.  None of them cared.  If he wasn’t going to take care of Dinah, they would.

I imagine that they believed that they were in the right when the killed all of the men in that village.  Maybe they believed that they should have done something to save their sister.  Maybe they believed that they should have punished Shechem themselves for the rape.  If it had been me, my brothers probably would have wanted to do the same thing, especially if they knew who it was and no justice was being done.  This probably further isolated them from Jacob and even Joseph.  With Joseph being hated, I can’t imagine him coming with them on this trip or even agreeing with him.  He was a daddy’s boy through and through.  After this, the brothers probably began to look for things to hate about Joseph and began to isolate themselves from him.

It’s amazing how much people can isolate themselves over a misconception!  I know that’s what I did.  My room became my haven and I stopped being with my family almost at all except for meals.  Even my favorite tv shows I would only sometimes remember to watch with them.  Eventually I realized how isolated I actually was and it was only much later that I realized that it was my own fault.  How could I expect them to make time for me when I wouldn’t make time for them?

First the coat, then the dreams, Joseph seemed to believe that he was better than the rest of them.  Almost every time he started talking to them, the dreams or his coat were mentioned somehow.  Not to mention he wore the coat everywhere despite the fact it was obviously meant for special occasions.  Ever since he saw them get in trouble over how Levi and Simeon killed the men of that village, Joseph had been looking for other reasons to get them in trouble over.  Like when he told their father how Dan, Naphtali, Asher, and Gad were messing around while working.  It wasn’t like they left the cattle and went running off.  They were just doing something to try to pass the time while watching.  But sure enough perfect Joseph told father and they got in trouble for it.

Then they were sent to Shechem without Joseph because may it be forbidden that Joseph is ever gone a while out of their father’s sight.  When they saw Joseph coming, they knew that he was going to find something wrong to tell their father.  The others wanted to kill him but Reuben still saw a bit of the little boy who ran to him over his mother’s death and tried to convince them not to and made plans to save him once he was thrown, screaming and fighting, into a dry well.  Then he left them for a while to find some rope to pull him out with and to check up with the other shepherds.  But when he came back, Joseph was gone.  They had sold him.  They would probably never see him again.  He allowed himself to mourn his brother for a minute before he made plans to protect the brothers that he still had left.  They killed a goat that Reuben found injured on his quest for rope and dipped the robe in the blood after they tore it to shreds.  Now they just had to tell their father.

I can’t imagine what pushed brothers to do something like this to their own brother.  But it was probably anger and hurt and hate and longing and jealousy along with a whole other slew of emotions that made them do it.  They wanted their father to live them, I think, above all just as much as he had loved Joseph.  Favoritism, even falsely perceived favoritism can really mess up a person’s mind.

I was almost cruel in my thoughts to many of my friends and family in my beliefs of being the least favorite.  It may not have been to the level of murder or trying to get rid of them, but I didn’t truly trust anyone for years because I believed that eventually they would leave me for others or were just barely standing me.  I diagnosed myself with little sister syndrome.  They all loved me, really, but I was the annoying kid sister that they only hung out with because mom said.  Any time anyone said that they missed talking to me or seeing me, I doubted what they were saying.  Or if I did believe them, I was super surprised.  People who had always been kind to me, I acted wary as if they had been mean.  It was unfair to them.

After their father finally removed his sack cloth for mourning for his favorite son, he clung to Benjamin.  Benjamin seemed a bit confused and even embarrassed by all the attention that he had never gotten before.  Reuben didn’t envy him for it was almost stifling how their father treated him.  Soon, it was business as usual . . . only . . . not.  They never realized just how helpful Joseph was with making sure that they had enough supplies on their trips with the cattle until he wasn’t there double checking their packs.  It seemed that Gad and Issachar always forgot at least one thing, if not more, before they had to start double and triple checking their own packs. 

Though Joseph’s dreams were annoying, they missed his stories sitting around the campfire at night while watching the sheep.  Soon, some of them were having nightmares of Joseph living or dying, healthy or beaten, slave or free.  It was keeping all of them awake.  Slowly, one by one, they all succumbed to the guilt they felt over what they did wrong.  Their father was still inconsolable at times over Joseph and refused to accept their help.  It was slow, but as the years passed, they came into a deeper understanding of their wrong doings and felt genuine remorse.  But it was not until a famine and a man whose face seemed so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time did they begin to heal over their mistakes.

