Random..?

Well I was trying to study for the ap history test, but I got distracted and wanted to do something different.  It is also hard to study when my sister is in the next room signing really loud.  I don't think she realizes how loud she is.  I am almost finished with reading book one in Jonny Got His Gun...like 30 pages to go.  Some of the pages in my book look like the ink was pressed on to hard so it's really  hard to read some of the words, which is annoying.  I'm really tired of doing home work.  My brother saved up his money forever and bought a Jurassic Park- The Lost World pin-ball machine that he got yesterday...and it's freaking awesome.  It looks just like the ones from the arcade places.  Soo, I have been playing that a lot, and really just want to go play it now.  We are trying to beat the high score, but it's too high to even get close...but we are determined to beat it.  I also just got done and finished my environmental project with Abby V.  The project was to take the piece of land that already had stuff on it and then place certain things on it such as a school, agricultural area, stores, housing, etc.  I felt like I was in third grade making the poster and cutting out shapes to put on it.  Okayy I'm done!

Summer...is soo close!

This year has gone really fast! and I am soo thankful for that.  There is a lot I am looking forward to doing this summer.  I get to see my family that lives in California and Oregon in June, and go to our lake house in Culver, IN with them.  I also am really excited to go back to Costa Rica at the end of July.  I'm going with my youth group for a week and a half for a missions trip.  This will be my fourth time going, and I love it!  We spend the time helping build or fix up houses or just doing anything that needs to be done.  It's amazing because it's completely out of anyones comfort zone.  Last summer, we were sent to a village of a population of about 250.  I stayed with a host family for 5 days, and helped them build their new church.  Some of its like wayyyy beyond out of my comfort zone.  Like near the house I was staying at there was a farm that had a few pigs, which I didn't think anything of...until the next day I saw one of the pigs hanging upside down ready to be killed.  That night guess what was for dinner??? yepp, the pig.  It never seemed to end either, we have it in different styled meals for the next couple days.  Lets just say I was very hungry for those days, because I seriously could not eat it. 

hmm..

I have been sick all weekend.  I thought I was getting better saturday, but today I woke up and my voice is basically gone.  My sister keeps making fun of me cause she says I sound like our dog, which is a pug.  All the sounds he makes are snorting and grunts.  Hmm...not sure what else to write about.  On friday night my brother had this paint-ball battle birthday party at our house.  It was actually really entertaining to watch because it consisted of a bunch of 12 year olds running around in our woods shooting at each other.  Umm...Saturday night I pierced Lauren Voelkers ear twice.  I'm not very good with needles, but I didn't want to act scared or freak her out.  On the other hand, Abby V. (while I am trying to sick a needle in laurens freaking ear) is running around the room screaming "oh myyy Godd I am going to puke!! omgg help I am going to pass out!"  This was a BIG help to the situation, while poor lauren is sitting there helpless not knowing what is going on.  But all turned out well, Abby calmed down, and her ears look very, very cute.

Make up Post

 I didn't realize we had to do a random blog on thursday night because I was sick that day, and i just now realized that a lot of people had 2 random blogs.  

My weekend was pretty packed with stuff starting off with the practice ap us history exam from 830 to 12 on saturday morning....which was horrible!! first of all, it was an extremely nice day out and instead of trying to concentrate on the essay I was attempting to write I was thinking about how much I wanted to be in the sun.  Soooo, when it came to write the last essay i literally could not write.  I kept trying to tell myself that i just needed to concentrate just to see how i would do in real life, but no matter how many times I told myself think...I couldn't.  But, this is partly because I didn't have anything to really write about because I haven't gone over studying for history yet, so I really didn't have any good examples for the essay.  So, I wrote a page basically restating the question, I'm pretty sure it got a 1.  Then just turned it in and got the heck out of there.  I can't stand history!