There had never been any doubt in my mind that it took them a while to feel genuine remorse over their actions towards their brother.  It may have even been after they had families of their own did they begin to understand the scope of their crimes.  Either way, by the time that they met up with Joseph again in Egypt, they knew that they had done wrong and were expecting retribution of some sort.

For me, it wasn’t until my senior year in high school that I began to realize how messed up my beliefs were.  It also wasn’t until I left home for college that I began to see the full scope of my actions.  I don’t remember when I stopped counting presents to see who the “favorite” was.  It was probably about the same time that I realized that I was my grandma’s favorite since I’m her only granddaughter by blood.  That was also about the time that I saw that my brother’s knew that and were okay with it and I wondered why I couldn’t do the same.  Though it still isn’t perfect, I can honestly look back and realized how very wrong I was in some of the things that I believed.  I will never be able to apologize to some of the people that I believed the worst of.  But now I can believe the best of people and know that very few are actually trying to hurt me.  When people have to compare themselves to someone in the Bible, it is often one of the heroes of the Bible or at least someone that did some good somehow.  I, on the other hand, liken myself to Joseph’s brothers.  I grew up jealous of them.  Though I didn’t take it to the extreme that they did, they are still some of the people most like me in the Bible.

It is Coming

Plants stab out of the ground like pincushions spread sporadically about.  We are on a pathway of sand, with short, choppy grass on either side.  Right now, we are still in the sun, in the light, breathing the clean air.  The path of sand leads into the darkness as a stark white against black leading away from here.  But up ahead, the clouds are black and heavy with dust and the nice day won't be nice for long.  If we squint, we can make out a house and road up there is the darkness complete with telephone poles if we look really hard.  But it appears to be fading away as if night has come on early.  The dust storm is coming and all that we can do is find some shelter before it hits.

It is amazing how some times we can see the trouble coming from miles away.  We know that it is coming but we can't avoid it.  We can't make it change its course.  We can't make it just stop and go away.  We can only hunker down and hope for the best.  We may even try to prepare ourselves for it as much as possible, but in the end it is still going to hit and we are still going to be left with the clean up afterwards.  Running from it is almost worst because when it does hit, we are in no way prepared because we were hoping that it would miss just this once.  We were hoping that if we ran far enough and long enough it wouldn't touch us.  In the end though, we are just left tired with a long walk home to clean up the mess it left behind.  Other times, we just pretend that it doesn't exist.  That it isn't coming. That it doesn't hurt to get battered by the sand filled wind.  But then we get hurt even worse because when we finally admit that "Hey!  That just happened!  And to me of all people!"  We now have to clean up our own hurts in addition to the hurts surrounding us.  We may hate these storms of trouble in our lives, but if we successfully avoid all the troubles in life, are we even really living?  Or are we just running away, living a half life while avoiding everything that may cause us the least bit of trouble.

Death of a Moth

I have never partaken in the long waits that seem to drag on forever when someone is about to die.  I know people who have done so but I haven't.  When my second cousin Brenda died, it was a Sunday morning and, though she had been sick a while, there had still been hope of her recovery.  When my grandma died, I was too young to remember her or wait on her.  When my grandpa died, it was of a heart attack and I just remember my mom getting the call and wanting to go see him with my aunt, not understanding why I wasn't allowed.

Death, all too often, is viewed as the enemy.  As a grim specter hanging over our lives.  The moth in this story is witnessed to have fought it off as long as possible before succumbing in the end, just after it had gotten right side up.  People often do fight death for as long as possible and some people die with the manic light of panic still in their eyes as they try to survive for just a little bit longer.  Other people hold back death for a while but when death does arrive at their door, rather than trying to bar his entrance and create a barricade against him, they open the door, shake his hand, and offer him some tea before they go together.

Death can be a fearful encounter but it can also be something to welcome if you would just give it a chance.

To Be Blind

 

 As a person with -5.75 vision, I can relate to his blindness.  If I didn't wear glasses or if they didn't work for me, I would be considered legally blind.  You see, 20/200 is considered legally blind if nothing worked for them.  I am at about 20/575.   I told my roommate that if the fire alarm ever went off at night and I couldn't find my glasses for whatever reason, she would have to guide me around outside.  In the light, the globs of color every once in a while I will be able to see the change in them before the dip, hole, rock.  But in the dark, at night, I can't say that I will see any of that.

I would be able to read, at that vision strength, but only at a distance of about 3 to 6 inches.  Of course, the glasses and contacts do work for me so that I am not legally blind but I can relate to what he was talking about.  If I was legally blind, I can still see all spectrum of color.  I may not see the details in a painting or in a sweater design, but I would see how blue the ocean is without actually seeing the waves.  I would see how green the trees are if not the birds in them.  I would see the red of a t-shirt though I may not actually be able to read to decal.  I would see lots of colors, just not much of anything else.

This short story made me appreciate my sight more than I ever have before.  I already determined without modern day advances of medicines, I would probably be dead from all the sicknesses of my childhood or at least deaf from my long stretch of having a double ear infection when I was about one.  Now I know that I would be blind also without my glasses.  Borges saw the difficulties in his infirmity but he also saw that it didn't end there just like it didn't end there for Milton.  He may be blind, but he wasn't done with writing just yet.

Being a Plate

One part of this piece that really struck me was when he was talking about what the one other writer said about being a cracked plate.  Plates can be decorative items but they are mainly used to hold food.  When one cracks, they can sometimes continue being used only with more care than before.  But other times, the plate cannot be used because it can no longer reliably hold food.  It cannot fulfill what it was meant for.  It becomes useless.  You can keep it for sentimental value but more often than not, it is just thrown away and forgotten about.

Fitzgerald seems to think of himself as a cracked plate.  He has become useless and has done really nothing but waste money for the past few years.  Now he has to re-examine himself to see if he can still get some use out of himself or is he really pointless now for all kinds of work.  Though he did manage to "fix" himself in such a way that he was once more useful, it was a difficult process.

But I think that this is process that almost everyone goes through as they get older.  Either they retire and wonder what the point of them living is anymore if they are one of those retirees who just stop doing everything anymore once they retire or they look back on their entire life and believe that they have accomplished nothing.  Sometimes their plate is well and truly cracked so that they may no longer be able to really do anything of value anymore.  But more often than not, if they truly reflect on themselves and their lives, they can find something use of themselves still yet.

The Land that I Love

It's amazing how many people can love America but still be angry at it the same time.  Even people who hate America even as they are Americans but they will never choose to leave or even try to leave.  They may never act on their hatred.   Part of this may be due to laziness or an unwillingness to move away from their friends and family.  A larger reason I think though, is because they know that no matter where else they move, this is their home.  They may not have as many freedoms in another country or even ever truly feel comfortable there.

When people complain about our country, I think that it may be similar to how I complain about my brothers.  I see their faults and I have no trouble telling others funny or annoying story's about them.  (No, Matthew, I do not have a fake left foot no matter what you heard.)  But I still love them and will stand up for them against anyone who I may think is bad talking them.  It is fine for me to talk badly about them because I love them and they are my brothers.  But heaven help anyone else who does so!

It is similar to how Americans complain about America.  (We should just all vote for Mr. Oliver for President!  He'll get the country running straight!)  We see the faults in the country and we both benefit and lose in its triumphs and mistakes.  But whenever someone else who is an outsider, an alien, just not an American complains about our country or bad talks it, we get irate.  They don't understand, they don't have all the information, that is my country you are talking about.  This is my country and I love it despite all of its problems

Pneumothorax

My little brother, Andrew, has suffered pneumothorax twice.  Once just before I graduated high school though he didn't go to the hospital until the Monday afterwards.  And once just before his birthday his junior year.  Basically, what pneumothorax is is that there are weak spots on your lung that develop blisters like places that fill up with air.  That in itself would be no problem but when they pop, that is pneumothorax.  The air then flows into the chest cavity and prevents the lung from fully inflating.