Gender

Being a girl comes with many disadvantages, but advantages as well.  Men have many stereotypes about women that we have come accustomed to living with.  Such as males always are dominate in all situations, girls are weak and can't defend themselves, they aren't as smart, and they are sexual objects.  I believe all of these judgments to be completely false.  But, we do see girls act this way in society making many people believe that these are fair assumptions to make.  Why i think that we see girls acting this way is not because they are actually weak or stupid, but because they find it easier to play into these stereotypes and act how society wants us and expects us to act.  It makes it much more easier in many situations to accomplish things if you conform to what people want rather than contradicting everything, which could cause conflict.  What we see in the media greatly influences the perception of gender.  All women are made to look flawless and delicate, while men are made to look macho and dominate.  Everyone plays into these roles because it's what we think and know to be "correct."  When there is a female that plays out of these stereotypes then it brings much attention some times positive but mainly negative.  These stereotypes can work for advantage as well.  And this is what many girls have figured out, and it is why they still exist.  Many girls find if they act dumb, weak, and incapable of taking care of themselves they can use it to their advantage to get what they need.  This is unfortunately why girls are still seen in this particular light. 

Ortiz Cofer

After Cofer moved to America her whole perception of her self- image changed, and this was mainly because of images in the media.  In America the media creates ideals of women or men that they think the perfect human should look like, and because of this people are willing to go through extreme lengths to achieve these looks.  Cofer never had a problem with self-image because when she lived in Puerto Rico, because she was considered beautiful there.  But, in America in the medias stand point she was not considered beautiful.  Beautiful to them is what they have created cartoon characters such as Wonder Woman to be.  Wonder woman has perfect hair, large breast, and is slim but still has curves.  Cofer was small and skinny, and once seeing this cartoon character she wanted nothing more than to look the same because she knew that she would then be considered pretty too.  She even was determined to take a pill that would cause her to gain weight.  Many people in America go through the same struggles as Cofer did, because they want to be considered beautiful in societies eyes.  But, many find that it is basically impossible to reach these standards without physically hurting yourself to get there. 

Gay Marriage Rights

I do not think that the reasoning behind having same-sex marriages has any logical sense or actual  support behind it.  In my opinion, the reason it is illegal in most states is because the beliefs of many people.  To me, it's very hypocritical to outlaw gay marriage because of all the things America says it stands for.  We pride ourselves on all humans have equal opportunities and rights, but we don't live up to our promotions.  There is no proof that a gay couple is any less capable of being a family than a man and a women is, and thats something that you can never really prove.  The real basis for same-sex marriages really boils down to prejudice.  When we look back on history and see things such as segregation and slavery it looks completely ridiculous to us, and we cannot even fathom why our government and people thought those things were okay.  All of these things all have the common thread of prejudice and judgment running threw them.  However, over time as seen from many events in history we tend to get over these judgmental attitudes  and get rid of these things that portray inequality.   I think it will be the same revelation when my kids look back on history books and see things such as how gay marriage was illegal.  

Engaging the Text # 5

In the supreme court case, Turner v. Safley, it was decided that Missouri could not arbitrarily deny marriage rights to prisoners.  A group of prisoners was previously denied the right of marriage, but the supreme court took back this decision once they went over the importance of what marriage represents.  They established that it was was a public statement of love, it has many serious religious importance to people, it offers the prospect of physical "consummation", and it comes with many protections, responsibilities, and benefits that are a big importance to people.  All this said, same-sex marriage is still not legal in Missouri.  Wolfson uses this as a comparison to how ridiculous it is that prisoners are given the extremely important decision of marriage versus people who have not committed crimes and are truly in love and have been together for a long period of time and wish to express that love with an official commitment.  People who wish to have same-sex marriage have the same goals and wants as every other person in society, but yet they are denied a simple right over criminals.  This is an important case to make because it shows how unreasonable the issues of same-sex marriage actually is.  It also places it into perspective that some people would actually rather give criminals rights over citizens who have done nothing wrong, and shines a light on how hypocritical and messed up our governmental system can actually be. 

Airplane Metaphor

Dr. Horn believes that a family with a mother and a father in a healthy marriage is compared to an airplane that always reaches its destination, and a family with a single parent is compared to a plane that only sometimes reaches its destination.  To me, this is a very opinionated and awkward metaphor to use to express this idea.  First of all I don't really think that there are some planes that are more unreliable than others or "sometimes" reach their destination, because those are the planes that have crashed and are no longer functional at all.  Dr. Horn then goes on to say that everyone would choose the first plane, and in the context of planes of course they would, but I am sure there are many people who are more than satisfied with being raised by  single parent.  I really think that what depends more on the success of a child is how it is parented rather than who or how many people are parenting them.  I know many people who have parents with a healthy marriage, but fail when it comes to parenting .  It all depends on how you go about raising your child. 