The first time, they only had to cut a slit in his side and put in a tube to drain his chest cavity and he was home in three days.  Of course, they couldn't put him under while cutting him because his breathing capabilities have already been compromised.  So they gave him morphine but he was still obviously in agony as they did the procedure and he was moved.

The second time, they did the same thing, but it wasn't enough and they had to go further.  They had to scrape off the weak spots on his lung and this time they did put him under.  Both of these procedures are some of the most painful because its not like an arm that you just don't use when it is hurt.  You can't just stop breathing so the pain is almost constant. We could tell and I think that the rest of us cried more for him then he did himself. 

This story describes how to do it for someone who is perhaps trying to learn.  It describes it in a way that I had never thought of it before.  I have always been the one with family or friends under the knife.  Even myself a bit for wisdom teeth.  This describes it in a way that I never thought of and I could almost relate to despite my repulsion of the topic.  It is not something I like talking of, reading of, or hearing of but he almost makes it bearable.

On Good Music

Good music is hard to find because it must meet at least two criteria -  it has to have a catchy tune and the lyrics have to mean something.  Whenever I listen to music and it has a catchy tune, I try to look up the lyrics later to see if it matches the tune.  If it does, I usually memorize the lyrics and listen to the music enough that I can sing along whenever I please.

Amazingly enough, really good music does not even really depend upon how well the author can sing.  Some people, if you just heard them singing, you may find their voices annoying and not listen to them.  But if they are singing a really great song, you don't even notice how obnoxious they are. This often happens in church.  Not many truly care about what the leader may sound like, all they care about is worship.

Some music, like heavy metal, my brothers love.  I may enjoy the lyrics if I could understand them enough to look it up.  Or I can appreciate the talent in the musicians in the band because even I can hear the difficulty in what they play.  My brothers may tell me numerous times that it is, in fact, good music and they enjoy it immensely but I need the lyrics.  I need to understand what they say and I can't so I often don't agree personally.  Maybe in a version that I don't need to learn "the language" or learn how "to interpret" it, I would agree that it is indeed good but in its present form, I would argue with them in my taste.

Some songs that you listen to, you can listen to a thousand times and find more meaning for your every day life.  The best of songs are the ones that are timeless.  They may be super old, but even people who were born after the song was written can enjoy.  For musicals and plays, we would often sing songs before it started while we were warming up.  The one year, we had the entire cast singing Don't Stop Believing before the play began.  Our director just stared us in utter confusion, since that was the first time that he directed us.

Good music can be sung for years and not grow old or irrelevant.  Truly great songs will be sung until the end of times and still have people jumping around and singing it to each other.  They are the songs that you can dance around with and sing with your children and watch your grandchildren do the same.  They are the ones that people can do thousands of re-dos of where sometimes they may turn out to be better than the original but more often you will always look back to the original.

Items of me

Hat - I can be warm and comfy like a winter hat but I can also be a bit crazy like my fox hat.  I can dress of nice but also be dressed down.  I can go to many occasions and fit in.

Gummy candy - I can be sweet and a bit sour.  I'm squishy and will wiggle when pressed but not break.  Though I look easy to break, I am tough.  When life is trying to chew me up, it will have difficulty succeeding because I will keep trying and get stuck to life's teeth rather than go down.

Book - you can't judge a book by its cover and neither can you judge me by how I look.  I hold my secrets close to myself and you have to get to know me before I may let you in on them.  I may never tell you some things about myself.   I am a book that you have to read over and over again to even begin to get an understanding of who I am.  One read is never enough.

Stuffed animal - I love kids and have lots of love to give to them.  I am warm and soft.  I will be there when you just want to sit and cry and hold onto something.  I will also be there when you're excited and want to babble to someone.  I may not always have any answers, but I will be there for you.

The Shining Sword - was an allegorical book I read about the Christian life.  I could read it a dozen times and never get tired of it.  The sword each of them got when they became people of the king could be used in every situation and was strength to them.  When I think about my Christian life and a metaphor for it, I think of this book.  The Shining Sword was representative of each of their faiths and the Bible.  Many of the elements in the book became truths in my real life.  Like the character in this book, I have made and will make mistakes.  But in the end, I hope I will be fighting alongside my fellow believers even when it seems hopeless.  Just as the sword that new followers are given shine brightest when under the greatest adversity and the greatest faith is shone, so do I hope to shine.

Piano - I knew from when I was young that I wanted to play piano.  It took a while, but eventually I got to the point that I actually began to regularly practice piano for my lessons.  I improved greatly from then on.  I'm not in practice any more because I'm too busy.  but I would love to someday get back to it.  This shows how I have ideas that I don't work on but eventually I enjoy it and start to do it regularly.  Practice can make beautiful music or items but I have to be willing to put in the work which I am not always willing to do.

Research

Joseph born after Rachel barren for 7 years,
30 years old when pharaoh sent for him

Shira Schoenberg

 

The Open Scroll

 

Moving Forward

Thought Thoreau begins this piece by talking about his walks and ends it on the same, it is not truly what the piece is about.  It is more about moving forward and humanity moving forward.  He talks about the myths that some cultures are set upon and what they meant to the people who had them.  When he talked about the Hindoos believing that the earth is on an elephant on a tortoise on a serpent, he thought that it wasn't a surprise that they found a fossil of a tortoise large enough to support an elephant.  Though I found no proof of that being true online, Thoreau explains that he likes crazy beliefs like that so he himself may even have known that it may not be true.

When I started this piece, I could not help but think of my own walks.  I do not often go on walks alone but prefer to go on them with friends and family.  To me, they are a chance to talk, to unwind, to listen, and to see without other things right there with us begging for attention.  They are times to forget homework, forget your job, forget everything.  And not forget as in don't think or talk about them but as in to stop trying to work through everything in your head.  To empty your head of the things that bog you down for just a short while so that when you go back to them, you can have a fresh point of view for them. 

Thoreau is able to see things that I cannot in this piece.  The different topics that he somehow connects to walking totally leaves me in the dust as I scramble to try to catch up to what he is trying to do.

Opening Your Eyes

Anne Dilliard speaks about the problems that people with cataracts had just after they were removed and they could see.  Some were overwhelmed and couldn't cope with the new sensory inputs.  One little girl was happiest walking around with her eyes closed.  Others tried to reteach themselves how to live and see.  While we look around and automatically perceive depth and that people can see us when we can't see them, they had trouble with that and had to teach themselves about it.  What we see as 3d, they saw as flat with dark patches instead of shading because of the light.  They also could see the beauty of the world with fresh eyes though.  The things we see and take for granted, they saw and stared in awe.  They see differently.

When Dilliard mentioned how nature reveals itself at random to those who are watching closely, it resonated in me.  I remembered how in fourth grade when we were studying insects, our teacher had an expert come in and speak to us.  He told us that the best way to see insects around us is to stop, be quiet, and just watch.  The things that our eyes just skim over or we frighten away with our movements will slowly start to become more clear until we are seeing them all around us.  We can enjoy it then.  We listened to his advice at much as we could as fourth graders and we did indeed see many insects and caught a lot of them as pets. 

A few weeks before I returned to college, I was in the car with my dad and my little brother, Andrew, on the way to lunch.  As we drove, my dad and the car in front of us suddenly slammed on his breaks.  Before our eyes, a black bear not much past the cub stage ran across the road in front of us.  Living where we do, not much is often seen beyond deer and rabbits.  To see the black bear was a gift for us that we could easily have missed if we weren't paying attention.

Wilderness Trip

Berry speaks about a trip he makes into the woods for a weekend regularly.  Once out there, everything seems so much slower to him.  It's peaceful out there even though he can still here the sounds of civilization.  When he spots someone's name carved into the rock from 1903, the timelessness of the place really strikes him vividly.  He imagines that it would look the same no matter what past time period it was.  But even there were everything living and dying contributes to the sustaining of the habitat, there is still almost a human threat hanging over it.  You can hear a highway in the distance and you know that even this beautiful patch of land may eventually be sacrificed for the sake of civilization.