Vazquez

I think Vazquez waits to disclose that they are actually straight men to emphasize the point that the hate crimes are purely judgmental based on looks more then the actual personality of a person.  In both Brian and Mickey's stories they never talked or even looked at the people who attacked him.  The reasoning that that they must be gay was of what they were wearing, and the atmosphere they found themselves in.  She then lets us in on the fact that they are not actually gay.  As a reader we are not expecting this, and it shines a heavy light on how these acts of violence can be potentially dangerous to everyone.  It puts hate crimes on a whole different level when we realize that there is no logical reasoning for them, and purely have to do with appearance.  The issue of the violence does change when you realize that they are heterosexual because it now posses not only a threat to homosexual people, but straight people that are reading this as well.  People are not as effected when they are reading if they are heterosexual because they don't feel like it has to do with their life.  But, when she discloses that this is a threat to all then people actually get upset. 

Transcendentalism

I think that Eustace did share some of the common threads as transcendentalist believed in, but i don't think he was one.  Transcendentalist believe that humans are were divine because they were a part of nature, and that all nature shared one soul in common with humans.  This was a very spiritual way of thinking that i don't think Eustace had.  Although, he was very spiritual in that he did believe God created nature and spent much time praying, he did not think nature to be spiritual.  However, Transcendentalist did believe that human did not have a limit on their capabilities and that if you fail at something it is because a lack of effort.  Eustace definitely had thins way of thinking.  He put no limits on what he could accomplish, and would push himself until he achieve what he set out to do.  Many people found him controlling and harsh, but this was because Eustace hated when people failed at something because they were lazy.  Eustace did share some common idea with the Transcendentalist, but overall I don't think he was one.  I mean you never saw Emerson or Thoreau running around killing animals and living purely on the land.  I think Gilbert had this same idea as well.  She classified him more as someone that was mainly concerned about the maintaining nature, rather than coming up with complex ideas about the divine soul behind it. 

Emerson's Nature

One sentence within this essay that Emerson wrote that i found particularly strong and meaningful was, "I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; i am part or particle of God."  This describes Emerson's feelings he has when he goes to the woods and leave his identity within society behind.  There is know one in the woods that can judge him, or disrupt the world that God created.  To him nature is pure and is the quintessence of what being one with God means to him.  Nature is the only thing left on earth in his view that has not been corrupted.  When he goes to the woods the problems in society like fortune, fame, and many different evils do not exist simple because nature is a whole different world apart from human corruption.  So, when he goes to the woods he slips out of his identify that the rest of society sees him to be and no longer exists as far as the rest of the humanity is concerned.  He becomes one with the purest form of the earth away from all materialistic corruption. 

The Last American Man

I think Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to bring praise to what she thinks is that last man in America who is living their life to it's fullest potential without the need of societies help.  This brings light to the idea that it is possible to live without all the necessities we have become so accustomed to.  When Gilbert describes Eustace Conway she makes him seem to be almost inhuman in that he fears nothing, and there is nothing that he cannot do.  The first time Gilbert describes him she states, "He is wildly competent, He is physically and intellectually predestined to acquire proficiency. He has perfect eyesight, perfect hearing, perfect balance, perfect reflexes, and perfect focus.  he has long muscles on a light but strongly constructed frame, like a natural middle-distance runner.  His body can do anything he asks of it. His mind, too" (17).  This description leaves us thinking that this man has no flaws, and it almost seems like he is too perfect to be a real human. She wants us to think that he is the last of his kind.  Within the story we do see that Eustace has flaws such as control and a need to do everything to it's fullest or else it is not acceptable in his eyes.  One one hand, this could possibly take away from his perfection.  But, I think that she added his control issues in the book to prove that he is on top of everything he does in life, and that he must do everything perfectly to be satisfied.