When I read this passage, it reminded me of my classes Senior Wilderness Trip at the beginning of the year.  The purpose of the trip is to try to take our class out of technology and the trappings of the world to the wilderness for a time so that we may try to become closer and overcome difficulties for our final year of high school.  For some classes, nothing changes but it did work for our class.  When we went on this trip, we drove way into a national park.  Though people were camping in the parking lot where we were supposed to park our cars but were unable to, we still did not see any people once we walked so far in.  We couldn't hear any cars.  We couldn't see any houses.  There was nothing but the random pop of something.  It may have been illegal hunters and we weren't sure so our guide was more careful with us than normal.  But being out there was wonderful in a way.  Everything seemed so simple to us, including overcoming all of the hurts that our class spent years accumulating. 

Pets

Almost everybody has a favorite type of pet for whatever reason.  Some favor fish, others dogs, others cats, and some, like Edward Hoagland, favor turtles.  For each pet that people may have, there is different reasons why they may favor that type of animal.  One person may favor dogs for the protection that they may give.  Another may favor cats for their ability to catch little rodents.  One may favor fish because it it the only pet that they are allowed in their apartments or because of their simple beauty.  Every animal may become someone's favorite animal and sometimes pet  for any reason.

Hoagland favors turtles to the point of knowing various kinds of turtles and having a favorite kind.  He gives the reasons of being allergic to fur and how they are low maintenance animals.  He also explains how they are very smart animals as well.  At one point, he described some of the cruelty that is done to turtles in the name of selling them for profit and how it is hard for them to survive once one habitat is destroyed.  When he got a turtle that he did not know how to take care of, he tried to release it in a place where he would be able to survive.  Once Hoagland realized that the turtle could not survive there either.  He left it.  Though for many people, this may seem unimaginably cruel, it was almost more of a kindness.  Rather than lingering on for a while longer while trying and failing to take care of it, the turtle would have a quicker death in the wild.

To be a Teacher

To say that Mr. Burkett was a bad teacher would be a lie.  To say that he was a good teacher would also be stretching the truth.  For the purposes of understanding who Mr. Burkett is, let’s just say that he was a young teacher and leave it at that. 

When he began to teach at my school in my senior year, he had just graduated college and this was his first teaching job.  We treated him as we did with all new teachers, respect and uncertainty.  Respect because he was our teacher and we knew by then how we were supposed to treat teachers.   Uncertainty because we didn’t know if he was going to be a good teacher and we didn’t know what he expected from us.  He had some trouble with the younger girls initially because with his baby face and neat brown hair, they found him cute.  Mr. Burkett once confessed to us that he never dressed down on Friday because he would look too much like a student.  And, to be perfectly frank, he would have.  But he seemed to have managed to keep his distance from the girls crushing on him and managed to dissuade them.

Mr. Burkett taught us consumer math.  This class is basically only meant for seniors to try to help them once they graduate and they are trying to survive in the real world.  We are meant to learn how to budget, equations to figure out interest in a bank account and on a car.  One of our projects was to choose a car to buy and plan everything out for it, including what we wanted in it and the insurance.  Then we were to calculate how much we should save buying it up front rather than in payments.  Two of the students of my class picked Lamborghini's.  They have to lie about their age while trying to "order" it online because they wouldn't sell it to people under thirty.  Then they calculated that they could by a whole new car with the money saved from buying it straight up.  We were a small class confined to less than half the classroom so that we weren't too spread out.

At first the class was fine and was like any other teacher.  But like any other class, our class liked to push the boundaries to see how far we could go.  Once we found the boundaries, we would normally be fine and this year was the year our class was at its best but we still had to push.  The problem arose when we didn’t get much resistance at all or anything pushing back.  So we kept pushing until we were comfortable where we were and were uncomfortable going any further.  He would later explain that he felt uncomfortable being our teacher because he was so close to our age.  I can only hope that he had learned for our class which quickly became a joke.  I graduated with a hundred in consumer math.  Partially because of the Bible trivia questions that were our extra credit and partly because he had all of the equations already on the tests.  Though I didn’t talk during the tests, the rest of the class did.  Tests became almost a group effort with them asking and answering questions while he watched on in a kind of shock, I guess.  They wouldn’t give each other answers per say but they might as well have.  My older brother would later talk about how useful that class is and I could honestly say that I learned nothing. 

The other classes seemed to be fine with him and to be learning plenty.  He went all out trying to get them new and interesting information to teach them and us.  He even confessed to us once that if we were any other class, we would have never gotten away with what we did.

Another problem that he may have had was that Mr. Burkett fancied himself more a biblical scholar than he really was.  Mr. Burkett may have a mostly good Christian but the problem arose when he thought of himself that way.  One day, he talked to us about how he believed that the Nephilim in Genesis built the pyramids.  It didn’t take too long for another girl in the class to point out that the Nephilim were killed in the flood and she didn’t think that the pyramids would have survived that.  It was a good point that he accepted and moved on.  Another day though, he was explaining about how Jesus was against the Catholic church which was around since before Jesus was born and opposed him.  When he kept arguing with us about it, two girls just got up and walked out of the classroom to ask another teacher that we knew knew her stuff to ask when it was formed.  By the time that they came back, we had already sufficiently convinced him of his error but it was still a check mark in our books.  It also didn’t help that the Bible extra credit questions he thought were hard, I always either already knew them or knew where to find them and it took a few minutes to answer them every time.  It became commonplace and almost encouraged for us to correct him in class when he was wrong about something in class.  I even got praise once we left the class room when I corrected on something that he got wrong.

At the beginning of the year, Mr. Burkett tried to act really proper with us and the way that he, a married man, avoided saying the word sex, I think I can say we all found a bit cute but more funny.  Two of the girls made it their life’s mission to get him to say that word sex and they succeeded.  Unfortunately, it unleashed the flood gates and he began to preach sermons to us about once a week about sex.  Which, with him being our teacher quickly became uncomfortable.

After that, Mr. Burkett didn’t really hesitate to tell us how he felt about many things.  For example, he didn’t like it when girls wore skirts in class because of how the desks are and such.  Of course, in a class of five girls and one boy, we were all looking at him in horror.  It, of course, didn’t help that I and another girl were wearing skirts that day.  Considering that girls in sports had to wear skirts on the day of away games and girls had to dress up when giving speeches, it wasn't rare to have someone wearing a skirt on any given day.  I had never been so grateful before in my life it have a guy sitting in front of me in class.  One of the girls from then on brought a jacket with her to class to cover her legs up whenever she wearing a skirt.  Another one tried to cross her legs as many times as she could in an effort to show less.  When our one chaperone for our senior trip got sick and wasn’t able to go, we discussed what to do in his class before it began.  Mr. Burkett felt the need to point out that though he would like to help, he was married and he didn’t think that his wife would like it if he went on this trip with us and that it would be too much of a temptation to see a bunch of attractive girls in their bathing suits.  We were sufficiently horrified and, if we had ever even contemplated it, were convinced that having him along was a bad idea.

Even after graduating, some of the girls avoid him if at all possible.  One of my friends accidentally pulled up to a produce booth he was working at as a summer job and promptly sped off once she saw it was him.  It was partially because of the fact that he managed to creep us out with some of the insight into the male mind that he gave us, but it was also probably because she didn't want to get in a long conversation with him about whatever he chose to speak about.

 Though Mr. Burkett told us that he was married, we sometimes had a hard time believing it.  One time, we would all swear, he told us that his wife wears only skirts.  Another time he told us that she most definitely did not.  That one possible slip of the tongue gave as leave to make it a yearlong joke to the point that even when we met his wife, we had made up a story about him being in witness protection and she was his handler.

What happened, I think, was that the lines of teacher and student were blurred in that class.  We found out later that he had been having troubles with his wife and we may have become a group of almost friends that he could talk to and joke with.  But the problem was, that even with how close he was in age to us, we never stopped viewing him as our teacher.  He may not have even been fully prepared in college to take on students so close to his age.  The next year he left because he needed more money.  With his wife only able to find a substitute teaching position, they needed more than our school could give.  Other brand new teachers just out of college didn’t have the problems that he did.  Once he matures more, I think that he could be a pretty good teacher.  He just wasn’t for us.